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CNN International: Trump Accepts Nomination As Pressure Grows On Biden To Exit Race; Global Tech Outages Hit Airports And Businesses Worldwide; New Details On Gunman's Actions Before Trump Rally; Russian Court Finds U.S. Journalist Guilty Of Spying; U.N.'s Top Court Says Israeli Occupation In West Bank Is Illegal. Aired 3-4p ET

Aired July 19, 2024 - 15:00   ET

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

[15:00:35]

JESSICA DEAN, CNN HOST: Welcome to CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Jessica Dean, in for Jim Sciutto today. Thanks for joining us.

We're going to get you right to the news right now.

Former President Donald Trump taking the spotlight last night to formally accept his party's nomination for the third time. In a marathon, 90-plus minutes speech, Trump recounted the assassination attempts simultaneously calling for unity and airing out many familiar grievances.

But while energetic Trump's supporters chanted "fight, fight, fight", for their nominee, President Joe Biden's allies are pushing him to lay down his arms and pass the torch. By the hour, the list of lawmakers calling for Biden to in his camp campaign gets longer adding from both the House and the Senate, including two senators facing tough reelections, Montana's Jon Tester and New Mexico's Martin Heinrich.

And in a new op-ed in "The Boston Globe", Congressman Seth Moulton, who's already called for Biden's exit added an alarming detail on why. He wrote, quote, I saw him in a small group at Normandy for the 80th anniversary of D-Day. For the first time, he did not seem to recognize me. I have to admit that what I saw in Normandy was part of a deeper problem.

Now publicly, the Biden campaign is charging ahead, but behind the scenes, is he listening to those calls?

Camila DeChalus joining us now from the White House with more.

Camila, is there any sense that Biden is moving toward a different decision than he's already proclaimed. Publicly, which is that he's staying in this race?

CAMILA DECHALUS, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Well, at this point in time, President Biden, as you mentioned, has really doubled down reiterating that he has no intention of stepping aside from this race and remains committed to keep on running, but privately, CNN has reported that Biden sees more receptive to the idea of getting out there race. Now, just even today, he put out a statement saying that he looks

forward to hitting the campaign trail again next week as he spends this week in Rehoboth recovering from COVID. And even you had his campaign advisors and his campaign team putting out statements and just really reiterating that last night RNC's convention has just reiterated and restraints then and re-energized Biden's commitment to moving forward in this race.

Now I want to play, take a quick listen to one of his campaign chair, who really reiterated this message about why Biden is committed to staying in this race. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JEN O'MALLEY DILLON, BIDEN-HARRIS CAMPAIGN CHIEF: Look, absolutely, the president's in this race. Joe Biden is more committed than ever to beat Donald Trump. And we believe on this campaign, we are built for the close election that were in. And we see the path forward.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DECHALUS: Now, other campaign advisors have said, have said that there is no plans at this time for them to nominate an alternative candidate, and that Biden -- voters should be reminded about what Biden has done in the last three years in office, and that should really reinforce why, how much he's done and how much he's accomplished to be one of the reasons why he should be re-elected for a second term.

But the really overlying thing here and the thing that is really challenged, the Biden's campaign team is the fact that you have several Democratic lawmakers and elected officials coming out saying that Biden should step aside. And so, what you're going to see in the next upcoming days is the Biden's campaign team is really going to be making these calls to elected officials to lawmakers, to governments and governors and really reiterating this message about why they should stand behind Biden at this time, and why they should support his efforts to be reelected for a second term.

DEAN: And, Camila, were now less than four months out from election day. There are ballot access deadlines that they are thinking about. It's in part why they were going to try to do this virtual roll call.

How much time to Democrats have here?

DECHALUS: That's right. There's not that much time there. As you see in this calendar, there's these firm deadlines and really the campaign team, especially if you talk to them a few months ago, they really wanted to spend this time on the campaign trail, talking to voters, having Biden really convey this message of what he's done in the past and what he will set out to do if he's reelected.

But now, with all these mounting calls for him to step aside, there's this deeper sense of urgency for the Democratic Party to unite, really a rally behind him, so that he can become the nominee, and lead this Democratic Party, and then really have him focused on what he says is the biggest issue at hand. And that is a chances of former President Donald Trump pumping a re-elected and you're going to see him just continuing with his message about how he firmly believes that Trump poses a great threat to democracy.

[15:05:02]

And so, this calendar, you see these strict deadlines, but you really see that the campaign is moving in this urgency to really shore up the support so they can move forward with their intended plan.

DEAN: All right. Camila DeChalus from the White House, thank you so much for that reporting.

In the wake of the assassination attempt, Donald Trump's acceptance speech was rewritten with a new focus on unity.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT & 2024 PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE (R): I am running to be president for all of America, not half of America, because there is no victory in winning for half of America.

(CHEERING)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DEAN: But once former president Trump finished talking about the assassination attempt, it became a typical, albeit low-energy, lengthy speech that at times defied his early call for unity.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: They used COVID to cheat.

(APPLAUSE)

TRUMP: We're never going to let it happen again.

We have people that are a lot less than fierce, except when it comes to cheating on elections.

If you took the 10 worst presidents in the history of the United States, think of it, the 10 worst, added them up, they will not have done the damage that Biden has done.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DEAN: Now, Trump is wasting no time getting back on the campaign trail, starting in the key swing state of Michigan. Tomorrow will mark the former president's first rally since the assassination attempt last Saturday, and the first rally with his new vice presidential pick, Senator J.D. Vance.

Notably, this rally will be held at an indoor venue.

CNN's Kristen Holmes covers the Trump campaign and is in Grand Rapids where he'll be speaking tomorrow.

Kristen, this has been a heck of a week for the former president to say the least. There's a lot of talk about unity in the lead up to his speech. Do his supporters feel like the president delivered?

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I don't know if you would say delivered. I've talked to a number of allies and advisers who world a little bit disappointed in the presentation of the speech, I actually heard from one ally who said they ranked in a one out of ten. Just a reminder, it wasn't just Donald Trump talking about committee or giving some clues that he wanted to talk about God and divine intervention. The campaign really doubled down on this idea that Donald Trump was a changed man, that this assassination attempt had changed the entire way he thought, that he tore up his previous speech, and so that he could focus on unity. And instead, what we saw was that, that was correct.

But for about 15 minutes of a nearly 90-plus minutes speech and what we heard after those 15 minutes was really just Donald Trump. It was exactly what I here every single time I go to a campaign rally and those around him who were hoping for this message, message of unity, did not get it.

Now, in terms of what that actually means, moving and forward, I don't think it shifts the needle all that much because the truth is, the Republican Party has completely coalesce around the former president. If they wanted to hear something about unity, if they thought this could help them with these middle of the road voters, that's not going to change the fact that Republicans in general are 100 percent all-in for Donald Trump.

But when you talk to his campaign a lot of what they're doing is deflecting because they see what's happening right now in the Democratic Party. And they feel like they're not really the story right now, and they're doing well and they're just waiting to see what happens with Joe Biden before they move forward with their campaign.

DEAN: All right. Well, we will see how it unfolds tomorrow.

Kristen Holmes in Grand Rapids, Michigan, for us. Thanks so much for that reporting.

Across his record long speech partially on teleprompter, partially ad- libbed, Donald Trump made some false and misleading claims about inflation, tax cuts, gas prices, foreign policy and more. A lot of them you would recognize, some are new though, and following it all is CNN's Daniel Dale, who's been doing the fact-checking on this.

Here's some of what Daniel found.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DANIEL DALE, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: Donald Trump gave a remarkably long acceptance speech. It was also a remarkably dishonest speech.

I counted at least 22 false claims. Here are just some of them. Trump repeatedly said he achieved world peace, which is obvious nonsense.

He adlibbed his usual lie about Democrats having cheated in the 2020 election. That's more nonsense.

He said, U.S. crime is going up. The opposite is true. It's gone down sharply in 2023 and early 2024. It's now lower than it was under Trump himself in 2020.

He said, we have the worst inflation ever, not even close. It's 3 percent right now. The record is 23.7 percent.

Trump said there was no inflation a few short years ago, it was low, yes, but not nonexistent when he left office, and it was 8 percent total for his presidency.

Trump also said the price of groceries is up 57 percent under Joe Biden, it's actually 21 percent. He exaggerated about gas prices, about taxations.

He wrongly said he ended North Korean missile launches.

He said Democrats are proposing to quadruple people's taxes, which is totally imaginary.

He said his own tax cut was the largest in U.S. history, even though it wasn't close.

He said the Biden administration does nothing to stop migrants. The Biden administration tried to get Congress to pass a bill tightening the border. And after Trump helped kill that bill, Biden took executive action to tighten the border.

[15:10:03]

Trump said he stopped human trafficking, just not true.

He said China's stop buying oil from Iran under him, also did not happen.

He said foreign governments are deliberately sending criminals and mental health patients from insane asylums to the U.S. as migrants. His own campaign has been unable to provide proof for that. I certainly cannot find any.

He said we defeated 100 percent of ISIS in a couple of months. In fact, the ISIS caliphate was declared fully liberated, more than two years into his presidency.

And he said Russian warships are, in present tense, are operating in Cuba. And that the media refuses to write about this. The ships were there, but they left last month and media outlets, including this one, CNN, covered it quite a bit.

Daniel Dale, CNN, Washington. (END VIDEOTAPE)

DEAN: Daniel, thank you.

Let's bring in our panel, now, CNN senior reporter, Isaac Dovere, who covers the Biden campaign, CNN political analyst, Laura Barron-Lopez, and Kadia Goba of "Semafor".

I'm glad to have all three of you here with us. Thanks so much for being here.

Laura, lets start first with you. I want to play what a close Biden ally, Senator Chris Coons, maybe one of his closest allies on the Hill, frankly, said today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. CHRIS COONS (D-DE): I think our president is weighing what he should wait, which is who is the best candidate to win in November. I am confident he is hearing what he needs to hear from colleagues, from the public, from folks.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DEAN: Now, Coons still supports the president in his reelection campaign, but, Laura, that sounds like even the senator is acknowledging these conversations about whether he should stay in or not are very real.

LAURA BARRON LOPEZ, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: He is. He's saying that all of the things that were hearing about from lawmakers and their concerns about whether or not President Biden can carry this campaign across the finish line, can win the White House and can also help Democrats wind down down-ballot that all of those fears and concerns are reaching the president. He knows about them. He's hearing them, he's processing them.

I will say, though, this though that, you know, right now, I'm getting a mix of Democrats, some that are saying that President Biden is in this. They're going to stay behind him. They're concerned about the chaos that could ensue if debt, if President Biden ultimately steps aside and that there is no consensus behind Vice President Kamala Harris as the heir apparent. And then there are Democrats that I was just texting with right now who are saying that the dam has broken and that more lawmakers are preparing their statements to come out tonight and over the weekend, well into Monday, which is when they really want to see a resolution to this.

DEAN: And to be clear, obviously, it's not all Democrats. It's been interesting, Isaac, to see who has stepped forward even more interesting in this way, to see who has supported him because two of his staunchest supporters, most vocal supporters, have been Senator Bernie Sanders and Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. I'll let people listen to some of what they've been saying arctic.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (I-VT): Maybe if we start focusing on his record, start focusing on what he's trying to do not, only is he could win, I think he has a chance to win very, very -- in a big way.

But I think maybe if the Democrats in the Senate spent less time criticizing Biden had more time bringing up legislation to raise the issue of the minimum wage.

REP. ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ (D-NY): If you think that there is consensus among the people who want Joe Biden to leave, that Kamala -- that they will support Kamala, Vice President Harris, you would be mistaken.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DEAN: Isaac, what are these more liberal Democrats sticking with Biden right now, so vocally?

EDWARD-ISAAC DOVERE, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: Well, some of it is because of the president has said that he wants to put forward a policy idea or policy ideas rather for the first hundred days back -- into a second term were he to win and that would align with a lot of things that progressives have been pushing for.

And part of it is because they are quite pleased with the record that he's had as president, there was a lot of suspicion, obviously, of what kind of presidency he would have. And Bernie Sanders was one of his opponents, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez endorsed Bernie Sanders against him, but they have by and large been pretty pleased with what Biden has gotten done.

And there is also some concern of whether a another Democratic nominee and perhaps if that would lead to a different Democratic president, should that person replaced Biden and win would be as in line with them as Biden has turned out to be.

DEAN: It is so interesting to think about, too, because when he -- when they were running, Biden was considered to be such a moderate and to see it come full circle now. It's really interesting.

Kadia, I want to talk about Trump because he gave an extremely long speech last night and it gave lip service to unity but it really focused on those themes we've heard from him again and again. And lets play a little clip of that.

[15:15:01]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: The Democrat Party should immediately stop weaponizing the justice system. The fake documents case. Drop these partisan witch hunts. Crazy Nancy Pelosi. They're destroying our country. Cheating on elections. We're never going to let that happen again. They use COVID to cheat. The late great Hannibal Lecter, he loved to have you for dinner.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DEAN: And, Kadia, I'm sorry, I want to get your name exactly right, but also, he's talking about Hannibal Lecter, not exactly a message of unification and unity but tone down I suppose from previous remarks, what did you make of all of it?

KADIA GOBA, POLITICAL REPORTER, SEMAFOR: Yeah. You're right. It was a very long and winding speech and I imagine the campaign wasn't as happy as they would have been having followed the script. But much of that was off script where he kind of went down rabbit holes of attacking Democrats.

But I would say for the most part, it sounded like a campaign speech, with the exception of him telling his personal story. So, those elements were no, he also didn't mention Biden, that was like a really big new thing that people are talking about.

But if you -- I mean, I was on the floor and, you know the speech is coming on the backdrop of his man getting shot on Saturday and, you know, people kind of just expect it a rally speech.

So just hearing him was, you know, energizing for the floor, not to mention the lineup with Hulk Hogan and, you know, Dana White. So I think its important to put it in context to say, well, they were just happy to see the leader of their party there alive and, you know, talking about running for reelection.

DEAN: And, Isaac, I'm curious, listen, as we head, it was we went into that speech last night, it seemed to be reaching a fever pitch of maybe Biden really is potentially going to make a different decision and then we get up this morning, we see Jen O'Malley Dillon on "Morning Joe" this morning. What does this speech mean in relation to the Biden situation?

DOVERE: Well, look, first of all, I think its important to remember that the president is processing some of this information in a different timeline than we are. He was aware of the call that Nancy Pelosi had with him last week, even though CNN only broke the news of it this week, and he has continued to push forward in the campaign despite that and despite other things that are coming.

But for him, this is always been an attempt to set hey, Donald Trump is unfit for office, should not come back to the presidency, that's why you should vote for Joe Biden. The question that Democrats have is they think about that speech and all the things that Donald Trump said in it, talking about mass deportations, talking about Hannibal Lecter, the election conspiracies, calling COVID the China virus again, a lot of it -- the real red meat for his rally crowds, but not the unification message that we were told that he was going to be coming out is whether Democrats look at that and say, okay, Joe Biden is the way to go and take that on or that -- that guy its so vulnerable politically in the minds of some Democrats and so dangerous in the minds of many Democrats that they need to have someone other than Joe Biden be the one to take him on.

DEAN: And, Laura, a major issue that did not come up in Trump's speech was abortion. And it's a pretty remarkable shift within the Republican Party that has made that such a key issue for so many years. What does that say to you that that wasn't even brought up?

BARRON-LOPEZ: It's not really surprising that it wasn't brought up because of the fact that Republicans have struggled since the fall of Roe v. Wade to, essentially, unify behind one message on abortion. You know, some Republicans will admit they're like the dog that caught the car and they -- yes, Donald Trump has said that he doesn't necessarily support a national abortion ban, but there are a lot of Republicans across his party that do, and Donald Trump has also said that he'd leave it up to the states to decide what to do when it comes to abortion, no matter how restrictive those states might pursue, a policy when it comes to abortion access.

And so, that also in addition to Project 2025 and the extremism, that Isaac was talking about, abortion is something that at the end of this week, Biden's campaign really feels like they can go hard on against Donald Trump and against his vice presidential pick, J.D. Vance, because J.D. Vance in the past has questioned whether or not there should even be exceptions for rape or incest for a woman who might seek an abortion.

And this is one of those big issues that they can, Democrats consider a winner heading into November.

DEAN: Uh-huh. And, Kadia, the Trump campaign is watching talk on the Democratic side closely, and all of our reporting indicates they want to run against President Biden, that to they've modeled this whole campaign running against.

[15:20:06]

David Axelrod saying on CNN today, he spoke to Trump's pollster, Tony Fabrizio, about why the Trump campaign hasn't run ads showing Biden's poor debate performance, and he acknowledged it's because they don't want Biden out.

So, how does Trump figure into all of this? And as we just heard from our colleague Kristen Holmes, there also so -- you know, even going into this rally this weekend, keeping an eye on all of this as well?

GOBA: I mean, I think that's why you hear attacks coming from the Trump campaign directly towards Kamala Harris and anticipation that she will be the presumptive nominee, but also, you also hear them cheering on, like, you know, or diminishing anyone who is pushing back against or suggesting that Joe Biden shouldn't be the candidate or bringing up these -- now there's, you know, speculation that they're going to bring up lawsuits to suggest that or to push back against Biden being replaced, saying that, you know, Democrats take pride or always talk about democracy, but in fact, you are changing the rules at the last minute.

So, yeah, polling shows that Biden is a better candidate, again, for president -- former President Trump. So, yeah, they're going to keep pushing narrative about keeping Biden on the ticket.

DEAN: Kadia Goba, Isaac Dovere, and Laura Barron-Lopez, thanks to all of you. We appreciate you spending this Friday afternoon with us.

Still ahead -- flights, banks, and businesses are slowly recovering from a massive global tech outage. What we're learning about its cause and how long it'll be until the systems are all running again.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

DEAN: Welcome back. One-by-one, computers are coming back online today after a global tech outage that paralyzed businesses.

[15:25:05]

Airlines, banks, grocery stores, emergency services, even the Olympics were all among those impacted. The outage appears to have been caused in part by a software update, not a cyber attack.

CNN's Fred Pleitgen has more on how the impact was felt all around the world.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice- over): Thousands of frustrated passengers grounded from Delhi to Berlin, to Los Angeles, a global cyber outage pressing pause on the world.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Nobody was around to tell us where we could check in when we arrived.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm frustrated. People keep cutting in the queues.

PLEITGEN: Airlines facing what is known as BSOD, blue screen of death, with supermarkets, banks, stock exchanges, TV networks, even some hospitals also at the mercy of the widespread IT malfunctions.

The major disruption is set to stem at least partly from an antivirus software update issued by the cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike. The company assuring customers that it is not a cyber or security attack.

GEORGE KURTZ, CROWDSTRIKE, CEO: The system was sent an update and that update had a software bug in it. We identified this very quickly and remediated the issue and as systems come back online, as they're rebooted, they're coming up and they're working and now we are working with each and every customer to make sure that we can bring them back online.

PLEITGEN: Microsoft, among the clients impacted, says it is investigating the crash, which is preventing its clients from accessing its apps and services.

The global scale of the outage became clear as the world began to wake up on Friday, airports across Europe, Asia, and the U.S. forced to a standstill, health care services from Israel to the U.K. facing admin glitches.

While the Paris 2024 Olympic organizers also reported issues a week out from the games, world leaders and businesses are now grappling with how to untangle the critical services from the outage.

OLAF SCHOLZ, GERMAN CHANCELLOR (through translator): Germany's security institutions are in close cooperation with those from many other countries across the world.

PLEITGEN: The crash quick to show just how deeply reliant all aspects of daily life are in the tech world.

Fred Pleitgen, CNN, London.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

DEAN: And for more on impacts at airports all across the globe, let's bring in CNN's Anna Stewart. He is live at Heathrow Airport in London.

Anna, this outage as Fred was highlighting there, canceling flights all around the world.

ANNA STEWART, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The disruption has been quite extraordinary, didn't matter where in the world you woke up this morning. If you are hoping to travel, there was a huge chunk once you're going to face disruption.

And at this stage, the total number of flights canceled globally stands at 4,300, which is chuffed nearly 4 percent all the flights. So I actually scheduled today and then, of course, you have always flights that were delayed and we've seen images of people queuing or stuck in airports, corridors for hours now is all day long in London, in Paris, in Madrid, in Lisbon, you'd be hard pushed to find an airport that hasn't been impacted in some way and some airlines more than others.

Now, for those passengers, you can only imagine the frustration they have felt, but also really some of the shock that so much disruption over such a huge part of the world could happen from one single sort of failure from a cybersecurity firm.

Take a listen to one frustrated passenger in Paris today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ALAIN SOLER, PENSIONER TRAVELING TO ITALY (through translator): What's a bit worrying is that one company impacts the global economy and the life of the planet. Before you understand well because this has impact everywhere, like in the United States, I saw airports in Berlin, Amsterdam are closed. The London Stock Exchange was no longer working. I mean, this is crazy. It's worrying to realize that we depend on such a small thing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

STEWART: Now, lots of airports and airlines say they have now rebooted a systems. Lots of these sort of workarounds, some patches have now been implemented. So there is a lot of hope that at this stage, the worst in terms of travel disruption should be over. But, of course, it doesn't really end there because evening if flights

get back to sort of normal, there are all those people whose flights were canceled today and it's just such a busy day, one of the busiest days of travel, it's the start of the summer holidays, Jessica.

DEAN: Yeah. I feel for so many people and it's so true. How impactful this software update could be all the way around the globe. Anna Stewart for us at Heathrow Airport. Thanks so much.

So what actually happened?

Here to break that down for us is Sean Lyngaas, a CNN cybersecurity reporter.

[15:30:03]

Sean, how does a software update cause this sort of global chaos?

SEAN LYNGAAS, CNN CYBERSECURITY REPORTER: Yeah, Jessica, I -- even I didn't expect this big of an impact to be honest with you. I mean cyber -- I'm sorry, CrowdStrike is a very big company. They have offices all over the world, in a multi-billion-dollar company.

But this kind of cascading widespread impact is just something we haven't really seen before in terms of a non-malicious IT outage. The reason for it is that cyber -- I'm sorry, CrowdStrike customers use this software they're running it on Microsoft windows operating system, which is one of the most popular software programs in the world. If they're using that, and this update is applied, it causes all kinds of disruptions and the way that the code interacts with itself.

So once that update is botched, it, you've got to pull that back and that takes a whole -- you know, another set of work workarounds. So, it's really kind of going down a rabbit hole of trying to get to the bottom of why this happened. I mean, you know, companies like this, they push automatic software updates because they want their customers will be protected from the latest threats online.

But if you get the update wrong, it can really disrupt how things function. So I would expect after this, Jessica, to see kind of some really tough questions being asked by national security officials and other people who work in the space of thing will if this goes wrong like this from a non-malicious source, what are we going to see when it actually malicious actor tries to do this? And there might be some I don't know, new regulation, something to really force people to take a look at this whole process of updating software, which is quite mundane and uninteresting on most days. But, not on a day like today.

DEAN: Yeah, certainly not on a day like today.

All right. Sean, thanks so much for that reporting. We appreciate it.

Coming up, still no motive in the attempted assassination attempt on former President Trump. However, there is new insight into to what the gunman did before the shooting. We'll have that for you ahead. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

DEAN: Nearly a week after the assassination attempt on Donald Trump, authorities are still trying to find a motive. New insight from the ongoing investigation found Thomas Crooks searched for information about the arrest of the Michigan mass school shooter and his parents, and how to build explosives.

Moments before pulling the trigger, Crooks took a screenshot of the livestreamed rally.

CNN's Zachary Cohen is joining us now.

Zach, how is Crooks' digital trail helping investigators kind of piece this puzzle together?

ZACHARY COHEN, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY REPORTER: Yeah, Jessica, we're seeing investigators tried to build a profile of the shooter as they struggled to pin down a motive for why he fired shots at Donald Trump at that rally on Saturday.

And look, they're having to rely a lot on whether finding in the shooter cell phone in his web history and that's because unlike other mass shooters that we've seen in the past, who have left a manifesto that are clearly explained, left something behind the explained why they did what they did. The shooter in this case is largely left nothing forcing investigators to really piece together what they can about his mindset based on some of the evidence and the circumstantial evidence on his cell phone and on his web history.

And one of the things that were learning that investigators have found is that prior to the shooting, the shooter was researching Evan Crumbley. You might remember Evan Crumbley. He was the mass shooter who killed several of his classmates back in 2021 in Michigan the shooter in this case, the Trump shooter, was also researching Crumbley's parents. Crumbley's parents were all so indicted and convicted in relation to their son's shooting.

It's an interesting sort of example for the shooter in this Trump rally case to be researching. It's also consistent with what we have seen from mass shooter types in the past, sort of shooters researching other shooters.

But look, other pieces of evidence are raising questions about what a potential motive could have been. We know that the shooter was researching not just Trump, prior to the rally, but was also researching things like the date and location of the Democratic National Convention, which is obviously going to be an August, researching that Trump rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, and then also future Trump rallies as well.

So, you know, really demonstrating that he wasn't picky when it came to his interest in a variety of different political figures. And that is why there's this emerging theory amongst law enforcement based on what our sources are telling us that this shooter was maybe more concerned with just carrying out a mass shooting and that the Trump rally in Pennsylvania was more of a an event of convenience rather than a targeted killing of Donald Trump himself or political or ideological reasons.

But the same time, law enforcement sources I talked to say that and obviously there were other digital killed at the rally as well. But in some ways, despite the security failures, the response in the ability of the officers and agents on the scene to neutralize the shooter when they did, may have prevented more casualties than occurred already.

DEAN: Zachary Cohen, thank you so much for that updated reporting. We appreciate it.

And let's turn back to talking now about the presidential campaign itself. If a presidential campaign is a fight, Donald Trump certainly wants voters watching his convention to know he's in the ring, skirting tradition that a family member typically introduces the presidential nominee Trump instead selected Dana White, CEO of the ultimate fighting championship to warm up the crowd.

Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DANA WHITE, ULTIMATE FIGHTING CHAMPIONSHIP CEO: I know President Trump is a fighter.

I know I'm going to choose real American leadership and a real American badass.

I'm in the tough guy business. And this man is the toughest, most resilient human being that I have ever met in my life.

(APPLAUSE)

(CHEERING)

WHITE: The higher the stakes, the harder he fights, and this guy never ever gives up.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DEAN: White's primetime address came after a raucous performance from a former pro wrestler, Hulk Hogan, who kept off his speech by ripping off his shirt to reveal a Trump-Vance pink top, you see it there.

And that'll follow a number of Trump campaign stops in the fighting world over the past few weeks. Trump basked in applause at the UFC in his first public appearance after being convicted of those 34 felonies. And he sat down with YouTuber and wrestler Logan Paul last month.

[15:40:02]

And look, it may appear like these are just friends of Trump's people. He wants to be around. But there's a political strategy to this as well. And to explain that further, we are joined now by our guests, Rebecca

Morin, political reporter at "USA Today".

Rebecca, thanks so much for being here with us.

This is such an interesting dynamic and you wrote about it, including the fact that Dana White and Trump are longtime friends? Trump spent time last night off the teleprompter, praising White for leaving his vacation, coming to speak at the convention. We can listen to a clip of that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: And how good was Dana? Was Dana good? I mean, was he good?

(APPLAUSE)

TRUMP: You know, he was on probably the only vacation he's had in about maybe ever, because he works. But about 10 years with his wife, very far away. I won't tell you where, but very, very far away. Beautiful place.

And my people called, and he said, yeah, I won't be able to do it. This is many, many years. I promised my wife I can't do it.

Sir, Dana just called. He's going to do it.

(LAUGHTER)

TRUMP: And his wife, he said, you can't turn him down. You just can't do it. You have to go.

That's a good wife.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DEAN: So, Rebecca, what do we know about Trump and Dana White's friendship?

REBECCA MORIN, SENIOR NATIONAL NEWS REPORTER, USA TODAY: Yes, the two have been friends for a very long time. Trump supported UFC when it was just getting started.

And Dana White has spoken at previous RNCs in 2016, and in 2020, he had a video message. But this was the first time that we had seen you know, Dana White actually introduced Trump to accept the nomination.

They have -- Dana White has spoken very highly of Trump. He said that he believes he's a good man. And in that he's the same man that he's known for decades. And so, they have a very close relationship.

DEAN: Yeah, and it's so interesting because Ivanka Trump, his daughter, had introduced in the last two -- at the last two conventions. So, to see this as such a departure.

The Trump campaign though has been targeting young men, particularly trying to peel off young men of color. There's long been a gender gap in our politics but kind of connect the dots for us, how these appearances with Dana White and Hulk Hogan, Tucker Carlson, Logan Paul, help the campaign in that goal.

MORIN: Uh-huh. Trump currently has a lead among male voters. That is something that I think throughout this convention they kind of wanted to expand that lead. And we saw that by the programming. We saw -- you mentioned that Tucker Carlson, Hulk Hogan's explosive performance kind of bringing the theatrics of WWE to this -- this event. And you know, the people who -- the young men who usually watch these videos, who know these, you know, professional -- professional wrestlers, you know, these -- these men who have UFC, who are part of this culture, they aren't always please following politics.

So this was an effort to try and get those folks who -- those young men who aren't always following politics, who aren't following the day-to-day, kind of into the RNC and then maybe they'll stick around to see Trump-speak and get what he his message and hopefully try and expand that lead that he already had as among male voters.

DEAN: It's fascinating.

All right. Rebecca, thank you so much for that reporting. A great to talk with you about that.

Up next, an American journalist is sentenced by a Russian court for espionage. How long he's been ordered to spend at a maximum security facility?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:46:49]

DEAN: Sixteen years, that's how long "Wall Street Journal" reporter Evan Gershkovich is sentenced to spend at a maximum security colony in Russia. He's the first American journalists arrested on espionage charges in Russia since the Cold War. And he, along with the U.S. government and "The Wall Street Journal", continued to deny all of the spying charges.

CNN's Matthew Chance has the latest.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN CHIEF GLOBAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Ahead of the verdict in the Russian court, cameras jostled for a glimpse of the U.S. journalist in his glass cage.

After finding him guilty of espionage, the judge asked Evan Gershkovich if he had any questions about the 16-year prison sentence he'd been handed.

Looking thin and tired, "The Wall Street Journal" reporter answered "no".

But critics say his guilty verdict was inevitable and underlines how politicized Russia's judicial system has become.

The strongly worded statement from Gershkovich's employers called it a disgraceful and sham conviction that comes after his 478 days in prison, wrong fully detained, and away from his family.

You can see Evan Gershkovich is in there. Hi, Matthew from CNN. Is that -- you holding up all right?

It's been a saga which has seen Evan Gershkovich now 32 to make several tightly controlled court appearances since being detained and accused of gathering secret information on a Russian tank factory for the CIA, allegations denied by Gershkovich and the U.S. government.

There are other us citizens held in Russia, like Paul Whelan, a former marine, sentenced in 2020 to 16 years for spying, and also designated by Washington, has wrongly detained.

Dual citizens Ksenia Karelina and amateur ballerina from L.A., and journalist Alsu Kurmasheva are also in custody.

As are Gordon Black, a staff sergeant in the U.S., and U.S. school teacher Marc Fogel.

Critics suspect the Kremlin has been collecting us citizens as bargaining chips for a future deal.

But even now, that deal could still be months or perhaps years away.

Matthew Chance, CNN, London.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

DEAN: All right. Matthew Chance. Thank you for that.

In a landmark opinion, the United Nations top court says Israeli settlements in occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem are in violation of international law. The International Court of Justice says Israel's policies and practices, quote, amount of the annexation of large part parts of the Palestinian territory. Israel has built and steadily expanded settlements in the West Bank since 1967 after the Six-Day War.

And while an advisory opinion is not legally binding, it does carry moral authority and can shape international law and support.

CNN's Jeremy Diamond has more on this and the latest on ceasefire and hostage negotiations.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN JERUSALEM CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): While Secretary of State Antony Blinken offering a very optimistic assessment of the hostage and ceasefire negotiations, saying that he believes that were, quote, inside the ten yard line and driving toward the goal line in terms of getting an agreement.

[15:50:07]

He noted the fact that Hamas has effectively agreed to a framework proposal, the one President Biden laid out in a speech several weeks ago. We know that for the last couple of weeks it does appear that Israel and Hamas effectively have a framework agreement to try and build out a final deal of for a ceasefire here.

But over the course of those his last two weeks, we've seen officials shuttling between Doha, Qatar, and Cairo, Egypt, without actually a clear sense of how close they are actually getting to a deal.

So, very notable to hear the secretary of state now offering this assessment. At the same time, he did know that he doesn't want to be quote, naive, saying that sometimes it is those last ten yards that are often the hardest.

The secretary of state and President Biden may have an opportunity next week to convince the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to get across those final ten yards as the Israeli prime minister is set to travel to Washington this weekend for a series of meetings, including with President Biden, as well as -- an address to a joint meeting of Congress.

Now, as all of this is happening, the international court of justice issuing a very significant ruling, a non-binding ruling, but one that is unprecedented in its kind as it relates to this situation, the International Court of Justice ruling that Israel's presence in the West Bank and East Jerusalem is illegal. They offer that in an advisory opinion that stems from a request by the U.N. General Assembly in 2022 to assess the legality and the consequences of Israel's ongoing occupation of Palestinian territories captured in the 1967 war.

The International Court of Justice ruling on this separate from its ongoing case regarding South Africa's allegations that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. But even this ruling from the International Court of Justice, an advisory ruling that is not legally binding, receiving harsh recriminations in Israel. The Israeli prime minister saying that the Jewish people are not conquerors in their own land, saying that no false decision in the Hague will distort what he calls a historical truth.

Jeremy Diamond, CNN, Tel Aviv.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

DEAN: Jeremy, thank you. And we'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

DEAN: We continue to track the global I.T. meltdown that's impacting healthcare banking, governments, and air traffic, among other things.

[15:55:07]

Take a look. This was the scene at the world's busiest airport earlier today. That's Hartsville, Jackson in Atlanta. It's also a major hub for Delta. That airline had to pause its global schedule today and that meant thousands of flights from air carriers across the world have also been canceled.

Cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike is apologizing. It says the crisis is tied to one of its software updates and is not a cyber attack.

And before we go, if you happen to be stuck at the airport, or maybe you're exhausted from what has been very busy week of news, we would like to be the bearer of some good news and that will be pandas. The San Diego Zoo releasing the first official video of their newest furry friends, the two VIPs, very important pandas, are both less than five- years-old. There'll be making their highly anticipated public debut in less than a month on August 8. They're the first giant pandas to enter the U.S. in over 20 years, continuing China's longstanding tradition of panda-plomacy, loaning out plant pandas as a way to strengthen international relations.

And the San Diego Zoo said that they hope that, quote, our newest residents will bring joy to our visitors and symbolize the enduring spirit of international conservation.

Welcome to America, pandas.

Thanks for joining me today. I'm Jessica Dean.

"QUEST MEANS BUSINESS" is up next.