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The Story Is with Elex Michaelson

Iran Warns Of Full Scale Offensive If U.S. strikes Continue; U.S. Launches New Strikes On Iran For 7TH Consecutive Night; DHS Secretary Threatens To Jail State Election Officials; DHS Secy - ICE Is - Turning Up The Heat - On Streets; Spain and Argentina To Fight For world Cup Title Sunday; France, England To Battle For Third Place Saturday; Trump Claims - Golden Age - As Americans Face Affordability Crisis; Aired 1-2a ET

Aired July 18, 2026 - 01:00   ET

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

[01:00:00]

ELEX MICHAELSON, CNN ANCHOR AND CORRESPONDENT: For more on all this, let's bring in retired U.S. Air Force Colonel and CNN Military Analyst, Cedric Leighton. Cedric, the U.S. is expanding their involvement inside Iran right now. Why?

COL. CEDRIC LEIGHTON (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Well, 1 of the big things, Alex, is that, they've basically decided that the previous ways of doing business have not really worked. So what they're doing is they're intensifying the attacks, and the reason they are intensifying the attacks is they want to really make sure that they can get the Strait of Hormuz open and keep it open.

Now whether or not this is going to be successful is a whole different story, but the attempt is being made to increase the volume of attacks, hit some very specific targets, and then kind of move out into an area where they -- what they can do is basically cut off the southern part of the country and, in essence, keep that southern part kind of away from, isolated from other parts of the country. And with that isolation, hopefully, keep the rest of the country away from our forces on the Persian Gulf and, of course, throughout the region.

MICHAELSON: We've got some video of a shipping tower that the United States worked for several days to bomb, and apparently took out. You say this is a big deal. Why?

LEIGHTON: Yes. So this is one of those maritime control towers, and a maritime control tower, in this particular case is basically designed to allow the Iranians to control the flow of traffic into and out of the Strait of Hormuz. This particular tower was something that the Iranians had set up through their Iranian revolutionary guard corps, and it's designed to monitor the flow of traffic into and out of the Strait of Hormuz as it enters into the Arabian Sea and then goes into the Persian Gulf.

So what this tower did, it was part of a system that the Iranians had that allowed it to not only monitor the traffic, but also control some of the traffic. And it would be perfect, of course, for the setup of things like tolls and making sure that their blockade works if they set up a blockade of the entrance to the Strait of Hormuz. So taking this tower out is actually one of the biggest things that can be done.

CENTCOM basically struck this tower 3x, and this third time was the one that actually brought this tower down.

MICHAELSON: Third time's the charm there. And you say that the odds of ground troops going in actually lessened by hitting this tower?

LEIGHTON: Yes. And by what I mean by that, Elex, is that it is less likely, that they will need to use ground troops in order to control part of the Strait of Hormuz in order to keep that waterway open. The waterway is designed, of course, to be part of an international system where we allow freedom of navigation. And up until this point at least, the U.S. has stood for freedom of navigation throughout the world, especially through natural bodies of water like this one or other natural bodies like the Bab al-Mandab on the Red Sea or the Strait of Malacca near Singapore.

MICHAELSON: And we know that the entire world's oil prices are dependent on this, which is why everybody around the world is watching that strait so closely. Colonel Cedric Leighton, thanks for staying up late with for us. Have a great weekend.

LEIGHTON: You too, Elex. Thanks so much.

MICHAELSON: The Trump administration is doubling down on its push for state voter data, threatening election officials with potential jail time if they refuse to hand over sensitive voter records. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin repeated President Trump's claims that non-citizens are registered to vote in four states. But letters the DHS sent to those states acknowledge that the numbers are not verified.

So far, the administration's efforts to seize voter information have been struck down in more than a dozen courts. Despite those legal setbacks, Mullin threatened state election officials with prosecution if they refused to comply.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARKWAYNE MULLIN, U.S. HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY: If the election officials, once we gave them the information they need to secure their elections and they chose not to, then those individuals can also be held accountable by fines, by penalties, and even depending on how far it goes, prison time.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MICHAELSON: A new University of Michigan survey shows that lower gas prices earlier this month boosted overall consumer sentiment about the economy. Sentiment surged 10 percent in early July to its highest level since February. Despite the increase, the still high cost of gas has caused sentiment to dip 12 percent compared to last year. According to AAA, gas prices now hover just under $4 a gallon. They're up more than $0.10 from just a week ago and compared to last year, prices have increased $0.82 from $3.16 a gallon. Amid renewed criticism of immigration and customs enforcement tactics after two deadly incidents this month, video obtained by CNN shows I.C.E. agents leaving a man partially handcuffed after onlookers challenged them.

[01:05:00]

Check this out. This video was recorded at the Las Vegas airport on Monday. It shows a man in a light blue polo shirt shouting as two plainclothes I.C.E. agents hold him on the ground. The agents then walk away as witnesses question them saying nothing to a TSA officer attempting to control the whole crowd. Some bystanders briefly followed those agents. It's unclear what happened immediately before after the video was recorded. Officials say the man, an Australian national, was taken into custody the next day.

Joining me now to talk about homeland security and more is our panel, Democrat Gloria Allred, a Victim's Rights Attorney, and Republican Larry Elder, host of The Larry Elder Show. So that video is out there. We also have the investigation into what happened in Texas where a man was shot and killed by I.C.E. officers. The Harris County district attorney wants answers about a potential case. He was on with Erin Burnett earlier.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEAN TEARE, HARRIS COUNTY, TEXAS DISTRICT ATTORNEY: We're not getting any communication back and forth from them. The FBI has been very forthcoming and collaborative in the small part of the investigation that they're doing. But look we're 11 days out from this tragedy, and we still don't even have the name of the person that shot Mr. Salgado. We don't have a single name of any of the agents that were involved in this pursuit, in this mistaken takedown of the vehicle.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MICHAELSON: Gloria, do you think that that I.C.E. has a transparency problem? Do you think they have a public trust problem?

GLORIA ALLRED, VICTIM'S RIGHTS AUTHORITY: They definitely have both a transparency and a trust problem and the problem of not adequately, in some cases, training and vetting those people who become I.C.E. agents. So for example, in Maine where, Mr. Guerrero was just shot and killed, now there are two ex-wives of the I.C.E. agent who allegedly killed him, who are saying that this I.C.E. agent admitted to them that he killed, the man and that they know or they're alleging that he has had a mental health history since childhood and a history of violence against them.

One of them even alleges that he threw their 13-year-old daughter into a glass table, that she sought a protective order. And this is really a big problem.

MICHAELSON: Those are just allegations.

ALLRED: Yes. And that's what she alleges. Yeah, but there's no comment from him in response or from I.C.E., of course. But we know that there is a problem within I.C.E., and there's a rush to get a certain quota for the President of people who are being arrested and detained. But it's leading to the death of a lot of innocent people as well. So, yeah, there is a problem, and they also are not often -- the federal government is not often really cooperating with the district attorneys who are trying to get to the heart of this.

MICHAELSON: Yeah.

ALLRED: And it took six months for the federal government to finally give the results of their investigation, so called investigation to the district attorney in Minnesota over the deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti. May they rest in peace.

MICHAELSON: Larry, is there a trust problem?

LARRY ELDER, HOST, THE LARRY ELDER SHOW: Well, not too surprisingly, Elex and Gloria. I see it somewhat differently. There is a problem. The problem is that for four years, we've had an open southern border and a minimum of 10 million illegal aliens came into the country, some of whom were on the terror watch list, some of whom were convicted of homicide in their own countries. If you go on the Homeland Security website, they update it every single day. They talk about the people that they've arrested and deported. Murderers, child rapists, drug traffickers. These are the kinds of people that Homeland Security is trying to get out of the country.

And one more thing, in 2011, there was a Frontline documentary called Lost in Detention about the illegal aliens that were being arrested and deported under the Obama administration. One of whom was a woman who made an illegal lane change. She ended up being deported. No nobody in the streets, nobody yelling, nobody calling them fascists and Nazis, and Obama did not have to deal with four years of the Biden administration's open borders. So let's have a little bit of perspective.

MICHAELSON: Some of the left did criticize Barack Obama that called him the Deporter-in-Chief.

ELDER: And these are human beings. By the way, 30 percent or so of the I.C.E. agents are "People of color, as are about half of the border patrol agents are Hispanic." So these are people with families, and they're trying to make a living. And I think we ought to give them a little bit of grace. They have a very, very difficult job under difficult circumstance.

ALLRED: Well, I think what we should do is give grace to the American citizens who are being shot and killed and also to the innocent people who are being shot and killed who may not be Americans.

[01:10:00]

MICHAELSON: We do not know that they were innocent people. We don't know --

ALLRED: We know that some were not targets of I.C.E. and were mistakenly.

MICHAELSON: But we don't know what they did. Part of the problem here --

ALLRED: shot and killed.

MICHAELSON: And Larry is that we don't know what happened, because there was not body cam footage that was there, even though, they've spent a lot of money to try to get body cams out there. And so -- and in the past, I.C.E. has not always been a reliable narrator.

ALLRED: Exactly.

MICHAELSON: Because what happened in Minnesota, the initial accounts that came out were proven from video to be inaccurate.

ELDER: Right.

MICHAELSON: So we don't know if these individuals who were shot did anything wrong or if they didn't. And that's part of what's been frustrating is that we don't have more information.

ELDER: Right. And you just now said about the one that happened in the airport. You don't know what happened before or after.

MICHAELSON: We don't.

ELDER: And we don't know that. They're all under investigation. Let's give the investigation some time to go through. I feel the same way about the police officers. There are 50 million interaction with the police every single year. 50 million. 10 million arrests. 1,000 people are killed. Most of those are people that were resisting violently with a weapon. So let's just deal with these kinds of things on a case-by-case basis. Most of them are doing a very, very good job under very difficult circumstances.

ALLRED: Well, now that --

MICHAELSON: Overwhelmingly true.

ALLRED: Well, yeah. But let's face it. We deserve transparency, and you pointed that out earlier. And it's a problem. We deserve transparency when police shoot and kill someone, and often we get it. We're not getting that same kind of transparency from I.C.E. And that is a big problem. That's why we can't trust this.

MICHAELSON: And the truth is body cams often help the cops more than it helps the victims, because it gets it a lot of the narratives that are sometimes said about cops are inaccurate. And when they have that, they're out there. Here's what Markwayne Mullin had to say about this concept of what's going on in I.C.E. right now.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARKWAYNE MULLIN, U.S. HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY: Let me clarify. When I say turn down the temperature, when I turn down the temperature with you guys, we're turning up the heat on the streets. We're out there working harder than we ever have because we've empowered our law enforcement to do their job. What I'm trying to do is remove us from the headlines every single day, but everybody will be held accountable. I don't pick and choose which laws I'm going to enforce. I enforce our nation's laws. That means I'll enforce it with our own agency, and I'll force it with the criminals on the streets.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MICHAELSON: Well, he has had a slightly different approach than Kristi Noem in terms of being as in your face as she was and Greg Bovino was. But to Larry's point, the Biden administration did allow in millions of people. We do not know that much information about a lot of them, and some of these people are criminals that are being taken out of the country. Isn't there a role for I.C.E. in doing that?

ALLRED: There's a role for I.C.E. acting under the law and not acting in a random matter and shooting at cars. There we got people in masks, sometimes not even identified as I.C.E. officers, in unmarked cars, in white vans, following other cars. Who knows if they're I.C.E.? Who knows if they're just people who want to kidnap? And there are gangs who are taking people from their cars under cover and suggesting that maybe they're I.C.E. when they're not.

We have to get trust built in this country, and we can't have trust when people are walking around in masks. Why? Police don't walk around in masks. Sheriffs don't walk around in masks. Why does I.C.E. have to walk around in masks?

MICHAELSON: Well, say that they're doxxed.

ELDER: Yeah. Because they don't want their families harassed.

ALLRED: Well, neither do police officers want their families harassed. They don't wear masks.

ELDER: And the percentage of people attacking I.C.E. has gone up substantially, because they've been villainized. That's why they're wearing the masks.

MICHAELSON: Well, I mean, we see when I.C.E. have moved into places, people are standing there protesting outside their hotel rooms. They're honking horns. They're doing all sorts of things. And you can't understand why some of them may feel a little threatened for doing their job. I mean, it's not I.C.E.'s fault that there are immigration laws in this country. That's congress's fault.

ALLRED: Well, it would be, it's not necessarily a fault that there are laws, but the execution of the laws is what's important. Not the execution of American citizens or people who are not citizens who were not targets, who were in -- who were innocent people, who were just going to work.

ELDER: How about a --

ALLRED: So they could feed their families. ELDER: How about a word about the Americans --

ALLRED: And they end up getting followed and then shot to death. It's just wrong.

ELDER: How about a word about the Americans that have been killed by illegal aliens? Who've been raped by illegal aliens? Who've been assaulted by illegal aliens? Let's talk a little bit about that.

ALLRED: No. Let's the President said when he ran for office, he's going after the worst of the worst. But actually, they're going after the best of the best.

MICHAELSON: Well, that's not all he said. I mean, they talked about mass deportations.

[01:15:00]

I was at the floor of the Republican National Convention. Larry was there too. People holding up signs saying mass deportations, mass deportations. This is something that Stephen Miller's been talking about for years.

ALLRED: Well, had.

MICHAELSON: I mean, and so this is something that people knew was out there, and millions and millions of people voted for this.

ALLRED: They didn't know that they were going to be arrested, arresting people selling tacos on the corner. They didn't know they were going to be arresting nannies. They didn't know they were going to be arresting people who are preparing for infants.

MICHAELSON: What do you do to people that are in this country illegally that have not followed the law of coming in here? And what do you say to people who are trying to follow the law and are waiting behind in the line?

ALLRED: A lot of the people, Elex, are going to court and trying to follow the law in order to become American citizens or get the documents they need to continue to work here. And then they're being followed by I.C.E. into courthouses. And now there's a judge that's convicted of trying to put someone in another room instead of being arrested by I.C.E. This is out of control. We have to let people at least go through the legal process. They're being prevented by I.C.E. from doing that.

MICHAELSON: Real quickly. The last word.

ELDER: Everything that Gloria is complaining about happened under the Obama administration. He was accused of not deporting the worst of the worst. I.C.E. was accused of deporting people that had been here, and had not committed any major off. Everything that she complains about was done under the Obama administration, and Obama did not have to deal with, as I said before, four years of a minimum of 10, 12 maybe 15 million illegal aliens intentionally allowed in the country. MICHAELSON: How did Obama did a good job with deportations?

ELDER: As far as I'm concerned, he did.

MICHAELSON: Yeah. So there you go. Well, one thing you both agree on I know we all love Gloria. And as we said in the last hour, we're celebrating your 85th birthday.

ALLRED: That's right.

MICHAELSON: So happy birthday, Gloria.

ALLRED: Thank you very much.

MICHAELSON: And this is a part of the celebration is that you love civil debate.

ALLRED: I do.

MICHAELSON: And you and Larry have known each other for decades and decades.

ALLRED: And we've debated for decades and decades.

MICHAELSON: Yeah. And you call her super glow.

ELDER: Super glow.

ALLRED: I'm responsible for every gray hair off Larry's head.

ELDER: I gave her that nickname. She uses it, and didn't get my 10 percent.

MICHAELSON: OK.

ALLRED: And I always say fighting injustice is very good for the health.

MICHAELSON: Yes. It is.

ALLRED: Thank you.

MICHAELSON: Well, you look great.

ALLRED: Thank you very much.

MICHAELSON: As both of you do.

ELDER: We're both pro justice.

MICHAELSON: Thanks for seeing you.

ELDER: We're both pro justice.

MICHAELSON: We're justifying justice a little differently.

ELDER: Yeah.

ALLRED: Yes.

MICHAELSON: All right. Thanks. Great to see both of you. Have a great weekend.

ALLRED: Thank you.

ELDER: Thank you.

MICHAELSON: President Trump is threatening to impose higher tariffs on Canada for what he calls the cost of pollution from the Canadian wildfires. Smoke from hundreds of fires in Canada has blanketed major U.S. cities in the Midwest and Northeast. Trump blamed willful negligence by Canada posting, "We are holding Canada responsible for the fact that they are not properly maintaining their forest." He said he'd called Prime Minister Mark Carney about that problem, but Canadian officials, say that Canada spent almost $9 billion since 2020 on forest sustainability and fire prevention and urged the U.S. to help fight the outbreaks.

Millions of people are suffering under hazardous air quality from wildfire smoke. They may soon be getting some relief. Find out how the weather may affect the haze and the smoky air this weekend, including the soccer as well. Plus, the forecast may be improving for people grappling with days of severe flooding in Texas, what the Governor there is urging people to do after the break.

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[01:20:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAHMOUD LABAD, FATHER OF CHILDREN WOUNDED IN IDF STRIKE (translated): They say we're in a truce. Where is this truce they're talking about? This is not a truce. This is a war. Blood is everywhere from a child, from a tree, from a boy, from absolutely anything. Blood is just pouring down. They haven't spared a tree. They haven't spared a piece of land. They haven't spared a child. They haven't spared a home. They haven't left anything.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MICHAELSON: A Palestinian father lays it on the line after Israel's latest deadly strike in Gaza. Health officials say at least seven people were killed on Friday. 20 others were injured, including the children of the father you just heard from. Local journalists say the strike hit the funeral of a man who was killed in a separate Israeli attack earlier in the day.

The IDF says the second strike targeted a Palestinian jihad cell and that it's reviewing reports that other people were injured as well. Israel, Hamaz signed a ceasefire last October, but their peace plan is largely stalled. Palestinians say the IDF has killed more than a 1,000 people since that truce went into effect.

The forecast is improving and the threat of significant rainfall has ended for part of Southern Texas hard hit by heavy rain and flooding this week. Disastrous flash floods swamped the region on Friday from intense rainfall in slow moving storms. Multiple boat rescues were reported in addition to the more than 230 rescues that were made throughout the week. At least two people died due to that flooding. Sirens have been put in place since last year's catastrophic floods, which killed more than a 100 people.

The systems seem to work, blaring out warnings, allowing people to get out of harm's way. Texas Governor Greg Abbott is urging people to still be cautious.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GREG ABBOTT, TEXAS GOVERNOR: Even though the worst of the rain is going to be behind us, for a while as in for days, the rivers are going to continue to rise. Even if rain is not falling, because of the flow of water downstream, residents and leaders need to understand the rivers will still rise and still pose life threatening danger to anybody near those rivers.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[01:25:00]

MICHAELSON: China's Xinhua News Agency reports that at least eight people were killed when heavy rainfall triggered a landslide in a mountainous rural town. Over a 100 emergency workers are searching for survivors. They've rescued at least nine people so far, but 34 remain missing.

Europe's summer of extreme heat and wildfire rages on with flames breaking out as far north as Norway. More than a 100 homes were destroyed on Friday by fire in Southern Norway. Rescue officials deployed helicopters to combat the outbreak, which authorities say has spread to a nearby forest.

Meanwhile, a wildfire in Northern Spain has scorched more than 18,000 acres of land. At least a 1,000 people had to flee their homes as firefighters struggled to contain those flames.

I'm Elex Michelson. For our international viewers, Inside Africa is next. For our viewers in North America, I'll be back for the World Cup preview.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[01:30:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MICHAELSON: Relief is coming for people in the Midwest, Northeast, and Mid-Atlantic states impacted by that unhealthy air quality, which has been caused by smoke from hundreds of Canadian wildfires. More than a 100 million people in 18 states and the nation's capital now under air quality alerts. The view from a plane captures the orange skyline as this flight takes off from Dulles International Airport in Virginia.

CNN's Derek Van Dam reports on what you can expect this weekend.

DEREK VAN DAM, CNN WEATHER ANCHOR: Very unhealthy to hazardous air has been pouring into the East Coast and the Upper Midwest thanks to this kind of a fire hose of wildfire smoke emanating from the out of control wildfires, Southern Ontario, near the border of the U.S. and Canada. But look at this thick hazy substance as seen by satellite on Friday morning. That has created the thick haze to the horizon, the orange hues overhead during sunset and sunrise, and it's been particularly thick across Detroit, the nation's capital, even into New York City.

Not what we want to see heading into the World Cup finals this weekend. So the big question is whether or not we will still have the wildfire smoke to contend with. If it was to take it, as it stands right now, we have some of the worst quality of air on the planet across parts of the Midwest and into the East Coast. Will that still be the case on Sunday with the World Cup final?

Well, if we had it today, that'd be a problem. Because this is what it looked like on Friday morning in Detroit. That's unhealthy to breathe. When you're expected to be at top peak performance as an athlete, you don't want to be ingesting that into your lungs, right? We've got 18 states on Friday that have been under these air quality alerts with over a 100 million Americans impacted by the wildfire smoke, but change is afoot. And let me explain why. This low pressure system has produced rainfall right on the fires, but it's also got a cold front associated with it.

So the cold front is actually going to be responsible for a changing wind pattern, and it's also going to bring rainfall to the East Coast. So not only is it going to change the direction of the wind, but the rain will help kind of mix out the atmosphere a little bit, hopefully clear things out. The rain has not put the fires out, so there's still smoke emanating from the wildfire location. But we do believe along the East Coast that things will improve greatly.

In fact, our forecast for near smoke -- near surface smoke actually shows that as we head into the day on Sunday. Maybe some lingering high level smoke, but not near the surface like what we've experienced the past couple of days. So we'll keep our fingers crossed, hold our thumbs that we get some improvement just in time for the World Cup final. Back to you.

MICHAELSON: Let's talk more about that World Cup final. The whole tournament comes to an end on Sunday. Spain and Argentina play for the title. But as World Cup championships wrap up, Major League Soccer is back in action after nearly two month pause for the FIFA tournament.

A short time ago, the LA Galaxy took on their hometown rivals, the Los Angeles Football Club whose coach calls it the league's biggest rivalry. LAFC came out on top, beating the Galaxy 3-0. More MLS action is set for next week. Jake Zivin and Taylor Twellman called the game for Apple TV. They join us now from Dignity Health Sports Park in Carson, California.

Gentlemen, welcome to "The Story Is." I'm curious, Jake, did you notice a post-World Cup boost in energy? Did it feel different coming back?

JAKE ZAVIN, LEAD PLAY-BY-PLAY COMMENTATOR FOR MLS ON APPLE TV: Look, Alex, you're a Los Angeles guy, so this particular game doesn't need a boost from anything. It is always a major deal when the LA Galaxy play LAFC. But, yes, I think we felt it here tonight, but not just here tonight in-person. You feel it talking to people coming to the game. You feel it talking to people in airports, on airplanes, in hotels, and even the chatter on social media, the number of people that I've heard say, I'm going to check out my first MLS game tonight on Apple TV is staggering to be on.

MICHAELSON: Well and, Jake, you even made the call as you welcomed people to the broadcast acknowledging that this may be people's first time ever watching an MLS game.

ZAVIN: It's realistic, right? It might be. We hope it is. And I know Taylor agrees, right? We hope that people caught that World Cup fever and they turn that into a longtime soccer fandom and choose to support an MLS team and watch the league here in the United States.

MICHAELSON: Taylor, let's talk about how this tournament may change American soccer forever.

[01:35:00]

The last time the U.S. hosted the World Cup was in 1994. That actually led to the MLS, which you were a part of playing in. Now you're a part of commentating. What do you think this tournament will do?

TAYLOR TWELLMAN, ESPN SOCCER ANALYST, FORMER INTL. SOCCER PLAYER: That's a great question, Elex, because the legacy of the '94 World Cup was the creation and birth of Major League Soccer. And yet when you look at this United States team that played in the 2026 World Cup, 21 of the 26 players either were developed in MLS, played in MLS or did both. And so that's kind of where that legacy is. I don't know how to quantify it.

I don't know how to articulate what it means for a six to a 14-year- old boy or girl that watches the World Cup in their backyard and then immediately can go to an MLS soccer specific stadium and watch a game. We didn't have that growing up. That wasn't theirs. So it's very hard to honestly quantify what the World Cup is going to do for soccer in this country in the sense of fandom, but more so, how about participation? I play a bunch of golf with a bunch of these pro athletes from all other sports, and this year more than any, their sons and daughters, they want to play soccer. They want to wear the U.S. jersey. They want to be the next Folarin Balogun. They want to be the next Trinity Rodman.

That was never the conversation 20 years ago. So, Elex, honestly, the question you're asking me, I don't know if we know that answer definitively until about 10, 12 years from now, but I can guarantee you it's going to be a lot different than what the '94 World Cup did.

MICHAELSON: Yeah. I mean, Colin Cowherd of Fox Sports, I think, said it well that right now soccer is cool. And it's not really about people that are over 40. It's about people that are under 20, and that this new generation is seeing soccer as the cool sport, which will have wide reaching impacts for generations. But let's talk about why it's so cool, which is the matches have been really good. The ratings have been through the roof, and Sunday is the biggest match of all. Argentina and Spain. Taylor, how do you break that down?

TWELLMAN: This is a difficult one, because I think when you think of the Spanish fan, they will have a lump in the back of their throat because they saw Lionel Messi make a name for himself at Barcelona for years. And unless you're a Real Madrid fan, you hate Lionel Messi, but every single other Spanish LaLiga fan will watch that game and say, hang on a minute. We're going up against the greatest of all time, the guy that made our life miserable within the club level in Spain. This is a difficult one. I think if you ask Spain if they had a preference, they would have rather played England. They beat England in the 2024 European Cup final.

I just -- I don't know this. So Jake and Elex, this one's interesting for me because I think Messi emotionally connects with the Spanish audience way more than any other audience than the Argentinian, and that's where this becomes a very intriguing matchup. Spain is used to watching Messi do his thing. They just don't want him to do that on Sunday.

MICHAELSON: And famously, one of the Spanish pep players was held up as a baby by Messi. There's such a connection to him. So then but tomorrow or and then in the next few hours is the third place game. Jake, does anybody care about the third place game? Is it time that we end this?

ZAVIN: That's a loaded question, isn't it? Look. Not the most compelling game for me, though the golden boot could be on the line and determined by this third place game. And I'm sitting next to a striker who I sit next to every week on Apple TV, who I know would take every opportunity in that third place game if he was in one to score as many goals as possible to win that golden boot. So Kylian Mbappe, Harry Kane, Drew Bellingham, if they play at that game, they're going to be going for it because it could mean winning or losing the golden boot of this turn.

MICHAELSON: So, Taylor, real quickly to you, who wins the golden boot and who wins the World Cup?

TWELLMAN: Lionel Messi becomes the oldest player ever to win the golden boot by nine years because if in order for Argentina to win, he's going to have to do it. And listen, my brain tells me Spain is the best team of the World Cup, but my heart tells me what I've watched for the last two and a half years and on Apple TV at Inner Miami, Lionel Messi is just different. He's really different, and I think Argentina defends their title.

MICHAELSON: Well, if you want to watch Messi after this, you can watch him with these guys on Apple TV. It's going to be quite a season and probably record ratings for you guys as well. Good to have you back streaming once again. Jake Zavin, Taylor Twellman. Best of luck the rest of this season. Thanks for all your help during the World Cup.

[01:40:00]

TWELLMAN: Thanks, Elex.

ZAVIN: Jake, Elex only had us on because he's an LAFC fan. That's the only reason why. Galaxy won, we wouldn't have been on today.

MICHAELSON: Dolly, dolly, black and gold. Nice job. All right. With the midterms just around the corner, one top issue for many Americans is affordability. After the break, CNN speaks to those who feel left behind by the U.S. economy, an extraordinary piece by Phil Mattingly when we come back.

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MICHAELSON: President Trump says, "The golden age of America is here as he touts falling prices in the United States." President made the claims in a post on Truth Social, but a new Washington Post-Ipsos poll shows just 33 percent of Americans approve of his handling of the economy. CNN's Phil Mattingly has this look at how Americans continue to grapple with an affordability crisis.

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JOLENE SIMECEK, RENTER: It's not affordable to live on your own as a single person anymore.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CHIEF DOMESTIC CORRESPONDENT AND ANCHOR (voice-over): For generations, Cleveland was the promise kept, one of the last places a family of almost any income could own a home that was theirs.

SIMECEK: I wanted digging in yard for my kid and just the normal American dream, just a house a picket fence, a yard, and it just seems that that's more and more not it's out of touch, not reality.

[01:45:00]

MATTINGLY (voice-over): For Jolene Simecek, that deal has come undone. A working mom and a nursing student, she's always had a job, but she can't keep up with the skyrocketing rents in her Cleveland suburb.

SIMECEK: It went from $7.85 to nearly $1,600 a month.

MATTINGLY: Your rent effectively doubled?

SIMECEK: Yes.

MATTINGLY: Over what seven years? Six years, seven years?

SIMECEK: Yeah.

MATTINGLY: And your income presumably did not follow the same path over that period of time.

SIMECEK: No. It did not go up at that rate at all.

MATTINGLY: Her next best option, a room in her sister's basement.

SIMECEK: They are lucky enough to rent it to me for $4.50 a month.

MATTINGLY: $4.50? OK.

SIMECEK: Yep.

MATTINGLY: The alternative was roughly 1,600-ish?

SIMECEK: $1,600 or, yeah, I sleep in my little hatchback so.

MATTINGLY (voice-over): Nearly one in four Clevelanders now hand over more than half of what they earn just to stay housed.

SIMECEK: I've already paid a quarter million dollars in rent to my life, I should already have the home with the equity paid off, but I didn't make the right decisions, if you rent, that's what you get.

MATTINGLY (voice-over): So how did it get this bad? Frank Ford has spent decades tracing the forces that shaped these streets. It starts with redlining, lenders starving black neighborhoods of home loans.

FRANK FORD, SR. POLICY ADVISER, CLEVELAND FAIR HOUSING CENTER: There's a shift that took place in the late 90s where some mortgage lenders flipped that and realized, well, wait a minute. Instead of denying people loans because we perceive them as high risk, what if we make loans and use that perception as the reason to raise interest rates?

MATTINGLY (voice-over): Those predatory loans inflated a bubble that burst in 2007.

FORD: The banks found themselves sitting on 600 homes in Cleveland, 800 homes in Cleveland. They started to offload those properties for pennies on the dollar to investors.

MATTINGLY (voice-over): Thousands of homes swept up by phantom investors charging market rent while letting them rot. The paradox of a broken market. Homes are cheap because families can't buy them, but the rents stay high. The spread is a magnet for out of state LLCs. Buy all cash, collect rent, ignore the repairs. Nowhere is it clearer than Shaker Square.

ANDERSON WALDON, SHAKER SQUARE RESIDENT: OK. This is my one bedroom. These are the water blisters that dried out I told you about. These here are the holes where all the water came through.

MATTINGLY (voice-over): Anderson Waldon came here in 2020 to retire somewhere safe and walkable. Instead, three of every four neighbors left, and the buildings crumbled around the few who did stay.

WALDON: I have my drills. I've tried to fix everything myself because I can't wait till it gets done, because it never gets done. MATTINGLY (voice-over): Drive 20 miles west and it's a different universe where families priced out of the city now compete fiercely for every home.

STEPHEN MILLER, HOMEOWNER: Before this, lived in the city and wanted to buy in the city and in the specific neighborhood that we're in. The cost of housing has exploded in those places.

MATTINGLY (voice-over): Stephen Miller and his wife are working professionals who embody what for decades represented the first rung of the housing ladder. But home prices in Cleveland have surged nearly 60 percent in six years, among the fastest in the country.

MILLER: We were looking for probably about a year for what eventually kind of became our unicorn, I guess, which never fruition. And then, over time, we just kind of gave up and started kind of expanding that search.

MATTINGLY (voice-over): Battling all cash investors waving inspections, they eventually closed miles from where they wanted to be.

MILLER: We live in a lovely suburb now that's right on the lake. It's great, but that was never in the plans to say the least. It's frankly astounding. There's some phantom outside buyer that comes in the last second, $50 over the asking price. It's just it's absolutely brutal out there.

SIMECEK: The Midwest was like the secret where you can live comfortably, and it's not that way anymore.

MATTINGLY (voice-over): Back in Parma, Jolene made clear she's not asking for a handout. She's only wondering, how did it get this hard for the people who did everything they were told to do? Phil Mattingly, CNN, Cleveland, Ohio.

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MICHAELSON: That report from CNN's Phil Mattingly is part of his Priced Out in America series. Phil speaks to Americans across the country about the real impact of affordability. His extensive months long reporting featured right now on cnn.com and the CNN app.

Well, the movie all Hollywood's talking about has finally arrived still to come. The blockbuster box office projections for Christopher Nolan's epic, The Odyssey.

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[01:50:00]

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MICHAELSON: A spacecraft that explored Pluto in a fly past the 11 years ago has been awakened after a 10-month long planned hibernation. NASA's New Horizons spacecraft is now nearly 6 billion miles from Earth. Flight controllers confirm it's in great shape and ready to transmit what is hopefully unique scientific data.

The probe is capturing information about the rotation rates, orientations, and shapes of frozen objects in the Kuiper Belt. That is the zone at the solar system's edge where Pluto is located. Amazing.

Fans of the hit drama series Outlander now have the chance to own a piece of the show as props and costumes are set to go under the hammer. The auction house, Bonhams, revealed, highlights on Friday.

[01:55:00]

The items will go up for auction in London early next month The fans able to view the full exhibition before the sale. The auction comes after Outlander wrapped up its eight season run with the series finale in May.

Legendary director Christopher Nolan has transformed a 3,000-year-old poem, The Odyssey, into one of this year's most anticipated movies. The Greek Ethic ranking in $17.6 million just in previews. The movie follows the King of Ithaca on his dangerous 10-year journey home with a list stars including Matt Damon, Zendaya, Lupita Nyong'o. The Odyssey is the first film shot entirely with IMAX cameras, which has triggered a frenzy as fans try to snag limited IMAX tickets on sale a full-year early. It's estimated to make a $100 million this opening weekend in IMAX and standard theaters.

Thanks for joining us all week here on "The Story Is." I'm Elex Michaelson. Have a great weekend. See you again on Monday.

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