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The Story Is with Elex Michaelson

Trump Approves Deal with Saudi Arabia to Enrich Uranium; OpenAI Test Model Escapes, Hacks Real Company's Servers; The Fight Against A.I. Slop; Maduro Appears in U.S. Court as Trial Date Set for June 2027; Tropical Storm Bertha Forecast to Weaken, Move Wet After Initial Landfall; Trump: 'Affordability' is a Word Made Up by Democrats; Model Recruiter with Epstein Links Found Dead near Paris; Republicans Point to Olive Garden in Defense of Voter ID Plan. Aired 12-1a ET

Aired July 23, 2026 - 00:00   ET

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

[00:00:00]

LAURA COATES, CNN ANCHOR: If he'll go back to Cleveland. You think? End it where he began it?

ELEX MICHAELSON, CNN ANCHOR: Well, he -- he says it's all about happiness. That's what this is about. Not about money. So why not go to Golden State where he would play with one of his best friends, Draymond Green, play with Steph Curry, somebody he's always wanted to play with before? There's great golfing up there. He's closer to his family. And it gives him a great chance at a title.

COATES: I don't know. I mean, I think people will say happiness are already rich.

Have a great show, Elex.

MICHAELSON: All right. Laura, you too.

COATES: Take care.

MICHAELSON: Have a great night.

THE STORY IS starts right now.

Coming up, THE STORY IS nuclear deal, but not with Iran, with Saudi Arabia. What this means for the U.S. in the Middle East.

THE STORY IS Trump's mixed affordability messaging. He campaigned on lowering prices. But now he says it's a crisis made up by Democrats. We'll discuss with our political panel.

And THE STORY IS the fight against A.I. slop. Newsletter publisher Substack is telling users how much of what they're reading was written by artificial intelligence. The company's CEO is standing by to talk with me live.

ANNOUNCER: Live from Los Angeles, THE STORY IS with Elex Michaelson.

MICHAELSON: I'm Elex Michaelson. Thanks for being with us.

Our top story is the war with Iran and how the U.S. plans to keep paying for it. Earlier, the House narrowly passed a $1.1 trillion Defense spending bill despite concerns from Democrats over the massive price tag, the war itself, and a provision that would greatly expand military technology cooperation with Israel. The bill now heads to the Senate, where its fate is unclear.

As for the conflict itself, U.S. Central Command says that the military has completed a 12th straight night of strikes on Iran, as Donald Trump and Iranian leaders continue to trade threats. The U.S. president is now vowing to destroy Iranian bridges and power plants every time Iran strikes a ship in the Strait of Hormuz. Tehran responded that any such U.S. attacks would be met with a powerful and decisive response.

President Trump attended a dignified transfer on Wednesday for four U.S. service members killed in the Middle East. At an event in Georgia earlier, the president claimed that, quote, "Americans aren't against the war, even though the latest polling suggests otherwise."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: This skirmish we have going on, I call it a skirmish. This is with this skirmish we have with the Islamic Republic of Iran, and I call it that because, let me tell you, they're getting hit so hard and they want to make a deal. But I say they're not ready to make a deal because every time they make a deal, they want to change it and everything. They're not ready. They'll be ready very soon.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MICHAELSON: We're getting our first satellite images from NASA that appear to show a Saudi flagged oil tanker on fire in the Red Sea. Yemen's Iran-backed Houthi rebels say they hit two tankers earlier, claiming that they violated their blockade. Meantime, the U.S. has signed a deal allowing Saudi Arabia to enrich uranium for civilian energy purposes, but sources say it does not include international oversight, fueling concerns about the kingdom potentially developing nuclear weapons.

Of course, President Trump has repeatedly stated that Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon, and Israeli officials are criticizing this deal, even though their country is widely believed to have its own nuclear arsenal.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NAFTALI BENNETT, FORMER ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER: Saudi Arabia gets nuclear capabilities without progress towards normalization, without anything in return. In all of these, Israel is not at the table but on the table.

(END VIDEO CLIP) MICHAELSON: Joining me live from Washington is Dan Shapiro. He's a distinguished fellow at the Atlantic Council and during the Obama administration, he was the United States ambassador to Israel.

Mr. Ambassador, welcome to THE STORY IS.

DAN SHAPIRO, DISTINGUISHED FELLOW, ATLANTIC COUNCIL: Good to be with you, Elex.

MICHAELSON: So this Saudi nuclear deal, you call it the holy grail for the crown prince. Why?

SHAPIRO: The crown prince of Saudi Arabia has sought the ability to have Saudi Arabia produce its own nuclear power, and even to have the ability to enrich uranium on Saudi soil, at least as a hedge, so that if Iran, their chief rival and greatest adversary, were ever to break out to achieve a nuclear weapon, Saudi Arabia would be able to match that. So they've been seeking this deal with the United States for a long time.

That included during the Biden administration, which I served, in which they proposed that they would buy reactors from the United States, bringing, of course, many jobs to the U.S. companies that produce those materials.

[00:05:06]

And they would seek the ability under U.S. supervision, if they decided to enrich uranium on Saudi soil.

MICHAELSON: But also, when you were in the Biden administration working on this prospective deal, part of the deal was that relations with Israel would be normalized. That was not a part of this deal that was just negotiated today with the Trump administration. That was taken out. How is Israel responding to that?

SHAPIRO: Yes, that's correct. When the Biden administration put forward the possibility of a similar, not precisely the same nuclear deal with Saudi Arabia, it was part of a broader package which would have included Saudi Arabia normalizing its relationship with Israel, a major transformational change in the Middle East. Israel would, of course, have to agree to take steps that would make possible a future Palestinian state and the United States and Saudi Arabia would make other security commitments to each other. So it was a whole package.

It appears that President Trump decided he does not think Israel is ready to make the concessions they would need to on the Palestinian issue. Therefore, the Saudis are not going to normalize with Israel. And he decided he did not want to wait to cut a deal to bring the jobs to the United States. And so this goes forward as a standalone agreement. As I think you heard from an Israeli commentator, this is very concerning to Israel.

It means that another country in the Middle East could have the ability to produce the materials for nuclear weapons, and they've lost the card that was supposed to be the incentive that would bring Saudi Arabia to normalize relations with them.

MICHAELSON: So we just heard from President Trump saying that Iran is not ready to make a deal, even though they want to make a deal. You were talking to the best experts in the world every day in this space, talking to everybody. Does anybody have an idea for a good offramp for the U.S. to get out of Iran?

SHAPIRO: I'm sorry to say that the answer is no, and that's coming from a lot of people who very much want to help the administration find that offramp. We have really ended up in a cul-de-sac where all the leverage belongs to Iran over the Strait of Hormuz. The most likely scenario is that we will remain in the current situation. Let's call it the new normal of periodic escalations of conflicts around the Strait of Hormuz.

As Iran tries to assert control, the United States tries to clear it for shipping, and occasional negotiations, but also occasional escalations. The only alternatives are really not much better. One is a massive U.S. escalation, such as a ground operation, to try to take over parts of Iran or even overthrow the Iranian government. That's a forever war. Highly costly. Nobody wants to do that. Or essentially the United States backed down.

And this was largely what was in the MOU that was signed to give Iran a significant amount of sanctions relief to restore its economy, to kind of buy them off. And then they would allow the strait to open. All of those are bad outcomes. And this is the result of the president rushing into a war that didn't have a clear strategic objective. And now we don't have a clear way out of it.

MICHAELSON: It's quite something and sobering to hear you say from everybody you talk to. Nobody has got a good idea to get out of this thing, but we are in it now.

Dan Shapiro, former ambassador to Israel, thank you so much for being with us.

Meanwhile, diplomatic efforts are picking up to get peace talks between Russia and Ukraine back on track. Right now we're keeping an eye on a meeting between Secretary of State Marco Rubio and his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov. They began discussions on the sidelines of a conference in Manila a short time ago.

Here's some video of them from a short time ago. That all is happening after Ukrainian President Zelenskyy spoke with top U.S. mediators Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner about restarting the peace talks.

Meanwhile, a new Russian sanctions bill is running into some opposition on Capitol Hill. It was considered a shoo in to pass after the recent death of its co-sponsor, Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. But some Democrats now say the bill would give too much tariff power to President Trump.

Staying on the Hill, it may soon be a little more complicated for U.S. lawmakers to buy and sell stocks. The House has passed a bill that would prevent sitting Congress members, their spouses, and dependent children, from buying new stocks of publicly traded companies. They can still buy private stocks, but stocks sales would require up to 14 days advance notice. It's unclear when or if this bill will be taken up in the Senate.

To Europe now, the European Union has signed off on Paramount's merger with Warner Bros. Discovery, the parent company of this network. Regulators say that Paramount made several concessions, including an agreement to abandon a film distribution deal with Universal in Europe.

[00:10:08]

Here in the U.S., 12 state attorneys general are challenging the buyout, claiming it would stifle competition. Paramount says the opposite is true. A federal judge has put the deal on hold in the U.S. for now in order to consider the antitrust lawsuit.

Now to a new cyberattack carried out by artificial intelligence. ChatGPT-maker OpenAI says some of its experimental models escaped a test environment and then hacked into another company's servers. This is one of the first times we've seen something like this happen after repeated warnings from experts.

CNN's Hadas Gold explains what went wrong.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

HADAS GOLD, CNN A.I. CORRESPONDENT: This model was given a cybersecurity test and on its own figured out a way to hack OpenAI's own systems of this Sandbox and get access to the open internet, which it was not supposed to have. Then it decided on its own that the most likely place that would have the answer to the cybersecurity test was a place known as Hugging Face. Hugging Face is a very popular repository for open source A.I. models and data sets. And then this system went on to be -- to hack into Hugging Face's own systems in order to try and get the answer to this test.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MICHAELSON: Our thanks to Hadas Gold for that.

Both companies say they are now working together to solve the security flaws that this model exploited. OpenAI released a statement calling the breach a, quote, "unprecedented cyber incident" and said the company is responding accordingly.

The newsletter publisher Substack is taking a stand against what it calls soulless slop on the internet. It's giving users access to a new A.I. detection tool that can scan notes, replies, comments, and posts to see how much of it was actually written by artificial intelligence.

My next guest, the co-founder and CEO of Substack, writes, quote, "When content made by no one takes over parts of the internet that are supposed to be human, it pollutes the commons and makes it hard to discover and hear human voices. Platforms that reward fakeness will create a race to the bottom." Chris Best is joining me live from San Francisco right now.

Thanks for being with us. Chris, is A.I. creating an existential crisis for writing?

CHRIS BEST, CO-FOUNDER AND CEO, SUBSTACK: I don't know if it is yet, but, you know, Pangram did a study of how much of the text you read on various internet platforms is generated by A.I.. And on some platforms like LinkedIn, the number was almost 40 -- I think it was 40 percent. And you know that number is changing quickly. And so I think at minimum, you can say there's a huge change in what you read online.

MICHAELSON: You're using a tool, you just mentioned it called Pangram. What is that exactly? How does that work?

BEST: It's a tool that can look at a piece of text and make an estimate of whether that text was written by a human hand, or somebody using ChatGPT or Claude, or one of these A.I. tools. You can't tell sort of the thought that goes behind the text, but it can look at the text itself and kind of tell whether it was a human or not.

MICHAELSON: Do you see irony in using A.I. to detect A.I.?

BEST: I think it's technically not A.I., but I don't think that that -- I think that people need tools to tell what's, you know, tell what's real and have some transparency in what they put into their minds.

MICHAELSON: You write about the fact that you're basically want to give people an option to make an informed decision so you know what you're reading. From what you see, do you find that people actually care if the text is written by A.I. or humans? And do some humans actually prefer the A.I.?

BEST: You know, this is very important. We're not setting a rule of what you can and can't do or can and can't publish or read on Substack. We're just saying people should be allowed to make these choices for themselves. And the feedback we're getting is that some people care a lot. Some people have really strong reactions when they -- especially when they read something that they think is written by a human, but then realize that they're actually reading A.I. texts.

You know, that violation of expectations, we call that "Claudefishing," where it's sort of, you're just not getting the thing that you expect. But people have widely differing, you know, some people don't mind at all. Some people don't mind in one context. It's like, hey, I might read some information over here, but if I'm getting something that is, you know, supposed to be a comment from a person that feels different.

So we're just starting with, you know, we think people should have the information and be able to decide for themselves.

[00:15:02]

MICHAELSON: I want to give you some credit because you with Substack were way ahead of the game in identifying a need. And Substack is now a place that people have turned to as traditional media has changed. And frankly, a lot of people have turned away from traditional media and headed to Substack. You were able to see that coming and create sort of a new future.

Put on your futuristic mind now. What's coming next? What's the next thing in media in, in light of the A.I. that we're all experiencing now?

BEST: You know, I wrote this post a couple of years ago that I talked about the two futures of media. And I think you're going to see two futures emerge at the same time. And there's one set of -- there's a way that people use media right now, especially on their phones, I do this, where you're kind of using it like a drug. It's something that you're a little bit addicted to. You're glued to the screen.

It's making you feel a certain way. And I think that, you know, the new technology has already made it and A.I. is going to make it even more powerful, even more compelling, even more addictive. But I also think you're going to see a culture future of media where, as the technology gets more and more powerful and as there's more noise everywhere, people turning to human voices that they trust will get even more valuable. And that's the future that we are building for at Substack.

MICHAELSON: You're certainly doing that. And in terms of the drug, I recently had an experience where I was on a 12-hour flight and they didn't have Wi-Fi that worked. And at the beginning of the flight, I felt like I was actually twitching like a drug addict who was going through withdrawal because it was so not used to something like that.

BEST: Give me a couple, please, man.

MICHAELSON: Yes. Eventually, like it felt really good. But we are addicted to those phones and much of the content on Substack is a constructive way to use your phones or your computers.

Congratulations on all you've accomplished and thanks for joining us.

BEST: Thank you very much. Check out the Substack app.

MICHAELSON: All right.

A dramatic capture, a courtroom showdown, and now a trial date. Former Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro learns when his case will go to trial in New York. Plus, the latest on Tropical Storm Bertha, the second named the Atlantic hurricane season -- named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season. That's just ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[00:21:53]

MICHAELSON: A U.S. federal judge says former Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, will stand trial next June. The couple have pleaded not guilty to charges of gunrunning and drug smuggling. They were captured by the U.S. military in January and flown to the U.S. to face charges. After Maduro was ousted, Delcy Rodriguez was sworn in as Venezuela's acting president.

CNN's Jim Sciutto spoke with opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez about what the case could mean for the country's political transition.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: You have Maduro going to trial in New York, but you have Maduro's deputy still running the country, and all the people under Delcy Rodriguez who were part of that same regime, who you've accused of criminal behavior and the U.S. does as well. Why should we believe the criminal behavior has stopped?

LEOPOLDO LOPEZ, VENEZUELAN OPPOSITION LEADER: Well, I think now there is the oversight of the United States and that's one thing. And the United States has an effective oversight, not just on the funds, but on many of the things that are going on in Venezuela. So things have changed in Venezuela.

Are we where we want to be? No. We want a full transition to democracy. And the most important milestone for that is an election. However, to get to that election, we need to start that process. And it has been announced that next week, on August -- the 1st week of August, there will be the first round of negotiations to decide a new electoral board that will decide the timeline and the elections that should happen in 2027.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MICHAELSON: THE STORY IS the historic flooding in parts of West Virginia where the storm threat has passed, but a state of emergency remains in effect for all 55 counties. The governor of West Virginia says officials are focused on search and rescue efforts, and they're concerned over possible loss of life after hours of punishing rain and rising flood waters.

Crews conducted more than 100 rescues on Wednesday. Officials say the full extent of the damage is difficult to assess because the storms washed out roads and cut off access to some areas. Severe storms also produce multiple tornadoes and damaging winds in Kentucky, Ohio and New Jersey.

Tropical Storm Bertha is forecast to weaken as it moves into coastal Texas in the coming hours. Bertha made landfall in southeastern Louisiana earlier today, but its strongest winds and heavy rain stayed offshore.

More now from Sherrell Hubbard.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SHERRELL HUBBARD, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Bertha tracked along the southern coastline before making landfall and grazing southeast Louisiana by Wednesday afternoon. According to the National Hurricane Center, it touched down about 3:00 p.m. Eastern. GOV. JEFF LANDRY, LOUISIANA: The good news is that the storm is likely

not to produce the type of rainfall or wind event that it could have.

HUBBARD (voice-over): Bertha's maximum sustained winds were 45 miles per hour Wednesday afternoon, about 25 miles southeast of New Orleans, down from 60 miles per hour on Tuesday night, and leaving some locals to shrug off the threat.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A lot of people are freaking out about it. I don't think it's much to worry about.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A little more tidal surge than we like, but I don't think it's going to be that much of an impact to us at all.

[00:25:02]

HUBBARD (voice-over): Still, Bertha is expected to produce periods of rain, gusty winds and coastal flooding from Florida to Texas.

JAY GRYMES, LOUISIANA STATE CLIMATOLOGIST: LANDRY: Don't let your guard down yet. We've still got to wait for the backside of the circulation. Those rain bands that currently are as far east as the Florida Panhandle. We've got to wait for those to come through before we can fully exhale.

HUBBARD (voice-over): Forecasters say Bertha's strongest winds and heaviest rain are expected to stay offshore and say the storm will gradually weaken over the next several days.

CHRIS WARREN, METEOROLOGIST: Continuing to weaken as it moves over land and then kind of hugging right along the coast, the southwest coast of Louisiana, and then into Texas with tropical storm conditions, a possibility through late tomorrow before it weakens by overnight Thursday into early Friday.

HUBBARD (voice-over): I'm Sherrell Hubbard, reporting.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MICHAELSON: Parts of Europe are enduring another intense heat wave, fueling more destructive droughts and wildfires. Many scientists say climate change is driving all of this.

In southern France, hundreds have been forced to flee their homes as a fast-moving fire burns east of Marcel. One official says more than a thousand firefighters fought through the night. In a separate fire to the west two firefighters have died near the Bordeaux Airport.

In Spain. Hundreds of firefighters are battling the country's largest wildfire of the year in the Central Guadalajara Province. Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez says the country has already seen four times as many wildfires this year than 2025.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PEDRO SANCHEZ, SPANISH PRIME MINISTER (through translator): More than 100,000 hectares have been burned as a result of the wildfire or wildfires across Spain. To put that into perspective, that is the annual average that Spain experienced over the past decade.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MICHAELSON: And here in the U.S., an FDA committee will meet this week to decide whether to recommend making certain peptides available. Some wellness influencers and doctors promote the injectables, claiming they boost longevity and speed muscle recovery. But some FDA experts say there's no evidence the peptides are either effective or safe.

The committee will only make recommendations before the agency makes a final decision. The panel is largely comprised of health professionals who prescribe, produce or promote peptides.

President Trump is taking aim at Democrats over the affordability crisis. He says much of it is made up. But he also claims that he's fixing it. Our political panel, standing by live to weigh in. Michael Tubbs, Alexander Hefner, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MICHAELSON: Welcome back to THE STORY IS. I'm Elex Michaelson. Let's take a look at today's top stories.

[00:32:23]

U.S. Central Command says the military has completed its 12th consecutive night of strikes against Iran, hitting dozens of military sites on land and maintaining a blockade at sea.

President Trump is threatening that the U.S. will bomb and destroy a bridge or power plant every time Tehran targets a ship in the Strait of Hormuz. Iran is vowing retaliation if that happens.

The Democratic primary for Arizona's first House district is finally settled. CNN projecting late tonight that former state lawmaker Amish Shah will advance to November's general election.

The emergency physician has campaigned on lowering healthcare costs. He will face Republican Jay Feely, former NFL kicker endorsed by President Trump.

Former U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris is not endorsing a candidate in Michigan's Democratic Senate primary. It is a tight race between Representative Haley Stevens and former Wayne County health director Abdul El-Sayed.

A Harris spokesperson tells CNN she hasn't made an endorsement, but is grateful for the support of both candidates during her 2024 presidential run.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: First day, first press conference. Nice friendly press conference. You know, they treat me so nicely. What are you going to do about the prices? And they said -- they used

the word. First time I heard it, it was a word, you know, made up by the Democrats. Affordability. They said, Affordability.

I said, I've been here one day. Don't worry. I'll take care of it. And we're taking care of it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MICHAELSON: Joining me now to talk about this and more is our political panel tonight. Michael Tubbs is the founder of End Poverty in California and the former mayor of Stockton, California. And Alexander Heffner is the host of "The Open Mind" and creator of "Mayors of the World" on PBS.

Gentlemen, welcome to THE STORY IS for the first time, both of you. Great to have you both.

MICHAEL TUBBS, FOUNDER, END POVERTY IN CALIFORNIA: Thanks for having me.

MICHAELSON: Let's start with you, Mr. Mayor. Is affordability made up by the Democrats?

TUBBS: I do understand, if I was a billionaire who was spending $38 billion on a war in Iran, affordability would feel made up for me.

But President Trump's advisers know. His party knows, as do Democrats, that the vast majority of Americans can't afford to live here. They can't afford childcare, healthcare, housing. We're talking about a whole generation of folks -- millennials and younger -- who are living with their parents, despite going to school, despite having jobs.

And affordability is a crisis that's not manufactured by the Democrats, but it is being exacerbated by the president and his administration.

MICHAELSON: And this is something Republicans have been talking about for years, as well.

ALEXANDER HEFFNER, HOST, "THE OPEN MIND": Yes, it is. And it's an American reality. You know, this whole notion of cannibal capitalism that's eating us alive.

[00:35:03]

It's not a myth. It's the norm. And the disconnect -- and the mayor knows this -- between Wall Street and Main Street is the most fervent it's ever been.

And you see the stock market record numbers, and it's just disconnected from the reality and the plight of the average American person.

And that's -- that's the key dilemma. I like to think about it from the perspective, you know, when we think

of old-school Democratic politics, FDR and the New Deal. He espoused a vision of protecting the American worker and the retiree, and that was -- that was a safety net at the back end.

And I think the Democrats have to get their act together when they think about a safety net at the front end. What does that look like? The mayor did work with universal -- universal basic income. I would think of it more expansively as universal basic vitality. You know, protecting people where they are: not at the beginning of lives, only with baby bonds, an idea, a good idea from Senator Booker and Republicans, too. And not only Social Security at the back end. What about the middle? What about the heart of people's lives?

STUBBS: What about life? Yes.

MICHAELSON: Well, and to that point, there are a lot of people who feel like things aren't working for them.

Gallup posted a new report out today, which had some interesting results. We want to put this up on the screen.

Ten percent of Americans feel that politics is the top risk to their own safety. More than anything else, just politics. And that is higher than in any other country in the world.

You see Hungary up there at nine. Also, Serbia, Latvia, Lithuania in at 6 p.m. [SIC]. So, that's interesting, how people feel literally afraid of the discourse.

But this, I think, may be even more interesting. It gets to your point that you were just making, Alexander. Most Americans say that the government does not care about them. Fifty-eight percent say that the government does not care at all about them.

Thirty-eight percent say the government only cares about them somewhat. Four percent feel that the government cares about them a lot.

When you see those numbers, what goes through your mind? Why is that?

STUBBS: Honestly, I'm shocked it's not higher. I'm shocked it's not more similar to what we've been hearing a lot lately: that 99 percent feel like the government is not working for them and doesn't care. And 1 percent does.

And I think you go to any grocery store, any childcare facility, any doctor's office, any gas station, like, folks are feeling the pain of inflation and feeling the pain of not being able to afford to live, not being able to afford to try to get the American dream.

When you think of young people who took out all these loans to go to college and can't afford housing, and they're moving back with their parents. When you think of retirees who spent their entire lives working, who are worried about whether the Social Security check will be enough to pay for the insulin or pay for the groceries.

Like, the vast majority of people in this country have problems that are tangible, that are real. And yet, the solutions seem far off. Whether it's here in California, our inability to build housing, despite the fact that we know housing is a reason why California is so expensive.

Or the work, as was mentioned, we've been doing for almost a decade now on basic income, this idea that everyone should have a floor or talks about making childcare -- capping childcare costs. There's all these things that folks are saying we need.

And yet, the political policy-making machine seems so far ahead [SIC] -- seems so far behind, excuse me. Yet, we're seeing investments made in bombs in Iran, as you -- as you mentioned.

So, I think the number is lower than I would expect. And it's going to take a real push to get our government to be responsive to the really real needs of Americans who are both Democrat and Republican.

MICHAELSON: Well, and it feels like, Alexander, like there's a -- there's -- there is a subset of Americans that feel like, to your point, sort of in the middle of their lives who feel like the Republican Party is clearly taking care of the ultra-ultra rich: the owners of the companies, the people who are paying for their pardons.

And that the Democratic Party is paying -- is helping the ultra-ultra poor and the labor unions that donate to them.

But what about people that don't care that much about politics, who are doing the right thing, who are paying taxes, who are trying to take care of their kids, and they feel like nobody's speaking for them?

HEFFNER: Yes. As you know, I've spent the last year traveling around the world interviewing mayors like -- like this guy. And it's unavoidable. I mean, you know this from your adept coverage of local municipal life in this state. It's unavoidable, the civic responsibility, accountability.

And you can't play whack-a-mole as mayor. You've got to --

MICHAELSON: Right.

HEFFNER: -- direct your solution head on. And that's our American dilemma.

Again, the kind of delinquency in futility, the dysfunction that we're ensnared in all the time, the hypocrisy, and the hyper polarization. I mean, it's -- it's what narrates and hijacks our political life.

[00:40:10]

But not if you're a mayor.

MICHAELSON: Right. HEFFNER: If you're a mayor, you have to tackle it head-on.

MICHAELSON: Well, let's talk about your series. So, on "The Open Mind" on PBS, you have this new series called "Mayors of the World." You've traveled around, talking to different mayors.

Here's a clip of you talking to the mayor of Santiago, Chile, who talked about this concept of finding common ground with his political opponents when it came time to getting things done on the local level. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARIO DESBORDES, MAYOR OF SANTIAGO, CHILE: (SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE)

GRAPHIC: And there was this logic of friends and enemies. The ones from the left wing were your enemies, and the ones from the right wing were your friends.

And then I started to meet people from the left wing who thought differently. Then you start to dialogue, and you realize the world isn't black or white. It's not about friends and enemies. It's about rebuilding Chile.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MICHAELSON: I mean, you've been a mayor. You know that, in Washington, a lot of people literally live thousands of miles away. They live in, like, Bethesda, Maryland, don't even live in their communities. They go to Washington. They're protected by security guards as they go through security sweep.

When you're a mayor, you go to the grocery store, and people come up to you and probably complain, right?

TUBBS: Complain, yell, laugh, take pictures. You are -- grocery store, church, gas station, wherever you are, take your kids to school. But I think that proximity is what makes mayor so -- so effective.

And we all, all mayors, we always say, if only the federal government behaved more like mayors, behaved more like local leaders. Because we're not perfect, but we're problem solvers. We're deeply pragmatic. We're not ideological.

And we're judged not based on how many likes we get on Twitter or how many retweets we get. But we are judged based off, do things get better, do things work? And that's the type of common-sense governance I think we have to get back to.

MICHAELSON: What's the most important thing you learned from talking to the mayors around the world?

HEFFNER: Well, the mayors abroad. So, we did some U.S. mayors -- Atlanta; Miami; Detroit; Midland, Texas. But abroad, there feels to me a resonance in the purity of that relationship. These mayors in South America and Europe, they're not -- they're not

focused on data centers and making a buck through A.I. It seemed to me to be more genuine.

You played the clip of Mayor DesBordes. He moved me. His -- he's a cop. He grew up as the coup was happening, and in his house hung portraits of Allende and Pinochet. So, the deposed leader, you know, and the deposer of the former leader.

And -- and he -- he insists, because we did this doc style at the equivalent of 1 Police plaza in Santiago.

He's talking about how he's trying to reduce crime, specifically the rise of kidnappings in Santiago, while not demonizing anyone, while making an important not just gesture, but proposition that this is not about right or left. We care about our fellow Chileans.

And one other example is Cologne, Germany. I interviewed the mayor just as she was exiting office. She was the -- nearly the victim of an assassination. She was in a coma as she won the election.

And she was in a coma, because she was attacked by an extremist, anti- immigrant refugee. And then the war in Ukraine happened. And she was -- she recovered and was able to carry out the courage of her conviction.

And as we did that episode, we were walking down the town hall of Cologne, Germany. And a Ukrainian woman whom she helped secure safe passage greets her and says, Thank you, Madam Mayor, because she made a difference. And that's what mayors do. They make a difference when it comes to economics. And in the case of war and -- and life.

MICHAELSON: And that's part of the reason to tie this all back together, why so many people are frustrated and feel like government isn't doing anything for them because they don't see a tangible difference. They just see people fighting.

But when you see the pothole filled, when you see the streetlight fixed, when you see some of that, that is a tangible difference in people's faces. Michael Tubbs, Alexander Heffner, thanks for coming in. Congrats again on the series people can check out --

HEFFNER: Thank you.

MICHAELSON: -- on PBS, as well.

Still to come, Republicans are taking a new approach as they push for a controversial voter I.D. law. Ahead, why they keep bringing up Italian food.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

Olive Garden takes pasta pass security more seriously than Democrats are taking election security.

(END VIDEO CLIP) MICHAELSON: This might be some of the stuff that we're talking about.

Plus, an investigation is now underway in France after the death of a professional model recruiter with ties to Jeffrey Epstein.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[00:49:16]

MICHAELSON: As President Trump's attorney general pick, Todd Blanche, faces roadblocks from two Republicans for his confirmation, Senate Democrats hosted a forum today spotlighting what they call the Justice Department's abandonment of the rule of law and its failure to deliver justice for Jeffrey Epstein's survivors.

Meanwhile, in the House, Democrats are investigating whether Epstein acted as a foreign agent.

Raking [SIC] -- ranking Judiciary Committee member Jamie Raskin is asking for the release of all records relating to the late sex offender and more than a dozen nations, including Israel, Saudi Arabia and Russia.

French authorities are investigating the death of a professional model scout who introduced multiple young women to Jeffrey Epstein. The cause of Daniel Siad's death is not yet known. The French prosecutor says an autopsy will be performed to determine how he died.

Siad was reportedly mentioned in the Epstein files. More than 2,000 times, and CNN aired an exclusive interview with him just a few weeks ago. Our Melissa Bell reports from Paris.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MELISSA BELL, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: A French model recruiter linked to Jeffrey Epstein has been found dead at his home in the suburb of Colombo, near Paris, according to prosecutors.

BELL (voice-over): Daniel Siad had been the subject of renewed scrutiny in the wake of the latest releases of the Epstein files by the U.S. Department of Justice.

For over a decade, he'd arranged for the late sex offender to meet several models.

CNN's Katie Polglase recently interviewed Siad, who said he'd had no reason to believe that two women he'd recommended to Epstein had been harmed by him, even though those two women told CNN that they were, indeed, abused by Jeffrey Epstein.

DAVID SIAD, MODEL RECRUITER: My work with him has been strictly professional. I never doubt that, because I never heard anything from anyone I introduced him who came back to me that they had a bad -- a bad situation with him.

BELL: Siad said he believed that Epstein was a casting director for Victoria's Secret and for a modeling agency. CNN has found no evidence to support that claim.

SIAD: I did not know a lot about him until when he comes to Paris. And I told you again, he said he passed -- he, too, to the to the government. So, for me, he's free man. He's -- he's clean. He was such a powerful person. And -- and -- and how can I not trust him?

BELL (voice-over): Epstein ties to the modeling industry are part of ongoing investigations, including a criminal probe launched this year in Paris involving Siad, according to the city's chief prosecutor.

Now, Siad's lawyer has pointed to the stress that the man was under due to the unbearable waiting, and I quote, "the stigma cast upon him."

Siad's lawyer's statement also calling for respect for his loved ones as they mourn, adding that he died and was innocent.

BELL: Siad himself was also facing accusations of abuse. A model accused him of rape when she was working in France in 1990. Siad had also denied that accusation.

His death certainly marks the latest macabre twist in the Epstein saga, and a reminder of the ripple effects of the revelations from Epstein files, and of the fact that they are far from over.

Melissa Bell, CNN, Paris.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MICHAELSON: Ahead in our next hour, Jake Tapper's new CNN investigation: "18 Days in Minnesota: The Killings by Federal Agents of American Citizens Renee Good and Alex Pretti."

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[00:57:23]

MICHAELSON: Republican officials in the U.S. have latched onto a pop culture story to defend their controversial voter I.D. law. It involves an Italian-American restaurant chain known for its all-you- can-eat pasta.

Some supporters argue it's easier to commit voter fraud than it is to use someone else's never-ending pasta pass. CNN's Tom Foreman serves up the details.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: First round. Get your go-to. Second, have what she's having.

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): An Olive Garden diner asks online if his whole family can share his never-ending pasta pass, which is good for months.

The restaurant chain says no, it's only for use by the passholder, who must present a valid photo I.D.

And that prompts White House adviser Stephen Miller to serve up some piping-hot politics.

STEPHEN MILLER, WHITE HOUSE DEPUTY CHIEF OF STAFF (via phone): We've reached a point in society where access to fettuccine at Olive Garden is vastly more secure than deciding who is commander in chief of the country.

FOREMAN (voice-over): Some Republicans have bellied up to that table fast, asking their fellow lawmakers to pass the SAVE America Act, please.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're protecting our breadsticks more than our ballots in jurisdictions across this country.

FOREMAN (voice-over): They've been pushing the measure for months to put strict new I.D. requirements on anyone trying to vote.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The only reason you can be against that is if you want voter fraud.

FOREMAN (voice-over): It's a main course for President Donald Trump, who implied he simply overpowered election fraud when he won in 2016.

TRUMP: Folks, the system is rigged.

FOREMAN (voice-over): That he was cheated when he lost in 2020.

TRUMP: It was a rigged election.

FOREMAN (voice-over): And even now, back in office, he relentlessly claims corruption is common when Americans go to the polls.

TRUMP: This cannot be allowed to continue.

FOREMAN (voice-over): The fly in the sauce: It's not true. Courts, election experts, and researchers have found time and again that voter fraud at any level is exceedingly rare and almost never decides the outcome of any election.

Still, the GOP keeps dishing distrust on the issue.

ABIGAIL JACKSON, WHITE HOUSE DEPUTY PRESS SECRETARY: Olive Garden takes Pasta Pass security more seriously than Democrats are taking election security.

FOREMAN (voice-over): Even as many Democrats say the SAVE America Act could discourage legal voters by stoking fears and raising onerous requirements, such as proving citizenship or making a married woman prove she changed her name long ago. Not for pasta, but for a constitutional right.

FOREMAN: Of course, we reached out to Olive Garden to see if the company had any comment. Nothing yet. This legislation has made it through the U.S. House, but it has

stalled in the Senate, where it doesn't seem to have the votes. But the Republicans are still cooking on it.

Tom Foreman, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)