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The Story Is with Elex Michaelson
Trump On Multi-State Blitz To Support Republican Candidates; French High School Students Lead Mass Protests over School Funding; U.S. Pushes Russia To Share More Information On Plague Lab Case; Israel Marks Third Anniversary Of October 7 Hamas Terror Attacks With Memorials; Independent Review Launched To Examine Cornell's Handling of Sexual Assault Claims; First Storm of Atlantic Hurricane Season Forms in Gulf; Messi Bids Farewell to Argentina in Final National Team Game; Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery Merge into Skydance. Aired 1-2a ET
Aired October 07, 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]
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CECILIA DOMINGUEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: And perhaps nothing captures what Argentina means to Messi better than these words, thank you, God, for making me Argentine. That's what Messi wrote when he announced his retirement. And tonight, after everything he gave Argentina, I think there's only one thing we can say back to him. Thank you, God, for giving us Lionel Messi. Cecilia Dominguez, CNN, Buenos Aires.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ELEX MICHAELSON, CNN ANCHOR: Congrats to Lionel Messi on an amazing career. Thanks for watching the first hour of The Story Is. The next hour starts right now.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Live from Los Angeles, The Story Is with Elex Michaelson.
MICHAELSON: It's 10:00 p.m. here in Los Angeles. I'm Elex Michaelson. Coming up, the story is President Trump's campaign blitz ahead of the 2026 midterms. We'll down the latest polling and how the president could be impacting elections with our panel, Brian Tyler Cohen and Alicia Crouse.
The story is a Texas showdown, how Ken Paxton is leaning on powerful allies to win a crucial Senate seat.
And the story is Kremlin stonewalling. The Trump administration is ramping up the pressure for information on a death at a Russian research facility.
But our top story is a jam packed week for President Trump, who's on a major red state tour ahead of next month's midterms. As polling shows, Democrats are making big gains in a number of Republican strongholds. One of them is Texas, where the president will be on Wednesday for the second time in less than a week.
While the president works to prop up Republican candidates, he's also selling voters on what he sees as big accomplishments. He was in Baltimore earlier today announcing a multibillion dollar investment partnership on a new shipyard facility. And he used this rally to tout his rally appearances.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: By the way, I'm going around doing rallies. The Republican Party starting to go right through the roof. Somebody said today, I wonder why. Well, I started, I had to get out. I had to do it. We had to explain what we're doing. There's never been a time like this in our country.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MICHAELSON: By the way, this was not a rally. This was an official appearance today. But the numbers are not in the president's favor right now. Putting aside his own slumping approval ratings, new projections from the University of Virginia's Center for Politics show that Democrats are gaining a lot of ground in some of the key Senate races.
In Alaska, they project the race now leans Democratic, while South Carolina has slipped from safe Republican to likely Republican. As for the U.S. Senate race in Texas, we are told Republican nominee Ken Paxton will be in attendance when President Trump visits a rally in San Antonio in the day ahead. CNN's Ed Lavandera has more from Texas.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ED LAVANDERA, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It wasn't easy to spot Ken Paxton in the crowd when President Donald Trump campaigned in Texas last week.
TRUMP: Is he here, by the way? Oh, there he is. Good. I didn't even know he was here.
LAVANDERA (voice-over): But there he was just offstage as Trump came to rally voters to support the Republican Senate candidate locked in a close race in a state that hasn't elected a Democrat to statewide office in more than 30 years.
TRUMP: Ken Paxton was at my side more than anybody, and I have to always remember that because he could be a pain in the ass sometimes, I'll be honest.
LAVANDERA (voice-over): The latest pain comes from recordings obtained by the New York Times and Politico, where Paxton told a group of GOP donors that he has never felt having, quote, less control over the campaign because it's all coming from D.C. and adding, I don't control the message or what we're doing.
A Paxton spokesperson told Politico, quote, campaigns don't coordinate with super PACs. And that's obviously what AG Paxton was referring to. But an audio obtained detained by the New York Times, Paxton also said Trump's midterm Republican convention event in Texas hurt him.
KEN PAXTON, TEXAS SENATE CANDIDATE: So to be honest with you, when we did that in convention, it dropped our numbers. Everybody's numbers dropped. Right now, yes, not good.
LAVANDERA (voice-over): The Paxton campaign called the leaked audio, quote, manipulated nonsense. With Republicans fearing the idea of losing a Texas Senate seat, campaign money has been pouring into the state to help Paxton.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Stand up for families.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Texas needs Ken Paxton.
LAVANDERA (voice-over): According to a CNN analysis of ad impact data, Republicans have spent more than $150 million on advertising so far. And another $38 million is planned before election day. That's about six times more than what Democrats are set to spend in the closing weeks as they hammer away at Paxton's checkered political career.
Impeached by Texas House Republicans on charges of bribery and abuse of power, he was acquitted by Texas Senate Republicans and remains the attorney general. But as the election looms closer, Paxton is getting the support of his estranged wife, who is divorcing him on, quote, biblical grounds for allegedly having an affair.
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ANGELA PAXTON, TEXAS STATE SENATOR: Let's talk about the elephant in the room.
LAVANDERA (voice-over): Angela Paxton, who is a state senator, doesn't mention Paxton by name in this ad, but says she's voting for the Republican ticket.
PAXTON: It's not as much about the individual players on the team. It's about getting the whole team across the finish line.
LAVANDERA (voice-over): And State Representative Jeff Leach, one of the Texas Republican lawmakers who led the impeachment efforts against Paxton, gave him a very public show of support at a recent campaign event.
JEFF LEACH, TEXAS STATE REPRESENTATIVE: From the great state of Texas out Attorney general, Ken Paxton.
DAN COGDELL, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: In my view, respectfully, I think Ken has lost sight of his core mission, which is to represent the people of Texas.
LAVANDERA (voice-over): Dan Cogdell was one of the lawyers who represented Ken Paxton in the impeachment trial, and he's endorsing the Democrat in the race, James Talarico.
LAVANDERA: Why did you do that? COGDELL: I think Ken is MAGA, MAGA, MAGA, Trump, Trump, Trump. And
Texas has a lot of problems that the Republicans don't seem to want to address.
LAVANDERA: Do you think James Talarico has a legitimate shot at winning?
COGDELL: I think he's got a real shot. Republicans are worried, and they should be.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MICHAELSON: I've been on the road. Next week, CNN's Erin Burnett will host a town hall with James Talarico, the Democrat trying to flip the Texas Senate seat. Don't miss it. Wednesday, October 14th at 8:00 p.m. Eastern, 5:00 Pacific. We tried to do a debate, but Ken Paxton hasn't agreed to any of those.
Our political panel is back. Elisha Krauss, a conservative commentator and op-ed writer at the Washington examiner, and Brian Tyler Cohen, host of the no Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen podcast and author of the "Day After How to Wield Power in a Post Trump World." Welcome back, both of you.
All right, so as the Republican here, what's the case for Ken? Would you be voting for Ken Paxton if you lived in Texas?
ELISHA KRAUSS, CONSERVATIVE COMMENTATOR: I would be holding my nose and voting. It's like the lesser of two evils. It's kind of how I feel about the two horrible Dems here running for mayor in Los Angeles. But that's not the race we're talking about.
MICHAELSON: Yes.
KRAUSS: I was for the impeachment of Paxton. I was for a much better candidate, you know, running and against him, and had hoped that he would make it through.
MICHAELSON: John Cornyn.
KRAUSS: John Cornyn for some reason. Sometimes Democrats have the same problem. They choose the craziest of the two, and it turns out that it doesn't do that well for us in a general election.
But I would implore the voters of Texas, to look at, you know, Paxton's record, his political record, not his personal one, and what Talarico has done and is saying that he's going to do, because I really don't think that he is aligned with most voters in Texas specifically when it comes to his very blasphemous religious statements.
MICHAELSON: The case for Talarico.
BRIAN TYLER COHEN, HOST, "NO LIE WITH BRIAN TYLER COHEN" PODCAST: I mean, it is quite a leap to say somebody who -- to call somebody who went to seminary school blasphemous. And yet Ken Paxton, who is in the midst of a divorce for having an affair --
KRAUSS: She (INAUDIBLE) non-binary.
COHEN: For having an affair, for being impeached for bribery.
KRAUSS: Not excusing the guy.
COHEN: This guy -- this guy has probably the most amoral character of any candidate running in the entire country. Look, we are at a moment where Americans, Texans, absolutely, but Americans writ large are absolutely sick and tired of the rampant corruption that we've been dealing with.
We see it from the very top where Donald Trump is just swimming, drowning in it. Don Jr. is getting six, you know, multiple billion dollar military defense contracts. But when you have somebody like Ken Paxton, where even his own party in the Texas state House voted 121 to 23 to impeach the guy, there are viral ads from James Talarico because Ken Paxton couldn't not steal a pen. I mean, this guy just has the absolute bargain basement character that any human being could possibly have.
And so I think people are just sick of it. They want somebody who is going to recognize that you are there to serve Americans, that Americans aren't there to serve you in your position of power. Ken Paxton is not that guy. We've already been through this once with this Republican Party. People are wising up to the fact that everybody who Donald Trump puts a stamp of approval on is going to be in the exact same vein as Trump himself.
We tried it for two years. The country's worse off. Now it's time to try something different.
MICHAELSON: And yet, I mean, the Senate is a very partisan institution. It is a team sport there. If you do not get a majority, you don't get to gavel --
KRAUSS: Unless you're a Fetterman the Democrats try to throw you under the bus. It seems to be a team sport.
I think to Tyler's point though, I do love a good bargain basement. Fine, but I don't love a good bargain basement candidate like Paxton. And I'm not making excuses for his moral behavior. I am saying that the voters of Texas need to look at his record. And I think that Talarico is going to be radically progressive. I think that he has aligned himself with viewpoints that do not align with the average voter of Texas.
And I think that we're going to see what actually plays out. And I think that if Democrats really thought that they could clinch this in the bag, Barack Obama would not be going to Michigan to help El-Sayed. He would be going to Texas to make sure that he could bring Talarico over the --
COHEN: I would make the same argument for Donald Trump going to Texas. If Donald Trump actually thought Ken Paxton could bring this thing home, he wouldn't be in Texas.
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KRAUSS: I agree.
COHEN: They would have had a midterm convention.
KRAUS: Well, I mean, Paxton --
MICHAELSON: The difference is Michigan is a much more Democratic state than Texas is and that it may be more helpful Barack Obama there.
KRAUSS: Well, but it's also curious to know that they think that they need that help in Michigan because El-Sayed --
MICHAELSON: But Talarico is trying to make the point of being sort of independent. Right. That he's there for Texas. No, but that's the branding that having the Democratic may not be helpful to him, but maybe Barack Obama will end up there anyways. We'll see.
Thom Tillis, senator from North Carolina has a new book out. He is retiring. So now the big -- we'll see what happens there. It looks like Roy Cooper is going to get his seat, the Democrat.
His book is called "How to Lose Friends and Antagonize Presidents." And one of the things he writes is that he most regrets confirming Pete Hegseth as defense secretary. Thom Tillis is going to be here in a few days. Was on with Kaitlan Collins in Washington tonight. Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: You say Pete Hegseth is the biggest regret of your career. You admit that you should have stopped RFK Jr. from becoming health secretary. You say Tulsi Gabbard won't be challenging anyone for president of her local Mensa chapter. You say Christine Ohm's a dog murderer and that Howard Lutnick quote is nuttier than squirrel.
SEN. THOM TILLIS (R-NC): I stand by all that. What else you got?
COLLINS: Is there anyone good that you think Trump has hired?
TILLIS: Yes, I mean, the majority of people in the cabinet I support.
COLLINS: That's the majority of his cabinet in his first year.
TILLIS: No, it's not. These are the -- these people --
COLLINS: They've either left or been fired.
TILLIS: These are right. And incidentally, this person had seven Democrats vote for. But the point is I've -- we hired them, we made a decision to put them in there. I'm giving them their annual review. They didn't pass.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COHEN: Look, I, you know, we go from soldiers storming the beaches of Normandy as the profile encouraged to this, a Republican senator finally finding his tongue, his spine, only after he's lost reelection or of course, has written a book. Look, this is what we see every single time. These people -- these people are in lockstep with Donald Trump only until the moment they actually have to face the voters. And then suddenly they find some modicum of the spine and they want to run these ads pretending that they're independent. Byron Donald is taking Donald Trump off of his website.
It's a con. These people have -- have been absolutely attached to Donald Trump --
MICHAELSON: I mean Tillis in the last few years -- after Tillis said, I'm not running again, has called out Trump almost as much as anybody in the Senate.
KRAUSS: Also can we just -- can you name a --
COHEN: Well, I mean, after Donald Trump --
KRAUSS: -- Democratic senator that, you know, said anything bad about Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton or Kamala Harris or Joe Biden? Like, at least people on the right side of the aisle are willing to have an introspective, you know, fifth quarterback.
COHEN: We no career in politics.
KRAUSS: That's not true at all.
COHEN: Thomas Massie out of -- out of -- out of the House. Thom Tillis out of --
KRAUSS: We have Speaker Johnson who spoken up against President Trump. He have members of his own cabinet who have said, you know, I don't agree with the president on this. I would argue that Marco Rubio is one of the best picks that he's made.
COHEN: What did Marco say against Donald Trump?
KRAUSS: Marco Rubio has advocated for very different things than even Vice President Vance and Donald Trump --
COHEN: Like what? Like what?
KRAUSS: -- has when it comes to --
COHEN: Give an example.
KRAUSS: -- the Middle East and other -- Cuba, Venezuela, Middle East --
COHEN: These people all advocating for the wars.
KRAUSS: -- stuff on Ukraine. He has been consistent this entire time. I guarantee you I can name more politicians and talking heads on the right who will go against and have gone against Donald Trump, whether currently or post office. I don't think that you can name a Democrat that has done that. About anybody on the left.
COHEN: Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin were famously thorns in the side of every single Democrat. That's what --
KRAUSS: And they were thrown under the bus for it. Just like they're going to do with John Fetterman. You guys lambast them for speaking out and being individualistic. Instead of like just towing the party.
COHEN: Threw them under the bus. They lost in the general -- they lost in their general election. Joe Manchin --
KRAUSS: Talking about like how you're going to --
MICHAELSON: She didn't end up running for election because it was --
KRAUSS: He knew that the Democrats were coming for him.
COHEN: The Democrats weren't -- the Democrats were not going to primary Joe Manchin.
KRAUSS: The exact same with Kyrsten Sinema. I know people on the ground --
COHEN: There is no -- there are no -- there are no current -- all of the people who voted for Trump's impeachment have slowly been excommunicated from the party. Now we've got Thom Tillis and Thomas Massie, who've also been executed.
KRAUSS: And nobody has excommunicated them.
COHEN: Thomas Massie didn't even --
KRAUSS: There are people that are willing to sit down with them and have a conversation and a dialogue.
COHEN: Did Donald Trump endorse Thomas?
KRAUSS: I was Never Trump in 2016, and I haven't been excommunicated from the party. I'm an actual delegate for the state of California. So I think that it is very clear that the Republicans are more willing to have debate and dialogue and discussion and even disagreement with our own side than Democrats have ever been able to the entire --
(CROSSTALK)
MICHAELSON: Isn't not true -- you're right that Democrats don't like people that speak out against him. And you see that with John Fetterman. But for the Republicans that have spoken out against Donald Trump, don't all of them end up like this? I mean, who has ended up in --
KRAUSS: All of them end up like this. JD Vance spoke up against Donald Trump and then he became the guy's vice president of the United States. Ted Cruz is his right hand man.
[01:15:00]
Marco Rubio, Scott Walker, everybody that has once been a naysayer of Trump, I think has come to his side and been able to discuss and debate with him --
COHEN: Proving that the --
KRAUSS: -- and not just give him a bended knee --
COHEN: Proving that the only way to survive in this MAGA Republican Party is to become a groveling sycophant for Donald Trump.
KRAUSS: It is not a groveling sympathetic.
COHEN: it is the only long steady principle of this party has.
KRAUSS: Constituency and help the United States of America move forward.
COHEN: How does this help the United States? We have -- we have higher inflation.
MICHAELSON: We got to wrap up.
COHEN: We have higher inflation. We have record high gas prices. We have an Iran war. We have -- we have higher costs on everything. We have the Epstein files that haven't been released. All of these things are happening right now.
MICHAELSON: Last point Elisha.
KRAUSS: Last point is I think the Republicans are going to have to learn a hard lesson during this midterm. And I think going forward, we need to stop talking and highlighting Donald Trump on the left and the right and focus on what's best for the American people, which I agree is, or I believe is the power of the individual. Freedom, liberty to pursue actually their American dream and get government out of the way. And the Democrats are not going to be the party that does that for us.
MICHAELSON: We have to leave it there. It's fun having both of you guys together. Brian, Elisha, thank you so much.
Still to come, how the Trump administration is responding to the mysterious death of a Russian plague lab worker. What we know so far, ahead.
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MICHAELSON: Protesters in France are accusing the government of ordering police to crack down on student led demonstrations. More than 400 people were detained during Tuesday's nationwide protests, which organizers say drew 450,000 people. Teachers, parents, union members join calls to protest teacher shortages, overcrowded classrooms and a lack of resources. CNN's Melissa Bell is in the streets of Paris.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MELISSA BELL, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): High schoolers in France angrier than ever and determined finally to be heard after more than two weeks of snowballing protests over school conditions, wounding hundreds of policemen and women teachers and high schoolers in scenes of unusual violence.
Among those wounded, a teenager who lost his hand after picking up a crowd dispersal grenade and another who lost the use of his eye. More than 6,000 people have been taken into custody since the movement began, most of them minors, with much of the students anger now directed at what they describe as police repression.
MANES NADEL, FORMER PRESIDENT, UNION SYNDICALE LYCEENNE The strategy of the government since the beginning, without giving any answer, any political answer, any real discussion to the social movement. They are just creating violence.
BELL (voice-over): The difference this Tuesday, public sector unions joining the students ahead of marches across the country saying that they are there to protect them. Lines of nurses, teachers and firemen positioned in front of the kids, barricades. And a new strategy from the police.
LAURENT NUNEZ, FRENCH INTERIOR MINISTER (through translator): When there is a peaceful protest, the internal security forces do not intervene. To be clear, law enforcement intervenes when there is a threat to property or people or damage to public spaces or the interior of establishments.
BELL (voice-over): For more than two weeks, the students have been demanding more funding, sharing the state of their classrooms on social media no longer fit, they say, to study in. The answer from authorities has only incensed them further.
OCTAVE MARTY, HIGH SCHOOL STUDENT: We are young enough to be kicked, to be gassed, but we are not old enough to be listen. So that's -- that's pretty crazy.
BELL: The problem for the government, and it's in the process of trying to get closer to balancing its books for 2027 and to spend less, if only to calm markets that are jittery about France's financial outlook.
BELL (voice-over): And for now, there is no sign of the movement dying down, with many grownups here now taking the side of the kids. Melissa Bell, CNN, Paris.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MICHAELSON: President Trump says he will speak with Russian President Vladimir Putin, quote, very soon about the death of a researcher in a Russian plague lab. Secretary of State Marco Rubio says the U.S. is monitoring the situation hour by hour. He's urging Russia to share more information, try to help the rest of the world. CNN's Fred Pleitgen has the latest on what Kremlin officials have actually disclosed so far.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, the Russian officials keep saying that they have the situation under control. In fact, the governor of that region once again said the situation is under control and that things are completely normal in that town where this happened, the town of Shelekhov.
But at the same time, the Russians do still have some very strong quarantine measures that are in place for the hospitals in that region and specifically, of course, for the hospital where that lab technician, that female lab technician died of what the Russians say was pneumonia of an unknown origin. CNN actually managed to speak to a couple of in that place, including to one patient at a maternity ward that is under lockdown.
And she said that first of all, her relatives were not allowed inside the maternity ward. And at the same time that there were indeed these screenings, these questionnaires that people had to fill out asking them about infectious diseases, including the plague. They also got health screenings as well and were asked to wear masks inside that maternity ward.
Now can the Kremlin has been getting questions about this and there is a regular scheduled call with the spokesman for the Kremlin, Dmitry Peskov, every day. And he was asked about this once again today. And he said that all updates about this would only come from Russia's Agency for Infectious Diseases, Rospotrebnadzor.
[01:25:02]
But so far there has been fairly little information coming from that agency. Of course, we just heard Secretary of State Marco Rubio asking the Russians for more information and saying that was very important. One of the other things that came out today was actually a press release from the European Agency for Disease Control. And they actually spoke of, when speaking about this case of the lab technician, a possible case, suspected case of mnemonic plague. But they also say that right now the information coming out of Russia is very scarce.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MICHAELSON: Fred Pleitgen for us there. Fred, thank you.
Turning now to Israel, where memorials are taking place right now across the country to mark the third anniversary of the October 7 Hamas attack. You're looking at live pictures right now at a memorial at the Nova festival site. It's almost 8:30 in the morning there on October 7th. That is the location where more than 370 people were killed and 40 others -- 44 others taken hostage back in 2023. On Tuesday, a U.N. event marking the attack's anniversary. The U.S.
ambassador to the U.N. pledged October 7th can never, ever happen again.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MIKE WALTZ, U.S. AMBASSADOR TO UNITED NATION: Look, folks, October 7th completely and I think irreversibly has backfired on Iran and all of their terrorist proxies. Peace as possible. America will stand with the Jewish people. The terrorists are on their back foot. Be strong, be resilient, be wise and know that what you're doing is right. Stand with your moral compass and know that this administration of the United States of America stands with you.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MICHAELSON: The anniversary of the attack comes at a major inflection point for Israel and its prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. In less than three weeks, Israel will hold a national election which marks the country's first time voting since the 2023 Hamas attack. Prime Minister Netanyahu has faced a lot of scrutiny in those three years over the attacks.
Recent reports allege that the United Arab Emirates and Egypt had both warned Netanyahu of a major Hamas operation just days before the attack happened on October 7th.
Next on The Story Is, the investigation intensifies into the alleged gang rape of a Cornell University student. Newly released audio reveals a phone call between Jane Doe and one of the men she accuses of sexual assault.
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ELEX MICHAELSON, CNN ANCHOR: ABC News has obtained new audio from a 2024 phone call between Jane Doe and a Cornell University fraternity member, who she claims took part in allegedly gangraping her. This comes as the New York attorney general's office says it is close to naming an outside legal team to handle the investigation into the allegations.
Meanwhile, the university has launched its own inquiry into how the incident was handled by the administration, as well as how the school responds to sexual assault claims more broadly.
CNN's Gloria Pazmino has more.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
GLORIA PAZMINO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Cornell's board of trustees hiring former U.S. Deputy attorney general Sally Yates to lead an independent review of how the school responded to sexual assault allegations by Jane Doe in October 2024.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Kind of holding the administration accountable because there's a lot of discussion about, ok, so what do we do now?
PAZMINO: This as students gathered in a town hall to voice their frustration over what they say is a lack of response by the administration.
The outrage continues to grow as we are hearing more secret recordings between Jane Doe and one of the Chi Phi fraternity members.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm so sorry about all the backlash you're getting from this, by the way.
PAZMINO: About three weeks after the alleged incident, Jane Doe recorded a call with a fraternity member who she says was one of the men who snorted ketamine off her body and assaulted her at the Chi Phi house, according to ABC News.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, dude, I'm so sorry. No, I -- like I feel so bad for you, dude.
PAZMINO: ABC says Jane Doe then told a fraternity member, "I was completely and totally intoxicated and then given multiple sedatives. And then I was surrounded by upwards of 8 to 10 men. This is classified as a gang rape."
That's when the fraternity member's tone changes, ABC reported.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why? What's -- can I can I ask, like, what's -- what's the purpose for why you decided to call me?
PAZMINO: According to ABC, that fraternity member was one of two students who was suspended. All this as Cornell faculty is considering a vote of "no confidence" against the administration at their faculty senate meeting in the coming weeks.
PAUL ORTIZ, CORNELL FACULTY SENATE MEMBER: Faculty have been approached by hundreds of students, alumni, staff who are demanding that we do something. They want a resolution. They want a change now.
Many women in this campus do not feel safe walking even during the daylight at Cornell University.
PAZMINO: And accountability and action is what many Cornell University students are asking for. They gathered for a student town hall on Tuesday, where they shared ideas, shared stories, and came up with strategies to try and pressure the university administration to do more.
[01:34:46]
PAZMINO: They see the issue of sexual assault as a campus wide issue, not just Jane Doe's story. On Wednesday, they are asking the students to join a sit-in. And they are recommending that students do not participate in the local Cornell economy. They see it as a way to pressure the administration to do more.
Gloria Pazmino, CNN, Ithaca, New York. (END VIDEOTAPE)
MICHAELSON: Gloria. Thank you.
A tropical depression is forming in the U.S. Gulf region. It is forecast to become a tropical storm soon then strengthen into the first hurricane of the Atlantic season later this week. Very late for the first hurricane.
Here's a look at the storm in real time. Right now it is called Depression 9. It's about 600 miles southwest of the Louisiana coast. There are several possible scenarios in the forecast. However the storm plays out, the southern Gulf states will likely face the heaviest rain and wind.
On the other side of the country, here in the U.S., record-breaking heat is scorching us in southern California, high temperatures reach all-time highs over the weekend.
Much of the area will remain under an extreme heat warning through Thursday. Things are expected to cool off by Friday and into the weekend.
Now to Argentina. Soccer legend Lionel Messi bid an emotional farewell to that country in his final match playing with the national team. He ended his career on a high note with Argentina winning three nil in an international friendly against Benin.
Despite a slow first half and some narrow misses, Messi walked away with a penalty kick goal and two assists.
Joining me now to discuss is Max Bretos. Play by play announcer for Major League Soccer on Apple TV and host on Sirius XM as well. Max, welcome back to THE STORY IS.
MAX BRETOS, ANNOUNCER FOR MAJOR LEAGUE SOCCER, APPLE TV: It feels like it's been too long, Elex. But again, soccer never sleeps. So obviously some big stories circulating and it's good to be back with you.
MICHAELSON: Yes. I mean, you were with us almost every night during the World Cup. We talked so much about Lionel Messi. We talked about his potential retirement from the World Cup at that stage. Now we're talking about the end of his career with the Argentinean team overall.
Paint us a picture of this day. What happened and the reaction from the fans.
BRETOS: Well, I will preface this by saying the good news that we'll get to see Lionel Messi continue to play with Inter-Miami in Major League Soccer as you can see on Apple TV.
And he's been great for this league.
(CROSSTALKING)
BRETOS: He has been great for the sport in this country. But now you see what he's done for Argentina.
And this was a graceful exit. 21 years spent representing Argentina. He won a World Cup as he did in Qatar. They reached two World Cup finals. They won two Copa Americas.
He is a global sensation. He has fans. You go all over the world. You see people wearing Messi shirts, cheering for Argentina.
Maybe it could have ended. It was 85,000 at the Estadio Monumental, which is just a massive venue there. The whole country stopped. Everyone who was anyone got back into Argentina to be part of this.
Benin is going to be the topic of a trivia question one day. Who was the last country? I think a lot of people would have loved to see him play against France or Spain or Portugal, but this is the way it fell. You saw the Benin players, they were taking photos.
What was interesting afterwards, and this is such a personal thing for Argentines, Messi, after the game, said to the players that were going to fill his void on that national team, and I think they're going to still be very great for years to come because they have so much talent.
He goes, the rest of the world, they did -- they didn't want us to win. So you've got to carry that weight. Almost us against the world, which I think we saw that in the last World Cup.
So, we will see. Argentina were kind of the villains, but, that was what made them so intriguing too. And what allowed them to make the World Cup final.
MICHAELSON: Is he the greatest of all time? Is he the GOAT?
BRETOS: I think when you look at sheer numbers and the time that he's been able to play for this long, it's hard to argue it. The great ones, Pele had a great run. Diego Maradona's time was very short.
And then the graceful exit here because Cristiano Ronaldo is having a fight with the new Portuguese boss. He wants to stay with Portugal. The Portuguese coach wants him to play, but under his rules. So that's not ending in the best light.
I think this perfect circle and how he ended it and what he did in this last World Cup with that Argentine team, they should have never made a final and they got it.
I mean, I don't like to get too much into the greatest of all time debates, but if I had to give you an answer and I think most people would, it has to be Messi when you look at the entire body of work.
MICHAELSON: It is very hard to walk away in a good way.
BRETOS: Oh, yes.
MICHAELSON: And we've seen in sports and he clearly is doing that. Meanwhile, you were just wrapped up on the radio on Sirius XM doing a
show about international soccer tonight, United States versus Canada. How did those two teams look?
BRETOS: Well, they're not going to hang a video of this game in the Louvre. It had like 60 fouls. There were several yellows. It was a hot mess.
[01:39:48]
BRETOS: But the U.S. wins so they had an -- since the World Cup, they had an international break. It's usually two games and about ten days. This was like two and a half weeks and four games.
So it was a wagon of a window. And the U.S. beat Peru. They beat Chile. They beat Mexico. And that was their best win. And then they win this.
It wasn't pretty. But the fact this team, which had 13 debutants, several players under the age of 19 came out and did this was a sign that the future is in very good hands.
It's the beginning of a new World Cup cycle, Elex, and this is the group of players that you hope will lead. And if they -- not lead, but take them to that next cycle.
And if that's part of the job, the other part is pushing the status quo -- Christian Pulisic and Polo Balogun. And I think that's the most exciting part. Bringing more players into this, which Mauricio Pochettino has decided to do.
It's a really exciting development and a lot of these guys play in Major League Soccer. And it shows that we are developing good young players in this country.
MICHAELSON: Max, we got about 30 seconds left. We talked so much during the World Cup about how it would change soccer in the United States. Now that we've had a little bit of time, are you seeing evidence of that?
BRETOS: I don't know -- I don't know if I'm seeing so much evidence, Elex, but I don't think it would be realistic to say that we flick a switch and everyone's into it.
Attendance is up in Major League Soccer. I think there's more interest in U.S. soccer as well. It has to compete with so many other sports.
But I'll tell you this, the next generation of kids that I just touched on, I think that's the secret sauce.
MICHAELSON: Yes.
BRETOS: And if that generation who idolized the one before it can inspire others, when we get better at soccer, which I think, and we certainly will, that's going to be the difference.
You've got to be patient. But it's going -- I -- the signs are there that it's going to happen.
MICHAELSON: Max Bretos, thank you so much.
Thanks for watching us. Our international viewers "WORLD SPORT" is next. I'll be back in North America with Brian Stelter after this.
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MICHAELSON: A live picture from our studio window. The iconic Warner Brothers Tower in Burbank, California lit up. It was repainted today. It now says "A Skydance Company" on it.
That same is true for the water tower on the Paramount Pictures lot, as both companies have now officially become Skydance.
The merger unites two of the five biggest Hollywood studios, dozens of TV channels and two of the biggest U.S. TV news divisions, CNN and CBS News.
Skydance says that they plan to use technology to transform the entertainment industry, reaching more than 200 million streaming subscribers around the world.
Joining us now from New York is CNN's chief media analyst, Brian Stelter. So we saw the new bosses in both an interview with Anderson Cooper as part of a company-wide town hall, did a press conference. What's the main thing that we learned?
BRIAN STELTER, CNN CHIEF MEDIA ANALYST: Well, look, this company is forming in choppy waters, stormy seas. But the message on Tuesday was we're not trying to rock the boat, at least when it comes to the news divisions, CNN and CBS News.
The message from David Ellison, both in that employee town hall and later at a press conference, was about ensuring editorial independence at this network as well as at CBS News.
You know, this merger has happened after so many months of controversies. After all those news stories about the Ellisons' ties to President Trump, after Trump himself said it was imperative that CNN be sold, and he praised the Ellisons at length after there were numerous scandals at CBS News under Barry Weiss. There have been so many headlines, so much bad press, frankly, for months relating to this merger.
And Ellison acknowledged that at these events on Tuesday. He said it's been a bruising period, but now he's through it. The merger has actually taken effect and he can move forward.
He's done that by announcing a leadership team. He's keeping Mark Thompson, the head of CNN, in place; also keeping Barry Weiss in place as editor-in-chief of CBS News.
Those news divisions will be operating separately for the time being, and that has certainly been something that has caused some relief among journalists at both of those news outlets.
But it's clear, Elex, there will be synergies. That's code, of course, for cost-cutting. There will be layoffs. There will be change down the road. None of that coming quite yet, however.
This is what David Ellison said when he was asked at that press conference what he would say and how he was going to try to win over some of the opponents of the merger.
He said, quote, "We are going to make sure that CNN and CBS News are completely editorially-independent. We're going to build a streaming service that can compete with anybody. And I think that when we actually follow through on all of those promises, I believe it will rebuild trust."
That's one of the challenges for Ellison going forward. The merger was a struggle for many months, but now it's all been finalized and now the really hard work starts.
MICHAELSON: Yes. Well, and you talked about the impact on news. Perhaps the biggest part of this new company, though, is an entertainment company.
STELTER: Yes. Definitely.
MICHAELSON: We're just feet away from the Warner Brothers lot. You know, combining Warner Brothers and Paramount. So many different products that so many of our viewers like and have watched for so many years. What does this mean for that aspect?
STELTER: Right. The kind of world now where Harry Potter and Spongebob are under the same roof, where Nickelodeon and The Food Network, MTV and Discovery Channel -- all these channels, all these studios, all these streaming services coming together.
And Skydance did say today that over time, it will unify its various streaming services under one service. In the time being, probably we'll see some bundling will happen before it becomes all in one.
But it is very clear that Skydance believes it has to scale up and be able to compete with Disney, with Netflix, with Google, with Amazon. You know, those are the giants that are really reshaping media.
Skydance wants to insert itself into that group of media giants and says it now has the scale to do so.
It also has a tremendous amount of debt, though. This is an exceptionally leveraged company, about $80 billion in debt. So Wall Street analysts are really watching this with skepticism, wondering if Ellison and his team can find enough of those cost savings in order to start to pay down the debt.
That's going to be the balancing act here. Ellison is talking about investing in content, making great movies.
[01:49:45] STELTER: That's what folks on the lot there at Burbank, that's what they want to hear. But he also is going to have to figure out a way to make the math work.
MICHAELSON: And it's going to be interesting. Now, the assumption is that HBO Max and Paramount+ eventually will be one super app that is able to compete with a Disney Plus and Hulu and Netflix and all the rest of it.
So one of the many changes that are coming in the months and years ahead.
Brian Stelter, big day. We've been following this with you every step of the way and history in the -- in the media industry today.
Thanks so much for being with us.
STELTER: Thanks.
Up next, an Air Canada pilot asks if everything's ok after feeling a shudder after landing at LAX. The incident the FAA is investigating here in Los Angeles next.
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MICHAELSON: Here's a look at the stories we are tracking in the day ahead.
The Federal Aviation Administration is investigating after a wing of a Delta plane hit the tail of an Air Canada jet at Los Angeles International Airport. The planes are being inspected.
Photos posted on social media show minor damage. Almost 300 people were aboard Delta Flight 7 which was taxiing for takeoff. No injuries have been reported.
Vice President J.D. Vance says a $54 billion deal between the U.S. and South Korea will get done, despite conflicting messages about its status. The vice president making those comments during a trip to Alaska.
President Trump touted the deal last week as a way for South Korea to get lower tariffs. South Korea's minister of trade said his country had not committed to the deal.
President Trump says work on the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool is totally complete, and it could be refilled this week. The president blamed vandals back in June after the liner started to deteriorate and the water turned green.
But the Justice Department pointed to hasty and botched work by the contractor. The $14 million renovation was initially done as part of the nation's 250th birthday celebration. Tomorrow on THE STORY IS, we've got a big one, U.S. Senator Alex
Padilla will join us live on set. And on our panel, former California Governor Gray Davis and longtime GOP strategist Mike Murphy. Plus a Democratic candidate who could change the tide in Arkansas.
The news continues on CNN. I'll see you back here tomorrow.
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