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American Women Are World Cup Champions For The Fourth Time In A Row; California Remains On Edge Following Two Major Earthquakes And Thousands Of Aftershocks; The President Says America Will No Longer Deal With The U.K. Ambassador To The U.S. Aired 2:30-3p ET

Aired July 8, 2019 - 14:30   ET

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


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BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: Now, to the American women who are World Cup Champions for the fourth time in a row -- four. They will soon be returning to the United States from France. They will see the ratings just released today are just another way the U.S. women's national team has outperformed the U.S. men. I'm talking TV ratings.

The women's final match on Sunday in which they beat the Netherlands saw 20 percent higher ratings compared to the men's 2018 World Cup finals, which the American men failed to reach.

Here are a couple other ways the U.S. women broke new ground at the World Cup over in France -- most goals scored in a single game, fastest four goals made ever. Carli Lloyd, only player to score in six consecutive matches, and the U.S. is now the only team in history to have 12 straight wins in a Women's World Cup play.

Let's just start there. Kavitha Davidson is sports business reporter at "The Athletics." So Kavitha, thank you so much for coming on.

KAVITHA DAVIDSON, SPORTS BUSINESS REPORTER, "THE ATHLETIC": Thank you.

BALDWIN: And just a sheer eyeballs on the screen on that match yesterday, what does that tell you about the interest in the sport of these women?

DAVIDSON: Well, you know, you kind of hear a common refrain, nobody cares about women's sports. And clearly, we've proven them wrong. I think the overnight rating was a 10.0, which is incredible.

BALDWIN: Yes.

DAVIDSON: You know, four years ago, it was the most watched. The Women's World Cup final was the most watched soccer match ever in the history of the United States.

So it shows that there's momentum there, there's interest there. And it's not just, you know, a niche amount of women's sports fans who are watching these matches. BALDWIN: One part of the story is, of course, the President and the

back and forth and he's had via Twitter, you know, Megan Rapinoe and some of the ladies. He's apparently reversing his decision to have them come. He tweeted on June 26th, after star player Megan Rapinoe said at the time that she would not visit the -- I think "White House" was essentially her quote, and then came this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

QUESTION: Will you invite the women's team to the White House, the soccer team?

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT OF UNITED STATES: I haven't really thought about it. We will look at that, certainly.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has invited the team to the U.S. Capitol. So if, Kavitha, there is some other invitation extended to these ladies from the White House, do you think the team would go?

DAVIDSON: I really don't think there's any chance of this team visiting the White House. From the back and forth, as you said, with Rapinoe, to the way that, you know, they feel like they've been slighted and they've been treated by the President, by some of, you know, his senior officials. I don't see them actually stepping foot in the White House.

BALDWIN: Let's talk about this lawsuit, right? I mean, how extraordinary -- was it watching the game yesterday and hearing fans chant "Equal pay," right, pay equity.

The FIFA President announced a proposal to invest $1 billion in the women's game over the next four years and double the prize money at the Women's World Cup in 2023. But Megan Rapinoe said before Sunday's match, quote, "We should double it now and use that number to double it or quadruple it for the next time. That's what I mean when we talk about, do we feel respected?" Simple question. Why don't they just pay the ladies more damn money?

DAVIDSON: Well, I mean, that's really kind of what it comes down to is the investment and the respect. It's not just about equal pay, it's about equal treatment. It's about equal travel conditions. It's about equal training conditions, all kinds of things --

BALDWIN: What's holding them back?

DAVIDSON: So mostly, you know, the argument that you hear is that the women's game doesn't generate as much revenue. And that's actually very true when you look at FIFA.

The Women's World Cup does not generate as much revenue as the Men's World Cup. If you look at U.S. soccer, which is what the lawsuit is against the U.S. Soccer Federation, the U.S. women's national team generates about $20 million more in revenue than the men's team. And it doesn't really work in the same proportionality when it comes to promotion, when it comes to coverage. And that's really also where you see the double-edged sword, is that you have the women who are obviously winning more, and they're not being promoted as much.

So obviously, they're not going to generate as much revenue, except that they are in the United States.

BALDWIN: Except that they are in the United States. But it's more than money. Can you explain that in terms of travel and how they're playing and how they're being treated?

DAVIDSON: Yes. So, I'll give you two really good examples about how this kind of comes back to bite the women. Yesterday, obviously, the Women's World Cup was around 11:00 a.m. Eastern Time. FIFA also scheduled two other championship matches for the same day, including the Gold Cup Final, it was at 9:00 p.m. Eastern. Now, that was U.S. men against Mexico.

So if you're a soccer fan, and you have to be watching soccer for 12 to 14 hours throughout the day, this is something that the men have never had to deal with, with their World Cup. They've never had scheduling conflicts like that. So that's one.

Two, and this gets a little bit complicated, but the way that broadcast and sponsorship deals are negotiated is that they're negotiated with the men and the women together, which also means that it's hard to separate just how much the women are generating on their own. But what that also means is that because of the four-year World Cup cycle, the men was last year and will be in 2022, the women on 2019 and 2023.

[14:35:09] DAVIDSON: The men have four years of promotion to work out those ad revenue and those deals and the women only have one.

BALDWIN: Okay, Kavitha, thank you very much. Again, we're watching and waiting for them to land in New York this afternoon. We're at the airport waiting for them.

Some Californians, meantime, are wondering and waiting, is it safe enough to sleep in their homes again or is the Big One closer than ever? We'll talk to a seismologist live in Los Angeles about what she would say to some frightened families.

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[14:40:10] BALDWIN: California remains on edge following two major earthquakes and thousands of aftershocks. A powerful 7.1 magnitude earthquake rocked Southern California late on Friday and that followed that 6.4 quake that we talked about on the Fourth of July.

Adding to the jitters, about 5, 000 aftershocks have followed that is one roughly every minute. The constant rumbling, a troubling reminder for people in Southern California that the much feared Big One could hit it anytime.

Morgan Page has a Doctorate in Physics and works at the U.S. Geological Survey where she studies earthquakes and aftershocks, so Morgan thank you so much for coming on.

And we were on TV live through that first quake and I spoke to several people live as they were feeling those aftershocks. And I know they are wondering, you know, when could be the next Big One? What's the answer to that? Do you even know what the chances and what would what that would look like?

MORGAN PAGE, RESEARCH GEOPHYSICIST, U.S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY: Well, currently there's about a one percent chance that we're going to have a large earthquake of magnitude 7 or greater in the coming month. So every day that goes by that we don't have a large aftershock, those probabilities will continue to drop. So that'll be good news if no big aftershocks occur.

It's very likely that we could see more moderate sized aftershocks. There's about a 13 percent chance we're going to see magnitude 6 aftershocks, which would be damaging locally in the next month. But again, we just need to wait and the longer we go without having a damaging aftershock, the more those probabilities will drop with time.

BALDWIN: You know, the big comparison through these last few quakes has been Northridge, right, in 1994 that left that awful path of death and destruction and more than 10,000 aftershocks followed. How long can people in this part of the country expect these aftershocks to continue?

PAGE: The aftershock sequence is going to continue for months to years.

BALDWIN: Months to years.

PAGE: Yes, months to years, but it'll continue to drop. So in general, the way aftershocks work is you get about half as many aftershocks the second day after the event as the first day. And then the third day out, you get about a third as many and the fourth day out about a fourth as many. So every day they drop, but then the rate at which they drop decreases with time. So you have this long tail, or even years out you occasionally can get a moderate or damaging aftershock.

BALDWIN: And so since you're in the field, this is what you study, right, each and every day, how has earthquake detection technology evolved, helped you regarding early warning systems and in predicting this stuff?

PAGE: Well, so we have a beta early warning system here in California that send out an alert eight seconds after the event. So within eight seconds of this event initiating, we knew there was an earthquake happening that gave about 40 seconds of warning time for LA.

Now as you may have heard, that's a separate issue from the earthquake early warning app that the City of LA put out, which is only -- it was set at the time to only release alerts to cell phone users if it was damaging ground shaking. We didn't have damaging levels of ground shake in LA, which is why people who had the cell phone app didn't get an alert. But the system did work as it was designed and my understanding is

that in future updates of the app, we're going to be lowering that threshold so that even if you will feel the earthquake and it won't be a damaging level of motion, we're planning to alert people.

BALDWIN: People will still be able to know. Morgan Page, thank you very much.

PAGE: Sure. Thank you.

BALDWIN: Just in to CNN. The President says America will no longer deal with the U.K. Ambassador to the U.S. after he called the President and I'm quoting, "inept, insecure, and incompetent."

Plus, a toddler found dead after falling from a cruise ship docked in Puerto Rico. We have just learned more about this little girl, the daughter of a police officer.

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[14:48:28] BALDWIN: The U.K. today says it is investigating who leaked memos written by the British Ambassador to the United States where he criticized President Trump calling him quote, "inept, incompetent and insecure."

President Trump was asked about the leak over the weekend and hit back at the Ambassador and now he is tweeting about him saying quote, "I don't know the Ambassador, but he is not liked or well thought of within the U.S. We will no longer deal with him."

CNN White House reporter Stephen Collinson is with me now. And Stephen, the President tweeting that the United States won't be dealing with the Ambassador after this. What does that mean?

STEPHEN COLLINSON, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: I think that's a very interesting tweet, Brooke, because it shows that the President has decided to escalate this into a confrontation between his administration and the outgoing administration of Prime Minister Theresa May.

I think the subtext of this tweet is clear. He's not just taking revenge on Ambassador Kim Darroch who was very unflattering in some cases, in his assessment of the President and his administration.

He is sending a message that Ambassadors that come to United States and want to deal with his administration should not make such assessments and should be much more kindly disposed towards the administration. And you know, clearly he's saying to the new British government, which will come in in a few weeks that a more sympathetic Ambassador is what is required if the relationship between the U.S. and the U.K. is not going to be damaged.

BALDWIN: How do you think -- how can it not be damaged? How will this affect the U.S.-U.K. special relationship?

[14:50:06] COLLINSON: In the short term, of course, it makes it much more difficult for the British Embassy and the Theresa May government to deal with President Donald Trump. But he also knows the political situation in Britain right now.

The Conservative Party of Theresa May is electing a new Prime Minister. The favorite for that race, which will end in a couple of weeks is Boris Johnson, the former Foreign Minister, who is a populist, Trumpian figure himself and he is likely to try and create a much closer relationship and the more sort of ideologically in-sync relationship with the Trump administration than Theresa May was able to despite her efforts.

So the President is clearly signaling that he would like an Ambassador that shares his view of the world and this is going to really sort of play into this big debate that's happening back in the U.K. over why this was leaked.

I don't there is much actually surprising in these cables. Much of it is recognizable from U.S. media reports about the chaos at the beginning of the Trump administration. The question is why was it leaked? And is there somebody in the U.K. A, that wanted to damage Kim Darroch, the current Ambassador who's not a hard line, pro-Brexit figure. He is a career diplomat, and were people in London, perhaps people inside the incoming British government also trying to send a message to the Trump administration that they will, you know, align British policy much more closely to the Trump ideology.

BALDWIN: All great questions. Stephen Collinson, appreciate you very much. Thank you for your insight. We do have breaking news out of a New York courtroom. A judge decides whether a multimillionaire accused of sex trafficking should be released on bail. This as we're hearing about disturbing new evidence, new photographs.

And a couple big 2020 headlines for you today as well, Senator Elizabeth Warren, with a big fundraising haul and another candidate set to become the first to drop out of the race.

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[14:56:37] BALDWIN: Just in: Attorney General Bill Barr says he is disappointed that House Democrats subpoenaed former Special Counsel Robert Mueller to testify next week in Washington calling it a ploy to, quote "create some kind of public spectacle."

CNN justice correspondent Jessica Schneider is live with me on more. What else did he say? Are we surprised?

JESSICA SCHNEIDER, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, one week now before Robert Mueller set to testify in these back to back committee hearings and the Attorney General Bill Barr, he is sending out something of a warning shot and he is already blasting this testimony before it even starts.

So Attorney General Bill Barr just spoke to reporters outside an event in South Carolina. He said he's not only disappointed that House Democrats subpoenaed the Special Counsel, but Bill Barr also said it will be nothing more than a spectacle in his words, especially if Robert Mueller sticks to the promise he made the last time he spoke publicly at the end of May, saying that he would strictly stick to the conclusions that he laid out in his 400-page report.

Of course, those conclusions were that he came to no conclusion on obstruction of justice by President Trump seeming to leave that to Congress perhaps, and also saying that there was no evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russians.

The Attorney General, interestingly, also seemed to give Robert Mueller somewhat of an out, if it ends up that he wants to back out of that testimony scheduled for next week, July 17th, here he is.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WILLIAM BARR, U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL: So I was disappointed to see him subpoenaed, because I don't think that serves an important purpose dragging Bob Mueller up if he in fact is going to stick to the report. It seems to me the only reason for doing that is to create some kind of public spectacle. And if Bob decides that he doesn't want to be subject to that, then the Department of Justice would certainly back him.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCHNEIDER: So Bill Barr had previously said he'd allow Mueller to go forward with the testimony if he wants to, but then now saying that well, they would also support him if he doesn't want to testify.

And Brooke, you know, the Attorney General also weighed in on this citizenship question when it comes to the census. He said that the administration will reveal its plan in the next day or two, when it comes to the census fight, saying that the administration's approach, as he put it, will provide a pathway for getting a question on the census.

So really, the Attorney General there is confident that this question will be asked in the 2020 census, despite all this back and forth with this court fight that's been going on, you know, possible potentials could be a presidential memorandum, maybe an executive order.

So it looks like the D.O.J. is moving forward. They also have put a new team of lawyers on to their legal fights in Maryland and New York. So given the President's tweets and statements last week that he wants this citizenship question on the census, Bill Barr seems to be backing him on this and said so just a few minutes ago -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: President Trump just Friday, saying it could be an EO or an addendum, and he is writing stuff with the AG it sounds like. Jessica, thank you very much.

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN Breaking News.

BALDWIN: We continue on. You're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin. Thank you for being with me.

Jeffrey Epstein. Jeffrey Epstein is known as a jet setting multimillionaire with ties to President Trump, former President Bill Clinton and even Prince Andrew of the British Royal Family. But right now Jeffrey Epstein is sitting behind bars in a Manhattan jail after Federal prosecutors --

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