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U.S.-Iran Tensions; Thousands Demand Resignation of Czech PM; Opposition Set to Win Istanbul Mayoral Re-run; Cameroon Protests Multiple Calls at Women's World Cup. Aired 12-1a ET
Aired June 24, 2019 - 00:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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ROSEMARY CHURCH, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Let's talk: Trump says he's willing to speak with Iran but no preconditions, while his national security adviser issues a new military threat to the country.
Czechs protest in the biggest anti government march since the fall of communism, demanding the resignation of their prime minister.
Angry Cameroon players dominate headlines at the Women's World Cup as they blast officials about a video assisted ruling.
Hello everyone and thanks for being with, us I'm Rosemary Church joining you live from Atlanta this hour, CNN NEWSROOM starts right now.
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CHURCH: U.S. president Donald Trump says he is not looking for war with Iran but senior officials and his administration are refusing to take military action off the table. U.S. allies are watching uneasily to see what Washington's next move will be.
Secretary of state Mike Pompeo is on his way to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, he says he wants to build a global coalition against Iran.
MIKE POMPEO, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: This will be a further effort to ensure that their capacity not only to grow the economy but to evade sanctions becomes more difficult. It will be an important addition to our capacity to enforce sanctions against Iran.
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CHURCH: On Friday, Mr. Trump called off a military strike on Iran for the downing of a U.S. drone. The move raised questions about the White House strategy. Vice president Mike Pence says the priority is obvious.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) MIKE PENCE, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The president's message to Iran is very clear, that we are not going to allow Iran to obtain a nuclear weapon and we are not going to stand by while Iran continues to sow malign influence against the region.
Tomorrow the president will announce additional sanctions against Iran. The president has made it clear that we are not going to tolerate any threats against American forces, American interests, Americas allies in the region and will never allow Iran to obtain a nuclear weapon.
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CHURCH: Meantime President Trump national security adviser is in Israel. Oren Liebermann has details of John Bolton's talks with the Israeli prime minister and Bolton's warning to Iran.
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OREN LIEBERMANN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The meeting between national security adviser John Bolton and Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu began exactly as you expect. Both men talked about the strong relations between the U.S. and Israel and thanked Donald Trump for furthering those relations.
Then they got into an attack on Iran, both hardliners on Iran and showed it once again. Netanyahu railed against the Iran deal and then ticked off a list of Iran's aggressive acts in the region, including attacks against Israel and others.
One thing he did not mention was Trump's decision to call off a strike against Iran, praising more sanctions with Iran. It was Bolton who warned Iran that more military options are not off the table.
JOHN BOLTON, TRUMP NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: Neither Iran nor any other hostile actor should mistake U.S. prudence and discretion for weakness. No one has granted them a hunting license in the Middle East.
As President Trump said on Friday, our military is rebuilt, new and ready to go. By far the best in the world. Sanctions are biting and more added last night. Iran can never have nuclear weapons, not against the USA and not against the world.
LIEBERMANN: Netanyahu has tried to press other nations to sanction Iran as well in recent days. Next up for Bolton is a meeting with his Israeli counterparts, that meeting will be about Iran in Syria. Now we could have farther implications for the region.
One interesting point to watch is that Russia is much more on Iran's side than Israel or the U.S. Those meetings began on Monday -- Oren Liebermann, CNN, Jerusalem.
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CHURCH: Meantime President Trump says he is willing to hold talks with Iran with no preconditions. He emphasized Tehran cannot have nuclear weapons. Fred Pleitgen reports on the response.
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FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: It's a pretty remarkable language coming out of Iran today, you have the foreign minister praising President Trump for going against some of his most senior advisers and allies and not ordering a strike on the Iranian military. Then you have the Iranians also warning the --
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PLEITGEN: -- U.S. of dire consequences if there is a strike in the future. On one hand, the foreign minister said he believes there are indications that what he calls the B team was trying to box in President Trump into military actions. The B team is something that he has long referred to as being John Bolton, Benjamin Netanyahu and the crown prince of Saudi Arabia.
Then he praised President Trump, he praised President Trump, saying, in the end, prudence prevented. He went on to tweet that he believes what he called economic terrorism causing tensions. Economic terrorism is what the Iranians referred to as Americas campaign of maximum pressure.
A senior Iranian general warning the United States, saying if there was a strike on Iran, there would be a big response from the Iranians and that could lead to an unmanageable situation in the Middle East.
The Iranians have for a very long time said that there would be no such thing as a limited strike on Iran. There would always be a big response. And that response would probably not only involve Iran's military against the U.S. military but probably also Iran's proxy forces that they control throughout the entire region -- Fred Pleitgen, CNN, Tehran.
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CHURCH: President Trump was asked about the so-called B team trying to force him into military action against Iran. Listen.
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CHUCK TODD, NBC HOST: Do you feel that you are being pushed into military action against Iran?
TRUMP: I have two groups of people, doves and hawks. John Bolton is a hawk. If it was up to him, he would take on the whole world at one time. That doesn't matter. I want both sides.
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CHURCH: So let's get some perspective on the upcoming week of U.S. diplomacy with CNN senior political analyst Ron Brownstein, who is also senior editor at "The Atlantic."
Good to see you, thanks for joining us. We are seeing these mixed messages from both the United States and Iran and a clear effort to divide and conquer on both sides. Mike Pompeo and national security adviser John Bolton both struggling to keep abreast of their own boss' shifting strategy on Iran.
What are the optics and politics of that and the way that the president has dealt with these situations?
RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN SR. POLITICAL ANALYST: You see the internal tension in President Trump's approach to the world. On the one hand, he certainly talks tough all the time.
But I think it's pretty clear that he has a great reluctance and a political analysis that supports it of getting too far involved in military confrontation, particularly in the Middle East, which he has said there's a debate that he opposed the Iraq War, what he sought as a political and geopolitical disaster for the U.S.
In the end, his instinct is to avoid military confrontation, even as he sees it as part of a persona to constantly threaten at the top of his lungs.
CHURCH: While we see Trump trying to avoid it, secretary of state Mike Pompeo heading to Saudi Arabia and the UAE to build a global coalition against Iran, starting with two of Iran's biggest adversaries. What could be the consequences of that coalition building efforts, do you think?
BROWNSTEIN: Well, to the extent the president -- when we talk about the art of the deal, historically, in international diplomacy, it's always needing a way out for both sides. That is a talisman for generations.
If the president continues to press Iran in a way that makes them feel like they are in a corner, they may do things that we don't like, that we feel we must respond to and then we get into the scenario that you are talking about, where events get out of control.
I think the president's instinct -- again, for all of his tough talk, I think he's used actual military engagement with a force that is able to fight back -- and Iran and certainly that and a lot of ways, asymmetrical wages will direct ways, as something he does not want to get into in the 2020 election approaches.
Sometimes events takes on a life of their own and that is a risk and one day threatening, the next day extending an olive branch.
CHURCH: What we see is Mr. Trump saying he is not looking for war with Iran but at the same time his senior administration officials refused to take military action off the table. John Bolton even threatening it as a possibility for the future. When Trump called off that military strike --
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CHURCH: -- on Iran for shooting down a U.S. drone, what did that signal to Iran about White House strategy, was it seen as a weakness? BROWNSTEIN: I think it signals the same thing that international leaders have taken from the beginning. That this is a extraordinarily volatile president, that normal decision-making processes do not apply here. That we are essentially governing the world's most powerful nation by the whims of one man above all.
It's interesting, the White House version of this is that the president controlled this process so precisely and calibrated it so finely that he was able to hold all of this information and make the decision at the last minute to fall back.
The other way of looking at it is that he oscillated between one extreme and the other and made a snap decision at the end. I'm guessing that, in Iran, they make it more of the latter, just as they do in most of our allied capitals.
CHURCH: In the wake of the tanker attacks and the shooting down of the U.S. drone, the fear now is what might come next. Allies are watching very closely, how the U.S. will respond to, perhaps, another attack.
What is your sense of where all of this is going?
BROWNSTEIN: As I started, that is the essential tightrope. The president wants to be seen as tougher than his predecessors, he has made the argument domestically in the U.S. that the reason these problems have not been solved in Iran and North Korea it's because of a lack of will, a lack of toughness on the part of everyone who held the job before him.
So he wants to bluster, he wants to be seen as someone who will be more threatening to these adversaries. But I think, at the same time, he is very reluctant to actually commit military force, particularly against an adversary that has so many means of striking back as Iran us. Both directly and through its surrogates and proxies around the world.
So as in the early stages of North Korea, before he pivoted to negotiation, we are in the whipsaw here between very threatening words and a reluctant to back those up with equally ominous deeds.
I think we are going to go back and forth there and we will see whether he can make the pivoting he did in North Korea to this kind of strange negotiation or open-ended negotiation.
But I don't think -- I really do believe that in his heart, he is not with the neocons and parties more risk than again as a military adventure in the Middle East.
CHURCH: His administration would find that and knowing because that does impact any negotiations going forward, doesn't it?
Ron Brownstein, always great to have you on the show and get your analysis on all these matters, we appreciate it.
BROWNSTEIN: Thank you. CHURCH: It has been called the biggest Czech protest since the Velvet Revolution. We will explain why a quarter of 1 million Czechs came out and, what is making them so angry.
The predicted winner in Istanbul mayoral election is a win for democracy as a whole. Why the vote is so important for Turkey's. We will take a look at that when we come back.
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CHURCH: It has been called the biggest protest since the fall of communism. Tens of thousands of Czechs filled a park in Prague on Sunday, demanding the resignation of prime minister Andrej Babis. He is accused of fraud and collaborating with the Communist-era secret police.
The billionaire tycoon has been dubbed the Czech Trump because of his business empire and populist leanings. The protesters say they have had enough.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): I'm here because of the basics of the democratic and juristic state. No matter if these people were legally elected.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): I am here because I don't have fun here anymore and I am ashamed of the state where I have to live.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): He defrauded everyone here. It's a shame of the state. I am ashamed I am Czech.
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CHURCH: Earlier, I asked CNN global affairs expert David Rohde for his analysis of the Prague protests and what it might mean for other populist leaders.
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ROHDE: I think it's the danger of corruption. He's a very wealthy businessman, he has had the same sort of populist message that has done so well in Europe and the U.S. But if there are serious allegations of corruption and if you fail to deliver once you are in office and a populist, wealthy business leader, you can have this backlash against you, where you are not delivering on your promises and you are seen as corrupt and benefiting from a system that is not serving average people.
So I think there's a warning for other populists in terms of what's happening in the Czech Republic right now.
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CHURCH: Turkey's main opposition party is claiming victory in Istanbul's mayoral race rerun. More than 99 percent of the vote has been counted but results are not official yet. Turkey's president has tweeted his congratulations and his party's candidate has conceded. As Arwa Damon explains, it's a local election that means big things for the entire country.
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ARWA DAMON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Sunday's vote was never really about the position of mayor, it was much bigger than that.
DERYA AYDIN, VOTER: It's important today for all the people in Istanbul because of it's not just a local Election Day, it's a struggle for democracy as well.
DAMON (voice-over): Many within the opposition felt that the decision to rerun the elections was eroding the country's democratic nature, but the ballot box may not survive the tenure of President Erdogan.
The vote ended up doing much more than that, handing the opposition party candidate a landslide victory, taking the margin between him and the ruling party's candidate from 13,000 votes back in March to --
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DAMON (voice-over): -- more than 750,000 this time around, an indisputable win.
EKREM IMAMOGLU, ISTANBUL MAYOR-ELECT (through translator): This is a new era for everyone in Istanbul. This is a new beginning. In this new phase, we're opening justice, equality, love and tolerance.
Waste, arrogance and discrimination will end. Today, 60 million people in Istanbul show their belief in democracy, trusted in justice and made us believe in it again.
DAMON (voice-over): They also invigorated a fatigued opposition, who now hopes that Imamoglu will have found a charisma and political savvy to rival air Erdogan's. The hopeful messages of the Imamoglu campaign, his own calm and measured demeanor, his promises, which he will now face the challenge of having to keep especially as the secondary governing body, the city council, is still controlled by the ruling AKP.
They're chanting (Speaking foreign language). That is the opposition candidate's campaign slogan, translated to mean "Everything is going to be great." There are three parties like this happening throughout the city.
For so many here, this is being viewed as a new dawn in Turkish politics, they are not just celebrating their candidate's mayoral win, they're celebrating for Turkey's democracy as well -- Arwa Damon, CNN, Istanbul.
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CHURCH: Ethiopia's government said that the northern Amhara state is now under its full control, after a failed coup in the field region. At least four people were killed during the unrest, including their country's army chief of staff and the head of the region.
The prime minister expressed his condolences and he blamed the coup attempt on a brigadier general.
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ABIY AHMED, ETHIOPIAN PRIME MINISTER (through translator): This attempt was not made or committed by any ethnic group but by ill motivated individuals. We have taken action at our command posts, here where we are. We are following up and giving leadership in the rest of Ethiopia to prevent such a occurrence.
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CHURCH: Indian rescue teams have retrieved the bodies of seven of the eight climbers that went missing last month in the Himalayas. It's believed an avalanche hit the climbing group, which was attempting to scale a previously unclimbed peak, about 65 meters high, 21,000 feet.
The alarm was raised a few days after they failed to return to camp. The rescue teams found the bodies by an unnamed peak on Sunday. Indian authorities say the group did not have permission to climb it. The search for the eighth mountaineer resumes on Monday.
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CHURCH: At the women's football World Cup, England's 3-0 victory was marred by a series of controversial calls. Cameroon's players were visibly upset with a video assistant referee, after multiple decision did not go their way. They staged on field protests and, at one point, it appeared they would refuse to resume the match.
England's manager condemned the players' behavior but Cameroon's coach defended the players, claiming there was injustice. Earlier CNN spoke with Christine Brennan about the controversy.
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CHRISTINE BRENNAN, CNN SPORTS ANALYST: VAR is really driving everyone crazy, a lot of controversy, a lot of teams unhappy with VAR. But that doesn't mean you should look like you refuse to continue playing. There's all kinds of bad behavior or potential behavior going on. It doesn't warrant, basically, losing your composure and having these signs of bad sportsmanship that it looked like the Cameroon team had in the game against England.
So as tough as it is to have a goal overruled and emotions are running high and obviously this is the knockout round so everyone understands how difficult it is if a call goes against you and we are seeing this in other matches as well.
But that does not mean that you lose your cool. That does not mean that you decide to throw sportsmanship out the window. That does not mean that you start to refuse to even keep going and playing. The confusion and the chaos that it appeared at times on the Cameroon team, it was not a good look.
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BRENNAN: No matter how bad it is, they have all agreed that VAR is part of the conversation, it is part of this tournament and sometimes things don't go your way but that doesn't mean you lose your cool and I do think the Cameroon team did lose it s cool. And I think it was a bad look for them.
Understandably they were not happy but that does not mean that you lose it and you refuse to play, potentially, according to "The Sun," that's what it looked like. And it's just not the way to go.
My sense is that the Cameroon players and the team will regret this look, they clearly had a great run in the tournament and that us certainly not the way they want to be remembered and my sense is that they will probably say something about it at some point.
Because I think that when you step back, it's just not a good look for Cameroon. It's a tough situation but other teams are dealing with tough situations as well.
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CHURCH: We will have more World Cup coverage for you ahead this hour, on CNN "WORLD SPORT."
One year after the Wild Boars team of young Thai football players became trapped in a flooded cave, they have returned to the area to launch a new team. The 12 teenagers and their 25-year-old coach gathered Sunday for a ceremony to celebrate their rescue.
The team spent more than two weeks in that cave before being freed by an international team of divers and volunteers.
The Central American migrants who make the perilous journey north have a message for the United States: we are humans, just looking for a better life. CNN is at the U.S. border to hear their stories.
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JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: Do you think it's a threat, man-made climate emergency is a threat?
MIKE PENCE, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I think the answer to that will be based upon the science.
TAPPER: Well, science says yes. I'm asking you.
CHURCH (voice-over): The U.S. vice president is pressed about the threat of climate change in America. Hear what he said and did not say, about the crisis in a interview with CNN. Back in just a moment.
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CHURCH: Hello and welcome back to CNN NEWSROOM. I'm rosemary church. I want to check the headlines for you this hour. U.S. President Donald Trump says he's not looking for war with Iran. In fact, he says he wants to hold talks with no preconditions, but he emphasized Iran cannot have nuclear weapons.
The president called off a retaliatory strike in response to Tehran shooting down a U.S. drone. As tensions increase with Iran, the U.S. secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, is heading to Saudi Arabia and the UAE. On Sunday, he told reporters Iran is engaging in a misinformation campaign.
He will join Mr. Trump at the G20 Summit in Japan later this week. Tens of thousands of Czechs are demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Andrej Babis. They demonstrated in Prague, Sunday, in what organizers call the biggest protests since the fall of communism. Babis is accused of fraud and collaborating with the communist era secret police.
The billionaire tycoon has been dubbed the Czech Trump because of his business empire and populist leanings. Well, as we've been reporting, President Trump says he called off a retaliatory strike on Iran after the downing of a unmanned U.S. drone, but what if the U.S. had not backed down? Iran sits in the middle of a volatile political region, and a war would have repercussions throughout. CNN's Tom Foreman takes a look
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TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: If U.S. forces strike Iran, they will be taking on a robust enemy, about a million people in their military forces there, guarding an area almost twice the size of Texas. But more importantly, this fight could easily spill beyond the borders, to places where Iran has agents and allies.
For instance, Iraq, where a Shih militia there, backed by Iran, could very well go after remaining U.S. troops in that country. Beyond that, if you go to here to Syria, the same thing, Shih militia and Hezbollah backed by Iran, considered a terrorist group by the United States, could go after American troops there. There're only a few hundred, but that can make them particularly vulnerable, if you think about it that way.
If you go a little bit further, over here to Lebanon and Israel, Hezbollah could be firing rockets from Lebanon, here, into Israel, an important U.S. ally - the same thing with Hamas down here from Gaza. Go down to Yemen, where the big conflicts have been going on, their Houthi rebels could go after Saudis, who are, again, allies of the U.S. and U.S. troops up here in the Emirates.
If you go even up to Afghanistan, you can see, there are still fighters loyal to Iran who also might be willing to expand to fight. And let's not forget, Iran very likely would go after this, the Strait of Hormuz. One fifth of the U.S.' petroleum's - or the world's petroleum products pass through this area.
That could be in some jeopardy. And if you think about missiles that Iran have, they could easily reach U.S. bases all throughout this region. None of this has to happen if Iran is attacked by the U.S., but military and political analysts say all of it could.
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CHURCH: The U.S. president is talking about what could happen in his bid to win the White House again in 2020.
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CHUCK TODD, JOURNALIST: Are you prepared to lose?
DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: No, probably not. Probably not. I mean I - it would be much better (ph) - it would be much better if I said yes. It'll be much easier for me to say, well, yes. No, I'm probably not too prepared to lose. I don't like losing. I haven't lost very much.
TODD: You didn't like the fact that you lost the popular vote. That bothered you, didn't it?
TRUMP: Well, I think it was a - I mean I'll say something, that, again, is controversial. There were a lot of votes cast that I don't believe.
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CHRUCH: OK, so he's talking about how he doesn't, quote, "believe" in many of the votes cast for his opponent, Hillary Clinton, in 2016 that lost him the popular vote. Now, leaked polling numbers from the Trump campaign recently showed the president trailing behind democratic candidates in key states.
And earlier this week, CNN learned that the Trump team fired pollsters after those unflattering numbers went public. One of Mr. Trump's signature campaign issues, cracking down on illegal immigration - Immigration and customs enforcement officers in 10 cities were set to round up about 2,000 families told by a court to leave the country.
But at the very last second, the president postponed the raids, on Saturday, for two weeks. On Twitter, Mr. Trump says he wants to give democrats and republicans time to get together and work out a solution to the asylum and loophole problems at the southern border.
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He adds, "if not, deportations start!" Mr. Trump tells NBC, democrats have the power to end the crisis. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) TRUMP: If the democrats will change the asylum laws and the loopholes, which they refused to do because they think it's good politics, everything would be solved immediately. But they refuse to do it. They refuse to do it. You know what? If they changed those, I'd say - I use to say 45 minutes, it's 15 minutes. If they changed asylum and if they changed loopholes, everything on the border would be perfect.
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CHURCH: Well, Mexico and El Salvador have launched a new program aimed at stemming the flow of migrants. It provides work and economic stimulus to local communities to try to remove the incentive to flee north. Michael Holmes traveled to the Mexico-Guatemala border to show us what life is like for those trying to make the trip north.
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MICHAEL HOLMES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Mexican troops patrol the border with Guatemala to intercept migrants, as Donald Trump promises mass deportations from the U.S. And yet, here in the town of Tapachula, the human faces behind the politics, entire families sleeping on the streets, and at the mercy of bureaucracy and politicians.
You've been here, on the street, for a week?
ELMER BINEDA, HONDURAN MIGRANT: For nine days straight.
HOLMES: And when it your appointment to get your papers?
BINEDA: My appointment is on July 15th.
HOLMES: So you have a month. Are going to be on the street for a month?
BINEDA: I'm going to be on the street, because, yes, I got no choice. I got no money to pay a room.
HOLMES: Elmer Bineda says he lived, worked and paid taxes in the U.S. for your years before being deported back to Honduras. But gang extortion and violence in his homeland sees him and his wife and daughter making the trek north again.
BINEDA: You know, like, people are telling you, "I'm going to kill you if you don't do that." So why? I'd rather be living in the street over here, sleeping on the street, and to change my situation, my life, you know?
HOLMES: The migrants we meet here want the world to know they're numbers, that they have names and lives that are being turned upside down, that they did not want to leave their homes. It was that or risk death.
JUANA ISABEL GONZALEZ TREJO, HONDURAN MIGRANT: I feel bad, I feel shattered to know how a country (inaudible). I never thought that my country would ever be this way. I cried because of the situation that we're living here. HOLMES: We meet three generations of the Gonzales-Trejo family from
Honduras. The youngest, just five months old - all sleeping on the streets in the heat and the afternoon downpours for nearly a week, their next immigration appointment a month away.
TREJO: If we can go to the United States, that would be good, but I don't know if they will give us the visa to continue or not.
HOLMES: Juana Isabel's husband was murdered by the gangs. When her son-in-law refused to pay those same gangs, they fired shots into the bus he drove for a living.
"We left our country not because he wanted to," he says, "but because the situation is critical. Extortion, gangs, any moment there is death, so we fled." And this was the final straw, a note on the family's front door saying, leave within 24 hours or you all die. And so here they are, on a sidewalk in a Mexican town, not knowing where they'll end up, but knowing they cannot go back.
TREJO: I want help for my family. I don't want to be abandoned.
HOLMES: Michael Holmes, CNN, Tapachula, Mexico.
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CHURCH: U.S. Vice President Mike Pence is refusing to say whether he thinks the global climate crisis is a threat to America. On Sunday, Mr. Pence repeatedly dodged questions about the issue in an interview with CNN. This, just days after the U.S. said it would roll back restrictions on coal plants.
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CHRIS CUOMO, CNN HOST: Do you think it's a threat, man-made climate emergency, is a threat?
MIKE PENCE, U.S. VICE PRESIDENT: I think the answer to that is going to be based upon the science.
CUOMO: Well, the science says yes. I'm asking you what you think.
PENCE: Well, there's many in the science that -
CUOMO: The science community in your own administration, at NOAA, at the - at the DNI, they all say it's a threat. But you won't for some reason (ph).
PENCE: Look, what we've said is that we are not going to raise utility rates. Remember what President Obama said?
CUOMO: But it's not a threat?
PENCE: He said - he said he had climate change plan. He said it's necessarily going to cause utility rates to skyrocket, and that would force us into these green technologies. Now, you got democrats all running for president that a running on a Green New Deal that would break this economy.
CUOMO: OK. So you don't think it's a threat, is all I'm saying? You don't think it's a threat.
PENCE: I think we're making great progress reducing carbon emissions. America has the cleanest air and water in the world. We'll continue to use -
CUOMO: That's not true. We don't have to cleanest air and water in the world. We don't.
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According - I mean (ph) - well, you get back to me with some statistics show it.
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CHURCH: well, according to the 2018 Environmental Performance Index the U.S. ranks 10th in air quality, behind other countries such as Australia and Barbados. Well, the latest sequel to one of the world's most beloved animated films hit cinema screen this weekend, but we're audiences eager to play with their new toys? Our box office report after a short break.
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WOODY, "TOY STORY 4": Hey. Howdy. Hey there. Sorry to bother you, but -
GABBY GABBY, "TOY STORY 4": Why, you're not a bother at all.
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CHURCH: There it is. The fourth installment of the "Toy Story" franchise had a big debut, earning $238 million globally, although its North American box office haul was less than expected, $118 million dollars. That was still good enough to make it one of the biggest openings ever for an animated film. The popular Pixar series has raked in almost $2 billion since 1995.
Well, finally this hour, if only we all could be this bright at 75. The one and only Mick Jagger is back on stage, and you may remember, of course, he underwent heart surgery in April, but this weekend, he was strutting his stuff and performing for more than 61,000 fans at a sold out Soldier Field crowd in Chicago, as The Rolling Stones kicked over their No Filter tour in the United States.
Thanks so much for watching CNN NEWSROOM. I'm rosemary church. "WORLD SPORT" is up next.
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