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Kathleen Sebelius is Interviewed about RFK Jr.; Tech Stocks Plummet; Trump Suggests Plan for Gaza; Super Bowl Snacking Costs. Aired 9:30-10a ET

Aired January 27, 2025 - 09:30   ET

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

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[09:30:28]

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Picks will be in the hot seat, headed to the Senate for confirmation hearings. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was tapped by President Trump to lead the Department of Health and Human Services. A move that has alarmed doctors, scientists and professionals across the health care and public health arenas really across the board.

Kennedy's nomination coupled with the recent decision by President Trump to pull the United States out of the World Health Organization has former HHS secretaries sounding the alarm, with one writing this, quote, "while the WHO desperately needs an updated organizational and operational structure, withdrawing from this global body, as announced by Mr. Trump, would be disastrous." That came from former secretary of HHS, Kathleen Sebelius, who joins us now.

Secretary, thanks for your time.

You've also said that if RFK Jr. is confirmed, he will cause - it will cause disease and death. Why do you think he is so dangerous in terms of taking on this role that you have held? What questions do you hope that senators will be asking him when they vet him?

KATHLEEN SEBELIUS, FORMER HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES SECRETARY UNDER PRESIDENT OBAMA: Well, Kate, thanks for having me.

It's really hard to figure out where RFK Jr. stands on most issues. But some are pretty clear. He has said over and over and over again that there is no safe and effective vaccine. While he seems to be denying that position in his recent Senate visits, that's his position for years. And that, to me, is one of the most dangerous things that could come out of the mouth of any health minister representing the United States and with influence across the globe, because vaccines are probably the single biggest health improvement in the last 100 years in this country, saving millions and millions of lives. So, having a pronounced view that no vaccine is safe.

So now he says he's changed his mind on that. Of course he, you know, is an environmental lawyer turned health expert, according to himself. He does not listen or look at the proven science. He does not listen or look to the experts in the field. But he has found his own experts to listen to and has very, very pronounced views on a wide variety of issues, which are just out of step with, I think, the mainstream of the scientific community.

Vaccines are one of them. He doubts the origins of HIV AIDS. He has cast doubts on whether or not Americans should be, you know, using various medicines. He's got millions of dollars tied up suing the very drug companies we need to work with to, again, improve medicines for people in the United States. So, he has a very mixed record for this particular role.

BOLDUAN: Yes, I've heard it from other - including scientists, who say he says he wants to make the science behind, especially vaccines and medicines, transparent, but he doesn't listen to the proven science of those medicines and vaccines when they're presented to him, which is the obfuscation and confusion around his views.

Additionally, you wrote in this opinion piece last week responding to the president with - moving to withdraw the United States from the World Health Organization again. And you - and you wrote this. "Many regard America's global health work as smart diplomacy. Even the most hostile countries welcome our medical expertise and support because health security is essential to international security and to every country's economy."

It does not look like Donald Trump is going to reverse course on this decision. What do you think the result will be?

SEBELIUS: Well, I'm afraid what it will be is the World Health Organization, which has been around since the end of World War II, and includes basically every country in the world. If the United States withdraws, it may well collapse. And what that does is not just make Americans far less safe and secure, but it really sends ripples throughout the world in terms of not being able to detect and prevent and restrain diseases at a very early stage, not being able to share information.

We saw, Kate, what happened when Donald Trump withdrew personnel from China in his first administration.

[09:35:02]

We had CDC personnel who were headquartered in China and worked closely with the Chinese health ministry. They left. It took us a lot longer to find out about Covid and what was going on with Covid than it should have. And, frankly, Covid was already in the United States by the time we started executing measures to try and restrain the spread of the disease. That's a great example of how vulnerable we are.

Diseases don't have passports. They don't clear customs. They don't care about borders. They come with the global travelers. Eight million Americans a year. I mean, I'm sorry, 8 million Americans a month leave the country and come back. Millions of foreigners come to the United States for family visits and tourism. Our food is imported in large amounts. Our medicines are imported. We can't stop disease from coming into this country. What we can do is have a collaboration, share information, try and identify very early on what's going on in other countries and send experts to help deal with it. Not doing that, putting on blinders in the United States, makes

Americans far less, not only less healthy and less secure, but we watch Covid topple the economy once. This is an economic and security issue.

Secretary Sebelius, thank you for coming in.

John.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, we do have breaking news. The stock markets opened just a few minutes ago, and it's not pretty. Down big, especially the tech-heavy Nasdaq.

CNN's Matt Egan is here to explain what we're seeing and why.

Matt.

MATT EGAN, CNN REPORTER: Yes, John, we've got a bit of a tech selloff this morning, and it's being caused by earth-shattering developments in the AI space. So, let's take a look at this.

You see the Dow down more than 140 points right now. The S&P solidly lower. But the real action is over here in the Nasdaq, 600 points lower. Nearly 3 percent. On track for one of its worst days in the past two years.

And here's why. There's a Chinese startup that few people had ever heard of until the past few days, and it has emerged as a real player in the AI arms race. It's called DeepSeek and investors, and I would imagine officials in Washington, are stunned to learn that DeepSeek's AI model has developed technology that can actually be competitive with OpenAI and Google and XAI and all these more established players. It's only been around for a bit, but DeepSeek has already vaulted to the top of the app store on Apple as the most downloaded app, passing ChatGPT, which is pretty shocking. Look at that, number one.

BERMAN: Wow.

EGAN: Veteran investor, billionaire Marc Andreessen. He's a legendary tech investor. He said that DeepSeek is, quote, "one of the most amazing and impressive breakthroughs that he has ever seen.

Now, the most stunning thing here isn't necessarily that China has developed a pretty good AI app. It's how cheap it is. DeepSeek says that their AI model only cost $5.6 million. Though we don't know that. But if that's true, that is pretty stunning. Anthropic, one of the leading AI companies, has said that it cost about 100 million to $1 billion to develop an AI model. We know that Mark Zuckerberg, the Meta CEO, says that his company plans to spend $65 billion on AI.

So, John, look, this is all really questioning sort of the foundation here of the AI boom, which is that it requires a lot of spending, which is that the U.S. is running away with the AI arms race. And it's also questioning some of the big positives that have pushed markets to record highs. BERMAN: A lot of people have put a lot of money into AI, and now

they're wondering if that money is needed the way that some of these American companies have said it is.

EGAN: Exactly.

BERMAN: We just don't know if the claims being made by this Chinese company is -

EGAN: Yes, this is moving so fast, it's stunning.

BERMAN: All right, we're going to stay on top of this. As we said, big drops, especially in the Nasdaq.

Thank you, Matt.

EGAN: Thanks, John.

BERMAN: All right, so what President Trump said about Gaza that has shaken the region, including some of America's fiercest allies there.

And then huge questions surrounding the Super Bowl this morning. Number one, how could they not call that Josh Allen run a first down. And number two, how much are my nachos going to cost?

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[09:43:56]

BERMAN: All right, this morning there is concern across the Middle East. Comments that President Trump made over the weekend really hit the third rail in many ways.

Listen to what he said.

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DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: And we just clean out that whole thing. I said, you know, it's - over the centuries it's had many, many conflicts, that site. And I don't know, it's - something has to happen. But it's - it's literally a demolition site right now. Almost everything's demolished.

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BERMAN: All right, I'm not sure if that was the full quote there, but CNN global affairs analyst Kimberly Dozier is with us now.

And, Kim, what President Trump seemed to suggest, or what people are reading into it is, a removal of people from Gaza. He said he wanted to ask Egypt and Jordan to accept people from Gaza. Why does that set off so many alarm bells, not just for Palestinians, but also in Egypt and Jordan and across the region?

[09:45:04] KIMBERLY DOZIER, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Because it's shades of the 1948 Nakba, as the Palestinians call it, the forced eviction of three quarters of a million Palestinians after the 1948 Arab-Israeli War when the state of Israel was established. It is something that Palestinians inside Gaza have feared since the start of the Israeli operation post the October 7th attacks. They don't want to be evicted from their territory because they believe they'll never get back. And while Egypt could probably absorb that population size, Jordan already has more than 2 million Palestinian refugees in a population of 11 million. If the Jordanian king were to say yes to this, there would be massive political unrest inside his country over that collapse to U.S. demands.

BERMAN: Is it possible - first of all, it's unclear whether or not the president intended to say it exactly as he did or not. But could this be seen as a negotiating tactic?

DOZIER: Maybe it could be a negotiating tactic to signal to Hamas that they better get serious about the phase two of negotiations for the rest of the hostages to be released. But I think it's more reflective of the orbit that President Trump travels in and what he's hearing from his U.N. ambassador nominee, Elise Stefanik, said last week that she believes the West Bank should go back to Israel. Many of the people around Trump, both the Jewish and Christian community around Trump, are of a hard right position on Israel, do not believe in a Palestinian state. So, was he riffing? Maybe. But could it be made into policy? Possibly because of the advice of those he's got around him.

BERMAN: Long term, in the first Trump administration, and one would think in this Trump administration, much of its foreign policy vis a vis the Middle East will go through Saudi Arabia.

DOZIER: Yes.

BERMAN: I mean could the Saudis countenance even public statements like this? How does that complicate the ability of the Saudis to negotiate with the United States and Israel?

DOZIER: Well, Saudi Arabia has said that it will not move forward with negotiations with Israel and signing on to the Abraham Accords unless there are permanent - there are plans for talks towards a permanent Palestinian independent state. So, Trump has also indicated that he needs something from Saudi Arabia. He said last week he needs Saudi Arabia to exercise its influence with OPEC, raise oil production and lower oil prices so that Trump can get Putin to pull out of Ukraine.

So, Saudi Arabia has a couple of carrots and sticks that it can hold over Trump. But the overall Arab world reaction is something that Trump also has to consider. The Arab world will not countenance Palestinians being flushed out of Gaza. The reaction would make any expansion of the Abraham Accords, I think, impossible.

BERMAN: Kim Dozier, great perspective on this. Thanks so much for being with us this morning.

Kate.

BOLDUAN: So, the countdown is on to Super Bowl 59. While the Eagles and the Chiefs are preparing for a big rematch, everyone else is preparing for what they're going to be serving or eating for the big game. We're going to break down how much it will cost you to put out that Super Bowl spread this time around.

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[09:53:11]

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BERMAN: So, this is what the locker room looks like after a whole lot of tush pushing and winning a trip to the Super Bowl. That was - excuse me - the Phil -

BERMAN: Don't die. I need you.

BERMAN: The Eagles will play the Kansas City Chiefs in the Super Bowl, which may or may not excite you. But even if it doesn't, you will no doubt eat on that day. The question is how much is it going to cost you to eat? How much will your meal cost?

CNN's Vanessa Yurkevich is here with that.

Great to see you.

VANESSA YURKEVICH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Great to see you guys.

BOLDUAN: Sorry.

YURKEVICH: I'm going to move on from that.

BOLDUAN: Yes.

YURKEVICH: But listen, the Super Bowl party this year will cost you about the same as last year, which is good news, unless you're trying to be healthy. And here's why.

BOLDUAN: Who would do that?

YURKEVICH: Well, there are some people this year who want to be healthy, and that's actually pushing the prices of vegetables up this year. So, if you want that snack plate with the dips and vegetables, that's going to cost you more.

For example, cherry tomatoes, if you like to dip that in some dipping sauce -

BOLDUAN: Delish.

YURKEVICH: Up about 11.9 percent. And that's because they're grown mostly in Florida. Florida was impacted by two hurricanes. About 40 percent of the crop was affected. Avocados this year, again, growing conditions not so great, up 11.5 percent. And then bell peppers, carrots also up this year. Also because though people who are taking Ozempic and these kinds of drugs are tending to buy more healthy foods. And they're seeing, according to this Wells Fargo report, that more people are buying vegetables. Also chicken wings up this year. Sorry. So that's one of the big staples of the Super Bowl party.

But down this year, let's talk about the good news. Frozen pizza. If you want to have a little more of an elegant spread, shrimp is down about 4 percent this year.

[09:55:03]

And to offset the higher prices of avocados, tortilla chips down about 1.4 percent.

And there's other ways to save, too. You know, you want to think about kind of the seesaw effect at the grocery store. Maybe spend a little more on expensive items, but try to save on other things. They're calling it food fluent. You need to be food fluent this year to try to get a little bit of a diversity of more expensive things, less expensive things. About $139 for a party of ten this year. That's up about 10 cents from last year. So, not super expensive. But -

BOLDUAN: I mean, when it comes to the Super Bowl, I feel like my food fluency is lacking. It's like -

BERMAN: I have to say, I can't believe the - like Ozempic is even influencing Super Bowl -

YURKEVICH: It is.

BERMAN: But I believe it.

YURKEVICH: It is.

BERMAN: It's like such a thing. When you said that, I'm like, wow, even this.

YURKEVICH: Yes. Yes, and there's other ways to save too, right? You want to make sure if you're going to the grocery store, get the avocados and make the guacamole yourself, because prepared food items are more expensive, because labor costs are up, the packaging costs more.

BOLDUAN: Totally right.

YURKEVICH: And also, if you're buying soda for your party, buy two liter sodas instead of the cans because the cans are going to cost you more. So, you just got to think about what you're willing to spend more on. Obviously, the shrimp guys, if you want to buy that, you're getting some savings there.

BOLDUAN: Food fluency and tush pushing.

BERMAN: Yes. Thank you, Vanessa.

BOLDUAN: It's all in a good Sunday. Thanks so much for joining us. This is CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

"CNN NEWSROOM," up next.

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