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California's State Insurer For People Without Private Coverage Needs $1 Billion More For L.A. Fire Claims; California Braces For Major Storms, Flooding, Mudslides; Report: 77 Percent Of Jews Feel Less Safe After Oct 7 Attack; Study: Ozempic Reduced Drinking In Trial For Alcohol-Use Disorder. Aired 2:30-3p ET

Aired February 12, 2025 - 14:30   ET

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

[14:00:00]

REP. ROBERT GARCIA, (D-CA): What happened with -- for example, with the -- with the grants, all the other government grants? The public reacted and Donald Trump had to pull back. So that's going to continue to happen.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: Congressman Robert Garcia, thank you so much for being with us. We really appreciate it.

GARCIA: Thank you.

KEILAR: And still ahead, California's state insurance is running out of money to pay claims from those fires in Los Angeles. And it says it needs $1 billion bailout. Where that money will come from, next.

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[14:35:09]

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: There's a new threat to southern California as a severe storm makes its way into the region, triggering concerns about flooding and mudslides in areas that were hit by recent wildfires.

This is happening as homeowners learned that the state plan that provides insurance to those who can't get private coverage needs an additional $1 billion to pay out claims to fire victims.

A request approved by the state calls for all insurers doing business in California to bear half the cost. The rest, though, can be passed on to homeowners.

CNN's Stephanie Elam is live for us in Los Angeles.

Stephanie, what are the details?

STEPHANIE ELAM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: So what this California Fair Plan does is it ensures people who can't get insurance because their properties are deemed as risky.

So what this is, is all the major insurers in California. They put money into this pool and then they insure these people.

So as you heard, the California Insurance Department has said half of that will be covered by those insurance companies. The other half will be passed on to the policyholders in the form of a one-time fee over the next two years.

And that fee will have to be approved by the Department of Insurance before it can go out to those consumers.

But this is all in an effort to keep these people who are difficult to insure. And the state, overall, as we see climate change impacting how much we're seeing claims here, making sure that they keep insurance in the state, even as we're grappling with all of these differences here.

And this is the first time, Boris, that they've actually needed to get more money for this California Fair Plan in more than 30 years.

SANCHEZ: And, Stephanie, what are you hearing from folks in that area regarding these heavy rains that could trigger these flash floods and mudslides? Are they concerned there?

ELAM: There's a huge concern about that. And that's because both of the Eaton Fire, where I'm standing, the burn zone here in Altadena, as well as the Palisades Fire, both of them go up against the wildland areas.

And so, as you can see here behind me, this is an area that has burned out. You see the hillside up there with the intense rains that are coming. And we're expecting very intense rains, according to the National Weather Service here.

A level three out of four risk of flooding in Los Angeles and Ventura Counties. They are afraid that that soil up there could come rushing back down.

Think about it. All of these root systems, all of the trees that are up there that have burned out, that is loosened what has kept the soil together. That's in danger of coming down. And so that's why you see these green berms that are around all throughout.

Officials have been preparing these areas for these debris flows to try to keep these properties safe and keep the mudflows from losing more property or life.

SANCHEZ: Stephanie Elam, live for us in Los Angeles. Stephanie, thank you so much.

Up next, anti-Semitism is on the rise. A new survey finds more Jewish Americans are reporting anti-Semitic incidents and feeling less secure. The CEO of the American-Jewish Committee joins us after a quick break.

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[14:42:41] KEILAR: Sixteen after Hamas' October 7th attack in Israel, there has been a sharp increase in the number of American Jews who say they're changing their behavior because they're afraid of anti-Semitism.

This is according to the American Jewish Committee's report, "The State of Anti-Semitism in America," that is out today.

And it's the first time in the reports five-year history that more American Jews than not are actually modifying their behavior. And 56 percent say they are.

And the report also finds a whopping 77 percent of American Jews say they feel less safe as a Jewish person in the U.S. because of the October 7th Hamas massacre that killed 1200 people in Israel.

With us now is the CEO of the American Jewish Committee, Ted Deutch. He's a former Florida Congressman.

So thanks for being with us.

And of course, this report was the first one to give you a full calendar year of input from folks after the October 7th, 2023 attack. What should people be taking away from this?

TED DEUTCH, CEO, AMERICAN JEWISH COMMITTEE & FORMER U.S. CONGRESSMAN FOR FLORIDA: Well, thanks for having me.

And I think you really hit on the most important point here, which is more than half of American Jews, 56 percent of American Jews, changed their behavior out of fear of anti-Semitism.

That is, they made a conscious decision to change where they go, what they do, what they say, what they wear because of the anti-Semitism that they see all around them.

That's something that affects not just the Jewish community, but everyone in America should be alarmed when any group has to think about altering its behavior so as to avoid being targeted.

KEILAR: Yes, they're hiding who they are, in effect. They don't want to draw attention.

And the American Jewish committee found 33 percent of Jews have personally experienced anti-Semitism. How has that been changing over time and in light of the Israel-Hamas war? And just tell us the kind of things you're experiencing.

DEUTCH: Sure. Well, look, I -- as we have this conversation, I'm wearing a yellow pin so that I can try to bring awareness to the hostages who have been held by Hamas beneath Gaza for now, almost 500 days.

[14:44:55]

The thought that people have to think about whether it's OK to wear this, whether it's OK to identify as a Jew by wearing a Jewish star, whether it's OK to -- to walk around proudly supporting Israel as more than 80 percent of American Jews who see Israel as so critical to them are -- are likely to do.

All of those decisions are impacted by the fears of anti-Semitism around them. And, yes, it's the -- the number of people who have experienced it directly.

And then there is this additional concern that we've seen that's clear in our report, which is almost 70 percent, 69 percent of American adults have experienced anti-Semitism online. And for young people, that number is over 80 percent.

This is something that should concern all of us, and it's something that all of us together have to work to address.

KEILAR: So something that was also interesting here. You surveyed American adults across religions, and you found that one in five of them, so 20 percent, consider Hamas to be a militant resistance group working primarily in the best interest of the Palestinian people.

What do you attribute that to, and how do you combat that?

DEUTCH: Well, first of all, it's a -- it's a very concerning data point.

The fact that one in five people think that the terrorist group, Hamas, that exists for the sole purpose of killing Jews and trying to destroy Israel, that is responsible for the slaughter of over 1m200 Jews on October 7th and still is holding over 75 hostages in Gaza, that that's something other than a terrorist group, that's very concerning.

What can we do to address that? Well, one, we have an obligation, all of us, to speak out and to make sure that people understand what Hamas did on October 7th.

But beyond that, our social media companies have a responsibility to adhere to their own standards. Every one of the big companies, Facebook and Instagram and X and TikTok and YouTube, all of them have standards that say no hate speech, no hateful ideologies, no support of terrorism.

And yet, their algorithms continue to not only -- not only permit the kinds of images that -- and -- and postings that advance this kind of hateful ideology, but the algorithms feed it to people.

And all of us should be asking what can be done about that. And it starts, I think, with Congress taking a look at reforming the statute that says that these companies have no liability for any of what we're seeing online.

KEILAR: Former Congressman Ted Deutch, we really appreciate you being with us. Thank you.

DEUTCH: Thanks very much. KEILAR: And still to come, how a key ingredient in Ozempic is now

believed to help prevent diseases linked to alcohol consumption. We'll have the details on that.

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[14:52:12]

SANCHEZ: A new clinical trial is the first to show that the popular weight loss drug, Ozempic, can actually reduce how much alcohol people drink.

The study of 48 people with moderate Alcohol Use Disorder found that those taking low doses of Semaglutide, the generic name for Ozempic, saw significantly greater reductions in how much alcohol they craved and how much they drank than those on a placebo.

CNN medical correspondent, Meg Tirrell, joins us now live.

Meg, this is a pretty significant discovery.

MEG TIRRELL, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Boris, it really is. I mean, this is something we've heard about anecdotally from people who've been taking Ozempic and similar medicines for some time.

They don't just report eating less food, but many of them report actually drinking less alcohol as well.

And so until now, we really hadn't seen this studied in an organized way, where they set out to run a clinical trial where they tested taking this medicine and people on placebo and looked at how much alcohol they drink over time.

This one was a nine week trial. And what they found is that among these 48 people, the folks who were on these low doses of Ozempic over that period of time ended up drinking 40 percent less alcohol at the end of the study than folks on placebo, controlled for any differences in the two groups and when they began.

So this is a really notable finding. They think perhaps that these drugs work not just in the gut. They know they also work in the brain. And perhaps it could be reducing some of the rewarding effects of drinking alcohol.

Interestingly, Boris, they also looked at just a small group of people, a subsection of the study, 13 people who also were smokers, and they looked at their cigarette use per day.

They saw a pretty significant decline in the number of cigarettes people smoked while on Ozempic as well, noting, though, that is a very small part of the trial -- Boris?

SANCHEZ: So, Meg, are we going to start seeing Ozempic administered to folks more widely for alcohol abuse treatment?

TIRRELL: Yes. This is something that a lot of people are wondering about. The authors behind the study, the researchers really cautioned that we need larger clinical trials.

Longer clinical trials, to really prove that these medicines can help with things like alcohol use disorder and also, you know, with drug addiction, potentially, and with tobacco use, being able to quit smoking, for example.

We know that people are already potentially even using these off-label for them, but we do need to see bigger studies. Some of them are already underway.

SANCHEZ: Meg Tirrell, thanks so much for that update. Appreciate it.

We are continuing to follow the breaking news this afternoon. A phone call between Russian President Vladimir Putin and President Donald Trump, they say, could begin talks to end the war in Ukraine.

[14:54:52]

We'll be right back.

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KEILAR: Talks to end the war in Ukraine. President Trump speaking with Russian leader, Vladimir Putin, today for an hour and a half, agreeing to immediate negotiations over the conflict. But Ukraine's president, no surprise, may not be on the same page as these other two leaders.

[14:59:57]

SANCHEZ: Plus, DOGE unleashed. President Trump giving Elon Musk more power to wage his war on so-called waste as a key DOGE committee meets on Capitol Hill for the first time. We're going to speak to a member of that committee.

And there's --