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USDA Trying To Rehire Staff Working On Bird Flu After Firing Them; Senate Votes To Confirm Kash Patel As FBI Director; Waltz: Trump "Frustrated" By Ukraine's Zelenskyy Not Accepting Deal; Child Dies By Suicide After Alleged Bullying, Deportation Threats; HHS Narrows Definitions Of Words Like "Sex," "Males" & "Females". Aired 2:30-3p ET

Aired February 20, 2025 - 14:30   ET

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

[14:30:00]

KEITH POULSEN, DIRECTOR, WISCONSIN VETERINARY DIAGNOSTIC LABORATORY: -- is great. We're all very -- anticipating that because we know it's a big problem. We have to do something about it.

But then there are three kind of 10,000-foot-view signs of, we're going to use vaccine, we're going to have better security, we're not going to depopulate, and we're going to use medicine.

But no one really knows what that means. And then when you're already into this outbreak a year and things like that change with really no prep or any details, no one knows if they should continue doing what they're already doing, do we need to go down one way or another?

So it just -- it makes for some pretty high anxiety weeks, actually now, so.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: Yes. No, you can understand how that would happen.

Keith Poulsen, thank you so much for the work that you do and for taking us through it. We really appreciate it.

POULSEN: Yes. Thanks again for the opportunity. Please let me know anytime.

KEILAR: So we have some breaking news. The Senate has voted to confirm Kash Patel as the next director of the FBI.

CNN's Manu Raju is on the Hill.

Tell us about the vote here, Manu.

MANU RAJU, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. This was a narrow vote. The vote was 51-49, meaning that Kash Patel narrowly got the job as the next director of the FBI.

Now, this was a largely party line vote. All Democrats, 49 of them, 47 of them voted no. And two Republicans also voted no. Those two Republicans often swing votes on the GOP side, Senator Susan Collins of Maine, Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska.

Collins making clear her concerns about Patel's recent political activities, warned that it could not -- that the FBI director job is an apolitical job and had concerns about some of his past activities.

That is similar to the message from Lisa Murkowski, who put out a statement saying that she had reservations about his own political activities and how they may influence his leadership.

She went on to say that -- that she was concerned that Patel did not push back when he had the opportunity to, about the administration's decision to single out January 6th -- FBI agents who looked into the January 6th cases.

Of course, we know the -- the administration has tried to find some of those FBI agents that were involved in various January 6th cases. She wanted him to push back on that. He did not.

She did speak with Kash Patel earlier today, and she informed him that she would vote against him.

But that was not enough to stop this nomination. Remember, four Republicans would be needed to break ranks on any party line vote.

One Senator, Senator Mitch McConnell, who has voted against three other nominees of Donald Trump, did not vote in opposition to Kash Patel, voting in favor of his confirmation.

Meaning that there we're enough votes here, 51-49, for Donald Trump to get his 19th senior level nominee across the finish line. Even the most controversial ones, like Kash Patel, seeing significant support from Republicans to get their jobs -- Brianna?

KEILAR: All right. Manu Raju thank you for that, from the Hill.

Still to come, after a key meeting with the U.S. special envoy, Ukraine's president says he's ready to make a peace deal if it includes security guarantees. But that is something the Trump White House has not yet offered.

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[14:37:25]

KEILAR: Just minutes ago, President Trump's national security advisor, Michael Waltz, urged Ukraine's president to sign a deal that the White House claims would lead to the end of Russia's war on Ukraine.

The White House proposed taking half of the revenues that Ukraine gets from selling rare earth minerals to pay back the U.S. for past aid.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: Today in Kyiv, Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, met with the U.S. special envoy, Keith Kellogg. Zelenskyy called the meeting, quote, "productive," saying that Ukraine is ready for a strong, effective investment and security agreement.

Trump's adviser, Mike Waltz, says the president is frustrated with Ukrainian leader.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MICHAEL WALTZ, NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: President Trump is obviously very frustrated right now with President Zelenskyy. The fact that -- that he hasn't come to the table, that he hasn't been willing to take this opportunity that we have offered. I think he eventually will.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: Let's turn now to CNN anchor and chief national security analyst, Jim Sciutto.

Jim, President Zelenskyy mentioned these, quote," effective security guarantees" in his conversation with Kellogg. Walters basically making the argument that these deals being presented to Ukraine for these rare earth minerals are an opportunity for U.S. investment.

And if they allow U.S. investment, it would make Ukraine safer. Is that the case?

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR & CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: I mean, it's a shakedown, right? I mean, he's saying, if you don't give us 50 percent of your natural resources, which it's not quite clear that that's forward looking or backwards looking, right?

Because the concern was that this is payback for aid that the U.S. has already given you, as opposed to tying it explicitly to future security guarantees. So that's an open question.

But it would be quite a precedent for a U.S. president to say it would defend an ally only if it had some financial compensation in return.

I mean, you remember -- you may remember this, but going back years, Trump, Trump said we should have taken Iraq's oil, you know?

SANCHEZ: Yes.

SCIUTTO: And at the time we we're like, oh, this is crazy talk. But here he is as president and saying, well, we want your rare earth minerals.

What was interesting about Zelenskyy's comment there is he did say, listen, we can do an investment security deal. He's clearly looking for genuine security guarantees in return, which it's not clear that he's heard -- certainly we haven't heard that articulated from the White House.

And most of what we've heard from the president and the vice president and others has been Ukraine, Europe, that's your problem. If you're talking about troops or other sorts of things, that's not on us.

KEILAR: At the heart of, say, the U.S. giving Ukraine security guarantees would be the U.S. believing or this administration believing -- [14:40:04]

SCIUTTO: Yes.

KEILAR: -- that Ukraine deserves them.

And it was really interesting to hear when Waltz was asked, Jim, who is more responsible for this war, and he would not commit to an answer.

SCIUTTO: Yes. And this is Mike Waltz, who previously was a Russia hawk. So he's breaking with his own publicly expressed convictions about this war now.

Now he works for a president who will not call Russia the aggressor, and has been both sides in a war where we should note Russia invaded Ukraine.

So that is the new mantra from the White House. And that appears to be the new approach to the war, which is a -- is important, not just rhetorically. It's important because that appears to be the way they're approaching these peace talks.

If both the invader and the invaded are on equal footing, then it looks like you begin to demand equal concessions from both of them, even though one, Russia, started the war. And that puts Zelenskyy in quite a position.

SANCHEZ: On that question about equal concessions, there's this new CNN reporting that the U.S. intelligence community doesn't believe that Putin is actually going to make any concessions. Essentially, he just wants to buy time to fully take Ukraine.

SCIUTTO: And that's been a consistent U.S. intelligence assessment going back months and years, that his game is to wait out the U.S. and the West. Wait out for what? For the U.S. to get bored, exhausted and move on. Which appears to be what this president is signaling.

Now, of course, the question is, does President Trump trust or accept his own intelligence agency's assessment? There's, of course, a history there of him not doing so. Think Helsinki.

KEILAR: Yes, that is a very good point.

SANCHEZ: Yes.

KEILAR: Jim Sciutto, thank you so much for all of that.

A Texas mother says that her 11-year-old daughter took her own life after being bullied by classmates over her family's immigration status. Today, we're hearing from other parents about what was going on at the school before she died.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:46:10] KEILAR: We have a heartbreaking story to bring you out of north Texas. We're learning new details about the weeks leading up to the suicide of an 11-year-old girl.

Jocelynn Rojo Carranza's mother says her daughter took her own life after being bullied at school after some students threatened to call ICE agents to deport her family.

Today, we're hearing from other parents about the taunting that allegedly went on inside the school where many of the students are Hispanic.

CNN national correspondent, Ed Lavandera, joins us now.

And, Ed, what are you hearing about what was going on at this school?

ED LAVANDERA, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, we've spoken with several parents over the last day who described that the scenes inside this school where Jocelyn Carranza went to school, that there had been an uptick in the amount of taunting and chattering about ICE.

And students being picked on and teased about ICE coming to arrest their relatives and people who had come from mixed immigrant -- immigration status homes and this sort of thing.

So some concerning descriptions of what we've heard from several parents away from the family of Jocelyn Carranza.

One mother that we spoke with said her mother -- her daughter came home distraught from school just days before Carranza was found dead.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOSEL NOBLE, DAUGHTER WAS CLASSMATE OF GIRL WHO DIED BY SUICIDE: My daughter started a few weeks ago coming home, telling me she was afraid that ICE was going to take her friends and that people had been telling her friends that were Hispanic that they we're getting deported, ICE was coming for them.

And she was just terrified. There was talk of I'm going to call ICE on your family. You're going to get deported. Just a lot of fear, a lot of picking at each other.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LAVANDERA: And, Boris, the week before Jocelyn Carranza took her life, the school district sent out an email and a letter to parents explaining to them the protocols and the -- the path that immigration officers would have to take to come on campus and get access to students.

They sent that email about five days before Jocelyn died.

SANCHEZ: And, Ed, you also spoke to Jocelyn's mother. What has she learned from investigators? LAVANDERA: Well, she says school officials told her that she had been

a -- her daughter had been a victim of bullying. that this had -- she was told this after Jocelyn had died by a school official. And also met with an investigator at the school.

She's still searching for answers. She is -- believes that there's -- there's much more to this, that she believes that her daughter had been taunted.

And she was fearful that she believed the taunts, that she was going to be -- that someone, a student, had told her that she was going to be left alone because her family was going to be deported.

And her mother fears that she believed that, that she was going to be left alone, and that that might have played a role into what happened in all of this.

SANCHEZ: Ed Lavandera, thank you so much for bringing us this story live from Dallas.

If you or someone you know has thoughts of suicide, you're not alone. Help is available and you can talk to someone anytime by calling 988.

[14:49:29]

Stay with CNN NEWS CENTRAL. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KEILAR: In one of Robert F. Kennedy Jr's first moves as secretary of Health and Human Services, the agency has released new guidance that gives a narrower definition of "sex" than the ones used by most scientists.

SANCHEZ: And this language aligns with an executive order that President Trump signed last month and includes new definitions for words like "sex," "female," "woman," "male," "man" and more.

CNN's Jacqueline Howard joins us now.

Jacqueline, walk us through this new guidance.

JACQUELINE HOWARD, CNN HEALTH REPORTER: Yes, what I can tell you, this new guidance defines sex as, quote, "a person's immutable biological classification as either male or female." So this means this definition cannot change.

And a woman is defined as "an adult human female" and a man as "an adult human male." So that's what the guidance states that was just recently released.

Now in response, Boris and Brianna, we are hearing from some critics who say the new definitions fail to account for people like those who are intersex. Up to 2 percent of the U.S. population is born intersex, meaning that their reproductive anatomy does not really fit the male- female binary. And then there's other criticism saying that this perpetuates

discrimination against the trans community, and this could lead to discriminatory policies and practices.

So we are seeing these responses in the wake of this new guidance being issued.

[14:55:03]

KEILAR: And how might this have real-world consequences, Jacqueline, for doctors and for patients?

HOWARD: Critics say the real-world consequence can be seen in research, for instance.

If we do have these new definitions, for example, data of when it looks to collecting data and surveying patients who are either intersex or transgender, that means that they would not fall under these new definitions in research and in data.

So there's concern here that we could lose data in this space. We could lose research in this space. And some doctors and patients could face the real-world consequences of that.

And that's why we are seeing a lot of -- of a lot of criticism here when it comes to responding to these new definitions.

SANCHEZ: Jacqueline Howard, thank you so much for the update.

So any minute now, President Donald Trump is going to host a Black History Month event at the White House as his administration dismantles DEI programs across the federal government. We'll cover it for you.

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