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U.S. Envoy to Ukraine Praises Zelenskyy as Courageous Leader; West Texas Measles Cases Rise to 90, Most Patients Unvaccinated; Israel Says It's Preparing to Receive Body Said to be Shiri Bibas; Dow Fall Sharply as Americans Worry About Tariffs, Inflation. Aired 3:30- 4p ET

Aired February 21, 2025 - 15:30   ET

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

[15:30:00]

ALEX MARQUARDT, CNN: ... and his talented national security team. So you have to imagine what Kellogg is telling Trump right now about how those meetings went. Now, Kellogg was responding to an equally flattering positive post from President Zelenskyy, who was thanking Kellogg for being there.

He said the meeting was one that restores hope. And he talked about the potential for a deal and the need for strong agreements on economy and security. Guys, that is certainly a reference to the deal over these minerals that the U.S. and Ukraine are trying to strike.

Now, we've heard President Trump talking about how he wants hundreds of billions of dollars worth of these rare earth and other minerals in Ukraine. President Zelenskyy has said that it's as much as 50 percent of the revenue from these different mines and these different minerals. And that's for past American support for Ukraine.

Now, what's interesting is a Ukrainian source told our colleague Nick Paton Walsh in Kyiv that there has to be security elements in this deal. And that almost certainly refers to not just more weaponry for Ukraine, but these security guarantees. How do you make sure that Russia never invades Ukraine again?

And Ukraine wants to see European and American troops helping out. So that is really the big focus now. What do these security guarantees look like? What is the American military presence, if any? We heard President Trump say the other day that he doesn't want to see American troops inside Ukraine. We did hear the National Security Advisor Mike Waltz talk about this deal earlier today.

Here's a little bit of what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MIKE WALTZ, NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: Here's the bottom line. President Zelenskyy is going to sign that deal. And you will see that in the very short term.

And that is good for Ukraine. What better could you have for Ukraine than to be in an economic partnership with the United States, number one? And you know what? We have an obligation to you all, the American taxpayer, to recoup the hundreds of billions of dollars that have been invested in this war.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MARQUARDT: So Waltz they're talking about getting paid back, it's worth reminding everyone that when aid is given to Ukraine, oftentimes it's old weaponry. It's Bradley vehicles from the Iraq war. It's cluster munitions that we no longer use.

There's some newer stuff as well. But when we talk about hundreds of millions of dollars, those are dollars that our Pentagon is now being allowed to invest back into American weapons manufacturers. But this does raise a lot of questions about how Trump sees Zelenskyy's role, and specifically his role at the table in negotiating what could be a peace deal with Russia.

OMAR JIMENEZ, CNN HOST: It's interesting seeing cabinet members react in real time, sort of following where the president is going. Alex Marquardt, really appreciate the reporting, as always.

MARQUARDT: Thank you.

JIMENEZ: All right, still ahead for us, we are on the ground in West Texas, where the number of measles cases continues to grow. We're going to show you how health officials are battling the illness and the anti-vaccine sentiment that's fueling it.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: And breaking news, CNN is learning acting ICE director Caleb Vitello has been removed from his post amid frustration over the pace of deportations. We'll stay on this story. Stay with CNN.

[15:35:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

JIMENEZ: Welcome back, everyone. The measles outbreak in West Texas has now grown to 90 cases according to the state health department. Most of the patients are children, too. The unvaccinated or those who have an unknown vaccination status.

KEILAR: CNN chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta traveled to Lubbock, Texas to speak with health officials there.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: So many of the people who get infected with measles, who get sick and need to be hospitalized, are children. So we're here at Coven and Children's and I want to give you an idea of how this works over here. Somebody pulls up, even before they go inside the hospital, they'll actually get evaluated in this shed out here.

They want to determine if someone actually has measles, they need to be put into personal protective gear and then taken inside the hospital.

DR. LARA JOHNSON, CHIEF MEDICAL OFFICER, COVENANT HEALTH LUBBOCK SERVICE AREA: We've had over 15 patients admitted here in our children's hospital with measles over the past several weeks.

GUPTA (voice-over): Dr. Laura Johnson is the chief medical officer here.

GUPTA: How do you even begin to approach as a patient comes in? What do you do for them?

JOHNSON: Most of the patients who've been admitted have had respiratory issues. They've been needing supplemental oxygen and respiratory support to help them get over the viral pneumonia part that we see with measles.

GUPTA: It's one thing to treat these patients on the ground, but the key in the middle of a measles outbreak is to try and prevent more cases from occurring. That's really challenging given how contagious this is.

Appreciate it. Hey, how are you doing? Nice to meet you. How's it going? That's kind of the reaction we're getting.

SHUFORD: Freezing weather and measles outbreak.

GUPTA (voice-over): Dr. Jennifer Shuford is the commissioner for the state health department.

GUPTA: What do you think the next weeks and months is going to look like?

DR. JENNIFER SHUFORD, COMMISSIONER, TEXAS DEPARTMENT OF STATE HEALTH SERVICES: I think that we're going to continue to see cases and what the next few months look like kind of depends on how effective we are at getting messaging out about, you know, making sure that people get vaccinated, that they stay at home if they're sick and really trying to push that message through really trusted community leaders.

GUPTA: You and I have been doctors for some time, I think me a bit longer than you, but have you ever seen measles before?

SHUFORD: No, and I'm an infectious disease physician. I've never diagnosed a case.

GUPTA: That's incredible.

[15:40:00]

SHUFORD: It's because, you know, measles was declared eliminated from the United States back in the year 2000 because of the effectiveness of that vaccine. And it's only now with falling immunization rates, not just here in Texas, but across the country and around the world that we're starting to see more of these outbreaks.

GUPTA (voice-over): Now, while most of the cases have been in a close- knit rural Mennonite community, worry has started to spread.

GUPTA: Hello.

AMY GANDY, PARENT OF IMMUNOCOMPROMISED CHILD: Hi, how are you?

GUPTA: How you doing? Hey, I'm Sanjay.

AMY GRANDY: Amy, nice to meet you.

GUPTA: Nice to meet you, you too. How's it going?

OWEN: Hi, this is Owen.

GUPTA: Hey, Owen.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hi, Owen.

AMY GRANDY: Owen was a micro preemie. So he spent the first 102 or three days in the hospital. And since then, you know, with his weakened immune system and everything he went through, we just don't know how he would handle the measles.

GUPTA (voice-over): Amy and Eric Gandy have lived in Lubbock for 20 years.

[Speaker 16] ERIC GRANDY, PARENT OF IMMUNOCOMPROMISED CHILD: And the good thing about it is Riley really likes getting shot, so.

GUPTA (voice-over): Now both their kids, 11-year-old Owen and nine- year-old Riley are vaccinated. But that's the thing about outbreaks. Low vaccination rates can put vulnerable people in danger.

ERIC GRANDY: I mean, it's really, I think it's time that everybody like takes a look just at your political reasons or your religious reasons. Kind of think about that group of people and the new or the old information about vaccines and really take a deep look into what it is that you really believe and why you really believe that.

GUPTA: You just set this up --

DR. RON COOK, LUBBOCK HEALTH AUTHORITY: Just set this up.

GUPTA: -- when an outbreak's happening, you say.

COOK: Set it up this week.

GUPTA (voice-over): Dr. Ron Cook is with the Lubbock Health Authority.

COOK: We've got plenty of vaccine, but we just need people to come get it.

GUPTA: And are people coming in?

COOK: They did 13 yesterday.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: 23.

COOK: 23 yesterday.

GUPTA: 23, OK. How would you describe what's going on here?

COOK: We have pockets that are not well vaccinated, but these individuals, like in Gaines County down there, that come to shop here. We have Costco and Sam's and Walmart's, and they come here to do big shopping on the weekends and they bring their kids and they walk through Costco or they walk through these big shopping centers and then they're exposing these people.

GUPTA (voice-over): It's why they believe this outbreak is likely to continue for weeks, if not months, and why every shot here will make a difference.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN, Lubbock, Texas.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KEILAR: All right, thanks to Sanjay for that report.

And in a matter of minutes here, the Los Angeles County District Attorney is expected to provide an update on the Menendez brother case ahead of their scheduled resentencing. We are live from LA right after this.

[15:45:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

JIMENEZ: We want to bring you some breaking news. Israel says it is preparing to receive a body said to be of Hamas hostage, Shiri Bibas.

KEILAR: This after the body of a woman was returned yesterday along with the remains of the Bibas' two sons was found not to be their mother, Shiri. Let's get straight to CNN Global Affairs analyst, Kim Dozier. Hamas calling this a mix-up, Kim.

It has seriously threatened this already fragile ceasefire. And I think what this really comes down to is certainly this had better be her. What if it is not?

KIM DOZIER, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Yes, well, the body of Shiri Bibas was being held by another group, not Hamas. So that is Hamas' reason for the confusion. But we've got an exchange scheduled for tomorrow of six living Israeli hostages for a number of Palestinian prisoners.

So the pressure was really on Hamas to come up with the remains, especially after Israel's president -- Israel's prime minister, Bibi Netanyahu, had promised revenge against Hamas for this mix-up and also for the state of the bodies of the two sons, the Bibas' sons, because the IDF has come out with a conclusion that they were actually killed brutally by hand, not killed in a airstrike, as Hamas had originally claimed. JIMENEZ: And as we understand right now, a body has been handed over to the Red Cross. Again, we were expecting that to be the body of hostage Shiri Bibas, but of course, confirmations are ongoing right now. So we'll bring you updates on that when we have them.

But Kim, along those lines, look, the context of this is we've been in the middle of a ceasefire agreement, a fragile one, I think is fair to say, with more hostages expected to be released tomorrow. When you look at the context of this ceasefire and of course, the language of Netanyahu calling this a brazen violation to this point, how optimistic are you that this agreement will hold much longer than this weekend, if we even get to that point?

DOZIER: It really is looking dicey because Netanyahu knows that if he goes through with phase two, which means withdrawing the IDF out of the corridor between Gaza and Egypt, he could pull apart his government. Part of his coalition has threatened to pull out and that would trigger new elections. So he doesn't want to go there.

[15:50:00]

He has told Trump he wants to return to fighting and the president in an interview today indicated he didn't mind if it went either way, either negotiations went on to phase two and more hostages were eventually released or Israel returned to fighting, especially after three bombs -- three buses were exploded in Israel yesterday, though no one was killed.

There's a mood in Israel that the danger very much is ever present and that Hamas is still a threat and the public at least is in the mood, it seems to go back to war.

KEILAR: And what about the pressure from families? Because we should note that even after this phase, there are many, many more hostages, including those connected to the Israeli military, Israeli Americans like Edan Alexander, who are still there.

DOZIER: Yes, because Hamas was waiting to release anyone that the group considered a soldier or anyone who'd been captured in uniform until the second part of this negotiation, the tougher part of the negotiation because it requires more concessions from both sides. And the families have asked, including the family of Shiri Bibas have said, hey, instead of revenge, let's ask for all the hostages back, let's get them back first, plus the remains of the rest of our loved ones before any going back to war.

Because as many Israelis will tell you, including the family members that I've gotten to speak to, Israel can go back to war at any point. There's a very finite and dangerous existence those remaining hostages are living right now.

KEILAR: Yes, so very true. Kim Dozier, thank you for that. We appreciate it.

We do have more breaking news that we're following. A federal judge letting the Trump administration move forward with dismantling the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID. The Trump administration has moved to drastically cut down the agency's funding and global workforce.

Unions representing USAID workers had challenged the process in federal court. We'll be right back.

[15:55:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KEILAR: All right, we're watching the Dow and as you can see, that is a big red wall that is no bueno, down 745 points. And this is being driven by a dip in consumer confidence. Consumers souring on how they feel about the economy.

That metric dropping several points over the last month amid fears that these tariff threats are going to further push inflation up. People have been spending a lot of money. They are feeling it in their pocketbooks and they're worried they're going to continue to do that.

Let's bring in CNN's Vanessa Yurkevich to talk a little bit more of this. Talk about what's going on here because it looks pretty bad.

VANESSA YURKEVICH, CNN BUSINESS AND POLITICS CORRESPONDENT: Yes, so this is investors reacting to that University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Survey that we got at 10 a.m. this morning. You see the Dow just really taking a turn down right now 760 points. And this is because what happens in this survey is it revealed that consumer sentiment was falling. People were feeling worse about the economy and when people feel worse about the economy, they tend not to spend.

And so then what does that mean for businesses doing well? Well, investors are concerned about what the business community is going to look like if people are not spending and that is why you see those numbers in red right now.

But this Consumer Sentiment Survey really paints a picture about how everyday Americans feel and it dropped by 10 percent in February. We get two readings. We got a reading in the beginning of February which showed that consumer sentiment was down about 5 percent but we got a new reading today that showed that it had fallen even more, 9.8 percent, close to 10 percent there. The why? Well, Americans are concerned about tariffs. How much are things going to cost them at the end of the day?

And then that's a reflection on their personal finances. People concerned about what their bank accounts are going to look like. And then the long-term impact of this survey, they ask about how are you feeling about inflation over the next year and then over the next five to 10 years?

Well, both outlooks were very pessimistic from Americans and this really trended across age, income level and wealth. There was a distinction though in this survey. Democrats and independents were feeling worse about the economy, worse about inflation. Republicans though, feeling less worried, willing to give the president a little more time to do his job, bring down prices as he said he was going to do.

JIMENEZ: Well, and a lot of consumer sentiment comes down to, you know, how much are things costing at the grocery store? We know for one, eggs have been extremely elevated in price and we're learning Turkey will now sell about -- Turkey the country -- will now sell about 420 million eggs to the U.S. by the end of the year. So it could help with egg prices there, but how did Turkey, the country, end up providing eggs to the U.S.?

YURKEVICH: Yes, well, the U.S. is a huge supplier of our own eggs. We produce about 7.5 billion eggs every single year. But as you guys know, there's an egg shortage and prices are really high right now.

So we are turning to really our only importer of eggs, Turkey, to try to bring more eggs into this country, 420 million by the end of this year.

[16:00:00]

That's six times what Turkey normally sends us, but hopefully this will help alleviate prices. But if this avian flu goes on in the way that it has, the American Farm Bureau thinks that a lot more is going to have to be done. This is a temporary fix. This is not a fix for fixing prices -- guys.

KEILAR: Good to know. And we're not eating turkey eggs. They're still chicken eggs.

JIMENEZ: The country.

KEILAR: Vanessa, Yurkevich, thank you very much.

And "THE LEAD" with Jake Tapper starts right now.

END