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Rubio Says "The Ball Is Now In Russia's Court" On Ceasefire; Musk Eyes Cuts To Entitlements, Citing Waste, Fraud & Abuse; West Texas Measles Outbreak Climbs To 223 Cases; FDA Flu Vaccine Advisory Meeting Cancelled Without Explanation. Aired 2:30-3p ET

Aired March 11, 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]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: Marco Rubio, secretary of state, saying, in Saudi Arabia, the ball is now in Russia's court as U.S. and Ukrainian officials have come to an agreement on a 30-day ceasefire they're going to put before Russia.

Let's go to Alex Marquardt. He's there in Saudi Arabia.

Alex, we heard you asked that first question during the availability. I'm not sure you got a straightforward answer to your question. But just take us through what has happened there today. It's a big day.

ALEX MARQUARDT, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: It certainly is. And the expectation, the way that Rubio had framed it on the way in, was that this was going to be a listening session, that the U.S. side was going to be listening to the American (sic) side to eventually sort of come up with some positions that they could then take back to the Russians.

This, Brianna, is a lot more concrete. This shows that not only is this U.S.-Ukraine relationship essentially back on track, but they are moving forward in tandem.

One of the things that we thought would be discussed today was a Ukrainian proposal for a partial ceasefire. Instead, what we're learning now is essentially that the U.S. took that and ran with it.

And they are now saying that this is a U.S. proposal, not for a partial, but for a full ceasefire for at least 30 days immediately that could then be extended. So this goes well beyond what the Ukrainians were imagining and putting forward.

And so when I asked Rubio for specifics, he made clear this isn't just about the end of aerial bombardment and the end of the fighting in the Black Sea that the Ukrainians talked about.

He wants the U.S. wants all of the guns to fall silent. And he says that the Ukrainians have agreed to this. And now it goes to the Russians, at multiple levels, he says.

Because we know that that Steve Witkoff, the special envoy, is going to be in in Russia later this week, but this is going to be communicated, we're told, to the Russians at several levels.

And if the Russians don't accept it, Rubio said, we will then know who the impediment to peace is. And of course, he's referring to the Russians there.

The other big part of this is that military and intelligence assistance that had notably been paused, that severely damaged the Ukrainians in the wake of that disastrous White House meeting, that is now immediately being lifted, that pause.

It will immediately go back into effect. We heard the national security adviser, Mike Waltz, saying it will go back to the normal stream of things, if you will, the presidential drawdown authority, as it's known.

So two major wins for the Ukrainians here and the ball, Brianna, is now firmly in Russia's court.

KEILAR: Yes, well see what they do with it.

Alex, thank you so much.

Everyone, thank you.

We have much more news still ahead. Big developments. The U.S. immediately restoring intel and security aid to Ukraine, as they at least are coming to an agreement on a ceasefire. We'll see what Russia does.

We'll be back with more after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:37:19]

KEILAR: Elon Musk is raising fears about cuts to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. And some of it is stemming from his interview on FOX when the billionaire presidential adviser described entitlement spending as being rife with waste and fraud, and said, quote, "That's the big one to eliminate."

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: And now the White House is weighing in, saying that Musk was taken out of context.

So let's play what Musk said so folks can hear it for themselves.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ELON MUSK, DEPARTMENT OF GOVERNMENT EFFICIENCY: I mean, the way support in entitlement spending, which is all of the -- which is most of the federal spending, is entitlements. So that that's -- that's like the big one to eliminate because that's the sort of half trillion, maybe $600 billion or $700 billion a year.

The president's gone through a long list of absurd things. Why are there 20 million people who are definitely dead, marked as alive in the Social Security database?

Why were hundreds of -- hundreds of millions of dollars of Small Business Administration loans we're given out to people aged 11 and under, according to the -- according to the Social Security?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: That's Musk in his own words.

So let's fact-check those claims. CNN's senior reporter, Daniel Dale, is here.

Daniel, a lot of claims about fraud. Take us through them.

DANIEL DALE, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: A lot of claims. So let's start with the Social Security one, because I think it's a good example of how these very large numbers that Mr. Musk and President Trump are using in terms of waste and fraud in the federal government are based on what we can generously call misunderstandings. Maybe you could use a harsher word.

So we do know there is a well-known issue documented by the federal government of people being listed as alive in a Social Security database, even though they are deceased.

But what they don't mention is that this does not mean all of those people, or even many of those people, are actually receiving Social Security benefits.

So, for example, the Social Security inspector general looked into this, for a 2022 2023 report, found that about 19 million people aged 100 or older were listed as not being dead. So way too many.

But critically, only 44,000 of those people were actually getting Social Security checks. So suddenly you go from, oh, maybe we got billions, tens of billions in fraud here to a much, much smaller number.

Now, this claim about 11 year olds or children receiving these small business loans, I don't know what's going on there. But based on the track record from Mr. Musk, I wouldn't be surprised if this was, again, some sort of administrative issue.

Yes. Sloppiness? Yes. Errors, but not evidence of mass fraud. We'll wait and see. But that's what keeps happening with these claims.

KEILAR: And the White House is pushing back. This is their response. It's titled "Fact Check." "President Trump will always protect Social Security, Medicare."

And it goes on to say, in part, quote, "The Trump administration will not cut Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid benefits. President Trump himself has said it over and over and over again."

[14:40:06] You know, what do you think about that? But also, experts say, in order to do these kinds of cuts, you just have to be honest and say, you're going to have to tinkle -- not tinkle --

SANCHEZ: Some of us may have to tinkle --

KEILAR: Some may --

(CROSSTALK)

KEILAR: It is a three-hour show.

(CROSSTALK)

KEILAR: Tinker, to tinker with entitlements, but that's like a third rail. And you say that and voters understandably get very nervous.

DALE: Yes. So here's what we know. About 60 percent of federal spending is these entitlements. It is mandatory spending Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security.

So if you say you're not going to touch that stuff, you've got 40 percent left, but 10 percent is interest payments.

You can't -- you can't mess with those. Then you got 30 percent, but half of that 30 percent, so another 15 is defense spending, which President Trump said the other day he doesn't want to cut, at least right now.

So then, if you're not touching any of those things, you've got this 15 percent left of outlays, which is other discretionary spending. Basically, you have to get rid of all of it, which you're not going to do.

So I will note that in that White House so-called fact-check, they said he won't cut Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security benefits, benefits. So I think that leaves them some vocabulary kind of wiggle room to say, oh, we did make some tweaks. We achieved some savings. We're not cutting benefits.

Those are the kind of word games you see often from often from people of both parties.

SANCHEZ: Yes. And Republicans that we've spoken to specifically have suggested that there might be some tweaks to work requirements and that sort of thing. So it leaves the space open when they say benefits for that kind of discussion.

I do wonder, because we've had multiple folks that have been defending DOGE on lately. They've made all sorts of claims about the amount of money that is saved. And we've pointed out multiple times that on their wall of receipts on their Web site, that's been adjusted, I mean, a dozen times perhaps.

DALE: So many, I don't know how many, but -- but many.

SANCHEZ: Yes.

DALE: You guys have done great fact-checking on that.

So they claim on this Web site, they claim they've saved $105 billion. They have not corroborated anywhere close to that amount. And that so- called wall of receipts repeatedly stuffed, deleted, changed.

So they claim that they saved $8 billion by cutting what was actually an $8 billion -- $8 million contract. They claim that they saved money by canceling contracts that actually ended under the Bush administration, under the Biden administration, some of them.

They're double counting, triple counting, making various errors. So that $105 billion number still not even close to the trillion. They want to cut a trillion plus. But even that $105 billion number has not come close to being corroborated.

KEILAR: All right, Daniel Dale, thank you so much. Always appreciate the fact-check. Thank you.

And next, we do have some new numbers out of west Texas. They are not good. They show the measles outbreak there is worsening.

We're also tracking this news coming in on the U.S. and Ukraine coming to an agreement on a 30-day ceasefire. But that's the U.S. and the Ukraine. Russia does have a say here.

SANCHEZ: Yes. Secretary of State Marco Rubio saying, "The ball is in Russia's court." We are tracking all the latest details on that. We'll bring them to you in just moments. Stay with us.

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[14:47:23]

SANCHEZ: There are new numbers out of Texas that show that measles cases are growing, and so are hospitalizations. There are now 223 confirmed cases, with nearly 30 hospitalized.

The majority of those patients, about 78 percent, are kids. Also affected are the unvaccinated and those with an unknown vaccine status. Just five cases, around 2 percent, are people who say they've received at least one dose of the MMR vaccine.

KEILAR: And it was five years ago today that another unchecked virus brought most of the world to a halt. Five years ago today, if you can imagine that, the Covid 19 outbreak declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization.

Dr. Paul Offit, co-inventor of the rotavirus vaccine, which the CDC recommends for universal use in infants, is with us now.

Dr. Offit, vaccines slowed Covid, all but eliminated the measles from this country. How are you thinking about that today?

DR. PAUL OFFIT, DIRECTOR, VACCINE EDUCATION CENTER, CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL OF PHILADELPHIA & MEMBER, FDA VACCINE ADVISORY COMMITTEE: Well, I mean, you're right. We -- when we had our second dose recommendation for a measles vaccine in 1989, within 10 years, we had eliminated measles from this country.

And even though measles comes into this country from other countries, because we had a high vaccination rate, high population immunity, it never spread from American child to American child.

But over the last 25 years, there's been an erosion in vaccine confidence. There's been fear of vaccine safety.

And probably most importantly, I think, not only have we largely eliminated measles, we've eliminated the memory of measles. And I think that's part of the problem.

SANCHEZ: To that point, these 225 or so cases in west Texas, another 30 in New Mexico, how far do you think this outbreak could spread?

OFFIT: Well, it -- certainly before there was a vaccine, wed have three million to four million cases a year, 50,000 hospitalizations and 500 deaths.

I mean, you're seeing now that a susceptible community is being infected with a virus that's highly contagious. And there are many communities, like the Mennonite community, where the immunization rate's around 80 percent.

You know, I was in Philadelphia in 1991 where we had 1,400 cases and nine deaths, again centering on two religious groups that we're under- vaccinated.

We had an outbreak in Brooklyn in 2018, 2019. There was again an under-vaccinated community. There were 650 cases in California in 2014, 2015.

An under-vaccinated community in southern California, it spread to seven states, spread to Canada, spread to Mexico. So it's a highly contagious virus. It's the most contagious virus. And I think when you're unvaccinated, it's a problem.

[14:50:01]

Another thing that's interesting, you're actually better off being unvaccinated, living in a highly vaccinated community than being vaccinated, living in a highly unvaccinated community.

So when you say that there are a handful of people who, despite being vaccinated, are or have become infected, that's because no vaccine is 100 percent effective.

And when you have a highly unvaccinated community like this one, then you're more likely to be exposed and more likely to get sick.

KEILAR: Yes, that's a really interesting point.

And also brings into relief something else we wanted to check in with you about, which is that last month, the FDA canceled a meeting to discuss the composition of flu vaccines for this falls flu season.

They're always kind of gaming out, what -- what should it be so that we can try to have maximum protection for the next flu vaccine? You were supposed to be there. Do you have any update on that?

OFFIT: Well, I think that meeting was canceled. I think the FDA is just going to take this in-house and make the decision without the transparency of an external advisory committee.

I mean, the good thing about having a group of 12 or so experts who are independent of the government, independent of pharmaceutical companies, is we can then hold that the sort of science behind a policy to a high standard.

And it's open to the public. So it's transparent. And I think you lose that. And I think when you lose the transparency, I think the public, if anything, becomes more distrustful.

There was also an advisory committee of immunization practices to the CDC meeting that was canceled. And I just worry that this is suggesting something bigger.

SANCHEZ: To that point, there's this Axios-Ipsos American Health Index that shows that trust in public health institutions and leaders remains divided. It either declined or never fully recovered as a result of Covid.

I wonder what reflections you might have over the last five years and what could have been done differently, whether these lasting impacts might provide lessons not only on public health messaging, but any steps from here forward with outbreaks like this measles one.

OFFIT: Well, you're certainly right. I think that during the last five years of this pandemic, especially the first two years of the pandemic, I think we lost the public's trust.

Which is ironic in the sense that we had a vaccine that clearly saved about three million American lives, and there we're at least 250,000 people who, by choosing not to get a vaccine, lost their lives.

But I think the communication, I think, probably could have been done a little more out in the open in terms of how policy decisions were being made. I think we had to be humble right from the beginning because you learn as you go.

And I don't think we adequately showed how we really did need to learn as we go. We're building the airplane while it's in the air. Maybe our statements were a little too definitive.

And I think that put people off so that, right now, we, I think, have probably at the lowest level of vaccine confidence, certainly in my lifetime.

KEILAR: And we do want to note now, we just got this in, Dr. Offit, that the measles outbreak has expanded to 258 cases. So it's up over 250. And there are now new cases in Oklahoma. So this has gone from west Texas to New Mexico, now in Oklahoma, I

know that you were probably not particularly surprised by that.

OFFIT: No, I mean, two years ago, we had 58 cases. Last year, we had 285 cases. This year we're already at 258 cases and it's February. I mean -- or I'm sorry, it's March.

This is a virus that will spread certainly through at least mid-May. So we have a couple more months of this. And I think we are certainly going to exceed last year's levels massively.

SANCHEZ: Dr. Paul Offit, appreciate the expertise and the conversation. Thanks so much for joining us.

OFFIT: Thank you.

SANCHEZ: So today, Saudi Arabia and Qatar are condemning Israel's decision to cut off electricity to the Gaza Strip, calling the move a violation of international humanitarian law.

KEILAR: This comes after Israel said it cut the flow of electricity to the last facility in Gaza that was still receiving power from the Israel Electric Corporation.

CNN's Jeremy Diamond is in Jerusalem with more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN JERUSALEM CORRESPONDENT: Well, Brianna, another manmade humanitarian crisis is brewing inside the Gaza Strip. Israel has now cut off electricity to the last remaining water plant inside of Gaza that was still receiving Israeli electricity.

A desalination plant there will have to switch fully to generator power, which, according to the mayor of Gaza city, will reduce that water treatment facility's output of clean drinking water by some 70 percent.

But the electricity cut off to Gaza is actually not the biggest problem inside the Gaza Strip. The biggest problem is that, for the last 10 days, nothing has gotten into Gaza, no food, no humanitarian supplies, and critically, no fuel has gotten into Gaza either.

And why is the fuel so critical? Because without electricity, much of Gaza is currently powered by solar power and by diesel-powered generators. Everything from hospitals to water treatment facilities, sewage facilities inside the Gaza Strip, all of that relying on the entry of diesel fuel.

[14:55:11]

And for the last 10 days, nothing has gotten in and there's no sign of Israel easing up on that blockade.

Human rights organizations and the United Nations have accused Israel of violating international law by carrying out this effective siege of the Gaza Strip.

And today, we've also now heard from Saudi Arabia and Qatar, who are condemning Israel, with the Saudis accusing Israel of, quote, "collective punishment," while the Qataris said that Israel is trying to starve the people of Gaza.

Israel, for its part, says that it is using all of this as a negotiating tactic, as a way to pressure Hamas as it reengages in those ceasefire negotiations.

Indeed, today, an Israeli and a Hamas delegation are both in Doha, Qatar. And the U.S. special envoy, Steve `Witkoff, also set to arrive in the Qatari capital to see whether or not they can actually iron out a new deal to release more hostages from the Gaza Strip and extend that ceasefire inside of Gaza.

The Israelis have shown very little interest in moving forward with phases two and three of the ceasefire agreement, which would lead to an end of the war in Gaza and the withdrawal of Israeli troops.

Instead, it seems that what is on the table is perhaps a deal to extend that ceasefire by a limited amount of time and get maybe as many as half of the remaining hostages in Gaza out -- Brianna?

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KEILAR: All right, Jeremy Diamond, thank you for that.

And next, we're following breaking news out of Saudi Arabia, where there have been discussions between U.S. and Ukrainian officials. Progress appears to have been made, at least on the Ukrainian and U.S. side of things.

They say they've come to an agreement on a 30-day ceasefire. Of course, Russia has a say in this. And that's where this all heads now. We'll have a live report on this next.

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