Return to Transcripts main page
CNN Newsroom
Measles in Florida: Science Vs. Misinformation; 10 Cases Reported in Florida Measles Epidemic; Disagreements on Measles Rules Between CDC and Florida Surgeon General; Macy's to Close Another 150 Stores; How One Magician's Most Well-Known Trick was a Deepfake Biden Robocall; $1B Gift to Albert Einstein College of Medicine to Fund Tuition-Free Education. Aired 10:30-11a ET
Aired February 27, 2024 - 10:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[10:30:00]
JIM ACOSTA, CNN ANCHOR AND CHIEF DOMESTIC CORRESPONDENT: All right. Elie Honig, great to see you. Thanks so much.
ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST, FORMER ASSISTANT U.S. ATTORNEY, SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NY, AND FORMER FEDERAL AND NEW JERSEY STATE PROSECUTOR: Thank you.
ACOSTA: Appreciate it.
HONIG: All right.
ACOSTA: All right. Science versus misinformation. The ongoing fight in Florida over the handling of active measles cases there. What parents need to know, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ACOSTA: All right. Happening now in Florida, measles outbreak is growing. The state's health department has now confirmed a total of 10 cases and nine of those are children in Broward County, where an outbreak was reported recently at a local elementary school.
Worth noting, the CDC reports measles vaccination rates among children have slipped in recent years, and this could lead to people being exposed to a preventable disease. Preventable disease.
[10:35:00]
CNN Medical Analyst Dr. Jonathan Reiner joins me now to talk about this. You know, Dr. Reiner -- it's great to see you again, by the way. Thanks so much.
DR. JONATHAN REINER, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST AND PROFESSOR OF MEDICINE AND SURGERY, GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY: Great to be here.
ACOSTA: When this came up, I said we got to get Dr. Reiner in here to talk about this. I mean, federal guidance says unvaccinated children must be excluded from school through 21 days after their most recent exposure. The Florida Surgeon General saying, their health department is deferring to parents to make these decisions. What's your reaction at -- what's your reaction to what's unfolding?
DR. REINER: Well, this is a preventable illness.
ACOSTA: Yes.
DR. REINER: A completely preventable illness. The reason why CDC recommends that kids who have been -- who -- unvaccinated kids who have been exposed to the virus stay home for 21 days is that the incubation period for the virus is seven to 21 days. And if you are exposed and are infected, you can be infectious several days before you develop the, sort of, characteristic rash, which is why they recommend nonimmune, nonvaccinated kids, basically, stay home.
But the Florida Surgeon General, Dr. Joseph Ladapo, has a pattern of basically denying science. And, you know, he's shown a history of, basically, vaccine denial and science denial. And this is just --
ACOSTA: This goes back to COVID.
DR. REINER: Yes, you know, he was hired by Ron DeSantis in 2021. He was basically, DeSantis', you know, anti, you know, COVID woke kind of addition to his team. And he was part of -- he was found because he was a part of a group called America's Frontline Doctors, a right-wing group that opposed any kind of pandemic mitigation strategy. Masks, vaccines, and vaccine mandates. And that's how Ron DeSantis found him.
ACOSTA: Yes.
DR. REINER: And since arriving in Florida, he advised parents not to vaccinate children. He told people under the age of 65 that they should not receive a booster. And then in December, he basically lobbied the FDA to try and pull RNA vaccines off the market because of a completely erroneous assertion that fragments of genetic material can incorporate it into a genome of a person receiving a vaccine, which has been, you know, roundly -- soundly refuted by the FDA.
ACOSTA: So, I mean -- so, what we're seeing right now in Florida, we can't -- I mean, say with a hundred percent certainty that this is the case. But could this potentially be stemming from some of this vaccine nuttiness that we saw during COVID where it became political and people didn't want to get the vaccine? And so now. this is like baked -- it's baked in with some segments of our communities out there?
DR. REINER: Right. And you know -- and look --
ACOSTA: And we should note, the measles vaccine, 97 percent effective.
DR. REINER: It's -- so it's one of the most effective vaccines ever constructed. It's safe. It's been used for 60 years. Prior to the vaccine reduction in 1963, every kid, by the time they were 15 would have had measles. And now almost -- it's basically been, as you said, it's been eradicated from the United States.
ACOSTA: Yes. DR. REINER: But when you talk to a vulnerable group of people and tell them over and over again that vaccines don't work or they're dangerous or you're being lied to, then you start to see parents not vaccinate their kids. And parents have heard this from RFK Jr. They have heard this questioning the safety of vaccines from people like Tucker Carlson. And in Florida, they hear it from the surgeon general. It has a very corrosive effect.
You know, you can look around for a doctor that's going to tell you what you want to hear, but when you're in a position of authority like the surgeon general of a state, you want a doctor to tell you what you need to hear, not what you want to hear.
ACOSTA: You have a public responsibility.
DR. REINER: Right. And what he should be telling, you know, the citizens of Florida is to vaccinate your kids.
ACOSTA: Yes. All right. Dr Reiner, great to see you as always. Got to keep reminding folks that, you know, it's about keeping Our community safe. Keeping our kids safe. It's hard to believe that vaccines that we just said, OK, no big deal. We're getting a vaccine. And then COVID came along and it became very political.
DR. REINER: That's right.
ACOSTA: Dr. Reiner, thank you very much.
In the meantime, once a retail giant Macy's, have you heard this as it is closing 150 stores across the country? We'll talk about that in a few moments. That's next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[10:40:00]
ACOSTA: Big news from the business world this morning, Macy's is closing 150 stores. CNN's Vanessa Yurkevich joins us now. Vanessa, this is a big deal. A lot of people know Macy's. It's right there in their hometown, but it might not be much longer.
VANESSA YURKEVICH, CNN BUSINESS AND POLITICS CORRESPONDENT: Yes, and this is part of a bold new chapter, according to the CEO of Macy's, Tony Spring, who took over just this month. And he revealed in today's fourth quarter earning calls that is part of this transformation, they are going to be closing 150 underperforming Macy's stores. And of course, that ultimately comes with job losses.
He did say, however, that they're going to be opening about 30 smaller Macy's stores in strip malls. So, a different consumer experience there. And also, though, investing in some of their luxury brands.
So, Macy's also owns Bloomingdale's and Blue Mercury, which is a cosmetic and skincare store. They're going to be opening 15 new Bloomingdale's and 30 new Blue Mercury stores. So, the investment really shifting to those luxury brands where they have seen the most success.
[10:45:00]
Tony Spring, the CEO, also pointing to last quarter saying that sales fell by two percent and that is around the time when people are doing holiday shopping, and that's when you should see sales increase but they're seeing that drag from the consumer at Macy's. Also, last month, it was announced that Macy's was going to lay off 2,300 employees.
So, you just wonder what kind of a footprint both from the spatial standpoint, but also employee standpoint Macy's is really going to have. Also, just to note, note Wall Street taking notice of this new plan and they seem to like it. Macy's stock up about five percent this morning. So, Wall Street thinking that this is moving in the right direction, and the CEO clearly saying this is the direction that they need to be moving in in order to be profitable, Jim.
ACOSTA: All right. Vanessa Yurkevich, thanks so much. We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[10:50:00]
ACOSTA: So, who was behind a deepfake robocall to New Hampshire voters days before the presidential primary that sounded like President Biden telling some to stay home and not vote? There is a strange answer to that question involving a New Orleans Street magician. And CNN's Kyung Lah has the details.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KYUNG LAH, CNN SENIOR U.S. NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Paul Carpenter, New Orleans Street magician wanted to be famous for fork bending.
PAUL CARPENTER, MAGICIAN WHO USED A.I. TO CREAT FAKE BIDEN AUDIO: You could actually see it looks like it's bending.
LAH (voice-over): But instead, he's making national headlines. Tricked himself, he says, in a political scandal around this fake robocall of President Biden.
AI RENDERING OF JOE BIDEN'S VOICE: What a bunch of malarkey.
LAH (voice-over): Sent to more than 20,000 New Hampshire residents, urging Democrats to not vote in last month's primary.
AI RENDERING OF JOE BIDEN'S VOICE: It's important that you save your vote for the November election.
LAH: Did you know when you made that recording how it was going to be used?
CARPENTER: None. None whatsoever. I'm a magician and a hypnotist. I'm not in the political realm. So, I just got thrown into this thing.
LAH (voice-over): Carpenter says he was playing around with A.I. apps, getting paid a few hundred bucks here and there to make fake recordings. One of those paying, according to text messages shared with CNN, was political operative Steve Kramer, then-employed by Democratic Presidential Candidate Dean Phillips.
CARPENTER: And I was like, no problem. Send me a script. I send you a recording. Send me some money. Boom. Boom.
LAH: How easy is all of this for a self-taught guy?
CARPENTER: Five minutes. 10 tops.
LAH (voice-over): Kramer admitted to CNN he was behind the robocall. The Phillips campaign cut ties with him, saying they had nothing to do with it. But this deepfake raised immediate concern over the power of A.I., from the White House --
KARINE JEAN-PIERRE, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: That call was indeed fake and not recorded by the president.
LAH (voice-over): -- to election watchers.
HANY FARID, DIGITAL FORENSICS EXPERT, UC BERKELEY: When people are getting phone calls 48 hours, 24 hours before an election, there is nobody there to interfere. And those, I -- were very worrisome to me. And when you think about, you know, how much we are connected to our devices and now you're going to inject these generative A.I. into that ecosystem, and I think we're in for something dramatic.
LAH: Can you create a voice that sounds like President Biden?
VIJAY BALASUBRAMANIYAN, FOUNDER AND CEO, PINDROP: Very easily.
LAH (voice-over): Deepfake Expert Vijay Balasubramaniyan says there's no shortage of often free apps that can do it.
BALASUBRAMANIYAN: It requires just three seconds of your audio and you can actually clone someone's voice.
LAH: We are testing to see how quickly you can create an A.I. voice.
BALASUBRAMANIYAN: And then upload that.
LAH: And add voice. And then I can just type whatever I want? I would like to buy a new pair of shoes, but they should be pink.
BALASUBRAMANIYAN: And then say, generate.
LAH (voice-over): And in just seconds. I would like to buy a new pair of shoes, but they should be pink.
BALASUBRAMANIYAN: For someone like me, you know, it did sound a little bit like you.
LAH (voice-over): A famous voice?
BALASUBRAMANIYAN: Like five minutes of President Biden speaking at any particular event, and that's what it took to create a clone of his voice.
LAH (voice-over): Pindrop, his company, not only detected that robocall of President Biden's voice was a fake, but tracked it to the very A.I. company that made it. So, it takes A.I. software to detect whether a voice is A.I. generated.
LAH: It knows that it's a deepfake.
BALASUBRAMANIYAN: You cannot expect a human to do this. You need technology to be able to fight technology. So, you need good A.I. to fight bad A.I.
LAH (voice-over): To alert Americans that just like a magic trick, an A.I. deepfake is not what it seems.
CARPENTER: You can actually make it look like it's twisting off.
LAH: Now, Pindrop says they are getting a lot of interest from political campaigns already. And in the coming months, they expect to make some announcement about their involvement in the 2024 election. This is one company, one small window into what is going to be truly the Wild West of technology this year. And part of the reason is because we're human. Our ear wants to compensate for any of those oddities we may hear. We simply want to believe what we see and hear.
Kyung Lah, CNN, Los Angeles.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ACOSTA: And moments from now, top congressional leaders will head to the White House to try to avoid a government shutdown. What's at stake? That's just ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[10:55:00]
ACOSTA: Before we go, the story of a gift that will keep on giving for years. Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York is celebrating after receiving one of the largest ever charitable gifts to an educational institution in the U.S.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DR. RUTH GOTTESMAN, FORMER BOARD CHAIRWOMAN, ALBERT EINSTEIN COLLEGE OF MEDICINE: Starting in August this year, the Albert Einstein College of Medicine will be tuition free.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ACOSTA: Pretty amazing stuff. That's Dr. Ruth Gottesman announcing her $1 billion donation, which will enable the school students to attend tuition free. Dr. Gottesman is a former professor who spent 55 years as chair of the med school's board. She made the historic donation in the name of her late husband, David Gottesman, who was an earlier investor of Berkshire Hathaway and a longtime friend of Berkshire's CEO, Warren Buffett.
[11:00:00]
