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Tariffs On Imported Auto Parts Now In Effect; Trump Blasts Judge's Ruling On Alien Enemies Act; Drone Strike In Kharkiv Injures At Least 47; Inside The Fight Against A Drug Cartel; White House Budget Proposal Include Deep Cuts To Health Programs; "The Wired Rainforest." Aired 3-4p ET

Aired May 03, 2025 - 15:00   ET

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

FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN HOST: A food and educational journey. Be sure to tune in on new episode of "EVA LONGORIA: SEARCHING FOR SPAIN," airing tomorrow, 9:00 p.m. Eastern and Pacific right here on CNN.

All right. Hello, again, everyone. Thank you so much for joining me. I'm Fredricka Whitfield.

We begin this hour with another round of President Trump's auto tariffs now in effect. The new tax hikes which kicked in just after midnight could sharply raise the price of every car made, sold and repaired in the U.S. This one involves a 25 percent tariff on imported auto parts, which are used in every car made in the U.S. and could upend the auto industry.

While consumers may not see any price hikes in the short term, experts estimate that the added cost of the tariffs could average to about $4,000 per new vehicle that you buy.

CNN's Alayna Treene joining us right now.

So these tariffs are creating a lot of anxiety for Americans and investors. How is Trump responding to those concerns?

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, you're exactly right, Fred. I mean, we've now heard from a number of analysts on Wall Street who fear increasingly that a recession could be possible because of the tariff policies that the president is putting in place.

Now, the president sat down with "Meet the Press" yesterday. The full interview is going to be airing tomorrow, but they shared a clip where the anchor asked the president, you know, what are your concerns about a potential recession? Do you think that's possible? How are you feeling about that? Listen to his response.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KRISTEN WELKER, NBC NEWS ANCHOR: Is it OK in the short term to have a recession?

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Look, yes, everything is OK. What we are, I said this is a transition period. I think we're going to do fantastically. (END VIDEO CLIP)

TREENE: So as you could hear there, not exactly very reassuring language from the president when asked about a recession. You know, this is very much in line, Fred, with what we've heard from him in the past, which is that his plan is going to be more midterm to long term. It's something I hear repeatedly in my conversations with top Trump administration officials when I asked them about his overall trade plan.

He's repeatedly said now himself, the president directly, that, you know, there could be some short-term pain in the near future and in the immediate term. Yes, this is a transition period. But he believes that in the long term, overall, his tariff plan will do what his ultimate goal is, which is to really break the global economic order and reshape it in his image, really try to get at what he argues are unfair trade practices.

But I also want to point your attention to something the president said earlier this week because I found it very striking. It was really the first time he acknowledged that costs on some goods could go up. He was talking about the price of dolls as just one example. He said, sure, maybe children will have two dolls instead of 30 dolls, and maybe the two dolls will cost a couple more bucks than they would normally.

Again, not very reassuring language when you have many Americans very concerned about, you know, the prices of groceries and other everyday items. Now, I do also want to take you behind the scenes into some of the conversations I've been having with White House officials about the tariffs and potential deals with other countries to try and avoid them. We have now heard repeatedly from many of the president's top economic advisers that we should be seeing a deal soon.

We heard the Treasury secretary say he believed a deal with India would be announced this week or next week. I would note we ended this week, a week that the president was really marking his first 100 days in office, without seeing a trade deal, and so there's a lot of pressure now mounting behind the scenes, a lot of economic anxiety, I'm told, going on privately in some of the conversations at the White House as they really try to get out and deliver some much needed good news for the American people who are kind of hesitant about being as patient as the president is telling them to be -- Fred.

WHITFIELD: All right. Alayna Treene, thank you so much.

So these new tariffs on imported auto parts are just the latest round of tariffs in the president's expanding trade war.

CNN's Julia Vargas Jones is joining us right now from the port of Los Angeles.

Julia, how soon until consumers start to see and feel the impacts from these tariffs?

JULIA VARGAS JONES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, the car tariffs for new cars, Fred, they might not actually see an impact of that in the short term. But for those parts that you might need to get a car repaired, that might actually come pretty soon. And that will depend just as much as where those parts are coming from, as well as when they left their port of origin.

This week we just hit another milestone. So all of those ships full of goods from China that left before April 9th that were not subject to the 145 percent tariff now have all arrived here in the port of Los Angeles, the largest port in the United States, where most of that merchandise comes through.

[15:05:02]

So now we're starting to see shipments coming that are subject to those tariffs. That has led to a 35 percent drop in imports already here in Los Angeles. That's according to the executive director here, (INAUDIBLE). He spoke to CNN saying that, look, a lot of these importers are saying, let's just wait and see how this plays out.

We spoke to one person who was actually benefiting from this. She is the owner of a bonded warehouse. That's a spot, it's completely legal, where importers can hold their imported goods and only pay the tariffs that are in effect the day that they retrieve their merchandise. And they can stay in these places for up to five years. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JENNIFER HARTRY, PRESIDENT, HOWARD HARTRY, INC.: The other benefit is maybe you find a buyer. Maybe you sell your product at a higher price, and you find a buyer who's willing to pay that higher price. You can still house it here until you find that buyer. So it's just giving everybody a pause to try and figure out, is it their new price structure? Is it -- I think right now we're waiting to see if the tariffs are going to come down. That's the biggie. The tariffs on the Chinese products.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JONES: And Fred, we're seeing everything from auto parts to strollers to kitchen utensils, spatulas, guitars, parts for all of these, some of it for people who are actually assembling their products in America but need those parts from overseas. All of this, of course, it's a gamble, right? It's an optimistic gamble to see if the talks with China will actually move forward, and if that could lead to a lower tariff for them to retrieve that product that is sitting here just outside the port of Los Angeles, when they actually can make a better margin in their sales.

Of course, the whole time that these products are in warehouses, that does mean that they're not hitting the shelves so consumers will not have access to them and that could lead to a whole host of other problems -- Fred.

WHITFIELD: All right, Julia Vargas Jones, thanks so much. There in the port of Los Angeles. All right. President Trump today appearing to be blasting a federal

judge's decision to stop an essential part of his administration's immigration crackdown. This week a Trump appointed judge in Texas blocked Trump's use of the 18th century Alien Enemies Act to quickly deport some alleged gang members in his district.

In his ruling, Judge Fernando Rodriguez said the president exceeded his authority to unlawfully invoke the act. The president posting in part, "Americans will have to get used to a very different crime filled life. That is not what our founders had in mind."

Here to talk more about all of this, former Miami-Dade County court judge Jeff Swartz. He is now a professor at the Thomas M. Cooley Law Schools, Tampa Bay campus.

It's great to see you, Judge. So the Trump White House, you know, will likely appeal because they often take that route. But does this federal court ruling in Texas mean that the White House cannot deport from just this specific jurisdiction for now?

JEFF SWARTZ, FORMER MIAMI-DADE COUNTY COURT JUDGE: Yes, that's what basically happened was that the judge said anybody who comes through his district cannot be deported under the Alien Enemies Act. He also -- the whole thing is really two orders. One is finding that the three named plaintiffs in this case are a class, and they represent a class. That means everybody that was deported under the March order is now deemed to have been unlawfully deported under the Alien Enemies Act.

So at this point, there's now a class of people, almost 300 of them, not just these three that are affected by this. No one who comes through that district can be deported. Now, in addition to that, they also, under the order, that said, the Alien Enemies Act is not applicable. It's a very long order which goes through history of the act, the plain verbiage of the act and the application of those words together that give it meaning.

It's a really very well-written order. I congratulate the judge on it. The problem is that it's in the Fifth Circuit, and it's probably going to get reversed by the Fifth. So it's on its way to the Supreme Court.

WHITFIELD: Federal judges, meantime, in New York, Pennsylvania and Colorado have issued temporary restraining orders blocking the administration from deporting immigrants, you know, under the wartime law in their judicial districts. Are these legal efforts crippling the Trump administration's ability to carry out its immigration agenda in a significant way?

SWARTZ: Well. It is crippling the way that they've wanted to do it, but they can go to Louisiana now and still use Louisiana as a base to send people out of the country. They just can't use this district in southern Texas.

[15:10:03]

They can't use the district of Colorado. There are districts that are entering their own orders. Somewhere down the line when a circuit court rules, that's going to be different, then it's going to be nationwide. And that's why the Trump administration is still confident that they're going to win in the Fifth Circuit.

WHITFIELD: OK. Another legal setback of a different kind for the Trump administration, a judge permanently blocking what she called an unconstitutional executive order that removed security clearances from the prominent law firm Perkins Coie, which once represented Trump's political opponent, Hillary Clinton.

SWARTZ: Right.

WHITFIELD: Judge Beryl Howell saying that the move violated the First, Fifth and Sixth Amendments, calling it a blunt exercise, I'm quoting now, "a blunt exercise of power." What do you think of the judge's assessment?

SWARTZ: Well, I think I think she's correct. The agreements, one, were never placed in writing except for by a tweet. That's number one. Number two -- so you don't have a written contract. Number two, all that Trump promised to do was not do something he wasn't permitted to do in the first place. So the contract itself is void as against public policy to boot.

But the key here is, yes, it does interfere with the Sixth Amendment right to counsel of your choice. It does interfere with your due process rights under the Fifth Amendment, and it does interfere with your right under the First Amendment to free speech. I don't know what Perkins Coie is going to do with this, whether they're now going to take on the government.

I think that some of the people who have made agreements at this point are going to set aside those agreements, and I think that now you're going to see some of these big firms actually turn on the Trump administration and become people who are representing people against the Trump administration. I think they're ready to make the sacrifice at this point.

WHITFIELD: Interesting. So you say some of those law firms that already agreed with the Trump White House that they would do pro bono work for them. Now as a result of this kind of ruling, they can say, you know what, disregard what we agreed to?

SWARTZ: I think that they can come back and say that this order basically says that what you did to us and what we agreed to was illegal and it violated our clients' rights, and therefore, because it was never really in writing and because it benefits you, not the government, we're not going to comply with it. We're walking away. And I think that could happen in the short term.

WHITFIELD: Wow. All right. Lawyers and judges are exceptionally busy these days, including you.

SWARTZ: Yes, they are.

WHITFIELD: All right. Judge Jeff Swartz, thank you so much.

SWARTZ: Have a great day, Fred.

WHITFIELD: You too.

All right. Still ahead, Ukraine says Russia launched a massive drone attack on Kharkiv. President Zelenskyy talks about the scale of the attack and also gives more details on his conversation about peace efforts with President Trump. And later, an eye-opening look at the size and scope of a drug cartel's operation in Mexico.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:17:50]

WHITFIELD: All right. News just in to CNN. Just hours after criticizing President Trump's tariffs, calling it an "act of war," quote-unquote, 94-year-old investor Warren Buffett has just announced at a Berkshire Hathaway annual shareholder meeting that he will step down as CEO at the end of the year. Buffett says Greg Abel will take over at that point, pending board approval. Abel is the vice chairman of non-insurance operations at Berkshire, and was designated as Buffett's successor back in 2021.

Here's Buffett a short time ago.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WARREN BUFFETT, CHAIRMAN AND CEO, BERKSHIRE HATHAWAY: The time has arrived where Greg should become the chief executive officer of the company at yearend. I would still hang around and could conceivably be useful in a few cases, but the final word would be what Greg said.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: Buffett has been with Berkshire since it was formed in 1965, and has a net worth of more than $150 billion.

All right, new today, at least 47 people were injured in Russian drone attacks on the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv. That's according to Ukrainian officials. The attack comes just days after Ukraine signed a deal with the U.S. that did not include any security guarantees for Ukraine.

CNN's senior international correspondent Melissa Bell has more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MELISSA BELL, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: President Zelenskyy has been speaking to the massive drone strikes that hit Kharkiv on Friday night, injuring dozens, including an 11-year-old, setting many residential buildings on fire. He spoke by Telegram to the fact that there had been no military targets, and that the point of these strikes was specifically to target civilians as they were putting their children to bed.

An important reminder of the urgent need to find a ceasefire deal, but also of the need for more pressure to be brought to bear on Russia. [15:20:01]

President Zelenskyy has also been speaking this weekend of his view of progress that's being made on the diplomatic front. He spoke to reporters about his meeting with Donald Trump in the Vatican last week, saying that it had been their most useful so far, their best conversations so far.

He said that progress had been made on a number of different issues. He spoke of his sense that the American administration was growing increasingly frustrated with Moscow and its intransigence when it came to implementing or agreeing to that 30-day ceasefire that both Washington and Kyiv are calling for, that he had sensed that both Steve Witkoff and President Trump himself were growing increasingly impatient.

And he said that he believes that the mineral deal that's been struck this week with Washington will allow Ukraine now to look at purchasing those much needed air defense systems from Washington, air defense systems that have proven so crucial so far but whose future in terms of aid seemed to hang in the balance ever since President Trump took office, with President Zelenskyy looking in a far surer position after that mineral deal than he was before.

Melissa Bell, CNN, Paris.

(END OF VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:25:40]

WHITFIELD: All right. New details on a crash outside Yellowstone National Park Thursday that killed seven people e and injured eight others. According to Idaho Police, a pickup truck and tour van collided on the highway at around 7:00 p.m., just 16 miles from the park.

Here's a look at that fiery crash site right there. One witness reporting that it took a while for first responders to arrive at the scene because of the remote location. Police are investigating what may have caused that crash.

And millions of Americans in the eastern half of the U.S. facing risks of severe storms through Saturday night, possible flooding, hail and a muddy Kentucky Derby.

CNN meteorologist Allison Chinchar has more on this weekend's storm threats.

ALLISON CHINCHAR, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Yes, it's a lot of people for the potential for the severe storms stretching all the way from Florida up into areas of New England. And it's not just severe storms, but also the potential for flooding for a lot of these states.

When we talk about the severe storms, we're mentioning damaging winds, maybe 60, 70 miles per hour. You're also looking at hail that could be the size of golf balls. And yes, even the potential for some isolated tornadoes. This includes areas like New Orleans, Atlanta, Charlotte, Washington, D.C. All the way up through Springfield, Massachusetts. So you're talking a large population here, dealing with a lot of these showers and thunderstorms.

And they've already been ongoing throughout the day. They'll continue through the evening hours really continuing to spread eastward.

You also start to see the later you go, more of those intense storms firing up in the Mid-Atlantic as well into the northeast. By tomorrow morning, we finally start to see the bulk of those showers and thunderstorms begin to push offshore. But that doesn't mean we're in the clear. You've still got some of these light showers that will continue throughout the day on Sunday, especially across the Midwest and portions of the northeast.

The other concern we talked about is going to be flooding. Anywhere you see in green on this map has the potential for that excessive rainfall. Most of these areas, it's only an extra inch or two. But you have to keep in mind it's on top of what they've already had the last few days. And in many states, that ground is already saturated.

Kentucky, for one, the entire state has the potential for flooding today. And that's a concern because there's kind of a big event going on there today, the Kentucky Derby. Now we will start to see more of these showers and thunderstorms taper off the later we get into the day. But even still, 6:00, 7:00, 8:00 p.m., you're still looking at those rain chances there, which means the track is likely going to be on the muddy side for the race.

WHITFIELD: All right, Allison Chinchar, thank you so much.

All right. Still to come, CNN goes behind the front lines in the fight against an infamous Mexican drug cartel.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:33:00]

WHITFIELD: Officials are investigating the aborted landings of two commercial flights at Reagan National Airport Thursday. An FAA report says a U.S. Army Blackhawk helicopter took a, quote, "scenic route" around the Pentagon nearby, coming close to those flights. New video shows the Blackhawk nearly missing one of those passenger jets.

This helicopter was part of the same unit as the Blackhawk involved in the January 29th air collision that killed 67 people. A U.S. Army spokesperson responded with a statement saying, quote, "While conducting flight operations into the Pentagon in accordance with published FAA flight routes and DCA Air Traffic Control, the UH-60 Blackhawk was directed by Pentagon Air Traffic Control to conduct a go-around overflying the Pentagon helipad in accordance with approved flight procedures.

"As a result, DCA Air Traffic Control issued a go-around to two civil fixed-wing aircraft to ensure the appropriate deconfliction of the airspace. The incident is currently under investigation. The United States Army remains committed to aviation safety and conducting flight operations within all approved guidelines and procedures," end quote.

President Donald Trump is pressuring the Mexican government to crack down on Mexican cartels, blaming them for much of America's drug crisis. He's threatened tariffs and even military strikes. Mexico has sent hundreds of troops to the state of Sinaloa, where a war rages between two factions of the infamous Sinaloa Cartel, putting civilians at risk.

And here's CNN's Isobel Yeung.

(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)

ISOBEL YEUNG, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): We're with the Mexican military in the state of Sinaloa, the heartland of the infamous Sinaloa Cartel. Soldiers find and burn acres of marijuana and poppies that would otherwise be turned into heroin.

[15:35:00]

They're just looking for a place to land now, which isn't easy given that it's just hills and trees everywhere.

(Voice-over): But it's synthetic drugs like fentanyl and meth that are produced by the cartels in enormous quantities, generate huge profits and are responsible for most overdose deaths in the U.S. They're often made in remote rural areas.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through text translation): OK, look over here. This is an area with the chemical products. Everything here will be destroyed.

YEUNG: This is pretty tough work. I mean, they're wearing full on hazmat suits. They have to wear masks because these drugs obviously and the chemicals are very, very potent. But they're just trying to make sure that the cartels don't come back and finish making the drugs here.

(Voice-over): Over a six-month period, thousands of suspected cartel members have been arrested across Mexico, and more than 140 tons of drugs have been seized. But the reality is more than 1200 people have also been killed in Sinaloa in the past year. Hundreds more have disappeared, fueled by a vengeful war between two rival factions of the Sinaloa Cartel.

In downtown Culiacan, the capital of Sinaloa, the military's narrative that they are fully in control begins to unravel.

Very stark reminders here of people who are missing, who have been disappeared as part of this cartel war between the two factions that's playing out right now. All very recent cases. This was last week. Twenty-three-year-old went missing.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Those, you cannot say if they are real. YEUNG: What do you mean?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Those wires are old.

YEUNG: No, this is the -- post the date here. This is the 22nd of March they went missing, right?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through text translation): Yes, but this is a copy.

Who put this? We don't know.

YEUNG (voice-over): As we're talking, a soldier blocks our camera.

You mean it's not verified? Yes. Presumably people aren't just putting up posters for the fun of it. They're putting them up because they're missing family members, right?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We don't know.

YEUNG: What's that? You don't want us filming it?

(Voice-over): The military steer us off and invite us to film something else. But we call the number on the poster of the missing woman. Her name is Vivian Aispuro. Her family tell us she disappeared 17 days ago. We promised to follow up on her story.

But who are the men running this criminal network, wreaking havoc on people living here? We part ways with the military.

So we've just entered an area of the city that is still very dangerous. After weeks of trying, our contact here on the ground has managed to secure a meeting with a member of the cartel who's involved apparently in the production of drugs. And so we're meeting him now in -- somewhere around here in an undisclosed location.

(Voice-over): This man is talking to us on the condition we hide his identity and location.

Can I pull up a chair?

(Voice-over): He says he produces fentanyl for the Sinaloa Cartel.

How safe or dangerous is this area to be in?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through text translation): Right now, all areas are dangerous.

YEUNG: And the Mexican military are making a big effort to crack down on the drug production here. How are you responding to that and how does that impact your work?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through text translation): They're doing a good job. There are more of them now, so we have to find a way to keep doing this, to keep working. Of course, on a smaller scale, not the same as before. But it continues. YEUNG: I mean, according to the Trump administration, you are a

terrorist. I mean, the cartels have been labeled a foreign terrorist organization. What do you make of that?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through text translation): Well, the situation is ugly. But we have to eat.

YEUNG: What's your message to Donald Trump if he's watching this?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through text translation): My respect. According to him, he's looking out for his people, but the problem is the consumers are in the United States. If there weren't any consumers, we would stop.

YEUNG: There is a lot of violence playing out on these streets here at the moment every day, right? I mean, people are dying on a daily basis. Children are afraid to go to school. Do you have any sense of remorse over your role and your involvement in this group?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through text translation): Of course. Of course. Things are sad, but -- well, things are sad.

YEUNG (voice-over): His phone is pinging. Someone is nearby. He tells us we need to leave for our own safety. But it's because of the action of cartel members like these that civilians too are caught up in the violence.

[15:40:06]

Vivian Aispuro, the missing woman from the poster we saw two days ago, was one of them. Her body has just been found.

I'm so sorry for your loss. I really am. Are you able to tell me a little bit about your sister?

ALMA AISPURO, SISTER OF VICTIM (through text translation): She was very loved. She really likes cats, Harry Styles, Lady Gaga. We wanted to go to her concert together. Not anymore.

YEUNG (voice-over): Vivian's sister believes she wasn't directly involved with the cartels. But the conflict here has broken all norms, she says, and violence has come for everyone, including women and children.

I mean, the authorities are saying that they're going after the bad guys, they're making a lot of arrests, they're going after the drugs, they're going after the weapons. Do you feel like they're not doing enough?

AISPURO (through text translation): No, they're not doing enough. Culiacan has become a place where it's impossible to live.

YEUNG: Thank you for talking with us. I mean, you're being so strong, she'd be so proud of you.

AISPURO (through text translation): Thank you very much, really. YEUNG: Thank you.

AISPURO (through text translation): Thank you for telling my sister's story.

YEUNG (voice-over): For Vivian's family, the authorities' efforts amount to nothing more than anguish.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through text translation): My daughter!

YEUNG: Isobel Yeung, CNN, Sinaloa, Mexico.

(END VIDEO TAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:46:15]

WHITFIELD: President Trump's new budget proposal released on Friday is looking to slash billions of taxpayer dollars from government health programs. The National Institutes of Health would see a nearly $18 billion reduction, while the CDC could see $3.5 billion in spending cuts.

The White House says they can reduce costs by consolidating many programs within the agencies and by eliminating what it describes as DEI and unnecessary programs, their words, unnecessary programs. Well, there are also major cuts proposed for low-income energy assistance, substance abuse and mental health services, program management for Medicare and Medicaid, and the administration for hospital preparedness.

Primary care physician and public health specialist, Dr. Saju Mathew is here with me here in Atlanta.

Doctor Mathew, great to see you.

DR. SAJU MATHEW, PRIMARY CARE PHYSICIAN: Nice to be with you.

WHITFIELD: OK. So these are a lot of things potentially to cut which means a lot of potential impacts. So what kinds of impacts could these cuts to health-related programs potentially bring in your view?

MATHEW: Well, you know, the first thing that comes to mind, Fred, would be if there's any cut in the distribution of NARCAN. You know, we know that overdose in the United States has gone down. But that's also because people have this medication available.

WHITFIELD: Available.

MATHEW: Right. So if there are any budget cuts to make these organizations more efficient, which I understand, I mean, there's always going to be things that you can tweak here and there, but if you're also cutting the budget, that might also mean that people are not able to get the medications that they need. But the White House has its -- one of its main goals to cut down on overdose. So I'm still optimistic that the millions of people that are dying on a daily basis will be able to get this medication.

WHITFIELD: As someone who works on the front lines in the health care industry, you know, what worries you the most about, you know, some of these cuts, you know, whether it be Medicare or Medicaid access? You mentioned, you know, drug prevention. But what about mental health care as well?

MATHEW: Yes. I mean, I think when you start slashing budgets, you're going to basically just throw this wide casted net on so many different programs. I mean, you mentioned mental health, something that is so important, even more important in the last five to seven years, ever since COVID broke out.

I mean, I can tell you the number of men that are coming to see me, Fred, asking for help with issues in their relationship, whether it's difficulty making ends meet. So, again, the big concern is, it's one thing to make everything efficient. Will it actually affect the patients at the end of the day?

WHITFIELD: Right. Sometimes cuts don't necessarily produce efficiency. It might be the spirit from which it comes.

HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. making headlines this week when he talked about why some people are choosing not to get vaccines. This is what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR., HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES SECRETARY: Now, there are populations in our country like the Mennonites in Texas were most afflicted, and they have religious objections to vaccination because the MMR vaccine contains a lot of aborted fetus debris and DNA particles. So they don't want to take it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: All right. So a couple of things. Those claims about fetal tissue vaccines, it has been debunked. Also, there isn't a Mennonite doctrine against vaccines. So as a health care professional, you know, what do you say about these claims coming from the HHS secretary?

MATHEW: Yes, I think it's extremely important to be clear that these MMR vaccines do not contain any active fetal tissue.

[15:50:05]

The original cell lines that were first developed in the 1960s, that was over 60 years ago, that used fetal tissue, you don't actually have those active fetal particles in the final vaccine. It's not present. In fact, you can even look at the ingredients. It's not listed. But, you know, however, Fred, I think it is important to be sensitive to people who have certain restrictions or cultural restrictions and to be able to explain to them in a way that they understand and not create an environment where people aren't comfortable coming forth and saying, hey, Dr. Mathew, I am very uncomfortable with this. Can I give my child the following vaccine? So in that respect, I agree with Mr. Kennedy that we need to be

sensitive, but it's also very important to clarify that there are no products, no DNA products or fetal tissue in these MMR vaccines.

WHITFIELD: Secretary Kennedy also, you know, asking the CDC, you know, to look at new potential treatments for measles, other diseases through medications and alternative therapies such as vitamins. And the West Texas measles outbreak is now, you know, at 812 cases and there have been three confirmed deaths.

So what do you think about looking into these other methods? We know that the whole vitamin, you know, method has not done well.

MATHEW: Yes. So something else to debunk. You know, these vitamins, you know, vitamin A deficiency, you know, Fred, we're talking about countries where children are so nutritionally deficient that, yes, vitamin A could potentially help. But not in a country like ours, in an industrialized superpower country like the U.S. Ultimately, nobody should be dying from measles.

Nobody, not one child should be hospitalized. No children should be getting encephalitis or swelling of the brain or pneumonia. So these two kids that died that are unvaccinated, one thing to remember, and I've said this so many times on air, the MMR vaccine is so effective. You get one shot, you're at 93 percent. You get two shots, you're at 97 percent. So I think that ultimately that is what we should focus on is there are choices need to be made, but ultimately there are consequences for decisions that you make.

WHITFIELD: All right, Dr. Saju Mathew, always great to see you. Thank you.

MATHEW: Thank you, Fred.

WHITFIELD: We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:57:05]

WHITFIELD: All right. This Sunday on "THE WHOLE STORY WITH ANDERSON COOPER," CNN's Nick Paton Walsh and his team journeys deep into Brazil's Amazon Rainforest and documents once isolated indigenous communities who are now getting internet access for the very first time. Here's a preview.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: A billionaire's Pandora is now out of the box across the rainforest. Starlink, the high-speed global satellite internet provider run by Elon Musk and commercially bought for supply here. It's changed warfare in Ukraine, sped up wi-fi on board airplanes, and let Iranians evade oppressive censors.

But to the kids here, when it arrives, it is just a big cardboard box. And it is staggeringly fast how they are suddenly connected to 7,000 satellites orbiting above, and the tumultuous power of unlimited information.

For the moment of on, their world will never spin the same again. And the online head rush begins. You need to be nearly 100 years old to really know the phone-free isolation lost in this very moment.

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WHITFIELD: Oh my gosh, that's incredible. Nick Paton Walsh joining me right now.

Nick, OK. I mean, where do we begin with what it was like going on this journey and what you learned?

PATON WALSH: Fred, oddly enough, journeying for weeks into the heart of the Amazon and one of the major lessons I think I learned there was about ourselves in the world outside of the Amazon, about how we over decades have got slowly used to the impact of the internet and these tiny devices on every single second of our lives that we don't consider it abnormal.

Well, here, indigenous communities where you can just feel the calm and silence around you when you arrive at an online free world suddenly that is gone because of this extraordinary new technology. And a week later, there are kids huddled around one phone looking at a Chinese version of TikTok called Kawaii, utterly consumed by it.

And of course, there's benefits. Health care much easier to get good information at times, but also bad parts, too, where the loggers, the poachers, the miners can communicate better to evade the authorities when they're trying to plunder the rainforest, the indigenous rely upon.

But overall, too, I was shocked at how these communities had learned so fast of the need to disconnect, turn the internet off to keep their children away from it, to make rules. Things that in cities we frankly struggle to think we even need to do now despite the change these devices are having on our lives -- Fredricka.

WHITFIELD: Incredible. Nick Paton Walsh, thank you so much. Can't wait to watch the rest of it.

Be sure to tune in for more on this, an all-new episode of "THE WHOLE STORY WITH ANDERSON COOPER," airing tomorrow, 8:00 p.m. right here on CNN.

Thank you so much for joining me today. I'll see you back here tomorrow. I'm Fredricka Whitfield. "THE CNN NEWSROOM" with Jessica Dean starts now.