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U.S. Surpasses 2024 Total Number of Measles Cases; Deadly Israeli Strikes in Gaza Shatter Ceasefire with Hamas; Trump Administration Aims to Dismantle Voice of America. Aired 5:30-6a ET
Aired March 18, 2025 - 05:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[05:30:00]
DR. JONATHAN REINER, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: Pandemic trying to figure out where the misinformation about COVID vaccines was stemming from. Looked at about 800,000 posts from Instagram and Facebook and Twitter and found amazingly that the bulk of misinformation was coming from only 12 people. Now that was being amplified by thousands and thousands of other people on social media, but the actual misinformation was being generated by what they call the misinformation dozen. And one of those people was RFK Jr.
CHRISTINA MACFARLANE, CNN ANCHOR: Well, it's interesting you raise that. We know that the U.S.'s top health official, RFK, has promoted treatments, of course -- well, unproven treatments for measles. How difficult is it for health officials such as yourself to counter those narratives when they are coming from top officials within U.S. government?
REINER: Right. It's like an old horror movie, you know, the call is coming from inside the house.
You know, we heard a report this weekend that people applying for any NIH grants were being told to scrub any mention they have in their grants of mRNA research. And that comes from the HHS secretary. So it becomes not just difficult to do research on this now, but it becomes difficult for anyone to talk about it.
The problem is vaccines, particularly right now the MMR vaccine, are incredibly well proven. These vaccines have 60 years of safety data. But in recent months, there's been this narrative that suggested that, well, we finally need to get to the bottom of safety on vaccines.
The health secretary in the United States has tried to paint this narrative that he's not anti-vaccine, he's just pro-safety. The problem is that he doesn't think any vaccine is safe in the United States. So how do you get parents to protect their children when health leadership in this country doesn't believe that vaccines are safe and effective?
It's a very difficult problem. And what I would suggest is that parents talk to their doctors, talk to their pediatricians, ask their pediatricians to recommend what they do with their children. Because doctors believe in vaccines. MACFARLANE: Yes, and you've just answered the question I was going to ask as to what can we do in this moment. It's exactly that. Dr. Jonathan Reiner in Washington, thank you.
All right, still ahead, silencing the Voice of America. The Trump administration is making major cuts to government-funded media, a move critics fear could have far-reaching impacts on journalists around the world.
[05:35:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MACFARLANE: Our top story this hour, the ceasefire in Gaza appears to be over. The IDF has announced a quote massive offensive in Gaza and ordered civilians to evacuate from multiple neighborhoods. Overnight, Israeli airstrikes killed more than 320 people according to the Palestinian health ministry, and some residents say they have been pulling the remains of children out of the rubble.
A Hamas leader is calling the strikes a quote death sentence for Israeli hostages remaining in Gaza. Families of those hostages are demanding to meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other officials to find out how the military action will impact the safe return of their loved ones.
Now the Trump administration is looking to dismantle Voice of America, the largest and oldest U.S. international broadcaster which Donald Trump has long criticized. Our senior White House correspondent Kayla Tausche looks at the impact the VOA has had worldwide.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
RONALD REAGAN, THEN-U.S. PRESIDENT: When the voice first went on the air 45 years ago, the announcer said the news may be good or bad, we shall tell you the truth.
KAYLA TAUSCHE, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Chartered by the U.S. to combat misinformation during World War II, Voice of America first broadcast from New York into Nazi Germany in 1942. Long seen as a way to promote America's interests and ideals overseas.
REAGAN: Providing reliable uncensored information is an important part of our country's diplomacy.
TAUSCHE (voice-over): VOA and its affiliates transmit history-making moments to citizens whose governments are limiting their information. In 1986, Voice of America broke the news of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster to millions behind the Iron Curtain, despite Soviet efforts to block the news.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Despite the heavy jamming, we are definitely heard.
TAUSCHE (voice-over): Even today, the U.S. Agency for Global Media says 10 million Ukrainians listen regularly, 10 million in Russia, two-thirds of all Afghans, at least 427 million listeners around the world. And nearly nine out of 10 weekly listeners say they believe the information is trustworthy. Three out of four say it informs their decisions.
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JODIE GINSBERG, CEO, COMMITTEE TO PROTECT JOURNALISTS: This isn't just a risk to those individuals who will now lose information about their countries, individuals in Russia or Belarus or Cuba. It's a risk to the U.S. national security because it creates an environment in which misinformation, lies and propaganda from autocrats around the world can flourish. And that puts America and American security at risk. So, in the long run, America and Americans lose.
TAUSCHE (voice-over): Trump believes that coverage is propaganda, dialing up his distrust in an agency he's attacked for years.
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: If you heard what's coming out of the Voice of America, it's disgusting. What things they say are disgusting toward our country.
TAUSCHE (voice-over): In his first term, Trump's former chief of the U.S. Agency for Global Media purged division heads and, in 2020, accused the VOA of airing pro-Biden content to sway Muslim voters. The group's senior adviser now is Trump loyalist Kari Lake.
KARI LAKE, SENIOR ADVISER, U.S. AGENCY FOR GLOBAL MEDIA: We are fighting an information war, and there's no better weapon than the truth. And I believe VOA can be that weapon.
TAUSCHE (voice-over): Now citing the group's perceived partisanship, Trump has ordered it to be reduced to, quote, the minimum presence and function required by law. But VOA's broad mandate may complicate what that means.
HADAS GOLD, CNN MEDIA CORRESPONDENT: When you look at the original charter of Voice of America, which was written decades ago, it talks about the need to communicate with the rest of the world. Many of these stations have been broadcasting just music. Voice of America hasn't published anything online in several days.
So even if you're going on the broad outlines of this original charter, they are not upholding that in the last few days by not publishing or broadcasting anything.
TAUSCHE (voice-over): Kayla Tausche, CNN, Washington.
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MACFARLANE: Still to come, our breaking news coverage continues. We'll bring you the latest on the deadly Israeli strikes in Gaza.
[05:45:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) MACFARLANE: Welcome back. I'm Christina Macfarlane. Here are some of the stories we're following today.
Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin will speak by phone in the coming hours about a possible deal to end the war in Ukraine. The U.S. president says the call will focus on dividing up assets like Ukrainian territory and energy infrastructure, which could include the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.
A showdown between the White House and the judiciary. Trump officials are arguing a federal judge's order halting deportation flights has no basis. Meanwhile, the judge is demanding the Justice Department explain by today why it has defied his court order.
More than 320 people have been reportedly killed in Gaza following Israeli strikes in recent hours, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. The move by Israel breaks the fragile ceasefire agreement with Hamas. An IDF spokesperson says it's part of a massive offensive and has urged residents to evacuate areas designated dangerous combat zones.
Well earlier, I spoke with Rosalia Bollen, a spokesperson for UNICEF in Gaza. She talked about what she saw and heard during the strikes.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ROSALIA BOLLEN, UNICEF SPOKESPERSON IN GAZA: It's been a really, really tough night for all of us here in the Al-Mawasi, Rafah area. This is the area where families had fled to during the war. Some of those families have been going back to the north, to Eastern Khan Younus, to Rafah, to their homes there.
But others have stayed out of fear of the precarious nature of the ceasefire. We woke up around 10 past 2:00 a.m. local time in Gaza by very heavy, loud explosions, so loud that our building that we stay in was violently shaking. And those bombardments continued very intensely for about 15 minutes.
Every 5, 10 seconds or so, very loud explosions nearby. After 15 minutes, when that subsided somewhat, I could hear people yelling outside, screaming. I heard ambulances driving on and off.
And the bombing has continued throughout the night, but with more space in between those explosions. We've seen reports of several dozen children killed. Health care in the Gaza Strip has been decimated after 15 long months of a very brutal war.
I was just in Al-Aqsa the other day, in the neonatal intensive care unit. And there, the nurses told me that they're lacking antibiotics. In other hospitals that I've visited, there are shortages of medical disposables, like gauze and syringes.
And these hospitals will now again be overwhelmed with very severely injured people. Beyond those hundreds reported killed, there will be many more very badly injured, including scores of children. So we call for the reinstatement of the ceasefire. This is absolutely
critical to save children's lives. And I would also like to remind the viewers that these bombardments, they come right on the heels of a blockade of aid supplies. We as UNICEF and other humanitarian organizations, we haven't been able to collect our supplies from the crossings for two weeks now.
We have lots of humanitarian assistance that is ready to go in, including over 180,000 routine vaccines, childhood vaccines, that would be sufficient to vaccinate 60,000 children under age two.
[05:50:00]
And we have ventilators, very specialized equipment for neonatal units that help preterm babies breathe, ready to be brought in if only we were allowed to. And we have nutrition supplies, hygiene supplies, all sorts of critical assistance that we would love to bring in. Because in the first six weeks of the ceasefire, the aid that we have been bringing in, we've largely been distributing that.
We haven't been pre-positioning that aid to build up a large stock. Since the needs are so high, families in Gaza remain in need of everything. And so it's critical that this blockade is lifted and that the ceasefires reinstated imminently.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MACFARLANE: All right, still ahead, it's showtime in Tokyo. Superstar Shohei Ohtani prepares to open the baseball season in his home country. We're live in Tokyo next.
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[05:55:06]
MACFARLANE: Britain's King Charles and Queen Camilla plan to visit Italy and the Vatican in April, and they've said they will meet with Pope Francis during their trip. The announcement of the royal visit might indicate that the Vatican believes the Pope will be out of hospital by then. Charles and Camilla are scheduled to join the pontiff at the Holy See as part of the four-day visit.
They will help celebrate the Jubilee year, a holy year that takes place every quarter of a century and focus on forgiveness and reconciliation.
Well the first pitch of the 2025 Major League Baseball season will be thrown today as the World Series champion L.A. Dodgers take on the Chicago Cubs in Japan. Tickets for the two-game Tokyo series sold out pretty quick last month as fans rushed to the chance to welcome home their national hero, Dodgers superstar and three-time MVP, Shohei Ohtani.
CNN's Hanako Montgomery is joining us now from outside the Tokyo Dome, where I'm sure, Hanako, the tickets for these games do not or have not come cheap. HANAKO MONTGOMERY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Christina, you're absolutely right. I mean, tickets to these games sold out in a matter of an hour, and some of them were actually reselling for over 17,000 U.S. dollars on some resale sites. I mean, those are astronomical numbers for a baseball game here in Japan, but it really just goes to show how popular Shohei Ohtani, a national hero in Japan and the L.A. Dodgers is here in the country.
Now, standing behind me, you can see there are hundreds of people, if not thousands, to Tokyo Dome to actually watch the game, which begins in less than 10 minutes now. But others, interestingly, Christina, don't even have tickets to the game because, as I just described there, they sold out very, very quickly or they're very, very expensive. But fans still came out in droves to enjoy the atmosphere, to enjoy the energy and show their support for their favorite Japanese baseball superstar.
One fan I spoke to earlier described tonight as Japan's version of the Super Bowl. And that couldn't be a better description. There is just so much excitement, so much energy in the air here.
We spoke to one super fan earlier today.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TAK OZAKI, SHOHEI OHTANI SUPERFAN: I wouldn't say God, but it's like a Beatle. It's like the Beatles first came to Japan back in '65 or something. It's like the same fever.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MONTGOMERY: Others, Christina, have described him as a presence higher than God. So really just goes to show how valued Shohei Ohtani is here in Japan. Now, baseball, of course, has been played for over a century now here in the country, and it's been very big for decades now.
But because of Ohtani's star power, he's really elevated the profile of the sport. According to the sports memorabilia company Fanatics, sales of Dodgers merchandise has gone up over 2,000 percent here in Japan since he joined the team back in 2023. So really speaks to just how much energy, just how much fandom he has behind him.
And, of course, the two other Japanese players on the Dodgers now, Roki Sasaki and Yoshinobu Yamamoto. So, Christina, as I described earlier, less than 10 minutes now to the game. And I cannot wait to hear the shouts and the screams from the dome behind me -- Christina.
MACFARLANE: Well, I hope you get to enjoy the atmosphere, if not for seeing the game yourself. Hanako Montgomery there in Tokyo. Thanks very much.
Actor and comedian Tracy Morgan appeared to fall ill at a baseball game in New York. The Saturday Night Live and 30 Rock star was taken from courtside in a wheelchair. He seemed to have trouble standing and was holding a towel to his face. The game between the New York Knicks and the Miami Heat at Madison Square Gardens was paused briefly during the third quarter. CNN has reached out to Morgan's representatives for an update.
And Harvard has announced it will be offering free tuition for more students. Starting next fall, undergraduate tuition for students from families making $200,000 or less will be free. For families making $100,000 or less, getting an undergraduate degree will be completely free, including housing and health insurance. The announcement builds on the school's 2004 initiative to make college affordable to people from all economic backgrounds.
According to the Financial Aid Department, undergrad tuition was more than $56,000 this year, while total cost of attending was almost $83,000.
Well, President Trump says he's releasing about 80,000 unredacted files Tuesday on the assassination of former President John F. Kennedy, fulfilling a longtime campaign promise. Shortly after taking office, Trump ordered the release of files related to the assassinations of Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr.
Ninety-nine percent of the records on JFK's 1963 assassination have already been made public, but the FBI said last month it discovered around 2,400 new records following Trump's executive order.
And that'll do it for us here on EARLY START. Thank you for joining me. I'm Christina Macfarlane. Stay tuned, CNN THIS MORNING starts right.
