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tv   CNN Newsroom  CNN  February 17, 2025 8:00am-9:00am PST

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>> 821 4000. >> good morning to you. you are live in the cnn newsroom. i'm pamela brown in washington today. millions of people in the southeast are under winter storm warnings and bracing for plunging temperatures. and it comes after severe weather swept through the region over the weekend, leaving at least 12 people dead. heavy rains led to massive flooding in several states, with water levels reaching historic highs in some areas. and making matters worse. the bitter cold air already moving in. cnn's derek van dam is tracking it all from the weather center in atlanta. so just how cold are we talking about here, derek? >> yeah. tomorrow morning is when we will see the feel the brunt of the extreme cold across the areas that have been impacted the most. look at these overnight low temperatures. these are wind chill values. what it feels like on your exposed skin as you step outside. that is bitterly cold. dangerously cold. and something we want to be prepared for because the potential here
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exists for record breaking low temperatures. that's actual air temperatures across the state of kentucky into virginia, west virginia, indiana, parts of the country that were impacted by this heavy rain and the flooding that you see directly behind me. just imagine if this was your backyard starting to clean up the mess, and then you have to contend with the icy, frigid temperatures that are following behind this system. a stretch of extreme cold alerts all the way from the u.s. canada border down to the rio grande. and then, to make matters worse, a storm system will actually bring snowfall to the areas that were impacted by heavy rain and flooding. you can see the winter storm watches in place across portions of kentucky right now, we have five river gauges that are at major flood stage, and then the potential here exists for record low temperatures. so flooding and record lows is not a great combination, especially when many people still don't have power from this latest storm system. there's the evolution of our second storm that will move through, leaving a swath of snow across some of the hardest hit areas. our
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hearts go out to the people of kentucky today, pamela. >> we certainly do. my heart is hurting for them. they've been through so much with severe weather and now this derek van dam we appreciate it. the state of kentucky, my home state where i grew up, was hit especially hard over the weekend, the governor confirmed that at least 11 people were killed in his state. and you can see homes, businesses and cars submerged in the flooding. first responders there carried out more than 1000 rescues in under 24 hours. i want to bring in kentucky governor andy beshear. first of all, governor, where do things stand right now? is flooding still the biggest concern? >> flooding is our biggest concern. we moved from flash flooding, which was dangerous, to our riverbanks overflowing. still, a number of areas where we are in search and rescue mode, still rescuing people. we're evacuating an apartment building right now in martin county, so maybe 100 plus people that we have to move to safety. so we are still in the midst of
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this emergency response, with a snowstorm coming tuesday night into wednesday. but thankfully, we have a lot of resources. we have groups from all over the state that are performing these rescues, as well as from multiple other states and from fema. so we're grateful for our neighbors and for their help. >> help us understand how does this compare to the recent severe weather kentucky has experienced? i was there, you know, covering the 2022 flooding in eastern kentucky. how does this stack up? >> sadly, we've had 12. this will be the 13th federal declaration of disaster, just since i've been governor for the last five and a half years. we had the worst tornado in our lifetimes in 2021, killed 81 people. we had the worst flooding in our lifetime in 2022 that killed 45 people. currently, we have 11 fatalities at this event. but what's different about it is it hit the whole state. yes, eastern kentucky has some of the most dramatic examples, and it's
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where we're focusing most of our resources. but we had flooding in the far western parts of our state too. we have 340 roads that are closed right now. we think that is a record. and so this is going to be a major event that we're dealing with in the coming days for the emergency response, but then in the necessary rebuild afterwards, now we don't think we'll see the level of home damages that we did in july of 2022. but for those whose homes are wiped out, it's just as important that we respond just as strongly with all the options for them as with any other disaster we face. they have to be the most important people to us right now. >> so what is kentucky doing now, then, as they're you're trying to do these evacuations, dealing with the flooding now you have this bitter cold air, snow moving in. um, what is it doing to prepare for these plunging temperatures on top of this flooding? >> so the first thing we're trying to do is get our power on as quickly as possible. and
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we've had power turn back on for tens of thousands of kentuckians. so thank you to all those utility crews. then we've opened up a bunch of our state parks, all of which that have power, where we're welcoming our kentuckians that are displaced in and saying, we got you, whether it's for a couple of days or for a couple weeks, you're going to have a warm place to stay. we don't want to lose anyone to frigid temperatures after what we've been through with, with basically water rescues in the middle of of a snow storm. and then we're we're making sure that we have other options, shelter open. so the answer is we're trying to do anything and everything. these are our people and we want to take care of them. >> you confirmed that 11 people have lost their lives in kentucky. do you expect that number to rise? >> uh, right now, that's all we have confirmed. and i don't have any information about others that are out there, but we haven't been able to go door to door for wellness checks, which we will. one positive about this one is that we never
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lost cell phone service in most of these areas. and that gives me hope that if we lose more people, it won't be many more people. but it's still dangerous out there. so anybody who is trying to drive through standing water, um, risk their lives. anyone out there who goes around barricades which we've seen risk their lives and they risk pooling resources that are out there responding in dangerous situations to have to come and rescue them. so we're just asking everybody to do their part to stay safe and ensure our first responders can be where they're needed the most. >> what kind of obstacles are the rescuers facing right now? are the highways open? what's the lay of the land in that regard? >> so we've got low ceilings for helicopters. we were really only able to get helicopters off the ground today. and this flooding started on saturday. but thankfully we've got a whole bunch in the air right now that are helping us out. the current in the water also will will, uh, depend on whether or
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not our swift boat groups can get there and or our fish and wildlife boats can get to different people. the inability to get to some areas and where power has failed are probably the other obstacles. but sadly, we've gotten pretty good at this from from having to respond so many times and our people have gotten better and better every time. and our emergency operations center, which i'm in, we made changes even from july of 2022, where we were able to pre-position the boat teams where we knew the flooding was coming because the national weather service was such a great ally and gave us such good information. so while we have obstacles, we have been preparing and preparing and getting better and better because when this happens, we want to lose as few people as possible because we've got 11 hurting families out there, 11 children of god that aren't with us anymore. and we want to make sure we don't lose anybody else. >> absolutely. my my heart hurts for them and just the stories are coming out now that the
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mother with her seven year old and the car, um, being killed because of this flooding and there are other just horrible, tragic stories. my understanding is that fema is on the ground there. and kentucky, the trump administration seems set on reforming or even possibly eliminating the agency and leaving it to the states to take care of these natural disasters. what is your response to that? what role is fema playing right now? >> well, i've been outspoken on the need for fema to continue and to be funded. and the idea that if fema was gone, every state would have to process all the applications for individual assistance and public assistance. are there some parts that the states could probably do better? sure. but we need a partner in fema. we need it to be fixed, not broken. but with that said, fema is in here and they are operating just like they have at any other natural disaster. secretary noem and president trump turned around the disaster declaration in near record time. so while i have a disagreement on the future of fema, which i think is needed,
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the president, the secretary and fema are doing a great job here with us right now. >> governor andy beshear, thank you so much. best of luck. well, cnn has new reporting this morning about elon musk's doge team and its push to access sensitive information about americans at the irs. >> cookbooks, corporate fat cats swindling socialites, doped up cyclists, and, yes, more crooked politicians. i have a feeling we won't be running out of those anytime soon. >> a new season of united states of scandal with jake tapper. march 9th on cnn. >> gary used car shopping. can't hurt you. >> but what if i overpay? >> come out and i'll show you a better way. >> will you. >> say, i know i said nearly half of all used cars have been in an accident, but there's no reason to shop with fear. >> well, show me carfax. >> knowing how a car's accident history impacts price means, you don't have to overpay. >> i wasn't scared.
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cnn. >> some new cnn reporting to bring you this morning. the department of government efficiency, led by elon musk, wants access to sensitive private information about taxpayers. and that access could be given imminently. musk seemed to hint about wanting that irs data less than a week ago, during this oval office event with president trump. >> the bureaucracy who have ostensibly a salary of a few hundred thousand dollars but somehow managed to accrue tens of millions of dollars in net worth while they are in that position, which is, you know, what happened at usaid, we're just curious as to where it came from. if you look at treasury, for example, basic controls that should be in place or that are in place in any company, such as making sure that any given payment has a payment categorization code, that there is a comment field that describes the payment, and that if if a payment is on the do not pay list, that you don't actually pay it.
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>> alayna treene joins us now. so what more can you tell us? your reporting is that this could all happen imminently with the access. >> that's exactly right, pamela. look, the department of government efficiency is turning its focus now to the irs. and it's just the latest agency, really, that doge and elon musk personally are trying to look at and kind of seep into to see if there's any what they call waste, fraud or abuse within its systems. but just to break it down a little bit more for you. so the irs has a very highly sensitive taxpayer data system. this is what one of the doge, at least one of their employees, is trying to gain access to. this includes, you know, their data system includes having access to social security numbers, bank statements, personal identifying information. now, i'm told at least one employee, a software engineer working under doge, is being granted or is in the process of being granted access to this system. they are temporarily working at the irs, i'm told, for at least 120 days, and this is where they're
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expected to do some of their work. um, as you mentioned, pamela, i am told that this employee, gavin kliger, is expected to be granted access imminently as of last night at 9 p.m., he had not yet had access. they expected to have that access shortly. i just want to read for you, though. when i asked the white house about this, what the statement from a spokesperson, harrison fields, told me, they said, quote, doge will continue to shine a light on the fraud they uncover as the american people deserve to know what their government has been spending their hard earned tax dollars on. now, i'm also told, pamela, that currently the irs is considering a memorandum of understanding, as they call it, that would give wider access to doge to kind of dig into this system. and just to break down for you, one of the things that i've heard is of most concern from people, whether at the irs or in other places throughout the government, there's this system called the integrated data retrieval system. the irs, as it's known. just to dig into what that is, it contains some of the most highly sensitive and
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personal data on millions of americans, including, uh, social security numbers, their tax returns, bank account information, addresses, and other personal personal identifying information. for one example, just to give you a sense of of what one person pointed us to, um, the irs includes information about taxpayers pending adoptions so parents can claim dependency exemptions and child care tax credits. all to say, this is just the latest move by doge to get in to some of these internal systems to see what they're looking for. but the concern, of course, is whether they have the authority to do this. and also having some of these people who are not typically in these agencies gaining access to this very personal and highly sensitive data. pamela. >> i interviewed a former irs commissioner earlier in the show who said, look, i'm all for this effort to weed out fraud, waste and abuse, but questioned the need to access the system to do so and said it's highly unusual for someone, a political appointee or someone of that nature, to gain access to it
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because of the sensitive private personal information of americans in their alayna treene excellent reporting. thank you so much. and new this morning. the faa appears to be the next government agency on elon musk's radar. we've learned a team of engineers from spacex, which is owned by musk, plans to visit an faa command center today. that visit comes as the trump administration started firing hundreds of probationary workers at the agency. according to their union. cnn's pete muntean is with us now. pete, what's the purpose of this visit? >> well, pam, the latest development here is that now, engineers working for elon musk will be visiting the faa air traffic control command center in warrenton, virginia today. that, plus these firings are truly uncharted territory for the faa, which oversees an air travel system that's stressed to the max right now. remember, the faa's air traffic control equipment is aging, and the system that delivers mandatory pilot safety alerts failed just days after the crash that killed 67 people over d.c. hasn't even
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been three weeks since that crash, and doge has had its eye on the faa ever since. now, the concern is when these federal workers return from the long weekend tomorrow, they could be barred from faa facilities. the workers impacted here are members of a union called pass, that is the professional aviation safety specialists union, part of the afl-cio. union president dave sparrow tells me between 2 and 300 faa workers started receiving firing notices from the trump administration starting late on friday. these are the workers who helped maintain critical infrastructure that keep the air traffic control system operating, he says. not only were these workers fired without cause, but that this was hardly a surgical move by the trump administration, that its dangerous to public safety and especially unconscionable in the aftermath of the crashes that have been grabbing headlines over the last month. it's important to note here these are probationary employees, meaning they've been on the job for less than a year. so this is the
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next generation of faa employees at an agency that's had a hard time keeping up with retirements and attrition. now, so far, the faa has not returned my request for comment. but we do know this from transportation secretary sean duffy, who announced the visit by musk's team. he posted on x that president trump is ordering a new air traffic control system and called for help not just from private industry, but any high tech american developer in overhauling the faa. so we're talking about private individuals as well. important to keep the context here, pam. this is happening during a very busy weekend for air travel, seeing as though it's a long weekend. in fact, some of the garages at reagan national airport were packed already on friday. on friday, about 2.5 million people pass through security at america's airports. a pretty big weekend for air travel. >> it certainly is. pete muntean, thank you so much. well, the irs and faa are joining the growing list of agencies targeted by president trump as he tries to overhaul
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the federal government and his actions are leading to lawsuits, including one involving a government watchdog who is suing after he was let go. a federal court reinstated him while his case is still pending. but now the trump administration wants the supreme court to step in. sarah christoff joins us now. she is a former prosecutor with the southern district of new york. thanks for joining us. so this involves a man who led the agency that protects whistleblowers. the justice department wants the supreme court to lift that lower court ruling and keep him off the job while the case proceeds. what do you think will happen? do you think the supreme court will take the case? >> this is a real test for the supreme court here. are they going to get involved or are they going to let this play out in the lower court? so all that's really happened so far is that the district court, sort of the lowest court, paused the termination of hampton dellinger. well, you know, this all sort of sorted itself out and there was a discussion about whether or not president trump
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was able to fire dellinger at this point, the appellate court upheld that pause, said, okay, we're going to there was some dissent in the ranks there, but it said, we're going to keep this pause and let this play out, like prevent this from happening, keep the status quo. and now trump's team has brought this to the supreme court. so this is sort of the first test of them weighing in. on these really exceptional personnel decisions trump's team has made so far. >> and what does this all mean in terms of separation of powers and the test of that? >> so it's a little alarming actually. so the president certainly has broad discretion to replace personnel in this particular case. dellinger was appointed for a five year term. he has some protections awarded by congress. i think that is because of the nature of the work he does. he's essentially there to ensure they're there.
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the whistleblowers are protected. he's investigating government misconduct. he's. investigating prohibited actions against federal employees. so i think for all of those reasons, um, it certainly was in trump's crosshairs. and trump wanted him out. but there are certain protections. he has limited protections against his firing. and we'll see what the supreme court does with that. >> we'll be watching for sure. sarah kristof, thank you so much. well, the nation's top diplomat, secretary of state marco rubio, arriving in saudi arabia, head of pivotal talks with russia over ending the war in ukraine. what ukraine's president is saying this morning about ukraine's participation or lack thereof, i should say. >> it's the news. >> welcome back. >> but it's also kind of not the news. >> we don't fact check. you do. we don't care, man wants all the information on this show. so terrible.
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it brings people together in meaningful ways. 800 481 1700. coventry direct redefining insurance. >> i'm pete muntean at reagan national airport. this is cnn. >> well, this morning the top u.s. diplomat is in saudi arabia to hold peace talks about russia's war on ukraine. just minutes ago, we received this new video of secretary of state marco rubio meeting with crown prince mohammed bin salman at the royal palace in riyadh. but it's noteworthy who is not at the table during this trip. that would be ukraine, the country that was illegally invaded by russia three years ago. ukraine's president questions how much can be achieved without his country represented. >> ukraine will not participate.
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ukraine knew nothing about them. ukraine perceives any negotiations about ukraine without ukraine as those with no results. we cannot recognize anything or any agreements about us without us. >> also new this morning, a sobering reality check. russia's foreign minister implies that the kremlin is not willing to make concessions to broker a peace deal. there is a lot to unfold. so let's bring in our panel. i want to go to you first. former cnn moscow bureau chief jill dougherty, for your perspective. so with a single phone call last week, president trump effectively ended the international isolation of vladimir putin. does the russian president entered these talks stronger and more emboldened, in your view? >> i think so. i mean, or at least as strong as he was before. um, i mean, look at what he's already gotten. if you look specifically at ukraine, he has no ukraine in nato. he has
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territorial concessions. in other words, the land that russia has taken from ukraine, that's going to be considered russian. um, he's getting hints at ending sanctions, economic sanctions against russia. he has the exclusion, as you just noted, of the ukrainian president. and, uh, we have to can't forget the europeans. we have the burden-sharing now, the trump administration is pushing the burden for carrying out any type of, um, ceasefire or whatever this will be to the europeans. and then this is not to mention that's game one. game two is a big picture. putin definitely wants to be back on the stage equal to the united states president deciding things around the world. and that's exactly what he's getting. >> cnn global affairs analyst kim dozier to bring you in. what's the deal with leaving ukraine out of these talks right now? and european allies, for that matter? well, to play.
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>> devil's advocate. >> to the ukraine. >> and eu position, one of the main reasons these top trump administration officials might want to meet with the russian officials on their own. first is to, first of all, road test some of the things that president trump thinks he heard from vladimir putin to talk about things that are bilateral in nature, such as president trump's reported conversations that he talked about, that perhaps putin would be interested in matching the u.s. in reducing the number of nuclear weapons. they'll really want to say, you know, how much of this is going to translate in reality? and this the people having these conversations are marco rubio mike waltz. those two have never been easy on russia. i don't know wyckoff's position over time on vladimir putin, but waltz and rubio will really give them a hard time.
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but from europe's position, they got a questionnaire that was reported by reuters from the u.s. asking, what would you need from us to do a peacekeeping mission on the ground in ukraine last week? and so they feel like they're being asked to offer troops with which the uk says it's going to do. um, but not being given a chance to sit down and fight it out with moscow. >> so it's safe to say this exclusion by european allies is not being received so well. correct, kim? >> absolutely. they're having an emergency meeting in paris right now where they are considering their options and figuring out how to leverage their influence and their years and billions of dollars of investment in ukraine, um, against. trump's snub as they're perceiving it. >> um, retired army major mike lyons. can there be a viable agreement without involving
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ukraine or its european allies? allies? now, it is still early stages and there could be plans to to include them later on. but what kind of tone does this set right now? >> i think there can be no final agreement. let's say you heard the secretary say that we'd have to bring ukraine in at some point, but the war machine goes on. it grinds out every day for the soldiers on the ground. uh, and during the fighting right now, um, and it's a race against time as russia tries to gain more space. it's all about leverage from their perspective, as they look to control the 20% of the landmass that they've had really since 2014. but ukraine will have to obviously get involved and be a finalist. and anything that's that's finally approved. and what does that look like? is it a dmz now that exists between ukraine and russia? can they get the russians to actually stop there? will european troops then be part of that, that guard mission that protects that border like that we did in north and south korea, or perhaps the old cold war days. so we're going back
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to the future here a little bit on any resolution that could take place. the only other point i would say about these european militaries is they're going to have a challenge coming up with the soldiers in order to do this mission. i appreciate what the british prime minister is saying, but but the british military right now is really in no position to send any large number of troops that will make a difference on the ground in ukraine. >> mm. and russia's foreign minister today seemed to rule out returning any captured territories to ukraine. so major, does that not incentivize russia to grab as much territory as possible before a peace deal is struck? vladimir putin has made it clear, um, he wants to take as much land as possible, essentially. >> yeah, that's exactly right. and i wouldn't be surprised if you saw offensive operations increase from russia on their aviation assets that that land mass in the north, that ukraine still hangs on to, uh, especially in the south. um, the more that they can get until they finally have to say cease fire and stop, uh, we'll give them much more leverage when the when that time finally comes.
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>> so, jill, if russia won't return captured territory, what concessions could it make here? >> uh, at this point, i don't see a lot of concessions by russia, actually. um, pretty much putin, if you go back to the original, original, um, february 2022, with the full scale invasion he laid out. even before that, he laid out demands, and it looks as if a lot of those would be fulfilled. again, you know, neutral ukraine, um, territory that russia took very quickly. um, and i think an interesting one is de-nazification. and in the beginning we were all saying, what does that mean? because, you know, the president of ukraine is jewish. is he a nazi? so now that's becoming clear. de-nazification essentially means getting rid of zelenskyy. and if you if you note president
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trump himself said, well, you know, the ratings that president zelenskyy has are actually quite low. now, he didn't explain that. but the translation of that is, uh, that ukraine should hold presidential elections and that maybe zelenskyy shouldn't be the president. that is precisely what vladimir putin wants. he wants zelenskyy out. new to ukraine and control it economically, politically and militarily. >> and as a meeting with putin, the right move now for the u.s. i mean, how much more serious does that feel to you than a phone call? >> oh, i think it's enormous, at least if you look at, you know, what, vladimir putin again, what vladimir putin wants, vladimir putin after that full scale invasion was really, you know, kicked out of the global community. and president trump just the other day said maybe they ought to be back in the
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g-7. this is the type of thing that we're talking about. um, could he visit? they're talking about visits, mutual visits to the capital of the other country. so would vladimir putin, who has been indicted by the international criminal court, uh, for war crimes, would now, the united states is not a member doesn't recognize that, but still, would he be here in d.c. meeting with president trump? these are really serious questions. but i think big picture russia feels it's back on the world stage. if you look at the russian media, they are they're crowing about this. and i think, you know, justifiably so. >> you have to ask him, i mean, is the u.s. essentially giving russia almost everything at once for this sort of international reset and bringing it back onto the world stage after being iced out? >> well, it certainly seems that president trump has gotten them to the negotiating table by
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hinting that he'd give them everything that they want, but we don't know what's going to happen behind closed doors. negotiations are, as one longtime negotiator told me, they're like mushrooms. they thrive best in the dark. so we're going to have to see how, you know, president trump's will translates through his pretty hardcore national security team. and perhaps this meeting in saudi arabia is going to lead to future back and forth shuttle diplomacy between kyiv and moscow. as you know, it's an opening gambit. it's an opening salvo. it's not the whole thing. >> all right. thank you everyone. appreciate your analysis. we'll be right back. >> thanks. >> cooked books, corporate fat cats, swindling socialites, doped up cyclists, then? yes. >> more crooked politicians. >> i have a feeling we won't be running out of those anytime soon. >> a new season of united states
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>> it's concerning because. >> it's completely preventable. the vaccine for measles, which has been around since 1963, is almost completely effective at preventing the disease. i think the number is something north of 98%. so if you've been vaccinated for measles, you are immune. and so it makes sense that everyone who has now contracted measles in west texas and or across the border in new mexico, uh, all those people have not been been vaccinated. we also know when we look at the statistics from texas, we know that in that county, about 18% of kindergartners have opted out. i should say the parents of kindergartners have opted out of vaccinating their kids. texas has a very liberal, uh, policy for opting out of vaccination for school age kids. all it really takes is an affidavit stating either a religious or some sort of personal objection to the vaccines. but now you see
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the consequence of that in parts of texas now, particularly places, uh, like, uh, that county in west texas. the number of or i should say the percent of children vaccinated is now significantly lower than what is needed for herd immunity. so when you have someone come into that community with active measles, there are then targets for the virus to infect. and we're seeing it now about 50 kids in texas, a few across the border. my suspicion is that it's going to rise significantly over the next week or two. >> how serious is it to get infected with the measles? >> you know, in, uh, in the years preceding, uh, the measles vaccine in 63, uh, about 4 million kids would get it every year. that would result in, uh, tens of thousands of hospitalizations. and we've seen
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actually now, of that 48 to 50, uh, number, i think there have been 13 hospitalizations. the fear complications of measles include pneumonia and particularly encephalitis, which is inflammation around the brain, which can lead to permanent cognitive intellectual injuries for for a young person or deafness. and some people can die. in 1960, about 500 kids would die a year from measles. but again, this is completely preventable. this vaccine has 60 years of efficacy and safety data. uh, but there's been a lot of vaccine misinformation spewed over the last five years. and now you see the penalty for that. and what we really need to hear from our public health officials is a loud campaign to convince the unvaccinated people, not just the texas, but around the country, to get vaccinated, that this vaccine is
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safe and effective. >> doctor jonathan reiner, thank you. and coming up, part reunion, part reflection as saturday night live pays tribute to and makes fun of its 50 year history. >> to the situation room with wolf blitzer weeknights at 6:00 on cnn. >> get in on buy one, get one free right now in the subway app. that's right. buy one foot long sub. get another free deals this good usually come with a two year contract. grab the deal online or in app with code bogo
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jost and was actually roasting colin jost. i mean, when you looked out at the audience, pam, it was crazy. it was like a-lister after a-lister. everyone from billy crystal, who got his start on snl for one season, to larry david to jerry seinfeld and tina fey and amy poehler. they actually played into this star power. they had a bit where they did an audience roll call. and of course, when you're doing an audience roll call with a-listers, you get into some fun moments, even a moment with none other than ryan reynolds, who made his first public appearance with his wife blake lively, since their legal saga has begun. let's take a look at that moment. >> who else? who else is a question? >> i have a question. >> oh, hey, ryan reynolds. hey. hey. right, right, ryan reynolds, how's it going? >> great. why? what have you heard?
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>> so obviously poking some fun at himself there. and you saw blake lively was sitting right next to him in the audience. now, as i mentioned, they are, of course, in the midst of a huge legal battle against blake's former costar justin baldoni. and the reason why this is significant, that they were there. it was not only their first appearance since this legal battle erupted, but we are expecting a big development in this case this week. tomorrow, the judge has set a deadline for an amended complaint to be filed by blake lively. so we are expecting that. but back to the fun of snl. none other than meryl streep was part of a skit, and i have to admit, i didn't realize until last night this was meryl streep's first time ever being on snl. it's hard to believe that she was never a guest host. now, another major surprise moment was jack nicholson was in the audience. this was his first major tv appearance in years, and fans at
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home, including myself, were so excited to see jack nicholson looking happy and healthy and in the audience. and the reason why jack nicholson was there was actually to introduce adam sandler, who had a performance. let's take a look. >> ladies and gentlemen, adam sandler. yeah, baby, let's hear it for jack, baby jack made it out tonight. >> okay, here we go. >> everyone in this room has. >> something now. adam sandler, of course, got his start on snl. one of many, many stars who started on that very stage and were there, and it was just a great fun night. >> such a fun night. i can't believe that was meryl streep, by the way. that was her first time there. oh my gosh. wow. fun fact elizabeth wagmeister thank you, thank you, thank you all for joining us. i'm pamela brown. you can follow me on instagram, tiktok and x at pamela brown, cnn. stay with us. inside politics with dana bash starts after a short break.
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