Cuba’s Power System Suffers Total Collapse

26:34So the judge sided with me on all of the other points. And that is why it was imperative for me to go to set an example, because it's more than the Kennedy Center, Jake. is also if you wake up in the middle of the night, whether going to war is right or not, you don't bring it before the Congress. If you want to shut down the U.S. Department of Education or mess with our health care, we cannot be afraid to go in and challenge anyone that is not going by the rule of law. This is a democracy. What you're doing is different from what another ex-officio member of the board, Democratic Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, did he skip today's meeting?

27:20He said in a news release that his presence at this sham, at this sham, he said, would serve no purpose. You obviously feel differently. I feel very differently. I think I would have rather him had the courage to join me and stand up for the constituents and the hundreds of people who are calling saying, thank you for the fight. Because if you don't fight, it's easy to write a press release and say what I'm not doing. I think it's more important to say that we're going and fighting. I was disappointed in his statement. And hopefully I'll say to my friend and colleague, maybe I misunderstood it.

27:57Anybody knows Joyce Beatty knows I'd never go as a prop. I went with a voice to the federal court and we won in court. And there's still more to come. My legal team is very hopeful and positive. We have months. It's not scheduled to close until July the 6th. Here's another thing, Jake. It allowed me to go on record to all of those individuals there. As President Trump said, some of the wealthiest men in the country were allowed, not as board members, but as spouses to the women on the board to attend this meeting. And I looked at each one of them and said, there's no way you would be doing a renovation to your company or your home and getting a document and cost just hours before voting and giving them to go ahead.

28:47I also was able to make a point about the number of donors and people who are contributing and the artists that they walked away from it in their own words because Donald Trump's name was placed on the Kennedy Center, which is our only living memorial. So it was more than just being in the room. I consider this a victory. There were many board members who came up to me as we were leaving and saying thank you. Now, while I was the only one to voice opposition to the closing, I was not the only person to express concerns. concerns. Someone asked about asbestos and other things that she did not see and had questions about it.

29:36And so I'm pleased that people understood that I had a right to be there and I had a right to exercise my voice just as others did. We had one other member that's an ex-officio and of course the speaker was there. So I think I represent it well. All right, Congressman Joyce Beatty of Ohio, thank you so much. Appreciate your time. Thank you. Some Democrats say it's time for a new generation of leaders. Others say not so fast. 85-year-old Congressman Jim Clyburn just announced his plans to run for re-election. He's going to join us next to explain why.

30:16Rinse knows that greatness takes time, but so does laundry. So Rinse will take your laundry and hand deliver it to your door expertly clean. and you can take the time pursuing your passions. Time once spent sorting and waiting, folding and queuing, now spent challenging and innovating and pushing your way to greatness. So pick up the Irish flute or those calligraphy pens or that daunting Beef Wellington recipe card and leave the laundry to us. Rinse. It's time to be great.

30:46In our politics lead, cue the CNN election music, please. Sweet. We're getting in the thick of the midterm primaries, but dozens of lawmakers are also heading for the exits. 36 Republicans are retiring, running for higher office, or were not re-nominated. 21 Democrats will be leaving Congress at the end of this current term. One veteran Democratic congressman who wants to stay is Congressman Jim Clyburn from South Carolina. He's 85 years old, running for his 18th term in the House, and he joins us now. So, Congressman, thanks so much for coming on. We love having you. As you know, your announcement of your reelection comes at a time when a lot of politicians are debating publicly.

31:30When is the right time for politicians to step down and encourage the next generation to run for office? Just a few days ago, you were talking about your daughter as a potential candidate for the seat. So what led you to this decision to run for reelection? Well, thank you very much for having me. The decision came from my congressional district. I decided several months ago to give serious consideration to retirement. I sat down with my family during the Christmas holidays, and we all decided on a process to go through in order to make that determination. One of which was to do an extensive poll of the district and gather the sentiments of the voters, which we did.

32:20And the conclusion was that if my health was OK, which it is, that I should offer for re-election. It's just that simple. Nothing complicated about it. And then I talked to a lot of my colleagues in the Congress and everybody seemed to be pointing into the same direction. Well, we're glad your health is well. And certainly lots of people age in very different ways. There has been some criticism, as you know. The Detroit News ran an op-ed with the headline, quote, quote, elderly lawmakers like James Clyburn should know when to bow out gracefully, unquote. It went on to focus on the importance of bringing in a younger generation who's more tech savvy to run for office.

33:09And they say, quote, we need a new leadership that can speak to the increase in innovation and how it can be used to fight inequality. That kind of leadership won't come from Clyburn or his ilk, unquote. What do you what do you say to criticisms like that? Well, I've been following the Detroit News all of my life. I would say to whoever wrote the article for the Detroit News, come on down to South Carolina and talk to my constituents. This coming legislative session will mark your very first without former Speaker Nancy Pelosi and former Majority Leader Steny Hoyer as colleagues. Both are set to not only step down from leadership, as they did a few years ago, along with you, they're set to retire from Congress.

33:51Did they talk to you at all when you were debating whether or not to run for re-election? No, they didn't talk to me about my decision. No, they didn't talk to me about their decisions. We all make decisions based upon our own experiences, I would suspect. And, you know, and I would like for people to spend a little time talking about why it was that I was 52 years old before I ever got elected. That wasn't the first time I was qualified to be elected. That was the first time the laws of my state and this country allowed for someone who looked like me to get elected. And so, yes, at the age of 52, a lot of people will be retired from Congress.

34:37But that was not the case for me or others. In 95 years between me, I'm the ninth African-American serving Congress from South Carolina. There's nine to five years between me and number eight. Why? And I think that what's going on today in Washington is a little bit of exactly why there was nine to five years between the two. The SAVE Act, for instance, is nothing but a throwback to those laws that were passed after Reconstruction that made it impossible for African-Americans to get elected. And if the SAVE Act becomes law, it will reduce dramatically the number of African Americans that's currently serving in the Congress.

35:24And I think that what we need to do is spend our time working on saving this democracy that some people seem to want to throw into the ditch. Well, explain what you mean by that, sir, because I think a lot of Republicans would argue that voter ID is supported not only by a majority of Americans, but by a majority of Democrats. How is the SAVE Act different from just a common sense voter ID law? Because the SAVE Act is not common sense voter ID. Tell me, how is it common sense for a voter to be able to use his hunting license, but not able to use a student activity card? Both of them have got your photograph on it.

36:14So this is not about voter ID. This is about suppressing the vote. As one Republican says, we want to make sure that the right people vote. Who are the right people? and who are the wrong people to vote. Congressman James Clyburn of South Carolina, thanks for joining us today, sir. Thank you very much for having me. Let's discuss. Jonah, Congressman Clyburn would be 88 years old by the end of his next term if he wins re-election. I have to say, having interviewed him today, and he seems to be as sharp as he's ever been. But do you think that this reinforces the idea that, you know, Congress is a gerontocracy.

36:57I think it reinforces it because he's an old guy, but he's also sharp. It's also, one can say in general, we should probably stop electing presidents of a certain age, just as a rule. And that maybe, I think the Senate really should have age limits because six years is a really long time. The damage can be done in two years. You would have, you know, Clyburn would have to decline rapidly and all that. And voters can make those decisions. But I think just generally both parties have a problem with old dudes and old ladies defining the party too much. So, Kate, President Trump turns 80 in June. A recent poll showed 61 % of the American people, 61 % think Trump is becoming more unstable with age.

37:43That includes 30 % of Republicans think that. As somebody who worked for Joe Biden, what's your take on that? And how, if at all, would, should Democrats use that? Well, I think it's very clear the American people are becoming increasingly concerned about his age. And I think they have reason to ask those questions. We see almost every day, you see him forgetting names. You see he was confusing Caroline Leavitt and Kellyanne Conway the other day. You see him, you know, unable to come up with dates, unable. So, yeah, I mean, I think there are perfectly valid reasons. We all saw this happen with President Biden.

38:18And these same questions need to be asked about President Trump. The thing I would say is that I think is probably most concerning for Republicans looking at these numbers. If you go back and look at the numbers, the number of Americans who were expressing concern about Joe Biden's age at this point in his term, those numbers are pretty comparable. And so I think it is clearly the case that this is becoming a concern more significantly at the front of mind for Americans across the country. And I think it's absolutely fair for Democrats to raise those questions. And I don't think that they should shy away from it.

38:47Jonah, I want to play something President Trump said several times today about a conversation that he claims he had with a former U.S. president about Iran. Take a listen. I spoke to one of the former presidents who I actually like, actually speak to some. I do like some people be shocking. And he said, I wish I did what you did. So that was the second time today that Trump made that claim. A reporter in the room then followed up with the president shortly thereafter. Take a listen. You said twice today that you talked to another former president about the Iran strikes. I did. Was it George W.

39:27Bush? No. Was it Bill Clinton? I don't want to say. That person said, I wish I did it. Okay, but I don't want to get into who. Okay. I don't want to get him into trouble. Maybe, hey, you know what? I think you probably know. So CNN reached out to the four living presidents. I personally reached out to Clinton's spokesperson who said, or a Clinton person who said on background, no, they haven't spoken. Clinton did not say that. The other two are Obama and Biden. No love lost among them. Put on your detective hat, Inspector Crusoe. What do you think is going on here? Who is the former president that said this to Donald Trump?

40:12I know Kate has a theory and I don't want to steal it from her. But I just think that one needs to have healthy skepticism of any statement by this president about people he claims to have talked to. There are an enormous number of stories of big, strong, girly men with tears in their eyes talking about how fantastic he is. Sir. Sir. Always the sir. He also explained why he had to raise tariffs on Switzerland recently because the prime minister of Switzerland was rude to him and Switzerland doesn't have a prime minister. That doesn't mean that they weren't rude to him. It does. It's true. But it's somebody else, not the prime minister.

40:52And when I Google around trying to figure out what I was supposed to say about this because I didn't know about the interview today, there's an enormous number of stories. He claimed to have talked to the president of Puerto Rico once and they don't have a president. I thought they were a part of the United States. There you go. What's your theory? Okay, not for nothing. Donald Trump, also a former president. I think it is totally reasonable to question whether Donald Trump was looking in the mirror, having a discussion with Donald Trump in the bathroom this morning. And in the mirror, Donald Trump in the mirror said, I wish I had done that in my first term.

41:22I would say this goes back to the conversation about age. But the truth is, Donald Trump tells a hundred lies. I mean, to Jonah's point, he tells a hundred lies a day. He's not somebody who has particular fidelity to the facts. My only question. But I think it is totally reasonable to question one of these. Remember, he used to make believe that he was some guy named John Barron and called himself. He's a spokesman. About himself. My question for you, and this is a serious question, okay, very serious. When Donald Trump talks to Donald Trump, according to your theory, does the Donald Trump, from the first term, call the current Donald Trump, sir?

41:53Absolutely. Are you kidding me? All right. Jonah and Kay, thanks so much. A federal judge has just blocked some of the most sweeping changes. made by HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., including some decisions he made about childhood vaccines. Why did they do that? Why did the judge do that? Stick with us. That's ahead.

42:17Welcome to The Lead. I'm Jake Tapper. This hour, despite President Trump's demands, it appears no other countries have yet to commit to him to send warships to the Strait of Hormuz to help secure it and to accompany commercial tankers as oil prices and gas prices are spiking once again. And that key waterway remains closed because of the war with Iran. Is there any end in sight to any of this? Plus, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. made sweeping changes to the childhood vaccine schedule tonight. Those decisions are being blocked by a federal judge. So what happens now that's ahead? Also, a tragic story out of Texas where family members say an Afghan man who served alongside U.S.

43:00Special Forces, died over the weekend shortly after being detained by ICE agents. He was in the U.S. seeking asylum from the Taliban. Well, we're learning about this case this hour. And taking on Big Pharma, one senator sits down with CNN for an exclusive interview to explain how after years of fighting, a life-saving medication will now be cheaper for families.

43:27The lead tonight, President Trump complaining that the U.S. is not getting enough help or enough enthusiasm from some of his allies to ensure safe passage of oil tankers through the Strait of Hormuz. Numerous countries have told me they're on the way. Some are very enthusiastic about it, and some are. And some are countries that we've helped for many, many years. We've protected them from horrible outside sources. And they weren't that enthusiastic. And the level of enthusiasm matters to me. CNN's Nick Robertson is in Kuwait. Jeremy Diamond is in Israel. And Nick, how much help is on the way right now in terms of the Strait of Hormuz, enthusiastically or otherwise?

44:20Look, it's for discussion in the UK. That's what the British prime minister said, discussing it, not made a decision. He wants a clear legal basis for putting British troops in harm's way. He said he needs to see a plan implicit in that. He doesn't see that coming from the United States, from President Trump. Yet the German chancellor has given so far an unequivocal no. No German assistance for keeping the Strait of Hormuz open until the fighting is over. The European Union indicating, yes, they've got a couple of frigates in the area off the coast of Yemen. They've been there patrolling potential Houthi attacks.

44:55They're not the right vessels for the job. That's the message from the European Union. Yes, everyone is saying we need oil to get through the Strait of Hormuz, but it doesn't appear as if the big players in Europe are putting assets forward for it just yet. And the Gulf countries, frankly, you know, I've been out with the Kuwait Navy before a good few years ago. Along the coastline here, yes, they have limited naval vessels, but nothing that would manage the task that's required here. And frankly, they want to stay out of the way because they know Iran could escalate against them, escalate, hit desalination plants here, hit electricity generating plants, the kind of key facilities that keep countries like Kuwait going.

45:37They need that desalinated water so they know they're vulnerable. So they're going to try to stay out of this, Jake. All right. Interesting, Nick. Thank you. Let's turn to Israel, which is sending troops into southern Lebanon to fight Hezbollah, the Iran proxy. Jeremy, is there concern about Israeli ground forces getting bogged down? Well, Jake, there's no question that the Israeli military is sending troops deeper into Lebanon than last week, for example, but the objectives still seem to be relatively limited, as does the extent to which those troops will go into Lebanon. The Israeli military announced today that they're expanding these ground operations, seizing additional villages near to the Israel-Lebanon border to remove the threat posed by Hezbollah to those Israeli residents in northern Israel, in those border communities.

46:27That's according to the Israeli defense minister, Israel Katz, who said that they're going to destroy Hezbollah infrastructure in some of those contact villages along the Lebanese border. But ultimately, there is still the broader notion on the table of a deeper ground operation. We know that there are tens of thousands of Israeli troops currently massing at that Israel-Lebanon border, many reservists who have been called up for service, as the Israeli prime minister is still mulling something that would take Israeli troops far deeper than what we're seeing right now, perhaps all the way up to the Latani River, some 15 miles north of the Israeli border.

47:03That decision hasn't been taken yet. But even right now, we are already seeing not only the fighting escalate between Israel and Hezbollah, which has fired some 100 rockets into Israel every single day over the course of the last week or so, but also in terms of the impact on Lebanese civilians, with more than a million Lebanese now internally displaced in that country, many from South Lebanon, but also some in the Lebanese capital of Beirut itself. And, of course, the Israeli defense minister is warning that those hundreds of thousands of people who've had to flee southern Lebanon, they will not be allowed to return, he said, until the threat of Hezbollah is eliminated.

47:40Jake. All right, Nick Robertson and Kuwait, Jeremy Diamond in Israel, thanks to both of you. With us now, Leon Panetta. He has served as White House Chief of Staff, CIA Director and Defense Secretary. Mr. Panetta, thank you so much for joining us. So European Union officials today let it be known that they have, quote, no appetite to expand the EU's mandate to the Strait of Hormuz. Let me play something else that President Trump told reporters earlier today. Well, we want to know, do you have any minesweepers? Well, we'd rather not get involved, sir. I said, you mean for 40 years we're protecting you and you don't want to get involved in something that is very minor?

48:17Very few shots going to be taken because they don't have many shots left. But they said, we'd rather not get involved. I just want the fake news media and everybody else to remember that that was said. So you as CIA director and White House Chief of Staff and Secretary of Defense certainly have coordinated and negotiated and talked to your equivalents to get military assistance and military partnerships and the like. What's your response to what you just heard from President Trump? I think the president needs to understand that if he really wants allies to work with us, that he's got to spend time in developing trust with those allies.

49:05Right now, what he's experiencing is what goes around comes around. And the fact that he has largely walked away from a lot of our allies, been very critical of them. and in this instance did not even consult with them, did not even give them a heads up, and really did not even make an effort to try to build allies that could actually work with us and support our efforts in Iran. And to suddenly now say, we want your ships to go to the Straits of Hormuz, probably without even discussing a plan for how that would work. Just mainly saying, we need your ships to go to the Straits of Hormuz. So, you know, the bottom line here, Jay, is that if the president recognizes that war, and this is a war, is going to produce consequences that he has to deal with.

50:16And certainly one of the consequences was the Straits of Hormuz being closed. If he's going to deal with that, he has to take the time to sit down, plan, and develop a strategy for how he's going to do it. Otherwise, no matter how much he declares victory, he is not going to have victory as long as the Straits of Hormuz are closed. And you heard the Nick Robertson report saying that the Brits want to see a plan and they have not seen a plan. On the other hand, so that, you know, you're talking about carrot versus stick. There's been a lot of stick or at least threatening of stick. President Trump told the Financial Times that NATO faces a, quote, very bad future if U.S.

51:00allies fail to help the United States with this Iran war.

51:08The president, as we all know, basically tries to bully people into doing what he wants. And he's been doing that most of his life. And he thinks if he bullies them hard enough and threatens them enough, that somehow that's the way to bring them in line. But the reality is that it doesn't work if your credibility is on the line. And right now, the president's credibility is on the line because anything he says, people simply do not trust. And when you have that kind of credibility problem, you're going to have a hell of a challenge trying to get others to come in and be helpful in a war that can cost lives and has cost lives.

51:59That's what really bothers me. about this issue is that it's been described by the president as an excursion. It's been described by others as not being a war. But the bottom line is, it is a war. It's a war in which we're losing lives. It's a war in which we're dropping bombs, killing people. This is a war. And the president has to approach that war with a degree of seriousness that involves the security of the United States. The security of the United States is on the line right now. And because these gas prices are going up, because the straits are closed, then we are also suffering economic damage as a result of that.

52:47This president has to now be a leader, a war leader for the United States of America. That's what we need. And unfortunately, that's not what we're getting. Former Secretary of Defense and CIA Director Leon Panetta, thank you for your time as always, sir. Good to be with you, sir. The Trump administration threatening to revoke the licenses of major news broadcasters, ABC, CBS, NBC. Can he actually do that? That's next. Plus, the Department of Homeland Security facing questions after an Afghan man who served alongside U.S. special forces, died in federal immigration custody. A closer look at what went wrong with this father of six just ahead.

53:37Turning to our politics lead and the latest salvo in the Trump administration's ongoing attacks against the news media. On Saturday, after President Trump posted a long complaint about war coverage he didn't like, coverage by the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr put up a post on X declaring, quote, broadcasters that are running hoaxes and news distortions, also known as the fake news, have a chance now to correct course before their license renewals come up, unquote. Commissioner Carr then went on saying, the law is clear. Broadcasters must operate in the public interest and they will lose their licenses if they do not, unquote.

54:17Then President Trump responded to that. It was like a turducken of conversation here. I am so thrilled to see Brendan Carr, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, FCC, looking at the licenses of some of these corrupt and highly unpatriotic news organizations. It's a threat. He then amplified yesterday aboard Air Force One. Take a listen. I actually think it's pretty criminal because our media companies, who have no credibility whatsoever, are putting out information that they know is false. So if you couldn't hear that because of all the plain sound, he said, I actually think it's pretty criminal because there are media companies who have no credibility whatsoever putting out information that they know is false.

55:00So let's get a reality check with Robert Corn Revere of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, or FIRE. He is an expert in communications law, and he advised an FCC commissioner, James Coelho, in the early 1990s. So let's look at this. I think it can be fairly called a threat from Chairman Carr. I think it's a dictionary definition of a threat. Yeah, and President Trump. Who is specifically being threatened here, and how do you interpret their comments when it comes to how they assess war coverage? Well, this is a generalized threat against any broadcaster. It's anyone who happens to displease the president or the current chairman of the FCC can be subject to this generalized threat.

55:43But it really is, in terms of the law, an empty threat because neither the president nor the chairman of the FCC has the authority, statutory or under the Constitution, to take away someone's broadcast license because he doesn't like their news coverage. So how much power does the FCC actually have when it comes to shaping news coverage? Because we did see last year, he said something about a Jimmy Kimmel joke he didn't like. and how so local affiliates should rebel. And those local affiliates, many of whom wanted his approval on something else that was a lucrative and separate matter, acted accordingly.

56:21Disney buckled, and it was only because the American people stood up and started canceling their Disney and Hulu subscriptions that that course was reversed. Right. Well, the classic examples of what's called government jawboning, where you have a government official making a threat, whether or not it's beyond his actual authority to try and bully a regulated medium into submission. As you mentioned, the Jimmy Kimmel example blew up in Brendan Carr's face because the market responded, people responded, and canceled their Disney Plus subscriptions, and Kimmel was back on the air with higher ratings than he'd ever had.

56:59So, yes, government officials can make threats, but what they can actually achieve in the marketplace is limited. Well, you say that, but President Trump on Saturday posted something on Truth Social. It was a graphic that we sent to you earlier, so you could take a look at it, about how he is reshaping the media. And it listed things such as ousted or fired correspondents or anchors, defunding PBS and NPR, CNN getting new ownership, etc. So he is taking credit for the media changing. He is taking credit for a lot. And he has been waging a multi-front war against the media, whether it's through private lawsuits or through using the FCC as an extension of the Office of President to issue threats.

57:48And it has had an effect. But as a matter of law, if any attempts were made to actually enforce these threats, they would be quickly overturned in court. So it's more a question of oligarchs buckling because they want his approval for something else. Yes, a spine is a terrible thing to waste. Robert Corden Revere, thank you so much. A federal judge has just blocked RFK Jr.'s attempts to reshape childhood vaccine policy. So what does this mean for families across the United States? I'm going to ask a top vaccine expert next.

58:23We have some breaking news for you in our health fleet. a federal judge has just blocked Health and Human Services Secretary of K. Jr.'s efforts to cut the number of recommended vaccines for children. That judge ruled that the CDC did not follow proper legal channels when it made significant changes to the vaccine schedule. In January, HHS says in a statement that it looks forward to the judge's decision being overturned. Let's bring in Dr. Paul Offit. He's director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and a former member of the FDA Vaccine Advisory Committee.

58:57Dr. Opus, are you surprised by the ruling? And what are you hearing from your peers in the medical community? I'm not surprised. It certainly was the right thing to do. I mean, finally, someone in power, in this case, the courts, stood up for children, stood up for children in what has been RFK Jr.'s war against vaccines, which has caused us to have a measles outbreak last year that was bigger than anything we've had more than 30 years. We had children dying of whooping cough in states that hadn't seen deaths from whooping cough in years. We had 290 children die of flu last year, another 90 this year.

59:30RFK Jr. has been very successful at convincing people not to be vaccinated. And now finally, the court stood up against that. The judge wrote that the members of the medical associations that sued the government were harmed by the changes because they would have to spend extra time counseling patients about changes to vaccine recommendations. So what's your reaction to this ruling beyond supporting it? How will it impact the medical associations and the physicians who are members of them? Well, the good news is, is that most people in the medical world, the scientific and medical community have been ignoring the advisory committee for immunization practices and ignoring the CDC's recommendations because they're not science-based.

1:00:11They're basically based on Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s anti-vaccine stance. And he took the Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices, which was full of experts back in June of 2025, fired them all, and then replaced them with people like him who have an anti-vaccine, anti-science bias. So we've been getting a lot of bad advice that fortunately, most people have been ignoring. And just looking at the American Academy of Pediatrics recommended childhood schedule, which is science-based, unlike the one that Health and Human Services put out in January. The judge also ruled that it was a violation of federal law when Secretary Kennedy fired all 17 members of the CDC's advisory committee on immunization practices and replaced them with his hand-picked members.

1:00:55The judge wrote, ACIP, as currently constituted, the advisory committee, cannot meet for how can a committee meet without nearly the entirety of its membership? What did you make of that statement? Right. So now what essentially what that means is the ACIP doesn't exist. Now, maybe that they were supposed to be tomorrow on Thursday and they make the CDC may provide them with space to meet and they can talk about whatever they want to talk about. But they are not an official committee anymore. The question is what happens now? I'm sure Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is going to appeal this. I'm sure he's going to fight this.

1:01:28But for the moment anyway, this is very good news for children in this country who finally have the court standing up for them. You talked earlier about the harm that you think RFK Jr. is causing. What specifically is the harm in terms of people getting flu and not getting flu shots, people getting measles, people getting whooping cough, etc., etc.? It's not as if he is individually telling people not to get shots, but obviously you have an understanding of this more than I do. What specifically is the harm? so what he did for example with his current schedule is he had several vaccines the rotavirus vaccine uh the SARS-CoV-2 or COVID vaccine and the flu vaccine said basically they're optional so-called shared clinical decision making but they shouldn't be optional they should be recommended so that scared people I think the casual observer the casual parent would look at this and think well there's been a change made by the health and human services there must be something new regarding the vaccine or new regarding the disease.

1:02:29And that wasn't true at all. The only thing that was new was we now had a secretary of health and human services who had an anti-vaccine bias and basically was going to do everything he could to try and scare people away from vaccines. That was what was new. Dr. Paul Offit, thank you so much. Appreciate it. Family members say an Afghan man who served alongside U.S. Special Forces died hours after being taken into ICE custody in Texas. what we're learning about this incident next.

1:03:04International lead, an Afghan man who served alongside U.S. Special Forces died after spending less than a day in federal immigration custody. ICE arrested Mohamed Nazir Patuwal from his Dallas-area apartment last Friday in what the Department of Homeland Security called a targeted enforcement action. DHS says ICE took Mr. Patuwal to the hospital that evening after he complained of shortness of breath and chest pains. He died the next morning. His family says that the 41-year-old father of six had no known health conditions. He'd been seeking asylum since he arrived in the U.S. in August 2021.

1:03:46Rahmanullah Zazay knew Mr. Patuwal and his family. He's also a leader in the Dallas area Afghan community. Rahmanullah, first, I am so sorry for your loss. How are you in this tight-knit community of Afghans in Dallas? How are you processing this horrible tragedy? Thank you so much for having me here. It was a breaking-heart incident that the Afghan community heard that in Richardson, Texas.

1:04:23Thank you for having me here. So ICE says that the morning your friend Mohammed died, medical staff saw that his tongue was swollen and that prompted a medical response. They also said he did not report any prior medical history. There's now an investigation into his death. What do you and his family want to know? We want the all investigation, the Afghan community, they want the investigation. When we went to the hospital, they did not give it to us. And they said they will send the body for the investigation from Parkland Hospital to Dallas, Texas, to different investigation center. and after that we will be able to get the investigations report from them.

1:05:13The Department of Homeland Security says that Muhammad did not provide them with a record of his military service. They say he'd been arrested twice in the U.S., once for fraud, having to do with food stamps, another time for theft, and that his parole to be in the U.S. expired in August 2025. We should note, even though he was arrested, he was never charged with any crimes. Did Muhammad ever talk with you about the fact that his parole expired? Because I guess the question is, did the Trump administration really expect him and his family to fly back to Afghanistan after he had served with the U.S.

1:05:51fighting the Taliban and had spent years in the U.S.? Did they really think he was going to willingly fly back to Afghanistan with the Taliban in control? Not really. He did not say anything that he was arrested by any police departments in the United States of America. And I asked from his family, wife and brother, they said he never got arrested for food stamps or anything else. But the family and himself never thought that they will send him back to Afghanistan. What do you want people to know about your friend? I know he had six kids. What else would you like people to know about him? He was a great guy.

1:06:48He served for this country. He came to the United States. the United States Army brought him from Afghanistan when the evacuation happened in Afghanistan to United States. And himself, his wife and his young kids, they were thinking they will have a bright life in the United States of America and they will be safe in the United States of America. Rahman al-Azai, thank you so much. May Mohammed's memory be a blessing. Just such a horrible and sad story. Vice President J.D. Vance is walking a fine line with his comments about the war in Iran, but could his decision today to be a loyal soldier affect his hopes to be president in 2028?

1:07:38That's next.

1:07:44And our politics lead, Vice President J.D. Vance, making his most forceful public comments in support of the war with Iran a short while ago after largely remaining silent about the conflict. Iran should not have a nuclear weapon. We have taken this military action under the president's leadership. I think all of us, whether you're a Democrat or Republican, should pray for success and pray for the safety of our troops. That's the approach that I've taken. Make it as successful as possible. Well, I think one big difference, Phil, is that we have a smart president, whereas in the past we've had dumb presidents.

1:08:15And I trust President Trump to get the job done, to do a good job for the American people, to make sure that the mistakes of the past aren't repeated. Absolutely. Those comments coming as CNN has learned Vance initially counseled the president against the U.S. getting involved in yet another Middle East war. Let's discuss with the panel. Mark, what do you make of these comments from Vice President Vance? Well, look, I think we all know that it's important for the vice president not to have distance from the president. It creates a whole other series of stories. But we know that J.D. was elevated through the kind of the ascendant isolationist wing in the party and being championed by Tucker.

1:08:49And it's kind of not a comfortable position or else he would have been out supporting this before now as opposed to others within the administration. But, you know, I'm glad he made his comments today. But I guess one of the questions I have is how much will that wing, whatever you want to call them, isolationist Tucker Carlson, whatever, how much will they resent him for this or not at all? I think so far Vance can survive breaking with, first of all, we've now seen with a lot of polling that the Steve Bannon, Megyn Kelly, Tucker Carlson crowd, who are really anti, Marjorie Taylor Greene crowd, who are very much against this war, they don't actually have a lot of support among Republicans right now.

1:09:27So they're kind of basically the infotainment wing. What I just really detest is this, and Vance has done this a bunch of times, that what Trump is doing is fine because Trump is smart, unlike all the previous dumb presidents. stuff. First of all, it's disrespectful to previous presidents. But second of all, it's a cowardly position because basically what it is, he does this when he can't articulate a coherent explanation for his changing position or for what the policies of the presidents are. He just basically says, put your faith in this prince and lay back and don't complain. Yeah. Well, he's also, he's just stroking Trump's ego.

1:10:06I mean, he's essentially doing what he has to do to get by in the moment. He's the vice president. It's your job to be dutifully behind the president, making arguments for the president's policy decisions. So he looks at this moment. He looks at 2028. He looks at his own history and his own, presumably his own objection to it, to the action. And he says, OK, the way to get through this moment is to stand next to Donald Trump in the Oval Office and call him smart. And then you move on to the next day. This is not a perfect comparison, but it reminds me of your former boss, right, who went along with the surge of troops in Afghanistan as vice president.

1:10:37and he became obsessed with telling the world that he had later, after he was vice president, that he had disagreed with Obama on that. And he played the role of the vice president in that moment. He made the private policy argument against. He ultimately stood behind the president when he made a decision. And then when he was off running for president. But it becomes a thing. It becomes a thing. When you're off running for president yourself, then you have the freedom to articulate your choices. And I suspect that's what we're going to see advancing. Yeah. Mark, a Trump PAC put out this fundraising email.

1:11:06using a photo of Trump taken at a dignified transfer of U.S. service members killed during the war with Iran. The email also promises donors a national security briefing membership. The president was asked whether the email was appropriate, and he responded by saying he didn't see it, and then he lashed out at the reporter. I have never seen ever, ever, a fundraising email with a president featured at a dignified transfer of fallen troops. Me neither, Jake. And my assumption is he didn't see it. I think there's so much that goes out right now under the Trump banner that I'm sure he doesn't see it.

1:11:43But there's also an enormous amount of grift that's going on in that world. And they should call for it to be taken down. Yeah. You're a former communications director at the White House. What did you think? Yeah, of course it's appalling. It's appalling. And Trump actually should have. If he truly didn't see it, he should have been clear. He should have said in that moment, I didn't see it. And of course that's inappropriate and it should come down. It's also just worth remembering he sets the tone for a lot of this stuff. There was a thing with depicting the Obamas as monkeys, right? I'm sure he didn't, like, consciously think about it.

1:12:11But you set a tone where people think they have license to go to the edge. You go to the fringe in a lot of media. And so it's not shocking that people are following the lead. And, Jonah, the president repeated this bizarre false claim that's been debunked a billion times about him having... More specific. About the fact that he predicted that Osama bin Laden would attack the World Trade Center a year before it happened. Take a listen. I knew about the strait, that it would be a weapon, which I predicted a long time ago. I predicted all of this stuff. You guys were very generous in that. I predicted all of it.

1:12:51I predicted Osama bin Laden would knock out the World Trade Center. I said, that's a bad guy. You better get him. one year before exactly. I wrote it in a book. You can even check about a year before the World Trade Center then came down. So we did check. I mean, the book exists, like it can be read. There is a mention of Osama bin Laden. I mean, who at that, you know, by 2000, when the book came out was, you know, public enemy number one for the United States because of 1998 and 2000 striking against the U.S. is coal. He never says anything about bin Laden's going to strike the World Trade Center.

1:13:27At this point, does he believe it? Like, what do you... It's not to go all Strauss in here, but it's implied. It's in the significant silences of the text. No, look, he does this kind of thing. Or just read between the lines. That's right. He does this kind of thing all the time. There's a great philosopher who wrote a book called On BS, but spelled out. And the difference, a lot of politicians lie, but the difference between lying and BSing is that liars actually care what the actual truth is, and they're trying to distract you from it. BSers will say anything, true, false, a mixture of the two, to get you through the moment.

1:14:01What do I have to say to put you in this condo today? And you combine that with Trump's ego, and he makes up stuff all the time, and it sticks in his memory. Just today, there's another clip, maybe we can talk about it later this week, where he explained that he can take Cuba, whether he wants, no matter what. And the nice thing about taking Cuba is it has, it's not in the hurricane zone and has no hurricanes. So that we - Yeah, and it's just this amazing thing. You're like, I have to look it up. They've had 37-year hurricanes since the year 2000. They get destroyed all the time by hurricanes.

1:14:32It's also perfectly illustrative, by the way, in that clip, you have Speaker Johnson sitting there just having to watch Trump spew this lie, sort of looking down, not making eye contact. To me, just watching that clip, that was the perfect image for the co-option of the Republican Party under Donald Trump. So here's the thing, Mark, okay? He could say in a book that came out a year before 9-11, I pointed out that bin Laden was a danger. Now, that's not, you know, he didn't like introduce that subject to the world. Like, again, he was public enemy number one because of the, you know, Tanzania and Nairobi bombings and U.S.

1:15:06But he could say that and that would be accurate. But no, he has to say, I predicted he would attack the World Trade Center. You worked in his way. Like, why? Why? Look, the president has an innate ability to sort of recreate events of the past and sell them to the American people. I mean, obviously, before 9-11, he was a pretty influential person. If he really knew that Osama bin Laden was going to attack the World Trade Center, he could have done, he could have presumably helped elevate that to a bigger security threat level. One of the reasons he said this is because he was defending the fact that the Strait of Hormuz was going to be used as a weapon.

1:15:43Obviously he knew it. He predicted it just like he predicted bin Laden attacking the World Trade Center. If that's true, then he didn't predict the Strait of Hormuz being used as a weapon. But beyond that, there's the question, if you did know about this and if you planned accordingly, how come we can't get any allies to help us with the Strait of Hormuz? Yeah. I mean, so part of the problem is, and I think Pete Hegseth has sort of said similar, had sort of similar slips. They, of course, were briefed that the Strait of Hormuz might be closed. They were, of course, briefed that, I mean, Iran said outright that they were going to attack their Arab neighbors if they did this.

1:16:17It was all out there. They just didn't think it would happen. And so they didn't adjust the plans for it. And now they're asking allies, you know, like a week ago, Trump said to the Brits, we don't need your help. We don't need allies to only come to help after we've won the war. And now he's going to them saying, can you help out? It's sort of like the domestic equivalent of not going to Congress and getting buy-in. It's really difficult to get people to buy into something that looks like it's going to be a bad idea after you've already taken action. If you get to do it beforehand, then you have investment in it.

1:16:48All right. Thanks to all of you. Appreciate it. Today, White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles announced that she's been diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer. We're going to talk about what she's saying about her treatment and her prognosis. That's next.

1:17:07in our health lead white house chief of staff susie wiles has been diagnosed with early stage breast cancer according to a truth social post from president trump the president says wiles will begin treatment immediately but she will continue working at the white house in a statement wiles says she has a quote strong prognosis and that quote nearly one in eight women in the United States will face this diagnosis. Every day, these women continue to raise their families, go to work, and serve their communities with strength and determination. I now join their ranks, unquote. Our thoughts go to Susie and her family.

1:17:39We are rooting for her. We are praying for her, and we wish you a speedy recovery. Also on our health lead, popular children's asthma medication Flovent was discontinued after Congress passed a law to penalize drug price increases. Many families then struggled to find an affordable substitute, causing kids to have worsening symptoms and increased hospital visits. One senator sat down with CNN's Meg Terrell for an exclusive interview to talk about the results of an investigation into why a life-saving asthma drug was pulled from the market and the consequences for patients, many of them children.

1:18:15A company made a decision to pull a well-known medication that helps children, little children like James, breathe to avoid paying a financial penalty. I wish I could hear it was a mistake. So we've come to Pennsylvania to meet with Jackie Vakil. She is a mom of James who has asthma and the drug he relied on to control it was suddenly pulled from the market. I was like, okay, well what's the substitute? Do we have something else? It was close to$200. And they said your insurance does not cover it. Over the next two months, Jackie and her doctor went back and forth with insurance, trying to find a drug that was covered and that would work for James.

1:19:00This was after the urgent care visit. At this point, I was getting frustrated and upset because now that cough was coming back at night. And he ended up getting another respiratory infection. Jackie and James are one of thousands of families who went through this in early 2024. when the drug company GSK discontinued one of the most commonly used asthma medications for kids called Flovent. It was an unintended consequence of a law meant to penalize outsized price increases on medicines. What we said is if you increase your drug price more than the rate of inflation, you've got to pay the difference back to the American taxpayer.

1:19:38That difference would be paid in the form of rebates to Medicaid, which were set to go higher in 2024, before and meant that some companies could have to sell drugs to Medicaid at a loss. So we came to meet with Senator Maggie Hassett, whose office led an investigation into what GSK did, and she's sharing the results exclusively with CNN. Other drug companies responded as we anticipated they would. They would lower the cost of their drugs, for instance, drugs like insulin. GSK was the only company to decide to take a lifesaving medication off the shelves with almost no notice, make a special deal with another manufacturer so that they could continue to charge what they wanted to for a copycat drug and disrupt the care and really harm the health of children all around the country.

1:20:26The investigative report says GSK could have had to pay an estimated$367 million in rebates to Medicaid in 2024 as a result of its price increases on Flovent. Instead, Medicaid paid more than$550 million that year for the replacement version, which wasn't subject to the same financial penalties. While GSK notified the FDA and others of the coming change by mid-2023, it still caused disruptions. The investigation revealed that use of inhaled corticosteroids, the kind of drug Flovent is, went down by nearly 20 percent after the GSK discontinuation. Hospitalizations related to asthma went up. In your report, you warned that other companies, unless Congress acts, could do the same thing.

1:21:10What's your plan? Well, we are working in a bipartisan way to close this loophole. If we don't make sure that pharmaceutical companies can't do this kind of maneuver, even though the maneuver is wrong, even though it really hurts people, that alone won't necessarily stop Big Pharma from gaming the system in this way. GSK told CNN that it has always been and will continue to be strongly committed to ensuring patients, especially children, have access to the medicines they need, including to our wide portfolio of treatments for respiratory disease. It said it would continue to engage with Senator Hassan and her staff.

1:21:51Prasco, GSK's partner on the replacement drug, didn't respond to a request for comment. Jackie finally did find an affordable inhaler that works well for James. But she wishes they, and others, hadn't had to look for one at all. Where was the consideration for the children in this decision-making? Is money worth more than these kids that rely on the medication? That's a hard thing to think about for me as a parent. and our thanks to meg terrell for that report you can follow me on facebook instagram threads blue sky x and on the tiktok at jake tapper you can follow the show on x and instagram at the lead cnn if you ever miss an episode of the lead you can watch the whole show on the cnn app have you downloaded the cnn app you really should aaron burnett out front starts now take it away aaron

1:22:55Hey, I'm Anderson Cooper. On my podcast, All There Is, we explore grief and loss in all its complexities. You'll hear deeply moving and honest discussions with people who have faced and are living with life-altering losses. My conversations with Robert Irwin. Robert grew up in the public eye. His dad, Steve Irwin, was known around the world as the crocodile hunter. but one of the greatest gifts in my life is the fact that my entire existence and my childhood growing up with dad was all captured on camera I mean it is all there and you watch dad for two seconds and you get a pretty good picture of the sort of passionate individual that he was talking grief building community that's what the podcast is all about this is all there is listen and follow wherever you get your podcasts