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Texas Measles Outbreak Grows; Dow Dives; Senate Set to Vote on Kash Patel; Child's Suicide in Texas Under Investigation. Aired 11:30a-12p ET

Aired February 20, 2025 - 11:30   ET

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

[11:34:33]

PAMELA BROWN, CNN HOST: Well, this morning, a heart-wrenching story out of Texas.

An 11-year-old girl died by suicide after her mother says she was bullied at school with threats about ICE deporting her family. School police are now investigating.

CNN's Ed Lavandera joins us now.

Ed, what more are you learning?

ED LAVANDERA, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Pamela, we have spoken with several families who attend the same school where 11- year-old Jocelynn Carranza attended.

And several families have told us that, over the last few weeks, as the news of ICE raids and immigration had been so prominent, that there was increased chatter and tormenting in some cases of students at this middle school in Gainesville, Texas, north of the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

[11:35:17]

And that appears -- at least according to the mother of Jocelynn, who we spoke with yesterday, appears to have been in what might have been what was behind the bullying situation in her story. According to the mother, she was told by an investigator with the school district that there had been one student who was telling Jocelynn that ICE was going to deport her family members and that she was going to be left alone here in the United States.

And her mother believes that it was that fear of being left alone that might have been behind the suicide attempt here in Gainesville. We also spoke, as I mentioned, with several other family members.

And one of Jocelynn's friends, with the permission of this young student's mother, who told us that she adored her friend and she is just heartbroken over what has happened.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) GENESSIS ARNAL, FRIEND OF JOCELYNN CARRANZA: She was very nice and pretty. I loved her. Basically, when I heard that she was gone, I don't know. It just shattered my heart. It hurt me really bad.

LAVANDERA: Did you hear kids talking about immigration and ICE and all these words that you guys probably don't know what it means?

ARNAL: Well, yes, but not to her. I have only heard it about people that are saying that ICE was coming and stuff, but that's all I heard.

LAVANDERA: Did you know that people had been bothering her and being mean to her?

ARNAL: I didn't know at all.

LAVANDERA: Right.

ARNAL: If I knew, I would have told them to stop, I promise you, but...

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LAVANDERA: And, Pamela, that's also one of the things we also heard from Jocelynn's mother, that she had not been -- she said she had not been told by school district officials that her daughter had been seeking counseling at the school because of the bullying that she was facing there at the school, that her mother had no idea, didn't see any changes in her daughter's behavior in the days leading up to her death.

We have reached out to the school district there in Gainesville, Texas, for a response to these allegations and this talk of the immigration and ICE chatter that was happening at the school. We have not heard back, but the school district did put out a statement saying that they take allegations of bullying very seriously and they have a zero tolerance policy on bullying situations.

But as for the specific allegations of what we have learned here in the last day or so, we have not heard a specific response on that -- Pamela.

BROWN: All right, Ed Lavandera, thank you so much.

And if you or someone has thoughts of suicide, help is available. Speak with someone any time by calling 988.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[11:42:15]

BROWN: Breaking news, Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky will not run for reelection next year. McConnell is the longest-serving Senate party leader in U.S. history. He is announcing his decision today on his 83rd birthday.

And, right now, senators are voting to break a filibuster on Kash Patel's nomination for FBI director. It could mean a confirmation vote happens this afternoon.

CNN's Manu Raju is on Capitol Hill.

So what are you hearing about Patel, Manu?

MANU RAJU, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, he is on his way to getting enough votes to advance to the final confirmation vote.

And we do expect ultimately he will get the votes to be confirmed. But there was a bit of a hiccup. In fact, the Senate -- one Senate Republican has announced her opposition. That is Senator Susan Collins of Maine, someone we have been watching about how ultimately she would come down.

She put out a statement raising concerns about his nomination, saying that Mr. Patel has made numerous politically charged statements in his book and elsewhere discrediting the work of the FBI, the very institution he has been nominated to lead. She said that his last several years have been characterized by aggressive political activity.

And she said while she supports -- she strongly supports efforts to ensure all federal employees perform their responsibilities ethically and in accordance with the law, she said his recent political profile undermines his ability to serve as the FBI director. And she will vote against confirming him to this position.

But in order to get denied the position, Pamela, that means four Republicans would have to break ranks, because this is expected to be largely along party lines. And we don't expect four Republicans to break ranks.

So, despite her opposition here, we do expect ultimately Patel will get the votes this afternoon to get confirmed to this critical position -- Pamela.

BROWN: Interesting, so GOP -- Collins votes against the senator, Republican Senator Collins votes against breaking the filibuster. You say that we don't expect other Republicans to join in.

It comes at a time Mitch McConnell, who, as we know, has voted against other Trump nominees, is announcing that he is not going to seek reelection.

RAJU: Yes, this is not a surprise. In fact, this was widely expected in the United States Senate, given the fact that he did step down from his leadership position at the beginning of this Congress.

He has been the longest-serving party leader of any -- for any party in the history of the United States Senate, and really a tenure that has been considered one of the most consequential figures in the Senate in his time. He's been serving in the Senate since 1984. He's been the Republican leader up until this past year and has had a hand in almost all major policy decisions in his time as Republican leader and helped usher through a very conservative Supreme Court as well.

[11:45:00]

So this decision by McConnell, not unexpected, but also very significant, as someone who has been really at the forefront of some of the big political battles within his party, but really been out of step with the Trump and MAGA wing of his party in the last couple years.

Trump, of course, and him have had a row in the aftermath of January 6. Mitch McConnell in this Congress has voted against three Trump nominees so far, the only Republican senator to vote against that many Republican nominees, but no question about it this will open up a competitive primary to fill his seat in 2026, but a very significant announcement, even if it was expected, Pamela.

BROWN: Exactly.

Manu Raju, thank you so much.

And breaking news just coming in, the Dow is down more than 600 points right now on the heels of Walmart announcing its sales and profit growth will slow this year.

I want to go to CNN's Vanessa Yurkevich.

What are we learning about this, Vanessa?

VANESSA YURKEVICH, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Yes, the Dow dropping more than 600 points right now. You can see it right there.

This is on the news that Walmart put out its forecast saying that sales growth was going to be about 4 percent and profit would grow about 5.5 percent. That was much slower, much slower growth than analysts were expecting, and you see the Dow responding and you see Walmart stock dropping about 6 percent there.

Essentially, the company is saying that they're not going to be immune from tariffs, proposed tariffs that the president has put out there. We know that there's a 10 percent right now on anything coming in from China, and we're waiting to see what reciprocal tariffs could look like from the president on many other countries.

Now, Walmart will be able to weather the tariff storm a little bit better, but they're also looking at what consumers may be doing in this environment. We know that retail sales dropped last month. We also know that consumers are more concerned about rising inflation and concerned about what tariffs may mean for their bottom line.

And I just want to tell you what the chief financial officer of Walmart said in this call to investors. He said that Walmart's outlook assumes a relatively stable macroeconomic environment, but acknowledges that there will be still uncertainties related to consumer behavior and global economic and geopolitical conditions.

So you have the biggest retailer saying that they are not going to be immune from these economic conditions that could be changing under President Trump's policies, and you see the market not really liking that news. They were expecting stronger sales growth and profits from Walmart. Walmart pulling back, saying it's going to be a lot slower this year because of these conditions, Pam.

BROWN: Yes, all the uncertainty.

Vanessa Yurkevich, thank you so much.

Well, the measles outbreak is growing. The warning signs to watch for even if you are vaccinated. Dr. Sanjay Gupta has more ahead in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[11:52:42]

BROWN: The measles outbreak in Texas has now grown to 58 cases, mostly among patients who haven't been vaccinated.

CNN chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta is in Lubbock with more details.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Pamela, I think the sentiment on the ground here is, people are frustrated, they are frightened, and they're trying to figure out what comes next.

The official numbers you have heard now, 58 people in West Texas, eight more in New Mexico. The first case was diagnosed back on January 29. So this is over the last three weeks. But these are probably dramatic undercounts, Pamela.

A lot of people simply aren't coming forward. So we will see how big this turns out to be. As it stands now, just with those official numbers, this is already the largest measles outbreak in 30 years in Texas. So everyone's sort of grappling with this.

I had a chance to talk to the state health commissioner as soon as I arrived. Here's how she put things.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GUPTA: Have you ever seen measles before?

DR. JENNIFER SHUFORD, COMMISSIONER, TEXAS DEPARTMENT OF STATE HEALTH SERVICES: No, and I'm an infectious disease physician.

GUPTA: Wow.

SHUFORD: I have never diagnosed a case.

GUPTA: That's incredible.

SHUFORD: It's because measles was declared eliminated from the United States back in the year 2000...

GUPTA: Right. SHUFORD: ... because of the effectiveness of that vaccine. And it's only now, with falling immunization rates, not just here in Texas, but across the country and around the world, that we're starting to see more of these outbreaks.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GUPTA: So Pamela, you can sense that source of frustration in her voice. I mean, she's obviously very concerned.

I'm at Covenant Children's most of the patients we're talking about are children. Eleven of them have been hospitalized here. Six more are in the hospital, suspected to have measles in that characteristic rash. They have to send the samples to Austin to confirm this.

But the numbers are continuing to grow. And one of the things that is necessary is a room like the one that we're in, which is called a negative pressure room. So that means the air is always moving in very specific ways. It's going to move from inside the room, recirculate the air outside.

But, importantly, because you got to protect everyone else in the hospital as well, if you open this door in a negative pressure room, air will come into the room. Negative pressure. It's not going to send potentially infected air out into the hallways, infecting other people. That's what you have to do when you're dealing with one of the most infectious and contagious viruses out there.

[11:55:06]

If you have measles, and you are in a room, 90 percent of your contacts will get measles if they are not vaccinated. That's how contagious this is. And if you also say, well, how serious is this, about 20 percent of people who have measles will actually end up getting hospitalized. About 10 percent will get ear infections, 5 percent will get pneumonia, and a certain number will die.

And that is what is happening here in West Texas. That's why people are taking this so seriously.

Pamela, we're going to keep an eye on the numbers. We're going to stay on the ground here for a couple more days to try and sort out what is happening here. And, as we get more details, we will certainly bring them to you.

BROWN: All right, Dr. Gupta, thanks so much.

And thank you for joining us. I'm Pamela Brown. You can follow me on Instagram, TikTok, and X @PamelaBrownCNN.

Stay with us. "INSIDE POLITICS WITH DANA BASH" starts after a short break.