The Headlines - The Scramble After a White House Showdown, and R.F.K. Jr.’s Measles Response

Episode Date: March 3, 2025

Plus, “Anora” has a big night at the Oscars. On Today’s Episode:Rubio Attacks Zelensky, Firmly Defending Trump and Vance, by Minho KimEurope Races to Repair a Split Between the U.S. and Ukraine, by Mark Landler and Stephen CastleWith Cease-Fire Shaky, Israel and Hamas Weigh Diplomatic and Military Options, by Adam Rasgon and Iyad AbuheweilaFederal Officials Underplaying Measles Vaccination, Experts Say, by Teddy RosenbluthBest and Worst Moments From the 2025 Oscars, by The New York TimesTune in every weekday morning. To get our full audio journalism and storytelling experience, download the New York Times Audio app — available to Times news subscribers on iOS — and sign up for our weekly newsletter.Tell us what you think at: [e-mail]. 

From the New York Times, it's the headlines. I'm Tracy Mumford. Today is Monday, March 3rd. Here's what we're covering. We are reexerting peace through strength. President Trump has brought back strength to the White House. After Friday's fiery showdown in the Oval Office, the Trump administration and other top Republicans are doubling down on their aggressive stance toward Vladimir

Zelensky. I hope and pray frankly that President Zelensky will come to his senses, come back to President Trump, apologize for his behavior there. House Speaker Mike Johnson said Zelensky should be the one to apologize after Donald Trump and JD Vance publicly berated the Ukrainian leader for not being grateful enough for U.S. aid. I hope he comes to the realization that we're actually trying to help his country here. Secretary of State Marco Rubio also criticized Zelensky, saying he was undermining peace negotiations. And that's what Zelensky did, unfortunately, is he found every opportunity to try to Ukraine-splain on every issue.

Then he confronts the vice president when the vice president... National Security Advisor Mike Waltz went further in an interview on CNN. Are you suggesting that President Trump wants Zelensky to resign? We need a leader that can deal with us, eventually deal with the Russians, and end this war. And if it becomes apparent that President Zelensky's either personal motivations or political motivations are divergent from ending the fighting in his country, then I think we have a real issue on our hands. Today, Trump is set to meet with his top national security aides to consider a range of policy

options for Ukraine. An official tells The Times that could include suspending or canceling some military aid. Meanwhile... We are at a crossroads in history today. This is not a moment for more talk. It's time to act. European leaders scrambled to show their support for Ukraine

after Zelensky's heated exchange with Trump. UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer hosted a meeting of the leaders in London, Zelensky included. European leaders wrapped their arms around Zelensky. It was his first chance after the very bad meeting with Donald Trump to see them in person. And so there were a lot of expressions of support. Mark Landler is the Times Bureau Chief in London. He says Zelensky even had a personal meeting with King Charles, a significant show of solidarity.

Overall, the European leaders with Stammer at the helm were trying to negotiate their quickly shifting relationship with the US. Keir Stammer had sort of two goals with this meeting. One was to prevent a irreparable rift in the Transatlantic Alliance. And in order to do that, he really wanted to demonstrate that Europe was ready to step up, both to spend more money on defense on its own,

but also to put together what he's calling a coalition of the willing, which is a number of European countries that will take steps from deploying aircraft and troops to a peacekeeping force to, in a sense, secure any peace agreement that Russia and Ukraine agree to. And then he hopes that by doing that, he can go back to Donald Trump and say, we've stepped up, we're willing to pay a higher price, shoulder more of a burden. And so for that reason, we hope that you'll stay part of this effort.

But the second purpose here was to get Europe ready, should that transatlantic alliance really be finished. If this breach cannot be filled, if Donald Trump is really walking away, I think Starmer and Emmanuel Macron of France and other leaders recognize that Europe's gonna have to be far more in charge of this effort, gonna have to take charge of it. And so sort of two different efforts here,

one to keep the alliance together, but two, to start planning for a world in which that may not happen. This weekend, Israel disrupted the ceasefire negotiations with Hamas and announced it will stop all aid shipments into Gaza. It wants to try and force the militant group to accept new terms outside of the original agreement. Phase one of the existing deal expired over the weekend,

and the two sides were supposed to move into negotiations about a longer-term end to fighting. But now Israel is calling for just a short-term extension of the truce and the return of half of the hostages remaining in Gaza. Hamas immediately rejected the new proposal and called Israel's halt in humanitarian aid, quote, cheap blackmail. Why didn't we do this today? Why didn't we choose to have a press conference? The way that I say this is because this is a big deal. In West Texas, doctors and health officials

have been racing to try and contain a measles outbreak that has sickened more than 140 people and killed one unvaccinated child. The measles death was the first in the US in a decade. And we have known that we've had measles in our community. We are now seeing very serious consequence of what happens when we have measles in our community. The flare-up of cases, which is now spread to New Mexico, is shining a harsh spotlight on the federal response to the outbreak.

Experts say that the Department of Health and Human Services, run by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has been underplaying the best way to control the disease, vaccines. Kennedy used to run an anti-vaccine nonprofit and has claimed in the past that, quote, measles outbreaks have been fabricated to create fear. The federal government didn't send out a substantive notice about the outbreak until a month

after the first cases were reported. And in televised remarks at a cabinet meeting last week, Kennedy didn't mention vaccination at all. In an opinion piece published yesterday, though, he did urge parents to talk to their doctors about vaccinating their kids. The relatively muted response is a sharp contrast to how a measles outbreak during President Trump's first term was handled. At that time, officials led an intense public campaign to raise awareness about vaccines. That led to more than 60,000 people getting vaccinated. And finally. And the Oscar goes to...

Oh, Anora. The big winner at last night's Academy Awards was Anora. The film about a sex worker who marries the son of a Russian oligarch won five Oscars, including Best Picture. I want to thank the Academy for recognizing a truly independent film. This film was made on the blood, sweat, and tears of incredible indie artists and long lived independent film. Yeah. Okay. Thanks. Sean Baker took home four of those awards

for directing, editing, writing, and producing the film. He tied Walt Disney's record from 1954 for most Oscars won by a single person in one year. Here are the nominees for best actress in a leading role. The 25-year-old star of Enora, Mikey Madison, won best actress. She's one of the youngest people ever to win that award. This is a dream come true. I'm probably going to wake up tomorrow.

Madison learned Russian for the role. She also took pole dancing classes and spent time with dancers and in strip clubs to study how they work. I also just want to again recognize and honor the sex worker community. I will... It was a remarkable sweep for a movie that made almost no money at the box office. Last year's Best Picture winner Oppenheimer made more than $300 million. Anora took in less than $16 million since it was released in October.

That makes it one of the lowest grossing films ever to win Best Picture. Those are the headlines. Today on The Daily, Times reporter Peter Baker on the growing rift between President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. That's next in the New York Times audio app, or you can listen wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Tracy Mumford. We'll be back tomorrow.