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Secret Service Director Resigns; Battle Against ISIS; Ebola Fears On The Rise

Aired October 01, 2014 - 15:00   ET

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

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: Top of the hour. You're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

A new concern this afternoon after the first case of Ebola is diagnosed right here in the United States. Here's what we learned just a short time ago, that that Ebola patient, this unidentified man, has been around five children, school-aged children, since arriving in this country. His kids attend four different schools in Dallas, Texas, and they were in school earlier this week.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. RICK PERRY (R), TEXAS: I know that parents are being extremely concerned about that development, but let me assure, these children have been identified and they are being monitored, and the disease cannot be transmitted before having any symptoms.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: The search is now under way for anyone and everyone who has been in contact with this unidentified man, this patient, ever since he arrived in the United States from Liberia a week-and-a-half ago.

He wasn't showing symptoms for the first four days. Then he goes into this emergency room a week ago today, but was sent home. He then took a turn for the worst on Friday and was taken by ambulance to the hospital. An Ebola test was performed and he has been in isolation ever since.

So, let me turn to an expert in infectious diseases, Dr. Amar Safdar with NYU Langone Medical Center.

Welcome.

DR. AMAR SAFDAR, NYU LANGONE MEDICAL CENTER: Thank you.

BALDWIN: Full of questions. Hope you don't mind, first just beginning again, now having the details of those five children who were in school earlier this week. I'm no doctor. You're the expert. Does that worry you?

SAFDAR: Well, to answer that question, you have to go back and see if the disease is particularly severe in children as opposed to adults. The answer is no. We have seen -- BALDWIN: Good.

SAFDAR: So, you see, because certain infections have been particularly severe in kids as opposed to adults with robust immune system tend to handle the infection well.

But here, Ebola, the only thing that I can remember, the earlier outbreaks in what is the D.R. Congo now, Zaire, pregnant women had the highest mortality, stillbirths, abortions, and up to 96 percent, and then so there is that subgroup of individuals.

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: They're on one end of the spectrum.

SAFDAR: So, that's one end of the spectrum.

If you look at, overall, again, D.R. Congo because they have been multiple outbreaks in D.R. Congo, the mortality overall had been shy of 80 percent, 77 percent. Here, confirmed cases, it's anywhere -- it's been fluctuating between 55 percent to 60 percent.

BALDWIN: I hear you on the numbers. Let me be the everyone I have heard in the elevator and walking down the street today.

SAFDAR: Sure.

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: To think of this man in an airplane -- and I understand you may not show symptoms for up to 21 days. It sounds like he wasn't showing symptoms, right, until he was in Dallas for a couple of days. What about if someone else is on or is in his same seat?

And I'm sorry to just go hypothetical, so someone is sitting in the same seat and he had bodily fluids on the tray table and I scratch my nose. Can it be passed that way or are people in the clear on the plane?

SAFDAR: I think so.

BALDWIN: You think so which way?

SAFDAR: I think if someone has not become ill with this infection, during the incubation period, they have been exposed to the infection and certainly exposed to the virus. As you mentioned, it could be anywhere as early as two days after being exposed and as far out as three weeks.

But the majority of the infections you see are -- one sees -- are less than 10 days. So, anywhere between seven to 10 days is where majority of patients will present with an illness after being exposed. But during the period they are not ill, it's virtually -- it has not been seen. Obviously, I cannot protect the future, but we have enough experience with this virus, outbreaks in '70s, that we know that it's not passed on to other people before people become ill with this. BALDWIN: I understand. You only have to have symptoms and that's

when one could become contagious. Am I hearing you correctly?

SAFDAR: Yes. Yes.

BALDWIN: So then if you have the symptoms like he would have perhaps in this ambulance, I understand they de -- sanitized the ambulance, as they would after every patient, but this ambulance was still being used for two days before they took the ambulance out of commission.

(CROSSTALK)

SAFDAR: The good thing is, now we live in the era of universal precautions.

After HIV and after all sorts of various different infections -- a more recent one was pandemic swine flu.

BALDWIN: Yes.

SAFDAR: So now you feel people are fairly aware of their surroundings. Medical professionals and certainly facilities, and including EMS, practice universal precautions, where you consider someone infectious unless proven otherwise, rather than the other way around, where you have to prove an infection and then you do something and then you intervene.

BALDWIN: OK. OK.

SAFDAR: So, that is reassuring, isn't it?

And it's in place exactly for that reason, that people won't be surprised.

BALDWIN: Hey, you're calm and you know way more about this than I do or anyone probably watching. I hear that loud and clear.

I really appreciate it very much.

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: Thank you so much for coming on.

SAFDAR: Thank you. Absolutely.

BALDWIN: I know you have a lot of questions. We all have a lot of questions about what's happening with Ebola. I want you to send me either @BrookeBCNN or just tweet your questions. Use the hashtag EbolaQandA. And we will talk to another doctor. We will talk to our chief medical correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, in about a half-hour just to answer some of your questions live here on CNN.

And now to breaking news in the battle against ISIS. We have just learned that ISIS militants are attacking a crucial border town in Syria even after coalition airstrikes hit nearby areas earlier this week. So first just to this video. This is what we have for you now. ISIS militants reportedly firing on Kurdish forces inside the town of

Kobani. We have been watching this power struggle playing out here for days.

Now to this CNN exclusive interview with the man coordinating this international effort to defeat is. General John Allen once served as top U.S. military commander in Afghanistan and Allen sat down with our global affairs correspondent, Elise Labott, who joins me now.

Elise, he's the man to talk to. I'm so glad you got him. We know the U.S. spent years training and arming the Iraqi army and then when ISIS showed up, some Iraqi soldiers dropped their weapons and they walked away. What are expectations from General Allen here?

ELISE LABOTT, CNN FOREIGN AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Well, Brooke, this is General Allen's first interview since taking the post. He's leaving tonight for the region.

He will be working on this, trying to match up coalition abilities, if you will, with some of the needs both on the military side and the financial side and on the foreign fighter side that this coalition needs. But on the fighting, on the -- he says that Kurdish and Iraqi forces are really going to be the boots on the ground because, as you know, President Obama has ruled out U.S. boots on the ground.

Airstrikes will not do it alone. He says that he's trained a lot of foreign troops, foreign fighters, particularly in Iraq before. He says with the right types of forces, the right type of equipment and training programs, he thinks they will be a credible force. In Syria, it will be a lot more difficult. As you know, we're talking about this ragtag Syrian Free Army have been outmanned and outgunned by ISIS, by Assad's regime.

You remember President Obama said it was going to be a fantasy if these guys were going to be a credible force. Take a listen to what General Allen said about the formidable challenge ahead.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LABOTT: President Obama said a few months ago it was a "fantasy" to expect that you could train these Free Syrian Army guys to combat Assad. Now you have this brutal ISIS army that you also want them to tackle. How are they going to do that in the short-term?

LT. GEN. JOHN ALLEN (RET.), INTERNATIONAL COALITION COORDINATOR: Well, in the short-term, we will continue to support them in their ongoing operations.

But over the long-term, the intent is to build credible forces, vetted forces, credible forces with --

LABOTT: It is going to take a while.

ALLEN: Well, it is, yes. And we have been saying that all along. It is going to take a while. It could take years, actually, and so that we have to manage our expectations. But the process of getting that unfolded is occurring right now, with

the idea of locating training camps and beginning to accumulate the Syrian elements that will go into those training camps, ensuring that we have got the right kind of combination of trainers who can provide the substance that they're going to need to be credible and capable fighters on the ground as time goes on.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LABOTT: And, Brooke, you remember that General Allen was the man who led the Sunni Awakening, getting these Sunni tribes in Iraq to turn against al Qaeda.

He says he's convinced they can do it again. He says as sure as the sun will rise, he knows that the Sunnis will be turning against ISIS soon, Brooke.

BALDWIN: You said he's heading to the region and we will be watching more of your interview. Elise Labott, I'm so glad you were able to sit down with him. We will be watching more from you on "THE SITUATION ROOM" coming up here on CNN 5:00 eastern. Appreciate it very much.

Next, we are learning of a new security breach involving President Obama's safety. This man with a gun was in this elevator with the president. Wasn't cleared to be there. Folks, this is just the latest in a string of incidents involving the Secret Service. Should the agency's leader resign? Is it bigger than that?

Plus, any moment, the White House will speak on that precise topic and the first Ebola case in America. Stay with us.

Stay with me, CNN's special live coverage coming back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: You're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

A federal judge has ordered a mental health evaluation for the man accused of running into the White House with a knife. Omar Gonzalez pleaded not guilty to the charge against him. He was just in a federal courthouse in D.C. This is three days before Gonzalez allegedly got all the way to the East Room of the White House.

A security contractor with a gun was in an elevator with the president of the United States and the Secret Service initially did not know about the weapon. This happened pretty recently. This is when the president was visiting the CDC in Atlanta actually on the subject of Ebola.

And this latest breach only adds to this outcry that the head of the Secret Service who testified on Capitol Hill yesterday should step down.

Multiple lawmakers, the latest Senator Lindsey Graham, they're all saying -- many of them are saying that Julia Pierson needs to go. In her multihour testimony yesterday, Julia Pierson failed to tell the House Oversight Committee about that incident in the elevator.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. JASON CHAFFETZ (R), UTAH: What percentage of the time do you inform the president if his personal security has in any way, shape or form been breached?

JULIA PIERSON, DIRECTOR, SECRET SERVICE: Percent of the time? One hundred percent of the time, we would advise the president.

CHAFFETZ: In calendar year 2014, how many times has that happened?

PIERSON: I have not briefed him with the exception of one occasion for the September 19 incident.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Joining me now, the author of this book "The First Family Detail," Ronald Kessler.

Ronald, welcome.

RONALD KESSLER, AUTHOR, "THE FIRST FAMILY DETAIL": Hey, good to be with you.

BALDWIN: Let's begin just with this incident in the elevator. The fact that they didn't know until after the fact and until after this guy had a cell phone out and he was trying to take pictures of the president and they said, hey, put it down did they realize he had a gun. This is according to "Washington Post" reporting. What's protocol if you are getting in an elevator with the president?

KESSLER: Protocol is you never allow anybody in the elevator with the president, period, unless it's someone who has already been cleared and screened. Absolutely, totally against all protocol within the Secret Service.

BALDWIN: As an aside, what kind of -- are there conversations between Secret Service agents and the president, say, if you're in the field, i.e., at the CDC? Would there be any discussion about allowing anyone else in an elevator or absolutely not?

KESSLER: Absolutely not. It's so basic, and just as basic as protecting the White House. And all these incidents, scandals, you know, they go back to back to the Salahis, when they crashed the state dinner and they weren't on the guest list.

What connects them all is a management culture which punishes agents for pointing out deficiencies or pointing out even potential threats and rewards agents with promotions if they just keep quiet and go along. If they get pressure from the White House to turn off the alarms, then they go along with that. The uniformed officers at the gate felt when the Salahis came I think felt that if they turn them away, they will not be backed by management.

BALDWIN: So, when you say management, I'm hearing you loud and clear. But we see Julia Pierson. She's testifying on the Hill yesterday. In her elevated role, would she be aware of that maybe unspoken culture within the Secret Service, within the agency?

KESSLER: Absolutely. She grew up in the agency. She's part of it. She's actually made the culture worse. I think you can tell --

BALDWIN: How so?

KESSLER: How so is, for example, during the hearing, she was asked about the fact that a uniformed officer reported shots at the White House, which is, by the way, a story that first appeared in my book "The First Family Detail," and that a supervisor overruled her and said, oh, no, it's something else. And she later said she was afraid to criticize -- she would be criticized if she pushed the point.

Well, Julia Pierson was asked about that and what was her response? We're going to have a professional responsibility investigation. We're going to re-interview her, which is intimidating, as opposed to acknowledging that she is well aware that the culture is that you don't point out problems and you certainly don't question your supervisor and that's what has linked all of these scandals.

BALDWIN: Then what changes? If -- and I know, as we mentioned, multiple members of Congress called for Pierson to go away, to resign, to be fired, but if it's cultural, it sounds like a major overhaul of this agency is needed. How do you pull that off?

KESSLER: You do it the same way you do in any organization. If Microsoft or Apple is failing and is losing a lot of money, what do you do? You don't have hearings. You don't have internal reviews. You simply replace the CEO with an outsider.

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: Ronald, forgive me. I have to interrupt you. I have to interrupt you. But, as we're talking about her, I'm just getting information from the control room that Julia Pierson, head of the Secret Service, has resigned.

This is just coming to us from the White House, and from our White House correspondent, Jim Acosta, and that President Obama has accepted.

So, Ronald Kessler, you and I breaking the news to the nation that she's out. Your reaction?

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: Oh, we have Jim Acosta. Forgive me.

Are we going to Jim?

JIM ACOSTA, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Brooke.

That's right. If you can hear me, I do have the statement from Secretary Johnson about Julia Pierson. It says right there at the top: "Today, Julia Pierson, director of the U.S. Secret Service offered her resignation, and I accepted it. I salute her 30 years of distinguished service to the Secret Service and the nation."

But, Brooke, you can see that this was starting to develop all day long. Elijah Cummings, the ranking Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, really got the ball rolling earlier this morning when he said that if she couldn't restore confidence to that agency, that he would like to see her step aside.

And then Nancy Pelosi, the House minority leader, said that she basically agreed with Elijah Cummings' assessment of the situation. In the last several minutes, I was talking to a key Democratic official who essentially said that her job was in jeopardy and then this e-mail came through. This all happened very quickly obviously because -- in part because of her testimony yesterday.

I talked to a number of people up on Capitol Hill, aides to various congressman up on Capitol Hill and to people inside the administration who just felt that her testimony was not inspiring, it was not reassuring and that that was part of the reason for her departure, Brooke.

BALDWIN: How about that? Just reading the statement from Jeh Johnson, 30 years. She served for 30 years. Jim Acosta with the news here that President Obama has accepted the resignation of Julia Pierson, the director of the U.S. Secret Service.

Ronald Kessler, let me just bring you back in, as I was just asking you about how you would sort of overhaul this agency. I would love just to get your gut reaction to the news.

KESSLER: Well, as I was saying, the only solution is to bring in an outsider to replace Julia Pierson.

That's what I said in my book as well. If Microsoft or some other private company is failing, what do you do? You bring in a new person as CEO to shake it up and to change the culture. You don't reconstitute it as something else, as some people are talking about. It's simply very basic. You have to change the culture.

The agents themselves are very brave and dedicated. They will take a bullet for the president. They are so -- they are totally disgusted at what's been going on. But it's this management culture that has been really corrupting the agency. You know, you could see signs of that when Julia Pierson put out her statement after the intrusion, saying that the uniformed officers exercised tremendous restraint.

Does she think we're fools, that we're going to fall for that? It's just the opposite. They should have taken him out, because, first, dogs should have been unleashed on the guy. Obviously, the uniformed officers were not paying attention.

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: Taken him meaning they should have shot him when they saw him jump the fence at the White House? (CROSSTALK)

KESSLER: You got it. They should have shot him. And he was a threat to the president. Obama had just left. But he could have returned. Either way, he could have had explosives. He could have had weapons of mass destruction.

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: We're at war. You never know what this man could have had.

KESSLER: Yes. There you go. You could have 20 terrorists from ISIL with grenades. And these people who say, oh, it's -- you shouldn't increase the perimeter around the White House are just asking for an assassination, as if people have access to the president anyway.

Of course they don't. They can watch him on TV. They can look at his Twitter account. But if they are walking by the White House, they certainly don't have access to the president and therefore it doesn't make any difference if the perimeter is pushed back a bit.

BALDWIN: Ronald, I would love for you to stay with me. We will just keep this conversation going.

Again, if you're just joining us, we have just received news that Julia Pierson, the director of U.S. Secret Service, what was really grilled yesterday on Capitol Hill by the House Oversight Committee, she has given her resignation to the White House and we now know, thanks to Jim Acosta's reporting there, that President Obama has accepted her resignation.

I have Evan Perez also with me, our justice correspondent.

Evan Perez, let me just bring you into this conversation as well. What can you add?

EVAN PEREZ, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Brooke, I think yesterday's performance was just awful.

And it was very apparent the people at the Homeland Security Department, at the White House beginning yesterday that really she couldn't stay. The problem was, what do you do? She's only been there about 18 months. She was brought in, Brooke, to fix the situation there. You remember after the Cartagena prostitution scandal and other incidents, she was brought in to sort of clean up the problem that they had.

And they really thought that maybe she had not been given enough time, but it was clear after yesterday she did not really give anyone any confidence that she really could do the job. Now it begins to try to find -- to vet someone. I'm told that there's a candidate that is being vetted right now and they hope to have a name to be able to replace Ms. Pierson and so that then becomes that person's job to try to make these fixes, Brooke.

BALDWIN: You know, Ronald, just back to you. I was talking to a guest last hour and he was saying to me -- he's

also written a book -- and he was saying to me, you know what? So much changed in the '90s with the Secret Service. So many of these men and women who were there for years went away, and there was a big cultural shift and he was saying a lot of these current agents, they don't know what it's like to have a shot taken at the president. He said that really changes the game for these folks.

KESSLER: I don't know about that.

I think the agents are brave and dedicated. As I said, I think they are ready to take action, but they're afraid and they're intimidated by this culture. They are afraid that they will be second-guessed, as was the case with this female agent who reported shots at the White House.

And what was Julia Pierson's response? Well, it was dark out. It was dark out. Oh, wow. That's really a problem. There's also this attitude of, we make do with less. And so the Secret Service doesn't spend money, for example, to have detectors that would pinpoint gunshots, even though the D.C. police have that. There is also an arrogance.

Why didn't they lock the door of the White House? Because there's this attitude of we're the great Secret Service. We can deal with any problem, not to mention they really don't want to spend money on locks. It's really unthinkable what has been going on.

BALDWIN: OK.

Jeff Toobin joining me as well, our senior legal analyst.

Jeff Toobin, can you just explain to us what is the relationship between Homeland Security and the White House?

JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Well, as a political matter, it's -- the secretary of homeland security, Jeh Johnson, works for the White House.

But the Secret Service, as part of Homeland Security Department, used to be part of the Treasury Department, is -- always has a somewhat contentious relationship because presidents are politicians and presidents don't want to be set off in a bubble. Remember, going back to 1974, twice in a matter of weeks, both times in San Francisco, people -- two women took shots at President Ford.

This is not new for crazy people to be out after the president of the United States, but presidents always want to have some access to the public. They don't want to be perceived as an imperial presence off stage. So there is an inherent tension there, and usually that can be worked out in good faith.

Here, we obviously seem to have a problem of simple competence on the part of Secret Service that just wasn't doing its job well.

And it's not surprising and it seems fully appropriate that there's going to be new leadership again at the Secret Service.

BALDWIN: Again, getting the news from the White House -- and let me just read the first graph of the statement from Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson, that: "Today, Julia Pierson, director of the United States Secret Service offered her resignation, and I accepted it. I salute her 30 years of distinguished service to the Secret Service and the nation."

I know Evan Perez, our justice correspondent, was reporting they're already you are hearing in the process of vetting someone else. How long do you think this kind of process would take? The president obviously needs security and to Ronald's point, there are many a phenomenal agent and officer working to protect the White House and also the president. But how long could this take?

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: Go ahead, Evan. Evan, to you.

PEREZ: OK.

Brooke, I think it's the highest priority. This is also an example of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson basically taking the reins here of an agency that frankly has always not really worked well with the Homeland Security Department. He's basically making them heel to his rule, basically.

This is an agency, the Secret Service, that in some ways is a little bit like the FBI. The FBI is part of the Justice Department, but they kind of do their own thing. And so the Secret Service has always sort of had a lot of independence from Homeland Security.

And here what I'm told one of the frustrations here, Brooke, was that they repeatedly went to the Secret Service and said, let us know if there's anything else in your closets, anything else that is going to break in the news, and the Secret Service kept saying, there's nothing else. And then the next day there would be a big headline in the newspapers.

So this is a big priority. And I think you should probably see someone very soon.

BALDWIN: OK.

Again, to your point, hearing testimony from Julia Pierson and then the next day in the morning paper in Washington in "The Washington Post" this news about this individual, this security contractor in an elevator with the president of the United States recently on his trip down to Atlanta to the CDC.

And they only found out after the fact that they are all in this elevator together, which, as we have heard from multiple -- multiple people coming on the show, that that's a no-no. You just don't have somebody who is armed and they find out about it after the fact.

Again, just a warning. We're all -- we're all waiting and -- waiting and watching for the White House daily briefing.

KESSLER: I will give you --

BALDWIN: Go ahead and jump in. I hear a voice.

KESSLER: I will give you another example of this -- this disastrous agency.