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Lowest Jobless Rate In Six Years; American Journalist Contracts Ebola; 600 More U.S. Troops To Fight Ebola; ISIS Fighters Enter Key Border City; Panetta: Obama Ignored My Advice On Iraq

Aired October 03, 2014 - 10:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning. I'm Carol Costello. Happy Friday to you. Thank you so much for joining me. We begin this hour with important news on your money.

A short time ago, we learned the nation's jobless rate fell to its lowest level in more than six years. The rate dropped unexpectedly to 5.9 percent. That's compared to 6.1 percent in August, a drop of two- tenths of a percentage point.

That's because 248,000 jobs were created last month. That's more than expected and a strong rebound from a disappointing and somewhat worrisome drop in August.

Alison Kosik is at the New York Stock Exchange to tell us more. Good morning.

ALISON KOSIK, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. Those headlines are solid. We were worried about job growth after we saw the weak August showing where we saw the number dip below 200,000. That's a key threshold that we watch for.

But yes, September coming in strong, July and August revised higher. Also the unemployment trend, yes, that's looking positive, too, falling since the recession ended in 2009. So now it's below 6 percent. So it's good for the economy.

Also you look in the fine print, a lot of good stuff in there, too. Job creation is across the spectrum, 81,000 jobs added in professional services. These are good jobs, high-paying jobs like lawyers and accountants.

Thirty five thousand jobs added in retail. Health care saw 35,000 as well and construction at 16,000. So finally five and a half years out of the recession we are seeing momentum in the jobs picture.

Part of the reason why you're seeing the market rally, the Dow up 157 points after having four not so good days -- Carol.

COSTELLO: Excellent. Alison Kosik reporting live from the New York Stock Exchange. Thank you so much.

So let's dig deeper on this. Joining me now is the nation's Labor Secretary Thomas Perez. Welcome.

THOMAS PEREZ, LABOR SECRETARY: Good morning, Carol. How are you today?

COSTELLO: I'm good. So when you heard the unemployment rate fell to 5.9 percent, did you kind of do a little happy dance?

PEREZ: It's moving in the right direction. We haven't seen this unemployment rate since July of 2008. This is another strong report. Private sector job growth is on pace to be the best year since 1998. The United States has gained in this recovery.

We've put more people back to work than Japan, Europe, and every advanced economy combined. So it's really -- it's remarkable. Then there are other data points people may not be aware of like the childhood poverty rate last year had its largest drop in any year since 1966.

And that's because when more people are back to work, they get their -- they get wages and they can get lifted out of poverty. So we're moving in the right direction. We have undeniable unfinished business.

That's why no one is spiking any footballs here at the Labor Department or the White House because there's still too many people that need work and there's still too many people that are working hard and falling behind.

COSTELLO: What is your biggest concern? What's the biggest concern that you have?

PEREZ: Well, I think moving forward our biggest concern is to make sure that we have shared prosperity across this nation. Productivity since, really, the late '70s has risen remarkably and wages have not risen in a commensurate fashion.

And when employers are doing well and when they're reaping benefits in the bottom line on productivity, those benefits should be shared with workers. And too many people just haven't seen enough of a raise over recent years.

And that's why the president's doing everything he can under his executive authorities, our minimum wage executive order, which was finalized this week, people working overtime are going to get a raise in the not so distant future.

Home health workers are going to get a raise as a result of executive action. We need to take broader action on Capitol Hill and that includes raising the minimum wage. That includes immigration reform and all those things.

COSTELLO: It does seem more states and municipalities are going ahead and raising the minimum wage without help from the federal government. In fact, New York City just joined the fray with the mayor saying, if you get tax breaks or subsidies from the city and you're a business, you have to pay workers $13.13 per hour. I would guess that you think that's a good move.

PEREZ: Well, actually I was with Mayor De Blasio earlier this week when he announced that and applaud his efforts. And I also applaud his efforts on the issue of paid leave and I applaud the efforts of Governor Brown in California.

Because I'll tell you, if you look at the year 2000, Carol, and you compare female labor force participation here in the United States and Canada, our participation rates of women from 25 to 54 were identical.

You fast forward to this year, Canada's participation rates are 8 percent higher than the United States. If we had kept par, we would have 5.5 million more women in the workplace, supporting the Social Security system, being able to be part of the creative economy.

Places like Google and others that have a serious gender problem, they'd have more women to draw from. And the reason why we've fallen behind is because we're the only industrialized nation on the planet that doesn't have paid maternity leave.

And we don't take care of our child care system in ways like countries like Canada do. You can get quality child care in Canada for $20 a day. They've invested in this and they're getting the return on investment.

And so people like Bill De Blasio, people like Jerry Brown, 13 states have that have raised the minimum wage. Governor Malloy in Connecticut was an early leader on the issue of paid leave.

These are the right things to do and they're the smart things to do. And conservative governments like the government of Australia, I was just out there in the G-20 Summit, the conservative regime out there, they ran on a platform of increasing paid leave for women.

And this is a government that's, you know, in America you would say he's about where Ronald Reagan is in terms of philosophically. But they understand that these investments, they pay a return and we have to do that here.

COSTELLO: I want to ask you one more question before you have to go. You served as an assistant attorney general for the civil rights -- for civil rights at the U.S. Department of Justice and now you're said to be on President Obama's short list to replace Eric Holder, the nation's attorney general. Are you interested?

PEREZ: Well, you know what? I'm interested in making sure that we get everybody back to work and that's been --

COSTELLO: I knew you were going to say something like that! Are you interested in the attorney general job?

PEREZ: I'm interested in making sure that the guy I talk to from New Jersey earlier this week who still isn't back on his feet and he's suffering, he has every right to know that the Labor Department and the labor secretary is focused singularly on helping him and the millions of other folks get that job. COSTELLO: Let me ask you one more question, then. If the president offered the nomination to you, would you say no?

PEREZ: Well, you know what? I haven't had any such conversations and the only conversations I'm having with the president are about growing our economy right now. We're going to keep growing this economy and moving in the right direction.

COSTELLO: Secretary Perez, thank you so much for being with me. I appreciate it.

PEREZ: It was great to be with you as always.

COSTELLO: Nice to have you here.

New developments this morning in the worldwide Ebola crisis as an American freelance journalist working to cover the crisis for NBC in Liberia tests positive for the deadly disease.

Ashoka Mukpo has started getting sick on Wednesday. He'll return to the United States for treatment this weekend. His parents say he's in good spirits.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. MICHAEL LEVY, ASHOKA MUKPO'S FATHER: I just talked to him earlier this morning and his spirits seemed better today. I think obviously he's scared and worried he's been filming what's happening in Liberia for two weeks and seeing the death and tragedy and now it's really hit home for him. But his spirits are better today. He knows he's going to come home.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Back in the United States, Thomas Eric Duncan, the Ebola patient being treated in Dallas, remains in serious condition. The president of Liberia is now considering charging him if he indeed lied on a health screening questionnaire at the airport.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PRESIDENT ELLEN JOHNSON SIRLEAF, LIBERIA: With the U.S. doing so much to help us fight Ebola and, again, one of our compatriots didn't take care and he's gone there and sort of in a way put some Americans in a state of fear and put them at some risk. So I feel very saddened by that and very angry with him, to tell you the truth.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: In the meantime, four days after Duncan tested positive for Ebola, hazmat cleaning crews have not yet been allowed to decontaminate the apartment where Duncan stayed after arriving in the United States.

Inside, four family members remain quarantined, one of whom -- that would be Duncan's girlfriend -- spoke to CNN's Anderson Cooper. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST, "AC360": You were caring for him. Did you get in contact with any fluids?

LOUISE (via telephone): Not that I know of.

COOPER: Did the CDC recommend that you clean your apartment?

LOUISE: My daughter bought me some Clorox and we spread Clorox on my mattresses, on my bed and dirty clothes are in a plastic bag all sealed up in plastic. But they said we shouldn't throw anything away until we can get back with me.

COOPER: So the sheets that Thomas used and the towels that he used, what have you done with those?

LOUISE: They are in a plastic bag.

COOPER: In your apartment.

LOUISE: Yes.

COOPER: So you put -- you took them off the bed and put them into a plastic bag?

LOUISE: No, only the towel is in the plastic bag, but the rest of the stuff stayed on the bed. The bed sheets are still on the bed.

COOPER: So the sheets that he used, that he slept on, that's still on the bed?

LOUISE: Yes.

COOPER: Did the CDC talk to you about that at all?

LOUISE: They told me they're going to get back with me. I said that we are not going to use his stuff anymore, neither the bed, we're not going to use any of those things and they said they're going to come back and tell me how to get rid of them.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: Joining me now is CNN national security analyst and former assistant secretary of homeland security, Juliette Kayyem. Good morning, Juliette.

JULIETTE KAYYEM, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Good morning, Carol.

COSTELLO: I want to touch briefly on what we just heard from Louise. She and her family are still trapped inside of her apartment while hazmat crews work to get the proper credentials to go in and clean the apartment. How can this happen?

KAYYEM: Well, part of it is just a certification issue to ensure that they -- the workers don't get exposed. What is shocking about it is it wasn't like we didn't know that Ebola was killing people in Africa and that given the nature of globalization there was going to be a patient zero in the U.S.

I mean, that's what's so frustrating about this week is who didn't believe that someone would come here with Ebola? I mean, just given the nature of globalization. And we seem to have been caught flatfooted.

The Texas hospital not getting all the symptoms, his travel not putting two and two together as well as the response. And so, you know --

COSTELLO: So who's responsible for coordinating the response? Is it any one entity?

KAYYEM: Well, part of it is that it should -- it ought to be the CDC in the sense that they oversee this -- the Ebola outbreak. We are a country with 50 states and therefore 50 state public health agencies. And the goal of coordination of the federal government is to work with all of those state agencies to ensure they have the information.

They know what they're looking for, what are the decontamination protocols. We shouldn't have been caught flat-footed on issues as simple as certification if, in fact, I have to just put a caveat in here, if, in fact, that's the reason why.

COSTELLO: You'd think they would hurry along the process, right? It's insane to me. I want to talk to you about this questionnaire that Mr. Duncan filled out before he left Liberia.

On the form there was a question "Have you taken part in a burial or funeral rights or touched the body of someone who died in an area where there is Ebola."

He apparently lied when he answered that question. He answered no and he apparently lied. So he got on the plane, came to the United States, came through U.S. Customs and had no trouble at all. Should there be a change? It seems there should be.

KAYYEM: Yes, I think so. I -- you know, I think we need to start looking at this as a potential epidemic, sort of not worried so much about Duncan's motivation at this stage. We have a patient zero in the U.S.

We know who he came in contact with and now begin to focus on that and the changes I would make at this stage are obviously better surveillance and questioning on our end.

In other words, don't trust these other nations or don't trust people, so to speak because they may lie. So we need to have stronger intelligence and surveillance protocols on our end as well as just getting these public health agencies, hospitals, community health hospitals to begin to be very aggressive with potential identification.

This -- we have to learn what happened -- what happened in Texas has to be learned in real time. We have to regroup now and every person on the front lines of public health is now potentially sort of -- might be able to find anyone else who was infected.

So it's a wakeup call that we need our public health agencies very, very focused on travel patients, what they've done. So those are the two immediate changes I would make because I think we have to assume people either don't know or will lie.

COSTELLO: Juliette Kayyem, thanks so much. I appreciate it.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, as the fight to contain this deadly global outbreak continues, the United States pledges even more support. Barbara Starr at the Pentagon this morning. Barbara.

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COSTELLO: The United States rides to the rescue again, this time in West Africa as the Pentagon is set to send more troops to the area struggling to get the Ebola outbreak under control. Six hundred more U.S. troops now on the way.

Pentagon correspondent, Barbara Starr, joins us now with more. Good morning, Barbara.

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. How concerned is the Pentagon about the health and safety of these troops? Consider this -- they will take their own water, food, fuel, all of their own supplies for what is expected to be a six-month tour of duty.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

STARR (voice-over): With 3,000 troops already tapped to head to Ebola-ravaged West Africa, CNN has learned the U.S. military is increasing its fight against the deadly disease. Hundreds more troops are being added to plans to help the infected countries contain and control Ebola.

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: It's America -- our doctors, our scientists, our know-how, that leads the fight to contain and combat the Ebola epidemic in West Africa.

STARR: Approximately 200 U.S. troops are already in Liberia. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel has signed orders for another 700 from the 101st Airborne Division to head to Africa in coming days, to staff a command headquarters. Seven hundred more army engineers will be going to help build and advice on mobile hospitals.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're standing up a field hospital and treatment units. We'll be training thousands of health workers.

STARR: Even before most have left the U.S., military officials tell CNN the Pentagon is considering drastic measures to insure they don't come back to U.S. shores with the disease.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We are working with experts right now, on this. STARR: That could include enforced isolation for 21 days, the Ebola incubation period, for high-risk troops who may have come in contact with the disease. All troops deployed will be monitored daily for symptoms. And all service members will face increased monitoring for those 21 days, before they are allowed to return to the U.S.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is a complex emergency, beyond a public health crisis. That has significant humanitarian, economic, political and security dimensions.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

STARR: So the total now is 3,600 U.S. troops headed to Africa in the coming weeks, some already there to help fight the Ebola crisis and defense officials say that number could even grow again -- Carol.

COSTELLO: All right, Barbara Starr reporting live from the Pentagon this morning. Thank you.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, as coalition forces continue to hit ISIS with punishing airstrikes, former Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta is blaming President Obama for the crisis in Iraq.

Coming up, we'll talk about the former Pentagon chief's new tell-all quite damaging book.

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COSTELLO: A major advance by ISIS militants. Right now, Kurdish troops are trying to push back ISIS fighters in a key city on the Syrian-Turkish border. Fighters on the ground tell CNN ISIS entered Kobani early this morning. That means ISIS now controls the southwest corner of the city.

All of this happening just hours after Turkey and Australia pledged to support coalition forces. Yesterday, Turkey's parliament OK'd the use of force in Iraq and in Syria.

In the meantime, Australian officials have given the go-ahead for airstrikes and the use of Australian Special Forces on the ground in Iraq. So let's get the latest from CNN's Phil Black who joins us live from the Turkish-Syrian border. What's the situation there, Phil?

PHIL BLACK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Carol, we've been seeing ISIS hitting Kobani very hard with the artillery today, the hardest bombardment we've seen so far. Up at the top of the hill overlooking Kobani you can still see a structure there burning as a direct result of the bombardment we've seen here unleashed upon the city.

Particularly on the east side, the south eastern side where we are standing now. What we're hearing to the southwest of the city is perhaps more concerning. That's where fighters have told us that ISIS fighters have entered the city and now control part of it.

They've actually moved in to the city itself. That's how close they are. The Kurdish fighters that have been resisting them have been expecting this for the last 24 hours. They say they're getting ready to fight back street to street, building to building.

It will be bloody urban warfare. They're very much approaching the sense of a last showdown between the men and women who have stayed behind to defend their homes and those ISIS forces that have been advancing across this territory for some weeks now -- Carol.

COSTELLO: All right, Phil Black reporting live for us this morning. Thank you.

In the meantime, former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta is weighing in on the crisis in Iraq. In a new tell-all book called "Worthy Fights" set to hit the shelves next week, Panetta slams the president for ignoring his advice to leave some U.S. ground forces in Iraq.

He claims it would have helped stave off terrorist influences. Panetta writes, quote, "My fear as I voiced to the president and others is that if the country slid apart or slid back into the violence that we'd seen in the years immediately following the U.S. invasion, it could become a new haven for terrorists to plot attacks against the U.S. Iraq's against the United States. Iraq's stability was not only in Iraq's interest but also in ours."

Panetta says his views were shared by other military commanders, but those concerns were ignored. So let's talk about this with CNN political analyst and senior national correspondent for "The Daily Beast," Josh Rogin. Welcome, Josh.

JOSH ROGIN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Thank you.

COSTELLO: Thank you for being here. I apologize for reading that quote so poorly. When all is said and done, Panetta is not very complimentary of Mr. Obama's defense strategy. And that kind of surprises me.

ROGIN: Right. Throughout the book a copy of which I obtained, Panetta describes a White House that's insular, controlling, doesn't often listen to its top cabinet officials and sometimes puts politics over policy.

The Iraq example is a great one because the White House even to this day will tell you that they couldn't leave troops in Iraq because the Iraqis couldn't come to an agreement, because the Iraqis didn't want it, because the Bush administration made an agreement to pull U.S. troops out of Iraq.

But what Panetta is saying very clearly is that he wanted and advocated and pushed for a deal to keep troops in Iraq. He thought it was necessary. Other top national security officials have said the same thing, but the White House wanted to get rid of the Iraq problem they viewed it as something Bush created.

They didn't want to leave troops there and they created a situation whereby a deal would have been impossible. That's been reported. That's often what a lot of people say, but for the defense secretary under Obama to say that so clearly is a direct rebuke to the White House's messaging and considering the chaos going on in Iraq right now, he seems to have a point.

COSTELLO: That's why I was surprised because there's a war going on right now and do you really want all those critics coming out of the -- Democratic critics coming out of the wood work to criticize your policy at a time when you kind of need to, like, all be on the same page, even if you're not?

ROGIN: It's always the problem when one of these top officials writes a book because everybody writes a memoir and there is praise for Obama in the book. I read the whole thing. He says Obama fixed the economy largely. He said he put the military largely on the right footing.

He's very critical of the president's actions in Syria. He says it was marked by hesitation and half steps. He criticizes Obama for going back on a red line against Bashar Al-Assad. After Assad used chemical weapons the president decided to strike Syria and reversed himself.

And Leon Panetta says that cost America credibility and hurt the American power around the world and that's also a pretty strong statement --