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At This Hour

Can Pets Transmit Ebola?; North Korean Leader Not Seen for Over a Month; New Details on MH17 Shot Down Over Ukraine; Secret Service Colombian Prostitution Scandal Grows.

Aired October 09, 2014 - 11:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Spanish authorities have put down an Ebola patient's dog despite a very big online campaign to save the pet's life. It got thousands and thousands of signatures.

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: Officials were apparently concerned that this dog had caught the virus from his owner, a nurse's assistant who had been carrying for missionaries being treated for Ebola.

I asked Dr. Amesh Adalja earlier today if pets, household pets like dogs and cats, can carry the virus. Take a listen to what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. AMESH ADALJA, INFECTIOUS DISEASE SPECIALIST, UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH MEDICAL CENTER: We know in prior studies dogs have shown immune response to the virus in outbreak regions. They didn't have any symptoms but they were clearly getting exposed to the virus. It was something that people had to think about when you had a dog exposed whether or not it posed a risk and that's why the Spanish authorities took the action they did.

PEREIRA: So the reaction is, we know they can carry it. We just don't know if a dog or other household pets can transmit it, correct?

ADALJA: Right. This is an area where there's not a lot of data. In Spain, they've had a nurse, which had human-to-human transmission, which really shouldn't have happened. So authorities are pressed to do something this is one of the a couple options they could have done. But it's really unclear whether they had to do it but it's definitely in the realm of possibility that this was the right action to take. It's hard without a lot of data.

PEREIRA: Dr. Adalja, you talk about there's not a lot of data. This would have been the perfect case study. Do you know why they did not opt for that? Or do we know that there would have been necropsy or anything else done to under the animal better?

ADALJA: That's definitely an open question. I think it would have been a very good idea to get the blood of that animal to look at the virus. In prior studies, they looked for antibodies, not necessarily viruses they didn't look for. It's important to see the lymph nodes of the dog would be analyzed. That's one of the mysteries of Ebola, how it interacts in animal hosts. And one interesting thing is dogs don't get symptoms but primates like humans and chimpanzees and gorillas do. There may be some piece in understanding the virus by looking how it behaves in the canine species.

PEREIRA: Right. What we do know, in West Africa, the fruit bat and other bush meat that there's that consumption in villages in West Africa?

ADALJA: Right, fruit bats are thought to be the reservoir where Ebola resides and spills from bats into chimpanzees, gorillas, antelopes and then into humans. That's where the research lies, understanding why Ebola suddenly appears, explodes, and then moves away from the outbreak. The key is understanding how it's going to behave in all the animals it can affect?

PEREIRA: So do you believe in euthanization of this dog in Spain? Where do you stand on this? There's a lot of people, 300,000 people signed a petition. We haven't seen that kind of response for -- you know, support for the Red Cross, for example, which is complaining about the lack of funds they're getting to fight Ebola. Why the disconnect? That's a two-part question. First of all, do you agree with the euthanization of the dog?

ADALJA: I'm not sure. I think they could have quarantined the dog and studied the dog. There definitely is a concern. Dog lick people's wounds. We know in male humans, the virus remains active in the semen for three months. Is that the same thing in dogs, so it passes from dog to dog?

PEREIRA: Sure.

ADALJA: There's a lot of open questions that maybe could have been answered. I understand why the Spanish government did what they did.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BERMAN: A lot of people are talking about this, there's amazing commentary in "The Guardian," a line saying, "Finally, the West has a victim to feel bad about. It was a dog."

I know there are a lot of questions here. But there are also questions about the level of concern.

PEREIRA: Level of concern. The doctor says there's not a lot of data on how the animals transmit and/or carry.

We should also point out something that's really important to remain focused on is the Spanish nurse assistant. Madrid is now saying that that nurse has taken a turn for the worse. And that is a concern. We'll be watching that story.

Get online, tweet us @THISHOUR. I'm sure you have questions, comments. We'd like to hear from you.

BERMAN: Ahead @THISHOUR, we have horrifying new details about the Malaysia Air flight shot down over the Ukraine. Details about what the passengers may have known. It's very, very sad. And it may change what we know about this crash.

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PEREIRA: North Korean leader, Kim Jong-Un, has not been seen in public for more a month.

BERMAN: If he misses tomorrow's anniversary celebration for North Korea's Workers Party, there will be a whole lot more to the rumors about his physical health, his political health, whether, in fact, he's still in charge in that elusive nation.

I want to bring in former CIA agent, Peter Brookes, now with the Heritage Foundation.

Peter, the fact that this regime is so reclusive, it invites conspiracy theories.

PEREIRA: Absolutely.

PETER BROOKES, THE HERITAGE FOUNDATION: That's right. Where's Dennis Rodman when you need him?

(LAUGHTER)

Obviously, they very concerned with what's going on in North Korea. It's very -- there's almost a news blackout there. We may know something big in a short time. Tomorrow is the anniversary of the scene Workers Party. Traditionally, the leader has gone to the mausoleum after midnight. North Korea is ahead of us about 12 hours. If he's not well, they might change that schedule, but like I said, we could know something very, very soon.

PEREIRA: Help us understand the ramifications of that. Let's just go with that theory that maybe he's not well, OK?

BROOKES: OK.

PEREIRA: And a change and a shift in power. Not justify the optics of that, but what does that mean? What does that mean for that nation? What does it mean for the secrecy and the inner workings of the leadership of that country?

BROOKES: Well, obviously, it's very important. Remember, North Korea is only technically in an armistice. There's been no peace agreement since the war. If there's a shut in power are a coup, or he passes, we're thinking about loose nukes or a Korean War. Large refugees flow. And where in the world is the Kim Jong-Un question, there's a lot behind that, ramifications.

BERMAN: They've been testing nuclear weapons. Let's not forget that. That's one big ramification, Peter. So if he's not in charge, who is? Say someone did not want him in charge, are there forces that have the power to remove him?

BROOKES: Well, look, the power from that country comes from the military and the Korean Workers Party. What I'm assessing at this point is his little sister, Kim Yo Jong. She's appeared in public. Remember, his father Kim Jong-Il had seven children by four different partners. So a number of them had been excommunicated, if you were. But she's showing up she's the aide-de-camp to Kim Jong-Un, her older brother. She's only in her late twenties. He's in his early thirties. She's like the chief of staff. And she may be running things right now. So we'll have to see. But does she have the gravitas to have influence within the Workers Party, the services and the military? The Kim family is the only people who have run North Korea, Kim Jong-Il the father and then Kim Jong-Un. This is interesting. Like we said, there are ramifications about what the power structure is, if he is really, really ill.

PEREIRA: Let's not forget there are three Americans there whose fate hangs in the balance, too.

Peter Brookes, always a pleasure to talk to you. We'll watch this, because as you said, they're several hours ahead of us we'll be finding out more news as it happens there.

BERMAN: Very dangerous.

44 minutes after the hour. So we now know more about the Malaysia Airlines flight that the U.S. said was shot down over Ukraine. New tragic details about what these passengers may have seen and may have known before the plane went down.

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BERMAN: This is very sad new information this morning about Malaysia Airline flight 17. That is the plane that the United States says was shot down by pro-Russian rebels in Ukraine in July.

PEREIRA: Sad and upsetting too, I think, John. The Dutch foreign minister said during an interview that the body of one passenger was discovered wearing an oxygen mask. All 298 people as you'll recall, all on board were killed.

I want to turn to our safety analyst, David Soucie.

This is a grim detail that's upsetting to hear about. What does this mean that perhaps not all the passengers died instantly as we had first believed?

DAVID SOUCIE, CNN SAFETY ANALYST: Well, according to this foreign minister, he said that the oxygen mask was found around the neck of one of the passengers, and only one passenger. But the difficult thing is, he went on to speculate. And passengers -- the families need to know these details. They have to know everything about it. As painful as it might be, they really need to know this because that's the only way to get on with the grieving process.

But when he went on to say and speculate about the fact, "I wonder if they looked in each other's eyes and kind of gave a silent farewell," that's dramatization that has no place in an accident investigation.

BERMAN: When we got the first details about the investigation, David, there's was no chatter amongst the pilots, saying, there's something wrong. That led us to believe this happened quickly. Does this piece of information about the face mask change anything there?

SOUCIE: Well, if it, indeed, was on the passenger. Now there's some speculation by prosecutors in the case to say that the mask was tampered with by the people on the scene, which is highly possible. But I can't imagine why someone would find an oxygen mask and put it on someone. That doesn't make a lot of sense.

The fact is that, yeah, this does tell us, if it truly was put on by the passenger, there were people that survived the initial impact, and families need to be prepared for this kind of information. It's information -- as I said, they may not know that they need it now, but they will need it to fully grieve this loss. And so this is some difficult times coming as the details start coming out about this accident.

PEREIRA: As grim as it is, impact with the ground or impact to the missile, do you mean?

SOUCIE: Exactly. As to whether the passenger survived the descent, I don't think that they were fatally injured by the impact on the ground. If it did, indeed, come apart in the air -- remember, it's 40 degrees below zero, no oxygen, they're traveling at 400 or 500 miles per hour. The chance of surviving the descent is little to none. So if it was from the impact, I'm certain that many, many people were killed from the impact immediately and had no idea what hit them. But it is possible as well, by looking at the wreckage, that there was some survivors of the initial impact but it would have only taken minutes at most to get down to the ground and, during that time, it would have been fatal. The descent itself would have been fatal.

BERMAN: David Soucie, tough to talk about but we appreciate you coming on to give us this information.

SOUCIE: Thank you.

BERMAN: Thank you so much.

PEREIRA: Cartagena revisited. Ahead, remember the Secret Service prostitution scandal a couple of years ago? The White House said none of its people had anything to do with it. A new report says at least one of them did.

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BERMAN: The White House is facing a whopper of a story this morning. As Ron Fournier of the "National Journal" puts it, it gets to issues of nepotism, favoritism, credibility, and the president's safety. That is a whole lot at once. As with other troubles of late, it is connected to the Secret Service.

PEREIRA: "The Washington Post" reporting that the White House tried to cover up evidence that a member of the president's advanced team preparing for the president's visit to Colombia in May 2012 may have had a prostitute staying with him at his hotel, and that senior officials were told about it but did nothing.

Let's turn to our justice reporter, Evan Perez.

It's interesting because I think we all remember at the time no one from the White House would say. They said nobody was involved in the scandal, we know nothing about it, yet we're finding this out, Evan.

EVAN PEREZ, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Well, yes, Michaela. We've been looking at this for some time. And a lot of reporters have been looking into this. And, you know, we know a lot of what happened to the Secret Service agents and the military members who were punished after this incident. We don't know a lot about what happened to the person from the White House. This, we're talking about, talking about a former intern who was a volunteer and who went to Cartagena to do the advanced work for the visit. And according to the information we've been given, and reported by "The Washington Post," investigators looked at a piece of paper, sheet of paper, simply that had what appeared to be like a logged entry of someone who -- a woman who recorded that she had gone to a certain room, and that room would have been the room number for this former intern.

So where does this go? The problem was that the White House investigated this and couldn't corroborate it, they couldn't find any proof. The piece of paper that was a big proof really had no markings to indicate that it was official hotel records, so they couldn't even verify that this was not just a fake piece of document. So it was something that they looked into and decided that they just could not verify. The intern, by the way, denied he was ever -- did anything wrong. That's where it stood.

BERMAN: A lot of stipulations here. One, he denies he did anything wrong. Two, a difference between an intern --

PEREIRA: Sure.

BERMAN: -- and a Secret Service agent whose job it is to protect the president. We should note prostitution is legal in Colombia.

PEREZ: Right.

BERMAN: Still, if it did happen, extremely unseemly for this White House, and it gets to a difference to a level of punishment between the intern who, by the way, is a son of a big donor, and the Secret Service. Tell us more about this intern and how the administration is responding.

PEREZ: Well, at the time, he was 25 years old, a law student, and again, this is an unpaid position. You brought up exactly right. The Secret Service agents that were punished, they were gun-carrying employees of the federal government in charge of the president's security, right. And so they do get held to a higher standard. And we got a statement from the attorney for this former intern -- by the way, he now works -- this intern is now an employee of the State Department. And we have it right here, the statement from Richard Sauber, the attorney. He said, "He categorically denies having a prostitute in his room, neither he nor his father contacted anyone at DHS or the White House to seek special treatment. The allegations are false. And everyone involved knows they are false."

And so that's the issue. The White House could never corroborate this. And frankly, the one piece of evidence really wasn't that compelling on this.

PEREZ: Like you said, John, this is more a White House issue and the fact that they're denying that anyone knew about it. This report comes up and surfaces, not so much a Secret Service issue, which certainly has been under fire quite a lot of late.

Our thanks to Evan Perez. Thank you for that reporting. Excellent of you to bring that to us and walks us through.

BERMAN: Yeah.

PEREIRA: There's been confusion about the details.

BERMAN: I encourage you to check out "The Washington Post" article. It raises questions about the White House that investigated this intern as much as they investigated the allegations about Secret Service officials as well. Take a look at that.

PEREIRA: I guess that wraps it up for @THISHOUR. I'm Michaela Pereira.

BERMAN: Thanks.

Yeah, you are.

She's Michaela Pereira.

PEREIRA: And you're John Berman.

BERMAN: I am John Berman.

(CROSSTALK)

BERMAN: Tweet us any time you want.

(LAUGHTER)

"LEGAL VIEW WITH ASHLEIGH BANFIELD" starts right now.

PEREIRA: When?

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: The war on ISIS front and center today.