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At This Hour

Obama Chooses Ebola Czar; Rep. Bill Johnson Questions CDC; Ohio Health Officials to Speak about Amber Vinson; Former Iraqi Military Officers Now Training ISIS Pilots, Fighters

Aired October 17, 2014 - 11:00   ET

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

JOHN BERMAN, CNN CO-ANCHOR: Hello, everyone. I'm John Berman.

MICHAELA PEREIRA: And I'm Michaela Pereira.

@THISHOUR, concern about Ebola spreading, President Obama is now expected to appoint a so-called "Ebola czar" to oversee the federal response.

Sources are telling CNN's Jake Tapper the man will be Ron Klain, a former chief of staff to vice presidents Joe Biden and Al Gore.

Klain is an attorney by trade and a Democratic party insider who now serves as president of the company that handles business interests for former AOL chairman, Steve Case.

BERMAN: Now, this news comes as officials now say that a second Texas nurse may have shown some symptoms of Ebola days earlier than first thought. So does this mean she was contagious? That is a question we need answered.

@THISHOUR, we're waiting to hear from officials in Akron, Ohio. That's where Amber Vinson spent last weekend.

Now Frontier Airlines is notifying as many as 800 passengers linked to her flights both from Dallas and from Cleveland.

We're also hearing from the first infected nurse, Nina Pham, now being treated at the National Institutes of Health in Maryland. This new video shows her having a pretty upbeat conversation with her doctor in Texas just before her transfer.

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(Inaudible)

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BERMAN: So a doctor overseeing Pham's care spoke moments ago.

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DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH: ... not deteriorating. I cannot tell you at this particular time why we have said "fair" because of patient confidentiality, but she is quite stable now and resting comfortably.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Any idea how long she might be here?

FAUCI: We do not know how long. We will get her here until she is well and clear of virus.

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PEREIRA: In the meantime, another Texas health-care worker, a lab supervisor linked to the Liberian man who died of Ebola, is now quarantined on a cruise ship in Belize. The State Department says that patient is in isolation and that she is not showing symptoms.

Now as the disease continues to plague three nations in west Africa, President Obama has laid the ground work to deploy National Guard and reserve troops to that so-called hot zone, the outbreak zone in west Africa.

I want to talk about this person being tapped as the Ebola response coordinator. We've sort of have been calling this person a "czar," if you will, who will lead the charge against Ebola in the United States.

Ron Klain was chief of staff, as I mentioned, to vice presidents Joe Biden and Al Gore and led Gore's team in the Florida vote recount some 14 years ago. He also supervised the allocation of stimulus funds.

BERMAN: Yeah. Ron Klain is a lawyer. He is an insider. He is a connected political guy, revered by many Democrats in Washington. and I think well respected among Republicans, too.

He's a guy who runs organizations inside government for more than 20 years. But -- but -- he is not a doctor and doesn't have any real medical experience.

We're going to talk about this with Joe Johns from Washington. Also, Dr. Sanjay Gupta joins us from Atlanta.

Joe, what more do we know about this imminent appointment?

JOE JOHNS, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Well, it's important the say that, even though he's not a doctor, he's considered a very good lawyer on the Democratic side, and some of the other names, the marquee names that were first mentioned for this senior policy coordinator or adviser position to the president were also not doctors and didn't have health care at the top of their resumes, people like Colin Powell, Bob Gates, the former defense secretary.

What he does have is, as you said, a lot of managerial experience. Experience handling and juggling very difficult issues in two administrations working as chief of staff for two vice presidents, both Biden and Gore.

So he brings all of that to the job, and it was pretty clear that the administration was under a lot of heat to try to get somebody in there who could take this thing over for Lisa Monaco and others in the administration, who have other things to do, quite frankly, and many of them.

I've been reaching out to this guy all morning long, and still, so far, I have not been able to get a hold of Ron Klain.

John, back to you.

PEREIRA: Let's talk to Dr. Sanjay Gupta. It's interesting that Joe's sort of highlighting this guy's CV, and you talk about the insider, the fact that he's a good manager.

He has these good managerial skills, can juggle, can handle crisis, et cetera, et cetera, and we do note there is no "D-R" or "PhD" behind or in front of his name.

How important is that? Do you think there's going to be sort of some frustration from the medical community that a doctor could have been a better choice here. or is this largely being seen as a managerial role?

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: I don't think there will be that much frustration from the medical community.

I have gotten emails from leaders in the medical community, wondering aloud if it should have been a doctor, but I don't think that's so much frustration.

I think part of it will be how much he incorporates Dr. Frieden, who's the head of the CDC, and Dr. Fauci, who's the infectious disease guy at the NIH. And it sounds like he probably will incorporate them a lot into the plans going forward.

But I will say, look, this is obviously a medical issue at the forefront of this, but there are other issues we've seen as well -- coordination with transportation, commercial flights, for example; all the talk yesterday at the congressional hearings about travel bans.

Medicine and science sort of drive those discussions. but there's other very significant issues sort of orbiting around that, and, you know, I think a guy who has these sorts of skills, has a formal appointment but can work in some informal channels, can really be of help.

BERMAN: Sanjay, communication is one of the things that I think is necessary, and this is a strong point of Ron Klain. Ron Klain does debate prep. He's done debate prep for many presidential and vice presidential candidates for years and years and years.

And I don't mean communications in a p.r. sense but getting the message right, making it consistent, and making sure American people, Sanjay, understand what's going on and what needs to happen.

GUPTA: No question, John. And I think, you know, in some ways. that's been a criticism of the way the messaging has come out so far, and I think justified criticism.

Some of it is because the information has been changing. I don't think Americans are panicking about this, but you certainly don't want people to lose faith overall in the system. That would be a real problem.

So somebody who -- first of all, just the act of appointing this czar, the person at that level, I think is a very important act, but I think now to be able to get the messaging really, really right and make sure it quells down some of the panic.

The science around this has not changed. We know how this is transmitted. People who are watching right now are not likely to get infected, almost a zero percent chance, but you can understand how that message needs to get out there in a very systematic way.

PEREIRA: Yeah. And concise way. Real quick, because I know you have to go back to working those phones, Joe Johns, any sense of when this announcement will be made?

JOHNS: Not clear at all. We've been reaching out to the White House. So far, no plans to make a formal announcement today.

I think the other thing we have to say is high on his list is international relations and being able to deal with a bunch of international issues, and that's very important because everybody sees this, of course, as a global threat.

BERMAN: It is a global issue, and it made clear he will be handing the global response to Ebola.

Joe Johns, Sanjay, thank you so much for being with us. Stick around because there is a lot more to talk about, and the news really is coming all the time on this subject.

Ahead for us, we're going to speak to an Ohio congressman who grilled health officials about the Ebola response. We're going to ask him about the new drug czar. We're going to ask him if he has confidence in the response.

PEREIRA: And we mentioned it a moment ago. The health-care worker who may have handled an Ebola patient's fluid samples is on board a cruise ship in the Caribbean. We're going to tell you what safety precaution officials are taking, just ahead.

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REP. BILL JOHNSON (R), OHIO: Was it a breakdown in the protocol? Was it a breakdown in the training of the protocol? Do we know whether or not the protocol works?

DR. THOMAS FRIEDEN, CDC: The investigation is ongoing. We've identified some possible causes. We're not waiting --

JOHNSON: So we don't know? We don't know. OK, I get that, we don't know.

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BERMAN: A very frustrated Congressman Bill Johnson of Ohio, he was grilling the CDC director, Tom Frieden, about Ebola protocols and whether they are, frankly, up to you have?

Twelve people in Ohio now are under quarantine after they came in close contact with an infected nurse during her visit to the Cleveland area. Hundreds more people are now being tracked down.

PEREIRA: Congressman Johnson joins us now from Columbus, Ohio. We know there's going to be a press conference later in Ohio which we'll be taking you to.

Congressman, thanks so much for joining us. Obviously given how vocal you have been about the CDC's response, I want to get your reaction of the news of an appointed Ebola response coordinator.

Does it sound to you first of all that that's the right move and do you think this man Ron Klain, a Washington insider, would be the right guy for the job?

JOHNSON: Well, Michaela, certainly I think that what will give the American people confidence is to get the answers to some of the questions that were posed yesterday.

I personally thought we already had an Ebola czar, Secretary Burwell of HHS. What's been missing all along from this whole scenario has been leadership, and I'm not sure what appointing someone that has no experience in health care or public health administration is going to do to help stem the tide of Ebola in west Africa and protect the public health of Americans here at home.

So, you know, the jury's out. I'm not going to second guess the president's decision because this is not about politics, this is about protecting the American people.

But clearly what we need are answers to these important questions. How did the protocol break down? What happened? And how did these health- care providers contract the Ebola virus?

BERMAN: Congressman, just to stay on the issue of Ron Klain as the Ebola czar for a moment, Dr. Sanjay Gupta said the issue here isn't the science. The science of Ebola is known.

So perhaps a manager is what is needed right now to sort of right this ship and coordinate all the systems at play here in handling what Ebola does exist in the United States.

JOHNSON: Well, John, I get that leadership and management and organizational skills are required, but I have some concerns about the first part of what you just said, the science.

I mean, if the science is so clear, John, then why don't they know how the protocol broke down and those health-care providers in Texas contracted the virus? That's what concerns me.

Yesterday in the hearing I heard too many times from Dr. Frieden, "I don't know the details to this. I don't know the details to that."

We don't know what we don't know, and so I'm not certain that they do have a grasp of the science. Otherwise, why is it taking so long to figure out how these unfortunate health-care workers contracted the virus?

PEREIRA: Let me understand. Do you not have confidence in the NIH and the cads and how they're handling this?

JOHNSON: Absolutely not. Because if we had the answers to the questions, all Americans would have confidence. And the reason we had the hearing yesterday is because the CDC has acknowledged that there are gaps in their plans.

I mean, when did they find out about this? They found out about this in March, and we're still now not certain of the adequacy of the protocol for health-care providers in dealing with the situation.

So I think all Americans out of an abundance of caution are asking the question, "Do we have confidence in the information coming out of the CDC?"

Now, let me say this. I have no question that their motivation, that their hearts are in this to make the right decisions and to do the right things. But we have to deal with the facts. We can't deal with assumptions and innuendo. We have to deal with the facts, and the facts are they don't know how this virus was spread to two health care workers and that ought to be concerning to everybody.

BERMAN: Well, let's hope that the work is now being done to get these systems working. Congressman Johnson, we appreciate your work and the questions you're asking on this. They're important for all of us to hear. Thank you, sir.

JOHNSON: Thank you very much.

PEREIRA: We're going to shift gears ahead @THISHOUR. Potentially troubling new developments out of Syria and Iraq, the fight against ISIS.

BERMAN: We'll tell you what we're hearing about the terrorist group's possible efforts to take its fight to the skies.

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PEREIRA: Alright, so we are obviously waiting for public officials in -- public health officials -- in Akron, Ohio to come to the podium and talk to us about the latest in what we know about the situation there in their state. A dozen people, that we know, came into contact with the Ebola-stricken nurse, Amber Vinson. We know that those people, who were on the airplane with her when she took the flight, are now under quarantine.

BERMAN: Vinson is, of course, the Texas nurse who treated the Liberian man who died from Ebola. She flew from Dallas to Cleveland a week ago today, then she flew back to Dallas on Monday. Frontier Airlines has contacted as many as 800 passengers linked to those flights and those planes. Now, the questions that are at play here, because we have learned now from officials, CNN has learned, that she was showing or she was feeling sick in Ohio while she was there. Achy, she was saying. But the question we ultimately need to ask our doctors is if you are achy, does that mean you are contagious?

PEREIRA: Because we keep talking about this. We want to stick to the science of it. Because there is fear and emotion coming into it. We want to stick to the science. But first we want to turn to our national corespondent, Susan Candiotti, who is there in Akron, Ohio. We know that you're watching the podium as well as we are, that that press conference is slated to happen, we're going to hear from the Mayor, we're going to hear from people from the CDC, the Department of Health. Tell us, though, what you're learning there on the ground about these 12 contacts in Ohio. There's concern, of course. Are any of them showing symptoms?

SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: As of now, they're telling us none appear to be showing symptoms, but perhaps we'll get an update on that. Who are these people? We know among them, it would include the stepfather of Miss Vinson, because remember, she came here to visit starting just a week ago today, Friday, and then left on Monday. And Health Department officials have told us that she only visited two places, that they know of at this time, and that would be her home and the bridal shop.

So besides the stepfather, some of the other people who have been self-quarantined include the bridesmaids who went with her. We believe that there are at least a half dozen of those, as well as the bridal shop owner, and at least one other co-worker, described to me as being the ones who had closest contact with her. That is to say, were standing within about three feet of her. However, at this time, these -- all of these quarantines are regarded to be simply a matter of precaution. There are also some other people there among the list who were on the same plane, they believe, not necessarily the same flight, but the same plane as Miss Vinson when she was flying to or from, or at least back here, from Cleveland to Dallas.

BERMAN: And what about the school, Susan? We understand at least one school was temporarily closed in the area. What's going on with that?

CANDIOTTI: Yeah, well there were a few of them where they thought that someone there might have had contact with her again on the flight, but -- and that's what we're hearing about the one that remains closed, apparently someone who might have been on the same plane as her. All the other schools that were closed temporarily, some actually were for the flu virus, had nothing at all to do with this earlier a few days ago, but now just that one appears to be closed.

PEREIRA: Alright, Susan, thanks so much. We're going to keep an eye on it with you. Alert us when the press conference there in Akron, Ohio. As I mentioned, we'll be hearing from the Mayor of Tallmadge there in Ohio, and some people from the CDC, obviously folks from the Department of Health in Ohio. Get an update on that because, again, the absence of information and facts, people start to wonder what is the situation on the ground. BERMAN: We'll be right back.

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PEREIRA: CNN's getting reports that former Iraqi military officers who have joined ISIS are now training pilots, training ISIS fighters, to fly captured warplanes.

BERMAN: CNN's Nick Paton Walsh is on the Syria/Turkey border right now. Very close to the city of Kobani, which has been under siege by ISIS fighters. Nick, what's the latest?

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, this report is coming from the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, -- activists, monitors., who - normally reliable, well they say that residents near an airbase to the east of the main Syrian city of Aleppo, an air base that's held by ISIS, say they they've spotted three warplanes flying low around that airbase in the past weeks or so. They say they've heard the former Iraqi pilots, as you say, military personnel, have been training ISIS fighters to fly those planes.

Now John, you've got to bear in mind, that's a world away from ISIS having an effective airforce that could be used to attack the ground from the sky. That requires maintenance, munitions, but it shows the scope of ambition that ISIS have, that they want that kind of technological advantage. It shows how many former Iraqi military personnel they have potentially in their ranks. But another caveat to -- you know, these are going to be operating, potentially, in skies where the U.S. Air Force is also operating, and they won't pose much of a threat, but at the same time, a troubling advance, certainly, in terms of ISIS ambition if these reports are true, John.

PEREIRA: Yeah, you certainly don't want those planes in their hands. Meanwhile, we know the airstrikes are continuing. Give us a sense of what the fight for Kobani -- how that's going.

WALSH: A remarkable reversal in the past week or so. When I stood near there about a week ago, ISIS were very close to pushing the Kurds out of the northwestern corner, a lot of air power being deployed. But since we had over 50 strikes in a period of 72 hours, a remarkable amount of air power being used, that has significantly turned things around. Now the Kurds say that they think they hold over 80 percent of the city. They are reportedly clashing in the far east of it, where ISIS used to have a strong hold, and the south. They sound more confident.

I spoke to their political leader, Salih Muslim, on the phone a few hours ago. He said, you know, this has been something they should be thankful for, the air power. It's turned things around, certainly, but he appealed for more arms, for anti-tank weapons so the Kurdish fighters in there can retain that ground. Bear in mind, ISIS take their time. They're not beholden to our timetable or to U.S. timetables, coalition timetables, I should say. They may come back in a few weeks. That's the question many people are asking themselves.

PEREIRA: Nick Paton Walsh, we appreciate it, thanks so much for that update.

Ahead @THISHOUR, we turn back to Ebola concerns. We are awaiting a press conference from health officials in Ohio any minute now about those concerns. We'll bring that live news conference to you.

BERMAN: Also, the nurse infected with Ebola, one of them, Nina Pham, she has been moved from Texas to a hospital in Maryland, NIH hospital. We're going to tell you how she's doing. We just got a update as she fights Ebola.

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