Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

ISIS Threat Growing?; Ebola Point Man Named

Aired October 17, 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: And we continue on, hour number two. You're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

Thank you so much for being with me.

In this desperate push to stop Ebola in its tracks, America has a new man in charge. His name? Ron Klain. And he has a they impressive resume, but I need to point out none of it has a thing to do with Ebola or for that matter any type of health care. And that does have some people wondering why him.

So, let me bring you some specifics. Klain began in law. He was a clerk for Supreme Court Justice Byron White. He served as chief of staff to both Vice President Joe Biden and also to Vice President Al Gore. He then left the White House in 2011. He became president of Case Holdings. That's the holding company for former AOL chairman Steve Case.

Let's talk about all of this here, the politics of Ebola, as it were.

Ryan Lizza, CNN political commentator and Washington correspondent at "The New Yorker," and Michael Smerconish, CNN political commentator and anchor of "SMERCONISH."

Gentlemen, welcome.

RYAN LIZZA, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Hey there, Brooke.

BALDWIN: So, Ryan Lizza, let me just begin with you here.

Listen, he's obviously -- Mr. Klain is pretty impressive on paper. I talked to someone who worked with him under Gore and she absolutely without a doubt says he will be fantastic for the job. I go back to this point he has nothing medical, nothing health care on his resume. Does that matter, Ryan Lizza?

LIZZA: Well, I think that what we have here is two different definitions of what this job should be. I think a lot of us in the media have and I think a lot of Republicans, including John McCain, who first foisted this idea on Obama, thought that this was going to be some other kind of job.

The actual job that Obama has created here is the Ebola response coordinator. It's a bureaucratic coordination job inside the White House. This is not the surgeon general. This is not -- Klain does not have a long record of being a public spokesperson, to be frank. He's a sort of inside campaign, inside administration operative. So I just -- it's not the job I think a lot of people thought it was going to be. It's not a public job. It's a bureaucratic coordination job and that's what the White House has decided they needed.

BALDWIN: Bureaucratic coordination, Michael Smerconish, is that what they need? And do we throw the word czar out? What does that really mean?

MICHAEL SMERCONISH, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Well, I don't think we need a medical doctor.

BALDWIN: We don't?

SMERCONISH: No, I think we need a manager. It would great if he had some medical expertise, but I think basically what you need, if, Brooke, you had said to me design the job description of that which needs to be fulfilled, I would say you need someone totally wired in that bureaucracy at a high level who can rattle the cage and get them all to work well together.

Only time will tell if he's the right person based on that job. But I think it meets the need as things stand now.

BALDWIN: OK.

(CROSSTALK)

LIZZA: The other thing you need is you need someone that Obama trusts. You need someone that if he needs to walk into the Oval Office and tell the president, hey, this person at HHS isn't doing the right thing or I need your help to push some other part of the bureaucracy...

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: The president needs to listen and respect that person.

LIZZA: Yes. If you bring in an outsider that the president doesn't necessarily know, and there's a long history in White Houses, and especially this White House, of people like that coming in and not really being able to operate because they don't know the president or he doesn't trust that person. I think that was another criteria for the job.

BALDWIN: OK.

Let me move away from czar-ness of this conversation and talk about Congress in Washington. Michael, your tweet this morning that we saw, you tweeted: "Congress rushed back to score little points," referring to the testimony, the grilling yesterday on the Hill, "to score political points airing potential travel ban regarding Ebola, but wasn't willing to hold hearings and take war vote on ISIS."

You are 100 percent correct.

SMERCONISH: Well, thank you. Thanks for following me on Twitter as well.

BALDWIN: You got it.

SMERCONISH: I couldn't help but watch yesterday and say this is what I wanted them to do relative to ISIS. But, instead, they quickly adjourned and went home to campaign for reelection.

Yesterday for politicians is like shooting fish in a barrel. Right? They brought in some bureaucrats. They beat them up.

BALDWIN: They beat them up.

SMERCONISH: Why won't you impose a travel plan? That's a great red meat talking point kind of a thing. But, man, where was this when it was ISIS? They really never gave us an up-or-down vote that we can hold them accountable for in two weeks on Election Day. And so it had the smell of political calculus, at least to me.

BALDWIN: Hello? Two to three weeks, political calculus all over this whole thing.

And I guess the other question on all of this, the politics of Ebola, when I think of the president, Ryan Lizza, and we know that he canceled his campaign stops earlier in this week to talk to Cabinet agencies about the government response to Ebola. I'm wondering though too if he were to have gone, would the Democrats have wanted him there helping them stump, given the response, lackluster, of this virus?

LIZZA: I think -- yes, that's right.

I think he had plenty of political reasons not to travel. He's not popular in many of the close Senate races. He's out there raising money, sending e-mails to the base, but he's not really stomping for the candidates in the close red state or purple state elections.

Frankly, you know, knowing Obama, I am sure he was just as happy to stay in Washington and not have to do some more political travel. It was a convenient excuse all around. But more seriously, there are optics here. Right? Rick Perry got his trip abroad short because he's the governor of Texas and people were starting to complain about him being out of the country.

And I think the more Obama is out there doing political campaigning and not in Washington dealing with this crisis, the more his opponents have a chance to attack him for that.

BALDWIN: Ryan Lizza, I follow you on Twitter, too, by the way. And, Michael Smerconish, so nice to see you in person.

(CROSSTALK)

LIZZA: And we both follow you, too, I'm sure, Brooke.

BALDWIN: Yes, score.

Make sure you watch this guy's show tomorrow morning 9:00 a.m. Eastern right here on CNN. Thank you very much.

SMERCONISH: Thanks, Brooke.

BALDWIN: The CDC, they want to talk to another planeload of people who boarded that flight along with this nurse, Amber Vinson, before she was diagnosed with Ebola. The CDC says Vinson might have actually been showing symptoms earlier than initially thought, perhaps as early as Friday, when she jumped on that plane from Dallas to Cleveland.

That was Frontier Airlines Flight 1142, but her uncle tells CNN she was fine, she was fine during that trip.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LAWRENCE VINSON, UNCLE OF AMBER VINSON: What Amber has directly told me is that felt fine, that she felt well until Tuesday morning. Tuesday morning, she woke up, felt that she should take herself in. She checked her temperature. It was actually below the threshold. She was 100.3.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: That was her uncle with us.

The first American nurse diagnosed with Ebola is listed in fair condition at the National Institutes of Health. Nina Pham is her name. She was moved to Bethesda, Maryland, from the hospital in Dallas where she got the virus caring for the Liberian man who came over, Thomas Eric Duncan.

But look at this video. This is the first time we saw her being treated by a medical professional head-to-toe covered in these suits. And I want to play some video for you. She's definitely emotional, but she's pretty upbeat as well.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NINA PHAM, EBOLA VICTIM: Come to Maryland, everybody.

(LAUGHTER)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Party, party in Maryland? OK. Do you need anything?

PHAM: I don't think so.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: CNN senior medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen is outside of that Dallas, Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital, where both of these nurses fell sick with Ebola. She has more on Nina Pham's condition.

Hey, Elizabeth.

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Brooke, Doctors at NIH say that Nina Pham is in fair condition and is expected to get better.

She's sitting up. She's eating. She's interacting with staff. Now, she is very fatigued, which is expected with an Ebola patient. The virus really knocks you out. Now, they also noted that Nina Pham is not paying for her care. This is all for free. The NIH says that 20 nurses per week will be caring for Nina Pham.

We don't know much about the condition of Amber Vinson. That's the second nurse that contracted Ebola. She's being taken care of at Emory University. Emory hasn't said much about how she is doing. But we do know that several contacts of hers are being traced and an official says while she was visiting family in Ohio preparing for her wedding, that she came in contact with 12 people, and they're concerned that Vinson was sick.

They say that while she was in Cleveland, that she was feeling achy and that she was feeling fatigued. And so they are tracing these 12 contacts to make sure that they too don't become ill. Luckily, so far, no one has.

Now, in addition, there are passengers on flights who are being told to call the CDC. Those are folks who flew from Dallas to Cleveland on October 10 with Vinson and folks who flew in the reverse direction and they are being told to call 1-800-CDC-INFO in order to talk to some public health officials.

Now, on top of that, Frontier Airlines has e-mailed more than 700 passengers who were on the planes that Vinson was on that same day. They say that there are no concerns about their safety, but Frontier says that they understand that those passengers might have some questions and so they are encouraging those passengers if they do have questions to contact the CDC or other health authorities -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: Got it. Elizabeth Cohen in Dallas, thank you, Elizabeth.

Just ahead, so how does the CDC go about actually tracking down all of these different passengers and retracing their steps? Coming up, I will talk to someone who did just that. He is a disease detective, yes, a disease detective.

Plus, the second nurse visited a bridal shop in Ohio when she was up in Cleveland and CNN has tracked down the owner, who actually explained to us what these health officials told her and asked her to do.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANNA YOUNKER, COMING ATTRACTIONS BRIDAL AND FORMAL: If this is as serious as it is, why is this being handled in a non-serious way?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: All right, so you have federal, you have state health officials frantically trying to find hundreds of passengers who either flew with Ebola patient Amber Vinson or took another flight, but used that same plane. They are trying to al track these people down.

Here's what CNN knows. One of those passengers is a U.S. Marine based in Fort Worth. He was actually on Vinson's return trip from Cleveland to Dallas and he started to self-monitor once he found out he shared a flight with the 29-year-old nurse and thus far, thank goodness, he has no symptoms.

But just think about this task, this task of tracking down all of those passengers on this plane up to possibly 800 people. This is according to officials. Where do authorities begin once the passengers are found? What next?

Let me bring in Dr. Seema Yasmin, a former disease detective with the CDC.

Doc, welcome.

DR. SEEMA YASMIN, UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS, DALLAS: Hi, Brooke.

BALDWIN: You have this the flight she was on. You have the plane that she was on that was used a few times before they took it out of service. How do you find all of these people?

YASMIN: It's really hard work. Let me tell you that.

In fact, in the world of public health, this idea of contact tracing is actually called shoe-leather epidemiology. And that's because it's literally boots-on-the-ground work. You can wear a hole in the bottom of your shoe as you trace and then retrace the steps taken by an infectious person.

You are literally trying to track down, where did they go while they had symptoms, while they were infectious and who did they have contact with? And so the idea now that this nurse may have actually had symptoms earlier than we initially believed means those disease detectives have their work cut out. They have to cast that net even wider.

BALDWIN: So, then, once they find these people, what do they do with them?

YASMIN: So, they're unfortunately calling people with news that these people really don't want to hear. The thing that you really want to do, though, Brooke, is build trust. You don't want to scare people. You want to give them the facts and let them know in this instance Ebola is a very scary disease, but it's not as infectious as some other diseases, so it's calling people and saying you were on the plane. However, you're at very low risk. But please stay in touch with me. Let me know if you have concerns and of course if you have any symptoms.

BALDWIN: There are different branches of the story. Right? Because you have the plane she was on, both ways, Dallas-Cleveland, Cleveland- Dallas and then you have the fact she went to Cleveland, that she went to this bridal store. And there are then worries she might have exposed some people in Ohio when she went in to be fitted for a wedding dress. We tracked down the shop owner who actually had to retrace this nurse's visit to the bridal shop. Watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

YOUNKER: She was probably here probably about three hours maybe and we measured her party. We showed her color charts. Again, everything went well and I had no idea that anything was wrong with her.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Explain to me why they would be retracing steps and how that would help investigators.

YASMIN: Just in case the nurse did have symptoms while she was in that bridal shop, for example, the CDC disease detectives would want to know who else was in that store at that moment and what kind of contact was there? Was she in there for a long time? Was it just very casual contact or was there actual skin to skin contact, for example?

It's really pinning down those details about who could potentially be exposed and trying to reassure them as well.

BALDWIN: My goodness. Lots of shoe leather being used, to quote you. Doctor, thank you so much for joining me from Dallas. I really appreciate it here.

Coming up next, then you have these growing calls, right, we heard this from testimony on Capitol Hill yesterday. The echoes louder for this travel ban for people trying to get into the United States from some of these West African countries. You have President Obama even saying he didn't have a -- quote -- "philosophical objection" to that. Would it even work? What about Americans trying to leave Africa to get back home? We will discuss that plausibility.

Plus, ISIS may soon have access to a major weapon on the battlefield. CNN has learned former Iraqi officers are teaching these terrorists how to fly captured planes. Will this news have an impact on the U.S.' airstrike-only strategy? We have got a full report for you from the Syrian/Turkish border coming up. You're watching CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: A concerning development in the war on ISIS. CNN has just learned that Iraqi military officers who have defected are now training ISIS militants to fly.

This is all coming to us from a London-based monitoring group who says ISIS is using these three Syrian warplanes that it captured from this base outside of Aleppo. Of course, this raises a lot of questions and then the possibility that this could begin using of more planes like the ones you are looking at here captured at a nearby base. Let me take you to the Pentagon now to our correspondent there,

Barbara Starr, and also to go Nick Paton Walsh, CNN senior international correspondent.

Nick, let me just begin with you. What do you know about these allegations of these Iraqi defectors teaching ISIS how to fly stolen planes?

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: It is limited, as you say, to these London-based opposition activists who are pretty reliable much of the time when it comes to news from Syria's civil war.

They say that residents of a base to the east of Aleppo known as Al- Jarrah have seen flying at low altitude three warplanes around a base that ISIS is now said to control. They suggest residents saying in fact Iraqi defected military pilots have been teaching ISIS militants how to fly them.

But, Brooke, if that's the case, it's still a whole world away, frankly, from ISIS having an effective air force that could launch attacks. Three planes, well, they have to maintain them, fuel, munitions, all sorts of issues they will face simply getting them in the air, and then of course there's the other issue of the U.S. Air Force, who will potentially meet them in the skies and not consider them much of a threat, frankly.

I think it tells you more about ambitions that ISIS have. They want to get their hands on the best weapons and they want to consider themselves to be some kind of normal national army and of course they have a lot of ex-Iraqi military personnel in their ranks. That's troubling too, Brooke.

BALDWIN: Once is one thing, reality quite another.

Barbara, to you. We know this U.S. CENTCOM commander, General Lloyd Austin, made some pretty interesting revelations today about what's happening in that Syrian-Turkish border city of Kobani. What do we know?

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, Brooke, a place that Nick of course has been watching for days if not weeks right on the front line there. But here at the Pentagon, the assessment of Kobani and why we are suddenly seeing so many U.S. airstrikes was fascinating.

When General Austin turned up into the press room here today, he talked about the fact that they are seeing ISIS in recent days make a push to take Kobani and General Austin sent U.S. warplanes and coalition warplanes after them. Have a listen to what he had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEN. LLOYD AUSTIN, U.S. CENTCOM COMMANDER: The enemy has made a decision to make Kobani his main effort. And what you have seen him do in the last several days is continue to pour manpower into that effort.

It's highly possible that Kobani may fall. But, again, I think the things that we have done here in the last several days are encouraging. We are seeing the Kurds actually fight to regain territory that had been lost previously.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

STARR: Combine -- that Kurdish fighting combined with really stepped- up coalition airstrikes around Kobani and CNN has learned there's another factor in play here.

In the last several days, Kurds, Syrian Kurds on the ground in and around Kobani have been able to transmit intelligence through their own contacts to U.S. military personnel in Iraq doing the targeting. And that's one of the things that is giving the U.S. much more precise targeting up in Kobani, one of the things that's helping buy the Kurds a little time up there -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: Good. Good. Barbara Starr, thank you.

And, Nick Paton Walsh, thank you as well.

Coming up next, should flights from West African countries not be allowed into the United States? There are increasing calls, more aggressive pushes, but experts say it will make it all worse. We will hear both sides.

Plus, CNN is now learning this is not the first headache for this Dallas hospital at the center of this Ebola firestorm now. Hear about the dark spots in this hospital's history.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)