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Rick Perry: Travel Ban Needed To Fight Ebola; Dallas Hospital Fined Before; "Bring Back Our Girls" Kidnapping May End Soon; Second Infected Nurse Visited Bridal Shop; NFL N.Y. Giants Briefed On Ebola Virus

Aired October 17, 2014 - 15:30   ET

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

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: In 1987, Ronald Reagan did it with AIDS. And now more and more politicians are calling for the same action with Ebola.

I'm talking about a travel ban. President Reagan's was different, yes. He banned anyone with AIDS or HIV from entering the United States. And that was lifted in 2009. But this ban would be a first for the United States, banning people sick or not from Ebola-stricken countries, specifically the ones we're talking about here in West Africa.

You have Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia. The latest to add to this chorus, to add to this call is a man whose state is at the center of this Ebola infection in America, the governor of Texas, Rick Perry.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. RICK PERRY (R), TEXAS: Air travel is in fact how this disease crosses borders. And it is certainly how to got to Texas in the first place.

Based on recent and ongoing developments, I believe it is the right policy to ban air travel from countries that have been hit hardest by the Ebola outbreak.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Joining me now, aviation correspondent, Richard Quest, previously writing notes on this. We were talking in the commercial break. People hearing Dr. Frieden, chief of CDC yesterday on Capitol Hill, being hammered by a number of members of Congress over this whole thing and notion why isn't the United States keeping these planes out of the United States. Your point is you can't keep planes out.

RICHARD QUEST, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: Well, first of all, we're not talking about planes direct from West Africa to the United States.

BALDWIN: Because?

QUEST: Because there aren't any. Those flights don't exist. Let's have a moment of reality on that point. What you're talking about are passengers who have started in those countries, have gone to European transit hubs and then gone onto the United States.

Exactly the way the late, Mr. Duncan, arrived in the U.S. So you're talking about a full scale, full throttle travel ban on people traveling from those countries to the United States.

BALDWIN: How would this potential ban on these people with flights originating from these three countries in West Africa work?

QUEST: You would have to do it by, first of all, API, advance passenger information that they have in the record. Do they know where you started your journey? Secondly, passports, what passport is the holder having? Is it from a Sierra Leone, Guinea or Liberia?

Thirdly, you ask them questions at the border. Where did you start your journey? That's the weak point there, of course, because you can lie. There's no point in setting up an infrastructure that gives a false sense of security and that's the key here.

It's not whether it works or whether it doesn't. It's whether it creates a false sense of security.

BALDWIN: Isn't about the psychological?

QUEST: One would hope that you're little beyond it's about the psychological. Policy makers have to do policies that work and not policies to make people feel better. That may not be pleasant to say, but that's the thing --

BALDWIN: Say it again.

QUEST: Well, that's the job of a policy maker. Put a policy that works and not one that just looks good, but that the expert -- this isn't me saying this. This is the experts who say do this and it will look good. It will make lots of noise, but it won't give you the security that you think it's giving you.

BALDWIN: Thank you. Richard Quest, sit tight. I want to talk about this hospital here as well. If reputation of this Dallas hospital at the center of this whole Ebola crisis in the U.S. wasn't already on thin ice, it got worse now.

It turns out the hospital has lost a portion of its federal funding before. Why? Patient readmissions. The late Thomas Eric Duncan was the first person diagnosed with Ebola in the U.S.

Remember he went to that hospital initially. He went home and he came back sick with the same thing. Readmission. Let me bring in CNN Money's Cristina Alesci. So what is the issue with readmissions at in the hospital?

CRISTINA ALESCI, CNN MONEY CORRESPONDENT: It's actually a huge issue for a lot of hospitals, right, which is why the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid actually tried to crackdown on readmissions by fining hospitals and Texas Presbyterian had been fined three years in a row, right, not unusual. These fines are relatively small, which is why probably the

program isn't as perhaps effective as it should be. Not a problem from a financial stand-point. What is a problem from a financial standpoint are that patients are too scared to go there.

So as a result, the hospital had to shut down its emergency room, a significant source of revenue.

BALDWIN: Now just now because of all of this?

ALESCI: Because of this. And not only that, but there are other areas in the hospital that are seeing reductions and we're hearing that the hospital has lost two-thirds of its patient capacity.

BALDWIN: Correct. That's what Elizabeth Cohen has been reporting and also quoting the CDC official who spent some two weeks at this hospital using the word scared. People are scared to go to the hospital.

ALESCI: Indeed they are. So the long-term question is does this hospital eventually have to shut down because of the financial hit it is taking? And what is important to point out is that it is actually one part of a much larger system called Texas Health Resources.

So this Dallas hospital that was treated the Ebola patient accounts for about 17 percent of the overall revenue for that parent company. Significant but the point here is that if that hospital worst case scenario had to shut down, it wouldn't take down the entire parent company, the one that owns the Dallas property.

BALDWIN: I come back to this point, this could have been a hospital anywhere other than these specialty hospitals and it happened in Dallas and now, look at what's happened at the hospital?

QUEST: It was a hospital in Dallas. It was a Frontier plane. It's a Carnival cruise ship. That's what happens in these situations when the unexpected suddenly arrives on your doorstep.

ALESCI: And there are significant financial outcomes as a result of this.

BALDWIN: Yes. Cristina, thank you. Richard Quest, thanks again. Coming up here, hear what NFL players are being told about Ebola. Yes. This is apparently affecting sports ahead of the Dallas Cowboys game this weekend.

And more on our breaking news, a deal has just been reached to release a lot of those kidnapped school girls in Africa taken by terror group, Boko Haram. We have that for you coming up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: All right, breaking news, I know a lot of you have been paying close attention to this story for months and months about these girls in Africa. We are told there has been a huge breakthrough in the kidnapping order that launched that global campaign "Bring Back Our Girls."

I know you know what I'm talking about. More than 200 school girls snatched last April by the terrorist group, Boko Haram, could soon be set free. A spokesperson for Nigeria's president says Boko Haram has agreed to release the girls.

CNN's Diana Magnay is live for me right now in Johannesburg, South Africa. Diana, what's happened?

DIANA MAGNAY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Brooke. Apparently negotiations have been going on between the Nigerian government and Boko Haram, according to Nigerian government officials they have agreed on a cease-fire in the northeast where this insurgency is raging and with a view to having these girls set free and brought back home.

They say that there will be further negotiations going on in Chad this week. The question is what are they negotiating? What are they providing Boko Haram? Is it a prisoner exchange? Very possible because the Nigerian government has taken prisoner many senior Boko Haram operatives and family members who Boko Haram clearly wants back.

That could be what is in negotiation. Remember, Brooke, we haven't heard a word from Boko Haram's leadership and before the girls were kidnapped there had been twice talk by the Nigerian government of a cease-fire with Boko Haram and both times the then leader of Boko Haram has turned around and said this is ridiculous. It means nothing -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: That's the first thought I had when I first heard about this today was, do we believe them with these false alarms in the past? Let's take them at their word. If this happens, is there any kind of time line? When might these young women be released?

MAGNAY: We heard from one official that it would happen in batches. Once they had further talks this week in Chad, then a batch was the word he used of the girls would be released at some point thereafter and you can expect it to trickle on. The details are incredibly vague -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: OK, Diana Magnay, thank you so much, in Johannesburg.

Next, we take you back to Dallas. The Ebola cases there have certainly a number of people taking precautions including even NFL players. Hear what the league is telling these guys who are traveling to Texas this weekend about their safety and how some of them are reacting to this.

Plus, we are learning more about what Amber Vinson did when she traveled up to Cleveland, Ohio. She's the second Dallas nurse who contracted Ebola. She went shopping for her wedding dress and CNN found the woman who owns the shop. You'll hear why she's questioning what the CDC told her to do. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Here's what we learned. We know that Texas Ebola patient, Amber Vinson, traveled to Cleveland, Ohio, right before she was diagnosed. We're now learning she could have been exposing members of Ohio's Summit County community because when she went to Cleveland, she spent a couple hours in this bridal shop trying on wedding gowns. Here's CNN's Susan Candiotti.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She bought it off the rack and took it home.

SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN NATIOANAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A typical busy Saturday for bridal shop owner, Anna Younker. Her shop crowded with customers including Amber Vinson, watching her bridesmaids being fitted for a May wedding, the youngest, only 10.

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

CANDIOTTI: To Younker, Vinson didn't look sick at all. At the bridal shop, it was just another day until news broke on Wednesday that her customer tested positive for Ebola after helping care for a victim who died in Dallas.

(on camera): What did you think when you heard about that?

YOUNKER: Actually, I was just a little surprised that it came this close to home. But yet, I feel like my staff was a little more concerned.

CANDIOTTI (voice-over): Vinson talked about being a nurse, but there was no mention of her work with an Ebola patient.

(on camera): Do you think she should have?

YOUNKER: I could see why she didn't, very intelligent lady. We had great conversation. Nice bridal party, all of her friends were nice. You wonder, how did you not think this through?

CANDIOTTI (voice-over): Younker called the Summit County Health Department right away. She said she were understanding, but didn't sound ready to give her the advice she needed. She was the one who suggested closing her store as a precaution.

YOUNKER: I said what kind of sign do I put on my door because I don't want to cause panic either, but how do I let my customers know I'm closing just until we get a little more information.

CANDIOTTI (on camera): And what did they say?

YOUNKER: They said, OK, sure. That would be a good idea.

CANDIOTTI (voice-over): Officials asked her and a co-worker to quarantine themselves, stay home, but that it was OK to come in this day to see a few customers and let in two health department workers. YONKER: I feel like they should have instantly given us, OK, your staff needs to go home, everybody under quarantine, just come up with something right away. Instead, they made us feel like we'll take your names down and go along with business as usual.

CANDIOTTI: A few hours later, Younker says the health department called again, now promising to bring her a thermometer for taking her temperature twice a day for 21 days.

YONKER: I'm just confused, if this is as serious as it is, why is this being handled in a non-serious way to me?

CANDIOTTI: Back at Vinson's parents' home, police stand watch. The home taped off for their privacy. Neighbors taking it all in.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I can't imagine. My heart goes out to them. I can't get my mind wrapped around this. They're right there. I can't even offer them a bowl of soup.

CANDIOTTI: Susan Candiotti, CNN, Akron, Ohio.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BALDWIN: Susan, thank you. The NFL is also making sure their teams have the facts when it comes to Ebola. The New York Giants just got an outline ahead of their trip to Texas to play the Dallas Cowboys this weekend.

Let me bring in, host of "UNGUARDED" CNN's Rachel Nichols. So, Rachel Nichols, we know that the doctors were briefed. Then they briefed the players. What was said?

RACHEL NICHOLS, CNN HOST, "UNGUARDED": They actually ended up sending the players an e-mail so they can have all the facts in writing. It was an outline here are facts about Ebola. Here how you get it. Here are myths and how you can contract it and what to do if you do come into contact with someone who has been exposed.

Now, the NFL basically got advice from two infectious disease specialists at Duke University who said players don't need to be screened and go through extensive process, but players should know if they come into contact with someone with Ebola, they need to alert their team trainer, which is common sense.

There are a lot of questions. Eli Manning, you can take a look at what he had to say. He said I'm not worried about myself or the team with what we're doing and where we're staying. I think these guys fly a private charter. They're not going to be on a plane with anyone.

They get to the team hotel. They basically have meetings all Saturday night and go to the stadium and play. It can't be contracted through the air. They're going to be fine.

But it's interesting that players do travel and have their wives, children, families travel separately and come meet them when they go on a trip like this. And a couple of the Giants players have said, we told our families to stay home on this trip.

BALDWIN: Interesting. I'm also wondering as you point out how it's contracted and how it's not and some of the fears about this whole thing, the notion that they're briefed. The real danger for these players --

NICHOLS: Let's not forget, too, there's a team that plays in Dallas it's not just the Giants visiting Dallas. The Dallas Cowboys play in Dallas.

BALDWIN: Right.

NICHOLS: All season long. And Jason Garrett, the head coach there was asked, have you talked to your team about it? He said he hadn't, but the team trainers did. The athletic trainers and some of the team doctors, medical staff, did have a verbal briefing with the team at the beginning of this week to say, here's what you do and make sure that line of communication is over. Staph infections have been a much bigger concern in the NFL.

BALDWIN: Reality check.

NICHOLS: Some players nearly lose their legs in the last couple of years. Serious things go through locker rooms. It's something smart to know about. It's a topic of conversation and they want players to be smart and don't want them to panic unnecessarily. No need for that.

BALDWIN: Awareness and precaution, precaution, precaution. Rachel Nichols "UNGUARDED," Friday night, 10:30 p.m. Eastern. You actually have interviews with Lebron James about his return to Cleveland and tennis star, Serena Williams.

NICHOLS: Good show.

BALDWIN: Thank you very much.

NICHOLS: See you tonight.

BALDWIN: Coming up next, this might have happened to you, your credit card getting declined. Apparently, it's happened to President Obama. Yes. He apparently got his credit card rejected. What was he trying to buy that triggered such a rejection? That is next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: As it turns out, presidential plastic is not accepted everywhere. President Obama revealed his credit card problems today as he signed an order that protects people from identity theft.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: I should mention, by the way, that I went to a restaurant up in New York when I was there during the U.N. General Assembly, and my credit card was rejected. It turns out I don't use it enough they were concerned about

fraud going on. Fortunately, Michelle had hers. I was trying to explain to the waitress, I really think I'll be paying my bill.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: OK, that's kind of funny. Flotus to the rescue. If you're curious the context of that, it happened when the president was at the United Nations General Assembly last month. He was trying to throw down some plastic for dinner.

Time now to shine the spotlight on the top ten CNN Heroes 2014, remember you can vote, we need you to vote for the one that inspires you the most, just go to cnnheroes.com. This week's honoree has made it his mission to rally devoted soccer fans to make a difference in cities hosting the World Cup. Here is John Byrnes.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOHN BYRNES: The atmosphere at the World Cup is like nothing else. It's electric. You get that rainbow, kaleidoscope of all the different nations that come together. Football is the only worldwide sport, really. In 2004, I saw all the fans around me. It was like an army.

Some of the children that love football the most live in very poor areas. And I started asking myself, what could I do if we could mobilize some of these people to do some good?

So we bring people to the World Cup, they get to watch games. But for a huge chunk of that time, we find charities who work with children and find, how can we help you?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: To do this for us, for the children, this is the World Cup spirit.

BYRNES: In Brazil, we have about 3 million volunteers here from 12 countries. Within a couple of days, they're all part of the team and working really hard. When we invest in a place, it's for the long term. Lots of guys come and get it in their blood. That's what we're about.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is my second go. This time, my son's come with me, bonding and building things together.

BYRNES: You're tired out every morning, but look how far we've come in a week. Football's always had the ability to break down barriers. We're trying to harness the passion of the football fans to make a difference.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BALDWIN: Again, go to cnnheroes.com to vote. Remember, you decide, cnnheroes.com, online or on your phone or iPad to vote for the most inspirational hero. Before we go, let's take a quick check of the numbers on the

big board, rebounding today, in the green, up 210 points here as we are just shy of that closing bell. And you can really see sort of the trajectory of the stocks slump.

And I wanted to again thank Halle Berry and Michael Kors for hanging out with me this week. Let me remind you of Michael Kors promising anyone who goes into one of his stores and buys one of these shirts and takes what he's calling a selfless selfie, he will donate 100 meals to people who are hungry all around the world.

They have been these amazing ambassadors helping feed people who need it. Halle told me about her trip to Nicaragua back in July. Her daughter came home and was so moved by it she came home and made 100 bucks with a lemonade stand.

I'm Brooke Baldwin. Hope you have a wonderful weekend, but stay right here. My colleague, Jake Tapper, is next. "THE LEAD" starts right now.