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Quarantined Nurse to be Discharged; Grading Obama's Ebola Response; Iraqi Forces and Militias Make Gains

Aired October 27, 2014 - 10:30   ET

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

ALEXANDRA FIELD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Carol. I got off the phone with her attorney Steve Hyman who says they are still making the arrangements but they're hoping to get her out of here quickly. Steve Hyman tells me this: that she will be returning to Maine as a quote/unquote "normal person". This is a woman showing no symptoms of the Ebola virus despite the fact that she has been kept in quarantine and in isolation here at University Hospital in Newark.

What is unclear is what will happen when Kaci Hickox does get back to Maine. We're told that while she's in New Jersey she's still under quarantine because that is the protocol that this state has established. Maine doesn't have any such protocols so it will be up to health officials and state and local officials there to determine whether or not Kaci Hickox would be quarantined or if health officials will just check in on here when she got back to her home state.

But her attorney is making it very clear that she should not be quarantined. He says that she is not sick. She is very healthy. She has shown twice that Ebola tests have come back negative so they are hoping to get her out of here. They want to see her in a private car, in fact. That's what the attorney says. He wants to see her in a private car returning to Maine where she can get back to her normal life.

She had brought in attorneys to try and force her release from this hospital. She'd been told she would be kept here for 21 days. Attorneys were ready to go to bat, go to court to try and get her released. That won't be necessary right now but Hyman says that he certainly feels that there are grounds to challenge this protocol that's been put in place -- the mandatory quarantine of people who have returned from the hot zone and who have had contact with Ebola patients. He says it's yet to be seen though if Kaci Hickox is a woman who wants to go ahead and challenge those orders -- Carol.

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: So I'm just curious. After she's taken out of isolation -- and just to be clear she does not have Ebola -- but after she's taken out of isolation she'll be put into a private car?

FIELD: That is what her attorney believes should happen. But there are a lot of logistics here that need to be worked out because what we're hearing from the New Jersey Department of Health is that while Kaci Hickox is in the state she's under quarantine. That might raise the question. Does that mean she goes in an ambulance? Does that mean that she's transported by people in hazmat suits? We have to see how the state will interpret that.

But her attorney feels that there's no reason, he felt there was no reason for her isolation. He feel there is no reason that she should have to leave here in any way that's less than comfortable or less than normal as he puts it.

COSTELLO: All right. Alexandra Field, reporting live from Newark, New Jersey this morning -- thank you.

Joining me now to talk more about this is Dr. Devi. What do you make of this?

DR. DEVI NAMPIAPARAMPIL, NYU SCHOOL OF MEDICINE: Well, I do think that 21-day quarantine makes sense. I mean I think it's unfortunate this nurse got a raw deal -- I don't think she needed to be taken away like a prisoner and maybe this would have gone a little bit more smoothly, you know, instead of going to someone and telling them you must do this and holding them against their will, just tell them listen, while you were away, a lot of things have happened. Let's explain the situation to you, we really could use your help in managing this.

And this is the situation. We're worried about the city because -- well, with Dr. Spencer's case the public wasn't necessarily at risk, he didn't have symptoms yet but people became more worried about what if someone had symptoms.

COSTELLO: Right. But it's just confusing to the public because --

NAMPIAPARAMPIL: Of course.

COSTELLO: -- ok, so she's in isolation but she doesn't have Ebola and she doesn't have a fever, she's completely healthy at this moment.

NAMPIAPARAMPIL: Exactly.

COSTELLO: Those photos are a little bit alarming.

NAMPIAPARAMPIL: Right.

COSTELLO: So she's behind this, you know -- she's in this plastic tent outside of the hospital. She's not even in the hospital, right?

NAMPIAPARAMPIL: Yes.

COSTELLO: She's using a port-a-potty to go to the bathroom.

NAMPIAPARAMPIL: I know. It looks very disturbing.

COSTELLO: So now she's going to be transported by a private ambulance or a private car. We don't know if that will be, you know, an Ebola- protected vehicle.

NAMPIAPARAMPIL: Yes.

COSTELLO: But if it's not, won't that just confuse people further? NAMPIAPARAMPIL: I agree. I think that part is confusing. I mean

she's not sick so why have all of this stuff done? I think it does make sense, though, I mean, you know, past that part -- let's say that she was in her home. I think it makes sense to stay in your home for a 21-day period.

Now most of us don't have 21 days to just give up that way -- right. So I think it would make more sense for the government officials to talk to these relief organizations and talk to these individuals and say, you know, what would make this more palatable to you? What would make you think that this is acceptable? We want to reassure the public but --

COSTELLO: I don't think anything could. In fact, I just talked with a man who sends teams to West Africa last hour in the NEWSROOM and he told me here are these doctors, they're giving up their salary to go to West Africa and they're working under the most hellish conditions that you can imagine. And they're risking their lives.

After they leave West Africa, they want to come home as heroes. At least they want to be like sort of congratulated for what they do, not detained at the airport and put into an isolation ward for 21 days and treated like an Ebola patient even though they don't have symptoms. So he suggested that doctors may lie when they come back into the country.

NAMPIAPARAMPIL: I think that's definitely a concern. But you brought up a couple of good points -- right. Why not actually recognize them as heroes? So do something like that, maybe give them an award. If they're risking their lives for charity or to help people say, listen, we can donate money, we can donate supplies to these organizations, we can do other things that would make it more accept to you.

So I don't think anything will make it totally fair, don't get me wrong. I don't think that. But I think that, you know, we have to weigh individual liberties against the public. And there's no right answer -- right. The public's perception of safety, their confidence, and what's happening, how we're managing this -- there's no right answer.

But I do think that these people are already risking their lives for the public, for the public in West Africa, of course. They might be able to understand why people would be scared about Ebola and the fact that some of these health care workers who developed it, they had no idea they had been expose so there is legitimate concern there about that. And then what you were --

COSTELLO: But the most reasonable thing in your mind at least is to have them go to their homes? Voluntarily quarantine themselves --

NAMPIAPARAMPIL: Exactly, voluntarily but with monitoring. Not self- monitoring but yes, exactly. I mean they're not criminals. So, you know, we can trust them. We can just talk to them and make it a little bit more clear.

COSTELLO: Well, hopefully the federal government will come out with some sort of policy. You think that will happen?

NAMPIAPARAMPIL: Well, we need some consistency because it varies from state to state. Or like you said, people could fly to Canada or Mexico and then drive in. It won't make sense if things are different depending on which airport you fly into.

COSTELLO: right. Dr. Devi thanks so much for you insight. We appreciate it.

Another woman who can really understand what quarantined nurse Kaci Hickox is going through is Louise Troh. She was the fiancee of Thomas Eric Duncan, the Dallas patient who died from Ebola. Troh was under a mandatory quarantine for 21 days. Well, on Sunday she was finally able to attend church services for the first time since she was released from quarantine.

It comes as some of the health care workers who treated Duncan at that Texas hospital speak out. Sidia Rose (ph), one of the first nurses to care for Duncan told CBS' "60 Minutes" Duncan was not truthful about his contact with Ebola while he was in Liberia.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STEVE KROFT, CBS HOST: What information was it that he denied to the health officials?

SIDIA ROSE, TEXAS HEALTH PRESBYTERIAN NURSE: About his travels; about his -- him burying his pregnant daughter who had died in childbirth. He denied that. He said that's not true.

KROFT: So he wasn't honest with them?

ROSE: Yes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Rose and some of Duncan's other nurses say the CDC protocols on the day Duncan was hospitalized were deficient. And one of those nurses, Nina Pham, did contract Ebola from Duncan.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, President Obama and the politics of Ebola -- he's urging calm but do Americans want and need to see more emotion from their commander in chief? Or does good policy trump public displays? We'll talk about that next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: The Obama White House under sharp scrutiny and at times criticism for its handling of the Ebola response in the United States. Something that isn't lost on the people of "Saturday Night Live":

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Some people want to criticize the way our administration has handled this crisis. And it's true. We made a few mistakes early on but I assure you, it was nowhere near as bad as how we handled the ISIS situation. I mean our various Secret Service mishaps or the scandals of the IRS and NSA. And I don't know if you guys remember, but the Obamacare Web site had some pretty serious problems, too. In fact, if you look at all the stuff that's happened my second term, this whole Ebola thing is probably one of my greatest accomplishments.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Ok, all jokes aside, the Obama administration and its response to everything from Syria to immigration to even the B.P. oil spill in the gulf have earned the President a spot on the latest cover of Bloomberg "Businessweek". And in an article headlined "Obama is too cool for crisis management" the magazine writes in part quote, "Six years in, it's clear that Obama's presidency is largely about adhering to intellectual rigor regardless of the public's emotional needs."

So let's talk about this. Ana Navarro is a CNN political commentator and Republican strategist; and Marc Lamont Hill is a CNN political commentator and host of Huff Post Live. Welcome to both of you.

MARC LAMONT HILL, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Good morning.

COSTELLO: Good morning.

ANA NAVARRO, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Good morning, Carol.

COSTELLO: Good morning. So Marc, perhaps the best illustration of Bloomberg's point, the White House sat down over the weekend to craft federal guidelines for health care workers. Well, governors are dealing with that in real-time, they can't exactly wait. So, Marc, why weren't the feds talking about this before?

HILL: I think first of all let me say there is a reasonable critique to be made of everyone's handling of the Ebola crisis particularly the CDC and particularly local authorities, I mean if you look in Texas and Dallas more specifically. I do think however that sometimes we're criticizing the White House and President Obama more specifically for taking an intellectually rigorous approach, for looking at the facts, for talking to experts, and for planning. It doesn't mean that we ignore what's happening in real-time as the governor's have to do. But it does mean that we need a president who doesn't simply respond to our emotional needs. The critique of the Bloomberg piece was that President Obama is too busy worrying about pesky facts and data and experts and not tending to our emotional needs. How immature is that?

COSTELLO: But still Ana, sometimes you need some emotion to get people's attention, to make them understand, to calm their fears. It can't just be cold logic, can it?

NAVARRO: You know, it's an important part of the job. It's an important part of the president to be the cheerleader in chief, the communicator in chief, to be the person who lifts the morale of the country and unites the country in times of crisis. Yes we all understand that President Obama doesn't like the theater of it but it's an important part of the job. And I think it's reflecting on his poll numbers on the way Democrats themselves are running away from him just how much distaste there is right now for his leadership style.

And you know you can't run away from the fact that the theater of being president is important and that he has not led -- you know, not led the way people want on the Ebola thing certainly. It's been happening for months and you would have hoped that all government would have been more prepared. So now he appoints this is Ebola czar but can I ask you has anybody seen this Ebola czar? Has there been an Ebola czar sighting?

COSTELLO: He was at a meeting over the weekend.

(CROSSTALK)

HILL: What would you have him do though, Ana?

NAVARRO: Ok, but has he -- I'd like for him to communicate. I think I'd like -- of course, people expect, Marc, for him to be coordinating the different agencies and it looks like there's a great deal of lack of coordination right now if you saw the press conference in New York yesterday, et cetera.

HILL: Here's my point. I agree that the American people want an emotional response from the President. I'm saying sometimes there is value in theater, there is value in the symbolic. Remember, I was the one who criticized President Obama for his response to Ferguson so I get that.

But when you're talking about a public health crisis, it's almost as if they want President Obama to stand atop of this building a la George Bush and I'm going to smoke out this Ebola, I have a cure in my basement, I'm going to fix it for all of American. It's not plausible and it's not a mature intellectual response.

The President said look, it's unlikely that there'll be a big Ebola outbreak. America is not -- you're not going to get Ebola. You have a better chance of hitting the Powerball, almost. You're not getting Ebola, relax, calm down. I know it feels dismissive, I know it can feel cold and disconnected from the American people. I agree, but let's not criticize the President for being right, for having common sense. Criticize the response, criticize the coordination, but let's not criticize the President for actually relying on expertise and facts.

COSTELLO: Ok, Ana, last word.

NAVARRO: Well, I think that's why people are criticizing the President because the response has been so lackluster. We've had one person die of Ebola in this country and all hell broke loose and it didn't look like there was any preparation and it looked like it was just very haphazard and ad hoc treatment of the problem that we all knew was going to show up at our shore at some point.

And so I think because people are frustrated with the response, what you're seeing is the criticism of his leadership style. If people were satisfied with the response, there would be no criticism. HILL: They're only going to be satisfied if Ebola's gone. That's it.

As long as there's Ebola no one is going to be satisfied. It's really that simple.

COSTELLO: We have to leave it there. Ana Navarro, Marc Lamont Hill, thanks as always, I appreciate it.

HILL: Pleasure.

All right. News just in to CNN that I'm going to share with you right now. CNN has obtained video of what's believed to be the ambulance transporting that five-year-old boy to Bellevue Hospital in New York earlier this morning. That little boy has gone -- undergone testing for Ebola. They should know the results in about 12 hours. The boy, he just traveled to West Africa in the last 21 days, he developed a very high fever. He's under observation and, as I said, the preliminary test results are expected back in the next 12 hours and hopefully they'll know if this boy has Ebola or not. Of course we will keep you posted.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, Iraqi soldiers now celebrating victory in a battle south of Baghdad. But will they be able to keep ISIS extremists out for long? We'll take you live to Iraq, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: CNN has obtained exclusive video of the latest fighting inside Kobani, Syria. You can see dark plumes of smoke rising as the deadly battle rages between ISIS and Kurdish fighters for the control of the key border city in northern Syria. So far today, the United States has conducted four airstrikes in Syria and seven in Iraq, that's according to Central Command. ISIS militants are also getting rocked from the air and ground in Iraq as U.S. warplanes conducted those seven more air strikes against the terror group from Sunday into this morning. Iraqi soldiers beat back ISIS force in a battle south of Baghdad on the ground. You see them celebrating there.

But some question just how big of a role they actually played in this victory and whether or not they'll be able to hold on to the territory for long.

CNN's Ben Wedeman joins me now live from Baghdad to tell us more. Hi, Ben.

BEN WEDEMAN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Carol.

Yes, the area we're talking about is (inaudible), which is about 45 minutes south of Baghdad. This is an area where until recently ISIS was in control. After a two-day battle the Iraqi military and significantly Shia militias as well managed to move them out, push them out of that area. We've been seeing on Iraqi TV celebrating Iraqi troops and militiamen, also pictures of what they allege are dead ISIS fighters and other ISIS prisoners. Now, we were in that area yesterday and what becomes apparent the closer you get to the front lines is that the real bulk of the fighting seems to be being done not by the Iraqi army but by these Shia militias. But they took a hit, got a blow last night --

COSTELLO: All right, we lost Ben Wedeman reporting live from Iraq. But as we said, those Iraqi forces took some territory away from ISIS in Iraq. We don't know how much really they had to do with it. And whether Kurdish forces really took the brunt of that battle but, of course, we'll try to get Ben back but we lost him for right now.

Also more than 200,000 people who fled Kobani are now living in refugee camps and we just wanted to give you a glimpse into their lives as we head to break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: What could be better than football for breakfast? It was weird over the weekend, right? You woke up 9:30 in the morning, 6:30 if you're out West and you watched the Lions take on the Atlanta Falcons. And it was such a strange game. It sort of illustrated the Lions' ascent and the Falcons' slide.

Andy Scholes is here. What a game. I almost had a heart attack.

ANDY SCHOLES, CNN SPORTS: I'm sure you did -- Carol. It was a really weird game. I have to say, I liked pouring a bowl of cereal, waking up and watching football -- football all day, it was great.

COSTELLO: You really did? I thought it was a little too much.

SCHOLES: I did. I enjoyed it. Now I know how everyone on the West Coast feels. You know those games start at 10:00 every weekend. But yes, you're right. This was such a weird game. The Falcons were up the 21-0 at half time and then just completely blew it.

It was 21-19 in the closing seconds and the Falcons did everything they could to give this game away. It was unbelievable. So they threw the ball when they should have run the ball which was a total gaffe on the coaching staff's part. If we could roll it so we see what we're talking about. There you go. Here's Mike Smith. He's being second guessed a lot this morning. A lot of Monday morning quarterbacks.

The Lions ended up with a 43-yard field goal that would have won the game. As you can see it was no good but they got probably the luckiest delay of game in NFL history. They didn't snap the ball in time. They got to re-kick the ball and here you go. That's it. Your Lions actually made a field goal for once. They're having all kinds of problems doing that.

COSTELLO: Yes. Of course third one -- right.

(CROSSTALK)

SCHOLES: So the Falcons were calling time out to give the Lions more time on the clock at a defensive holding call. So many -- just questionable things down the stretch; they blew this game; the largest blown game in regular season in Falcons history. But a lot of people in Atlanta this morning -- Carol, are calling if for mike smith's job; they think he should be fired. The Falcons have lost five in a row

COSTELLO: Atlanta has a buy week, right? They have time to get somebody in place.

SCHOLES: This is the time where NFL teams make a move if they're going to -- the new coach would have two weeks to get ready for the next game.

COSTELLO: I don't think you gave the Lions enough credit because Matthew Stafford had an incredible second half. I mean come on.

SCHOLES: He did. He did.

COSTELLO: He connected with his receivers, something he did not do in the entire first half.

SCHOLES: And he's without Calvin Johnson; luckily for him, (inaudible) stepping up and playing really big right now. Do we have time for that one Jeremy Maclin play? I'm going to show it to you. This was -- Jeremy Maclin had quite a day yesterday. It was the Eagles/Cardinals big game. Look at this hit -- Carol.

Peterson and Buchanan just sandwiched Jeremy Maclin, if we see it one more time. Peterson went out with a concussion in this game. Maclin went to the locker room they said his ears were bleeding but he came back in the game and look what happened. He just had a weird day. He goes sliding through the Gatorade into the table. He ended up catching a long pass in this game but they didn't win. That was probably the least fulfilling Gatorade bath he's had an entire career.

COSTELLO: He needs a nice warm bath and a big old drunk.

SCHOLES: I was shocked he came back in the game after what happened that (inaudible) in the first half.

COSTELLO: That was insane. Andy Scholes, thanks so much. And I enjoyed the Lions' highlights.

Thank you so much for joining me today. I'm Carol Costello. "@THIS HOUR WITH BERMAN AND MICHAELA" starts now.