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Federal Warrant Issued for Escaped NY Inmates; Rep. King: Hackers Must Pay for Their Actions; Lindsey Graham Welcomes Caitlyn Jenner as Political Ally; Disturbing Newborn Mortality Rate at Florida Hospital; Disturbing Newborn Mortality Rate At Florida Hospital; Interview with Meg Whitman; MERS Outbreak Spreads. Aired 6-7p ET

Aired June 07, 2015 - 18:00   ET

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


(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:00:34] POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Top of the hour, 6:00 Eastern. I'm Poppy Harlow, live from New York.

And we begin with what is just a daring prison escape. $100,000 reward now being offered in the hunt for two convicted murderers who pulled off this escape from a maximum security prison in New York state.

Federal arrest warrants are now out for these two men, 48-year-old Richard Matt, convicted of kidnapping and beating a man to death, and 34-year-old David Sweat, convicted of shooting a sheriffs deputy 22 times. Police say the men somehow got their hands on power tools. They cut through steel walls in their cells and they crawled through a series of tunnels and sewers until they came out through a manhole on the other side of the prison walls.

Here's what they left behind. Yes, a post-it note saying "have a nice day."

CNN national correspondent Polo Sandoval joins us from outside the prison in Dannemora, New York.

Polo, it is extraordinary, and the police now say these guys have a more than 36-hour head-start.

POLO SANDOVAL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right. You know, it's very much an impressive feat here according to officials. However, authorities on the ground are hoping people focus more on the threat these two individuals pose to the general public. Now that we're here just outside the perimeter fencing, though, Poppy, it really does put things into perspective.

I'm going to step out of the shot here so you can see just beyond one of several road blocks we've had to make our way through to try to bring you some of these images. You see off in the distance this temporary lighting that's been set up, there's also a unit with the fire department that's set up for your reference that you can actually see. That is where that manhole is that these two individuals, David Sweat and Richard Matt, are believed to have essentially used as their exit point.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo telling us there's damage coming from inside, damage on the inside of that manhole, which leads authorities to believe they were obviously making their way out of the facility. If you look past that up that slight incline there, you see the towering wall of what is this prison complex, so it really puts things into prospective, Poppy, you see really this manhole, itself, is not really that far from the facility, itself.

Obviously, there's no telling exactly what, how intricate this network of pipes and trains is underground that they are believed to have used. We're hearing, you mentioned there, the Governor Andrew Cuomo is now essentially offering a $100,000 reward on behalf of the state of New York in their efforts to encourage people to come forward, because as you mentioned, really, they could be anywhere.

I want you to listen to a portion of interview with some of the investigators, state police who really filled us in on the information and some of the evidence they've been able to recover so far.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAJOR CHARLES GUESS, NEW YORK STATE POLICE: Our forensics investigation unit recovered some limited cutting tools that would have assist Ted them in this elaborate escape attempt. We presume that perhaps more sophisticated tools may have been used but we did not recover sophisticated cutting tools. We're still looking for those tools.

And anything that we do find either in the facility or external to the facility we brought in to evidence and studied by our investigators.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANDOVAL: So, at this hour, local, state, and federal authorities faced with two very tough tasks, that is most importantly find these two individuals still considered extremely dangerous and, secondly, find out how they were able to pull this off.

I can tell you that we did learn that they were able to use whatever tools and equipment they had to essentially carve their way, and dig their way through a 24-inch brick and mortar wall, which was the rear force of their cell and they essentially cut through steel piping, access the intricate network of drains and pipes underground, and then, eventually surfaced to the street that you see behind me.

Now the question, where are they now?

HARLOW: It's extraordinary, and a major manhunt is under way with more than 200 officers.

Polo, thank you.

Let's bring in former FBI assistant director Tom Fuentes, former FBI special agent Jonathan Gilliam.

Guys, thank you for being here.

Tom, let me begin with you.

One of these fugitives, Richard Matt, once fled to Mexico after he murdered a man. They were just 20 miles from the Canadian border at this facility. What are the chances, you think, they're already out of the country?

[18:05:02] TOM FUENTES, FORMER FBI ASSISTANT DIRECTOR: I think they're great, Poppy. And much of the Canadian/U.S. border is not really protected. We've devoted so many resources in the U.S. to trying to guard the Mexican border, that the long 3,000-mile border with Canada, you know, the major checkpoints, they obviously would need a passport, need to go through.

But there are so many country roads and footpaths that lead, you know, from the U.S. to Canada. They could have walked there by the time the police knew they were missing. And then, Montreal, a major city, is only 75 miles away. So, that's only an hour and a half by car.

So, that's very possible they've made it as far as Canada. But they could also be just about anywhere in the United States by car or bus by now.

HARLOW: As we look at this map on our screen, what you see is outside that correctional facility in that town, there is nothing. It is dense forest up to the Canadian border.

Jonathan, what do you do in a situation like that looking for these guys?

JONATHAN GILLIAM, FORMER FBI SPECIAL AGENT: Well, I think that's going to be the only thing really that helps them prevent what Tom was just talking about, these individuals getting into Canada, or to another location, is the fact that there's so much woods there.

That may actually slow them down, but that's the only real thing they have going for them as far as law enforcement trying to find them. I mean, they had such a head start on this and it's mind-boggling to me how things like Shawshank redemption can still happen in the prisoners.

HARLOW: That's exactly what I thought.

Tom, if you're them, do you stay together as two people? Because they're looking for these two guys. Or do you split up so you're less obvious, if you will?

FUENTES: I think, logically, you'd split up and make it easier. But there are so many possibilities what they could be doing and what they had planned out. Among the things the authorities would be extremely scared of is they could have gotten into a home in that local town, murdered the occupants, stolen their car and been long gone. So, they're going to need to do a house-to-house search in that town, then the surrounding county, then throughout the surrounding forest areas because these are stone-cold killers. They would not hesitate to murder anybody to help aid in their escape or aid in them avoiding capture.

HARLOW: No question.

Guys, stay with me. I want to switch topics here, get your take on this. Just some extraordinary video that we're seeing for the first time today.

This police officer in Texas on leave now after video surfaced showing him pulling out his gun, tackling a teenage girl to the ground at a community pool. Watch.

(VIDEO CLIP PLAYS)

HARLOW: All right. That video goes on for seven minutes.

The McKinley Police Department says they got a call about a disturbance at a local pool where these teens were apparently not supposed to be and that the teenagers were fighting and refusing to leave.

Let's talk about it again with CNN law enforcement analyst Tom Fuentes and Jonathan Gilliam, former FBI.

Jonathan, your reaction first to this. Should he have pulled his gun?

GILLIAM: Well, you know, it's hard to decide what is appropriate in that action. I mean, the two guys that came around --

HARLOW: Really? Even when you have people in bathing suits?

GILLIAM: Those two guys weren't in bathing suits.

HARLOW: The girl.

GILLIAM: The girl, but he didn't point the weapon at the girl.

I watched the video over and over again. I talked to the officers all afternoon. The reality is when those two individuals came up to him and whole crowd swarmed, he didn't know what was going on. He did what he felt was appropriate at that time. Now, would I have done that? That's a different story.

HARLOW: Would you have done it?

GILLIAM: I don't break leather until I'm ready to use that weapon. That's a rule we have the bureau and the rule I follow now.

I will tell you, overall what I saw with this individual, talking about the officer, he was at a 60 percent, 70 percent the entire time if you watch whole video. He has good command presence, but this is what happens when you don't show up with numbers to fight numbers. Situations like this can arise.

HARLOW: So they did call for nine additional units to come, extra backup. Tom Fuentes, to you, is this a situation where you pull your gun?

Because you see one of this fellow officers sort of as soon as he pulls his gun run up to him and it looks like sort of try to say, hey.

FUENTES: No, I agree, Poppy. You know, for me, to second guess this, and you hate to do that when you don't know the whole circumstances.

But just from what it shows in the video, it doesn't appear there's any justification to draw that weapon, and then having seen the longer version of this, I just don't understand, you know, all of this particular sergeant's actions. He's supposed to be trying to calm this down, dial down the emotion and the excitement of the situation, and when you see him running not just with this girl, but running back and forth yelling at various kids, swearing at them, acting unprofessionally.

[18:10:10] You know, when you engage in unprofessional conduct as a police officer, it often results in a backlash where the people will not be cooperative no matter what their age or no matter if they started out maybe intending to be cooperative. I've broke up many teenage parties when I was a street cop. You get called. They get out of hand, 150 people show up when they only invited 10.

And you don't try to get this thing dialed up. You try to just say, time to leave, time to go, let's dial this down, let's not get excited, let's just go, let's just disperse. And here you see one of the officers -- you don't see the other officers engaging in the same behavior he is.

You see him running around swearing at these kids, yelling profanities at them. Then, with this girl, you know, when I saw this the first time and I thought, my God, if I was her father and he's grabbed her by the hair, shoves her face into the ground when she's clearly not armed, and in that altercation, he's probably lucky that, you know, part of her bathing suit doesn't come off in that whole altercation -- I mean, it just looks to be completely out of control.

HARLOW: And I should note that one of the girls was, indeed, taken into custody, but she was ultimately not charged and she was let go. We will continue to follow this as the police are investigating.

Tom, Jonathan, thank you.

GILLIAM: Thank you.

HARLOW: Coming up next, a Florida hospital with a growing list of infant deaths. A CNN investigation that you have to see. It found that babies who had heart surgery at this hospital were three times more likely to die. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARLOW: Well, new calls for President Obama to retaliate over that major cyber attack. Personal data of 4 million federal employees stolen. Today, Congressman Peter King publicly expressing his frustration

about the White House's refusal to say it is, indeed, Chinese hackers that were behind the attack.

[18:15:03] The White House is saying we don't know yet.

Listen to Peter King.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHRIS WALLACE, FOX NEWS SUNDAY: Do we need to retaliate against the people that we believe are conducting cyber warfare against us?

REP. PETER KING (R), NEW YORK: The president and his administration have the capacity to respond once they find out, you know, through the malware signature who they believe this is, then I think there has to be a price to pay for this. I think these countries or these terrorist groups should know that there will be consequences when they act this way.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: Well, CNN security analyst Juliette Kayyem, also the formally assistant secretary of Homeland Security Department joins me mow to talk about it. You hear Peter King and he says, well, the U.S. should retaliate, but he didn't say -- he said, but I don't know how but they should retaliate.

Should they? What do you do?

JULIETTE KAYYEM, CNN SECURITY ANALYST: This is a difference between politics and governance. First of all, we need to authenticate who in fact the culprits are, right? So, there's a whole identification process going on, because this is not -- there were two sequential intrusions so it's a little bit more complicated than just saying the Chinese tried to get into our system.

The second is what does retaliation mean? It's like saying let's go into Iraq in 2003. I mean, what does that actually mean? Does it mean that the U.S. is going to now hack a Chinese system? Well, what does that mean?

HARLOW: What's the point of that?

KAYYEM: Exactly. So, I mean, I get why people, you know, why a congressman may go on air and say, let's retaliate, let's retaliate. But we have to be pretty careful here. China is a big country. Better be sure that it was government authorized as compared to random Chinese hackers.

HARLOW: Rogue.

KAYYEM: Exactly. We should know what we're doing before we do it.

HARLOW: Actually wouldn't the more beneficial thing for the American people be to beef up whatever lapse that allowed them in? KAYYEM: That's exactly right. So, there's two processes. One is, of

course, the whole OPM process, protecting the data that is acquired by the government by all sorts of people. And we know that those systems were not as strong as they had to be because the first intrusion took place. So, the first intrusion took place, they were buttressing up their systems. That's when a second sort of new sort of intrusion came in, that's at least my understanding of how, what occurred.

Then, there's the private sector and other people like you and me protecting our own systems from intrusion.

HARLOW: Right.

KAYYEM: That's always the challenge because we always think, oh, our systems are safe. They're actually not safe. They're easily, easily infiltrated.

HARLOW: Does it surprise you it took the government four months to know this happened?

KAYYEM: No. I mean, sometimes -- because sometimes these systems can detect something that's knowable, right? We know someone is trying to hack in.

My understanding of this system, of this hack from people I've talked to within the Department of Homeland Security is that this was sort of a new infrastructure. It's quite unique. It's why there might be a government behind it because it had never been -- there were no signatures behind it.

HARLOW: Nothing to detect easily.

KAYYEM: Right. Once they thought it was happening, they then went in and saw there was actually an intrusion. That's how complex these systems are.

But we should be careful about words like retaliation and the Chinese definitely did it. Just everyone take a deep breath. It's a bad thing. Learn from it.

But starting to talk about retaliation before we know what happened seems is very premature.

HARLOW: Juliette Kayyem, good to have you in New York as well.

KAYYEM: Thank you.

HARLOW: Coming up, superstar Olympian and his journey across gender lines captivated a lot of people this week including members of the Republican Party. CNN sat down with one presidential candidate who says Caitlyn Jenner is welcome in the GOP. You'll hear that interview, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARLOW: Well, South Carolina senator and presidential candidate Lindsey Graham spoke with our chief congressional correspondent Dana Bash about his race for the White House. And the subject came up that we really haven't heard any other presidential contenders weigh in on -- Caitlyn Jenner.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Poppy, the cultural phenomenon this week was, of course, Caitlyn, formerly Bruce Jenner, coming out of the cover of "Vanity Fair" as a woman.

Here on the presidential campaign trail, most Republicans were silent on the issue, which is controversial among some in the GOP base. But new GOP White House candidate Lindsey Graham told me on "STATE OF THE UNION" this morning that he's running to expand the GOP and that includes Caitlyn Jenner.

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R-SC), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: If Caitlyn Jenner wants to be safe and have a prosperous economy, vote for me. I'm into addition. I haven't walked in her shoes. I don't have all of the answers to the mysteries of life. I can only imagine the torment that Bruce Jenner went through. I hope he's -- I hope she has found peace.

I'm a pro-life, traditional marriage kind of guy, but I'm running to be president of the United States. If Caitlyn Jenner wants to be a Republican, she is welcome in my party.

BASH: So the Republicans should reach out to people like her, to transgender Americans and not shun them?

GRAHAM: Understand what you're getting with Lindsey Graham. I'm pro- life, believe in traditional marriage without animosity. The courts are going to rule probably in June about it. I'll support the decision. I will proudly defend the unborn.

But if we can't agree on abortions, let's talk about taxes. We're literally all in this together.

BASH: Now, in my interview with Graham, the long-shot presidential candidate also took on his own party on the issue of climate change. He told me, of course, he believes global warming is real and manmade and that the Republican Party needs to come to terms with that and also come up with a comprehensive plan to address the environment -- Poppy.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HARLOW: It was a fascinating interview that Dana did with Senator Lindsey Graham. You can see much more of it on CNN.com.

Coming up next, a story that will break your heart. Nine babies dying at a Florida hospital after undergoing heart surgery. Now, the government is investigating. You'll hear from their grieving parents, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) [18:27:11] HARLOW: Pediatric open-heart surgeries, they're some of the most difficult and delicate procedures that a doctor can perform. But a CNN investigation reveals that a Florida hospital had many of these surgeries go terribly, terribly wrong. And now the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has launched its own investigation. This, as the parents grieve.

CNN's senior medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Just weeks into life, this tiny baby, Layla McCarthy, needed heart surgery. Here at St. Mary's Medical Center in West Palm Beach, Florida, Dr. Michael Black performed the delicate procedure to widen Layla's narrow aorta, a defect she had since birth.

CHRISTINE MCCARTHY, LAYLA MCCARTHY'S MOTHER: He made it seem like he was the best person to do this.

MATT MCCARTHY, LAYLA MCCARTHY'S FATHER: It was very like, no sweat, don't worry about it, it's sort of a walk in the park.

COHEN: But the surgery was a disaster.

C. MCCARTHY: I looked at her and her legs stiffened up a lot and started going in almost a tabletop position.

COHEN: After the surgery, Layla was paralyzed. Here she is today.

The McCarthys had no idea their child's tragedy had a disturbing back story, none that no one had told them. Just three months before Layla operation, a baby died after heart surgery by Dr. Black, and five months before that, Alexander Gutierrez Mercado had died, and a month and half before that, Keyari Sanders had passed away.

C. MCCARTHY: It's horrible that -- go into a program like that and they can be dishonest with you and they don't feel the need to tell you what has happened there before.

COHEN: One week after the surgery that left Layla paralyzed, Amelia Campbell died after heart surgery. Then, Parish Wright, a few months later, and Landon Summerford eight months after that. St. Mary's keeps its death rate secret, revealing a death rate they tell CNN could potentially lead to providing misinformation to consumers.

But CNN has calculated a death rate based on these internal hospital reports which includes surgical case loads. We calculate that from 2011 to 2013, the death rate for open-heart surgery on children at St. Mary's Medical Center was three times higher than the national average.

These are parents who lost their babies after heart surgery by Dr. Black at St. Mary's. They hadn't met each other until they sat down to talk with us.

DANTE WRIGHT, PARISH WRIGHT'S FATHER: He really sounded like he was knew what he was doing.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: All I could do is believe in his words, and it was the opposite of what he said.

COHEN (on camera): So, your baby was transferred to a different hospital?

RAMONA STRACHAN, KEYARI SANDERS' MOTHER: They couldn't do anything for her. She was a vegetable. Organs had shut down. Everything.

COHEN: At the second hospital, did they explain what happened in the first hospital?

[18:30:00] STRACHAN: The previous doctor, Dr. Michael Black, kinked her artery and that's why it wasn't getting blood flow to the left side of her heart.

NNEKA CAMPBELL, AMELIA CAMPBELL'S MOTHER: is really difficult to hear. Just to hear what others mothers went through and that this seems to be pervasive.

COHEN: St. Mary's owned by Tenet Healthcare says CNN is wrong about the program's death rate, but refuses to provide what it considers the correct death rate. The hospital and the heart surgeon, Dr. Black, rejected requests for an on camera interview, so we tracked down the CEO Davide Carbone to give him a chance to explain.

(On camera): Hi, Mr. Carbone. It's Elizabeth Cohen at CNN. Hi, Mr. Carbone. It's Elizabeth Cohen at CNN. How are you, sir?

Sir, we want to know what the death rate is for your babies at the pediatric heart hospital in your program.

(Voice-over): He also wouldn't answer the parents' question, why did so many babies die at St. Mary's? Last year, a team of doctors from the state of Florida's Children's Medical Services evaluated the program. It was at the request of St. Mary's, which sought to, quote, "evaluate and identify opportunities for improvement."

The head of the team, Dr. Jeffrey Jacobs, a professor of cardiac surgery at Johns Hopkins, found St. Mary's was doing too few surgeries to get good at it. How few? In the United States, 80 percent of children's heart surgery programs performed more than 100 surgeries a year, each procedure giving them valuable expertise. But the review of St. Mary's program shows in 2013 the hospital performed just 23 operations.

"It is unlikely that any program will be capable of obtaining and sustaining high quality when performing less than two operations per month," Dr. Jacobs wrote.

Considering the major complications like Layla's and the deaths of Amelia and the other babies, Dr. Jacobs concluded the situation at St. Mary's is not the failure of any one individual, it is the failure of the entire team and system.

(On camera): The state of Florida has a letter that says there's been a failure.

MARQUITA CAMPBELL, PA'RRISH WRIGHT'S MOTHER: I don't think they should do any more surgery on kids at St. Mary's. St. Mary's is into the qualified for surgery they say.

COHEN (voice-over): Dr. Jacobs recommended that St. Mary's stop doing complex heart surgeries on children, and stop doing any heart surgeries on babies younger than six months old. But St. Mary's didn't listen. Just 10 days after receiving that recommendation, St. Mary's did a complex surgery on an 18-day-old Jashnide Desamours. And 10 months later, St. Mary's did another complex surgery on 16-day-old Davi Ricardo Brandao. Both suffered terrible complications and had to go on life support.

And more babies died. Westin Thermitus in April 2014, and just this past May Milagros Flores died. In total, that's at least eight deaths and three serious complications since the program started. The hospital responds that the recommendations to limit surgeries were just that, recommendations, not mandates. In his statement, the St. Mary's CEO told us, "We are working carefully to improve our volumes."

So how did the state of Florida respond when it received these doctor's concerning reviews? Remarkably the state says they investigated and none of the issues raised broke any rules and that St. Mary's is legally authorized to operate. In statements, Florida health official told us, "The death of any child is a tragedy, and we will continue to closely monitor this program and this facility."

That leaves these parents infuriated.

N. CAMPBELL: Every day, somebody's making a decision to allow some parent to bring their child and to turn them over into the care of a group of people that aren't fit to do what they're doing.

COHEN: These parents want to know why St. Mary's is still doing heart surgeries on babies. And the answer may come down to one thing -- money. According to a study on one type of open heart operation, for one surgery on one baby, a hospital collects more than half a million dollars.

In response to lawsuits filed by the families of Keyari Sanders and Layla McCarthy, St. Mary's and Dr. Michael Black denied any wrongdoing. These parents are left to grieve.

M. CAMPBELL: I never got a chance to hold her or none of that.

COHEN (on camera): And you had to watch your baby --

M. CAMPBELL: Suffer.

COHEN: The McCarthys say they're actually fortunate that their daughter is only paralyzed. She's still with them, a lot of other parents can't say the same.

(END VIDEOTAPE) COHEN: On Tuesday the day after our story aired, CNN learned that a ninth baby died after having heart surgery at St. Mary's Medical Center. His name was Davi Ricardo Brandao. On Friday we learned that the federal government will be investigating St. Mary's -- Poppy.

[18:35:07] HARLOW: Extraordinary reporting, Elizabeth Cohen, thank you very much for that.

Up next, a warning about the U.S. economy from the woman at the helm of one of the biggest companies in the world. Why is she so worried? That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARLOW: This week I sat down with a woman at the helm of one of the biggest companies in the world, Hewlett-Packard. Meg Whitman is in the midst of trying to turn around that iconic American company. And she told me why 55,000 jobs have been cut at the company on her watch and how concerned she really is about the U.S. economy.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

HARLOW: You have overseen now 55,000 layoffs.

MEG WHITMAN, HP CEO: Yes.

HARLOW: And that number has ticked up several times since you took the helm.

WHITMAN: Yes.

HARLOW: Should we expect more layoffs? As you see it now.

WHITMAN: Yes. So I suspect yes. And because as we separate these companies, we see ways to improve our business processes to make these companies more successful. You know, this is such a big company. There's a bit of -- you know that phrase, peeling the onion? You just keep seeing things that you could do better, that you could be more cost effective at that would help you be more nimble and agile in front of customers. So I think we are through the vast majority. But I suspect there will be more fine tuning, you know, over the next couple of years.

HARLOW: Any idea what we're -- 10,000 more, 20,000 more?

WHITMAN: You know, we haven't actually decided on a particular number yet. It will depend what we see between now and the end of separation. But there is more work to be done to get these companies exactly where they need to be.

[18:40:08] You'll recall we were on a five-year journey and we're separating effectively at year four, so there's another year of this turnaround journey that each of these two companies will have to pursue on their own.

HARLOW: So how do you lead this -- both companies now, two separate companies. It's tough on morale when you have layoffs.

WHITMAN: Yes.

HARLOW: So what's the plan?

WHITMAN: So you know --

HARLOW: To get everyone engaged.

WHITMAN: It is tough on morale. But people -- and not every HP people, every HP person, but most HP people really believe we're doing the right thing. They are out in the market every single day. They see what the competitors were doing, they see what the customers are requiring.

I often think the frontline people actually almost know more than what's going on at headquarters. And so when we explain this, you could just see people at HP got it immediately. They're yes, this is such the right thing to do given the situation in the market. And so when employees believe in the vision, they believe in the competitive strategy, they believe in the financials, and they believe in leaders, they are willing to follow. And that doesn't mean people will never leave HP they will.

HARLOW: Right.

WHITMAN: But the core of this team is deeply locked and loaded on the vision that we're creating for these two companies.

HARLOW: You said on the most recent earnings call that the PC -- the PC market is weaker than you had expected, and we've been seeing a lot of question marks about consumer spending in the United States. I wonder what we should read into that, the softness you're seeing in the PC market, and are you seeing people completely replacing their PCs with their smartphones and tablets?

WHITMAN: So what you -- if you go back a few years, PCs, when tablets were just coming into the market, PCs went into quite a serious decline and then had quite a rebound last year. 2014 was a great PC year for the industry and for HP. Part of that was on the backs of the Windows XP refresh. Remember they were not going to support windows beyond last -- Windows XP beyond last year. So it was actually a very good year.

We're seeing now a weaker market than I would have anticipated. I think there's a couple of things going on. One is currency. So think about it. If you're going to buy a PC in Europe and you're a father or mother, that PC that used to cost 150 pound sterling now costs 250 pound sterling. So you're thinking, hmm, maybe I could stretch that out a little bit. The same is true for the enterprise. So there's no question demand has been hit by the increase in value of the dollar.

The second is the economy is a little weaker. You know, I was fascinated to read -- was it earlier this week -- that actually in the first quarter the United States' economy shrank, and so it's not a robust recovery. And then I do think there is substitution happening with tablets and smartphones, and so there's some industry trends here as well. So our job now is we -- the market is what it will be, and our job now is to gain share in that market and gain share profitably.

HARLOW: You say it is not a robust recovery.

WHITMAN: Yes.

HARLOW: Economy, economy, economy. That is going to be number one in this election.

WHITMAN: Yes.

HARLOW: How concerned are you about the U.S. economy?

WHITMAN: So, listen, I'm pretty concerned about the U.S. economy because we now live in a global world. We compete as the United States we compete against Britain, we compete against China, we compete against Japan, we compete against Mexico. And we have to have a very effective tax policy, a very effective investment policy for R&D. We've got to fix our education system or we're not going to have the pipeline of science, technology, engineering, and math that's going to be required for this next generation of business. Every business today is a technology business.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HARLOW: Meg Whitman there.

Coming up next, a serious virus and its high fatality rate sparking health fears. Could the outbreak spread to the United States? Next.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MANUEL RODRIGUEZ, RODRIGUEZ GUITARS: My name is Manuel Rodriguez. I'm a third generation of this company, Rodriguez Guitars. My great- grandfather was a flamenco player and he played for the czar of Russia in the end of 18th century. My grandfather taught me to make guitars from my great-grandfather.

HARLOW: Back then they were making about 25 guitars per year. Today, they say production has increased to 15,000. Five thousand here in Spain, each one three to four months in the making, and sold up to $20,000. Ten thousand in China, each just a month in the making, and sold at around $200. Ninety percent of Rodriguez Guitars leave Spain, exported to 120 countries.

RODRIGUEZ: Japan loves flamenco. I mean, they're fanatic of playing flamenco. I was there and sometimes they play really Spanish playing flamenco.

[18:45:01] HARLOW: The classical guitar market is a niche so the value really lies in the craftsmanship. To stay competitive, Rodriguez is constantly fine-tuning his operation.

RODRIGUEZ: Our plan is to build all the production of the low-priced guitars from China, move it back to Spain. We moved too much to China and we have a huge building here, and we want to do that in about one year. People will buy more on instruments made of Spain than in China.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: Imagine a respiratory virus so frightening that more than 1,000 schools have shut down, 2,000 people are under quarantine. That is the reality right now in South Korea as that country grapples with an outbreak of MERS.

CNN chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta explains what this virus is and how it's spreading.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): MERS stands for Middle East Respiratory Syndrome. It's caused by a coronavirus. Now that's the same family of viruses that caused the common cold. But MERS is a newcomer. In fact, we know that it first appeared in Saudi Arabia in 2012, but beyond that, scientists don't really know exactly where it came from.

[18:50:17] Camels may be one clue. Researchers say they have isolated the live MERS virus from two single hump camels known dromedaries. And we know that three quarters of camels in Saudi Arabia tested positive for past MERS exposure.

But the way that humans become infected, that is still a mystery. Here's what we do know. Most infected people either live in the Arabian peninsula or recently traveled from the Arabian peninsula. And that's why if you've been in an airport recently, you've likely seen a health advisory that looks something like this.

We do know that MERS primarily causes fever, cough, shortness of breath. Other symptoms can include nausea, vomiting, diarrhea. And about a third of people who contract MERS died but we know that most of those people had an underlying medical condition. Individuals with weakened immune systems, they're also at higher risk for getting MERS or at least having a more severe case.

Now there is no specific treatment. And rather it's focused on relieving the symptoms. That includes rest, fluids, pain relievers. Now in case you're wondering, the incubation period for MERS, that's the time between someone being exposed to it to the time they start to show symptoms is usually about five to six days.

Now here in the United States, the risk to the public is extremely low. In fact, I can count on one hand the number of people who have been diagnosed in this country. If you do get sick within 14 days of having been in the Arabian peninsula or having come in close contact with someone who has, call a doctor and tell them where you traveled. If you haven't been to that part of the world, you probably have nothing to worry about. You're going to be just fine.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HARLOW: All right. Let's talk about it with CNN medical analyst, Dr. Seema Yasmin.

Thank you for being here, Doctor. I appreciate it.

SEEMA YASMIN, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: Thanks, Poppy.

HARLOW: This outbreak so far has killed five people. In just the past few minutes we've learned that 87 people are now confirmed to be infected. All in South Korea. The death rate for someone who gets infected is high. It's one out of three. Why is that?

YASMIN: Well, we think, actually, it could be a bit lower than that, but we think we're missing people who do have a low-grade fever and not very serious symptoms. And so once we count all of those people who are unreported at the moment, it might actually bring that mortality rate lower than the 38 percent that it is now.

HARLOW: Is this an issue of the fact that Dr. Sanjay Gupta just said that we just don't know a lot about this disease. We just discovered it three years ago and we just don't know a lot about it.

YASMIN: Absolutely. Sanjay is so right. We've only discovered this in 2012 in Saudi Arabia. And people are criticizing the current situation now in South Korea about lots of secrecy, we're not hearing enough about what's going on. But that's been the situation in the Middle East as well, Poppy. In fact, we've had outbreaks there that if we had more information about what's going on, we could know more in terms of trying to prevent a future outbreak. So that sharing information is absolutely key.

HARLOW: Do people here need to be worried?

YASMIN: No, not worried. What we need here is to be vigilant, to be sensibly vigilant but not to overreact. And we've seen two cases here in America. We saw two Americans with MERS in May of last year. Both have traveled to Saudi Arabia. And we didn't see a big outbreak because of those two individuals because we tried to get them diagnosed very early on, keep them isolated and that's how we stop outbreaks.

HARLOW: More than 2,000 people we were noting in South Korea are under quarantine. The authorities there now saying they are tracking these folks through their cell phones. I mean, basically making sure they don't leave, they don't go anywhere. Do you think that's necessary?

YASMIN: The deputy prime minister there has said it's unavoidable measure. But the thing that I worry about is measures like that, they're not foolproof.

HARLOW: Yes.

YASMIN: If somebody really wants to evade you, they can leave their cell phone somewhere, they can find a way of not being tracked by you. What you want to do to try and avoid a situation like this is diagnose people really early on, Poppy. Isolate them so that you don't end up in a situation like this where thousands of people have been unnecessarily exposed. That's the best thing to do is act early on.

HARLOW: How is this treated?

YASMIN: Sadly we are better at treating bacterial diseases than we are viral ones so we don't have a specific treatment for MERS. What we can do is give people oxygen, give them nebulizers, and basically treat their symptoms and try and give them supportive medical care. There's nothing specific for MERS, though.

HARLOW: But there is hope, right, with the Ebola virus being so rampant in Africa, especially in those three nations. They were able to get it under control and they were able to completely get it eliminated in some cases. So there is hope that we will see that in South Korea, right.

YASMIN: There is.

HARLOW: For MERS?

YASMIN: There is hope, but look how long it's taking. Still taking to get Ebola under control, Poppy. And that's because when you don't have a good surveillance system at the beginning and you let the outbreaks get out of hand right at the beginning, you end up with a situation like this. So there's definitely hope, but so much work to be done to keep people isolated early on so that many, many thousands aren't exposed.

[18:55:16] HARLOW: Yes. Absolutely. All right. Tracking it for us, we appreciate it, Doctor Seema Yasmin. Thank you.

YASMIN: Thank you.

HARLOW: We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARLOW: '70s television. We're talking about all of your favorites, "Good Times," "Charlie's Angels," "Happy Days." The new CNN original series "THE '70s" looks back at the television revolution of that decade. Here's a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BEA ARTHUR, ACTOR, "MAUDE": I'm only here because of Edith. The fact that you happen to be here with her is beyond my control. Like any other freak of nature.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Before that show was off the air, Fred Silverman was on the telephone with me saying, there's a show in that woman.

ARTHUR: Hello? No, this is not Mr. Findlay. It's Mrs. Findlay. Yes, Mr. Findlay has a much higher voice.

JOHN AMOS, ACTOR: Now get your coat, come on.

ESTHER ROLLE, ACTOR: What makes you think you can order me around like that, Henry?

AMOS: You're my wife. That gives me the right.

ARTHUR: When he says wife, he means possession.

BILL MACY, ACTOR: So what, Maude? You told me a hundred times you want to feel possessed.

ARTHUR: Walter Findlay, I never said that standing up and you know it.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE) really turned the spin-off series into an art form.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: CNN's "THE SEVENTIES" premieres Thursday, 9:00 p.m. Eastern. Only, right here on CNN.