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New Day
World Series Game Six Tonight; CNN/ORC Poll Drop in Voter Enthusiasm from 2010; New Documentary Outlines "The Rise of ISIS"
Aired October 28, 2014 - 06:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: "It is unacceptable and we apologize. We worked quickly to remove this."
ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Wow.
PEREIRA: #fail.
(CROSSTALK)
PEREIRA: You blame which?
CAMEROTA: An intern.
PEREIRA: You're going to blame an intern. An intern was like, what, I was just sitting here.
CAMEROTA: Typing something. Whoops.
PEREIRA: Yes.
CAMEROTA: All right. Thanks, Michaela.
Let's get to meteorologist Chad Myers, in for Indra Petersons, keeping track of the latest forecast for us.
Hey, Chad.
CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Hey, good morning, guys.
Enjoy your golf game I think if you're in the New York area today, all the way down to Philadelphia, Trenton, into D.C., temperatures almost record-breaking. Now, there's cold air coming. So, enjoy today, tomorrow is not going to be as warm, and by the weekend, you're going to be in the 30s.
So, we're going to drop almost 40 degrees by the end of this forecast. That's the story, enjoy today. Tomorrow morning is good, too. But we go from 71 to 58. In the city, 81 to 62 in D.C. the record in D.C. today is 83, we're going to be very, very close.
By the weekend, by the time it's time to go put your Halloween costumes on, here comes the chilly air and that same chilly air makes pretty pictures in Colorado. Look at this. Steamboat Springs sent us this, they'll be opening in 30 days. Now there's still rocks on the terrain now, but 30 days until ski season. So enjoy 70s while you can.
CAMEROTA: Wow, precipitous drop, I'm not looking forward to. Chad, thanks.
MYERS: You're welcome.
CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: All right. So, this was some big stuff last night. The "Bleacher Report," we need it this morning.
The Redskins are down to their third-string quarterback, they're on the road against the cowboys, who are as good as they were since the Dorsett days. So, they're supposed to lose, everybody knows it, except Andy Scholes, because he's here with the truth in this morning's "Bleacher Report."
This is why they play the game, my brother, because you never know.
ANDY SCHOLES, BLEACHER REPORT: You could throw the records out of the window when these two teams get on the field together. Redskins/Cowboys, one of the most heated rivalries in the NFL. Pick up the highlights in the third quarter, redskins up 10-7, Keenan Robinson sacks Tony Romo. He hit him hard. Romo would stay down, reinjured his surgically repaired back on the play. We would have to go to the locker room for treatment.
In the meantime, Texas native and former longhorn quarterback Colt McCoy is making all kinds of great plays, a beautiful pass to Jordan Reed, he makes a nice catch. That would lead to a go-ahead field goal. Now, Romo would return to the game, but he hardly looked like himself in overtime. The Redskins shock the Cowboys, 20-17, in O.T.
The World Series could end tonight in Kansas City. Giants lead the series three games to two. Looking to win their third World Series title in the past five years. It's going to be Jake Peavy on the hill for San Francisco against the hard-throwing Yordano Ventura of KC. First pitch a little after 8:00 p.m. Eastern.
And the wait is over for the NBA season, tips off with the San Antonio Spurs, hosting the Dallas Mavericks. The Spurs a popular pick to repeat this season. The big three of Tim Duncan, Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili are back once again. Will father time finally catch up to them?
I sit down with the crew from inside the NBA yesterday and Charles Barkley believes the veteran spurs are not going to have enough left in the tank to repeat as champs.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHARLES BARKLEY, TNT NBA ANALYST: I'm going to say it is the end of the Spurs because they're too old. I said it 12 years in a row. You know, the thing that is weird, I was right 11 straight years then they won last year. So, I'll write them off again of age.
(END VIDEO CLIP) SCHOLES: They get started tonight on TNT with inside the NBA, from the Times Square that's going to get going at 7:00 Eastern. We've got the Mavs at the Spurs, followed by the Rockets and the Lakers.
The west is as tough as ever. One through eight, any team could go to the western conference finals. You've got the big story line this year. You got Becky Hammond, the first female assistant, is going to be on the bench, for the spurs.
And, of course, the biggest story line of them all, LeBron back in Cleveland, opening up against your Knicks on Thursday night.
CUOMO: I know. It's tough. But it's also -- not just LeBron, he's got Kevin Love and Kyrie Irving and he brought in Matt Miller and another --
SCHOLES: Shawn Marion.
COUMO: That team is built to win and win now.
PEREIRA: Good to have you with us.
CUOMO: I like him here with his socks.
PEREIRA: He's got another pair of strong socks on today.
(CROSSTALK)
CUOMO: Rocking the hose.
PEREIRA: You bring it.
SCHOLES: I got something boring. I'll have to go to the store. >
CUOMO: A high bar, you take a high way for yourself.
CAMEROTA: Thanks, Andy.
All right. The final countdown to midterm elections are just a week away. What issues matter most now to voters? Where does Ebola rank? We'll talk about all those hot topics when we come back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CAMEROTA: Welcome back to NEW DAY.
South Carolina's Democratic gubernatorial candidate is in some hot water for a gaffe he made at a campaign stop. Vincent Sheheen was talking about incumbent Nikki Haley when he said this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
VINCENT SHEHEEN (D), CANDIDATE FOR SOUTH CAROLINA GOVERNOR: That is the worst kind of politics and we're going to escort whore out the door. We're going to escort her out the door. Y'all -- think about it, y'all. All right, calm down out there. Huh? (LAUGHTER)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CAMEROTA: Oh boy. Sheheen's camp said he garbled his words, and then he rectified it immediately, but his critics are calling him sexist.
To discuss this and some new CNN/ORC political polling, let's bring if our panel: CNN political analyst and editor in chief of "The Daily Beast," John Avalon, and CNN political commentator Margaret Hoover.
Margaret, he'd made it -- that was a slip of the tongue.
MARGARET HOOVER, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Clearly.
CAMEROTA: But then, he didn't -- he laughed a lot, sort of -- in an unsavory fashion afterwards.
JOHN AVLON, THE DAILY BEAST: Unsavory, is that what we're calling it?
HOOVER: So, certainly, he would be better advised to say y'all know I didn't mean that. If you had watched the entire clip, he garbled something earlier on and 15 seconds later, there was some clumsy, flummoxing tongue action happening during that speech. So, you can understand that --
CUOMO: You may have to apologize for that one, Margaret.
(LAUGHTER)
HOOVER: You know I didn't mean that, Chris.
But, look, I think when you have people coming out immediately saying this is sexist. Especially Republicans saying, what happens is the Republicans haven't had a particularly good run with women, generally and so they love it when a Democrat screws up with women because then they can say it's not just us.
And you have high-level Republicans coming out and saying they're bad on women, too. We were the recipients of the war on women tactic. It's quite easy to replay the scripts, but it's bad, it's a victimization play. And that's not --
CAMEROTA: John, and in fact, to Margaret's point. Ann Romney came out when asked about this, here's her quote. As a result, she says, "You get so sick of saying there's bias out there, but if a Republican had said this, it would be blowing up in their face like nobody's business, where is Emily's List? Where is NOW? Where are they?"
AVLON: Yes. So, there is often a double standard in terms of the degree in which media piles on with these kind of gaffes. But the problem is, there's an urgency, as Margaret just said to play the victim card these days, to reach for a moral equivalence by saying see, they screw up, they do it, too, poor us, the victim.
Sheheen obviously was a slip of the tongue, no question about that. He did have a very jerky, good old boy response in the back end.
CUOMO: We don't know what was being said to him in the crowd, though. He was caught up in the reaction from the crowd.
AVLON: Of course he was. Look, my folks live in South Carolina for 25 years. I know South Carolina politics.
HOOVER: We can imagine what they were saying. And we can imagine it probably wasn't flattering.
AVLON: In the context of Nikki Haley's time in office.
But -- so, I do think that what's really interesting is the way that there's an attempt to say hey, they do it, too, to seize on what was clearly a gaffe and to try to make it an issue.
HOOVER: When you think Ann Romney was the recipient, she was the front man in the Romney campaign, front women in the Romney campaign, who came out to combat the war on women, the women in binders. So, you can understand she's replaying a script in 2012 because it's very familiar to her.
CUOMO: Let's correct the record, because truth matters, especially in campaign season when there is none. So, your man Boehner comes out and says if Putin had invaded Crimea under President Bush's watch, he would have been punched in the nose. What's that a metaphor for? The president would have been tougher, President Bush than Obama.
Well, not only did almost the exact same thing, but it was worse and you know it. In 2008, he goes into Georgia, he goes in nakedly, right, Putin says I'm going in, kills dozens of people. And Bush does nothing different than Obama did this time and didn't talk as tough as Obama has during this time.
CAMEROTA: Yes, but one president got rid of the Taliban in Afghanistan. Another president got rid of Saddam Hussein in Iraq.
CUOMO: No, no, has nothing to do with Russia.
CAMEROTA: Oh, really, is it about truth? Or is it about campaigning?
CUOMO: Let's deal with this truth first?
HOOVER: Let's deal with the truth?
CUOMO: Yes.
HOOVER: I think you make a very fair point. If you take instance by instance, as we said on camera.
CUOMO: Just say he was dead wrong to say that. That's what I want to hear.
HOOVER: Look, but this is about catering to a campaign narrative, the president of the United States right now has not been strong on foreign policy. I mean, we can take any number of examples, did you happen to see the "Business Week" cover this week, that shows the president of the United States in all of this, his head shot, in all of the situations where he has flummoxed an international affair from Syria to Iraq, to ISIS --
CUOMO: So talk about those. You're wrong on this one, so don't use it.
(CROSSTALK)
HOOVER: That's fine. But there's also a harkening back to Bush and blaming Bush for every problem. So, you can understand how --
AVLON: We're late-stage campaign right now.
(CROSSTALK)
HOOVER: Truth is -- you're right. A bit hazy and murky.
AVLON: We're late-stage campaign right now. So, people say stupid things because they're tired. But it does go to a deeper narrative. One of the worst things about politics right now is the huge gap between narrative and fact. So when you see an example and you can call it on that, it's worthwhile. It is deep, pervasive and disconnected.
CUOMO: Thank you, John.
CAMEROTA: And we have polls that reflect the voters' feelings about where we are in the races.
Let me show you some of these, CNN/ORC. Extremely or very enthusiastic about voting. So, this measures their enthusiasm, and as you can see, Democrats and Republicans enthusiasm has dipped since 2010.
HOOVER: Here's the problem there. You see in the numbers that this is not going to be a wave election. This is going to be a close election.
CAMEROTA: What does that mean?
HOOVER: What it means is you're not going to have a --
CUOMO: Sweeping change.
HOOVER: -- sweeping change. You're not going to have so many Republicans turn out because enthusiasm is so high that you're going to have massive numbers retained in the House of Representatives, and Republican Senate. What this means is what we're seeing on the ground is this is an anti-incumbent election. So, people motivated to throw the old guys out. And you see that consistently from Arkansas, where Mark Pryor is suffering, and Kansas where Pat Roberts is suffering, both from different parties.
This is not anti-Democratic, it's not ideological motivated. It's anti-incumbent. CAMEROTA: Yes, in fact, you have another poll that reflects that. How is Congress handling its job, they ask? Respondents, only 13 percent -- John.
AVLON: Here's what is so infuriating about that pathetic, pathetic number. You're going to have 13 percent approval, but 95 percent re- election rate. What's the problem? The rigged system of redistricting, that means that the vast majority of folks don't have competitive -- there are 77 congressional races without an opponent this year.
There are only 35 competitive districts in the country. That's real sickness in our democracy. It's one of the reasons why you look at all these polls and you can see Democrats one up on a generic ballot, and say, well, it doesn't matter because of the gerrymandering of the urban districts.
HOOVER: And most of the elections are in urban districts.
AVLON: Yes, the swings will be in the suburbs.
So, you know, that's one of the things that should make people angry, the system has been so rigged.
CUOMO: It doesn't, though.
AVLON: It should.
CUOMO: It doesn't
AVLON: It should.
CUOMO: Wrong.
AVLON: So, we're going to fight for.
CUOMO: You can fight for it, but it doesn't get reflected anywhere. I'm no cynic, I want to cut you off.
AVLON: Yes, you are.
(CROSSTALK)
CUOMO: I'm not a cynic. But I do believe you have to play the ball as it lies. And right now, they're not going to say, we're going to change the system. People don't do that, they won't even vote.
HOOVER: You're right. That's why engaged citizens in different states have to change the system their self. It's happened in California and you're starting to see the real effect of that.
CUOMO: Why change what's working for you if you're in power?
HOOVER: Because, you know what, there are people who aren't cynical and are taking leadership.
CUOMO: Six of them.
HOOVER: Maybe that's all it takes.
(CROSSTALK)
AVLON: There's a ballot prop in New York on the subject. Look, people should be furious, there's not the kind of competitive general elections, because the politicians are rigging the system in their favor.
CAMEROTA: Great point to end on.
AVLON: There you go.
CAMEROTA: John, Avlon, everybody rise up. Margaret Hoover, great to see you. We'll see what happens in a week. Thanks so much.
CUOMO: John Avlon for Congress? Margaret Hoover does not endorse. That's the headline.
We're going to get deeper into something that we've been caring about a lot in this country, the origins of ISIS. So, what do we know about how the terror group grew into power? It does seem to have happened overnight.
It turns out it wasn't overnight. We're going to speak with a filmmaker behind a new documentary that will show you how the group got where it is today and how it could have been stopped.
CAMEROTA: Fascinating footage.
And the CDC issues new Ebola guidelines. The agency is urging anyone exposed to stay home, even if they do not have symptoms yet. We'll explain what these new guidelines look like.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CUOMO: Welcome back to NEW DAY.
In September, President Obama vowed to, quote, "degrade and ultimately destroy ISIS". A terror group most people in the U.S. have never really heard of before this year. So, where did they come from? Do they just pop up and really just gain so much power so quickly?
A new PBS "Frontline" documentary "The Rise of ISIS" is asking those questions and taking a look back on whether the administration missed a chance to intervene earlier. And really, it should be chances.
Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: What we've now achieved is an Iraq that is self-governing. That is inclusive. And that has enormous potential.
MARTIN SMITH, PBS PRODUCER: President Obama gives a very rosy picture of where things are. What do you think?
UNIDDENTIFIED MALE: As somebody who voted for President Obama I was deeply disappointed. I knew those words were going to haunt him.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CUOMO: Let's bring in the man who was asking the question, Martin Smith, the producer of the documentary, who's in Iraq this past summer, when the U.S. begun its airstrikes.
Just for little context, not so much about ISIS, you know the situation there very well. The headline -- what is the message of this documentary?
SMITH: What we did is we rolled back. We went back to the moment in 2011 when U.S. troops were leaving and started to trace how is took hold. By the time the Americans left, al Qaeda in Iraq which is the precursor, the group that would become ISIS, was decimated. It was -- it had been defeated, tribes had turned against it, joined with U.S. forces under the so-called Sunni Awakening. They were not much. They were a bunch of guys out in the western deserts of Iraq, under the command of this fellow, Abu Bakr al Baghdadi now the head of ISIS.
He decides to send a few guys over to Syria to start a branch over there. And Syria is a wide-open situation, and the difference between al Qaeda in Iraq and these other groups, is that they had within their ranks experienced military folks from the Baath party, Saddam's army, and they immediately began to gain ground. Within a year that group had grown to some 5,000 fighters from just a few guys.
CUOMO: Why?
SMITH: Well, they knew what they were doing. They picked up former officers in Syria from the Syrian army and they brought over formerly Iraqi officers.
And together with jihadists willing to do suicide bombings, they started to run extortion rackets. They started attacked local populations. They seized oil fields. They seized power stations and charged for utilities.
They ran their operation smarter and pushed harder than the other groups.
CUOMO: Why isn't al Maliki to blame? He disenfranchised the Sunnis, he pushed them out. He created the opportunity for this.
SMITH: Right. So, you ask how they grew, they're incubated in Syria.
Meanwhile, over in Iraq, al Maliki is giving ground to his worst sectarian fears, his fears that every time he sees a Sunni, he sees a Baathist, he sees the ghost of Saddam Hussein. He sees jihadists. He sees al Qaeda and he starts to purge his own government of anybody he suspects of subversion. He jails thousands of young Sunnis. The unemployment rate there is very high.
CUOMO: The opposite of when he promised to do.
SMITH: The opposite of what he promised to do. He promised to integrate them into the society. He promised to give them jobs in the new military. He promised to keep paying.
CUOMO: Did we enable? The U.S., we're not supposed to say we. Did the U.S. enable al Maliki in doing the wrong thing and feeding the growth of ISIS?
SMITH: We didn't use the leverage that we had. This is the complaint of a number of people within the Obama administration.
CUOMO: And we knew we had leverage. We knew we could have had leverage. We knew we had opportunities to stop things.
SMITH: We have economic. We have security relationship with the country. And so, we had leverage.
Now, the response you get from the Obama administration is that they didn't trust him. Every time, he would make promises to do, to run a more inclusive, to run a more democratic government, that he would renege on those promises.
CUOMO: What about when he warned them about ISIS, did that carry over, that lack of trust?
SMITH: Yes, it did. He warned them about ISIS, by January of this year when ISIS rolls into Fallujah and without a battle takes over a city just -- not so many miles from Baghdad, he -- he asks for more aid from the United States. And Obama, the Obama administration had, was running on two, two currents there. They thought, we don't trust this guy, you know he needs to reform his government, he's not doing it we're not so sure we want to give him too much more. They give him a little bit more.
They also don't see ISIS as a imminent threat to the United States. So, the urgency isn't there. That they felt by the time you get into September and were, we're bombing them.
CUOMO: Yes, it's a lot more complex than that and you lay it out well in the documentary.
One question for people who have when they watch this on taste issue. A lot of beheadings, a lot of attention to that tactic of ISIS. You're worried about making a PSA for them essentially, where they're going to want to show people this documentary because it glorifies their tactics.
SMITH: But we don't show any beheadings.
CUOMO: Actual beheadings.
SMITH: Actual beheadings.
CUOMO: But the references are strong.
SMITH: Well, the references are there, but that's the truth. And it's our job to present what is. We're not trying to promote them.
I've seen much worse in the footage -- you know, I've reviewed dozens of their videos and I've seen much worse than we present.
CUOMO: So, you thought about it? It was thought through?
SMITH: We talked about this at length at the very highest levels of "Frontline". We talked about what we were showing and what we needed to show and what we didn't need to show. And so, that was -- we took that very seriously.
CUOMO: Well, it's a deep look at what people should be very concerned about.
Martin Smith, thank you for bringing it to us.
SMITH: Thank you.
CUOMO: Appreciate it.
I know you're going to want to watch it. So, Martin's "Frontline" documentary, "The Rise of ISIS" airs tonight 10:00 p.m. on PBS. Tonight, 10:00 p.m. on PBS. You can stream it in full for free online, Pbs.org/frontline. So, no excuses.
All right. We're following a lot of news for you this morning. Let's get right to it.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The CDC has come out with new guidelines.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: These guidelines increase the level of protection of the health and safety of Americans.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: New Jersey state health officials are letting Kaci Hickox go home.
GOV. CHRIS CHRISTIE (R), NEW JERSEY: I didn't reverse any decision.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The decisions that politicians are making throughout the country now are not based on scientific evidence, they're completely irrational.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The Obama administration declared that forced isolation is too severe.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A number of states are now taking additional steps on their own.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We knew that politics was trumping science.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CAMEROTA: Good morning, everyone. Welcome back to NEW DAY.
I'm Alisyn Camerota, alongside Chris Cuomo. Great to be with you.
Let's begin this hour with the latest developments in the fight against Ebola, because there are many to tell you about.
A nurse is now back home in Maine after being let out of that quarantine at a New Jersey hospital. Governor Chris Christie allows Kaci Hickox to leave, but remains unapologetic about his handling of the case.
CUOMO: So, different hospital, different situation. Bellevue is treating a New York doctor with the disease. They're ramping up precautions. They're going to transport ICU patients to another hospital, why? Well, they're trying to make more room for potentially more cases going forward.
Also, the CDC is issuing new guidelines outlining four risk levels. We're going to speak to a top official from the National Institutes of Health in a moment.
But let's begin with Poppy Harlow live from Bellevue hospital with the latest.
What are they doing there?
POPPY HARLOW, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, good morning, Chris.
They're still treating that 33-year-old doctor, Craig Spencer. He is in serious condition with Ebola. We're told, though, he is stable. Also, that 5-year-old boy who yesterday tested negative for Ebola is still being monitored here. This as the CDC really ramps up the guidelines, trying to protect all Americans.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
HARLOW (voice-over): The CDC has come out with new guidelines it says will help protect Americans from the spread of Ebola. The change is coming as nurse Kaci Hickox, who tested negative for Ebola, is released from her controversial 21-day quarantine -- a mandate that allowed New Jersey health officials to isolate her in this tent for three days after treating patients in West Africa with the group Doctors Without Borders.
SOPHIE DELAUNAY, DOCTORS WITHOUT BORDERS: Quarantine of a healthy aid worker who presents no symptom is not -- does not present a danger to the society.
HARLOW: Under the new guidelines, the CDC outlines four main risk levels: high risk for those with direct exposure to infected fluids of an Ebola patient; some risk for those living with or within three feet of a patient without wearing protective gear.
The third is a low but nonzero risk, meaning anyone traveling from a country with widespread Ebola. The fourth category includes people with no identified risk but could have had exposure to a person with Ebola before the person was showing symptoms or who traveled to West Africa more than 21 days ago.
