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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin
Returning Ebola Workers Face Quarantine; Teen Wounded in School Shooting Dies; Jed Bush For President in 2016?; The Battle Against ISIS; Giants One Win Away
Aired October 27, 2014 - 05:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: New controversy over Ebola in the United States. The White House butting heads with governors over the idea of mandatory quarantines for U.S. health care workers returning for the battle against Ebola in Africa. This as one healthy, but quarantined nurse speaks out describing her isolation as inhumane. She is in a tent in New Jersey, folks. New developments overnight.
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: And she's mad.
Breaking news this morning; a second person shot in the Washington high school cafeteria has died overnight. New details about the attacks unravel.
BERMAN: Oh, and the political world is talking. Jeb Bush for president? It is his son fuelling new speculation about a White House run in 2016. We'll tell you what he had to say ahead.
Good morning, everyone. Welcome to EARLY START. I'm John Berman.
ROMANS: I'm Christine Romans. It is Monday, sorry to report, October 27th. It is 5:00 a.m. in the East.
There's a major controversy this morning and some confusion and some ever changing policies over how medical personnel returning from West Africa should be treated once they get back to the United States.
New York state backing off this mandatory 21-day hospital stay. New York will allow returning health workers to be quarantined at home.
Now, New Jersey clarifying. New Jersey will allow patients to be confined at home if possible, but a nurse quarantined in a New Jersey hospital tent is blasting Governor Chris Christie for diagnosing her as sick, even though, quote, "He is not a doctor", she says.
Meanwhile, the symptoms of a doctor being treated for the disease in a New York hospital have progressed. Officials at Bellevue Hospital say Dr. Craig Spencer looked better Sunday than on Saturday, declaring his condition serious but stable.
Our CNN medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen has more this morning from Bellevue.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: John, Christine, here at Bellevue, Dr. Craig Spencer is now in serious condition, doctors say. He has moved into the next phase of his illness. He now has gastrointestinal symptoms.
He is getting a blood transfusion, a plasma transfusion actually from Nancy Writebol. She's an Ebola survivor who is treated at Emory University. He is also getting an anti-viral medication. His doctors aren't saying exactly what, but likely is experimental medication. It may be Brincidofovir, which is a medicine that's been given to other Ebola patients.
And here in New York and New Jersey, the quarantine controversy rages on. At the center of it, a nurse named Kaci Hickox. She flew from Sierra Leone into Newark airport on Friday. She wasn't sick, she was feeling fine, but she was sent to the hospital where she is remained in isolation.
She doesn't have a temperature. She's tested negative for Ebola twice. She says she's feeling her fine but her spirit is sometimes low.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KACI HICKOX, QUARANTINED NURSE: Everyone keeps asking, how are you feeling physically? I feel fine physically. But I don't think most people understand what it's like to be alone in a tent and to know there's nothing wrong with you and decisions are being made that don't make sense and show no compassion.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COHEN: After I spoke with Hickox, I spoke with Dr. Rick Sacra. He's a health care worker who's worked in West Africa and an Ebola survivor. He says he doesn't understand why Hickox is being quarantined. She doesn't have Ebola, she is not sick, so how could she possible give the disease to anyone?
But Governor Chris Christie says he's protecting the public health -- Christine, John.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BERMAN: Our thanks to Elizabeth at Bellevue.
So, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, they stand by their decision to quarantine anyone arriving in New York and New Jersey from West Africa countries where they might have had direct contact with Ebola patients, though governors have now clarified that stay can be at home if possible. The Obama administration is pushing back arguing that what they view as unnecessary quarantines will discourage health care workers from fighting Ebola at its source.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) GOV. CHRIS CHRISTIE (R), NEW JERSEY: I'm sorry if any way she was inconvenienced. But the inconvenience that could occur from having folks who are symptomatic and ill out amongst the public is a much, much greater concern of mine.
GOV. ANDREW CUOMO (D), NEW YORK: We are staying one step ahead. We are doing everything possible. Some people will say we're being too cautious. I'll take that criticism because that's better than the alternative.
SAMANTHA POWER, U.S. AMBASSADOR TO THE UNITED STATES: We need to find a way when they come home that they are treated like conquering heroes and not stigmatized for the tremendous work that they had done.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: The nurse in a tent in New Jersey, by the way, is not symptomatic and is not ill, she says.
Now, the Texas nurses who cared for the first U.S. Ebola patient, Thomas Eric Duncan, they say they confronted major obstacles from the beginning, including inadequate protection guidelines from the CDC and lies they say Duncan told them about his exposure to Ebola. Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital nurses tell CBS that Duncan initially told them he had come from Africa. Later, he specified it was Liberia. And they say he misled officials about other possible sources of exposure.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SCOTT PELLEY, CBS NEWS: 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 died in child birth. He denied that. He said that's not true.
PELLEY: So, he wasn't honest with them?
ROSE: Yes.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: Meanwhile, Thomas Eric Duncan's fiancee is struggling to put her life back together with the help of her church. More than a week after passing the 21-day isolation period for monitoring for Ebola, Louise Troh, her son and nephews are looking for a new place to live. Troh's pastor tells "The Dallas Morning News" landlords are reluctant to rent to them and nearly all of the belongings were destroyed in the decontamination process.
BERMAN: This morning, we are learning new details about the deadly attack at Canada's War Memorial, also the parliament there. Police say the gunman prepared a video of himself that they say shows he was driven by ideological and political motives. Officials say they are investigating Michael Zehaf-Bibeau's interaction with numerous people in the days leading up to the shooting. They're trying to determine whether those individuals had anything to do with the attack.
ROMANS: A changing of the guard in Afghanistan. U.S. Marines and British troops officially ending their combat operations, transferring Camps Leatherneck and Bastion to Afghan control in ceremonies on Sunday. The flags were lowered there for the last time, marking this military milestone, every combat marine and British soldier will soon be coming home.
BERMAN: It was a warm welcome home for Jeffery Fowle. The Ohio man detained in North Korea for nearly six months. Fowle and his family attended church services at Urbancrest Baptist Church on Sunday. Churchgoers applauded as the family took the stage and participated in a moment of prayer. Fowle was arrested and detained in North Korea for leaving a bible at a sailors club.
ROMANS: Seven minutes past the hour. Time for an EARLY START on your money this morning.
European stocks higher. A health check of European banks showed financial industry making progress in Europe to withstand a crisis. A big sigh of relief.
U.S. stock futures barely budging. Last week, the best week of the year for stocks. Dow climbed 425 points last week. That's about 2.6 percent. The S&P is better, 4 percent it climbed last week. Stocks up on strong corporate earnings.
This week, the fed is expected to stop its bond buying stimulus program. But has propped the market. Central bank keeping interest rates near zero, though. You know, many people look at that stimulus program from the Fed and say this is why the stock market rallied. People put money into stocks after the financial crisis because the Fed was pumping the world full of money.
BERMAN: Sooner or later, yes, sooner or later, they're going to have to do it without the Fed.
ROMANS: That's true. All right. Could it be 1992 all over again? Bush versus Clinton. Only this time it would be Jeb Bush facing Hillary Clinton. There have been funny speculation about both people potentially getting into the race.
And on Sunday, it was Jeb's son George P. Bush in an ABC interview who suggested he thinks he knows what his father is thinking.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
INTERVIEWER: Is your dad going to run for president?
GEORGE P. BUSH, SON OF JEB BUSH: I think he's still assessing it.
INTERVIEWER: Do you think it is more than 50 percent or less than 50 percent?
BUSH: I think it's more than likely that he is giving this a serious thought in moving forward. INTERVIEWER: More than likely that he'll run?
BUSH: That he'll run.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BERMAN: Now, George P. Bush is involved in a campaign of his own this year. He's running for Texas land commissioner.
ROMANS: Now, Jeb Bush has go some positions on immigration and education and others that may be against the traditional Republican orthodoxy.
BERMAN: Yes. It would be hard for him to run in a primary. It will not be a clear path. Or clear path for Hillary Clinton either. But Jeb would have issues because of the Common Core and because of immigration.
ROMANS: He has been out on the trail for other Republicans this midterm season. So, it looks as though maybe he's out there -- he is out there shaking hands and appearing in places.
BERMAN: It is. By all accounts, they have not started contacting money people and setting up a system where he would run. So --
ROMANS: He's been taking his time.
All right. Nine minutes past the hour.
Happening now, Iraq's army making gains in the fight against ISIS. We're going to take you live to Baghdad, ahead.
BERMAN: Plus, breaking news this morning. A second victim in Friday's school shooting died overnight. We'll tell you all the latest developments right after the break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BERMAN: New developments this morning in the battle against ISIS. A Syrian human rights group says ISIS fighters make up the vast majority of those killed in the militant groups in the takeover of the city of Kobani. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says of 518 people who died in the fighting, 481 were with ISIS and 21 were Kurdish civilians, the rest Kurdish fighters.
Meanwhile, in Iraq, two strategic towns have been retain by the groups opposed to is. Iraqi troops and Kurdish forces.
Our international correspondent Ben Wedeman is live in Baghdad with more.
Good morning, Ben.
BEN WEDEMAN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, good morning, John. There have been advances in two areas. One south of Baghdad in an
area where four villages have been taken over by the Iraqi army and the Shia militias. In fact, we were in that area yesterday and it did seem that the bulk of the fighting at the front lines was at the Shia militias.
Now, in the past, what we have seen is that the Iraqi forces have been able to retake certain areas, but often times when their attention shifts elsewhere, ISIS manages to come back and retake control of those areas. Now, in the north to the west of the city of Mosul, that's Iraq's largest city, which has been under ISIS occupation since June, to the place called Zoumar, Peshmerga forces, Kurdish forces have been able to take the town which stands between Mosul and Syrian border. It appears the tactic that the Peshmerga forces are trying to do is cut off Mosul from the rest of the areas that ISIS controls in Syria and Iraq.
Now, we heard from the coalition forces officials and American officials here in Baghdad that the tactic, the plan is to cut Mosul off and eventually they say within a year to retake that city, because the concern is the longer ISIS manages to control a place like Mosul, which is a huge city of more than 2 million people, the harder it's going to be to dislodged them in the future -- John.
BERMAN: Talking about urban combat there no matter how you look at it. Ben Wedeman for us in Baghdad, thanks so much.
ROMANS: All right. Breaking overnight: a 14-year-old girl wounded in the Washington high school shooting has died. Gia Soriano has been in critical condition, with head injuries. She succumbed to those wounds Sunday night. Her family devastated by what they call senseless tragedy.
Another student, Zoe Galasso died at the scene on Friday. People who knew her described as vibrant and larger than life. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She was part of our family.
REPORTER: Tell me about her.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The goofy girl. Loving. Air head. She just brought happiness. She was just a beautiful soul.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: Police now trying to piece together a motive now. Three other Marysville-Pilchuck High School students are in the hospital fighting for their lives. Two of those students are the shooter's own cousins.
BERMAN: Friends and family coming together to pay tribute to Hannah Graham. The memorial was set up on Sunday on the campus of the University of Virginia. Students came by throughout the day to leave flowers in memory of the sophomore who vanished last month. Human remains in an abandoned property eight miles from where Graham was last seen. They were identified on Friday as belonging to Graham's.
ROMANS: The six-week manhunt for accused Pennsylvania cop killer Eric Frein goes on. Police, though, they have made a new lead. They are testing blood found in a woman's backyard over the weekend. They want to see if it belongs to Frein.
He is wanted for ambushing two Pennsylvania state troopers last month, killed one and critically injured the other. Authorities believe they have spotted him several times in the Pocono Mountain region. He has managed to elude capture.
BERMAN: Four members of Florida's A&M University, former members of their band, accused in a hazing ritual will stand trial for manslaughter beginning today. Officials say the suspects would beat hazing targets with mallets, fists and drum sticks. They are accused of killing drum major Robert Champion nearly three years ago. Following his death, the band was suspended for a year and the university's president resigned.
ROMANS: Evacuation concerns in Hawaii. Lava racing toward villages in Puna region of the big island under alert as lava flowing from the Kilauea volcano. The U.S. Geological Service said that flow begun in June, it's still moving up to 15 yards an hour. Those lavas already destroyed a cemetery in Pahoa and moving close to a main road there.
They are always so beautiful, but dangerous. You cannot fight the lava flows. That's for sure.
Indra Petersons is here this morning, this Monday morning, and she's got an early look at your forecast for the week.
Hi, Indra.
INDRA PETERSONS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Good morning.
You talk about Hawaii, 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit. Just imagine that, 35 feet wide, just kind of coming towards your home. That's what they're dealing with right now. Meanwhile, much milder conditions across the country, especially out towards the northeast, beautiful really in the last several days.
We are going to start watching the frontal system starting to make its way across the Midwest and making it to the Northeast by the middle of the week. So, we are going to be watching some showers today. The highest concentration is the south. We are talking about around Arkansas and in through the Mississippi Valley. We will see the heavy showers.
Not a major system. The big thing is the roller costar of temperatures. If you are in the northeast, temperatures are climbing up ahead of the frontal boundary. Meanwhile, in the Midwest, it is warm today and above average. Those temperatures will go down once that frontal system makes its way through.
So, look at this. It is supposed to be fall. Temperatures in the 70s and 80s today. By tomorrow, same thing. We're still talking about warm temperatures spreading into the east. Notice what is behind the front with the milder air start to settle in.
Meanwhile, by Wednesday or so, you'll see the Northeast looking for showers. I think the biggest story across the country today is going to be the leftover tropical moisture from Ana.
All of this making its way to the west coast with series of systems making their way through. So, each one of these systems has brought heavy rain amounts of rain. They have too much rain at this point, strong winds over the weekend. I know drought conditions in the area. You don't want a lot of rain at once, especially after drought conditions. So, a lot of concerns.
ROMANS: All right. Thanks, Indra.
Indra Petersons for us this Monday morning.
BERMAN: All right. The San Francisco Giants on the cusp of a new World Series title. Can the Giants finish it off?
A World Series so dramatic, we chartered in our expert to discuss this. Andy Scholes live with us here on the set, right after the break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROMANS: All right. San Francisco Giants just one win away from winning the World Series.
BERMAN: That's right. That's why we chartered in Andy Scholes here this morning for the "Bleacher Report".
ROMANS: The big gun.
ANDY SCHOLES, BLEACHER REPORT: Good morning, guys.
It is hard to beat the Giants in these even years, right? This would be the third World Series title in the past five years. There is however good news for the Royals. They are heading home for game six. They don't have to face Madison Bumgarner again. Bumgarner just dominated in game five, threw a four-hit shutout. Now, in his career now in the World Series guys, he's 4-0 with a .29 ERA in the World Series.
BERMAN: He's the best World Series pitcher ever.
SCHOLES: Sure looks like it.
The Giants won this game 5-0. They are up 3-2 in the series. Game six in Kansas City.
Sad news this morning: 22-year-old Cardinals outfielder Oscar Taveras died yesterday in a car accident in his home country, the Dominican Republic. Taveras' 18-year-old girlfriend also died in the car crash. Taveras made his Major League debut this year with St. Louis. For the season, he was the third-ranked prospect in baseball. All right. To the NFL, if you're a Super Bowl winning quarterback, probably had a good day yesterday. For example, Drew Brees threw for 311 yards and three touchdowns, and the Saints continued their dominance at home. Who Dat nation beat the Packers, 44-23 on Sunday night football.
In Pittsburgh, Ben Roethlisberger had a career day. Big Ben threw for 522 yards and a career high six touchdowns. He's the first quarterback ever to have two 500-yard passing games. Steelers crushed the Colts, 51-34.
And last but not least, Tom Brady. It was vintage Brady against the Bears yesterday. Patriots dominated this one, winning 51-23. My favorite stat from this one, Berman, Brady threw for five touchdowns and five incomplete passes.
BERMAN: And I think three of those were just drops. They receivers just dropped. He was so good yesterday. So was Rob Gronkowski. Look at this, what leg injury?
SCHOLES: He is back.
BERMAN: He is back.
SCHOLES: All right. Finally one more play to show you guys. The Eagles and Cardinals game, we saw a Gatorade shower of a different kind. Check this one, Jeremy Maclin gets shoved, he goes straight into the Gatorade coolers. Oh man. He had a rough day. He did a long touchdown catch, but he also had a collision with Patrick Peterson.
ROMANS: That table was less forgiving than the cups.
SCHOLES: And the Eagles lost. It wasn't like a fulfilling Gatorade bath.
BERMAN: I think his trousers laundered after that. It looks filthy.
SCHOLES: I think they do that after every game, anyway.
BERMAN: OK.
Andy, great to have you here with us. Thanks so much.
ROMANS: All right. Growing controversy this morning over the treatment of U.S. medical workers returning home from treating Ebola patient in West Africa. Should they face mandatory quarantine? No symptoms, no symptoms at all? The White House butting with governors, as one nurse in isolation in a tent in New Jersey shares her frustration.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
