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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin

Tense Standoff as Nurse Fights Ebola Quarantine; Khorasan Terrorists Survive U.S. Airstrikes; Fed Ends Bond-Buying Stimulus; Giants Win World Series

Aired October 30, 2014 - 05:00   ET

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

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: Happening now: a tense standoff with a nurse returned from treating Ebola patients in West Africa and the state of Maine. Kaci Hickox refusing to follow a mandatory quarantine as police gathered around her house. What she said overnight.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: New information that high profile terrorists targeted by U.S. airstrikes in Syria have survived and could be actively plotting against the United States.

ROMANS: The San Francisco Giants on top again winning their third World Series in five years. How did they do it?

BERMAN: One word: Madison Bumgarner. Oh, wait, that's --

ROMANS: That's two words.

We are live in Kansas City ahead.

Good morning, everybody. Welcome to EARLY START. I'm Christine Romans.

BERMAN: And I'm John Berman. Great to see you this Thursday. It is October 30th. It is 5:00 in the East.

And developing overnight, a tense standoff between the nurse and the state of Maine. Does the state of Maine have the right to keep the nurse quarantined with no symptoms just because she treated Ebola patients in West Africa? Kaci Hickox has no Ebola symptoms as we said. She has tested negative for the virus twice, but Maine officials told Hickox to stay isolated in her home. They will seek a court order to make sure that happens.

Now, overnight, with her boyfriend at her side. Hickox's boyfriend told reporter that she will not her civil rights be violated by a policy that she says is, quote, "not science-based".

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KACI HICKOX, DOCTORS WITHOUT BORDERS NURSE: It is not my intention to put anyone at risk in the community. We have been in negotiations all day with the state of Maine and tried to resolve this amicably. But they will not allow me to leave my house and have any interaction with the public even though I am completely healthily and symptom-free. I am frustrated by this fact, and I have been told that the attorney general's intention is to file legal action against me and if this does occur, then I will challenge those legal actions.

I'm fighting for something much more than myself. There are so many aid workers coming back. Doctors Without Borders estimated that 20 American aid workers are coming back from the Ebola response in the next month. And it scares me to think of how they're going to be treated and how they're going to feel. When we let stigmatization wins, we all lose.

MARY MAYHEW, MAINE HEALTH COMMISSIONER: There are other cases where individuals have not tested positive, did not believe that they were symptomatic, and quickly developed symptoms while they were out in the public and have since been hospitalized.

I do not understand why this common-sense approach to ask someone to stay in their home for 21 days during the incubation period, why that is not a reasonable request.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Now, something is going to happen today. This will come to a head. Hickox says she is not sure what she will do today, whether she will go into the nearby town of Ft. Kent or not. She says she is thinking about five minutes ahead at this point.

ROMANS: President Obama is also emphasizing a need for a science based response for Ebola. Flanked by the Ebola workers, President Obama praised their bravery. He also said America must lead in the fight against Ebola. He warned there could be more cases of Ebola in the U.S.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I want America to understand the truth is that until we stop this outbreak in West Africa, we may continue to see individual cases in America in the weeks and months ahead, because that's the nature of today's world. We can't hermetically seal ourselves off.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: The NBC News cameraman who survived a brush with Ebola says he now understands the suffering he did stories about. Ashoka Mukpo spoke with CNN's Don Lemon. Mukpo fell ill one day into a shoot in Liberia for NBC News. He was airlifted to Nebraska Medical Center where he suffered through the worst of the disease and recovered.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ASHOKA MUKPO, FORMER EBOLA PATIENT: I used to see people who would be laying in front of treatment centers trying to get admitted. And, you know, they are just laying out on the ground in the gravel and in the sun. I used to look at them and say, my God, you can't sit up at least? And once I was sick, I completely understood. You just have absolutely no energy. To walk three feet feels like you just ran a marathon.

I'm feeling pretty good. I'm happy to be alive. Lucky that I'm around family and friends. I'm back home, and it's a good feeling to be where I am right now, especially considering where I've been.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Wow, it's got to be the understatement of the century.

The only remaining Ebola patient in the United States, Dr. Craig Spencer, is in critical, but stable condition in Bellevue Hospital in New York.

The New York City Health Department released a statement overnight. It calls Spencer a hero and praises him for fully cooperating with an investigation into his movements around the city after he returned from Guinea.

ROMANS: There is surprising news from Liberia, perhaps good news. The number of Ebola case there is seems to be dropping. This is according to the World Health Organization.

Officials do not know if there really are fewer cases or if sick people stopped going to the hospital or if overwhelmed health care workers stopped reporting new cases. The WHO says across West Africa, 521 health care workers, 521, have been infected with Ebola, 272 of them have died, which makes it all the more heroic that so many brave doctors and nurses are volunteering for this duty.

CNN's Nic Robertson is live in Switzerland where the Red Cross trained health workers on their way to West Africa, and where a new Ebola vaccine is due to start testing this week -- Nic.

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Christine, a lot of attention focused on this hospital. It is currently the place where the World Health Organization, WHO, is testing the first vaccine that's been given to take on Ebola. It's been tested on animals up to now, 250 volunteers, up to 250 volunteers at this hospital will get the vaccine. They are testing for safety.

They are testing to see if they got the vaccine levels, the sort of medical levels, if you will, set correctly to give an adequate dosage to protect against Ebola. If this is successful, and they will know that by December, in January, they could begin test of thousands of people in Liberia and Sierra Leone.

Of course, they say, health care workers would be the first among those to get the vaccine. If that is successful, they could see a significant scale up, millions of shots made available by April of next year.

ROMANS: Now, Nic, you have been talking to the doctors and nurses who are training there to go to the frontlines, to fight against this disease in West Africa. What are they telling you about quarantine upon return?

ROBERTSON: Yes. They are -- all of them disappointed. I talked to the people organizing the training, who are giving the training, who volunteered to go and get the training, volunteer, to go on to West Africa. They are all disappointed. They don't think it's necessary.

And to kind of put this in perspective, the World Health Organization says about 1,500 health care international workers are needed right now in West Africa to stop the spread of Ebola. They are woefully short of that at the moment. This training course had just 32 health care professionals on it. And they are very worried that quarantine regulations like this are going to put off more doctors and nurses and others who might otherwise volunteer.

They say people are scared off because there's a high attrition rate among health care professionals, catching Ebola, dying of Ebola. And they are very afraid that these quarantine measures really could have a further negative effect just when they really need more people to step up because the problem is, you have to throw your resources at it early, they say, because if you don't right now, combat the spread of Ebola with this 1,500 health care professionals required, in a month's time, you will need more than that, Christine.

ROMANS: Yes, a reminder that these are the good guys. These are the good guys who are going there to where the heart of the crisis is in trying to help people and save lives.

Nic Robertson -- thanks, Nic.

BERMAN: This morning, there are new worries in the U.S. intelligence community. Deep concerns that the first air strikes in Syria last month did not kill key terrorist operatives -- operatives that U.S. officials said have special skills and operatives that could be plotting attacks right now against the United States.

CNN Pentagon Barbara Starr has all the details.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: John, Christine, U.S. officials are telling CNN's Pam Brown and myself that they now believe two key operatives in Syria are still alive, two al Qaeda operatives belonging to the so-called Khorasan group -- the leader of the group, a man al-Fadhli, and a French jihadist named David Drugeon.

They are concerned about these people because they have the ability to work to make non-detectible bombs that can get past airport screening and they also have the ability to recruit European jihadists, bring them to Syria, train them, send them back to Europe, possibly send them on to the United States.

The Khorasan group these men belong to has been a big concern for the U.S. It's been labeled an imminent threat to the U.S. because of this very capability.

The U.S. attacked the Khorasan group on September 22nd with almost 50 Tomahawk cruise missiles a number of sites. They had always worried that they didn't get these two men. They don't know if they had left the site before the strike began or if possibly they are injured.

But this is the clearest acknowledgment we have now that the U.S. believed both of these very dangerous operatives are still alive -- John, Christine.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ROMANS: Barbara Starr, thank you for that.

Ten minutes past the hour. Time for an early start on your money.

European stocks higher. So are U.S. stock futures. As expected, the Fed is done with the controversial bond buying program. The party is over. Six years of unprecedented support for the American economy.

Supporters say the flood of money sparked a recovery in housing and job growth. Look a that, the jobless right now, the lowest since the program started, 5.9 percent. Critics say, no way, the Fed is stoking new bubbles. We will pay for this later on.

The focus right now, at least, though, on corporate earnings, three quarters of companies have reported stronger than expected result. And at 8:30 this morning, we're going to get a look at the U.S. economy, third quarter growth, GDP. The forecast here is 3 percent which is solid growth.

BERMAN: Especially compared to Europe, for instance.

ROMANS: Yes.

BERMAN: All right. The war against ISIS intensifying in and around the key Syrian city of Kobani, major developments overnight. Reinforcements on the way. The question is, will it be enough? We're live on the ground.

ROMANS: Plus, what we are learning now about the NASA rocket explosion and that investigation, after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: All right. Major developments overnight in the battle against ISIS in that key Syrian city of Kobani. Kurdish fighters from Iraq have now arrived in Turkey, very close to the Syrian border town of Kobani. Syrian rebel forces already got into the city on Wednesday.

One rebel leader says the terrorists now control about half of Kobani. U.S. air strikes have not been able to drive them out, but it does seem as if they have halted the progress of ISIS. Can now the introduction of new reinforcements tip the scales and push ISIS out?

Let's get the latest from our senior international correspondent Nick Paton Walsh at the Syrian border with Turkey.

Good morning, Nick.

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: John, I just heard in the last few minutes with the official with the Peshmerga, that they may actually not be entering -- that is the Iraqi Kurds Peshmerga -- may not enter for a day or two more. They are still here inside Turkey. We have seen some of them in a police complex along the main highway here.

They arrived at about 3:00 this morning with crowds greeting them along the route. Two parts of the convoy, the motorized bit, about 30 vehicles driving from Iraq through Turkey and a lot of men flown by private planes to nearby airport to here.

They are then going to gather and we understand prepare themselves for the entry into Kobani. A more lengthy and complex process than people led to expect. The surprise being that Turkey allowed the Syrian rebels yesterday.

So, reinforcements are there. They are not the Kurdish ones that they were expecting, the Peshmerga are here, but the clock is not ticking with the speedy think many thought would be the case with the Peshmerga getting in.

We're hearing planes above us. The fight is continuing inside. The awful weather may be slowing it slightly. The question is, how quickly can those Peshmerga get in?

I should point out though, the Peshmerga I spoke to described Turkish authorities as being helpful, but a little bit different what we hear in the crowds where the length of the time it takes to get them inside is generating suspicion that Turkey is assisting as much as they can -- John.

BERMAN: Nothing moving quickly, but it seems to be at least still moving.

Nick Paton Walsh on the border -- thanks so much.

ROMANS: All right. This morning, investigators from NASA and the company Orbital Sciences are assessing the damage after the unmanned rocket exploded six seconds after launch Tuesday night at the Wallops Island flight facility in Virginia. Officials are telling the public stay away from the rocket debris. Workers are being kept from the blast site.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOAN PILLIS, CIVILIAN NAVY WORKER: Everybody is keeping fingers crossed that the damage is minimal.

RICHARD KEYS, RADAR ENGINEER: It could potentially push us back. Our concern is getting back in to assess the equipment that we have or if there is damage from the blast.

(END VIDEO CLIP) ROMANS: The Antares rocket had a $200 million payload, which included some 5,000 pounds of food, supplies and science experiments for the international space station crew. Some of those science experiments, 6 graders in New Jersey, who were doing hydroponics and microgravity. They worked so hard for a year on that project that blew up.

BERMAN: I was talking to Miles O'Brien yesterday. He said they have food on the space station for a year. No need to worry about that. And I joked, a lifetime supply of Tang. They never run out of Tang.

ROMANS: Yes.

BERMAN: All right. Indra Petersons with an early start of forecast.

Good morning, Indra.

INDRA PETERSONS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Good morning.

We saw the change yesterday, we saw that cold front kick through and no longer will that be our main story. You could actually see it quickly exiting offshore. What doesn't look like much, a swirl out here, this is going to be the big story over the next several days. It's going to bring the chill.

So, yes, we have a temperature drop today. Yes, it looks like New York City from 70s to 59. Not going to be the big story, even for the temperature drop, because look at this. We are talking about snow flurries are now in the forecast. It is that time of year. That next system that makes its way through is dropping temperatures significantly, even bringing some of you the first flurries of the year.

There you go. You can see that low dropped down a bit. Look what happens in Kentucky and West Virginia. Even getting several inches of snow from the next system that is expected to drop down.

Let's talk about the temperature drop. I said ten degrees. That wasn't going to be the big story, right, today. Yes, it doesn't look so bad. By the time we get through tomorrow, here comes the cold air. St. Louis looking at only 40s.

Again, by tomorrow, that cold air spreads to the east. Here is the Halloween forecast. Places in Michigan, wind chill below freezing for trick-or-treating.

ROMANS: It's tough in the Midwest, though. Tough.

PETERSONS: I guess they are used to it. It's them.

ROMANS: Half my life was Halloween in a parka. So, we know how that goes.

BERMAN: And you still bear the scar.

All right. For the third time in the last five seasons, the San Francisco Giants, they are the World Series champions. Andy Scholes live on the scene with the "Bleacher Report" next.

ROMANS: Ride sharing companies like Uber or Lyft are increasingly popular across the country. But depending on your city, you may want to think twice before ditching your car.

An analyst at Nerd Wallet looked at 50 cities and compared the cost of owning a car and ride sharing with Uber, and found having your own car is overall cheaper. In New York, the cost of owning a car is about $12,000 a year. The cost of Uber or Lyft is $20,000 more.

But in Detroit, drivers who spend just $2,000 more a year say give up their car and use Lyft exclusive. Uberx is $6,000 more than owning a car.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ROMANS: So a party going on in San Francisco this morning. A lot of reasons to party. For the third time in five years, I can count, the Giants are the World Series champions.

BERMAN: And Andy Scholes is in Kansas City with the "Bleacher Report".

Andy, what we saw was an historic performance by a pitcher last night.

ANDY SCHOLES, BLEACHER REPORT: It certainly was, John. You know, what a game this was. This place was rocking last night. The fans here in Kansas City, they were, of course, hoping for their first World Series title in the last 29 years.

But one man had other plans. His name was Madison Bumgarner. This game seven had, you know, everything you could have asked for.

The Giants -- they grabbed the lead when Michael Morris had the broken bat single. That puts them 3-2. Then two days rest after throwing a shutout in game five, Madison Bumgarner picked up where he left off. He cruised to the ninth inning where we saw some very high drama. A liner to center, Blanco misplays it. Gordon ends up getting a triple.

A lot of people thought he should have gone home. And the very next batter, Bumgarner gets Salvador Perez to foul out. Giants win the World Series. Bumgarner, another five shutout innings. He is the MVP after an historic post season.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MADISON BUMGARNER, GIANTS PITCHER: Obviously, it hasn't sunk in yet. Not enough to think about it. You know, we're -- you know, this is as good as it gets, World Series game 7.

BUSTER POSEY, GIANTS CATCHER: To me, it is hard pressed for me to find another performance like this ever. I mean, it's got to be one of very few in the history of baseball. I mean, what he did tonight is incredible.

(END VIDEO CLIP) SCHOLES: So, it's the third World Series title the in five years for the Giants. They got this one by doing something no one had done in 35 years. That is win game seven on the road.

Now, on the other side of things, what a disappointing ending for the Royals. They were on the verge of completing one of the greatest runs of professional sports history. The fans sad they did not win it all, but obviously very proud of this team.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I can't believe it. It is just -- we're just happy to have been here, obviously. It's just pretty surreal.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It is great to get here. Heart broken. I wish we could have won.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCHOLES: Guys, obviously, you can see a somber mood in the parking lot. I hope we with would have an early start party. The only party we saw was in the clubhouse, San Francisco clubhouse. It was rocking in there. I think I still smell like champagne and beer here. I definitely need a shower.

ROMANS: That's just regular day here at EARLY START.

BERMAN: Exactly, that's a Thursday.

Andy Scholes, great to have you with us. Every day you are around, it's a party. So, thanks for being here.

ROMANS: All right. Twenty-seven minutes past the hour.

Tense standoff this morning between a nurse who returned from treating Ebola patients in West Africa and the state of Maine where she lives. Kaci Hickox is refusing an ordered 21-day quarantine. She says she is not sick. But police are waiting outside her home. She spoke out overnight about what she's going to do today. We're going to tell you that after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)