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Questions Emerge Over Handling Of Ebola Case; Secret Service Director Resigns Under Fire; Turkey Could Join Coalition Against ISIS

Aired October 02, 2014 - 06:00   ET

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

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Containing Ebola. More scrutiny this morning about how the first patient diagnosed with Ebola on American soil was turned away from a Texas hospital, as those who came in contact with him, including five children, are being monitored now for exposure.

Are doctors prepared for a possible outbreak?

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: Resigning under fire. The Secret Service director is out, just hours after a brutal grilling by Congress over a series security lapses.

Is her resignation enough, though? How will the agency regain the public's trust to keep our president safe?

CUOMO: On edge. Massive protests in Hong Kong, on the verge of escalating if the demands of pro-Democracy demonstrators are not met. Protestors prepare to occupy government buildings.

Will police have to respond with force? We're live in the middle of it all.

Your NEW DAY starts right now.

ANNOUNCER: This is NEW DAY with Chris Cuomo, Kate Bolduan, and Michaela Pereira.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CUOMO: Good morning, welcome to NEW DAY. Its Thursday, October 2 nd, 6:00 in the East. We do have new information for you about this first Ebola diagnosis in the U.S. A Dallas hospital failed to isolate or even admit the Liberian man, even though -- here's the key -- he told them he had recently been in Liberia, West Africa, where the Ebola outbreak is the patient now identified as this man, Thomas Eric Duncan.

The hospital says his symptoms did not, quote, "warrant admission when he first showed up." But Dr. Anthony Fauci of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases tells CNN that hospital clearly dropped the ball -- Mich.

PEREIRA: Well, now the hunt, Chris, is on to find the 20 or so people that Duncan reportedly came into contact with. Some of them, children. Now concerns stretch to Washington as we learn that Duncan may have had a stopover at Dulles International Airport en route to Texas.

Chief medical correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta has the very latest for us from CDC Headquarters in Atlanta. It's interesting to see how the map is now spreading -- Sanjay.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. No question and it's a real medical investigation. They have to find these people. That's absolutely the key. Look, we hoped Ebola wouldn't come to the United States, but in some ways it wasn't unexpected. Now the focus is on that Dallas hospital.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GUPTA (voice-over): In this hospital, Thomas Eric Duncan, the first patient diagnosed with Ebola in the United States, is fighting for his life.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We just hoping and praying that Eric survives the night.

GUPTA: In an exclusive interview with CNN affiliate, WCCB, in Charlotte, North Carolina, Duncan's nephew speaks out for the first time.

JOSEPHUS WEEKS, NEPHEW OF EBOLA PATIENT, THOMAS ERIC DUNCAN: I want to let you know that we still here, we're not sleeping, just like you, feeling the pain, we're feeling the pain here, too.

GUPTA: Doctors say he's now in serious but stable condition. Duncan is a Liberian national and he traveled for the first time ever to the United States to visit his family in Dallas.

"The New York Times" reports that he may have become infected on September 15th, when he helped carry a pregnant woman who died from Ebola to the hospital.

September 19th, Duncan flies from Liberia to Brussels, Belgium showing no obvious Ebola symptoms or fever during airport screening. From there, he boards United Airlines Flight 951, en route to Washington- Dulles, connecting to another United Flight 822 to Dallas.

September 20th, he arrives in Dallas and heads to this apartment complex to visit family. Four days later, he starts developing symptoms. He walks into this Dallas emergency room on the 25th of September, vomiting and with a fever.

He tells the nurse he had traveled from Africa, but is sent home with antibiotics and does not undergo an Ebola screening. September 28th, his condition worsens, he returns to the hospital by ambulance and is placed in isolation.

The next day, a family friend calls the CDC complaining that the hospital isn't moving quickly enough with his test results. By Tuesday, the 30th, the lab results confirm, the patient has Ebola.

The hospital admits it was a failure to communicate among hospital staff that led to the patient's release after his initial visit.

DR. MARK LESTER, EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT OF TEXAS HEALTH RESOURCES: He volunteered that he had traveled from Africa in response to the nurse operating the checklist and asking that question. Regretfully, that information was not fully communicated throughout the full team.

GUPTA: Investigators are now monitoring up to 20 people who are his contacts for symptoms. From paramedics who transported him to doctors and nurses in the hospital, to his family, girlfriend, and her five school-age children. But so far, none has been confirmed to be infected.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

GUPTA: I want to talk about those plane flights for a second as well, three of them, again from Liberia and to Brussels, to Dulles and to Dallas. They talk about the fact that when he got on the plane, he had no symptoms, was not sick at all.

He passed the checks, at that point, no fever. When he got off the plane, he said he wasn't sick, either. What the CDC director told me yesterday, is that there's a zero, zero percent chance of transmission.

That any of the other passengers on the plane would have become sick as a result. So strong words, he was not equivocal about this at all. Zero percent chance of transmission. They're not even going to track those airplane passengers.

PEREIRA: Well, that I'm sure is concerning to anybody that was on a plane with him. Yet hopefully that will provide a measure of comfort. Given all of this, that we're seeing this case and how it was handled. There are concerns now this morning, Sanjay, about the potential for a case in Hawaii. What have you learned about this?

GUPTA: Well, this is one of those situations where you seem to have some of the criteria that might start to raise some concerns. A patient who has fever, may have recently traveled in that part of the world.

But that sort of, you know, with these things, they are medical investigations, you start collecting more and more data. Those are two important pieces of data. They're not, it's not all the data.

You want to know, did this person have any contact with patients with Ebola. Had he attended funerals? There are a list of questions. At some point, the evidence would be enough to say let's go ahead and test this person.

It doesn't mean that everyone that comes back with a fever from West Africa should get tested. I've been there, cholera, typhoid, malaria, you can name a lot of things that would cause fever much more likely than Ebola. But still obviously they want to investigate that. PEREIRA: Right. They do and they're going to do some testing obviously today. But this case and how it was handled in Dallas, points of failure were picked up, balls dropped, mistakes made.

So it brings about the question, Sanjay, about the preparedness of our hospitals, our clinics, or our medical staff all across America. Is there a sense that new guidelines are going to be sent out imminently?

GUPTA: I think that they probably wish they could have done that over in terms of how they handled that in Dallas. Because that wasn't some -- the guidelines were there. These guidelines that I was just rattling off to you about the Hawaii patient, they are already out there, they just weren't implemented.

So this seems to be more of a failure of execution. They still call them interim guidelines. To your question -- they may change. But what we really need to make sure, what I think you're hearing from the CDC as well is that the simple things cannot be missed. This is low- hanging fruit.

Simply doing what we should have done, that patient should have been tested. The CDC director said so, the NIH infectious diseases doctor says so. What you and I having a conversation, people in the emergency rooms and public health departments, it will be an added reminder.

PEREIRA: We'll keep having this conversation because we want to make sure the message -- at the very least this travel history is so very vital to get from the patient. Sanjay, we know you have a busy day ahead of you, we'll be talking to you several times throughout the course of the day. Thanks so much -- Chris.

CUOMO: All right, Mich, so the big issue becomes our preparedness for a situation like this, right, so let's get perspective on that. Let's bring in Republican Congressman Jack Kingston. Now he chairs the subcommittee that oversees funding for the CDC and the government's response to Ebola specifically.

Congressman, it's good to have you. The proposition is simple, is the U.S. set up for what to do if something like Ebola comes here? Are we ready?

REPRESENTATIVE JACK KINGSTON (R), GEORGIA: We think we are, we are taking this very seriously. We're concerned about the numbers as you know, about 6,500 people worldwide are infected. Some of the projections are -- is that that number could go to over a million by January.

So we have worked very closely with the CDC, with the NIH, with the BMARDA, also with USAID and the Department of Defense, to make sure that whatever they're asking for, we, in Congress are giving to them.

Just recently, $30 million to the CDC, $58 million to BMARDA to try to develop vaccines. The scientists are driving this right now, not the politicians, we're following their guidance because we want to make sure that they have the resources. But also, I think what you're underscoring here is the protocols in so many cases are in place, but they weren't followed, clearly at this hospital. We want to make sure everybody knows about the protocols. What to do if somebody is exhibiting symptoms and how to deal with it.

CUOMO: The guy told them he was from Liberia. You know that he had just traveled there. I mean, what else do you need? You don't need a protocol right now if you're paying any attention to the world around you. If somebody just says, I just came back from Liberia. I don't feel so good. Shouldn't that be the first thing that pops up in your head?

KINGSTON: Absolutely. I don't understand why the nurse didn't notify other people in the hospital. Why the hospital didn't react. You can be infected and not show symptoms for as long as 21 days, during that time you're OK. Once you're showing the symptoms and particularly if you say I came from Africa, then there is no question what to do next.

CUOMO: All right, so that takes us to the second level of what checks confidence in the situation right now. Mixed messages -- either Ebola is difficult to transmit because it's not airborne and you need exposure to fluids and all or it is easy to transmit.

And what we're seeing in the response from the government sends a mixed message. Because we're being told, don't worry it's not easy to transmit, but then you're searching and quarantining for all these people who are anywhere near the sick guy. You don't understand why that sends such a mixed message?

KINGSTON: You know, I do. One of the difficulties about this is again you can be infected, but you're not contagious so to speak until the symptoms are out there. And even then, it is the contact with bodily fluids that would make the difference.

You know, in this case, we felt the first information was that this man, Mr. Duncan, was on his own. Now we're talking about the five children and the people he has contacted since the symptoms came out.

That would be really the fault of the hospital for not immediately following protocol, putting him in isolation. Rushing his test results through so that they could know if they're dealing with it or not.

I think that's where, the battle right now is to make sure everybody is on the same page. As you pointed out, if you're coming in from Liberia, that alone should make people concerned.

CUOMO: Right. You don't have to be a health expert to know that. Senator Rand Paul, you know, granted people are paying extra attention to him right now. He did voice a common sentiment, which believes that maybe officials are downplaying the Ebola threat. And maybe we should be canceling flights from these places, where the outbreak is in West Africa. What do you think of that?

KINGSTON: Well, I think he might be moving a little too quickly. I've worked very closely with the CDD on this and Dr. Friedan, and we do not believe that is the case. If you remember a couple of years ago when we had the SARS outbreak, that was an airborne illness.

And that was just a different matter and we're not facing that right now. So I do not agree with that. But I think in terms of exhibiting caution, making sure we're doing everything we can, we need to be.

CUOMO: The CDC said on September 23rd in a worst-case scenario, cases could reach 1.4 million in four months in the U.S. Given that people here, it creates panic, no matter how the media qualifies it. What do you want the American people to know?

KINGSTON: Well, we want them to know that we're doing everything that we can to make sure that this does stay in fact in Africa. We also want people to know that the chance of getting infected, is very low, to zero, unless you're in contact with somebody who is infected and their bodily fluids.

And I think people need to know about that. Also we have completely different sanitation and protocols here. For an example, one of the problems they have in Africa in many cases, they don't use traditional funeral homes.

They don't have undertakers so it's the family themselves who are preparing the body after the death from Ebola. And that's where they've been getting infected. We don't have anything like that in the United States of America. That's just one example.

CUOMO: Congressman, thank you for joining us. Please keep the pressure on the companies and the systems that are helping come up with antidotes and vaccines for this drug as well. Obviously that's the best long-term cure situation for how to handle it. Thank you very much for joining us on NEW DAY. We'll be in touch about this.

KINGSTON: Thank you.

CUOMO: Mich, over to you.

PEREIRA: All right, we'll turn now to a big story we've been following, Secret Service Director Julia Pierson is out of a job. She's resigned under fire after an intense pressure for her to step down.

Any support she had seemingly evaporated when the White House realized that she failed to inform them about an embarrassing security lapse just last month in Atlanta. The White House only learning of it minutes before the media reported it.

Let's get more from White House correspondent, Michelle Kosinski. My goodness, questions remain, even though she's out, will the substance of changes that are needed within the agency, will they happen?

MICHELLE KOSINSKI, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Right. You know, Michaela, this bears so many echoes of the VA scandal, the whistle blowers, the bipartisan outrage, the entrenched culture within a government agency and now the resignation.

I mean, Julia Pierson was appointed by the president to turn the Secret Service's reputation around. And now here we are after a year and a half and it needs another go.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KOSINSKI (voice-over): While White House fence jumper, Omar Gonzales, was pleading not guilty to federal crimes for storming the mansion, armed with a knife, it's not clear if he's even aware of the fallout he leaves behind.

Julia Pierson, now resigned as director of the Secret Service. Her terse and answerless answers to an angry House committee this week only riled Congress even more.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is the president of the United States informed?

JULIA PIERSON, DIRECTOR, SECRET SERVICE: I would assume that the president of the United States is informed. I don't know.

KOSINSKI: Details came from whistle blowers that she didn't even mention and now we know one of those newly revealed incidents, a security guard with a gun in an elevator with the president, two weeks ago, in Atlanta, a situation that hadn't been cleared by Secret Service and violated protocol, the White House wasn't even told about. Until just before it became unpleasantly public yesterday.

JOSH EARNEST, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: Director Pierson offered her resignation because she believed that it was in the best interests of the agency to which she has dedicated her career.

KOSINSKI: Pierson called it painful to leave.

PIERSON: I Julie Pierson --

KOSINSKI: After three decades with the Secret Service, now the interim director, Joseph Clancy is also a long-timer who headed the presidential protection division and retired three years ago. It's the culture within the agency that seems stubborn to change.

One former Secret Service agent told us things like the front door alarm being turned off because White House ushers didn't like the occasional loud noise points to what he calls a dangerous acquiescence at the upper levels of the service, a desire to please the boss.

He said few supervisors were willing to insist on things being tougher when they should have been and it infuriated officers below them. Leaving some to turn whistle-blowers, finding willing ears in Congress.

REP. ELIJAH CUMMINGS (D), MARYLAND: Agents in this agency said they were hesitant to raise security concerns with their supervisors. Ladies and gentlemen, something is awfully wrong with that picture.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KOSINSKI: We heard Pierson repeatedly detail the progress she felt she made at the agency, vowing to stay on and lead and fix the problems. And then, suddenly, she resigned as more details kept coming out. Well, now, among those problems that her successor will face are staffing issues and low morale -- Michaela.

PEREIRA: That's certainly big challenges he's facing and there will be extra scrutiny on him while he's doing that.

Michelle Kosinski, thanks so much.

CUOMO: I want to turn to the fight against ISIS. There is big news this morning -- Turkey, with one of the biggest armies in the world, says it will join the U.S.-led coalition. Turkish lawmakers are expected to vote today on deploying troops to Iraq and Syria.

Now, meanwhile, air strikes against ISIS in Syria are intensifying near the border with Turkey, where ISIS is still advancing, driving hundreds of thousands of refugees over the border.

CNN's Arwa Damon is there -- Arwa.

ARWA DAMON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: And we've been seeing some of the artillery that ISIS is firing, landing on the hillside right behind us, targeting those Kurdish fighting positions.

Now, this resolution that you are speaking about, this is actually a combination of two resolutions. One that was created back in 2007, authorizing the Turkish military to enter into northern Iraq to go after the PKK, a Kurdish separatist group that the Turks considering to a terrorist organization. The other resolution passed in 2012 this time with regards to Syria, authorizing the military to go after terror targets just across the border.

This resolution being put forward today combines those two. But also, gives the government sweeping authorities when it comes to a wide range of military options.

For example, should that buffer zone be established that Turkey has been calling for? Turkey could become a base for any foreign forces that would be brought in to enforce that. Or if Turkey does in fact decide to join the coalition, which it has the authority to do so under this resolution, then we could possibly be seeing Turkey also being used as a base for those ongoing airstrikes.

However, even if the resolution does pass, that is not necessarily mean that we're going to see immediate Turkish action or boots on the ground, Chris.

CUOMO: But you said that last phrase, Arwa, that's the key here, boots on the ground. If Turkey with the huge and formidable force does enter on the ground there, that could be the best basis for the United States to maintain its position that it won't put its own troops in. So, it's a big development.

Arwa, thank you for being there and please be safe.

There's a lot of other news this morning. So, let's get right to John Berman.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Thanks so much for that, Chris. Iraqi police say three mortar rounds landed inside the heavily fortified Green Zone in central Baghdad. There's been no word on possible casualties. The Green Zone, of course, is home to Iraq's government offices as well as the U.S. and British embassies.

Overnight, at least 14 people were killed and dozens more wounded in a car bombing on a busy street in Iraq's capital. So far, no claim of responsibility.

In Hong Kong, tensions are escalating as protesters demand the city's chief executive step down immediately. It's a live look at the city right now. Activators are giving the chief executive until the end of the day to give up his leadership position or they say they'll seize government buildings. Overnight, protesters staged a sit-in outside this executive's office gates. Again, they say the next step could be occupying government buildings if their demands for full democratic rights are not met.

A Florida man now faces life in prison after being convicted of murder for killing a teen in an SUV. Jurors decided that Michael Dunn was the aggressor when he shot and killed 17-year-old Jordan Davis. They rejected Dunn's argument that he thought Davis had a weapon, the shooting came after an argument over loud music.

Another jury, you will remember, already convicted Dunn on four counts, but was hung on the murder charge.

BERMAN: Authorities in Charlottesville, Virginia, will be using drones to search for UVA student Hannah Graham who has been missing for three weeks. We have now learned that Jesse Matthew, who is being held in Graham's disappearance, was connected to a sexual assault investigation while he was a student at Christopher Newport News University in 2003. Matthew has a court hearing today on a reckless driving charge stemming from that Graham investigation.

Chris?

CUOMO: All right. J.B., thank you very much.

One security lapse after another, that's the problem with the Secret Service. And how do we find out about it? Why did it take so long?

This is the situation that forced Secret Service Director Julia Pierson to resign. Was it just something she didn't tell her boss that got her pushed out? And is the president any safer today as a result of a resignation? We're going to give you some surprising answers on that.

PEREIRA: Also, we'll have more on Ebola. Now that we know that there is a case in Dallas, eyes are turning now to Hawaii where there's the potential for a case there. We're going to take a look at all the latest developments, coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PEREIRA: Good to have you back on NEW DAY. Julia Pierson is out as Secret Service director in the wake of several embarrassing security lapses and unimpressive testimony before Congress. An interim director has been named. Where does the agency go from here? Can those issues be remedied? And are more incidents bound to surface in the days and weeks ahead?

Joining me now, "Washington Examiner" White House correspondent Susan Crabtree. She is first reporter who first broke story of the armed contractor who rode the elevator with the president during his recent visit to the CDC.

Tremendous reporting, young lady. Good to have you with us this morning.

SUSAN CRABTREE, WASHINGTON EXAMINER: Great to be with you. Thank you.

PEREIRA: All right. So, reaction, first of all, to Director Pierson resigning. Right thing to do? Were you surprised she wasn't able to survive the scandal?

CRABTREE: Well, I was a little surprised it came so quickly. But I think it is the right step. There are the president through Josh Earnest, his press secretary, yesterday, said he had lost confidence in her ability to lead the agency. Jeh Johnson, also feeling the same way.

She supposedly did this on her own, submitted her resignation, but yes, it's a step towards accountability. And it's something that the agency desperately needed at this point.

PEREIRA: Your reporting certainly seems to be the straw that broke the camel's back for this director of a troubled agency. Is there any sense that you get that she might not have been told about that elevator incident at the CDC, where an armed contractor was in the elevator with the president of the United States? Or would standard protocol be for all of those breaches, lapses in security, have been reported to her?

CRABTREE: Well, I was told that there was -- there is a culture of cover-up at the agency, unfortunately. That's a direct quote from a source and that this is a systematic failure of following protocols in this particular elevator case.

There was, I am told, that there were not reports that were filed on time, there's a five-day report and a 14-day report, five-day reports are for more serious reports and suspicious behavior they encounter on the day-to-day job. And 14-day reports are for more minor threats. Neither type of report was filed.

The Secret Service it told me took a day and a half to get back to me on that very topic. They said, yes, they launched an investigation, they would not tell me when they launched it, how many people they talked to, any details of the investigation. So, I am, I think more questions need to be asked about that issue. Why aren't these protocols being followed, with this incident and with the White House intruder incident as well?

It's just, to me, a culture of cover-up at an agency this important shouldn't be tolerated.

PEREIRA: So, here's a question, when protocol is not followed, there's a couple of things that can happen. Sometimes it can be as you mentioned, paperwork doesn't get done, et cetera. You say this smelled like cover-up to you. Why?

CRABTREE: Well, I'm telling you that a source tells me that. Multiple sources actually.

And to me, it's -- they are describe that the agency operates like a family and they protect one another when something goes wrong, especially agents that are in top-level management are looking out for other agents they like, they're friends with, and sometimes as you know, families are good, they're supportive, it's a great way to get backing. But also, families can be dysfunctional.

And if this is true, if there's a real culture of cover-up here, then it's a problem. I'm also told that she, they have -- my story for today that I'm working on is that they have had instituted a policy of not documenting when agents have lied, or given mistruths or inaccurate information when their behavior is being investigated for suspension. And that that is because they wanted agents to be able to testify in court against assailants and possible threats. This is an issue related to the Giglio versus United States Supreme Court case in 1972.

PEREIRA: I want it go back to your family point. So, if the family is a mess, changing the matriarch or the patriarch, how much is that going to change the culture of the agency? They've got a new interim director brought in. I understand he's a lifer. He's a guy that's been in the Secret Service for a long time.

Now, granted, he was part of the presidential protection division -- so, it sounds like he's got some experience on the job specifically relating to the president's safety. One wonders how you can change the inside culture if you're from the very agency that's troubled.

CRABTREE: That's right. I think they probably need some continuity at this point. But Julia Pierson, as you know, was the chief of staff to Mark Sullivan since 2008. So, the critics of the agency have told me, that they believe that that wasn't a real change in leadership at the top. That she was the chief of staff when the 2011 shooting happened with the, when the White House upper residence was sprayed with bullets.

So, yes, I think that there's talk now, even Josh Earnest in the White House briefing yesterday, talking about the possibility of appointing an outside person for the first time in the agency's history since 1932, that an outside person who has not risen in the ranks would be the head of the agency.