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Former Defense Secretary Hits Obama Hard; Will Enhanced Screenings Stop Ebola?; New Theory On Why MH370 Vanished

Aired October 08, 2014 - 07:30   ET

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

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE:

THOM TILLIS (R), NORTH CAROLINA SENATE CANDIDATE: Senator Hagen went to Washington and she became a rubber stamp for President Obama's failed policies and she voting with him 96 percent of the time.

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JOHN KING, CNN HOST, "INSIDE POLITICS": You could almost, Nia-Malika Henderson, go from state to state to state, and give the candidates, the Democrats, the Hagen line and the Republicans, the Tillis line. We have sort of cookie cutter strategies playing out here.

NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, "THE WASHINGTON POST": That's right. Even though they're not necessarily a national election, this is the strategy that you've seen. Kay Hagen is very much outperforming what people thought she would partly because the third-party candidate is in there and taking votes away from Tillis.

She's got African-American voters down there who will likely support her. You saw in that there's a Michelle Nunn and David Purdue debate too. He tried the same line, this whole idea of tying her to Obama and she said, listen Obama is only in for the next two years.

There are going to be many presidents after Obama and we're going to have to have somebody who can work across the aisle and with all presidents that come later. I thought that was a pretty good approach to that attack.

KING: A comeback. Democrats trying to find a good comeback because Republicans wouldn't be doing this in state after state if they didn't think in most of them, it was going to work.

TAMARA KEITH, NPR: The second anyone saw the president saying his policies are on the ballot. Even though he isn't, they jumped all over it. Precisely because they think it works. It is their message. This is, as they say, the "Seinfeld" election.

An election that isn't about really anything except a referendum on the president, who happens to be pretty darn unpopular, which is why there are so many red-state Democrats who are running as fast as they can. KING: Pretty darn unpopular. Thanks for the segue way because we want to talk next if you look at "The New York Times" today, the lead story by our "Inside Politics" friend, Jonathan Martin, on an issue we've talked about many, many times before.

But J. Mar. pulls it together quite well, that the president as Tamara just noted, isn't welcome out there. You'll see the president raising money and making recorded phone calls for turn-out.

But you're not seeing him in any of the big Senate races because he's so unpopular. His wife actually is out a little bit. Here she is yesterday. Listen closely to Michelle Obama because this is a sequel.

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MICHELLE OBAMA, FIRST LADY: Now as you all know, I was just here in Wisconsin last week. So I'm sorry if you're getting sick of me, but I'm back, but there's a reason why I wanted to come back.

I wanted to come here to Madison to talk a little more with a lot of you particularly our young people who are here. I want to you think about all the change we've seen these past six years under this president, Barack Obama.

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KING: Younger voters, a critical constituency. They tend to drop out as Chris Coumo was noting before this segment in midterm elections. They tend to drop off dramatically. But even here, she's out more than her husband.

But she's going back to Wisconsin, back to the governor's race, because even Michelle Obama is not being invited into some of these Senate races where we thought we might see her.

HENDERSON: It's true. I mean, she's been in Illinois, Wisconsin. She cut an ad in Illinois for the governor's race there. She has been in Georgia, though, but it was sort of a different type of rally. It was like a get out the vote rally.

But she is quite good at connecting with that, you can call it the coalition of the ascended. You can call it the Obama coalition. You can call it whatever you want.

But it's African-Americans, young folks, women, a great message to those folks who want to remember that old fire that they remembered from 2008 and 2012.

KING: My favorite line or quote in the Jonathan Martin piece is from Steve Israel. He is a Democratic Congressman from New York. He runs the Congressional Campaign Committee helping Democrats get elected.

He said this of the president, in California, Illinois and New York, the president is very helpful. Ouch. I know he's trying to say something nice.

KEITH: Everywhere else -- no.

KING: So in three of the bluest, deepest blue states in America, the president is welcome, but please stay away everywhere else.

KEITH: And conveniently they have a lot of money in those states. The president hasn't done big public rallies. He's done a lot of closed-door fundraising. When I was talking about the Obama administration about this last week, they were saying we have three things that we can do to help where we park the plane isn't one of them.

One is fundraising. One is the big data machine, their get out the vote stuff. The stuff we don't really see and the other one is framing the message. So I guess they maybe put too fine a point on that with the president's speech last week.

KING: All right, he is not on the ballot, but his policies are. The president has raised a ton of money. I'm interested to see in the final days that the calculation changes that any of these candidates who need to gin up African-American turnout.

Who need to gin up younger voter turnout, who think in the end, you know what? I'm going to lose otherwise, let's take the risk. We'll see if it happens. I doubt it, but let's watch and see if it happens.

The other big conversation in Washington is about Leon Panetta's book. Leon Panetta, remember the former CIA chief, the former defense secretary, very critical of the president says number one, the president should have pounded his fist and told the Iraqis were going to leave troops in Iraq.

Leon Panetta says that if the president had been tougher there, perhaps the ISIS threat would not be as big now. But beyond the specifics of that, listen to Leon Panetta here in an interview with CNN's Gloria Borger sort of questioning the president's philosophical approach.

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LEON PANETTA, FORMER DEFENSE SECRETARY: He relies on the logic of his presentation with the hope that ultimately people will embrace that logic and then do what's right. You know what? In 50 years my experience is logic doesn't work in Washington.

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KING: In the book he also says he thinks the president too often avoids the battle, complains and misses opportunities. This one hurts, because it comes from somebody who was once so close.

HENDERSON: Yes, I mean, this was tough stuff and you're right, they were once close and you've had a succession of these folks, Robert Gates, the same thing, his book was critical of the President Clinton, in some ways also critical of the president.

Now you have Panetta. One of the things about these three figures is that they were big figures in Washington in their own right before President Obama. So that are make-or-break, especially if they're not going to be in politics any more except for Hillary Clinton is not as much of a risk for them.

KEITH: With friends like these --

KING: Well put. It's a tough one for the president. Tamara, thanks for coming in, Nia-Malika Henderson as well. As we get back to New York, let's continue with this. Jimmy Fallon last night listened to the White House rationale for Leon Panetta's book and didn't buy it.

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JIMMY FALLON, HOST, "THE TONIGHT SHOW": The White House dismissed former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta's criticisms of President Obama saying that he's faced some of the most difficult issues of our time, which would have been a great defense if every president didn't face the most difficult issues of their time. That's what a president does.

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KING: Well, Alisyn, Jimmy Fallon knows the job description.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN GUEST ANCHOR: Makes a good point. Many people are questioning the timing, not just Jimmy Fallon. John, thanks so much.

KING: See you later.

CAMEROTA: All right, some amazing technology, in the fight to keep you safe from Ebola. One of the tools is thermal imaging. We have the actual equipment here and we'll show you how to spot these hot spots on people's bodies.

And after seven months, a new theory, a new video in the disappearance of MH-370, it may be easier than we thought to take over a plane mid- flight. Aviation expert, Miles O'Brien explains how.

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MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: All right, so the Centers For Disease Control say they are planning to increase the level of airport screening to detect people who may have Ebola before they're allowed into the United States.

So far, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea are doing temperature checks of all out-bound flyers and fever scanners have been put in several schools in Dallas where Thomas Eric Duncan is currently undergoing treatment for Ebola.

Joining us this morning once again is Dr. Alexander Van Tulleken, senior fellow at the Institute for International Humanitarian affairs at Fordham University.

And also with him, Rich Barton, the technical director of Opto-Therm, who has brought one of these devices here to demonstrate for us. Gentlemen, thank you so much. Kind of cool to see the technology being used this way.

Rich, let's talk about it. You have it right in front of us. It looks a bit like a -- I don't know, any other radar, a robot exactly and we have one of our fantastic volunteers. How does that work?

RICH BARTON, TECHNICAL DIRECTOR, OPTOTHERM: All objects including human skin emits infrared energy and the hotter an object is the more infrared energy it emits. This system is based upon a thermal imaging camera that can detect that infrared energy and quantify it and then measure it.

PEREIRA: Like what the police or maybe the military have used before. We've seen this kind of --

BARTON: Very similar. This is very high precision thermal imaging camera. It's extremely accurate.

PEREIRA: Let's try it out. So we have our volunteer here, it's taking his core temperature?

BARTON: What it's doing is it's reading the inside corners of his eyes, the temperature.

PEREIRA: Why there?

BARTON: That provides the best correlation with internal body core temperatures.

PEREIRA: We usually take temperature under our tongue or in our ear. What is a normal temperature for the human body?

DR. ALEXANDER VAN TULLEKEN, MEDICAL DOCTOR: Inside the middle of your body, the temperature should be about 98.6 degrees. What we're looking for --

PEREIRA: Running just a bit high.

TULLEKEN: That's fine. What we'd be looking for in the Ebola screening is to look for temperature over 101.4.

PEREIRA: Can we artificially create that? Now, the idea is the fever is the one thing they know for sure that indicates there's a problem here potentially Ebola, right?

TULLEKEN: Let's not forget you can get a fever for hundreds of other reasons. You can have a high temperature because of exercise, inflammation, hormonal imbalances and other things, let alone tropical diseases.

PEREIRA: So things have turned bad for John here, he does have a temperature. This is what would alert the person around the machine, correct?

BARTON: The fever can be indicated on the forehead, the face, the cheeks and the inside corners of the eyes. As you can see, in most cases, the eyes are the highest temperature on the human face.

PEREIRA: Next step would be then after this initially shows this person has a fever, the screening would then go where, Van?

TULLEKEN: So then you isolate the person and you start to ask them questions, and start to narrow down -- travel history, how they're feeling, specific symptoms, or any other medical symptoms that could be giving them a fever? Now that all takes quite a long time --

PEREIRA: And it also takes self-reporting and honesty, correct?

TULLEKEN: Very reasonably, people who think they may have been exposed to Ebola may well be seeking care and may not want to divulge their full travel history. They're not bad people, but they're doing a rational thing, but the system has to take that into account.

PEREIRA: So from the point where they would do the screening that could take anywhere between hours to potentially days, could it not?

TULLEKEN: Depends on how many staff you've got. How many people with fevers you've got, what region of the world you're screening. You're talking about a lot of people, yes.

PEREIRA: And you're talking about I could see the benefit of using something like this on outgoing flights, right, and then also incoming because we know one of the concerns is that people could test clear of a fever getting on the plane, a long flight and suddenly like we've seen in past cases where somebody does develop a fever on the plane.

BARTON: The screening, airplane passengers is a very good application for this technology because all the subjects that will be screened have been exposed to the same environmental conditions for a significant period of time, minutes, even maybe even hours in a terminal, on the plane and that provides better correlations with body temperature.

PEREIRA: The speed by which you're doing it, it's amazing you could have this at hospitals and schools. Is it an unbearable cost?

BARTON: The component costs are quite expensive. This system is about $20,000.

PEREIRA: And you're leasing them or people are buying them or what are you seeing?

BARTON: They're for purchase.

PEREIRA: OK, well, it's going to be interesting to see if this kind of technology. Do you think it's a good tool?

TULLEKEN: This is a fantastic screening tool to prevent people from Ebola from getting on planes. They look great, they work very well but it's not going to keep us 100 percent safe from Ebola.

PEREIRA: It's another tool in it because we need those humans, right?

TULLEKEN: The administration is very correctly said we need to focus on Africa and I think that's right.

PEREIRA: All right, good to have you both. Thanks for bringing the device, and hopefully he can get that fever down. Good to have you. Thanks so much.

All right, I want to show you some newly released video. Could it be a lead in the search for MH-370? A little access part of the plane. Aviation expert, Miles O'Brien is going to preview his new documentary about the vanished plane that's ahead.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It can remove control from the cockpit so you can make the cockpit helpless. You don't even need to go into the cockpit.

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CAMEROTA: That is a look at the new NOVA documentary "Why Planes Vanish" premiering tonight. It presents a surprising new theory as to how Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 could have vanished seven months ago while flying from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.

The documentary questions whether the electronic and equipment hatch that you see located just outside the cockpit underneath the cabin floor could have been compromised.

Let's talk about it all with CNN aviation analyst, Miles O'Brien, who is also the Nova PBS producer of "Why Planes Vanish." Miles, great to see you.

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: Good morning, Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: Sounds like there's been developments since we last focused on Flight 370. What have you learned?

O'BRIEN: Well, you can't take anything off the table yet and there's a lot of scenarios, which still can work and all of them are in many cases difficult to reconcile with the facts, but one thing to add to the plate is this idea that control of the aircraft could be obtained without ever having to deal with going inside that cockpit door.

That hatch is designed in an unusual way on the Boeing 777 in the sense it is outside the cockpit door and commonly it is not secured. Once you have access to that compartment.

There are all kinds of things you can do to either cause problems for the crew, fail systems, pull circuit breakers or ultimately take over the aircraft. It's just one more thing to put on the table of possibilities.

CAMEROTA: That is fascinating. It's fascinating to learn that that is so easily accessible. That it's unlocked, if I understand correctly, and that it can allow somebody to remote control the plane? O'BRIEN: Yes, it's designed for maintenance, of course, but that little terminal there once you plug in. The airplane is nothing more than a flying video game, if you will. It's a fly by wire, computer- controlled aircraft.

And if you're able to tap into that system, you can change the software and control surfaces. You can manage all the systems and so if you have enough experience.

If you have any background as an avionics technician, that sort of thing, you would have the capability of doing this. So I'm not saying this happened, but it's just one more thing to consider.

CAMEROTA: So is the latest thinking on this mystery that this was not an accident and that it was a deliberate act?

O'BRIEN: You know, I've spent a lot of time looking at this, obviously, Alisyn, and it's very difficult when you look at what happened after it fell off the radar screens as it were.

When that aircraft took that turn and flew across the Malaysian Peninsula and took another turn, which kind of threaded the needle between Indonesia and Malaysian air space.

It's almost impossible to come up with a scenario where a human hand is not involved there. There is some sort of deliberate action there. That's something we can say with a pretty good amount of certainty.

Beyond that, we don't know what human being was twisting those knobs or perhaps on that keypad below decks causing this to happen.

CAMEROTA: So this week we understand that crews have resumed the search in the Indian Ocean, what's different about the search this time?

O'BRIEN: Well, the search is much farther south and to the west. The initial search zone was defined using some clever mathematics by this communications satellite company, MRSAT, which is able to determine roughly where it was along an arc and what hemisphere it was in.

But it's not a very precise science. The satellite wasn't designed as a positioning tool. What they did was ingenious but not very accurate. They're constantly refining where the plane might have been. They have to factor in things that they just don't know.

Like the speed and altitude of the craft, what sort of rage it had, how it was flown, they don't know a lot of these things and so they're taking the best estimates they can in some cases really just educated guesses to kind of define the zone.

So it's moved a long way away from where the search was occurring before it was suspended, so maybe just maybe we'll see something, but it's amazing to me that seven months later we haven't seen a seat cushion, an in-flight magazine or a shoe or anything from this aircraft.

You know, when Air France 447 crashed into the Atlantic in 2009, they fished out 3,000 pieces of floating debris so where is the debris?

CAMEROTA: Such a good question and it is such a mystery. Miles, thanks so much for previewing it for us.

Reminder, NOVA's "Why Planes Vanish" premieres tonight on PBS at 9:00 p.m. Eastern, 8:00 p.m. Central Time. We'll be tuning in to that. Chris, what's going on?

CUOMO: I'll tell you what's going on, a bolo, be on the lookout. The FBI is asking for help tracking a member of ISIS who may be an American, this as the terror group closes in on taking an important city in Syria. We'll hear directly from the Pentagon coming up.

Also breaking overnight, a possibly life-saving gift to that American cameraman infected from Ebola. Will the blood from another American survivor save him? We'll tell you.

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CUOMO: Happening now a Syrian border town set to fall to ISIS. How big a blow is this? Will it force Turkey to start fighting back?

And the FBI is asking you for help. Do you know this member of ISIS who has an American accent? We get the latest directly from the Pentagon.

CAMEROTA: Breaking overnight, desperate plea, the nurse infected with Ebola in Spain now speaking out says she followed all procedures, but authorities want to put her dog down, thinking it could be carrying the disease. The desperate plea to save the dog.

PEREIRA: On her own terms, the terminally ill 29-year-old who has created a firestorm saying she is going to end her own life her own way at the end of the month, and reigniting the debate over euthanasia.

CUOMO: Your NEW DAY continues right now.