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100s Being Questioned for Ebola Contact, 4 Quarantined; Interview with Brother of Ebola Patient; Behind-the-Scene Details of Secret Service Resignation; Darrell Issa Comments on Security Breaches; Interview with Bernie Sanders

Aired October 02, 2014 - 13:30   ET

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

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WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back to our viewers in the United States and around the world. I'm Wolf Blitzer, reporting from Washington.

We're learning new details about the first Ebola case to be diagnosed right here in the United States. Here's what we know right now. A federal official tells CNN authorities are questioning as many as 100 people in the Dallas, Texas, area who may have had contact with a patient 42-year-old Thomas Eric Duncan. The official says more than a dozen people had direct contact with Duncan. They are now being monitored.

In addition, four of his family members have been ordered to stay inside their home for the next 17 days to make sure they have not been infected. One is his girlfriend who says the sheets Duncan used while he was sick and sweating with a fever, those sheets are still on the bed. They have not been removed. A CDC official from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta tells CNN a medical waste contractor is now on the way to get those sheets removed and to inspect the apartment.

Duncan is from Liberia. He traveled to Dallas, Texas, to visit his girlfriend. "The New York Times" says, a few days before leaving Monrovia, he did have direct contact with a pregnant woman who was then suffering from Ebola. That's just part of the Ebola story unfolding right now.

Let's bring back our chief medical correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta. He's over at the CDC in Atlanta. Also, our "CNN Money" correspondent, Cristina Alesci, in New York, on more of the supply of what could be a promising Ebola drug.

Sanjay, let me start with you.

The CDC is holding what's being described as a teleconference with reporters on this Ebola case. What are you learning so far?

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, they're addressing some of these issues and making clear precisely what it means in terms of these hundred people who are being -- they want to find 100 people they think may have had some direct contact with Mr. Duncan. They're not saying that those people have had direct contact with Mr. Duncan for sure. Only 12 people have actually been confirmed as having direct contact and those people are being monitored. But the number could go up. And they want to find out if there's any other possible direct contacts with Mr. Duncan. At some point, they want to make sure they find everybody. They don't want to find out afterwards there was somebody who did have direct contact with Mr. Duncan that wasn't found and possibly got sick and became another source in terms of an Ebola infection. They want to find everybody now to try to prevent this from turning into an outbreak. It's sort of tried-and-true methods in terms of outbreak control. They haven't been able to do it effectively in West Africa. They've been missing people which is why the numbers continue to increase. They don't want to miss anybody here -- Wolf?

BLITZER: Yeah. 6,000-plus people have been infected and more than half of them have already died. So this is a serious crisis and there have been some estimates by the CDC in Atlanta maybe as many as a million people in West Africa could be infected by early next year.

Cristina, the drug, ZMapp, as it's called, has shown at least some promise against Ebola. It's the experimental drug given to those two American patients who contracted Ebola while serving in West Africa. They then came back to the United States, went to Emory University Hospital. They got this drug. A limited supply.

You're studying what's going on. Are there plans to increase production? I know the FDA hasn't approved it yet. What are you hearing?

CRISTINA ALESCI, CNN MONEY CORRESPONDENT: Well, it there's actually no supply. I went to the National Institutes of Health today and I asked them about how much was left of this particular treatment and they said that all of the available doses have been distributed. So as a result, the company that actually makes ZMapp -- that's Malpractice Biopharmaceuticals -- said in a statement that it's working with the government to ramp up productions.

Keep in mind, this is not -- this is not a treatment that can be produced overnight. It requires a specialized tobacco plant that needs several weeks to grow. So we're talking about what could be a lengthy time before we get any decent amount available.

Now also keep in mind, this has raised questions as to why the FDA doesn't have an approved treatment for Ebola, given the fact that two government agencies have funded private research and development on this front and part of the answer, actually, could be sequestration. You know, we had the NIH's top doctor two weeks ago basically say in a public forum that budget cuts did hurt the agency's ability to push forward some of this research and development. We have to keep an eye on how much funding is going to this. And also, President Obama has asked Congress for an additional $58 million to ramp up production. That might help there -- Wolf?

BLITZER: All right. Thanks very much.

Sanjay, stand by. I know we're getting more information constantly on what's going on in Dallas, Texas.

We're also learning new details about the patient, Thomas Eric Duncan. Duncan's half brother, Wilfred Smallwood, doesn't believe Duncan knew he had Ebola when he left Liberia.

Mr. Smallwood is joining us from Phoenix.

Mr. Smallwood, thanks very much for joining us.

First of all, have you been in direct touch with your half brother, and if you have, what are you hearing? How is he doing?

WILFRED SMALLWOOD, BROTHER OF EBOLA PATIENT THOMAS ERIC DUNCAN: Well, as far as we're concerned, family, after the news of him betting Ebola and then taking to the hospital, we have called the hospital and they will not allow us to talk to him at the hospital.

BLITZER: What can you tell us about his condition some what have you heard about that?

SMALLWOOD: Well, as far as I'm concerned, they say he has Ebola. But we have not been able to talk to him. Only the kids and his wife, his woman.

BLITZER: He came to Dallas to see his girlfriend, not legally married, but you and he, what, you have the same mother is that right?

SMALLWOOD: Eric is my brother. We have the same mother. He was born in 1972 in Liberia.

BLITZER: You came to the United States how many years ago from Liberia?

SMALLWOOD: I came here 2005, some nine years in the United States.

BLITZER: This is his first visit, your brother's, to the United States, right?

SMALLWOOD: His first visit to the United States, yes.

BLITZER: And there's some suspicion, because he had been in contact with a woman, a pregnant woman, in Liberia, Monrovia, just before he boarded that flight for Brussels and then Washington and then Dallas and this woman had Ebola, that he may have known he potentially could have had Ebola and wanted to get out of Liberia and get to the United States for treatment. You've heard that suspicion, to which you say?

SMALLWOOD: Well, as far as we're concerned, in Liberia, is a country we help one another. This pregnant woman was walking and was falling and he ran to help her so she can't drop and hurt herself. Nobody ever know he had Ebola because Ebola is in the system. It's not on the body. I think you run to help the person, that's all. That's what we heard. The information. He didn't know the woman according to the story. He was pregnant woman and what we do in Liberia, our tradition, is to help somebody who needs help. BLITZER: He went to help. The trip that he had to the United States,

Mr. Smallwood, do you know if that trip was long planned or if it was a last-minute decision?

SMALLWOOD: Well, as far as I'm concerned, it was two weeks -- when he got his visa two weeks before he came he called and said I got my visa from the U.S. embassy. Gave me a visa. Now I can come there. When are you coming? I may be there next week or week after next when I get my ticket ready. We said OK. We are happy you are coming. After that we gave him some money. OK. I got my ticket already I will be there by next week. Finally he came. When he got to Dallas -- our mother talked to him and talked to him a lot. He was happy here with his family.

BLITZER: You've been in the United States for nine years. Is it fair to say, for the last nine years, you have not seen your brother? Is that right?

SMALLWOOD: For nine years, I've not seen my brother. We talk on the phone and text messages, that's all.

BLITZER: Maybe Skype, stuff like that. Tell us a little bit about him, Thomas Eric Duncan. What's he like?

SMALLWOOD: Well, Thomas Eric Duncan is a very hard-working person. He's the last child of my mother. He loves work a lot and we were refugees and I lived there and I came to the United States for -- and he stay there going to school. He went to school. He has some experience and something he did in school, and then he moved to Liberia after the refugees were over in Ghana. He begin life in Liberia, got his visa to come to the United States.

BLITZER: Do you have any plans to go to Dallas to see your brother?

SMALLWOOD: If I had a plan to go see him or he come to see me until this news broke of Ebola, we had a plan to go and see him because I haven't seen him for nine years, so it was our duty, I'm going to find a ticket to go to Dallas and see him. If I did, we would be in the house. My son is there right now. They're quarantined in place.

BLITZER: Your son is being quarantined right now, that what you're saying?

SMALLWOOD: He's with them. He lived there with them too. I just talked to them this morning. The woman and my son and all of them. I talked to them a few hours ago. I talked to them every day.

BLITZER: So they can't leave that apartment. You've heard the news that Anderson Cooper reported, he poke with your brother's girlfriend who said he had been sick for a while, he was sweating overnight, sweating in the sheets. He had diarrhea. Only then did he go to the hospital emergency room where he was -- where he was vomiting. He had a fever. They sent him out. They said go home, gave him some antibiotics if you will, some pain medicine, and they just let him go back. You must be deeply -- your son has been in contact with him and being quarantined. How old is your son? SMALLWOOD: My son is 21 years old.

BLITZER: What does he say to you?

SMALLWOOD: When I asked him this morning and yesterday, about before this, before the announcement of Ebola, what happened to your uncle, he said he been here fine. We all be OK. He was trying to see if he can get a job here. I call him every day. He never tell me he was sick. He was laughing. Playing music. Until they say on Thursday. He got sick for the first time. Fever, they took him to the hospital. They went to the hospital. The doctor gave him some medications and said OK, go home. And sent him back home. When he came home, from Thursday, he was OK, Thursday. Friday, Saturday, and Sunday when he started getting a fever again. When they looked, he began to start vomiting, went to the bathroom, that's the time they had to call 911 for him. And the doctor said he had Ebola.

BLITZER: How worried are you, Mr. Smallwood, about the potential condition of your 21-year-old son who's being quarantined inside that apartment which really hasn't been cleaned up since your half brother was spending the nights there sweating and potentially leaving some very contagious material in that apartment?

SMALLWOOD: Well, I think at this issue now, we look to the CDC, who is responsible to get the people out of there and put them on prevention immediate and dot best they can do to that place. I'm just hearing from you that this man was in the bedroom sweating and all we know was fever. He started with fever and went to the hospital and the hospital sent him back home and gave him medications. On Sunday, when he started vomiting in the bathroom. My son said he vomited in the bathroom. We call 911 for him. That's it.

BLITZER: Yeah. And only now we're told the CDC is sending medical contractors to that apartment to get the sheets, pillow cases, remove them, clean up that apartment. Are you scared about the fate not only of your 21-year-old son but others who are there, including your brother's girlfriend, and other kids, children who are there?

SMALLWOOD: Well yes. I'm skeptical now because since you describe it this way, everybody is skeptical. This way, we're hearing the information he was sweating all along and the house has not been cleaned and they are quarantined there, that's a major problem to us, to everybody. That worries me now, yes.

BLITZER: So your brother, obviously, understandably so, given the spread of Ebola in Liberia, he wanted to get out of there and two weeks ago you say he got the visa from the U.S. embassy in Monrovia to come to the United States and then you say a week later he actually bought the ticket and flew to Brussels to Washington Dulles International Airport and then to Dallas, Texas. Is it your -- I don't know if you spoke to your brother but did he say to you, I have to get out of here, because I'm afraid of Ebola?

SMALLWOOD: No. He come -- he never even said. I'm happy -- I'm coming -- my son and my wife helped me I come to see them. We know it take him a long time to see his family. Coming to the United States to see the family he didn't mention Ebola, any sickness at all. He just came. He's coming to help his son, he live here. Regular and normal to visit your family and be with them. That's all we feel. He was here. We spoke and talk every day. OK. You're here. I'm fine. OK. I'm trying to find my way and come to see you guys. I try to do something. I'll come there. Maybe you come here too. Let me get money for you to come to visit me in phoenix. We discuss like that. Only recently now, they said Ebola. I don't think he knew he had Ebola. The second thing again, coming from Liberia to the United States you got to go through all the tests. I think he was tested in Africa too at the same time and went through a medical test and came to the United States. And if he had been the first time to the hospital and sent him back home with Ebola among the people, who should be blamed? Who? The hospital or my other concern, how does he get Ebola? Is it from here or Africa? That's the question.

BLITZER: Apparently, he was in contact with a pregnant woman in Monrovia who had Ebola, wound up dying. And as you pointed out, he wanted to help her, saw her collapse, went over to help her. There's one suspicion maybe that's how he got Ebola. As you know, Ebola is pretty widespread in West Africa, including in Monrovia, the capital of Liberia.

Wilfred Smallwood, we will stay in close touch with you. You're deeply concerned about your brother, deeply concerned about your son, 21-year-old son, who's there in that apartment. You're concerned about the other family members and friends who may have been in contact with your brother, Thomas Eric Duncan. Good luck to you. Good luck to all of them. And we'll certainly stay on top of this story.

Thanks very much.

We're going to have much more on this Ebola crisis coming up.

But there's other important news we're following, including the U.S. Secret Service who gets a new interim director after a string of embarrassing and potentially dangerous blunders. And we're now learning more behind-the-scenes details about the resignation of Julia Pierson as head of the Secret Service. She stepped down yesterday, 18 months after she was sworn in as the first female director of the U.S. Secret Service.

Our chief Washington correspondent, Jake Tapper, is getting more information on what's going on behind the scenes.

Tell us what you're learning.

JAKE TAPPER, CNN CHIEF WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT & CNN ANCHOR, THE LEAD: Well after the initial September 19th fence jumper happened, there are a lot of meetings between the White House officials and Secret Service officials and there was some annoyance at the fact that stories weren't all straight, the facts kept changing in private and public accounts. White House officials understood, according to a source I spoke with, there was a certain fog, not fog of war, but fog of high adrenaline incident in the White House. What I'm told was the final straw was when the incident with the

elevator breach was revealed. Of course, three days before that September 19th, a contractor who was armed with a gun was in an elevator with President Obama.

BLITZER: With a criminal record.

TAPPER: According to some accounts, yes. So what I'm told by a source is there are three things that are problematic. One, that it happened, of course. Two, that throughout these weeks and weeks of White House officials meeting with Secret Service officials, including now former Director Pierson, this incidence was never brought up. Three, Tuesday afternoon, just before the story was about to break in the press in "The Washington Post" and "The Washington Examiner," that's when the Secret Service finally told the White House, President Obama, about this breach two weeks before. That I'm told, was the final straw. That's when it was decided that President Obama really no longer had any confidence in Director Pierson, now former Director Pierson.

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BLITZER: She was pushed to resign?

TAPPER: Indeed. The idea that anybody would leave a job and resign voluntarily without another job to go to seems silly. It's all part of the Washington kabuki, but, yes, she was pushed out.

BLITZER: That's what she resigned.

You're going to have more coming up for our North American viewers, 4:00 p.m. eastern on "The Lead" with Jake Tapper.

Jake, thanks very much.

TAPPER: Thanks, Wolf.

BLITZER: The elevator breach may have been the last straw that led to the resignation of Julia Pierson, but it's just one of the security lapses that have raised questions about the agency. Lawmakers grilled Pierson about the incident during a hearing on Tuesday and they were certainly outraged over the White House fence jumper and a 2011 incident when shots were fired at the White House, that the bullets weren't discovered for four days. When they were, they were discovered by a housekeeper at the White House.

Republican Congressman Darrell Issa chairs the House committee that conducted the hearings this week and he's joining us live from San Diego.

So first of all, give us your sense where this agency, the Secret Service, is heading right now?

REP. DARRELL ISSA, (R), CALIFORNIA: Well, the major changes you're going to see is, first of all, you have an acting director who does have a strong, personal protection background. And I believe that the priority is going to be on just that, making sure the envelope around the president is clearly at 100 percent. And then you have the secretary we talked to yesterday, Jeh Johnson, who's called for a blue ribbon outside panel to go through each and every and all of these breaches and really look at where the organizational, leadership or training problems occurred. I think that panel is going to have to look at the morale problems that very much are there, as came out in our hearing yesterday. When people feel more comfortable going to the press or to Congress than they do their own bosses, that's the beginning of a statement that you have an agency in real trauma.

And, Wolf, something that bothered all of us, on the day we knew about the additional incident, and we kept asking the director if there was anything else, and we did that in unclassified and classified sessions, and she never came forward with it. I do believe that this represented a breach of either she knew and didn't say or she should have known and didn't know.

BLITZER: We know about the 2011 incident when shots were fired at the White House and nobody noticed for four days. We know about the fence jumper that not only got into the White House but into the East Room. We know about this elevator incident where there was an armed man with a criminal record standing there with the president of the United States, and the White House wasn't told about that until it was about to be published by newspapers here in Washington. Here's the question. Because you've studied it. Your committee has studied it. Are there more incidents along these lines that are about to come out?

ISSA: There are a number of additional incidents. And again, this represents the kinds of things that can happen in any organization but the corrective action, the constantly driving a 1 percent failure down to a zero percent failure, and being open and honest about the fact that if a human error happens, it has to be quickly dealt with, honestly, said to the president and the protective personnel, and then made sure it doesn't happen again, and that's where this $1.5 billion, over 6,000 individuals, 4,000 of them agents and officers, that's what they're dedicated to. Remember, this is an organization that is not law enforcement. It's guard. This is an organization that has a very focused mission of protecting a very small group of people, but protecting them at a 100 percent level.

BLITZER: They have to be 100 percent.

Darrell Issa, the chairman of this committee. Thank you for joining us.

ISSA: Thank you, Wolf.

BLITZER: Let's get a different perspective now. Senator Bernie Sanders, the Independent Senator from Vermont, is joining us right now.

Let me get your quick reaction to this Secret Service disaster that is unfolding, Senator Sanders. Do you believe the president, the first lady, the first family, they are safe right now?

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS, (I), VERMONT: Well, I certainly hope so. There's no question what we have seen is a fiasco. I'm glad that the director has resigned. And let's hope they get their act together. Regardless of political persuasion, everyone understands it's imperative that the president and other officials get the protection that they deserve in a very, very dangerous world.

BLITZER: Let's talk politics for a moment, because you've intrigued a lot of us, Senator Sanders, not only now, but over the years. Are you seriously thinking of running for the Democratic presidential nomination?

SANDERS: Well, Wolf, here's where I am. In this country today, as I think you know, the middle class is collapsing. We have more people living in poverty than almost any time in the history of this country. We have massive wealth inequality. 95 percent of new income is going to the top 1 percent. We have a Citizens United Supreme Court decision that allows billionaires, like the Koch Brothers, to buy elections. We have the global warming crisis. We have an enormous set of problems facing our nation, and, in fact, the world. And I think that the working class of this country, the middle class of this country, needs people to stand up for them and to take on the billionaire class which, today, has so much power economically and politically. And, yes, within that context, I am giving thought to running for president. But it is a very, very difficult decision. Not on easy decision. I have to assess whether there is the kind of support necessary all over this country in terms of a unprecedented grassroots movement prepared to take on the billionaire class that have so much power. That's what I'm trying to ascertain right now.

BLITZER: What's wrong with Hillary Clinton?

SANDERS: Absolutely nothing. Hillary is somebody I have known for a long time, and have a lot of respect for her. But this is not about Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders or anybody else. This is about the middle class and working class of this country. How we deal with reality, Wolf, that real unemployment today is 12 percent. Do you know what youth unemployment percent is? It is 20 percent. Our infrastructure is crumbling. We need to create millions of jobs rebuilding our infrastructure. It's not about Hillary or anybody else. It's about ideas that can reverse the decline of the middle class, create jobs, raise the minimum wage, and our disastrous trade policy, which is creating great jobs in China, but losing jobs in the United States. So we need a vigorous debate. The middle class and working class in this country needs defense. And that's some of the ideas I'm thinking about.

BLITZER: So we'll see you in New Hampshire and Iowa, some of those early states in the days ahead, is that right?

SANDERS: Well, if you're down in Durham, New Hampshire, tomorrow, I'll be there. If you'll be in Iowa this weekend, I'll be there as well.

BLITZER: That's always a good sign that you're seriously thinking of running for president of the United States.

Senator, we're going to continue these conversations down the road. Thanks very much for joining us.

SANDERS: Thank you.

BLITZER: That's it for me. I'll be back 5:00 p.m. eastern in "The Situation Room."

For our international viewers, "AMANPOUR" is coming up right after a quick break.

For viewers in North America, "NEWSROOM" with Brooke Baldwin starts right at the top of the hour.

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