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CNN NEWSROOM

Chicago Teen Busted Trying to Join ISIS; Ebola Patient Gets Experimental Drug; Break in the Manhunt for Eric Frein; Bill Clinton's Campaign Trail

Aired October 7, 2014 - 09:30   ET

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


(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning. Thank you so much for joining me. I'm Carol Costello.

Checking out top stories at 32 minutes past, this morning we're learning that 29 suspected ISIS fighters were killed overnight in air strikes near Mosul. And in Kobani, a critical town on the border of Syria and Turkey, a U.S. official confirming to CNN five coalition air strikes pounded the town overnight. Hundreds of soldiers and civilians have been killed in the weeks of fighting there.

A busy day for Joe Clancy, the new interim head of the Secret Service, known as "Father Joe." Clancy will brief staff and the Senate judiciary and homeland security committees today in Washington. Last week Julia Pierson, the first female director of the Secret Service, resigned in the aftermath of a fence jumper who gained access to the White House.

A Chicago teenager accused of trying to join ISIS is waking up in federal custody. Federal agents busted 19-year-old Mohammed Khan at Chicago's O'Hare Airport. A criminal complaint says Khan was hoping to do humanitarian work or join a police force for ISIS, but now he's facing up to 15 years behind bars. The Pentagon says it takes cases like these seriously.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REAR ADM. JOHN KIRBY, PENTAGON PRESS SECRETARY: We're very concerned. And it's something that Secretary Hagel's talked about many, many times about this foreign fighter threat, this idea that people could go get radicalized either here or over there and then learn skills, terrorist capabilities and bring them back home.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Our chief national security correspondent Jim Sciutto live in Washington with more for you.

Good morning, Jim.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. We've got a good taste in the last 24 hours of the dual threat that

ISIS poses. On the ground in Syria, you have ISIS fighters continuing to surround the town of Kobani despite U.S. air strikes. And here, back at home, you have another American, it's believed about 12 of them, about a dozen, have attempted or succeed in going to Syria to join ISIS to fight. This latest one caught just as he was about to board his plane.

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SCIUTTO (voice-over): He told his parents he felt an obligation to migrate to ISIS-controlled land. Chicago area teen Mohammed Hamzah Khan is, say federal prosecutors, the latest of roughly a dozen Americans to volunteer for ISIS. He was arrested at Chicago's O'Hare Airport just as he was about to board what he allegedly said was a one-way journey to Syria and to war.

On the ground there, ISIS is advancing, even in the face of American air power. In Kobani, northern Syria, Kurdish fighters are locked in bloody street battles with ISIS. The militants have already raised their signature black flags on a building at a hilltop overlooking the town, while raining down shell fire from tanks and heavy artillery.

Quoting one fighter, a reporter for Arabic al Ann TV (ph) tweeted, "we hoped American planes would help us. Instead, American tanks in the hands of ISIS are killing us." U.S. officials call the effort against ISIS there ongoing.

JEN PSAKI, SPOKESWOMAN, STATE DEPARTMENT: This is something where we've long said from the beginning that this would take some time. We're working, you know, closely to do everything we can to help push back ISIL in this part of the country.

SCIUTTO: In Iraq, where U.S. officials hope the combination of coalition air power and Iraqi army units would turn the tide, ISIS is still advancing as well, capturing the city of Hit (ph) and closing in on Ramadi. With Iraqi forces faltering, the U.S. deployed Apache attack helicopters, originally intended to protect the U.S. embassy in Baghdad, to come to the rescue of overwhelmed Iraqi soldiers.

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R), SOUTH CAROLINA: This strategy of aerial bombardment is not going to work to destroy ISIL, but we've got a series of half measures with ISIL that are going to draw this conflict out and will not lead to the ISIL's destruction, which makes it much more dangerous.

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SCIUTTO: And air strikes continued overnight, nine of them in Syria, four in Iraq. Of those nine in Syria, five of them were around, Carol, the town of Kobani, doing their best to help those embattled Kurdish fighters. But I'll tell you, from our own reporters on the ground, from contacts with Kurdish fighters, you're hearing of a city really there fighting for its life even with the cover of American air power, gun battles in the streets, many of the residents have fled. It's really an alarming situation there right on the Turkish border with Syria.

COSTELLO: Jim Sciutto reporting live from Washington this morning, thank you.

President Obama will consider more airport screening for people who come into the United States from West Africa. We don't know exactly what or when, but it will happen eventually.

In the meantime, Eric Duncan remains in a Dallas hospital fighting for his life. Is he now receiving an experimental drug doctors hope will save him. Duncan's partner, Louise, is not so sure.

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LOUISE, THOMAS DUNCAN'S PARTNER (voice-over): I am worried, I am sad and you don't know how frustrated I am. I'm just asking God and asking the American government the same medicine they giving the people that come from Liberia, the Ebola people that came, the people with Ebola that came in Atlanta, please help him save his life.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: With me now, Dr. Alexander van Tulleken, with Fordham University's Institute of International Humanitarian Affairs.

Welcome, doctor.

DR. ALEXANDER VAN TULLEKEN, SR. FELLOW, INSTITUTE FOR INTL. HUMANITARIAN AFFAIRS: Thanks.

COSTELLO: So, Mr. Duncan appears to be getting worse, not better. Of course that's not what happened to the two American aid workers who were treated here. So what's different about Mr. Duncan's case?

VAN TULLEKEN: I think we are dealing with very small numbers of patients. It's very hard to make a generalization. And every case of Ebola progresses differently. It kills about half of the people that get treatment. And so, in some cases, it gets worse, some cases it gets better and we don't exactly know why. It may well be that the Americans did much better because they sought care earlier.

COSTELLO: And, of course, Mr. Duncan was sent home initially, right -

VAN TULLEKEN: Yes.

COSTELLO: And treated with antibiotics.

VAN TULLEKEN: Yes. Yes. Exactly. So these things - I mean the earlier you can get care, the better. And it seems in this case that that was missed and so he was symptomatic for at least four days in the community. So as well as being contagious, that's - and that's been the story, but that's a tragedy for him and it's a tragedy for his family because it makes it - I mean it makes it far harder to get through the (INAUDIBLE) to survive it.

COSTELLO: Doctors are also treating him with this experimental drug and it's a third drug, right? So why are so many drugs apparently effective, experimental drugs effective in treating Ebola or are they?

VAN TULLEKEN: Well, so we have absolutely no idea if any of these drugs are effective at all. So there are three different drugs that we've now used. ZMapp is antibodies. We've run out of ZMapp because it's very hard to make. It's made in tobacco plants and it takes a long time for plants to make antibodies (INAUDIBLE). We haven't got any more supplies. The other drug is what's called an antisense (ph) RNA drug, so it interferes with the virus replication. Again, we've got animal models that say it works. We don't know if it works in people. We don't know what the side effects are.

And then this new drug that's actually developed for other viruses, and it's what's called an off license application. So it's licensed for other viruses. It's worth having a go in this case. But even if he survives, we will have no idea if this drug works without bigger trials here.

COSTELLO: Well, that's very strange because then you ask yourself, well, why use them if you have no idea if it's ever going to work?

VAN TULLEKEN: It's the last ditch - it's the last ditch attempt. I mean it makes sense in the absence of being able to do anything else. I mean it's hugely frustrating as a physician managing patients for whom you don't have a thing to do beyond supportive care. So most of what he's getting, they're managing his clotting, they're managing his fluids and they'll be supporting organs that fail. So his kidneys fail, he'll get dialysis. His lungs fail, he'll get ventilated. And so on and so on. But that's the most they can do.

COSTELLO: I also want to ask you about this Spanish nurse's assistant.

VAN TULLEKEN: Right.

COSTELLO: You know, she contracted Ebola in Spain, the first person ever to contract Ebola outside of West Africa. How concerned should we be?

VAN TULLEKEN: (INAUDIBLE). So I think -- I think concern is right if you're running a hospital, if you're a public health administrator and a government, and I think that certain should motivate them to be absolutely bullet proof. I mean we have to be ahead of the curve on this stuff. So it seems like the suits they were using in Spain, the suit she was wearing, was not up to W.H.O. standards. And that's just - it's straightforward. The standard exists. You can buy the suits. You can be prepared. We've had months to prepare for this.

When you hear the mayor of Dallas saying the paperwork was very complicated. You think, come on, man, you've had eight months to get the paperwork done. And so there's - there's an attitude of, you know, maybe it won't happen here. I think anyone running a hospital has to be - has to assume that it will happen there. I think for the general public concern leads to sort of fear and panic and that's what worries me. I think our reaction should be compassion, it should be sympathy, it should be empathy and it should be motivated to do things. Yes.

COSTELLO: Along those lines, we do have a Pew poll, and I must say that I was surprised by these numbers and kind of proud of the American people because this Pew poll shows just 11 percent of Americans are very concerned about contracting Ebola.

VAN TULLEKEN: I think that's - I think that's probably right and I think those 11 percent should be more worried about crossing the road, but I think that's - you know, bearing in mind the coverage and the extent to which -- what a difficult story it is to communicate. I think that's not bad but most people are right not to worry about it. But I think we should worry about containing it in West Africa because the impact we're going to see is things like screening at airports, screening of inbound passengers. You're going to get huge numbers of false positives, which mean we'll be isolating people who definitely don't have Ebola, be isolating people, flu season's coming. And so we're going to have an impact on the economy, on airports, on waiting times, on travel, all these kind of things become a headache. So for all sorts of reasons, including humanitarian reasons, we have to be containing this in West Africa. That's where the attention should be directed.

COSTELLO: Dr. van Tulleken, thanks so much for joining me this morning. I appreciate it.

VAN TULLEKEN: Thanks.

COSTELLO: Still to come in the NEWSROOM, a possible huge break in the hunt for an alleged cop killer. CNN's Miguel Marquez has the details for you next.

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COSTELLO: A possible break in the manhunt for alleged cop killer Eric Frein. Officials believe they have found a handwritten letter by the 31-year-old survivalist. They say it essentially amounts to a confession detailing his ambush of two Pennsylvania state police troopers back on September 12th and how he planning on evading police in the woods.

CNN's Miguel Marquez joins us now more on this. Did Eric Frein mean to leave the letter behind or did he accidentally drop it?

MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: This is the question, and whether or not this is to try to fake out cops or whether or not he meant for them to find it. It's better to think of this as a diary entry, where they found it along with some of his gear at one point, and it details, they believe it is him, they think that it is completely legit because it details the meticulousness, which he planned. The stalking and the killing of one state trooper and wounding of another one. And it was done along with a backpack. There were other items that were found there, pipe bombs were found by him at this encampment that they came across, an AK-47 found in another place, soiled diapers from this individual found in another place.

COSTELLO: Why is he leaving these things behind? Is it because he feels they're closing in on him and he leaves immediately?

MARQUEZ: It is possible. He had two years to plan this. Clearly his planning was meticulous, the note that they found indicates that and that this is somebody who may have several stashes out in the woods there in Pennsylvania. There are many places for him to hide. Law enforcement saying they're trying to use infrared technology to try to spot a heat signature at night, but because of the thick foliage from the trees it's very hard to use. There's also a lot of cabins and bed and breakfasts and buildings out there that have gone into foreclosure, that are empty, lots of places for one to hide, to put other stashes, to even set traps for searchers if he wanted to.

COSTELLO: Well that's interesting, because I thought the cold weather coming in might help police and drive him out, but if he's hiding in these vacant buildings --

MARQUEZ: If he can find water, heat, and a little bit of food, he can survive for a very long time, if he's as good a survivalist as he claims. He's clearly been planning this for some time. There's been a lot of sightings of him, not a lot of bona fide sightings, but there was at least one where police got very close to him, they could see him, but he escaped. Where he's going, whether others are helping him, all still questions that authorities are trying to answer.

COSTELLO: Miguel Marquez, thanks so much. I appreciate it.

Still to come, Bill Clinton back on the campaign trail, trying to lift his fellow Democrats to victory in the battle for control of the Senate. Brianna Keilar is in Little Rock this morning. Good morning, Brianna.

BRIANNA KEILAR, SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning to you, Carol. Bill Clinton here in his home state of Arkansas trying to help out Democrats out, as you said, with a two-day four-city swing. This is his biggest push of the midterm campaign season and I'll tell you who he's trying to get out to vote, after a quick break.

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COSTELLO: Clinton is on the campaign trail. Before you jump to conclusions, I'm not talking about Hillary, I'm talking about Bill. He's taking center stage in his own state of Arkansas, where Democratic Senator Mark Pryor, is in a tight race to hang on to his seat. The large and enthusiastic crowd welcoming Clinton, who first met Pryor when the senator was just 11-years-old. Our senior political correspondent, Brianna Keilar is in Little Rock. Good morning, Brianna.

KEILAR: Good morning to you, Carol. Here in Arkansas, Bill Clinton is larger than life and also simultaneously so familiar. He's really part of the political fabric here, and he is in this state campaigning for those who he has close ties to and he's trying to get younger voters to the polls.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And president Bill Clinton!

KEILAR: It's Bill Clinton's biggest midterm push, a four-stop two-day swing through his home state.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ladies and gentlemen, the 42nd governor of Arkansas, Bill Clinton.

KEILAR: As Republican challengers hammer Democrats as proxies for President Obama, Clinton is pushing back.

FORMER PRESIDENT, BILL CLINTON: They want you to make this a protest vote. All three of these races they're saying, you may like these guys but hey, you know what you have to do, you got to vote against the president. Be faithful to the true heritage of your state. Don't vote for what they tell you you have to be against, vote for you what you know you should be for.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Your next word is Pryor.

KEILAR: But with Obama's popularity hovering around 30 percent here, the GOP and outside groups are capitalizing on it.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Pryor. O-b-a-m-a.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Close enough.

KEILAR: Arkansas' November 4th ballot reads like cards from Bill Clinton's 1980's Rolodex. Mark Pryor, one of the most vulnerable Democrats in the Senate, was just a boy when he first met Clinton.

SEN. MARK PRYOR (D), ARKANSAS: Can I get a selfie? Right? Let's do it. Let's do it.

KEILAR: Former Congressman Mike Ross, now running for governor, was Clinton's driver when he ran for governor in 1982. These Democrats are hoping Clinton's popularity rubs off on them. Registered voters say a Clinton endorsement is the most important Democratic nod when evaluating a candidate. Far more than even Hillary Clinton's stamp of approval, according to a recent poll.

PROF. GARY WEKKIN, UNIVERSITY OF CENTRAL ARKANSAS: The Republican successes here are so recent that one cannot say that the worm has turned. The worm is still alive.

KEILAR: : But the political climate is definitely trending red in this state, as Democrats hang their hopes on an unreliable voting block. How do Democrats win in Arkansas?

CLINTON: Do more of this. If young people vote, these people will win, they've got a good poll today.

KEILAR: That's the real challenge, Carol, in these tight races here in Arkansas, young voters tend to stay home during these off-year elections, compared to presidential elections, and you can see the former president trying to combat that with his schedule here of his four stops, three of them are at college campuses. Carol?

COSTELLO: Alrght, Brianna Keilar reporting live from Little Rock, Arkansas this morning, thanks. The next hour of CNN NEWSROOM after a break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) COSTELLO: Good morning, I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me. We start this hour with another U.S. citizen accused of trying to get to Syria to join brutal ISIS terrorists. This time, it's a 19-year-old boy, 19-year-old young man, I should say, from suburban Chicago. His name is Mohammed Khan and he reportedly wrote a three-page letter to his mother and father telling them he wanted to do humanitarian work or join a police force for ISIS and asking his parents to come with him.