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New York Doctor Tests Positive for Ebola; Interview with Congressman Jason Chaffetz of Utah; Ottawa Shooter Has Links to Jihadists

Aired October 24, 2014 - 08:00   ET

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


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CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, welcome to NEW DAY. It's Friday, October 24th, now just about 8:00 in the East. Chris Cuomo here with Alisyn Camerota and we do have breaking news overnight.

New York's mayor says there's no need to worry despite the first case of Ebola being diagnosed in New York City. His name Dr. Craig Spencer. He tested positive about a week after returning from West Africa; that's where he worked for Doctors Without Borders treating Ebola victims. Now he's in an isolation unit at the hospital as officials trace his movements over the last week, including bowling, riding the subway, and eating at a restaurant. But public health officials say that was before he exhibited symptoms.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: And now Spencer's fiancee and two friends who had contact with him are under quarantine. And, moments ago, our Sanjay Gupta learned from an administration official that mandatory quarantines are now being considered for any health care workers returning from West Africa.

CNN's Poppy Harlow is at New York's Bellevue Hospital where Dr. Spencer is being treated.

What's the latest, Poppy?

POPPY HARLOW, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning to you, Alisyn.

What we know from the mayor of New York City as of last night was that this patient, the 33-year-old doctor is in "good shape." They are, of course, hoping for a rapid recovery. They're doing everything they can at the hospital behind me, Bellevue Hospital.

We also know that this is the hospital deemed prepared for any situation like this. The governor of New York saying the city is as prepared as it could possibly be. We also know that overnight, the CDC sent their rapid response team here to New York. They are on the ground helping in any way that they can.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MAYOR BILL DE BLASIO (D), NEW YORK CITY: We want to state at the outset, there is no reason for New Yorkers to be alarmed. HARLOW (voice-over): This morning, the first positive case of Ebola

hits New York City -- 33-year-old Dr. Craig Spencer now in an isolation unit like this one, at Manhattan's Bellevue Hospital.

Dr. Spencer returned to New York after treating Ebola patients in Guinea last Friday, though doctors say he wasn't symptomatic until yesterday.

October 14th, Dr. Spencer flies from Guinea to Brussels, Belgium, arriving at New York's JFK Airport, showing no symptoms on his journey.

On Tuesday, Spencer feels tired and fatigued. He was self- monitoring for symptoms, taking his temperature twice a day. But without fever, he goes out in public.

Wednesday, he goes on a three- mile run, eats at a restaurant, and visits the popular park, the Highline. He then travels from Manhattan to Brooklyn on the subway.

He later takes an Uber taxi to go bowling in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, at an alley called The Gutter, now closed until it can be sanitized.

Thursday morning, Spencer develops a fever and immediately contacts Doctors Without Borders, who calls the health department. That afternoon, he is rushed to Bellevue Hospital and put directly in isolation, later testing positive for Ebola.

Authorities reiterated Thursday that careful protocols were followed smoothly at every step, and for New Yorkers the risk is, quote, "close to nil."

DR. MARY FRANCES BASSETT, COMMISSIONER, NEW YORK CITY DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH: He was not symptomatic at that time. He had no fever. And so he did not have a stage of disease that creates a risk of contagiousness on the subway.

HARLOW: The city now on heightened alert.

GOV. ANDREW CUOMO (D), NEW YORK: Coordinating and drilling from airports to transportation to subway stations, to ambulances to hospitals, so we are as ready as one could be.

HARLOW: Health officials note three people had contact with Spencer, two friends and his fiancee, all doing well but in quarantine.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HARLOW: And we are also told by city officials that Dr. Spencer did not leave his apartment at all once he developed that fever, except for when he was transported by EMS and ambulance here to Bellevue Hospital. That is good news, because the disease is really increasingly contagious once you develop those symptoms.

The hospital where he's employed here, Columbia Presbyterian calls him a responsible and committed physician, noting he has not been back to work once or treated any patients, Alisyn, since he returned from Guinea. Important to note in this discussion, there is a lot of criticism from some on social media and elsewhere about him traveling around this city when he returned. This is a doctor who gave of himself to go treat patients that are dying by the thousands in West Africa, trying to save lives. Now, his wife is on the line here.

CAMEROTA: That's great perspective, Poppy Harlow. Thanks so much for that.

Let's bring in now, Utah Representative Jason Chaffetz. He's a member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which will hold a hearing on the government's response to Ebola later this morning.

Congressman, nice to see you.

REP. JASON CHAFFETZ (R), UTAH: Good morning.

CAMEROTA: So, what are the big concerns that you will be raising at the hearing today?

CHAFFETZ: Well, one of them is about our military. We have nearly 4,000 troops that are in the infected area. How are we treating them? What sort of exposure problems did they have? How are we going to bring them home? What is their condition?

These are great heroes, but you got a lot of families across the country concerned about those people.

We also have the inspector general who is coming in and says that the federal government is woefully underprepared, when you look at the personal protective equipment there has not been good management of this. Many of the things that have expiration dates are expired. This is a scathing report, having read his testimony and what he's going to say later this morning. It's not a pretty picture from the preparedness from the federal government.

CAMEROTA: But the CDC tries to assuage our fears saying the new guidelines. Their new guidelines are more protective. They now conform more with the Doctors Without Borders guidelines.

So, does that help your fear factor?

CHAFFETZ: No. I mean, this person now in isolation in New York City -- bless his heart, I mean, you got to love a guy who goes into an infected area, wants to help people, but he was with Doctors Without Borders, which is a wonderful organization, but comes back here, and has the disease, and I think we immediately need to look at travel bans and quarantines. I don't buy into the idea of a self-quarantine. That's obviously not working.

And we're sending a lot of mixed signals and I think that's part of the discussion this morning as well.

CAMEROTA: Sanjay Gupta, our medical correspondent, has reported that he just got information within the past hour of government officials saying that they are considering a mandatory quarantine for people returning from those West African countries.

Do you know about that?

CHAFFETZ: I don't know that the administration is doing that, but those of us for a couple weeks now that have been saying you should probably put some sort of travel ban in place and if you've had direct contact with an Ebola patient, somebody who has the disease, we're going to have to put new quarantine. It's good for you. It's good for your friends and your loved ones. It's good for the United States of America.

I just don't think you can have somebody with direct contact with an Ebola patient and then allow them to go bowling in New York City. That's just -- that's just not going to work.

CAMEROTA: And, by the way, this mandatory quarantine would be for health care workers, that's what we're talking about.

Will the new Ebola czar Ron Klain be at the hearing for you to ask questions of?

CHAFFETZ: No, we invited him.

Congressman Issa, chairman of our oversight committee, invited him to come. He's been on the job only since Wednesday. But really when you come to Congress you're there to answer questions from the people of the United States of America and he refused to come. I think that gets him off on the wrong foot. I think the country would like to hear from him and what he's doing. We have a lot of questions for him but he has refused to attend.

CAMEROTA: You have been public with saying that you wish that a surgeon general were in charge of this effort. You've been calling for a surgeon general. Of course, there are many Democrats who say that Republicans in the Senate have blocked the president's nominee for a surgeon general that we could have had one a year ago but Republicans have been an impediment.

What's your response?

CHAFFETZ: Well, I haven't gotten in the middle of the Senate fight. I'm here in the House.

There is the office of the surgeon general. There is an acting surgeon general. They have access to thousands of people across the country that are medical professionals and have expertise. I don't understand why we wouldn't leverage them.

Our criticism of Mr. Klain, I'm sure he's a nice gentleman, but he has no medical experience. They talk to the White House about somebody who is not an implementer not a doctor. I want a doctor, somebody who understands the science here to try to coordinate different agencies, local and federal, and then when we do have that personnel that we have, the czar that the president picked, he won't come answer questions from Congress, from Democrats and Republicans. I don't -- I don't understand that. But I think the surgeon general's office needs to be particularly

involved. There are other agencies and people within health and human services that also need to be intimately involved in this, if not leading this.

CAMEROTA: Well, of course, I mean, that's what the administration says Ron Klain is tasked with, coordinating all these different siloed agencies, the NIH, the WHO, the CDC, and getting them all to sort of be on the same page, that he has managerial expertise. What do you say to that?

CHAFFETZ: We have questions for him, about how he's doing this. We're going to have the inspector general who took an objective view over a long period of time came in and they'll say the federal government is woefully underprepared. They don't have the personal protective equipment.

I've got serious questions how our customs and border patrol agents, wonderful people, how are they supposed to assess the travelers that are coming into the United States of America and try to guess whether or not do they have Ebola, were they in the infected area? What should we do with them?

You have doctors that can't make these calls in the infected area. How are you going to have a customs and border patrol agent dealing with this? I -- there's a lot of questions for this person.

CAMEROTA: All right. Congressman, we will be watching your hearing today closely. Thanks so much for taking time for us this morning.

CHAFFETZ: Thank you.

CAMEROTA: All right. Let's go over to Chris.

CUOMO: Questions about what's going on with that issue and questions on what's going on with the new threat of terrorism, because we do have more information now on this terrible shooting in Canada. This morning, there's disturbing video surfacing of what appears to show the Ottawa shooter in the midst of his deadly rampage.

And take a look, here it is for you to see. It's not going to show you anything horrible but it appears to show the shooter hijacking a car moments after gunning down a soldier at the National War Memorial.

We're learning more about the shooter's ties to Islamic extremism through social media. Sources tell CNN the 32-year-old did have links to jihadists in Canada, including one who went to fight in Syria.

Meantime, lawmakers are giving the sergeant-at-arms, Kevin Vickers, he's the sergeant-at-arms of the House of Commons, the man who carries the mace, got a well-deserved standing ovation a day after he took out the shooter. Didn't miss a day of work. And luckily, he stopped that shooter before more damage could be done.

Let's bring CNN's Ana Cabrera. She's live from Ottawa with more.

Good morning, Ana.

ANA CABRERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Chris.

We now know the gunman came to Ottawa on October 2nd. He was staying at a homeless shelter. He apparently trying to get a passport and his mother now revealing to authorities he may have wanted to go to Syria.

Of course, investigators are still probing into the gunman's past and as they do that, we have this new video that shows Wednesday's attack that happened here at Canada's National War Memorial, before he went on to the parliament building.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CABRERA (voice-over): This surveillance video released by Canadian police Thursday gives a chilling play-by-play of the shooting rampage on Ottawa's Parliament Hill, the 32-year-old shooter, Michael Zehaf- Bibeau, is seen running from car after gunning down soldier Nathan Cirillo at the War Memorial. Spotting his gun, some bystanders run in fear, others rush to Cirillo's aid.

MARGARET LERHE, WITNESS: There are four or five people around this fallen soldier all working as a team.

CABRERA: Next, he hijacks a car, the driver seen running away. A different angle shows Bibeau running into a main parliament building with Canadian police giving chase. Inside parliament, shots fired.

(GUNSHOTS)

CABRERA: Moments later, sergeant-at-arms, Kevin Vickers, shoots and kills the suspect on the scene.

As parliament reconvened Thursday, Vickers' bravery was honored by a standing ovation.

Now, authorities are learning more about a possible motive, looking into Zehaf-Bibeau's suspected ties to Islamic extremists in Canada via the Internet.

BOB PAULSON, RCMP COMMISSIONER: I think the passport figured prominently if his motives and his -- you know, I'm not inside his head, but I think it was central to what was driving him.

CABRERA: Authorities believe that prior to his attack, Zehaf-Bibeau had converted to Islam and say he was applying for a Canadian passport to travel to Syria. Those actions tipped off police to conduct a background check.

This man told CNN's Martin Savidge that he and Bibeau were staying at the Ottawa mission for homeless men and that he talked to him about travel plans.

BRIAN, WITNES: He wanted to go back to Libya apparently. I don't know if that's where he was from or if that's where he just wanted to go or -- to take part in whatever is going on over there. CABRERA: In 2011, facing robbery charges, Zehaf-Bibeau underwent a

psychiatric evaluation. In papers obtained by CNN, the doctor told the judge Zehaf-Bibeau was addicted to crack cocaine and that he wanted to go do jail to break the addiction, and as a sacrifice to pay for his mistakes.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CABRERA: Now, given Zehaf-Bibeau's criminal record that included drugs and violence, authorities in Canada say he was on the radar but we also never on the 90 or so list of names of potentially high-risk threats, something authorities are looking at more closely. We also know that U.S. authorities are also investigating whether he had any communication or contact with suspected extremists in the United States. We do know he traveled to the U.S. at least four times in recent years, most recently in 2013 -- Chris.

CUOMO: All right, Ana, thank you very much for the reporting. We're following this story, a lot of news this morning.

Let's get to you John Berman in for Michaela.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Thanks, Chris.

The United States investigating reports of ISIS fighters using chemical weapons in a battle near Baghdad last month. "The Washington Post" says hospital officials confirmed a yellow gas the men were attacked with was chlorine.

President Obama will meet with his national security team to discuss ISIS strategy and Turkey's government agreeing to let Iraqi Peshmerga fighters cross their territory into Kobani to help in the fight ISIS.

Another mass kidnapping in Nigeria by gunmen believed to belong to the terror group Boko Haram, armed fighters storming two Christian villages, kidnapping at least 60 women and girls. During one raid, residents say fighters left money behind for each woman implying they would be used as sex slaves. The kidnappings happened near a town where more than 200 schoolgirls were kidnapped back in April.

The sentencing hearing for Jodi Arias will resume on Monday. It was suddenly halted Thursday following the dismissal of another juror, the second this week. The panel will decide whether Arias will be sentenced to life or the death penalty for the 2008 murder of her ex- boyfriend.

And a back injury could spell the end of a Hall of Fame NBA career. Lakers point guard Steve Nash, such great court vision, such great passing, he was hoping for one more chance to play with Kobe Bryant and the Lakers. He hurt himself apparently carrying bags. The 40- year-old will miss the entire season. He played 15 games last season because of a foot problem.

I saw him on the street about a month ago and he looks less like a professional athlete than any human being I've ever seen. He's just regular guy walking down the street, looks like the Kelly Leak character from the "Bad News Bearers", the original "Bad News Bearers."

CAMEROTA: Yes, I love him.

BERMAN: Just a regular guy. But such great court vision.

CAMEROTA: But he doesn't look very tall.

BERMAN: No, I think he's six feet tall.

CUOMO: Oh, is that tall he was?

BERMAN: Yes, yes.

CUOMO: I thought he was a little taller than me, 6'3". They all look so small because they're huge.

BERMAN: Well, compared to you -- yes, they are also small.

CUOMO: You know, he was known as Mini Maravich. Remember Pete Maravich?

BERMAN: The Pistol.

CUOMO: Nash wasn't known for firing them up as much as Maravich. His ability to throw the ball to people, pass the ball where you didn't think he'd see them. Legendary.

CAMEROTA: Eyes on the side of his head.

BERMAN: Also a great Canadian.

CUOMO: It's true.

CAMEROTA: All right. Back to our top story, a New York City cop attacked by a man armed with an axe in the middle of the day. Was this an act of terrorism? We'll ask our counterterrorism analyst.

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CUOMO: Two New York City police officers are recovering this morning after a brutal and mindless attack by a man wielding an axe. Authorities are now investigating whether the attack was inspired by Islamic extremism or some type of radicalized thought that may have been picked up on social media activity. Now, this comes after two attacks in Canada this week also linked to radical jihadism.

So, let's discuss this with Philip Mudd, CNN counterterrorism analyst, former deputy director of the CIA Counterterrorism Center.

Mr. Mudd, thank you very much for joining us on NEW DAY.

As always, let's deal with the obvious. Is this terrorism? This cat with the axe here in the city, this man who tried to kill people up in Ottawa yesterday, the man who was also trying to do it on Monday?

PHILIP MUDD, CNN COUNTERTERRORISM ANALYST: It's not -- I think the Monday incident was terrorism. The incident in Ottawa is terrorism. The technical definition is someone who wants to attack or murder innocents for a political cause. I think we saw that clearly on Monday and Wednesday.

The New York incident, I'm not certain yet. I've seen what we on his Facebook page, but you have to assess intent if you want to, in the U.S. government standard, decide that somebody's a terrorist. I'm not sure that we know the intent of the New York attacker yet.

CUOMO: Well, so it's about whether or not you know why he did it. If he did it --

MUDD: That's right.

CUOMO: -- because he is spewing some type of thoughts or misguided thoughts about what Islam actually is not, doesn't that put him in the category of motivation?

MUDD: It does, but I think when you look at these cases we're very quick, whatever it is, about 12 hours in to assessing what was going on in a dead man's mind. In this country, we jump quickly from assessing what happened at the incident. We had a hatchet against a couple of policemen to what's happening in somebody's head.

My experience is, it's pretty hard to figure out what was going on in a dead man's head.

CUOMO: Also, as I'm asking you the question I figure to myself, why do I care? Why do I care if it's terrorism? I don't care what you call it. The question is how do you stop it?

That's one of the things probably most missed in these recent event. People think this is the easy part. It's just not as many killed, unsophisticated guys, not part of any bigger group, no al Qaeda or ISIS coming out and taking claim for it, so it's not as scary. I'm worried that the opposite is true.

MUDD: Look, one of the challenges in these cases is when you work in the business, watching the media, the media deals with the incidents that are successes for terrorists, that is when somebody's hurt or killed, but let's go behind the scenes for a second, Chris.

When you're on the inside this is a hospital triage room, there are cases coming in every day, you have to rank the cases. Lower ranking somebody who is raising money for terrorism, a federal crime but it's not going to kill somebody typically in the United States. You've got to start stepping up, somebody who's in direct contact with a terrorist operator, somebody who is training, somebody's traveled to Syria or Iraq for training, somebody using language suggesting they're going to commit an act of violence.

At the bottom of that tier are the thousands of people who have hate speech on a Facebook page. So when those cases are coming into the triage room at the FBI or CIA, if you want to tell me we can quickly prioritize somebody's Facebook page when they say I don't like America, you've got to budget the FBI for about ten times of what their budget today because there's just too many people to follow.

CUOMO: Well, especially of this type. I mean, look at the conversation we're seeing -- forget if there's any connection to different events than the other, other than maybe copycatting, you have people with troubled backgrounds, deranged mindsets, desperation and vulnerability for some sense of purpose, linking on to a misconstruction of Islam as a motivation of their own glory and then they commit an act of violence.

I mean, how do you keep track of that? There have to be a million of them.

MUDD: There are. I mean, to be blunt you walk in the DMV and 10 percent of the people in there are nuts. One of the problems we face is the newness of the terrorist phenomena, the fact that it's random, the fact that people don't understand the ideological motivation. But we deal with gang violence in this country, we deal with white supremacists. We deal with sovereign nation, people who are nuts.

I think one of the questions we have to ask over time as we grow in sophistication with this problem and you've seen this in Ottawa, people are cool about dealing with this, is to understand before we go on to whether someone is motivated by a religion or a warped version of religion, it's like white supremacists, sovereign nation people.

A lot of guys have a screw loose. We have to focus on that as well and the fact that we have random violence we accept every day in America, in other spheres, but we seem to think somehow we can stop it when the motivation is Islamic extremism.

Here is the answer: Chris, we can't.

CUOMO: We just can't do it. There just too much, it doesn't mean the system's broken when it does happen and I had an intel guy say to me yesterday, how do you stop it? He said the only tool that we know that works in stopping situations like this, the government has no control over, and that is community awareness, that if you know that someone who is a little off kilter is starting to talk dangerous talk, let people know who can help and assess that guy.

Do you agree with that?

MUDD: I do. I think that's one step that works. We've seen it work in cases in the United States. I remember a case at the bureau where a photo clerk at a store was processing photos that showed military training, forwarded them to the FBI. That was one of the more significant cases I remember at the bureau.

Those guys weren't nuts. They were banding together to attack a military base. We knew because a photo clerk was processing photos.

There is one other thing, Chris, here, that's frustrating. I was with you last year talking about the Edward Snowden revelations, about how much NSA collects on things like social media, things like what this guy in New York had on his Facebook page. Americans I think many were disturbed by how much their government

collected. Today, and this was really frustrating on the inside, people are saying, hey, why don't you look at people's Facebook pages? When you're on the inside and you're bounced between don't collect too much of our private information and why don't you collect stuff so you can find this guy, that is really frustrating.

We're on the first chapter of understanding what American citizens want their government to collect because if you want stuff like this stopped, one stage, citizen awareness. Next stage, do you want me to look at their Facebook pages?

CUOMO: It is a daunting question. We have to decide who we want to be and what we want to do --

MUDD: That's right.

CUOMO: -- with the tools that we have at our disposal.

Philip Mudd, thank you for giving that perspective and being provocative as always, sir. Have a good weekend.

MUDD: My pleasure.

CUOMO: Alisyn?

CAMEROTA: All right, Chris.

Ebola has hit New York City. The patient spending a week in public before being diagnosed. Is the city at risk now and what is the plan to contain it? We will speak live with the city's health commissioner.

Plus, growing unrest in Ferguson following leaks in the Michael Brown case. Who is behind the leaks and what does Michael Brown's family think? Their attorney joins us.

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