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CNN NEWSROOM

American Journalist Contracts Ebola; UVA Suspect Linked to Sexual Assault Charges; Ebola Patient's Partner, Nephews Quarantined

Aired October 3, 2014 - 10:30   ET

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


JOSH ROGIN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: It's always the problem when one of these top officials writes a book because everybody writes a memoir and there is praise for Obama in the book. I read the whole thing. He says Obama fixed the economy largely. He said he put the military largely on the right footing.

He's very critical of the President's actions in Syria. He says it was marked by hesitation and half steps. He criticizes Obama for going back on his promise to draw a red line against Bashar al Assad. After Assad used chemical weapons the president decided to strike Syria and then reversed himself. And Leon Panetta says that cost America's credibility and hurt the Americans' power around the world. That's also a pretty strong statement.

(CROSSTALK)

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: And the bottom line that I got from reading your article about this book is that the White House really didn't listen to the experts it had on staff. It was a very small group who made these decisions and that group was in the White House.

ROGIN: Right. And this is also what we've heard from people close to Hillary Clinton which is that the White House policy was controlled by a very few number of people, senior advisors like Tom Donilon, Denis McDonough, Susan Rice, John Brennan, National Security Advisor for communications Ben Rhodes and top officials, secretary level officials, cabinet level officials, were often put aside.

That's a change from previous administrations. And that shows you why in some views that politics were put above policy because the White House was often looking for its own interests as well as the interests of the national security bureaucracy and those two things aren't often the same. And when the White House had a battle with the Pentagon or State Department, the White House would always win. And this is why former officials are coming out now to say that maybe the wrong decisions were made.

COSTELLO: All right. And you can read more of Josh's article on the "Daily Beast". Josh Rogin, thanks for being with me, I appreciate it.

I'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: The threat of Ebola has become very real for one NBC cameraman, his name is Ashoka Mukpo. He is a freelance journalist and he got sick one day after he was hired by NBC News. He was later quarantined. He actually quarantined himself and he'll return to the United States for treatment via a private charter plane.

Mukpo's parents say he has a passion for Liberia, a country he has worked in for years. This morning, they talked about why he chose to return to such a dangerous location at this particular time.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He really felt strongly when he started to hear what was going on. He wanted to go back and almost see if he could make a difference and I was obviously conflicted as a parent but really proud that he has the integrity and desire to do something good and so went back to Monrovia.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Tony Maddox is the executive vice president and managing director for CNN International. Welcome, Tony.

TONY MADDOX, EVP CNN INTERNATIONAL: Hi, carol.

COSTELLO: Thank you for talking to us about this, we appreciate it. How did this NBC cameraman's illness impact CNN's coverage in Liberia?

MADDOX: Well, it's interesting the timing of it because we have a team that is about to go in. And clearly one of the things we needed to establish was what we understood about the circumstances, what precautions they were taking, how this at all happened. So we decided to put a hold on our own preparations for 12 hours while we got a better take on things and we reset our own plans on the ground.

We still do plan to make a trip into there, but obviously we've now revised our guidance in the light of this.

COSTELLO: So is CNN talking with NBC to try to determine exactly how this photographer got Ebola?

MADDOX: Yes, I think it's interesting to many people how much news organizations do cooperate when it comes to issues of safety and welfare. Although we're all very competitive, when it comes to issues of the welfare of our journalists, the safety of our journalists, we all share information as best we can and as fully as we can so we have been in touch with NBC.

Organizations always like to try and help each other if they can in these circumstances as well. We're all at the end a family of international reporters who do take these risks to do these stories so we want to do everything we can to help them.

COSTELLO: Well, the really difficult part for the NBC crew is there's a whole team of people working with this photographer and, you know, Dr. Nancy Snyderman among them, right? She said that we can't shake hands with one another, we can't hug one another. She's going to be flying back to the United States and then she's going to self- quarantine herself. So what do you tell our reporters about stuff like that?

MADDOX: Yes, it's interesting. The news basically works around fixers (ph) international news. So you're dependent on the quality of the in-country people you have who can support you. The challenge we have here is we don't know where some of those fixers have been in the days and weeks before they've met us, where they've been, who they've seen, who they've been talking to.

So we have to work on the assumption that whoever we work with has to go straight into our sort of own hygiene protocols, taking of the temperature, wearing of the safety gear. We have to make sure we have the right kit. These are all done in the right kind of way and fed back to base.

So the challenge for us is to ensure that the locals -- we got some sense of where they've been and what they've been doing and then when we're there, you're right, it's an unnatural way to behave really but you really do have to limit all communication with key people, you have to be non-tactile and you're seeing some of the gear that Sanjay is wearing right here now. We're taking all of that kind of gear with us depending on where we're going to be on the ground. It's going to require close monitoring, that's for sure.

COSTELLO: Is the Liberian government cooperating or is West Africa sort of the black hole of information, you can't get the right information you need to make great decisions.

MADDOX: Well, I think it's clear that the infrastructure in Liberia is seriously lacking so it's not as though we're reporting within the U.S. But the authorities have done all they can. They've certainly been helpful and supportive of us so far. As you saw, Sanjay was reporting I think from Guinea earlier on this year, Elizabeth Cohen has just been into Liberia, Nima Elbagir has also been in there within the past month or two.

So we've had a lot of support in reporting in that country but clearly they have an awful lot to cope with and the needs of foreign journalist have to take their place in the queue.

COSTELLO: Understood. Tony Maddox, executive vice president and managing director of CNN International. Thanks for being with me. I appreciate it, Tony.

MADDOX: Nice talking to you, Carol. Take care.

COSTELLO: You, too.

I'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: It's been an agonizing three weeks for the friends and family of missing UVA student Hannah Graham. This morning, we're learning new information about Jesse Matthew the man police believe was with Graham the night she vanished. According to officials, Matthew has been linked to two sexual assault cases at different universities between 2002 and 2003.

In the meantime, the attorney for a man serving life in prison for the disappearance of a different woman in a neighboring county, 17-year- old Alexis Murphy, is requesting that his client's case be reexamined based on recent developments.

So let's bring in CNN's Athena Jones. She's in Charlottesville, Virginia. We're also joined by CNN legal analyst Paul Callan. Welcome to both of you.

Athena, bring us up on the latest from Charlottesville.

ATHENA JONES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning Carol.

Well, Randy Taylor is the man who was convicted of killing 17-year-old Alexis Murphy. And his lawyer, Michael Hallahan in this letter sent this letter to the commonwealth's attorney in Nelson County, that's a neighboring county. He sent this letter to the prosecutor asking them to review Randy Taylor's case.

They want to do two things. They want to look into the social media accounts of Alexis Murphy to find out if she had any contact with Jesse Matthew. And he also wants the attorney in Nelson County to test Jesse Matthew's DNA against some unidentified DNA samples that were found in Murphy's car in that case.

I want to play for you some of what Michael Hallahan, that's Randy Taylor's attorney, had to say. Go ahead.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MICHAEL HALLAHAN, ATTORNEY FOR RANDY TAYLOR: They don't have to do any more forensics. All they have to do is take the samples already at the lab and compare it. Maybe it's him, maybe it's not. It doesn't hurt to check.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JONES: Now, in responding to this request for a review, the Nelson County prosecutors said quote, "There is no credible evidence linking Matthew to the Murphy case." In this letter -- in his statement, the attorney gave a detailed outline of some of the evidence in the Taylor case including forensic evidence and video evidence they used to convict him. But he said that he would quote, "make sure that scientific testing is done in order to bring closure to the speculation."

So, of course, Carol, this is a chance for Randy Taylor's lawyer who says in this letter this is not a fishing expedition, nevertheless, this is a chance for him to kind of see an opening possibly for his own client, Randy Taylor, who I should mention is serving two life sentences for this crime -- Carol.

COSTELLO: All right. Athena Jones, thank you so much.

So let's talk about this with Paul Callan. So, is it a fishing expedition?

PAUL CALLAN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: It most definitely is a fishing expedition. I was looking at the evidence that was used against this Randy Taylor. We saw a picture of him going into court there. He could practically be convicted based on the way he looks. So you can imagine --

COSTELLO: Well, that's not right.

CALLAN: It's not right but I know how juries operate, you know. And forgetting his appearance, the evidence was overwhelming against him. His DNA, a bloody t-shirt, a -- he lied about where he was and then, to cap it off, when he was trying to blame somebody else, he actually identified a specific black man who was light-skinned, didn't look anything like Jesse Matthew and said "That's the person who I saw go into my camper and he's the rapist." Of course it was not this person.

COSTELLO: So why is Taylor's lawyer asking for this?

CALLAN: Well, I think it makes sense for him to do this because if perchance Matthew's DNA turned up in the camper where this horrible crime involving Alexis Murphy took place that would create grounds for appeal in the Randy Taylor case. But in looking at the evidence, I think Taylor wouldn't be let go, it would just be that two men were involved in the assault, not one.

So I think in the end it's a dead end and it will go no place.

COSTELLO: Will we hear more of this as time goes by?

CALLAN: I think -- I mean in theory everybody in the state who has had a case involving an abduction and a rape allegation could say, well, we want the DNA checked. And law enforcement officials do not do that. In this case, you have close physical proximity of the two victims and there's a reason why the police might want to take a look at it.

But it's a rare and unusual request and, of course, DNA, you know, is dominating the criminal justice system so we've just seen in New York City the Central Park jogger case, five men exonerated, you know why -- because the DNA linked another rapist to the actual rape. So we see it happen in cases all over the country but it's not unusual.

COSTELLO: Paul Callan, thanks so much. And thanks to Athena Jones as well.

I'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Four people remain quarantined in the Dallas apartment where Ebola patient Thomas Eric Duncan stayed. That apartment has yet to be cleaned after sanitation teams were turned away because they didn't have the proper permits. But new video from CNN affiliate KTVT shows food and other supplies being delivered to that apartment as a man comes out to retrieve them and take those supplies inside. We still don't know if the apartment was cleaned though and that's one brave man if the apartment has not been cleaned.

CNN chief medical correspondent Sanjay Gupta joins me now. Sanjay, we can not confirm if this particular individual was quarantined but what would be the terms of such restrictions?

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, you know, I've been reading about that and hearing about this specific quarantine. It's pretty strict. They really -- you saw him come out there to get the food if that, in fact, is one of the residents. They can't go down the stairs. They're really supposed to stay in that particular apartment or right front there and part of the reason is that they are getting their temperature monitored a couple of times a day.

So the health authorities say we want to know where they are. We want to be able to find them very reliably. We want to make sure they don't go anywhere else so that was really the purpose of this quarantine. They're not sick so they're not going to be contagious. This is to keep them in one place.

COSTELLO: Again, we can't confirm who exactly that young man is but, you're right, we assume it's somebody that's been quarantined inside that house, right? Common sense.

So I want to get to some viewer questions right now, Sanjay. Here's our first one. "Can Ebola be transmitted by an infected food service worker?"

GUPTA: If someone was sick, let's say this food service worker was sick with Ebola, then they could transmit it, yes. It's not a situation like you remember the case of Typhoid Mary, this is someone who carried the typhoid in her body, she was never sick but she was still able to transmit the virus.

That's not the case with Ebola. You are sick before you transmit. So anybody who's sick could potentially be somebody who could spread it.

COSTELLO: Ok. I like this question from this viewer. "If Ebola is not spread through the air then why are doctors dressed like astronauts when they encounter patients?" Thank you for this question, John.

GUPTA: Yes. You know, they don't need to be. It's -- there's a standard hazmat gear which is put on. A lot of times when they're asked about when they go encounter patients they don't know what the patient has initially, sometimes they'll just dress protective everything. We don't know what the infectious disease is so they protect themselves as much as they can.

But to the person's point with Ebola, really what you need to make sure is that all of your skin is covered because you don't want to get any bodily fluids on any place in your skin. I mean even a cut on your face or cuts on your hands could potentially be sources of transmission. But it's really what we call droplet protection that's need. You want to make sure fluids can't get on your body.

COSTELLO: Understand. Dr. Sanjay Gupta, thanks as always. I really appreciate the answers to these questions because it's very helpful.

Another question we're getting a lot "How easy is it to spread disease on planes?" CNN's Dan Simon took a look at that.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAN SIMON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Dr. Suzanne Donovan is an expert on Ebola. She recently completed a month-long stint in Sierra Leone treating Ebola victims.

(on camera): What made you volunteer?

DR. SUZANNE DONOVAN, INFECTIOUS DISEASE PHYSICIAN: Well, this is what I do. You know, I'm an infectious disease physician.

SIMON (voice over): She's come with us aboard a 767 jetliner now out of service to discuss the risk Ebola could have to the American flying public.

(on camera): Let's say somebody has Ebola and they're showing symptoms and you're sitting next to them. Any chance you could get it?

DONOVAN: I can understand passengers' concern about being exposed but this is something that is transmitted with direct contact of body fluids.

SIMON: If saliva or a bodily fluid gets either on a tray or an armrest and you touch it and then touch your nose or touch your mouth --

DONOVAN: You're bringing up very rare scenarios and I would say you're at greater risk of driving to the airport and getting in a car accident than being infected by Ebola by being on an airplane.

SIMON (voice over): Fears have escalated since the revelation a Liberian national was diagnosed with Ebola after flying to the U.S. But Dr. Donovan says Americans have little to worry about -- from temperature and symptom screenings in many African airports, to the low risk of coming into direct contact with body fluids of an infected patient.

(on camera): Now, let's assume a worst-case scenario for a impeachment. That there is an infected person on board and that person is also showing symptoms and you're the unlucky passenger sitting right next to them. Even with those circumstances, Dr. Donovan says the risk of you getting the disease is still very low.

What about just the fabric on the airplane? Say, for instance, bodily fluids get on the fabric, get on the seats. What's the probability of getting it that way?

DONOVAN: It's very susceptible to cleaning agents. So even soap and water in Africa we use bleach solutions frequently but even washing your hands with soap and water would kill the virus.

SIMON (voice over): Ebola is not an air born virus so unlike the flu there's little concern about getting it from someone who coughs or sneezes on a plane. But the U.N. Ebola chief raises the possibility, however remote, that the virus could mutate and become airborne.

DONOVAN: Well, that would be a game changer.

SIMON: A game changer because Ebola could become much more infectious, transmitted just like the flu.

DONOVAN: I've seen some of those concerns raised and clearly any virus that became airborne with this type of lethality rate would be concerning.

SIMON: Until then, there seems to be no reason to alter flying habits.

Dan Simon, CNN, Victorville, California.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: So far, the World Health Organization says there have been more than 7,000 cases of Ebola reported worldwide.

I'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: It probably won't crack the Billboard Top 100 but thanks to a bit of creative engineering a stretch of Route 66 is music to drivers' ears. Here's Jeanne Moos.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEANNE MOOS, CNN SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT (voice over): When you think of Route 66 music comes to mind.

But now Route 66 itself is grooving thanks to these grooves. Name that tune. "America the Beautiful" played by your tires going over specially designed rumble strips cut into a section of the highway in new Mexico.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How cool is this?

MOOS: Suddenly local reporters are highway musicians.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: All you have to do is reduce your speed to 45 miles an hour then aim for a strip on the right side of the road and -- voila, "America the Beautiful".

MOOS: It's America, though maybe not so beautiful. The idea is to get drivers to slow down. "National Geographic" paid for the project as part of a TV series about changing social behavior.

(on camera): But that's not the only singing road. There's a whole chorus of them scattered around the world.

(voice over): More than half a dozen in places ranging from the U.S. to Japan to South Korea where a highway plays "Mary Had a Little Lamb"? And in Lancaster, California, a quarter mile stretch has been singing since 2008. That's when Honda cut grooves with mathematical precision.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This stretch will sing a low "F".

MOOS: Extensively tested to play the "William Tell Overture". Some know it as the theme from "The Lone Ranger". did they succeed?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's so good.

MOOS: Not so good was the traffic and noise it generated so the city moved the highway a few miles away to a more industrial area. Honda made a commercial out of the overture designed to be played at 55 miles per hour.

A physicist wrote a critique called "Honda Needs a Tuneup" saying the notes are just plain wrong.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I told you it was horrible.

MOOS: You want a perfect overture? Stick to this kind of horsepower -- not this.

Jeanne Moos, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: Americans are silly sometimes but I love that about us, don't you?

Thank you for joining me today. I'm Carol Costello.

"@THIS HOUR WITH BERMAN AND MICHAELA" starts now.