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CNN NEWSROOM

Questions Over Care of Dallas Ebola Patient; New Allegations on Secret Service Colombia Trip; Teen in Court on Terror Charge; Indiana Family Sues Cops for Excessive Force; Ebola's Price Tag Could Hit $32 Billion

Aired October 9, 2014 - 09:00   ET

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


CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Noah is just a phenomenal guy with a great message.

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: He is a hero.

CUOMO: It's so much more about inside than outside for him. This was the easy part for him, he will tell you, getting to look like this. But what he did inside, amazing.

PEREIRA: Fight every day, too.

CUOMO: He is the "Good Stuff."

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: That's great. So inspiring.

PEREIRA: Yes. Absolutely.

CUOMO: Yes. Pick up "Men's Health," you get to read all about him and the other great guys.

A lot of news this morning. Let's get you to "NEWSROOM" with Miss Carol Costello.

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: A nice way to end the week -- no, it's not. Well, excited tomorrow, I guess.

CUOMO: We'll take it.

COSTELLO: Yes. To me, it's Friday. I know. Have a great weekend anyway. Thanks so much.

NEWSROOM starts now.

Happening now in the NEWSROOM, fear in Dallas. New concerns this morning as a police sergeant is showing Ebola-like symptoms. Michael Monnig hospitalized and in isolation.

Plus, a mother's plea to ISIS. American hostage Peter Kassig's mother tweeting to the terrorist leader, "I'm an old woman. Abdul Rahman is my only child. How can we reach you?"

And call it the Cartagena cover-up? A new report out about the hooker scandal in Colombia. What did the White House really know? Let's talk, live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

Good morning. I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me.

We begin this morning with breaking news and reassuring words for the Dallas deputy now hospitalized with what's been called signs and symptoms of Ebola. Texas health officials now say Sergeant Michael Monnig faces no risk of the disease despite being a first responder and entering the unsanitized apartment of Thomas Eric Duncan. The Liberian man died yesterday after becoming the first Ebola case diagnosed on U.S. soil.

Michael Monnig's family says the deputy woke up feeling ill yesterday and went to an urgent care facility out of extreme caution.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LOGAN MONNIG, SICK DEPUTY'S SON: We were told by federal officials, county officials, that would you'd have to come in direct contact with Duncan or direct contact with bodily fluids and he did not. He's in the apartment of maybe, you know, 30 minutes, which we're told is no where -- no chance to contract the virus.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: CNN senior medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen live in Dallas with more on the story.

Good morning.

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol.

Carol, as doctors at the hospital behind me evaluate what exactly is wrong with Mr. Monnig. The family of Thomas Eric Duncan is mourning his loss and they're wondering about these questions surrounding his care.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SGT. MICHAEL MONNIG, DALLAS COUNTY SHERIFF'S OFFICE: We did not receive any type of emergency equipment.

COHEN (voice-over): Ebola fear escalating as Sergeant Michael Monnig, a deputy sheriff who initially entered into the apartment where Dallas Ebola patient Thomas Eric Duncan was staying before it was sanitized, started experiencing some Ebola-like symptoms Wednesday. Monnig told CNN affiliate WFAA Friday he thought he may have come in contact with the virus.

M. MONNIG: Touched doors, touch lights to turn on lights.

COHEN: According to the CDC, Ebola can't live on surfaces for more than just a few hours and Monnig said he was in the apartment several days after Duncan had already been admitted to the hospital. A state health official saying, "We know he didn't have direct contact with Duncan and he doesn't have a fever. And in a situation like that, there is not a risk of Ebola."

MAYOR MAHER MASO, FRISCO, TEXAS: Over an abundance of caution, we're taking several actions to make sure that the public health, safety and welfare is protected.

COHEN: The deputy sheriff was transported to the same hospital where Duncan, the first person to be diagnosed with Ebola in the U.S., died early Wednesday.

DR. THOMAS FRIEDEN, CDC DIRECTOR: Today, we are deeply saddened by the death of the patient in Dallas.

COHEN: Some community leaders are now questioning Duncan's care.

REV. JESSE JACKSON, CIVIL RIGHTS ACTIVIST: Their concern is that the same standard of identification and diagnosis and safe care now applied in Frisco did not apply to him.

COHEN: Admitted September 28th, Duncan lay sickened in his hospital bed at Texas Health Presbyterian for six days before doctors tried an experimental medication to fight Ebola. Compare that to NBC cameraman Ashoka Mukpo, also fighting the virus. He arrived at the University of Nebraska on Monday and right away doctors gave him an experimental antiviral medication.

Mukpo also received a blood donation from American survivor, Dr. Kent Brantly. Blood donations from Ebola survivors are believed to provide antibodies to patients still fighting the disease. Duncan never received a donation.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COHEN: Now while Monnig is not a contact of Duncan's, Duncan did have 48 contacts while he was contagious. Health authorities are carefully monitoring them and so far, good news, none of them are showing signs of Ebola -- Carol.

COSTELLO: That is the best news, Elizabeth Cohen, reporting live from Dallas.

Also in Dallas last night, a prayer vigil for Duncan at the church where his fiancee worships. She is now in quarantine and was unable to attend but local media reports say she was able to watch the service as it was streamed online.

The service drew fellow native Liberians who lamented that Duncan cannot be buried in traditional ways but they conceded that cremation may be the best choice for medical reasons.

In Australia, a 57-year-old nurse is undergoing tests for the disease after caring for a number of Ebola patients in Sierra Leone. Health officials say the woman meticulously limited her exposure to other people after returning home to Australia. She kept herself in isolation, she took her own temperature twice a day, she alerted health officials once she became ill and is now hospitalized under isolation. Her test results are expected late today. Here is the world map with countries highlighted if they are dealing

with confirmed cases of Ebola. In Spain, doctors report grim news on the first known case of Ebola being contracted outside of Africa. The condition of that nurse's aide is said to be worsening. Doctors are also keeping a close eye on her husband and the two doctors who treated her.

New bombshell allegations circling around the White House this morning. They had to do with a trip President Obama took to Colombia in April of 2012. Secret Service agents in Colombia, ahead of the president's visit, allegedly got drunk and partied with prostitutes. Actually, they did. Eight Secret Service employees lost their jobs because of this.

Sources tell CNN, investigators examined a hotel sign-in sheet that indicates a woman also spent the night in the hotel room of a White House intern in Colombia.

The "Washington Post" is reporting that the White House tried to cover this up. White House press secretary, Josh Earnest, shrugged off that report, though tweeting last night, quote, "Suppose 'Washington Post' exclusive was previously reported two years ago."

CNN justice reporter, Evan Perez, joins me now from Washington with more on this.

Good morning, Evan.

EVAN PEREZ, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. So this is a really big story here for the White House to have to deal with, two years after this allegation first surfaced. It has to do with a former intern for the White House. He was 25 years old at the time. A law student and he was working -- doing advance work for the president's visit to Cartagena.

Now we know a lot about what happened to the -- to the agents, the Secret Service agents and officers who were there. We also know that there was another dozen military members who were punished for wrongdoing or for improper behavior during the same trip.

But we don't know a lot about what happened with this -- with the White House and that's what is bringing this back, because a lot of people, a lot of sources we've talked to, have said that they don't have any faith that this was handled properly, that they know that the Secret Service and the military punished people who did wrongdoing, but they don't have any assurance that this was handled properly by the White House.

COSTELLO: So this White House intern, his father is a big donor to the Obama campaign, am I right?

PEREZ: That's right, Carol. He was also a former lobbyist, the father.

Look, there's no allegation -- there's no allegation that the father did anything wrong, and even this -- the allegation against the former intern, the White House says it did a thorough investigation and it couldn't find any wrongdoing. It interviewed him, they'd looked at these records that were brought over from Colombia and they could not verify that, indeed, anyone, anyone had even spent the night in this -- in the room of this intern.

And so that's where this stands. Basically there was never any proof offered and it looks like there was never anything found in the investigation to prove any of this.

COSTELLO: All right. I know you'll keep digging, though.

Evan Perez, thanks so much.

PEREZ: That's right.

COSTELLO: What would you do if your child was held hostage by ISIS terrorists and threatened to be killed? Well, an Indiana mother is so desperate now, she tweeted out a letter to the leader of ISIS begging for information.

Of course that mother, Paula Kassig, wrote, quote, "I'm an old woman and Abdul Rahman is my only child. How can we reach you?"

Abdul Rahman Kassig, whose name was Peter before he converted to Islam, is a former U.S. Army Ranger who returned to the Middle East to help Syrian refugees. He was taken captive by ISIS on October 1st. Last night, Kassig's parents attended a vigil at Butler University where Kassig went to school.

A suburban Chicago teenager will appear in federal court this morning to determine if he will stay locked up until his trial. 19-year-old Mohammed Khan is accused of trying to assist the terror group ISIS. He was arrested Saturday night at Chicago's O'Hare Airport. He was about to board a flight that would have eventually taken him to Turkey. There, he supposedly was to meet an ISIS contact who would help him get into Syria.

Ted Rowlands live in Chicago with more.

Good morning.

TED ROWLANDS, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. We are expecting this hearing to be relatively short. The main focus of this hearing is detention. The prosecution, the federal government wants Khan to remain behind bars, his defense will argue for some sort of bail. And that will be the bulk of this relatively short hearing.

They will also likely set a trial date. But today's focus is, should this 19-year-old be detained until trial or should he be out on bond?

COSTELLO: All right, Ted Rowlands at the federal courthouse in Chicago. You will keep us posted. Thanks so much.

Taking a look at other top stories this morning, protests erupt in St. Louis after a police officer shoots and kills an armed 18-year-old black man. The police chief said the suspect approached the officer in an aggressive manner. A fight ensued, the suspect then fired three rounds at the officer. The officer, who was not injured, fired 17 times, fatally wounding the man.

The Supreme Court is allowing new voting restrictions in North Carolina to go into effect. The justices reversed a federal appeals courts decision that would have allowed same-day registration and counted votes cast mistakenly in the wrong precincts.

AT&T will give $80 million back to its customers. It has to do with improperly charging for celebrity gossip and flirting tips sent to your phone.

Talk about the Big Apple. For the second year in a row the tech giant has toppled Google as the world's most valuable brand. Third on the list, Coca-Cola, followed by IBM and Microsoft.

Those are your headlines, but first, your late-night laugh.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JIMMY FALLON, HOST, "THE TONIGHT SHOW": A new survey found that more than half of Americans see President Obama's time in office as a failure. While the rest said, you saw him in his office? When? When was that?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: NEWSROOM is back in a minute.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Police in Hammond, Indiana, under fire this morning after video of a violent traffic stop goes violent -- goes viral.

(VIDEO CLIP PLAYS)

COSTELLO: Awful, right? This video was taken last month and it shows the terrifying moments for a family of four after they were pulled over for a seat belt violation. The situation escalated when one of the officers allegedly smashed in a car window and then tasered passenger Jamal Jones.

In the back seat, two children, including a 14-year-old who caught the whole thing on camera.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOSEPH IVY, LISA MAHONE'S SON: He cussed Jamal out and he was getting very, aggressive with my mom and then he called backup over a seat belt violation. So, I start videotaping it, because I knew that he was doing wrong. Then when the window shattered after he hit it, I felt scared -- I was scared, but that's what really gave me the courage to keep videotaping it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Now, the family is suing for excessive force.

CNN's national correspondent, Susan Candiotti, has more for you.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A chilling end to a 13-minute standoff between an Indiana family and Hammond, Indiana, police. It starts with a simple traffic stop in broad daylight.

Police pull over driver Lisa Mahone and her front seat passenger for not wearing seatbelts. She was on her way to the hospital to see her dying mother. The way she was pulled over she says scared her from the start.

LISA MAHONE, ACCUSES POLICE OF EXCESSIVE FORCE: He's going from the left to the right. I'm like, my God, I don't even know which way to pull over because he's pulling me over like I robbed a bank.

CANDIOTTI: Before the cell phone camera rolls Mahone hands over her license for a possible $25 seatbelt ticket. But things go downhill, she says, when her companion Jamal Jones doesn't have an ID and reaches in the backseat to grab a ticket with his name on it. Police say that move makes them worried about their safety.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Step out of the vehicle.

MAHONE: This is crazy.

CANDIOTTI: Mahone calls 911. By now, her 14-year-old son in the backseat is rolling video sitting next to his 7-year-old sister.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Step out of the vehicle.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: On the phone, man.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Step out of the vehicle. You need to step out of the vehicle.

CANDIOTTI: Mahone stays on the line with 911.

MAHONE: I feel like my life is in danger.

CANDIOTTI: Jones still won't budge.

JAMAL JONES, ACCUSES POLICE OF EXCESSIVE FORCE: They had their weapons drawn. I felt to protect my family I should have stayed in that vehicle and not moved.

CANDIOTTI: About a minute later, Jones still not moving. A supervisor steps closer.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Why do you say somebody is not going hurt you. People are getting shot by the police.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: On the ground. CANDIOTTI (on camera): Police also have a dash cam video and audio recording made by another officer at the scene. That video has not been released.

(voice): Hammond's mayor stands by his 200-member police force, 20 percent of his officers are minorities.

In statement, the police department says the officers were following procedure, "By not keeping his hands in plain sight and going into a backpack, officer safety was threatened."

The officer who smashes the window is identified as Lieutenant Patrick Vicary. Records show he's been sued twice for excessive force. In 2007, court paper say, the plaintiff suffered permanent brain injury. The case was settled.

In 2008, a family accuses the same officer of pointing guns at them, battering the mother and putting a choke hold on a child during a traffic stop. That family also settles out of court.

A second officer involved in this incident was also sued in 2003 for offensive contact. The outcome is unknown. Neither officer could be reached by CNN.

Now another family is suing the city accusing officers they went too far.

Susan Candiotti, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: This morning, leaders of three Western African countries hit hardest by Ebola, Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, met with IMF and World Bank officials about the spread of the virus.

The head of the World Bank says the crisis could top more than $32 billion by the end of next year. And he is calling on the international community to do more to stop the spread. Nearly 4,000 people have died from Ebola so far.

Christine Romans is here with more.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: And, you know, the head of the World Bank, he said the international community has failed miserably in its response to Ebola. They need more beds, they need more doctors, a lot more doctors.

They need health care aides who can be trained quickly on how to properly take care of and dispose of the linens and the bed clothes of people who are being treated. They need money to educate people. Some of these countries, you have half-illiteracy rate, go help door to door and explain into people what the symptoms are and what to do and break down some of these terrible barriers of trust there. You are talking about hundreds of millions of dollars that you're going to need. The U.N. says $1 billion and quickly. And then, there's the fact that some of these countries, they already have very stressed finances. They are coming their tax revenue, out of covers and paying for the response, they are running out of money.

People can't go to work because they are quarantined, they don't have any money. It's really a matter of life and death.

COSTELLO: So, how much money have they spent so far?

ROMANS: So, tens of millions of dollars have been pledged from foreign governments and from -- and frankly, from, you know, the international aid community try to help this.

U.N. says we are going to need 1 billion and only going to grow from here.

Here's something that's interesting. This story doesn't pull -- this disaster doesn't pull at the heartstrings of people who want to give money the way say a Haiti earthquake does or the tsunami. Money's actually trickling in to charities, specifically for this Ebola crisis.

So, some of these experts are saying, these countries are saying it is going to take governments, governments and an international community to really focus on this and find the money to fix it. And it will affect everybody. One of the things world bank says, talking about aversion behavior, worried about if you don't get it contained, you're going to have closing borders, closing down of air lines, isolating these countries and it only get worse.

COSTELLO: Christine Romans, thanks so much.

Still to come in THE NEWSROOM, hundreds of tips flow into the FBI after the agency calls in the public to help identify this man, an English-speaking ISIS fighter who appears in a chilling propaganda video. Any of the tips useful? We'll talk about that next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Happening now in THE NEWSROOM, the FBI needs help identifying who this ISIS terrorist is. And it looks like you may hold the answer, as investigators pore through hundreds of tips that could uncover that masked man.

Front line testing for Ebola, as America's entry points get set to start special screening, but will it actually prevent this global epidemic from spreading here in the United States?

Plus, the NFL looks to knock out domestic violence and is calling on a former player for help, with a unique education geared toward NFL owners. Hear the powerful interview in just a couple of minutes.

NEWSROOM continues now.