Return to Transcripts main page
NEW DAY
Food Poisoning Outbreak Linked to Bagged Salad; Private Bradley Manning Found Not Guilty of Aiding Enemy; Anthony Weiner Still in New York City Mayoral Race; Girl Fighting Brain-Eating Amoeba
Aired July 31, 2013 - 07:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: I respect it. We're going to talk with state representative Mike Boss live right here on NEW DAY.
MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: I'll keep my paper away from you so you don't get violent.
CUOMO: I'm going to toss it.
PEREIRA: Get ready, we have acting royalty in the house today, ladies and gentlemen, clear the decks, Denzel Washington the two-time Oscar winning actor, Tony award winner, too, is here, talking to us about his movie "Two Guns." We cannot wait for the conversation.
CUOMO: It will be great to see him. Let's start with the news here for more than a month. Hundreds of people across the country have been reporting mysterious symptoms resembling food poisoning. It was a parasite and health officials in two states think they have the culprit, bagged salad. CNN chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta joins us now, but still a lot of questions.
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: It's hard to keep recommending fruits and vegetables when we have these food outbreaks. Hundreds of people are waking up with food poisoning like systems. As Chris pointed out, the culprit may be in your fridge.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
GUPTA: Prepackaged salad, that's the answer to the mystery of what was causing the most recent food poisoning outbreak that has spread across the country. Nearly 400 people in 15 states have reported food poisoning symptoms caused by this microscopic parasite, psychospora. Health officials in two states tracing the source to bagged salad.
STEVEN MANDERBACH, IOWA DEPARTMENT OF INSPECTORS AND APPEALS: We saw there was a common exposure to bagged lettuce, salad products.
GUPTA: While a specific brand has not yet been named, health officials in Iowa and Nebraska blamed mixed salad bags of iceberg and romaine lettuce as well as carrots and red cabbage. But they also add that the salad mix is no longer on the shelves in their states. This isn't the first time bagged salad has come under the microscope.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh my god!
GUPTA: Earlier this month Collissa Williams says her sister-in-law was pouring out a bag of kale and discovered a frog.
COLLISSA WILLIAMS, FOUND FROG IN SALAD: She poured in kale and went to stir them and she says there's a frog in them.
GUPTA: This just February an E. Coli scare triggered a recall on Taylor farms baby spinach. This most recent outbreak sending at least 21 people in three states to the hospital.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
GUPTA: The CDC and FDA are continuing to look at the outbreak. They're not sure if all the cases are related to the same outbreak. So stay tuned on that.
KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Still have some investigation to do.
CUOMO: The question becomes the timing. You get sick because you bought it now or lettuce you can still buy?
GUPTA: Mid-June is when this started. People can get sick up to a few weeks after they consume this and the symptoms can last up to a couple of months. That's part of what makes these investigations difficult is that someone doesn't get sick for a couple weeks after they ate it. It's very hard for them to trace it back. They're saying the lettuce being sold now should be safe, and likely the lettuce sold should be out of people's refrigerators given that was mid-June.
BOLDUAN: You won't have the bagged lettuce. It's perishable, it has an expiration date it would be out of your fridge.
GUPTA: If you haven't thrown it out with June, you probably should.
BOLDUAN: Sanjay thank you so much.
Back to Washington where Private First Class Bradley Manning will soon find out the punishment for his crimes. The sentencing phase of his court Marshall begins today. The former army intelligence analyst faces decades behind bars despite being acquitted of the most serious charge, aiding the enemy. Barbara Starr is live from the Pentagon for more. Barbara, this has been a court Marshall you've been following from the beginning and gone on for a long time and now we move on to sentencing.
BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Kate. As the judge moves to the sentencing phase later today, one of the key questions for her will be how many years should Bradley Manning spend in jail based on the damage that he caused to national security, and damage to national security is also a question facing the other leaker, Edward Snowden.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
STARR: Private first class Bradley Manning technically was spared a life sentence when the judge ruled he was not guilty of aiding the enemy. Manning gave three-quarters of a million pages of classified documents about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to WikiLeaks, the anti-secrecy website.
The military accused him of putting lives in danger, saying some of the material was found in Usama bin Laden's compound. Manning said he just wanted the public to know what the government was doing. Supporters say it's a partial victory.
BEN WEZNER, DIRECTOR OF ACLU'S SPEECH, PRIVACY, AND TECHNOLOGY PROJECT: The only reason why the government proceeded with this trial is so that it could pursue this dangerous theory that equates leaks to the press with aiding the enemy.
GENE FIDELL, CO-FOUNDER, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF MILITARY JUSTICE: It shows that a really very junior enlisted person can do battle with the federal government in a case where the government is really mad as hell about what happened here, throws everything it has at him, and its biggest charge fizzles.
STARR: But the former intelligence analyst still faces a maximum sentence of 136 years in jail, convicted on 20 counts, including stealing classified information, wrongfully causing intelligence to be published on the internet and possession of classified videos, including a 2007 video showing U.S. troops firing on people in Baghdad.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
STARR: Later today in Congress there will be yet another hearing on the surveillance programs at the National Security Agency, that information that Edward Snowden leaked to the public, another look at the damage he caused. Kate, Chris?
CUOMO: Barbara, thank you very much. Joining me for more is CNN's senior legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin. Jeffrey Toobin, thank you for being on NEW DAY.
JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Good morning.
CUOMO: I say not so fast. Not so fast about sentencing. Whoa, what just happened here? Manning was supposed to be an example -- three- quarters of a million pages, the largest leak ever, that he was fueling Julian Assange's message. This was supposed to be a big deal. Then we hear not guilty of aiding the enemy but convicted of supplying information to the press. Is this a victory here?
TOOBIN: No, it's not a victory for him. He's looking at really decades in prison. And I think the judge struck the right balance. I think what Manning did was wrong but it wasn't treason. It wasn't an effort to help our enemies. It was an incredibly misguided, wrongheaded attempt to get information out to the public. That's a crime. He was convicted of a crime. But just because you are a bank robber doesn't mean you're a murder. There are distinctions among crimes.
CUOMO: So I get the bank robber not a murderer, but this line between whistleblower and espionage, where is it? If you work for the government and leak things, why is that not espionage or when does it become that?
TOOBIN: We have a long tradition in this country, and one of the complexities of this whole case which frankly I haven't figured out and I don't think the legal system has figured out, how do you draw a distinction between what Bradley Manning did, which was giving 700,000 documents in a completely unplanned way, and how do you compare that to what goes on in Washington every day where our colleagues, Bob Woodward, Dana Priest at "The Washington Post" go to government officials and say tell us what's going on, government officials say information that almost certainly is classified. That's not a crime. That shouldn't be a crime because we want journalists to be able to do their job. And why is that legal and why is Bradley Manning illegal?
CUOMO: And they get him for 20 different charges, different counts. He may be looking at 100 years, probably not but that's on the books, and while there was nothing damaging to national security. How do you put those two in the same sentence?
TOOBIN: I think that's fortunate for us and fortunate for Bradley Manning. But you know what? He doesn't get to decide what's in the national interests to disclose. Yes, it's fortunate that it turned out there was not a huge disaster, but he didn't know that was the case.
Remember, look what the foreign service officers do all day. They report on American interests abroad. They get people to confide in them, foreign nationals to confide in them in confidence. He then throws that out to the press. He put both our government employees and people who cooperate with them in incredible danger. Now good that it didn't work out that people got killed but we can't trust Bradley Manning to make those decisions.
CUOMO: And yet that wasn't considered a threat to national security? It's an important conversation to have that we're having right now because we'll keep seeing this. It affects freedom of the press, Edward Snowden, what happens to him. So this case is meaningful because it projects what the policy will be of this country and other circumstances like this, and we're going to see more.
TOOBIN: The Obama administration, widely regarded as very liberal, has been very tough on leaks, and this is an example of that but it's not the only example.
CUOMO: Case doesn't stand along. Jeffrey Toobin appreciate the perspective.
TOOBIN: Good to see you.
CUOMO: Kate?
BOLDUAN: Thanks, Chris.
Despite plummeting poll numbers Anthony Weiner says he is not getting out of the New York City mayor's race. Weiner says "quit isn't the way we roll in New York City." CNN's Rosa Flores has been following the latest for us. Good morning, Rosa. ROSA FLORES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Kate. Kate, this is the story that keeps on giving. The Anthony Weiner campaign is yet again tangled in a web of distractions. This time it's an intern ruffling feathers and emotions.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ANTHONY WEINER, NEW YORK CITY MAYORAL CANDIDATE: Someone wants to come out with something embarrassing about you in your private life you got to talk about that for a little while.
FLORES: Weiner in damage control mode tweeting out a revamped online message.
WEINER: Sometimes people say to me this campaign is pretty rough, you may want to quit. Quit isn't the way we roll in New York City.
FLORES: But his message could be drowned out once again by an explosive and graphic rant by his leading spokesman Barbara Morgan about his former intern's criticism of the campaign in the "New York Daily News." In a four-letter word rampage to "Talking Points" memo Morgan used the word "slut" and other expletives describing the ex- intern Olivia Nuzy as fame hungry, then threatening to sue Nuzy while saying she, quote, "sucked at her job."
In a statement to CNN Morgan said, quote, "In a moment of frustration I used inappropriate language in what I thought was an off the record conversation. It was wrong and I am very sorry."
But that's not all. The controversy escalated again following Weiner's response to "Daily News" columnist Dennis Hamel. When asked, "There is no one you are sexting now?" his answer, "You can quibble about beginnings, middles, and ends but what we're talking about is over a year ago." So we asked the question ourselves, but we couldn't hear his answer. Morgan, the same spokesperson now tangled up in her own media frenzy, confirmed his response to us following the event.
What was his answer?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: His answer was no.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
FLORES: We should add Anthony Weiner's spokesperson called and apologized to the former intern. In the midst of the drama Weiner plans to continue campaigning. He released his schedule in the last half hour, one event today at 7:30 this evening, and we will of course keep you guys posted.
BOLDUAN: The best way to not -- the wrong way to handle a story if you want it to go away exactly what his communications director did.
CUOMO: It's hard to make a story go away when nobody wants it to either.
BOLDUAN: They're not helping. CUOMO: He's in a tough situation.
A lot of news developing at this hour, so let's get over to Michaela. Edward Snowden back in the news
PEREIRA: Yes, and his father specifically. This morning the FBI apparently tried to enlist the help of Edward Snowden's father. In a wide-ranging interview with the "Washington Post" Snowden says they asked him to fly to Russia to persuade his son to turn himself in. Lon Snowden did not think his son could get a fair trial in the U.S.
Edward Snowden currently seeking asylum in Russia. He's been at a Moscow airport for more than a month. Snowden's leaks about the NSA surveillance programs loom large at a judiciary hearing on privacy issues, officials from the NSA, FBI, and the Justice Department are expected to face a grilling from Patrick Leahy. Senator Leahy introduced a bill requiring more scrutiny of the Patriot Act and the Secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance court.
Now, new landing rules at San Francisco international airport in the wake of that deadly Asiana airlines crash earlier this month. The FAA is no longer allowing foreign carriers to land simultaneously alongside another plane on a parallel runway. Instead flights will have to come in one at a time. They have also been instructed to start using these GPS instrument standings rather than visual flight rules.
Fresh off the birth of baby Prince George, a new royal headline, this one about his late Grandmother. "Vanity Fair" reporting Princess Diana wanted to marry heart surgeon Haznat Khan. She was reportedly even willing to move to Pakistan to live with him. It was her most significant relationship after Prince Charles.
And finally from the mouths of babes, check out the reaction from this eight-month-old baby when dad happens to sing the nationwide jingle.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Nationwide is on your side.
(LAUGHTER)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CUOMO: It's the guy's voice.
PEREIRA: Just so you don't think it's a one of, they thought maybe the baby needed a nap, so they put the baby down for a nap, woke him up, sang the same song, and bam!
BOLDUAN: Same thing?
PEREIRA: Same thing!
BOLDUAN: You're good at so many things, dad, singing is not one of them. CUOMO: Don't blame Nationwide.
PEREIRA: My dad used to play the trumpet completely off key in the morning to get us out of bed.
BOLDUAN: Same reaction. He was smart trying to get me out of bed not into bed. That poor baby, so cute.
CUOMO: Good stuff.
Let's get to Indra for the latest in the weather center. You don't look happy at all. Is it the singing or something else?
INDRA PETERSONS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yes, it's everyone singing. No, just kidding. We had Flossie, and Flossie is gone, and so quickly, we can't even get a break, and we have Gil already out there currently seeing steady winds 50 miles per hour. Here's where it looks like Gil, is, and behind it a 60 percent chance for another storm to even form behind that. So definitely another early start again. We're seeing a lot of activity in the pacific.
Gil what's so interesting we overlaid its projected path over where Flossie just was and it's pretty much following almost the identical path. Although it was rare to see activity around Hawaii it looks like again we're looking at a similar path.
Thing to not here, it is expected to be stronger in 48 hours Gil is expected to be a category one hurricane. Definitely something we'll have our eyes on. Otherwise looking across the U.S. we're looking at the southerly moisture coming into the Gulf again so you're no longer seeing that break, we're looking for anywhere from one to two inches of rain in the area, and they've been dealing with such a wet summer it's not really a good thing. A lot of flooding potential any time we continue to see that rain.
From the Midwest to the northeast we're watching a quick moving cold front so we're going to talk about rain pushing in to the northeast around Thursday and already starting into the Midwest by today so it was beautiful everywhere yesterday and that's why we're frowning today, not so beautiful today.
BOLDUAN: There's always tomorrow.
PETERSONS: Bingo.
BOLDUAN: Thank you.
Coming up next on NEW DAY a little girl facing a huge battle, potentially deadly brain-eating infection. It doesn't even sound like it's possible, but it is. Why an experimental drug may be the key to saving her life.
CUOMO: Plus a story we want to you keep your eye on a popular medical student turns up dead execution style. Police are stumped. The latest on the mystery at the University of Michigan. We're going to speak to one of the friends of the aspiring surgeon. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BOLDUAN: Welcome back to NEW DAY. Doctors now say an experimental drug could be the key to saving a 12-year-old girl. Kali Hardig is battling for her life after coming into contact with a brain-eating amoeba during a trip to an Arkansas water park. I know, it's really difficult to believe this is even possible. CNN senior medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen joins us from Atlanta with an update on how Kali is doing. Of course Elizabeth this is rare but this infection is almost always fatal, so what are doctors saying about if they're optimistic this is going to help her.
ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDIAL CORRESPONDENT: Kali is still a very sick little girl but doctors do have hope.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
COHEN: When Kali Hardig arrived at Arkansas Children's Hospital, she was so exhausted she couldn't even answer the doctor's questions.
TRACI HARDIG, KALI'S MOTHER: He asked me several times, did I think Kali was being what you call like a hypochondriac.
COHEN: But Kali's mom, Traci, assured him her daughter was no drama queen. The doctor listened and ran tests that showed Kali had a rare and almost always deadly infection. Swimming around in her spinal fluid this brain-eating amoeba. Kali's parents were told she might have only days to live.
T. HARDIG: I hung on by my husband and asking him what are we gonna do, and he would tell me that we're going to pray for Kali and help her fight. We're going to tell her to fight, and that she would be okay.
COHEN: To preserve brain tissue Kali's doctors induced a coma and cooled her body to 93 degrees. Doctors also turned to the centers for disease control for an experimental anti-amoeba drug, unsure if it would work but apparently it has. Now there's no trace of the amoeba in Kali's spinal fluid.
DR. SANJIV PASALA, ARKANSAS CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL: Day by day she's showing slow improvement and we're all very optimistic.
COHEN: But Kali remains in intensive care in critical condition.
PASALA: Killing the amoebas is one thing but managing brain swelling and the aftermath of the infection and the irritation to the brain is really the critical part in having a patient survive.
COHEN: If Kali does pull through she'll beat the odds. Only one person in the U.S. has survived this disease in the past 50 years. Kali's parents are praying she'll be number two.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COHEN: Kali's parents want other parents to know if you're jumping into a warm lake or a hot spring this time of year when the water's really warm, what you want to do is hold your nose or use nose clips because that's how the amoeba gets in, is through the nose into the central nervous system and then into the brain. Chris? Kate?
BOLDUAN: All right, Elizabeth, thanks so much. Good advice but hopefully this experimental drug works it could be huge for anyone who deals with this later.
CUOMO: It would be huge in the category of not creating false panic. The chance of getting that in a swimming pool is not great.
BOLDUAN: This is in ponds and lakes and things like that. It's very rare.
CUOMO: A story we have to follow, good on that. We'll take a break on NEW DAY. when we come back, popular medical student is murdered. It's turning into more of a mystery. They thought at first there were a lot of break-ins but this doesn't look like a break-in. What could it be? We'll give you the latest, straight ahead.
BOLDUAN: And an Illinois lawmaker known as "Meltdown Mike" for his legendary rants we'll talk to him live about taking his fiery political act possibly to a much bigger stage.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(CROSSTALK)
CUOMO: Welcome back, everybody this is NEW DAY. Almost as important it is Wednesday, July 31st, I'm Chris Cuomo.
BOLDUAN: Good morning everyone. I'm Kate Bolduan joined by news anchor Michaela Pereira. Coming up in the show, preventable medical errors -- they happen over a million times a year and Dr. Sanjay Gupta will break down a new report that says 30 percent of patients face serious health risks after they've come out of surgery. There's risk in surgery and serious health risk after.
CUOMO: The more you know the better it will be.
Our man of the morning, there he is, "Meltdown Mike," that's how they know him. Look a little closely, veins popping out of his head, filled with passion, already an internet legend now trying to be a bigger player on the political stage, maybe going to Congress, he'll tell us about it live. We'll have "Meltdown Mike" and "Coolhand Kate" in the same interview.
BOLDUAN: I couldn't wait to see what you'd come up with.
(CROSSTALK)
CUOMO: A little dramatic pause. Is there more?
(CROSSTALK)
PERIERA: There's always more. Let's look at the headlines. Health officials pinpoint prepackaged salad mixes as the source of a parasite-borne intestinal illness outbreak in at least two states now. More than 100 cases of cyclospora have been reported in Iowa, 78 in Nebraska. Investigators in both states blame a bagged blend of iceberg and romaine lettuce with red cabbage and carrots. No word yet on where the product was sold or under what brand name. So far a total of 353 cyclospora cases in some 15 states.
In a few hours the sentencing phase begins for Army Private Bradley Manning. He was convicted on 20 of the 22 major charges against him, for giving secrets to Wikileaks. They include espionage, theft and computer fraud, but Manning was acquitted on the most serious charge of aiding the enemy. That could have meant life in prison without parole.
A University of California San Diego student forgotten in a DEA cell for five days will get $4.1 million in a settlement with the federal government. 25-year-old Daniel Chong says he had given up and accepted death after a 2012 ecstasy raid at a friend's house landed him in a holding cell. As the days passed, Chong drank his own urine and even used car -- to carve the farewell message "sorry mom" on his arm.
The Unites Airlines worker accused of using the confusion caused by the crash of flight 214 as a chance to steal luggage. Prosecutors in San Francisco say Sean Cruddup was caught on camera grabbing some of the piled-up luggage caused by flight delays. His fiance was then able to turn some of that luggage into cash, allegedly exchanging about $5,000 worth of high-end clothing at a nearby Nordstrom store.
A close call for race car driver Tony Stewart. Look at this video. Stewart was in Ontario, Canada, Monday night racing a sprint car on a dirt track for fun. It flipped five times and what's amazing he walked away uninjured and just sort of carried on racing the next night, in fact.