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tv   Wolf  CNN  October 20, 2014 10:00am-11:01am PDT

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20 years? >> we believe the ones we found are more recent. >> do you know how recent? >> not exactly, no. >> i'm sure you don't want to go too far with this but if he articulates why he killed the victims? >> no, not -- i don't have a specific reason he does this. i don't know at this time. >> were any of the women reported missing ever? >> we do have missing reports on several, i believe. >> i'm wolf blitzer in washington. we're monitoring this news conference in indiana where potentially there could be a serial killer right now apprehended by local police. at least one person suspected. maybe six others, seven other women. i want to listen in briefly. ashleigh banfield is standing by. let's listen in to the police chief answering some reporters' questions. >> mr. van is cooperating with us and that is all we have at the moment. it was just pointed out that
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only one of the victims had a is missing report out. >> does the state of indiana have an obligation to keep track of him? >> specifically -- he's not a h hammond resident. >> was he a resident of indiana? >> he was a gary resident. >> was he registered under the state of indiana? >> state of texas. >> did he have an obligation to be registered under the state of indiana? >> we have to work with the county on that. he doesn't live in hammond so my officers would not have been following him. >> can you tell us about his whereabouts? was he originally from texas? >> i don't know. >> can you tell us -- >> i don't have the information with me. >> chief, can you tell us about the conditions of the bodies when they were found? were they tied up or -- >> i cannot. i cannot. >> also, more exactly, how you
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tracked him down once you found out that was the person that you were looking for? >> i can only talk about the use of the phone. we got the phone number from the facilitator and we used some electronic measures to track him down and locate him in gary. the classification would be -- the other cases are not solved yet. if we directly attach him to it, we can make that assumption. he's being charged today with the hammond. >> did you voluntarily give you the information? >> yes. >> is he physically going to the sites with you to show you where they are? >> he's been giving us descriptions, cooperating and accompanying us to locations. >> are these bodies in abandoned
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houses? >> yes. >> all of them? >> yes. >> were they murdered at these locations or dumped there? >> that is not known. >> okay. we're going to do a couple more questions. i want to remind everybody, this is an active investigation. we don't want to jeopardize that. >> if he was detained in texas, have you been in contact with the texas police? >> we have not directly as of yet. >> is he telling you anything about the women? did he indicate why he was telling you about the women? >> it was just something he wanted to do. that's all i can say. >> is there any indication that he had an accomplice? >> we have no indication that he did anything here. >> we're going to do two more questions. okay? hold on, hold on. hold on. two more questions and we're going to call this. sir? sir? >> what indication are you
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getting from him, why do you think there could possibly be more victims? >> i can't go into direct statements but his level of cooperation and things he's told us would indicate other possible victims could surface. >> and they are adult women? >> yes. >> has he been remorseful? >> i have not talked to him directly, personally. so i cannot say that. >> one more and we're done. >> one more question. >> right now are investigators out looking at any other addresses for any additional bodies or right now are things -- >> my investigators are not in the field at the moment. they are still dealing with mr. van. >> what about gary? >> i don't know what gary is doing at this moment. >> if it were not the great work of the police, we would not have found this serial killer.
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i preeappreciate all of the fin work of the officers who worked on this case and appreciate you for coming out today. it's an active case and we don't want to jeopardize this case. northwest indiana is safer. thank you very much and have a nice day, everybody. >> so there you see what is going on in hammond, indiana. a suspect now potentially involved with seven women in hammond, indiana, and nearby gary, indiana. the suspect is cooperating. they have now found seven bodies of women in hammond, indiana, and gary, indiana. let's bring in the host of "legal view," ashleigh banfield, who is covering this story for us. they find a suspect and he's allegedly cooperating. he leads us to six other bodies of women. update our viewers here in the
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united states and indeed and around the world. >> this is a very fast-developing case, wolf, of what appears to be a serial killer allegedly operating in the indiana area. like you said, friday night a woman is killed in a motel 6. by saturday, the police chief just announced that they used phone tracking to find their suspect the next day who apparently, according to the chief, admitted to the officers that he, quote, messed up by committing the crime in hammond and that was the tip of the iceberg. he admitted to six other killings. it's one thing to confess, wolf, as we all know, people confess to all sorts of things that they do but they cannot lead you to bodies unless they know something more and according to the police, that's exactly what that suspect, 43-year-old darren van did. he led the police to the bodies of the six other women at
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several other locations. body number one in hammond, number two, found in hammond, body number three is an unidentified african-american female. body number four, described as christine williams. body number 5 and body number 6 were found together at a site and they are unidentified african-american females. something else that is fascinating, the way that mr. van is apparently speaking openly and cooperatively to the police leads them to believe that there will be other possible victims that could surface. he's a registered sex offender in section sas. there are apparently other infractions within other states
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that they haven't gone into. something that the police chief of gary, indiana, told me just prior to your show, wolf, is that he is not -- he has not retained counsel. he has not lawyered up and invoked his fifth amendment privilege to stop speaking. the police chief, larry mckinnemckinley said that he has stopped talking. he doesn't have a lawyer. so it's not that he's invoked his privilege, just that he's stopping with the information which i find very, very interesting. also, the police chief in hammond just announced that they are working with this suspect and that they don't have field officers out scanning additional abandoned properties to find other victims at this time. he said he was unsure of what's happening in gary, indiana, where these six victims were found. but i actually asked the mayor of gary, indiana, what are you doing, what are your dispatches,
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how are your officers scanning abandoned properties for additional victims? and the mayor was only able to say to me that we are doubling down on our efforts to demolish many of the abandoned properties. that's difficult in terms of noting whether that means demolish them on an existing program or to democrlish them a clearing them. one thing that i can tell you, a fascinating note, why would a man just release all of that information in one fell swoop and lead authorities within a 48-hour period to seven different bodies? the police chief said that he was looking for a deal. there will be a deal that will come close to someone not spending the rest of their life behind bars. looking for a deal and that's perhaps why he's been cooperative. short of that, anybody's guess as to why he would confess to that now. >> 43-year-old darren van under
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arrest and there have been seven bodies of ind yindiana now foun. we'll stay on top of that for our viewers. there's also important news that we're following, including ebola. today we heard the head of the national institutes of infectious diseases saying new protocols for health care workers dealing with ebola here in the united states could just be hours away. they are to prevent them from contracting the virus. the 21-day quarantine for people who came into contact with eric duncan is over. 44 of the 48 health care workers are now off quarantine. the remaining four will be soon. there is certainly lingering concern. >> whether they would be seen as disease carriers or oddities, there's zero risk that any of those people who have been marked off the list had ebola.
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they were in contact with the person who had ebola and the time period for them to get ebola has lapsed. they do not have ebola. >> the military is creating a quick strike team here in the united states. according to the pentagon, it could deploy within 72 hours, calling it a spectacular story, the world health organization says nigeria is ebola-free. there have been no new cases in the six weeks. senator ted cruz of texas criticized the obama administration's choice of ron klain as the even czar or add minute straight for, the coordinator, as he prefers to be called, to suspend flights from west africa. >> we don't need another white house political operative, which is what mr. klain has been. what we need is presidential leadership. two weeks ago the president
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should have stood up and suspended flights from these countries. >> all right. let's drill deeper into the pentagon's plan for the quick strike team. the pentagon says they wanted aggressive response to the ebola threat. this team will supplement civilian medical professionals and is part of the answer, a. how soon will this strike team be operational? >> wolf, these teams are headed to ft. hood, texas, and will learn how to use the protective gear and be ready to go in a little bit more than a week. the military orders for about 30 days will require them to be ready to go to deploy to any location within 72 hours or less if more ebola cases erupt. so this is really stand by and making everybody feel better at this point, being ready to go if there are more cases thankfully right now at least there are
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not. >> the u.s. military is still moving forward with their plan to send 3 or 4,000 troops, right? >> they are. the pentagon has an ability to call up reserves as they go over to west africa to work on building hospitals and training centers, building more capacity, especially in liberia, to treat liberian patients there, to treat health workers that might get ebola as a result of the crisis there. so that is still all going on. this team back in the united states will not going to africa but it's very interesting. if there is another ebola case in the u.s. and they are called into action for the first time, that would put the military in the position of possibility being in direct care of ebola patients in this country. >> barbara starr at the pentagon, thanks very much into when we come back, the agency
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for the international development is here with me in washington and he's just back from liberia and other countries in west africa. we're going to talk about what he said, an eyewitness account of what is going on there. thousands of people have contracted ebola there. also, the cdc, the centers for disease control is learning their lesson but the white house, that's a different story. according to one of our guests who just co-wrote an op-ed in the the journal about what the white house is doing right and wrong. the u.s. is dropping aid directly into the city of kobani. we're going to go live to the syrian/turkish border and find out if it's making a difference in the fight against isis. all of that coming up. stay with us. a brand new start. your chance to rise and shine. with centurylink as your trusted technology partner, you can do just that. with our visionary cloud infrastructure, global broadband network and custom communications solutions,
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welcome back to our viewers in the united states and around the world. the united states is certainly the forefront in the effort to try to stop the spread of even ebola in west africa. let's talk about -- you just came back from liberia, seierra leone and new guinea and senegal. what happened? >> the way we protect ourselves is to stop ebola at its source and the united states is leading an international coalition to really tackle this crisis by helping to build ebola treatment units, build out community care units throughout west africa and support the bee haf yor changes the whole time i was there we were not shaking hands, we were
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bumping elbows. >> raj, we're showing pictures of you there and you can see those pictures. i assume when your family, your friends, colleagues heard you were going there, they got pretty nervous? >> people do get nervous but the guidance is quite clear. i was not in contact with ebola patients and took all the necessary precautions and so i'm -- and my temperature is just fine. so the important thing is that the american response and the global response is really accelerating. what i saw were real signs of progress. i met with survivors who came out of one of our facilities and talked about the home they were bringing to their communities. >> you're wearing a mask there. tell us who you were talking to, why you needed that kind of protective gear. that was in liberia? >> that was in sierra leone. that's a training facility to train 120 local sierra leonian
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health care workers every week to learn how to put on and attack off protective gear. we're helping them so they can be the ones that provide care in ebola treatment units that we're helping to build and they could be the ones that come into contact with ebola patients to both save their lives and prevent the spread of this virus. >> we know about 3 or 4,000 u.s. military personnel are either there or on their way over the next few weeks and months. how many u.s. civilians are there in the hot zone as it's called, sierra leone and new guinea dealing with this? >> we have the largest centers for disease control experts deployment. we have international development disaster assistant specialists. and they are helping each country say, here's our strategy. how do we operationalize it? we're building up 28 ebola units and 17 in liberia. that means 3300 beds are going to be available within weeks to
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months to help make sure patients get in, get treated. i visited one of these. these are complicated facilities with piping for chlorinated. >> you don't have to go into quarantine for 21 days. is that right? >> that's right. i was not in contact with an ebola patient. the perception is that the response has been slow there and i've seen it accelerate and one of the things most hopeful is we have helped build out 56 burial teams. they go in and within 24 hours of a body being identified from ebola, they safely remove that body. because they are now getting more than three-quarters of all dead bodies within 24 hours, we're starting to see the growth
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of ebola come counsel. >> so you're seeing progress. we know nigeria has been declared ebola-free, senegal as well. secretary of state john kerry said if not enough is done, this could go on for decades. but you've come back a little upbeat? >> i've come back with understanding the plan and strategy and how the united states can help accelerate the performance on the ground. i know secretary kerry made a lot of phone calls to get others to do more. we're now seeing $400 million of commitments from international partners. part of my trip was with the foreign minister of norway who committed 160 norwegian health care workers to this fight. the whole world has to tackle this together but we know how to overcome this disease. we're working to get the resources and people in place at scale to do it effectively in west africa. >> raj shah, thank you for going over there. pretty courageous for you and
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the other americans that are dealing with a huge international crisis and let's hope it can be contained. appreciate it very much. good luck to you. >> thank you, wolf. >> raj shah, the agency for international development here in washington. when ebola showed up in the united states, the president confidently said that the united states knew how to handle this crisis and then came all the criticism and there's been a ton of it. just ahead, an expert talks about rebuilding faith in the institutions that are dealing with the virus. it's a warning. a wake-up call. but it's not happening out there. it's happening in here. [ sirens wailing ] inside of you. even if you're treating your crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis, an occasional flare may be a sign of damaging inflammation. learn more about the role damaging inflammation may be playing in your symptoms with the expert advice tool at crohnsandcolitis.com. and then speak with your gastroenterologist.
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border, syrian fighters are getting unprecedented help. the united states has been dropping military aid to those defending kobani from isis militants. turkey will allow turkish peshmerga fighters to help with the battle as it continues. nick paton walsh is watching all of this develop and he's just outside kobani. >> reporter: wolf, we're told by those inside kobani that those three c-130 aircraft dropped their 27 bundles of aid, mostly to the city center and also slightly to the west. they contain medical supplies. one doctor rejoicing in how, after weeks of struggling with the makeshift hospital here, he now had a ton of medical aid in which to treat patients. we know that one extra bundle landed off target making the total 28 and that six coalition air strikes that have hit around kobani, one was used to destroy
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that stray bundle presumably to make sure it didn't fall into isis' hands. but the pressure is still on the kurds. a senior leader inside saying that 200 mortar rounds have hit in the last three days, almost at random. it seems ooiisis is trying to et an authority there. they have about a third to the east and the south. but another key development, wolf, turkey, who presumably wasn't happy at the notion of washington directly giving arms to syrian kurds, who they consider to be terrorists inside turkey, turkey has said that they will permit iraqi turkey fighters, the peshmerga, to travel through turkey and move into kobani and help with that fight. that's something that has not happened yet but will add to the syrian kurdish demand. they know isis could come back and they are very glad to see
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washington resupply them last night. wolf? >> nick paton walsh on the border of turkey and syria. thank you. still ahead, should nurses be allowed to avoid high-risk patients like those infected with ebola? we'll talk to sheila jackson lee. she's from texas. she's got strong views. stand by. [ julie ] the wrinkle cream graveyard.
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welcome back to our viewers
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in the united states and around the world. i'm wolf blitzer reporting from washington. in texas right now, 43 people are out of quarantine. that's three weeks after coming into contact with thomas eric duncan. he was the first person diagnosed with ebola in the united states. he was from liberia diagnosed at a dallas hospital. the mayor says they are still monitoring 120 other people which includes health care workers from texas presbyterian hospital where duncan was treated and unfortunately passed away. joining me is congresswoman sheila jackson lee. the president is getting a lot of criticisms from republicans and a few democrats on his new ebola coordinator or czar, whatever you want to call him, ron klain, because he doesn't have any medical experience. do you think that was a good appointment? >> i do. and what our republican friends do not realize, ron is part of a
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very large team. you just heard from the head of usaid, dr. shah, who has done an excellent job and came back from the infected areas. ron's job is to make sure that we're doing everything we can with the leaders of ncih, cdc, and homeland security. what is good about ron, he was there during a crisis a few years ago and that, of course, was the economic crisis and handled the distribution of money. he knows how to get people to do the job. we need a manager and we have one. we've got to fix our communication and our education and support and protection of our health professionals in the case of an ebola case that comes up. >> you won't be surprised that texan senator ted cruz has a different assessment. i'll play you a clip of what he
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said. >> we don't need another white house kroop tcooperative. what we need is the president standing up and leading as a public health emergency. >> you probably saw that story in "the new york times" on saturday saying that the president was, quote, seething because he didn't think his team did a good job, especially when that liberian showed up at the dallas hospital and the fallout after that. have you been in touch with the white house? was the president seething at his aides? >> the president is a perfectionist. he's had a mountain of trials and tribulations from international and domestic. he wants the american people to be protected and i would venture to say he was clearly not happy with the response that should have been more immediate. i would say, for example, from the centers for disease control, as you well know, has
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established a crisis team, an alert team, the pentagon is establishing an alert team and dr. frieden himself indicated that maybe he should have sent a team there. now, the president -- let me say to my good friend, the senator from texas, just needs to read a little more. the president was issuing immediate support to the infected areas in liberia and senegal, sierra leone, new guinea and he was on top of it from the perspective of stopping it at its source. because he desires to have hoou citizens protected, we were not happy. none of us were happy when we had the homeland hearing, what are you telling hospital workers and unfortunately the word was not there and we see what happened. >> i know you have a strong view on nurses, that if they don't want to be involved in treating the ebola patients, they shouldn't necessarily be involved in it.
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as you know, two nurses contracted ebola and one is now being treated at bethesda, maryland, and one in atlanta, georgia. explain to me what your position is on nurses and their refusal to care for high-risk patients. >> well, i met with nurses just last week and everyone knows that the image of the nurse is florence nightingale but they are citizens of the united states and they have freedom of expression and if their own medical condition, their own relationship to their family, their age, then they should have the opportunity to be able to say that to their employer of their condition and be assigned elsewhere even if they are a critical care nurse. but what i will say to you is that it is clear that the nurses at texas presbyterian neither had the information or the equipment. they didn't know how to not put
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on layers of gloves, how not to take your hands, they didn't have the head covering that they should have. you have shown it on air. i support these nurses by saying that nurses should only be taking care of one ebola patient at a time if this was to ever happen again and they should be able to have the kind of full dress equipment that you've seen either in the infected countries, either that the military has with the full headgear and not using tape around their body, if you will, to try to protect them. so, yes, i think nurses all together, overall will be willing to treat any patient that comes into their hospital. but i do believe that if, in the case of treating the ebola patient, that they make the point for whatever reason it is, dealing with their own health or status, there should be that conversation. that should not count, as i might say, when mr. duncan came and was turned away from the
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hospital and i believe his situation was exacerbated by him showing up a few days via ambulance. the 14 people speed taking care of mr. duncan, the ems drivers, the community members and four loved ones are included in those 44 persons who is now, according to the cdc, i spoke to them this morning, 44 of them are now ebola-free and can be in the community and i hope and pray that they are not stigmatized because they are free under the incue baiting time and the determine nating for t centers for disease control. >> you know a bunch of people are not going to necessarily believe the government when they say these people, after 21 days of quarantine, are completely free of ebola so they will be resisting that but let's hope for the best. sheila jackson lee, democratic congresswoman from texas, thank you for joining us. >> thank you. we'll continue to monitor. >> i know you will. thank you very much. so how did the white house
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handle this whole crisis of ebola? my next guest says that the white house still has lessons to learn and speaking of the white house, the president of the united states is not showing up in some crucial battleground states with only about two weeks to go until midterm elections. we'll take a closer look at why he isn't where a lot of the action is. narrator: these are the tennis shoes skater kid: whoa narrator: that got torture tested by teenagers and cried out for help. from the surprised designers. who came to the rescue with a brilliant fix male designer: i love it narrator: which created thousands of new customers for the tennis shoes that got torture tested by teenagers. the internet of everything is changing manufacturing. is your network ready?
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some mistakes as well in initially dealing with the virus putting some people potentially at risk as far as initial protocols were concerned, especially for some nurses. getting out the message right now, learning the message is critically important. what were the biggest mistakes made so far from your perspective? >> there were some communication missteps. public health 101 is that you've got to tell people not to panic. you also have to be very upfront about what the facts are. if you give them overly optimistic projections, they are not going to believe you. another one is the protocols appear to not have been right in dallas. >> why were those protocols so bad? the nurse -- the nurses didn't have complete protection around their necks. there was tape on the necks. that sounds so ridiculous. >> that's very good reason for this. we have excellent medical care in the u.s. but we have very invasive medical care.
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we do more intubations, blood draws, more changing of bed sheets, more than is done in africa. there's a lot more exposure to bodily fluids because of our more modern system. i don't think our protocols took that into account. it's paradoxical but it's the case. >> people are saying that there have been three cases of ebola in the united states and let's hope that is it but they are braces potentially for more. >> i am and i am concerned that it could happen but it's possible that the dallas episode, while tragic, could be the end of this. hopefully this won't continue any further. that's the hope. >> and then the u.s. would be ebola-free as senegal and nigeria is. they've got to get a handle of what is going on in west africa to make sure that the world is ebola-free and that's an enormous challenge. >> it's much more complicated. we've had over 4,000 deaths
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there and they don't necessarily have the public health facilities, the ability to track and trace or the same type of patient care that we have here in the u.s. >> was it a mistake, from your perspective, for the president to have ron klain, well known in the clinton and obama administration who knows politics very well but really no medical experience or degrees or anything like that, to be the so-called ebola coordinated or czar? >> ron klain is a very talented individual. everybody that knows him says that. he does not have a public background and he's also seen as a campaign person. to the extent that some of the president's problems are that we're not dealing this well from a public health perspective and he does too much through the lens of partisan politics, i think it was a problematic choice. >> from your perspective, the president should have brought in someone less political but with more medical experience and could coordinate the u.s. agencies and the government in dealing with this crisis? some people have said former
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senator bill frisk? >> i think he would have been a great choice but he's been fixed and hopefully he'll do a good job. >> appreciate you coming in. just about two weeks until the midterm elections here in the united states. everyone is looking at the crucial battleground states to see who will determine who will be the majority in the u.s. senate. so why is president obama showing up in states that are seen as not necessarily all that crucial? we'll take a closer look at that, whether republicans will take over when the senate gloria borger is standing by. till miss. so my buddy here is going to help me find it. here we go. woo who, woah, woah, woah. it's out there somewhere spreading the word about americas favorite potatoes: heart healthy idaho potatoes and the american heart association's
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here in the united states, critically important midterm elections a little more than two weeks away. two weeks from tomorrow. early voting has begun in 34 states including washington, d.c. as well. president obama cast his ballot a little while ago in his home
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state of illinois. last night at a rally at chicago state university, he revealed who he was voting for. >> the first thing i'm going to do tomorrow is cast my vote to re-elect dick durbin and give my friend pat quinn four more years as governor of the great state of illinois. >> he's not shy telling us he's voting for democrats. made candidates in the mid terms distanced themselves from the president. joining us now is gloria borger taking a closer look at this. interesting that he's gone to maryland. he's gone to illinois to campaign. he's not showing up in a lot of those battleground states where democrats are clinging for their political lives. >> right. he's not being asked to go to those battleground states. i was talking to a senior democrat who is very involved with these campaigns. he said to me, look, you could not imagine a more hideous cycle for the democrats. they've got a lot of folks up
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for re-election in red states. the president is very unpopular in these states. while he can raise money for them in other states, they're not asking them to come to their own states to campaign because they know that it can backfire. as republicans nationalize these elections, the president becomes a target and they don't need that aggravation right now when they are running these tight races. >> you were just in colorado where there's a very close senate race under way. what was your impression? >> the senator if you believe the polls is polling five to six points behind his republican challenger. he's a democratic incumbent who is trying to distance himself from the president in any way he can. the president has a 37% popularity rating in the state of colorado. but here's the unknown factor for all of us as we head into the midterm elections and that is that the democrats now have a
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real ground game advantage. in the state of colorado, for example, you have mail in ballots. ballots are at home right now. i was told that 80% of the people in colorado will vote before election day. democrats believe they have an advantage in telling people knocking door to door focusing on people and saying we're done persuading them. right now we either have to get them out to vote or get them to cast their ballots and they believe that they can make up any deficit with organization and if you go back to the last presidential race, we know democrats outorganize the republicans so that's a difference that we can't quantify yet. >> in 2012, the democrats did a better job getting democrats out but in 2010, the republicans did a better job. what are republicans doing now? >> the republicans are saying that they are organizing. they are nationalizing this election. instead of making it a bunch of races state by state, what they're saying is it's ex-obama.
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everyone is tied to obama. they are using the issues of competency. they are including healthcare as part of the competency question. they are using this question which polls very well for them about the so-called imperial presidency. the overreach of this president. and they are saying, look, this president believes in big government. we don't believe in big government. we believe that we need to make government smaller and more efficient. so what they're trying to do is take a bunch of local races, whether it's in congressional districts or whether it's in states, and nationalize them as a referendum on this president tying every candidate to barack obama. >> we don't know how the ebola scare or isis war or any of that is going to play out. >> it doesn't help. i was talking to this democrat who looked at polling in many states. he said to me that at the height of ebola scare and isis, their general polling went down for the democrats. so they know that these are not
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issues that help them because if the president is seen as not managing them well and not leading on them well, there's a trickle down effect to democratic candidates. >> we know also that republicans will need a net gain of six in the united states senate to be the majority. two of those races in georgia, for example, and louisiana, if no one gets 50%, there has to be a runoff in december in louisiana and january for georgia. so we might not know until january who the majority is in the senate. >> election night will be very exciting, wolf. not only will we determine who controls the senate but it could go on and on and on. we've had elections that have done that in the past. 2000 presidential. control of the senate is at stake here and that would mean that republicans control the entire congress, wolf. this could go on way beyond november 4th as you point out in louisiana it's all about a foregone conclusion that there
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is going to be a runoff. there are so many candidates in that race. >> gloria, thanks very much. we'll be busy over the next several weeks. tomorrow night is debate night here in america. jake tapper will moderate the debate between florida's current governor rick scott and florida's former governor charlie crist at 7:00 p.m. eastern. on thursday, i'll moderate the debate in the senate race there as scott brown takes on his challenger. 11:00 p.m. eastern. stick around. debate night in america. we'll take a quick break and be right back.
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the united states attorney general eric holder is wrapping things up at the justice department. he's getting ready to step down after six years. he will step down as soon as a replacement is confirmed by the united states senate.
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holder sat down in the meantime with our own justice correspondent evan perez to talk about criticism of the president. >> there was some really strong criticism recently from leon panetta who led the cnn and the pentagon. he called into question the president's ability to make decisions especially on syria. you were in some of those meetings. did you see an indecisive president? how do you feel about the criticism that's been made? >> i have to disagree with his characterization of the president. the president is a deliberate person in an appropriate way but he's also resolute. once he makes up his mind. i think that what leon said in the book is unfortunate. frankly, i don't think it's something that a former cabinet member should do while the president you served is still in office. that's not something that i would even consider doing. >> for more of evan's conversation with eric holder later on today at 4:00 p.m.
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eastern. we'll have more in "the situation room" as well. that's it for me. thanks very much for watching. i'll be back at 5:00 p.m. eastern in "the situation room." for our international viewers, christiane amanpour is next. for viewers in the united states and throughout north america, "newsroom" with brooke baldwin starts right now. >> thank you so much. great to be with you on this monday. let's begin with a case of a serial killer. this is what we're learning today. to indiana here where this 19-year-old woman had been found strangled to death at this hotel in hammond and a suspect under arrest but the discovery just started there. while in custody, this 43-year-old man told them where they could find the bodies of three other women. and then the next day police found the bodies of three more women. so total here