-nice! -that's what we're doing. -whoo! -it just needed a little encouragement. hey travis, are we ripping out all of these cabins? this entire island? -nope. we're going to keep where the dishwasher's at, and the refrigerator. but we're going to customize where the sink base is, and where the disposal was. well, we have to save the island countertop, because we're using that top for fabrication around the lowered kitchen cooktop now. so-- and then we can't replace the granite. if we broke it, we would be out of luck. so it's very important for us to save the countertop. -the problem was, it was not coming off. -(exasperated) have we got another knife? go around the front. -i think we should just sawzall this whole thing off, and take it off as one whole piece. right. with a, uh, you know, little elbow grease-- -yeah. the sawzall, about six guys, we were able to get it off.

i'm uh, i'm a little stuck behind the island. you guys good? you guys got it? -yep. -i think it took five and a half to get the countertop off. and i think george would be the half. -turns out, liquid nails does work out all right. [applause] -olympic swimmer, amy van dyken-rouen, has six gold medals. but those wins are not what define her success. instead, it's the remarkable courage that has sustained her since being paralyzed from the waist down in an accident three months ago. narrator: "george to the rescue" is sponsored in part by coldwell banker real estate, fulfilling dreams for 108 years.

her husband, tom, who has been by her side during her recovery, also joins us now. tom, nice to see you, as well. thanks for joining us. -nice to see you. -you guys have not been home in three months. tom rouen: yeah.

meredith vieira: talked about simple things like carpets now being very hard for you, and doorways. -yeah. -is your home up to the challenge now? -um, i don't know. we've had some of tom's friends in the house making sure that it's ok. meredith vieira: do they know what they're doing? -i don't know. [laughing] i don't know. -all right. so travis, in here, we have our lift system for the cabinet, which is going to make amy's life a lot easier. how exactly does this work? -we take out the bottom the cabinet, and the lift comes down through the bottom of the cabinet. -right about there? -yep. -assume that we're going to set this thing on top of it? -yep. -this, this might be a three man job. what's up guys? -how's it going? -so is this the lift system? -this is the aqua creek ranger lift, yes it is. -all right. i uh, i got all suited up. i was wondering if i could take it for a test drive. -we're expecting you to, so let's go. -just lift your handle up. if you're at a-- if you're at a chair, you pull up the side here.

get even right here before the-- -so for amy, she'd lift this up. -yes sir. -she'd just slide right in like this. -mhm. -that's about where you get your buoyancy, and you can slide on off from there. -all right. -so i'm walking around the job site, looking at all the progress we've made, and also all the progress we haven't made. there's definitely a lot of projects that need to be finished in order for us to be able to reveal this house to amy. hey, what's up tony? -hi george. -so uh, i mean, it looks, looks like we're moving along. but looks like we're also a little bit behind. -we are. -time may very well become an issue. so this is the sink so that we got. travis neff: oh. george oliphant: so we go right in here. travis neff: that's not the right sink. george oliphant: no, i don't like that sink at all. -i can't knock anyone's effort. we've had lots of people in this house trying

to make sure everything's done. it's just uh, it's not easy, working on top of each other. the plumbers, the electricians, the framers. um, everyone is just kind of scrambling. so the countertops are already kind of-- like, templated, and set, ready to go? travis neff: i'm worried about the faucets too. george oliphant: so wha-- what are our options? -find new faucets. -so wait, new faucets and new sinks? -yeah. we might have to. -and since this is a his and hers, i means two sinks and two sets of faucets. i'd like to say it's an organized chaos, but it's kind of just a little bit of just straight up chaotic chaos. you know what this means? we need at least another red bull. -or two. -[sighs] cheers. narrator: "george to the rescue" is sponsored in part by homeadvisor, the free way to find and hire the best home pros.

crew: one two, one two. buckle my shoe. crew: what? all right, hold on. -you've got that side, i've got this side. just the two of us. you've got one shot at this, because, uh, fabricating something like that, it's not easy. -good news, the plumbing issues have been taken care of. the tile is now going up in the bathroom. you're finally back on track. aw, yeah. ok. ready? one, two, three. oh my god. i love the way that this new island countertop came out. it, it's like it's always been here. -i know, it's awesome. they were able to lower it. we've got this accent piece that i think looks fantastic with the kitchen. obviously, we couldn't do the same granite,

but this is perfect. -right. it's a different granite over there, but this marries perfectly with it. and we used the granite that was on this island so that we could retrofit the stove top. so we lowered it for amy, and everything just came together to seamless. -it's gorgeous. she's going to love it. -but talk about cool things that we've done in this room. as you can see, the blinds are going up and down. we've got new shades, or honeycomb shades. they are going to keep the sun at bay. we've got budget blinds taking care of everything. guys, show them how they go up and down, just the touch of a button. alissa, you've got to see what kevin and his team from tailored living have done with this closet. -oh, wow. this looks amazing kevin. -thank you. -she has very high ceilings, so we're able to utilize all the space in here. alissa parisi: ok -for the clothes, the lower bars are actually for short or medium hang. -mhm. -and then just above those, these are fully accessible. these are a little jumpy right now because there's no weight on them from clothes. but they'll take up to 26 pounds per bar. -ok. -can get what you need. they lock in into position.

and then when you put it back up, it just goes on its own, and its out of the way. -oh, we got them a new garage door too? -it's for the hood. -oh, wait. there's a what? which, which button do i hit? -hopefully, they've plugged it in. hit the fan, see if it turns on. aha! it's alive. george oliphant: you really do think of everything, don't you travis? seriously, can you come to new york with me? travis neff: sure. -we've talked about simple things like carpets now being very hard for you, and doorways. amy van dyken-rouen: yeah. meredith vieira: is your home up to the challenge now? -um, i don't know. we've had some of tom's friends in the house making sure that it's ok. -do they know what they're doing? -i don't know. i don't know. -well, you know what? i have a little surprise for you. tom's friends have not been in your house. -ok. -no. we wanted to do everything we could actually to make life a little easier for you when you got home. yeah, you're ready? -i don't know. -we partnered with george oliphant from the home improvement show, "george to the rescue," to make some renovations.

so george, can you come out here? [applause] -ok. well, george has been on this secret mission. we called george and asked him, because he's so great at this. we're going to start with the kitchen. -so we took the granite from the original island, but we dropped it down a little bit so that you can roll under. -[gasps] oh, my god. george oliphant: and as you see, the backslash right there, that was just a little bit of an upgrade.

start with the kitchen. -let's see what it looked like before, and tell us what the challenges were for you. -first and foremost in the kitchen, we had to deal with the island, because you had the tiered island. and when you're entertaining, i wanted you to be able to see out over the island to everybody. so we cut off that tier. we put on a giant, beautiful piece of a, of granite.

and then i retrofit your sink for you so that you can roll under, and you have all the independence of being able to use your sink, get water, do dishes, what have you. amy van dyken-rouen: oh my gosh. -and in, in the retrofitting, we also decided that we should probably retrofit your stove top as well. amy van dyken-rouen: ok. george oliphant: so we took the granite from the original island, and we married it in so that everything's seamless. but we dropped it down a little bit so that you can roll under. -[gasps] oh my god. george oliphant: and as you see the backslash right there, that was just a little bit of an upgrade. amy van dyken-rouen: oh my god. george oliphant: but probably the coolest thing that we did in this kitchen for you, obviously, we don't want to change all the cabinets. so now with the touch of a button, your cabinets actually drop down to you. [applause] -oh my god, look at that. oh my god. that's so-- thank you. -i wanted to make sure, obviously, you have wheelchair accessibility. but i also wanted to give you the independence of your home

so that when you're there, you know, you're not calling for tom. you can do everything you used to be able to do in your kitchen. -oh my god. -the team that i worked with out there was phenomenal. and i'm actually going to go back to arizona with you guys-- -good. george oliphant: and uh, show you the house in person. -oh, that's fabulous. yay! aw, that's awesome. amy van dyken-rouen: [gasp]. -welcome home. -thank you. [applause] amy van dyken-rouen: oh my gosh. holy cow. -these are the friends who came through the doors to make this rescue possible. -wow. george oliphant: everybody here contributed in some way or another to make sure that your house was absolutely perfect for your return. -oh my gosh. you guys are amazing. thank you guys so, so much, from the bottom of my heart. you guys will have no idea. every morning when i wake up, i'll probably think of all of you. so thank you for everything. thank you.

george oliphant: all right guys, come on in. amy van dyken-rouen: all right. oh my gosh. my carpet is gone! tom rouen: [laughing] wow. -this is amazing. [gasps] -that looks awesome. and that was our biggest problem, right there. that archway. -yeah. -because it was so narrow. -i don't even notice the archway. -right. so this is just the bedroom. what do you say? shall we go check out the bathroom? -um, yes. that is awesome. oh my gosh. this is so beautiful. god. [gasps] why is it the simplest things that are making me cry? oh my gosh, this is gorgeous. -it looks like a spa. -it is a spa! -it's unbelievable. -it is a spa. it totally is a spa.

tom rouen: oh my goodness. -holy cow. look at-- oh my gosh. this is amazing. you have no idea. since i've been injured, i have not had a really good shower. george oliphant: you're going to have a great shower now. -i'm going to have a great shower. -and you see, it's barrier free. so you've just rolled right in. -i-- you're right. oh my gosh. tom rouen: yeah, they took the, the lift out completely. -this is stunning. look at the ceiling. tom rouen: wow. this is amazing. -to continue through the house, and to see the renovations that took place. i mean, not only is this my house, this is my house on steroids, if you will. -all right. so we actually have, we actually have more. -ok. -believe it or not. -seriously? -yes. -there's not much more house. -there's just a little bit more. -ok. -we knew how much you loved your car. dignified motors and driving systems outfitted your chevy

so that it's ready for you to drive. -oh my god, ugly cry. -it's ready to go. -oh my gosh. are you kidding me? probably one of the greater feelings ever, to know that later on today, i can jump in my car. i can roll down the windows, and i can be free. and i can be like everybody else. because in a car, you can't tell if someone's able-bodied or handicap. so i can actually feel like a normal human being again. -so you've got your freedom back, babe. -thank you so much. -talk about some hot wheels. -i know, right? oh my gosh. you want to race? -yeah. i just want to ride. -yeah, absolutely. absolutely. -oh my gosh. thank you.

oh my gosh. tom rouen: oh, incredible guys. -it's like my sanctuary. and when you know, you know how you feel about your house, and like-- i didn't want it a lot to change, but i also didn't want it to look like the handicapped girl lived there. and you guys did such a great job. i'm so excited. but i feel like being in this house, i'm not really handicapped. because i can do absolutely everything in this house. so without george to the rescue, i would feel like a handicapped person. and i'm free. so it's changed everything.

this morning on "meet the press." our summit on ebola. >> for the first time in the history of the united states, somebody with ebola walked in the front door. >> as two nurses come down with the disease, is the wider american public in danger, and

is the government doing enough to make us safe? we can't give in to hysteria or fea fear. >> we have gathered experts in africa and on the ground to ask questions about how serious this danger really is. and plus, addicted to off e office. >> i feel like running for congress. >> three men aiming to make the unlikeliest of comebacks and two of them from prison. >> you are found guilty, you pay the price. >> and are we beginning to see the tide of a small wave. joining me are mike murphy, chief foreign affairs correspondent andrea mitchell and former adviser to president obama stephanie cutter and manu raja. >> announcer: this is "meet the press" with chuck todd.

>> for better or worse, one topic has taken the the headlines, ebola. here is the headline, "contagion of fear." with we have tried to separate fact from myth, and we have geared this dr. anthony fauci from the national institutes of health, and dr. dan berry from the ebola response team from africa, and the chair of emergency medicine at johns hopkins university and prize winni winning laureates as well. and so we hope to answer these questions, how dangerous is ebola to our health care system? and should there be a travel ban to the affected countries and are americans worried unnecessarily? let's start by looking at

america's growing fears that began in a week that began with an unnerving announcement. sunday a nurse who cared for ebola victim thomas eric duncan at texas presbyterian hospital is diagnosed with ebola, herself. nina pham becomes the first american to contract the disease on u.s. soil. >> i u don't know how it happened and the cdc is investigating it, because that is likely what happened, inadvertent breach. >> and then monday, her dog is moved to a decommissioned naval base to be monitored. tuesday, the cdc is looking at every aspect of the procedures at texas presbyterian hospital. >> we know that a single breach can cause an infection. >> and then wednesday, amber vinson, another nurse in dallas becomes the second american to con can tracan -- to contract e the united states, and then we learned that he she had flown to cleveland and two schools are clo

closed down and the plane is isolated. and then congress questions health officials. >> it is not a drill. people's lives are at stake, and the response so far has been unacceptable. >> and then friday the white house appoints ron klain to manage the are response to the disease. and still more fear in warrensville, ohio, the mayor closes the city hall because an employee's husband works with someone who shared a flight with amber vinson. and at the pentagon, a bus is quarantined when a woman falls ill and vomits in the parking lot. and this morning the cruise ship that was carrying a presbyterian lab worker who had to self-quarantine on the ship is docked in the galveston the and is dock and driven away by law enfor enforcement. we are joined by dr. anthony fauci who is the head of the disease

diseases and allergies at nih. >> good to be here. >> and you are treating one of the patients nina pham at n hishgs h. >> yes, the condition is fair and stable. i had a long conversation with her late last night, and as you might expeck, she has a serious disease, and i believe that she is doing well. my full intention is to at some time in the hopefully reasonable feature is to walk out of the hospital with her. we can not predict, but she is doing well. >> we are getting close to the magic 21-day figure for anyone who was working and treating the late mr. duncan. >> right. >> and so when we get there, does that mean that everybody connected in dallas is out of the woods? >> well, no. you have to look at it, chuck, in different phases. when mr. duncan first came to the emergency room when it was not and we didn't know that he had ebola, there was a group in that cadre that saw him, and we are later today at the 21-day

period for that group. then he goes into the hospital with the event in which two nurses got infected, and there is another group there that is further out that we have to follow, and then different groups as the further you go out, they are free, but the ones today that are going to be quote off of the hook are the ones who saw him initially in the emergency room. >> and let's talk about the government response. the president named ron klain, unofficially, the ebola czar, and how necessaries for the president to name somebody to basically make the bureaucracy speak to each other? >> well, the president made a good move and i will the tell you why, chuck, because you have multiple agencies involved, hhs, dod, and the state and the federal, and we have had good coordination with lisa monaco and susan pierce, but they have very, very important day jobs, so we need someone to coordinate whose only job is doing that.

i look forward to working with ron. >> have you met yet? >> we have exchanged e-mails and are going to be set to meet this week. >> and the role of the surgeon general, more helpful to have the surgeon general to be the public medical spokesperson for the government? >> well, it is nice to have a surgeon general, and you need to get the information out to the public. i believe that information is getting out well. and i am spending a good amount of time to get information out, and tom frieden is doing that, and as long as you have someone to get good and honest and clear information out, that is good. the that is the surgeon general, that is good. >> would you saw it is a dress rehearsal to see how the government would respond to an actual outbreak? >> well, i would not call it a dress rehearsal, because it is serious stuff, and we are taking it extremely seriously. but when you talk about the initial experience, it is always important to how you fine-tune. and people need to understand that although there are some missteps in the beginning, those things are experiences that put

on your radar screen and make you improve. we think about it every single day, how can we do better? and what is the best way to do this or do that. and right now, actually, things are moving quite smooth-- smoot big thing is to get the contact brackets and make sure we follow them. >> so we are sticking to the four hospitals, any diagnosed ebola patient is going to be transferred to one of the four locations. oo either yours here, emory and where else? >> well, we need to shore up and have more than the four in which you have people pretrained and you come in and that is the first time that you think about it. it can't be just four. we we may not need anymore and we hope that we don't, but in case there are more cases, we want to make sure that we have people who are pretrained, predrilled over and over and have the right protocol going. >> i guess i go back to the protocol, and how did we not have the right protocol in the first place, and it seems that

we are learning the protocol as we go. >> well, it is a good question, and here is the answer. the original protocol on the cdc website was a protocol that was adopted from w.h.o. in which they handled the epidemic under much different conditions than a tertiary care hospital. they did it in the bush. it is not where you were giving people intensive care, and it was clear right away that we needed to modify the protocol to be much, much more strict in which no part of the body was exposed, but that is the initial protocol. >> and quickly, the vaccine. >> yes. >> and one of the colleagues seemed to hint that if you had been funded or more money, you would have a vaccine today, and is that hyperbole? >> i don't agree with that to be quite honestly, because there have been constraints in biomedical research, and it has

been less than robust in the active. >> you can't say that? >> you cannot say we would or would not have this or that. everything has slowed down, but i would not make that statement. >> dr. anthony fauci, thank you. i am joined via skype from accra, ghana, with dr. dan berry, and was the w.h.o. unprepare unprepared? i know that the w.h.o. is looking back to see what happened and what did they miss, and you know, what part of this could they have dealt with rlier, and i know that there is going to be after action reports, but what part of this were you unprepared for? >> the world was not e prepared for an outbreak of ebola like this nature. we have never seen it before spreading in wide geographical areas, and spreading in urban e

areas and widely densely populated areas, and the the travel patterns in western africa are different than eastern african. there it is spread fast, and here it is not. but the world, and the u.n. and the populations were not prepare and now we catching up. >> you have a goal of 70% burials isolated and safe, and 70% of isolated cases in a clinic, and that is a goal set 30 days ago and is it going to be set? >> that was set in the beginning of september, and the target has to be met by december, and that is how we bend the curve and are relieve the transmissions, and we spent four days with the hundreds of top experts around the world, and including top officials from the u.n. officials here to figure out how to hit it. and now it is consulting with the governments and the implementations of getting it done. >> is your issue more money from

the governments infrastructure or actual doctors? >> the most important priority we need right now are health care workers, people to manage these complex health ebola treatment units as well as the doctors, nurses, hygienists to staff them. we are fighting a war against ebola, and we need soldiers on the ground, and instead of soldiers in camouflage, we need soldiers in lab coats and ppe suits to take care of the vi victims. >> anthony danberry reporting from ghana. good luck and a lot of people are counting on you. >> thank you. and now, joining us is the chair of johns hop h kins university, and also, laurie garrett who is a director of global e relations. lori, you have a op-ed, five myths of ebola, and ebola won't

spread in rich countries, and the preparedness is in the u.s. to fight it, and if gone airborne, it would not be stopped from spreading to the u.s., and a vaccine is around the corner. let me start with the post 9/11 emergency preparedness, and the u.s. is ready to fight ebola, and you don't believe it is the case? >> no. we have spent billions of dollars on project bioshield to co come up with the the miraculous vaccines and treatments for pathogens including ebola. and we have spent billions to get every single health department in the entire united states to go after drill after drill after drill. get the cops, and get the firefighters and all of the public health people, and put on the hazmat suits, boom. the problem is that it was always envisioned in the context of wmd, weapons of mass destruction. >> it was going to be a

bioterrorist attack, and not something like this. >> and somebody has a box of something dangerous right here, and boom, you swoop in and you stop it, but what we were not drilling and what hospitals like johns hopkins may have been the exception, but the majority of the hospitals in america never really imagined, okay a contagion and it is ongoing and in the community and my physicians are 24/7 reexposed, reexposed, and that we did not drill. >> and dr. callahan, you are in charge of emergency preparedness at johns hop kin, and when you look at texas presbyterian, what lessons are you taking from it, and do you believe that you would have been better prepared? >> we have been preparing for this going back to the late '90s when bioterrorism was a big deal, but because of the type of organization and institution that we have, we did foresee that the bugger danger was from natural hazards and so we have been preparing all along, and we have dealt with anthrax and sars and avian flu and h1n1 and murs.

and we have been drilling and have experience already over the last decade, and so all we did was to modify to have it specific for ebola the kind of screening that goes in, and we put it right into the e electronic medical record, and you come through the front door and everybody is asked key questions. >> you think that every single hospital in the country needs to put protocols like this in or is that too much? >> well, it is not too much. as we found out. and i think that the issue in dallas is that the rest of us are saying thank god it wasn't us. this is a needle in the haystack and it could have been any hospital anywhere and so all of the hospitals and like 4,000 acute care hospitals in the nation need to do the up front screening. >> reality check here and i want to put up in the graphic of u.s. deaths from 2011 coming to diseases and other things. flu and pneumonia killed over 53,000 people, and motor vehicle

accident accidents, 35,000, and accidental falls 27,000, and tuberculosis only 600, and ebola, 1. so that is a reality check. >> well, chushgs i don't -- well, chushgs i don't know how many epidemics, and the same t pattern, but when it is something new, it creates a fearfulness and the flu, and it has been around and everybody should be afraid of it, but it is not, because it is a routine and it is there. and ebola is new. having been in the ebola epidemic in zaire, it is a frightening disease, and when the virus in particular begins to wreak havoc with the central nervous system, they are deranged and violent and that is dangerous for the health worker, and the sorrow of it is very extreme. so it when it hits a community as i saw in zaire, it is t

terrifying, but the americans need to relax. we have to be realistic, because the real problem is not one or two cases here in the united states, but the real problem is that this epidemic is completely out of control in africa, and it is only -- >> and you think it is out of control, that december 1st deadline -- >> never going to happen. >> at 70% -- >> no, if you do the math right now, and with know we are off by a factor of 2.5 meaning that most of the people are never getting reported in the system, because they never come to a health facility, and the health facilities are all full. so the cdc estimates for every one that we know about, and there is 2.5 that we don't know about, and so if you take the raw numbers of what has been offici officially reported close to 9,000 cases cumulatively and you divide it by 2.5, and you are way over the 20,000 point that was projected for november. it is doubling every two weeks, and we are going to be looking at 100,000 cases by the time we sit down at thanksgiving, and with we are going to be looking

at 200 to 300,000 cases by christmas, and it is an explo exploding epidemic, because it is in on the general population. >> can i get in on this? >> and if that is the truth, we will have more cases in the united states, because maybe people will come here looking for treatment. >> and i want to put one thing in context, the american people do not need to worry that there is going to be somebody with ebola deranged in the shopping mall going rank nuts. i mean, you are so sick at that point, you are not going to be out in public. i want to be sure that people understand that they are not going to be coming into contact with somebody that sick out in public. >> and very quickly, i wanted to ask you this and more questions after. the issue of getting rid of the waste. what do you do? what should texas presbyterian -- how are you going to remove waste? >> well, a high level topic, but a really dull answer. >> yes. >> there are protocols on how to handle the waste, and how to put

it in drums and autoclave it, and regulations by the department of transportation of how it can be transport and those are nicely delineated and the cdc has it on the website for guidance. i think that just about any hospital to today if they haven't worked that the out, they are working that out in the exact way. >> all right. dr. callahan and laurie garrett, thank you. stick with us for the ebola summit. we will be joined by two senators when we return, one of whom says we need a travel ban here in the united states. [ male announcer ] some come here to build something smarter. ♪ some come here to build something stronger. others come to build something faster... something safer... something greener. something the whole world can share. people come to boeing to do many different things. but it's always about the very thing we do best. ♪

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welcome back. as i told you, dr. gabe kelen and lori garrett are with us. i'm joined by senator roy blunt and democrat bob casey of pennsylvania. senator blunt, i want to begin with you. you are calling for a travel ban. there's a lot of -- it sounds like the white house would be supportive but they don't know how to implement it in a way that would prevent healthcare workers from getting to the hot zone. what do you say? >> we don't have flights directly in and out of any of these countries. all of our people go through some other country to get there anyway. the question is, do you let people come here from this area that is clearly stressed? one way to prevent had a is nth issue them a visa. they have to have a visa that allows them to stay here. i would suspend that until we have this under better control

and have a sense that the carriers they are using are monitoring this in a better way than they have been up until now. >> senator casey, where are you on this? >> i don't think there's a medical consensus. we have to do everything we can to ask the medical experts and develop that expertise. >> sometimes a fine line is that if it makes did sh do you think you have do things fwaus makes the public feel better? >> no question that there's a great fervor for this. it makes sense lockically about how you think to stop something. we have to focus on the source of this. you naerd your last segment severe this is at the source. we have to stop it at the source. i think with our local hospitals, not just big medical centers but every hospital has to try to achieve a measure of absolute preparedness. that's why -- i was at a hospital in pittsburgh the other day. changing and moving quickly to

implement better protective protocols. >> you both have toured hospitals in your hom states last week. cdc protocols are voluntary. they are not mandatory. should we make them mandatory for a temporary basis? >> i'm not sure if you made them mandatory would you have a way to enforce that. hospitals need to be concerned about this, obviously the containment hospitals that we talked about make -- are the place you would want to have people if you can get them there. that doesn't stop somebody from walking into a hospital somewhere else. we're just frankly not as safe as we were a month ago before you had multiple cases developing in the country. by the way, people didn't get upset about this as long as hospitals were dealing with it in the right way. you had two missionaries come to emory. they were there. they were cured. i didn't see a single comment by any american saying we're concerned this isn't being handled correctly. it's only when it's not handled

correctly that people get concerned. >> senator casey, why don't we have a surgeon general? >> it's washington dysfunction. we should have one in place. i think that's part of the problem. absent that, i believe that we have to focus on two places. stopping this at the source and making sure that hospitals are doing a lot more drilling. this basic task of taking equipment or protective equipment on -- taking it off and putting it on has to be the subject of constant drilling. in our state, the state health department requires two of those a year, two drills a year. that's not enough. >> senator, i'm going back to the surgeon general issue here. it seems to be politics. the nra said they were going to score the vote and everybody froze. that seems petty in hindsight, does it not? >> the president really ought to nominate people that can be confirmed to these jobs. then we should confirm them.

there's no question -- >> should the nra have a say? they can have an opinion. he's not going to make gun policy. >> i'm not sure -- you would have to ask senator reed why he hasn't moved that to the top of his list to be confirmed. this going on -- >> would you confirm him? >> a number of people have been confirmed, until this came up, i heard very little discussion about the surgeon general. i'm hearing now that the attorney general nomination won't happen until after the election. we put everything off until after the election. that's one of the reasons that things don't work. >> i want to talk politics of fear. let's me play this. >> ebola epidemic along with isis shows you how we should really secure the border and not grant amnesty. >> don't worry about this. really? the government needs to stop acting if if it's absurd for people to fear a virus that

liquefies their internal organs. >> every sdzombie begins with somebody saying we don't need to worry. >> what we need from congress is constructive proposals based upon science and medical expertise not based upon politics. i think in the senate, roy would agree, i think there's a lot of consensus that our public health system hasn't been invested and that we have to deal with this in a bipartisan way. >> any advice to people on overdoing it here? >> i would be careful about overdoing it. i understand that if this was one incident where people thought the government wasn't doing what the government was supposed to do, it would be much less of of a reaction than we see now where there's this long list of the government being one step behind whether it's the board he the irs, the secret

service, now this health concern is more real than it would be if there wasn't a sense that the government is just not being managed in a way that people would want it to be managed. >> senators casey and blunt, thank you for coming in. i appreciate it. i want to bring in the panel, mike murphy, andrea mitchell. andrea what we heard today so far, do you think we're in a position where it looks like government, particularly the obama administration is reacting with the urgency that a lot of people thought were missing? >> not clear. it's not clear to me yet that hospitals all around the country are getting the message, that they have to do drills. have they done the drills? do they have the gear? is it stocked? will another emergency in a local hospital make the same mistakes that texas made when mr. duncan first came in? that's where a lot of the exposure came.

then most alarmingly, the fact that the nurses went by their own account of the records from the hospital, that nurse pham apparently, unless the records are incorrect, went in and out without the proper gear given to her. >> we were talking about budget cuts and the ability to find a vaccine. the bottom line is that the nih still has billions of dollars a year that it spends on finding a vaccine. to what extent do you think the government is to blame for not prioritizing efforts to find a vaccine for ebola? >> lori, take that. >> i think that's grossly unfair, at least it's targeting the wrong piece of it. yes, project bio-shield was created. the idea was to get incentives for industry to come up with vaccines for ebola and other key pathogens. the problem was that no one could convince industry that it was in their interest to build up a huge stockpile of something

that might never get used. might never get purchased. when did you imagine we would need an ebola vaccine? there was a vaccine center. they did develop a prototype possible ebola vaccine as have other sites in other companies in locations around the world. there was no incentive to take it through the pipeline for commercialization. >> it strikes me -- math is a big element of this. the math is in africa. we tend to focus on here. but that's where it's out of control. we're the only superpower. it is going to land on us. what are the specific resources to stand bending the curve before it's out of control? >> i'm glad you asked that. the harder we make it for volunteers to be assured that they can come home to america after they have been in the epidemic, the harder it is to recruit people to go and be in the epidemic. we are under staffed in terms of

both our military staffing and healthcare worker staffing, grossly. in order of magnitude, we're behind the virus. it's up in a marathon, it's on the 20 mile line and the response is around five miles. >> how do you incentivize doctors and healthcare workers to go? there's been hess tans. >> some of these issues that have come up, people are scared go into that environment because they have seen all of news that they may actually get infected. we have heard earlier from our colleagues who have been there that ppe supply was not assured, that one week they have one type of supply, the next week nothing, the week after that something else. they are not assured they can come back. now that the u.s. government is in there through the military and there are better supply lines, the ngos have figured out

to have a more assured supply and we have a better idea that if you follow this type of protocol, you are not going to get infected, i think we will have an easier time. >> very quickly. >> the doctor did say even though we can't guarantee we would have had an ebola vaccine, everything has slowed down. money toward the ebola vaccine is cut in half to what it was. more cuts are coming under the congressional sequester. does that concern you? should corn restore the funds given the leave elf anxiety across the country? >> i for one obviously always support keeping us with a strong scientific solid well-supported research enterprise. >> i would echo that. here is how it works. you have a fixed budget, a crisis comes. you move all your resources into that. now the real question is not this. we're concentrating on this. we got a wake-up call. we have done it. what is it that the resources

have been moved away from that two years -- why didn't you look at this? you are not prepared. >> there you go. i guarantee you are right. the money will be there short-term. the question is long-term. thank you everybody who participated in this. we will move to more politics. one of the more bizarre starts to a political debate in history this week. >> ladies and gentlemen, we have an extremely peculiar situation right now. >> peculiar is one way to right now. >> peculiar is one way to describe twhat do i do?. you need to catch the 4:10 huh? the equipment tracking system will get you to the loading dock. ♪ there should be a truck leaving now. i got it. now jump off the bridge. what? in 3...2...1... are you kidding me? go. right on time.

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welcome back. with the mid term elections just over two weeks away, debate season has been in full swing. this past week was the political version of march madness. we had confrontations over ebola, president obama, even owe whether a candidate could bring a fan on stage. of course, there was the occasional verbal fist fight. >> 20-count criminal indictment, face the face. >> gentlemen. >> it's ridiculous. >> in a campaign where ad spending is expected to be over $3 billion, one of the last places to catch candidates unscripted is, oddly, on stage. >> i would give president obama a six to seven. >> with the president's job rating sit at or below 40% i