This is not about our divisions. Ebola is not going to check republicans or democrats, western africans or eastern europeans. We all must rise above our differences and our divisions and unite to contain this problem. Thanks for watching. Im al sharpton. Hardball starts right now. Ebola steals the election. Its not only topic a, its topic a to z. Lets play hardball. Good evening, im Chris Matthews in washington, which is now ground zero for the ebola fear. Its now official, ebola is now the number one focus in the nations capital, as well as the rest of the country where now its the most watched news
event, believe this or not, since the entire Obama Presidency began. The most watched news event ebola. Politicians are at their battle stations, with many on the right calling for an allout travel ban of anyone coming from infected west africa. The call were hearing is to stop all human traffic, period. And Government Experts are saying, theyre open to any step that will protect americans. Joining me now is peter welsh of vermont who sits on the committee, and also msnbc political analyst. Todays hearing, lawmakers say their jittery constituents want to know about the feasibility of an allout travel ban to contain the spread of ebola. Congressman welsh tried to get an answer. Lets listen. Why, from a medical standpoint you have concluded that a total travel ban is inappropriate and not effective . First off, many of the people
coming to the u. S. From west africa are american citizens, american passport holders. People travel and people will be coming in. As i understand it, you say theres basically a tradeoff. If you have a full ban, there will be ways around it and youll be losing the benefit of tracking folks who may be infected which could lead to a greater incidence of outbreak, so its a tradeoff, is that whats going on . Were open to any possibility that will increase the safety of americans. Right. So are there some mid points in terms of travel restrictions as opposed to a ban that would make sense . We would look at anything that would improve the safety of the americans. When the witness freezes like that and gives the same answer a second time. You heard something then. What did you hear that witness saying, dr. Frieden . Is he saying, two weeks from now, if this thing grows, well shut down the traffic from west africa . He was trying to thread a needle. He didnt want to say he opposed
the possibility of a ban, but he was embracing the approach that whatever is ultimately required in his judgment and the administrations judgment, to protect the American People, theyre open to it. But the Committee Hearing really did start coming down to travel ban or not. And that has obviously for a lot of politicians, enormous political appeal, because it says, were, quote, doing something. But the Gold Standard on this, who for me are Doctors Without Borders, they say, medically speaking, that wouldnt be good. It might do more harm than good. Now we have 435 members of congress in their white coats acting like theyre doctors. Why does this strike me that its ideology cal . When dond trump comes out, its a rightwing position, and antiobama position, and the liberals just as instinctively, say we cant have a travel ban against africa. Is this an emotional, go to your battle stations left and right thing . Let me ask Michael Steel about
that, because it seems like its what you would expect. Republicans say, shut it down, we dont want anybody in africa. We dont want to meet anybody from there anyway. I dont have any relatives coming over. [ laughter ] im serious. But thats ridiculous. Why are people on the right pushing for a travel ban . Because it makes sense. The American People are pushing for that. Their constituents are pushing for that. [ all speak at once ] you got to ask the libs that. Theres your political shot im sure their constituents are, and the fact that this question was skirted around and was not answered directly, i thought was do you want a ban . Yes, why not . Absolutely. Tell me about this thinking, the democratic side about why you dont want to rush to a ban and shut down the traffic . The question is, whether a ban would be effective. The Doctors Without Borders basically say it would hurt. You would have a lot of issues
getting your medical personnel in and out. Problems getting some of the Medical Equipment back and forth. Then when you have a ban, the experience has been, people will find a way around it. If they find a way around it, and an infected person gets here, legally, without having any monitoring and review of their Health Status situation, it means that were not going to be able to get them the treatment right away that they need. And this is the most important, we wont be able to know who they had contact with, and thats essential for public safety. May i ask a question . Has that been the experience of the african nations that surround sierra leone and the other infected areas . They dont seem to have that problem, yet they have a full ban in human traffic across their borders, as do now several other countries. So i dont understand the u. S. Position that were concerned about commerce and how people feel, when you have this issue of potential outbreak, that the American People are concerned about. Two things, michael. Number one, dr. Frieden was asked specifically and said those countries didnt have the blanket ban that youre talking about. Number two, im open to anything. But the bottom line is, what is the medical step that we should take, or what steps should we take with respect to travel restrictions that would be most effective . Thats really the question. Its not a political judgment. I dont think its ideology cal, but i do see the pattern here. The chief clinical officer in texas with health resources, the group that overseas texas presbyterian hospital. He took a grilling from the Ranking Committee member, diana. Shes a democrat. Dr. Vargas appeared in a video conference, apologized for the incorrect initial diagnosis of the first ebola patient in the u. S. Then he faced questions on the hospitals lack of preparedness. This is where it gets very american, very local, lets watch. Your hospital received the first cdc Health Advisory about ebola on july 28th. It was given to the directors of your Emergency Departments and signage was posted in your emergency room, is that right . Yes, maam. Now was this information given to your emergency room personnel and was there any persontoperson training at texas presbyterian for the staff at that time . Yes or no . Was given to the emergency department. Was there actual training . No. Congressman, this is where we get to that old political problem of mistakes were made, in the passive voice, but nobody made any mistakes. Mistakes were made by what human being and now were finding this guy, you put in the box or the barrel today. Hes the guy getting hit with this. Who is the responsible officers that make sure that hospitals handle the first case properly . Whos the officer that didnt do it right . Ultimately, the head of the hospital. But obviously they blew it at the er room. This man was incredibly sick and he was sent home with
antibiotics. Then he came back of course with fullblown ebola. So they blew it there. But have some context. Weve had one person from liberia come to this country. Thats dangerous, people fear ebola and its a dangerous disease. But weve had two people infected. And our hospitals havent had a lot of experience. How many hospitals, even wellrun hospitals would have it on the radar that somebody is going to show up with a disease from africa . So some of this, to some extent, i think is going to happen no matter how well run an operation is. But if you look at the progression of this, you know the phrase rolling disclosure. It always gets politicians in trouble. Ill tell you when i want to tell you, not when i know. Here we have the president saying it was unlikely it would ever get here. Then were told nobody would catch it from anybody. Its very hard to catch. Two people caught it. Then we were told, nobody would be allowed to travel. Then we found this woman going from dallas to cleveland and back again, after she told the cdc she had the symptoms, and the wall keeps falling. The walls keep falling. How can we keep confidence if they do . Well, thats a good point. You just laid out the rolling train wreck that the handling of this has been. Everywhere from the hospital to some extent the administration. When you have that applied to this disease, it is just horrid. Its incredibly painful and incredibly infectious, it stokes a lot of public fears and undercuts the confidence we need in institutions. And were in a political season what are you hearing in vermont . Vermont is a progressive state, especially with the flat landers. How are they reacting to this . Theyre sophisticated people in vermont. What are they saying about there . Theyre concerned about it. Theres two things. Number one, theres just this enormous concern about and all the publicity about ebola and could it happen. When you saw that it did happen in texas, which then it could happen anywhere, including vermont. Secondly, people are concerned that were going to handle it well. They want an answer. That is spoke to some extent by all the public discussion and the politicians debate. The easiest thing to call for is a ban, but thats not necessarily whats going to provide the greatest protection to the public. So theres concern there, as there is any time there is that much publicity about something. The president signed an executive order that authorizes military reservists to support humanitarian efforts to combat ebola in west africa. Our Pentagon Team says this initial deployment would include eight guard and reserve engineers, eight people, and logistic specialists. Their task, to help build 17 Treatment Centers housing 100 patients each. The initial deployment of eight is a small be in, but its openended to send more as needed. The president is taking what we
used to call neyo con position. Fight them there or here. Hes saying, unless we fight it there, well have it here. I think the president is right, if thats the assumption on the table. You have to go where the problem is. What happens if our guys get it . Hopefully we have the protocols in place to deal with that. You laid it out. The timetable from the president saying the likelihood of it coming here, to where we are today is why people are asking, why dont we just cut down the border traffic, so we can control it that way . And what are the protocols put in place for the military going there . Congressman, my sense is the least effective thing to say today is keep calm. People dont want to hear that. They want to hear what the news is. Thats what they go by. Thats exactly right. They want very specific things. The one thing that dr. Frieden said that made some sense is that if the hospital has a patient with ebola symptoms show up, put that person in isolation. Call cdc, walk through it with them. Number three, cdc will come. That was in response to a question from corey gardner. What would i tell my hospital in the event somebody appeared with these types of symptoms. So i think getting specific with the plan makes sense. I also agree with michael. Our military is particularly suited to these incredible challenges and you do have to stop it at its source. Its not humanitarian. Its really selfdefense. The people watching this, winston churchill, who always told the people the bad news first. He laid it out to the people, thats why they trusted him. Even Rudy Guiliani during 9 11 and the anthrax scare, he gave the information as he was getting it, boy was that
powerful stuff. Thats why hes still a good rep. Thank you for asking the right questions today in the hearing. Thank you, Michael Steele. Coming up, fear and loathing on the campaign trail. Republicans are playing up the ebola scare in campaigns. Its topic a everywhere. May be working, but its not going to help the incumbents. And later, the most bizarre beginning to a political debate perhaps ever. The issue, a fan. Not a human fan, an electronic fan. The thing that blows the wind. This is hardball, the place for politics. Protecting my future. Thank you for being my hero and my dad. Military families are uniquely thankful for many things, the legacy of usaa Auto Insurance could be one of them. If youre a current or former military member or their family,
get an Auto Insurance quote and see why 92 of our members plan to stay for life. [ male announcer ] you wouldnt ignore signs of damage in your home. Are you sure youre not ignoring them in your body . Even if youre treating your Crohns Disease or ulcerative colitis, an occasional flare may be a sign of damaging inflammation. And if you ignore the signs, the more debilitating your symptoms could become. 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. You wont want to miss the fantastic debate were going to show you tonight between Charlie Crist and rick scott down in florida. Scott refused to come out to the stage because he said he was upset that crist was having a
fan there to cool him off. Anyway, the governor finally came out, but his supporters are worried about the damage has already been done. This is weird. Charlie crist will join us tonight in just a few minutes on hardball. Priority boardin g is really important to us. You can just get on the plane and relax. I love to travel, no foreign transaction fees means real savings. We can go to any country and spend money the way we would in the us. When i spend money on this card i can see brazil in my future. I use the explorer card to earn miles in order to go visit my family which means a lot to me. Could mean less waiting for things like security backups and file downloads youd take that test, right . What are you waiting for . You could literally be done with the test by now. Now you could have done it twice. This is awkward. Go to comcastbusiness. Com checkyourspeed. If we cant offer faster speeds
or save you money well give you 150. Comcast business. Built for business. Welcome back to hardball. Now more on the tonights big story, the pandemic of fear in this country over ebola. Right now the mantra is think ebola. Last night that fear drove the conversation and debates in kansas and colorado. Lets watch. Senator roberts has come back and has made some very strong statements about ebola, when hes back in kansas. But it just came out the other day that when he was in washington last month, he skipped a hearing on the ebola virus. This is a difference between congressman gardner and me. Hes voted to cut cdc spending of almost 770 million. Were not going to beat ebola by cutting back the cdc and our Public Health systems. This is the most followed
news stories of the Obama Presidency. We just found out today. And were just 19 days from the november elections. I want to go to joan first on this. You never know whats going to happen in october. Right. And this is a National Event which normally we could consider in a real country that doesnt fight about everything, wed all be looking for the right program, the protocol a word ive come to hate, and breach, which is even worse. Wed all agree to figure out this thing which is brand new, and it is isolated. Absolutely. Already, donald trump who speaks for a certain point of view in this country, which is in the necessarily nice, did you definitely hardnosed. Keep them out. Keep them all out from west africa. You might have thought that extreme, but one republican after the other is joining it. Now 2 3 of the American People say slam the door on west africa and well be safer. Your thoughts . Because the democrats arent going along with it . No. And its great theyre not going along with it, because its the wrong thing to do. We know that. Its a scary disease, and there are questions to be asked on both sides. Im not going to argue that politics should be kept out of this. Thats unrealistic. However, the level at which people are fear mongering on this is really all about getting out the Republican Base. The American People are nervous for sure, but the latest nbc poll shows that most people trust that the government knows how to handle this. There was two exceptions. The Tea Party Voters say they dont trust the government. And rural voters. So its really the Republican Base that is ready for this volatile mix of politics and obama hatred. And the usual suspects are out there putting it out. You know, right behind you is this beautiful picture of a manmade wonder, which is the golden gate bridge. Ive always said its the one
time mans improved on nature. It is really beautiful. But if you knew there was a lot of disease at the other side of that bridge, and somebody said, keep the bridge open, wouldnt you think that odd . Just going back to gut thinking. You dont think its a gut reaction by the people to say no more people from west africa because they brought it here in the first place . I thought you were going to Say Something really different about the golden gate bridge, which is something that we did back when we used to do big things. And this is another big thing that we need to do. Youre a peace corps person. We shouldnt be nation building in iraq and syria, but we should be Public Health building in liberia and sierra leone and guinea. This is something we can do. A travel ban is so silly. We cannot seal their borders. So then youre having people lying about their health, leaving those countries and getting in here somehow anyway. So the point is be calm, its hard to tell people to be calm,
but for the people in control to be calm and do what they need to do and not to fear monger. I know that people feel, would i go over to the o