00:03:01.560"...mildly positive because just one of two samples taken from that person indicated hantavirus."
00:03:08.980That patient reportedly doing well and not showing any symptoms.
00:03:12.300The Biocontainment Unit, a more specialized isolation facility,
00:03:16.480uses negative air pressure systems, meaning air is pulled into the room but not allowed to flow
00:03:22.440back out into surrounding areas, helping prevent any possible airborne spread. Two other passengers,
00:03:28.880a couple, were sent to Emory University Hospital in Atlanta. One has mild symptoms and is receiving
00:03:34.800care in Emory's biocontainment unit. The other is that person's partner and close contact,
00:03:40.220now being monitored as a precaution. Hantavirus is carried by rodents and usually spreads to
00:03:46.200humans through contact with infected urine, droppings, or saliva. This outbreak involving
00:03:52.120the Andes variant, a rare and deadly strain that can also spread person to person through
00:03:57.860prolonged close contact. At least three people tied to the ship have died. The passengers now
00:04:04.260in the U.S. ranging in age from late 20s to early 80s. Health officials say the quarantine units
00:04:10.240are more like a hotel room with Wi-Fi, exercise equipment, and comfortable lodging, allowing for
00:04:16.180easy monitoring, including routine temperature checks. All of the passengers now facing a 42-day
00:04:22.460monitoring window, with health officials deciding case-by-case whether they can safely complete that
00:04:27.800period at home or need to remain under medical supervision. Captain Jackson at a press conference
00:04:33.840yesterday describing what the next several days will look like for these passengers.
00:04:38.260Right now, the folks, the passengers that are all in the sort of assessment phase,
00:04:44.460they're going to be here for at least a few days while we do assessments
00:04:47.900and then coordination from what happens next.
00:04:50.200They certainly have the option to stay here for the entire 42-day period
00:04:53.760if that's just the safest and most effective option for them.
00:04:58.020There's going to be an individualized decision plan for them to determine
00:05:01.340if it makes more sense for them to complete their 42-day monitoring period at home.
00:05:06.000There's going to be a couple of things that go into that decision.
00:05:09.480First and foremost, do they remain symptom-free?
00:05:11.860But then also, do they have all the structures and support to be able to continue that period at home, making sure that they can be able to isolate in a separate part of a structure from anybody else, make sure that they can contact their health department, get tested if necessary, if they develop symptoms, or if they need a higher level of medical care, that that's available to them.
00:05:30.440Captain Jackson also explaining why the CDC is casting a relatively wide net around possible exposure, even as officials stress that Hantavirus does not spread as easily as a respiratory virus like COVID.
00:05:44.820There's guidance that you can look to specifically on our website about close contact and how that defines exposures.
00:05:50.480Typically, we're talking about exposure specifically to bodily fluids, and that could include things like saliva.
00:05:55.260So if you're sharing eating utensils, kissing, touching, those type of things.
00:05:59.120It can also mean just being really, really close to that person for a fairly long period of time.
00:06:05.020So we're calling that right now six feet for at least a cumulative number of 15 minutes.
00:06:10.360I want to be clear, there's nothing magical about six feet.
00:06:12.960It's not a force field, but it's a rough number that gives us a sense of how close somebody has been.
00:06:16.780Fifteen minutes, again, it's a bit arbitrary, but it again gives some sense of how close someone has been.
00:06:21.000And I think that's actually a fairly conservative approach, given how we know how the evidence we should have so far about how this virus has spread in the past.
00:06:29.660President Trump yesterday from the Oval Office offering measured reassurance.
00:06:34.080Now, the one thing with this one is that it's much harder to catch.
00:06:39.620And we've had it for a long time. It's been around for a long time.
00:06:42.460People are very familiar with it. So, you know, I hope it's fine.
00:06:46.480All I can do is everything that a president can do, which is actually somewhat limited.
00:06:52.880But it seems like it is not easy to spread.
00:06:59.160In fact, it's in certain ways very hard to spread.
00:07:03.920We've lived with it for years, many years, and we think we're in very good shape.
00:14:01.680The DOJ themselves have said these tapes serve no public interest.
00:14:06.240We spoke with Mike Howell, president of the Oversight Project,
00:14:09.560a nonprofit government watchdog group.
00:14:11.980The Oversight Project beginning this effort while it was still under the Heritage Foundation umbrella
00:14:16.520and now continuing to partner with the think tank in the legal fight.
00:14:20.540Howell tells us what he expects the tapes to reveal.
00:14:23.240I think it's pretty obvious that Joe Biden was very faulty and not of sound mind.
00:14:29.440And so I expect this is an embarrassing recording for him, which is the motivation behind trying to fight for the release.
00:14:36.360It'll help, you know, paint a fuller picture of, you know, when the decline started and how bad it was.
00:14:42.680I also think it'll add context to how the, you know, then former vice president was illegally holding and using classified information, perhaps for private financial gain.
00:14:56.260Because keep in mind, the reason he wrote this book is because, and this is in the record,
00:15:01.380Joe Biden was embarrassed that they didn't have enough money.
00:15:04.880You had Hunter running around and making all the money.
00:15:07.220And so he paid somebody to write a book for him.
00:15:11.080And I think he was flipping secrets around in order to have a juicier book.
00:15:15.580Howell says after years of litigation, Team Biden is only moving to object now,
00:15:20.700just as the tapes appear close to release.
00:15:23.200This case has been going on for years.
00:15:25.160And now that it's on the eve of being released, they're just seeking to extend that.
00:15:30.120Jeff Clark, our VP for litigation here, said he's never seen in his 30 years of practicing a more obvious delay tactic than this.
00:15:38.300It reeks of politics. I mean, right now, going into midterms, there's been some articles written about how Biden intends to assert himself more in the political process.
00:15:47.980And I think they just finally figured out, like, hey, if, you know, they're going to be trotting out Joe Biden again and they're going to have a probably pretty embarrassing story coming out.
00:15:57.860They don't want those two things to happen at the same time.
00:15:59.800And so their lawyers put two and two together and then decided, oh, holy smokes, we should try to delay the release of this tape even longer.
00:16:08.240For Howell, the fight over these tapes now becoming part of a larger question about transparency, accountability and how the Biden White House operated.
00:16:17.220I'll say that the banner of how this country was run by an auto pen for four years
00:16:21.660still remains one of the greatest constitutional scandals in American history.0.99
00:16:25.760I know that it's kind of lost the spotlight a little bit in recent years with how quickly news moves,
00:16:32.200but we need to return as a country focused to this issue because, you know,
00:16:36.220for all of the talks going on right now about attacks on democracy, this attacks on democracy, that,
00:16:40.920there's been nothing more undemocratic than a president, you know, an entire branch of
00:16:46.220government rather being outsourced to staff using an auto pen. And so when we have potential pieces
00:16:52.780of evidence like a long recording of Joe Biden with his ghostwriter, there's no reason that
00:16:58.980should not be in the public record and should not be used to inform solutions to ensure something
00:17:03.340like this never happens again. The 2025 college football playoff champions, the Indiana Hoosiers,
00:17:10.920visiting the White House yesterday, celebrating the program's first national title and a perfect
00:17:16.28016-0 season after defeating Miami 27-21 in the championship game back in January.
00:17:25.220President Trump, who was at the championship game, welcoming the team and head coach