part protest, part performance art, it was therain child of a guy whose mother lost her life savings in the economic meltdown of 2008. zefrey tloel, the guy crawling on the ground was the creative genius behind it. he posted bail for everyone, but point made. in a city where nobody's shocked or at least pretends not to be, for a few brief moments, okay, briefless moments, the center of the financial universe had to stop and see he itself exposed. oh, boy. well, that's it for us tonight. thanks for join being me "in the arena." good night from new york. i'm don lemon. "piers morgan" starts right now. tonight -- done deal. >> the motion is agreed to. >> but at what cost? >> it shouldn't take the risk of default to get folks in this town to work together and do their jobs. >> never again will any president, from either party, be

allowed to raise the debt ceiling without being held accountable for it by the american people. >> the tea party direction of this congress the last few months has been very, very disconcerting and very unfair to the american people. >> is the tea party really calling the shots? i'll ask the people who started it. and the emotional moment everybody is still talking about. tonight -- the astonishing, unexpected return of gabby giffords. i'll ask her best friend in congress what's next. >> gabby melted everybody's heart last night. >> and glenn beck said this also could be assassinated of what he wrote in his last book. so what's he written now? i'll ask him. this is ""piers morgan tonight."" good evening. president obama signs the debt deal. the country dodges a bullet avoiding the frightening specter of a national default. so why is nobody in washington or wall street or anywhere else

for that matter happy about all of this? it has battle made compromise a dirty word on capitol hill? here to explain, john king. john, i've never it seen a more miserable reaction from almost everybody in the world to what is supposed to be a good deal. >> well, piers, i like to use the goldy locks rule of politics. is it too hot, too cold or just right? we have this compromise. is it just right because nobody loves it or is it just awful? i think that's the question going forward. on the left in american politics, they think it cuts too much already and they're worried the super committee will touch medicare and social security and they're mad president obama didn't get a tax hike. on the right, they're worried it will cut defense more and they're worried there's a door open to tax increases. nobody loves it. everybody calls it a down payment. what it does do is what you said. the president who lives in this house will not be the first american president to have his country go into default. we'll have another round of this

defwait over taxes and spending and role of government with the super committee first and then in the 2012 election campaign, make no mistake, this issue is not dying down. >> no. in it terms of the politics here, the real winners appear to be the tea party. who else do you think can come out of this genuinely feeling it's been a good period of for them? >> in an odd way, the president of the united states wins even though he loses. when i say loses, remember he said he wanted $4 trillion over ten years. he got a little more than half that. he wanted this one installment. he'll have to do two, the second one comes through the super committee. he said it has to be balanced, by that the president means tax increases. he didn't get them in the first sweep. no guarantee tax increases will be in the second. he did not get what he said he wanted setting into this. in fact, what he signed he described pretty much as unfair just a week or so ago. yet he does not default. he's not the president who gets that stain. and look at all the other economic data, unemployment, consumer spending down,

confidence down. the last thing this president needs as a candidate for reelection is another piece of turmoil in a fragile recovery. the president wins even though he loses a witnebit. mitch mcconnell is the guy who came through the last minute through the back door negotiated this deal first with the vice president, then the president. he's feeling pretty good about it. >> the president said an interesting thing today. he said the voter hes may have chosen divided government but they sure didn't vote the dysfunctional government. there is this rising sense, although they've been pretty victorious through this period, the tea party, they haven't done it in the conventional washington way and they've attacked the very fabric, if you like, the way government is done in america. >> and they've it done it that on purpose. i've seen you going at it with them over the past few nights and some of them don't answer the questions the way we expect because they're not traditional politicia politicians. they view it as a democratic president who doesn't want them to do what they want. they it don't like much of their republican leadership because they view them as establishment

deal makers. in their view, they got us into this mess. and they view they won the last election in the united states so they believe, maybe public opinion has changed, the spub on their side. and here's the wild part. it it's not often in washington you meet a politician who says, i don't care if i lose the next election. most of these guys actually seem they mean it when they say it. they're willing to do battle on the spnd spending issue. if you go back to their campaign ads in 2010, this is where they said they would draw the line. it makes for very interesting politics. there's no doubt the conversation, the tone in washington, it's not about a health care plan with the government intervention anymore. it it's not about government spending to stimulate the economy. it's about shrinking the government, cutting taxes, less government involvement. you have to declare at least in the short term as a tactical victory for the tea party. >> john king, thank you very much. >> thank you, my friend. >> has the ugly debt battle already done serious damage to the country's economy? my next guest says a firm yes, the ceo of pi many mco, the

markets reacted very unfavorably to the deal today, continued to tank after a very long hard week. what's your assessment of where we are with this deal? >> it's very simple, piers. both the deal and the one after the deal are sufficient that we are worse off today than we are before. we're worse off in economic outlook, growth lower, unemployment higher. and ironically we're worse off in terms of medium term fiscal solvency because we haven't done much to the debt but we're undermining our ability to grow out of the debt. that's why the ratings agencies are keeping us on watch, on negative outlook. everybody knows at the end of the day we actually haven't improved things but made them worse. >> also, given the nature of the global economy now, this is not just america's problem, is it? you've seen very worried people in places like chaina saying ths

process we've been through in america to try to get to where they've gotten and the results not satisfactory, but the process alone has been doing untold damage to the global economy, this uncertainty is very damaging. >> it it is. you know, the global economy, piers, is built on the assumption that the core, which is the united states is strong, has good economic governance and knows what it's doing, and what we have shown to the rest of the world is we have weak economic governance, political squabbles and even when we get something done, we don't get it done properly. so the rest of the world is saying, wait a minute, this was a self-inflicted crisis, and you couldn't get your hands around it. what about all of the other economic chal evens you face? so what you're seeing are countries nervous that they are part of a system that assumes that the u.s. is a aaa and the u.s. today is not behaving like a aaa. >> moody's have just come out and said the aaa rating remains but they have a negative

outlooking. not that encouraging, is it? >> no. a negative outlook means there's a possibility of a downgrade. s&p has taken a further step. they have put the u.s. on negative watch. a negative watch means that they will downgrade the u.s. unless good things happen. so the market is very nervous about what s&p is going to say. they expect it to say something in the next few days. >> and we've got job reports coming on friday. if they are negative, if they've goon gone down again or unemployment has gone up, what kind reaction could we see from the markets to that? >> if the unemployment number comes in weak, this will supplement already some horrible data. so last week we got some very bad gdp numbers. we got bad manufacturing numbers. we got bad consumer numbers. if we get also bad employment numbers, markets are going to get very nervous and the sell-off will continue. we need to stabilize it.

and at some point people are going to look to washington and say, what can you do? and there's a fear that washington can running out of bullets. >> mohammed, as always, thank you very much. >> thank you. >> the other big story, of course, is the extraordinary return of gabby giffords, congresswoman debbie wasserman-shultz was by her side last night for the remarkable scenes. she joins me along with congresswoman giffords' chief of staff. let me start with you, debbie wasserman-shultz. quite a remarkable thing to watch. no one was xpekexpecting it. everyone kept it very quiet. then the whole house erupted. what was it like for you to be with the congresswoman? >> well, it's always wonderful to be with gabby no matter what opportunity you have to spend time with her. and the chance to help her triumphantly walk back into that chamber and see the

electricfication of the floor erupt as you said. members weeping, tears of joy. just the exhilaration that ran through people, you know, this was a time of a lot of tension of frozen hearts. and gabby giffords melted even the most frozen heart in that chamber yesterday. it was amaiszing. >> it was. and it was pretty ironic, of course, given the extreme partisan nature of this debate for the last few weeks an the general sense of washington losing its marbles that suddenly you had in this one frail recovering woman you had a moment of real unity that brought everyone together and perhaps -- i say perhaps, let give them the benefit of the doubt -- made everyone realized priority in life. >> gabby showed all of us, reminded all of us, where our priorities should be. hers are well placed. she wanted to make sure she came back to washington, if she needed to be the pivotal vote

that decided whether we were going to default or not, she was going to make sure the country didn't default. and then she decided she should come to washington and on what is likely the most important vote we'll cast this whole congress her constituents have their representative's voice there. it was remarkable, from a remarkable woman. >> pia corazon, you obviously know the congresswoman very well. you're her chief of staff. what a day for all of you, i would have thought, yesterday. >> oh, it was. it it was incredible. i mean, you know, it was a moment we had all been thinking about, praying for, hoping for. but we weren't really sure when that day would come, and yesterday was a moment i'll never forget. you know, gabby was really proud to be able to make her way back for this important vote. >> it's probably very easy for us all to assume that she's perfectly okay again, given the remarkable resilience she showed yesterday. but that's clearly not the case. how would you describe her condition at the moment? >> well, she's in this rehab

program for a reason. she was seriously injured less than seven months ago. but her progress to date has been remarkable, and her doctors continue to feel very optimistic about the next couple of months and what her -- the future holds for her. but she's still going to her therapy program all day, five days a week. it's as busy a schedule as most working folks. and she at the end will hopefully be in a very good place, a place that allows her to enjoy her life in the fullest extent. but where she's at now, she's come a long way, well enough she's able to understand everything. her speech is getting better. her physical therapy has greatly improved her ability to walk on her own. we feel very good about where she's at. >> debbie, let me ask you, what was her reaction avfterwards? what did she say to you? >> well, on the way in and the way out, she just was emotional.

it it was clear she was overwhelmed by the outpouring of affection from her colleagues. she definitely was thrilled eto be back in the chamber casting a vote and being in the midst of what she loves the most, which is public service. besides mark, her husband. it was incredible. >> it's funny you mention that. i have just gotten a tweet from mark. i'll read it to you. gabby, i'm so proud of you for everything you've done and continue to do to make this country a better place. and there's a hash tag lucky husband. >> that's right. their love story is just incredible. you know, our families are very close and have spent lots of time together. they're an amazing couple, and we are all thrilled that gabby has made this remarkable progress with mark by her side. without the strength of a husband like him, it would be

even tougher. she's very fortunate. and her constituents, piers. think about this. gabby knew how important it was to make sure that her stwentss in arizona 8 were represented on this decisive vote, and this they are quite fortunate. it's clear that they made the right choice in sending gabby to be their voice. >> pia, let me come back to you. i remember being on a flight to los angeles and reading as a fact that gabby giffords had been killed. that was what the media first thought. here we are seven months later. she's made this astonishing recovery. frankly, if the american public were voting late last night for their next president, i would imagine she'd win by a landslide. so what is her political aspiration now? >> well, you know, that's flattering of you to say, but, you know, for gabby it's day by day right now. she's focused on what she's got

ahead of her tomorrow and next week. and the decisions about 2012 and her political future are just -- we're not there yet. they will come at some point, but it's not now. at this point, we're all fortunate to have her still with us and doing as well as she's doing. so i think a lot of people are asking and wondering, but she's not ready to make that decision yet. >> well, if you could just both just on behalf of all of us thank her for what happened yesterday, congratulate her and i think also salute the congresswoman gabby giffords for bringing a bit of humanity back to a place that had been severely lacking it it for quite a while. >> badly needed. we'll do that for sure. >> absolutely. >> thank you both very much. >> thanks. >> thank you, piers. senate majority leader harry reid today called the tea party's influence unfair to the american people. coming up, i'll talk to the people who started it all. [ woman ] jogging stroller. you've been stuck in the garage

while i took refuge from the pollen that made me sneeze. but with 24-hour zyrtec®, i get prescription strength relief from my worst allergy symptoms. so lily and i are back on the road again. with zyrtec® i can love the air®. we'll never stop sharing our or getting lost in a good book. we'll always cook dinner, and cheer for our favorite team. we'll still go to meetings,

make home movies, and learn new things. but how we do all this, will never be the same. not many winners in washington after this debt deal, but the tea p party has come out on top. joining me are co-founders of

the toe party patriots. let me start with you perhaps mark meckler. is this the tea party's finest hour? >> you know, i think the finest hour it actually took place in 2009 when the tea party started and the uprising began. but i think it's showed the movement has progressed, we've matured and we're a political force to be reckoned with. >> jenny, part of the problem here is although the tea party has clearly had a good few weeks political politically, no one can really seem to decide if you've been heroes orrvillens in the way you've handled the political process. >> we're working to empower citizen-driven government and we're doing that, whether we're the heroes or villains, it's crazy to ask that question about citizens concerned about our economic future. we're about to be -- after this money is spent that was just approved today -- $17 trillion in it debt in the next two

years. who wouldn't be asking their politicians if this is the appropriate next step to take? >> but my problem, i guess, mark meckler, is that it's very easy to run into government on a ticker that we want to cut spending. obviously everyone will nod and say, that's a good idea. it's a bit like saying i want to put all terrorists in prison. the problem comes when you actually have to govern a country and you can't do it, i would argue, with the kind of very extreme behavior the tea party has shown this week, where you basically shove the president into a corner, threaten him with all sorts if he doesn't do a deal, then as you take on your own party and embarrass the speaker in the process. >> well, piers, you consider it extreme behavior. what we consider extreme behavior is the fact that congress can't cut any spending. let's look at the reality. here the gao, general accounting office, over six months ago came out with a list of hundreds of duplicative programs, billions

of dollars of spending that a nonpartisan entity says is an absolute waste of taxpayer dollars. we haven't cut one penny of that spending. when you look at the extremes, the extremes are practiced today in our congress and by our president who can't seem to find a single dollar to cut from the current budget. that's extreme. >> jenny beth martin, you've been called hobbits and terrorists by the other side. do you feel you're either of those things? >> i think it's crazy that the other side calls us so many names. we've been called names from the very beginning so we're used to it. but to go to the extreme that the vice president is saying that we're terrorists or at least hearing that we are and saying, no, these are just american citizens who are expressing their first amendment rights, it raeally ratchets up the tone in washington and it's not what we're looking for. just after gabby giffords' shooting they said that we

needed to have a new tone and needed civility in washington, calling american citizens terrorists is not civil. >> i mean, the other side in in relation to the hobbit claim was, of course, the republican senator john mccain, who is also opposed to you. so you have this division within your own party, don't you? >> to say it's within our own party is incorrect. we're not part of either party. we are standing up for the american people. we don't care whether it's democrats who want to stand up for fiscal responsibility, constitutionally limiting government or free markets or republicans. we just want elected officials to do that regardless of party. so yes we're making republicans angry, we're making democrats angry. but we must be doing something a little bit right because we certainly have their attention right now. >> you certainly do. let me come back to you, mark meckler. it's an interesting point. if what your colleague just said is true, then is the ideology of the tea party that you don't really care if there's a

republican or democrat president? and could we see a scenario potentially following that argument where you would support barack obama in the next election? >> well, that is a fact. we don't care whether the president is a democrat or republican. we don't care whether any elected official is a democrat or republican. we care whether they stand for fiscal responsibility, constitutionally limited government and the principles of the free market, the things that have made this country the greatest country on earth. those are the things we care about. would we support barack obama's reelecti reelection? right now, i can't see any scenario under which he stands for those three things. right now he stands for bigger government, spending, fiscal irresponsible, a disregard of the constitution, and he certainly is no supporter currently of free market principles. so if if he made a stunning reverse, anything's possible, but right now i don't see that happening. >> jenny beth martin, you talked there about your despair at the angry rhetoric of the republicans and democrats in all

this mprocess. but let's face it, people like sarah palin and michele bachmann are not shy about coming out with sharp rhetoric, are they? so it's a two-way street, this. >> it is. and we understand that. but it's time for people to stop throwing names, quit worrying about whose team tear on, republican, democrat, congress, the white house. it's time to stand up for the american people. our country is so deeply in debt that we're in a precarious situation right now and it's time to pay attention to that and quit the name-calling and focus on the problem at hand. >> jenny beth martin, mark meckler, thank you both very much. >> thank you. >> thank you. coming up, i'll ask a former majority leader how he would be feeling right now if he were john boehner.

is.

it it is the bruising debt

battle a sign of what's to come in washington? joining me is dick armey and hillary rosen. dick armey, let me start with you. if you were john boehner, how would you be feeling right now? >> oh, i'm sure john boehner feels very frustrated and unappreciated. you know, i know john well. john boehner understands the problem, what must be done, and the magnitude of it all. and he's having to negotiate with an incompetent white house and an indifferent senate with over half of his conference saying you've got to go further and another group saying, whiney, whiney, you're doing too much. and he's working very hard. he also understands that what we've got here is only a tow hold in the right direction. there's so much more work to do, and i imagine he's kind of wondering, will i get some others to pitch in with me for

another round? and maybe if we all are trying to work forwatowards the same c objectives, maybe we can make progress. >> hillary rosen, do you agree with that? >> the reason john boehner didn't get more done is unfortunately people like dick armey were out there sending out e-mails to groups of conservatives and criticizing him, don't compromise with the president. so, you know, barack obama started with at the very outset with, we need to secure some economic certainty here. we need to have shared sacrifice and everything will be on the table as long as we have shared sacrifice. that's the principle he operated from. i think that's where john boehner wanted to start from as well, but the radical elements of his party would just not let him do it. yeah, he's probably frustrated, but it's ses ae's certainly not of the white house. it it's because his own people will not let him do what he tried to do.

>> hilary, i understand what you're trying to do, frustration. the american people are speaking loudly that you and your party don't want to understand. but i have no doubt john boehner understands it and understands it well. >> part of the problem, though, dick, if i may just jump in here between you, is that you've got the tea party faction now causing a real division in the republican party. the tea party, by common consent, are the political winners in all of this, aren't they? >> first of all, there's nobody that i know is a tea party activist in america that sees them as part of a political party. in fact, they are quite disdainful of both parties. nor do they see themselves as winning and losing on political grounds. their whole orientation is policy and in the long run how do we get this government built back down to a size that doesn't choke off the american economy, rationalize it it, get it doing more, and more efficiently the things it ought to be doing in accordance with our constitutional mandates and our

good common sense and have it do less of the things that are just wasteful and unproductive and counter productive oftentimes. >> this this deal will actually be the beginning of the end of the tea party because what we've seen is, approval ratings for congress are lower than they've ever been since the tea party majority got elected in the house, and they're going to bring the republicans right down with them. they took john boehner hostage. they forced him to do a plan that was unrealistic politically, and then the grown-ups in the senate, republican senator mitch mcconnell and senator harry reid, had to kind of take over and come up with a compromise with the president and force it on the house. i think the tea party has shown that they cannot govern. that their goal is not growth in america. that they are just -- they've gone to this ideological place that has actually become destructive. >> dick armey, let me put it to

you about the tea party. tea party have clearly had a good couple of weeks. but there's a reality check, isn't it there? when you get to government, you can't just pretend you're not affiliated with a political party. they are afill yit yaited whether they like it or not, with the republicans, the gop. >> well, let me just say, first of all, again make the point, without exception or very few exceptions like bernie sanders, either you are a republican or you are a democrat if you hold office in washington. there is a large group of american citizens that are red and believe in and understand the miracle of our constitution want our government in compliance with our constitution, understand from the point of view of economics and how the world works that this government is so big and massive and clumsy in in screwing up markets and so forth that they are the impediment to the prosperity of the american people and we must gain control of this.

now, had hiilary is coming from ideological perspective that america is the government and what's good for the government is good for america. that's the big contest go on there. we've just seen her side of the wishful thinking. wouldn't it be lovely if america didn't listen to the tea party activists. her problem is, quite tragic for her, america is the tea party activists or the tea party activists are america. they're not the washington establishment. >> you know, first of all -- >> hilary, let me give you the final word here. >> as a practical matter, the tea party got elected to congress because hundreds of millions of dollars of corporate dollars from banks and insurance companies who are angry that president obama was reining in their profit structure put money into the campaigns of people who really they thought had no chance but were put out there to try and defeat democrats and thed succeeded in it. and right now we have a president who has said this is not a debt crisis in the country. we have an unemployment crisis.

we have to grow our way out of it by people coming together. since the republicans have taken over the house, we have dropped our economy for two straight months. had when the democrats were in control, we had 14 straight months of economic growth. so what dick armey is saying is simply not true. what we are going to find in the next several months is that the country is sick of sort of this radical notion that the tea party is trying to bring and they want people to come together and support economic growth and find jobs. >> hilary, hold that thought. we're actually going to continue this after the break because i want to know what you both think this particular process on the debt crisis has done to the 2012 election campaign.

back now with dick armey and hilary rosen. i was enjoying the debate so much, you two, i thought we'd carry it on. dick, let me put it to you, there's another way of looking at all of this. that the real winner is president obama because he's managed to shelf this now, this debt ceiling now until after the next election and he's moving, as he said today, to possibly introducing some tax increases for the rich and so on. i mean, it's not been a disaster for him by any means. >> no. actually, he got the only thing that he could understand that he wanted out of these

negotiations, which is to not have to deal with this issue until after the next election, which guarantees and must be very comforting for him to know he'll never to have deal with this issue again. but the fact of the matter is, he has also demonstrated beyond anybody's ability to ignore his total incompetence and inability to work in this process. he was awol through the entire process. and of course that did not escape the notice of the american people. >> but right now most people would argue that the problem for the republicans is there's no apparent, obvious candidate. and the split between the tea party members, whether you say they're attached to the gop or not, people perceive them to be, isn't helpful, is it? at the moment, who takes on obama? >> you know, and you've got the major republican presidential candidates who, if they had their way, would have brought the country into default.

that's not going to be a very popular thing for them to run on. i think it's going to be tough for them to go into a campaign one-on-one against president obama who is telling the american people, i want solutions, i want jobs, i've been moving this economy forward, to disaster. that's not going to fly. >> dick, what is your response? who stands right now? >> well, quite frankly, my own view is that president obama has demonstrated himself to be -- first of all, he's so i'd logically defined he virtually understands nothing but income redistribution and he's incompetent at even doing that, to the frustration of the -- >> i get your feelings, dick. let me stop you. dick, i get your feelings about the president. it's obvious. however, what is the answer to my question, which is, which of all the candidates right now -- and there's a clear split

ideology cli between the michele bachmann end of things and mitt romney iend of things. which of the candidates do you believe could beat the president? >> all of the above. the fact of the matter is, politics in america has changed and it's now about principles, objectives, goals, and policy, not about narrow-minded, short-sighted, parochial political things. nobody is running on bringing home the pork anymore. it's all about the big ideas that will allow america to recapture its greatness. president obama has demonstrated he has that. there are a variety of big ideas out there being talked about by other people, someone of whom will emerge as his opposition. >> i think it's clear -- >> with the greatest of respect, dick, it does sound like you can't think of a name, which is slightly worrying for the republicans. i mean, what would you say, hilary? >> i think no matter who they nominate they're going to

coalesce around the candidate and try and spend the billions of dollars to try and defeat the president. but what they're rooting for is for the economy to get worse hand they're acting irresponsibly. i think the american people will not stand for that in these republican candidates. they don't want to see a candidate tear down the economy just for their own political gain. that's why president obama, you know, looking like he's the guy who wants to compromise, bring people together, show that we can work on things, and focus on jobs and the economy and not on these partisan battles is going to be what the american want. >> well, one thing's for sure. the republicans are going to have to find somebody and get behind that person. i repeat to you, dick, i don't want an answer, more of a statement. until they make a point as to which way they're going to go, whether it's tea party or moderate, you have a problem. dick armey, hilary rosen, thank you. coming up, should america be afraid of homegrown terror like

the attacks in norway? i'll ask a best-selling thriller writer.

p keeping them honest on 360, the new debt deal includes a super committee. is this committee going to be any different than all the other committees that have come before it? they're nothing new. their success rate definitely not impressive. we're keeping them honest. we'll talk with paul begala, gloria borger and others. and the bloody crackdown in syria getting worse. a humans rights group says overnight at least 24 killed after prayers, dozens wounded. at least 145 people murdered since friday. now the u.s. is threatening to impose new sanctions. we'll talk to an activist inside syria, human rights activist, who risks her life to tell us what is going on tonight. plus, the child sexual assault trial of that polygamist leader warren jeffs continuing to spiral out of control. jeffs constantly interrupting proceedings to breach his own gospel.

gary tuchman bring us inside the courtroom where juries listen to recorded sexual instructions by jeffs.

my next guest was told by glenn beck he could be assassinated. brad, big fan of your stuff. it they're great reads. what is particularly apazi of having you as a guest today is coming on the back of i think the unthinkable terror attack in norway, something that nobody i guess could ever have imagined, the double-pronged attack by a lone guy, it seems, maybe with help. when you heard about what had happened, as somebody that concocts these outrageous plot lines yourself, were you surprised by what you heard? >> i wasn't surprised by what i

heard. i was actually surprised by who the perpetrator was in the end. i think i, like many people who pay attention to terrorism, thought this had all the fingerprints of an al qaeda-style attack. one of the terrible things we see now is the two-pronged attack or multi-pronged attack, whether it's the bali bombings or what happened in mumbai. so the idea of a bomb going off one place and that taking all the resources of police and first responders and then that horrible, horrible massacre of those children on that island. so that's what immediately had gone through my head when i heard that. and i'm sorry to say that it didn't surprise me. it surprised me that, yes, it was norway, but the attack itself? it's unfortunately the kind of world we live in where this stuff is p happening. >> were you critical at all the time it took the authorities there to get to that island? >> absolutely. an hour and a half? way too long. >> i thought it was pretty extraordinary, given norway has been a target for al qaeda because of its presence in

afghanistan with troops. they've been warned before about a possible al qaeda attack and they ought to have been thinking the unthinkable. i think since 9/11 it's been incumbent upon every country, america or european country, to have people who sit around all day conjuring up -- what struck me -- i floated this notion of this being a pretty unacceptable delay on twitter and was amazed by the reaction that came back of people saying, how dare you criticize the security forces? but actually when you study the facts, the norway prime minister was due on the island i think within 12 hours, you would have imagined there would have been hyper hyperreactive security around. wouldn't you? >> you would think is. this is part of a psychology referred to as normalcy by us, where people don't think, because it's never happened, it never will happen. it's not until a black swan event, if you will, which is what this is for norway, happens that people look back and say, we should have seen this coming, should have been more prepared.

just like we did with 9/11. and unfortunately, i think this is going to change things in norway. i hope not. i hope the norwegian people don't allow this to change their culture, but the equivalent i heard someone speaking saying, with these people, the numbers being kind of revised down a little bit, it's still horrible, even one death is horrible, but this is equivalent to thousands and is equivalent to thousands and thousands of american citizens when you kind of look at it proportionally. so this is going to be the 9/11, the 7/7 if you will for norway. >> tell me about the book "full black". what is the blot here? >> well, my books. i think one of the hallmarks of my thrillers is they're based in reality. i try to put them there as much as possible. for this book, i went to people i knew in the special operations community in the intelligence community and i said, what keeps you up at night? and one of my folks came back to me and said, have you heard about this blueprint called unrestricted warfare? i said what is it? they said it's a white paper written by a foreign military

that realized they could never take america on the conventional battle field, and they had a very sophisticated plan on how to collapse america from within. it was written in the late 1990s. as i started studying this, i saw a lot of things in that blueprint were actually taking place in america right now. and i said, you know what? this is unfolding on our doorstep today. i want to base my new thriller on that. and that's what i did. >> where do you come up with this stuff in what makes you, brad thor, an apparently normal guy, have these incredibly weird, random thoughts? >> steven king had a great line. and steven king said, a writer is someone who has trained their mind to misbehave. i think that's very much the case with me. i look at something and say what if? if we talk about the glass being half empty or half full, i want to know what does the glass look like underneath the table? i always have a different way of looking at things. one of my thrillers, i said, what if the cold war didn't really end? what if the soviets rolled over and played dead? what might that look like once they decided they were done

playing dead? that was my third book "state-of-the-union". so i think it's just -- i don't know. i think there's something that either is plugged in differently or not plugged in with thriller authors. and that's definitely my case. >> we'll take a little break. when we come back i want to pick up on that precise point, which is the day the white house called and wanted you to join their think the unthinkable brigade.

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brad, in 2002, not long after 9/11, you get this extraordinary phone call. tell me about it. >> i was living in the mountains of utah at the time, park city. it was like a scene out of a movie. i'm running in the mountains with my dog. i'm in an area where the cell phone never works and suddenly my cell phone starts ringing. i get asked if i would consider coming to d.c. to be part of something that department of homeland security was putting together. even before the 9/11 kmiegs came

out, the powers that be in washington said 9/11 happen because of a failure of imagination on our part. they were determined to never let that happen again. so to do that they realized they needed to break out of the way that they'd been thinking. so they invited creative thinkers into d.c. from outside to help them brainstorm potential terrorist attacks. >> this is like your sort of fantasy world come true. >> absolutely. i mean, to be asked to serve your country not by picking up a rifle but by bringing in your creative talents and your knowledge of terrorism and that kind of a thing, it was an incredible, incredible opportunity. >> did you have any ideas that you then saw implemented or not? or happen? >> well, i always joke around that red cell program is the las vegas of government programs. what happened in the rel kren stays in the red cell. what i did see happen was some of the attacks that i predicted that we were working on there we saw them implemented. i would be watching cnn and all of a sudden this attack would pop up in iraq or someplace else or afghanistan and i would say, i call my guy, my contact.

he'd say, i know you saw it on the news but you can't go out and say you worked on dreaming up that attack. >> you wrote "lost patriot" banned in saudi arabia because it fictionalized lost islamic text. what was the fallout like for you personally after that? >> we got a lot of threats, which was not easy for me as a husband and father. because i take the safety and security of my family -- it's the one thing i hold dear and most important to me above all else. so we had to sell our house. we had to move. we had to pick up extra security. i can't go and do book signings now without security at the book signings. >> you were actually warned before publication that you would be assassinated by muslim extremists if you published that book but you still did it. >> i still did. glenn beck says, i implore you. i had given him an early copy of the book. he read it and he said i'm begging you. do not publish this book. you will be assassinated within a year. i'm still here. he was wrong thank god. my goal is not to demonize

islam. but i say at the end of the day, we're not at war with the irish right now. if this was 30 years ago i'd still be writing about the soviets. it's a gutsy thing to do because you are potentially making yourself a target even by talking this way about it. >> i think it's imperative upon us of who live in free and democratic societies to not shy away from taking these on. i had great idea for a book. why should i sublimate my art because i'm afraid of reprisals. what is going to help good peaceful muslims is me shining the light on the radicals. because when we make apologies for islam, when we try this. to explain it away, we weaken the voice of the good muslim reformers who are trying to change their religion from within. and they need our support. so i feel this is important. >> two or three years ago on a block ops mission in afghanistan you shadowed a team. >> i shadowed a team. >> what was it like? >> that for me was as great as it was being part of the red

cell program that, for me was a dream come true. that was like pitching for the yankees or being a quarterback for the dallas cowboys. it was so exciting for me to travel with these men, the best of the best, and see how they do what they do. but it also gave me a deeper appreciation for muslim culture, particularly the afghan culture. every village we went to we had the permission of the village elders to be there. so we had the protection of the pashtunwali the code of honor there. they would have fought to the death of every man to keep us safe. try to find someone to help you change your tire when you've got a flat on the airplane. yet here they would have fought to the last villager to keep us alive. i didn't want to leave. i actually had one of the greatest, most eye-opening experiences of my life. >> do you think it's a more dangerous world now than it was in 2001? >> absolutely. i think it grows every single day. i think the death of osama bin laden puts al qaeda in a position where they have