mason-dixon line now? here's what we've learned. think carefully about where you go, because there's always someone somewhere making a riduculist and checking it twice. "outfront" next, facebook in the hot seat again. and mitt romney tonight on the first leg of his first foreign trip. as a candidate, a big trip. so why, then, is the candidate refusing to talk about foreign policy? there's a conundrum. on the day i come back from the northern mali region, the issue that the defense issues a warning about the rising terror threat in mali. what should america do? let's go "outfront." good evening, everyone. "outfront" tonight, facebook not making many friends this evening because just a few hours ago, facebook came out with its first

earnings report as a big public company. and it did do about what people thought. revenue was up 32% from a year ago. that may sound good but the problem is facebook's shares are taking a big hit. you remember, this is a company that was second biggest stock market launch ever. today facebook shares closed at 26 a share. you see that black diamond-looking ski slope. it's falling even after the market closed tonight. down about 30% from where it went public. this obviously has hurt a lot of people who struggled to try to get shares of this ipo. why are people so nervous? there's one word and it's money. during tonight's conference call with investors, mark zuckerberg, the ceo of facebook, made it clear that making money from advertising is a top priority. >> we know that social ads perform much better than nonsocial ads so our job over the next few years is to increase the percentage of ads that are social and engaging. >> social and engaging ads.

well, you know, advertising a word mark zuckerberg would not have used when he firstdescribe ed facebook. here's what he said to investors. quote, facebook was not originally founded to be a company. we've always cared primarily about our social mission. well, the company's mission now is to make money off of you and its 955 million users. it has to make money. that's just the reality of it. now you're a public company. here's a couple things they're planning to do supposedly. there's a rumored want button. there's a like button on facebook now if you like something. the want button lets you tell your friends what you'd like them to buy for you. maybe it's a wedding or baby registry thing. it's supposed to link you to spending money. there's also a new service called facebook exchange which traction what you do on the web and shows you ads when you go back on facebook based on where you have been. according to bloomberg, facebook is also working on a cell phone to try to make money from people

on their cell phones which has been a real issue for the company. mark zuckerberg, though, shot down that report on the call. the thing is, actually advertising on -- advertising here has been a soft spot for facebook. nobody wants to look at ads on their facebook. this has a lot of people worried. when you consider half of faceback users go to the website from a smart phone. facebook. can it ever go back to where it went public? "outfront" andy serwer, managin editor, "fortune." and editor of empire. great to see you both. the company doesn't seem to get a break. most people say, look, your revenue is up 32% and you're a giant company. why will people not stop slamming you? >> there's a very simple reason. the stock was priced too high at the ipo. it's growing like crazy still as you said. they're figuring out how to make money. the fact of the matter is they

priced the ipo so high it's priced for perfection and when they turn in normally great numbers the stock's going down. that's what's going on. >> there are two things that determine whether it can succeed, can it make money and can it grow? facebook certainly is growing. what about the making money part? >> i think you brought to the point about the cell phone and not being able to monetize their mobile apps. i think that's still going to be a major issue going forward. i don't think anybods truly been able to monetize anything off of a cell phone. i mean, the only people that really make money off it are, like, verizon and at&t. i think they're still struggling to figure that out. it's going to take them a while to get to that point. >> i got to say, it's going to take a while but the world is moving to these sorts of devices. somebody will figure it out at some time, right? i mean -- >> right, phones are getting bigger. iphones and other tablets are getting smaller. one thing they talked about on the call a little bit was

sponsored stories. these are stories that come from a company like ben & jerry's or a movie company that go into your news flow. you know, they suggested you're going to get -- they're getting about $1 million a day off this. so $300 million of advertising. but, you know, you got to ask yourself as a consumer how often do you want to see these things on your facebook, right? it detracts from the experience. >> i would say not often at all. >> right, exactly. the coref the problem. >> that's a major issue. it's a major issue. because i think that the people that use facebook don't want to spend time trolling or scrolling through ads to get to what they really want to see. >> there are people out there who like to say this is going to be the biggest colossal failurer. they say young kids are not using facebook as much as they're used to and there's other companies that can provide the same thing. this might just be a colossal failure. other people say that's ridiculous.

>> i disagree with that. listen, now they have 955 million users. i mean, that's staggering. pretty soon, 1 billion. it's remarkable. they haven't really cracked china. >> they don't expose how many people have multiple counts -- >> let's say half a billion people use facebook. that's an amazing audience. so i think, you know, you think about facebook going forward it's going to be like the telephone company. it becomes a utility. at some point when it becomes so ubiquitous or they try to monetize it so much with so many ads it becomes uncool. they have such a head start over anyone else at this point, i think facebook's here to stay. it's just the stock was too damn high, right? the other thing they don't really want to be a public company. they never wanted to be. they were sort of forced to be. there's just not that into you if you're a public shareholder, right? >> one final question about mark zuckerberg himself. remember when google went public and larry page, the genius

founders of it, brought in this guy, eric schmidt, because he knew how to run a company. and he ran the company really well. they stayed on. they got more experience and management. and then they came back eventually. mark zuckerberg from everything that i've heard is not -- the guy is maybe a genius but he's certainly no experience managing a company, never mind a company this size. should he be the ceo or should he be the chief genius and bring in a real manager? >> i think he should bring in a real manager. he's a control freak as you can see. i think having someone with like true business acumen would really help them. you know, having a dual role, he could be chairman, something like that. move forward, having him -- whoever this financial guy is will come in and explain or build a product. he'll build the product base. the other guy will figure out the financials on it. think that would be very helpful. also take his mind off worrying about shareholders so much because now he's worrying more about the product.

>> give him confidence -- >> they do have some professional management. he firmly controls that company. remember, two class of stock -- >> whoever controlled the ipo, you have to assume it was the cfo. we can hardly say that worked out real well. >> right, exactly. right now, zuckerberg, stick ton the news feeds, stick to the product. maybe let the other guys do their thing. as you suggest that didn't work out so well either. >> all right. thanks to both you. we appreciate it. a company a lot of people are curious about. maybe, you know, people are talking about it. it's a good thing. we'll see. twitter went silent. plus, mitt romney in london for the first leg of his foreign tour but he's refusing to talk foreign policy. plus, trying to crack down on unauthorized leaks. there's a new order from the judge in colorado just a day after details leaked out about a package sent by the suspect in the horrific movie theater shooting. some cities say they want to ban chick-fil-a. do cities really have the right to ban a business for its beliefs?

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talk to your doctor today about androgel 1.62% so you can use less gel. log on now to androgeloffer.com and you could pay as little as ten dollars a month for androgel 1.62%. what are you waiting for? this is big news. our second story "outfront" tonight. mitt romney's international audition. the presumptive gop nominee sat down with piers morgan while on his overseas trip today but he did not want to talk about foreign policy. >> how will you be different as a republican president? how will you avoid the kind of pitfalls perhaps that president bush fell into?

>> well, first i have to note that as tradition for our nation, on foreign soil, avoid speaking about a new foreign policy or my foreign policy or doing that in a place that would in a way detract from the president's efforts to pursue his own foreign policy. so i really can't -- i can't go down that path. >> james carville joins me along with david fromme. i'm just a little confused. he made a big, with great fanfare announced that foreign trip to show he could be a great commander in chief. you'd think at least you'd talk about something you'd be doing. even if you weren't criticizing the president. talk about something positive you might do, right? >> you can talk about positive things. of course you must avoid criticizing the president. that's very important. i'm glad he did do that. mitt romney gave an interview which is appearing tomorrow, which does give more clarity on his foreign policy -- >> in israel. >> -- middle east. i think mitt romney is

especially worried about getting drawn on the biggest foreign policy question at the moment which is also an economic question and that is the problem of the euro. that is a situation that is changing so fast that if you're a candidate for president you're very worried about saying things now that might bind you nine months from now in a completely different situation. >> james carville, i'm curious though, because mitt romney has spoken about syria before. just an example. piers asked him a question about syria. and you're going to hear what mitt romney had to say tonight. i want everyone to know we've been very detailed, he's talk about it before. here he is to piers. >> in terms of syria, you talk about dictators and so on. people who think assad should go. there's a humanitarian process that's unfurling. getting worse by the day. what do you do? is the natural instinct of an american president, if you were there right now, would you just be saying, enough, we've got to get in there and take this guy out? >> piers, again, given the fact i'm on foreign soil, i really am not going to delve into foreign policy prescriptions that would

interfere with the foreign policy of our current president. >> well, i haven't seen harratz's interview but why can't he talk to cnn about foreign policy and he can talk to harratz about foreign policy? it doesn't make sense to me. he could put out being overly critical. he would say, look, these are the principles i would take if i were president or something like that. it's kind of a strange thing. without knowing what's in the interview that he gave to the israeli -- why can't he talk to them and not us? >> well, i don't know what's in it. although i would be surprised you're giving an interview to an israeli newspaper you're talking about things like iran or the palestinian issue. what i still don't understand about it. president obama, remember when he went overseas in 2008? he gave that big speech about -- and it was, you know, the thing that he's best at, right, giving an inspirational speech, and here's what he said about foreign policy on the trip he

took while running for president. >> this is the moment we must help answer the call for a new dawn in the middle east. my country must stand with yours and with europe in sending a direct message to iran, that it must abandon its nuclear ambitions. we must support the lebanese who have marched and bled for democracy. and the israelis and the palestinians who seek a secure and lasting peace. >> i mean, david, from why can't mitt romney do that, what would -- i mean, the mitt romney doctrine, right? that would mean i'm not going to talk about whether i'd put troops into syria or not specifically. but here is what i believe in and what i stand for. why not at least do that? >> well, that is germany in 2008. left a bad taste i think in the mouths of a lot of people. because the real message that candidate obama was then sending was not the content of the speech, it was that shot that you're showing right now. he wanted to influence american

voters by saying, see, i've big in germany, i'm big in europe. you feel unpopular. elect me and the world will love the united states again. that turned out by the way not to be true. that we still have a lot of difficulties with the rest of the world. ironically, it is with germany that president obama, now president obama, has some of the most frigid relationships that he does with any government. >> why is he taking this big trip at all? >> based on his performance in great britain, it might be good he's shutting up. using the "p" word to describe his performance. that would be "palin." >> because he criticized the -- for the london olympics. >> gets up and criticizes -- the olympic games together. then he goes to the spy service and says he had a meeting. they don't -- they barely acknowledge that they even have a spy service. i mean, completely clueless as to what their traditions are. so maybe it's better that he doesn't say anything.

it might be better for him and his campaign if he just kept his mouth shut between now and november. >> that's not fair. what's happened to him on this trip is mitt romney has fallen -- like when you drop a little clove of garlic into those mincing machines, he's dropping into the maw of the voracious british press. >> if he had given them something that was big rather than only little things then maybe -- >> meanwhile, boris johnson, the mayor of london, is using romney's one line to launch the "boris johnson for prime minister" campaign, like a scene from "love actually" -- >> conservative prime minister was highly critical of mitt romney. this is not -- this is david cameron. >> he was not highly critical. >> of course he was. >> he threw the guy an elbow over -- >> again, he said we don't get the whole olympics in the middle of nowhere. he was clearly irritated. he offended the prime minister who's hardly fleet street.

>> sometimes men will be boys. thanks to both of you. a new order after a series leaking involving the case. plus twitter, it was down for so long today. there was a reason and it could be a real threat to the u.s. automatically filter just the right amount of light. so you see everything the way it's meant to be seen. experience life well lit, ask for transitions adaptive lenses.

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twitter crashed again today. it was the second time in just over a month that the service, where you can, well, tweet out about whatever you're doing at that moment or many more serious things, went down. last time twitter blamed the outage on a cascading bug, quote/unquote. this tie, they blamed data centers. saying when one data center system fails, another is supposed to take over but this time they both went down. how long were twitter addicts without their fix? our number tonight is 53. which is how many minutes twitter was down. according to the website monitoring service pingdom. for some users, this outage could have been longer or shorter. a very strange day overall for the internet. google's talk function went down today. people had difficulties accessing netflix website as well. to be concerned about whether there could be some sort of a

trojan horse sort of an issue with security for the internet in this country. now our third story "outfront." the judge overseeing the aurora shooter case is cracking down on leaks. issuing a second gag order barring the release of information relating to james holmes. on some heels of news reports that holmes sent a package to the medical campus. don lemon is "outfront" in aurora. good evening, don. >> good evening. what they're saying, what the judge is saying in this order is that he is trying to preserve the integrity of this case. the d.a. filed a motion regarding public access to the university of colorado records. in light of the package that was supposedly delivered to the mailroom. so the judge came back today and said yes, it was okay, the yid does not and shall not, it says, which means they shall not give any information regarding this investigation.

that of course as always includes any grades or e-mail that has to do with this investigation. that is usually under -- it's called the c.o.r.a., which is colorado's records act. and you can file what we call a f.o.a., freedom of information, and get that. in this case, it's not going to happen. until the judge says it's okay to release that. >> a funeral today for one of the shooting victims. what can you tell us about that? >> mikaela medek. a 23-year-old student here from the aurora college. there was a full funeral service for her today. the governor, john hickenlooper, attended, as well as the mayor of aurora. and she was -- she worked at a sandwich shop, a young 23-year-old. she was laid to rest today. there was also some visitations to two other folks as well. her full funeral was today. >> all right, don, thanks very much to you. still "outfront" in our second half, the top man in charge of u.s. special

operations expressing new concerns tonight about the situation with al qaeda in northern mali. the place we just returned from this afternoon. what will the u.s. do? and u.s. ciies may ban chick-fil-a. [ male announcer ] research suggests the health of our cells plays a key role

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welcome back to the second half of "outfront." we start with stories we care about where we focus on our reporting from the front lines. a big break for the stock market today. owl three major indices up. 212 points for the dow. it was right out of the gate thanks to comments from the european central bank president who said that he'll do whatever it takes to support the euro. traders say they're going to watch tomorrow's gdp report. going to be crucial. cnn money economist surveyed a group of them predict the economy grew 1.4% in the second quarter. that is abysmal. and it's below the 1.9% of the first quarter. victim number two, which is the boy mike mcqueary once saw in the shower with jerry sandusky, has come forward. his attorney says he plans on filing a civil suit against penn state. the attorney's also released two voice mails they claim were from sandusky. both end with the words "love

you." one from september 19, less than two months before sandusky was arrested. >> i was just calling to see -- i don't know in you had any interest in going to the penn state game this saturday. if you could get back to me, let me know, i'd appreciate it. when you get this message, give me a call. and i'll talk to you later. thanks. i love you. >> cnn cannot independently verify that voice is the voice of jerry sandusky. treasury secretary tim geithner spent his second day on capitol hill today in front of the senate banking committee talking about problems in europe and the fiscal crisis in this country. there were many countries, still, about the scandal, about manipulating the key interest rate called libor to which american mortgages are linked. here's what geithner had to say about how washington can better regulate wall street. >> you can't regulate for ethics. you can't regulate for culture. you have to assume you're going

to have incentives. the job of washington is to have those in place. resources, not just authority. >> geithner said he is still looking to see whether that libor interest rate manipulation actually hurt american taxpayers. the drug enforcement administration has arrested 90 people in a nationwide crackdown on bath salts. 4.8 million packets of fake marijuana. if you include the products that are used to make the drugs, the cocktail parts, e ingredients, the dea took the equivalent of 19 million packets of synthetic drugs off the streets.

it's been 357 day since the u.s. lost its drop credit rating. what are we doing to get it back? there were a couple of good things to note in housing. 30-year mortgage rates hit another record low. 3.49%. that's the good news though. a index that tracks pending home sales fell 1.4% in june. our fourth story "outfront." al qaeda's surge in lawless mali. i just returned from the western africa country. i was on the border regions of northern mali. and witnessed for myself how desperate the security situation is. how terrified people are of the radicals. islamic radicals have seized the northern half of mali after a rebellion and coup left the country rudderless. today, issuing this great warning. >> i'm very concerned about mali. obviously had a coup there. the government has collapsed. the current government is shaky. it's struggling with international recognition.

north of the niger river in mali is basically completely ungoverned space and aqim, the al qaeda affiliate in that region, has basically moved in and established a very troubling presence. >> we can tell you from being on the ground there that's true. in fact, that is true also for south of the niger river as well. sheen went on to say the defense department is weighing its options. "outfront" tonight a man who knows the security situation in mali. as well as anyone in the world. rudy atala is the defense department's former africa counterterrorism director. spent several years in fact living with some of the taureg who now are refugees in the camps we were visiting as well. let me ask you, you heard michael sheen there saying he's concerned about what's happening in mali. and he's saying all options will be considered. what options does the united states have? i mean, it's hard to really convey to people how remote and difficult it is to operate in this region.

>> sure. great question, erin. actually, if i take you back to 2003, when some of these extremists were starting to embed themselves in northern mali, one of them named lupari, a former gsp commander, which is the organization that became al qaeda and the islamic magheb had kidnapped 32 tourists. the way we solved it is to work with regional partners to chase him across the desert. we were able to stop him. that was a success story that launched a five-year package that the department of defense worked on. so that is one option we have. >> and i want to ask you in a moment about drone activity and what the u.s. is doing and the cia. some interesting things we saw on that front. first, i want to ask you about what's really at stake here. viewers may member we called the military leader of one of the key islamic-linked, al qaeda-linked militias. here is a piece of tape of what he had to say about his ambition what he wants to do.

and obviously cnn cannot confirm the complete authenticity of of this. we want to play it. the military leader of ansar el dine. >> translator: this message is for france, the united states and all the countries of -- we're telling you the mujahadin are ready to fight at any moment. we're not here to dominate the village. we're here for jihad. to spread the message of the prophet muhammad. >> is there any doubt in your mind that the intention of the leaders here, many of whom are coming from al qaeda, middle east, is to turn this into another safe haven country for operations in u.s. and europe? >> in my mind, there is no doubt whatsoever, erin. actually, i'll use the balloon theory that we used to use in the pentagon. is whenever you squeeze a balloon, it's going to go out the path of least resistance. we've put a lot pressure on al qaeda. we've had some great successes in the afpac region against them.

in the sihel region, unfortunately, we have not had those successes. about three weeks ago, al qaeda in the islamic megreb made a global call for all foreign fighters to join them in the fight but to come to timbuktu. the bulk came from north african states. so the leadership of al qaeda in the islamic maghreb is from algeria. this is where they have roots back to foreign fighters. they're trying to bring them in to expand. >> one of the other things we found is there really is -- there are no borders. the border for whatever reason it's incredibly remote. a lot the countries on the border have weak militaries and governments as well. northern mali, niger, burkina faso, no borders. we were able to go back and forth. the islamic radicals, some of the militias, were going back and forth. so what's going to happen?

how big could this cancer be? >> this cancer could actually spread. it can spread beyo the western -- west africa. it can have some repercussions in europe. it can have some repercussions in other parts of the middle east and potentially the united states. it's very alarming. the big problem also is now they can -- they're setting up camps. they'll be some training. they also have weapons from gadhafi's arsenal. still, to today, we don't have a very good handle on precisely what they have in their capabilities. it can be anything from surface to air missiles to more sophisticated weapons. "outfront" next, a major development in an international murder case that brought down a rising star in the chinese communist party. and chick-fil-a being told it's not welcome in some cities because of the fast food's company's stance on gay marriage. we'll tell you the stance and ask the question, whether you like what a company has to say or not, does a city or a mayor

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we're back with our outer circle where we reach out to our sources around the world. tonight, china. a new development in the international murder case that has shaken the highest levels of the communist party. today, the wife of chinese politician bo xilai was charged with the murder of british businessman neil heywood. bo had been a prominent party official. expected to rise to national leadership. till his dismissal in march. derailed his political career. and threw the leadership in the country into turmoil. in beijing and told me about the charges brought against bo's wife. >> reporter: the wife of the now disgraced chinese politician bo xilai has been formally charged with the murder of a british businessman named neil heywood. the state-run news agency xinhua found gu kailai and her longtime friend had a falling out. it also said authorities believed she and her house aide

poisoned heywood because of her concern he could become a threat to her son's safety. heywood was found dead last november in a hotel room in the city of chongqing, the same city where her husband gathered. the political demise triggered by the mysterious death of heywood and continues to reverberate throughout the political circles here in china. a trial date, though, has not yet been set. erin. >> thanks. now our fifth story "outfront." fast food and fast political reaction. chick-fil-a. you've probably heard of it. maybe you love it. its president made some comments recently saying personally he does not support gay marriage. local politicians from chicago to boston are taking their political pulpits to tell chick-fil-a to stay out of their town. our own reporter to see if the story adds up.

>> reporter: after the president of the company said this on the radio. >> i think we're inviting god's judgment on our nation. as to what constitutes a marriage. >> reporter: chicago city adlerman mareno. he says chick-fil-a is no longer welcome. >> that's the civil rights fight of our time. and, you know, to have those discriminatory policies from the top down it's just not something that we're open to. >> reporter: backed by chicago mayor rahm emanuel. >> cck-fil-a values are not chicago values. they're not respectful of our residents, our neighbors and our family members. >> reporter: in a statement, the mayor's office said he did not say he would block or play any role in the company opening a new restaurant here if they meet all the usual requirements. then they can open a restaurant. but he does not believe the company's values are reflective

of our city. the chick-fil-a controversy is cooking in other northern cities. boston mayor urged chick-fil-a in a letter to back out of plans to locate in boston. city councilman jim kenney in philadelphia, take a hike. something stinks here, says daniel mitchell of the libertarian-leaning cato institute. it's not just the chick-fil-a's president's intolerant attitude toward gay marriage. >> disagree with him. but don't try to penalize and discriminate against a company using the thuggish coercive power of government. >> reporter: is that an overreach of government in your opinion? >> it's a very dangerous overreach of government. when government gets involved with its monopoly on the use of force, you're talking about something much more serious and much more threatening. >> reporter: chick-fil-a, sensing a local government revolt, sent out a state that says it does not discriminate based on sexual orientation and that, quote, our intent is to leave the policy debate over

same-sex marriage to the government and the political arena. chicago alderman moreno tells cnn this is the place for local government and he makes no apologies for killing a business deal over personal opinion. kyung lah, cnn, new york. joining me now, chicago alderman joe moreno. thank you for taking the time. so why -- >> thank you for having me, erin. >> why so passionate about this? obviously i understand you disagree. you think the values are wrong. but do you think that that gives you the right to take this as far as banning chick-fil-a from opening restaurants in chicago? >> sure. well, let's be clear. chick-fil-a -- i've been working with them for eight or nine months. and we've made some progress. they can believe and pray or not pray or say whatever they'd like to say. that's not really the point. the point is if those beliefs and those thoughts transfer into policies that are anti-discriminatory. that are discriminatory, i should say. secondly, we do have some traffic issues that are not

salient to this issue that we've been working with that they haven't met. i've been working with chick-fil-a to come up with an open policy in their employee handbook, posted in their mission statement. and we had made some progress. till the comments of the president, the ceo last week. i'm hopeful that we'll continue to make that progress so we have a policy that's transparent and open to all of the citizens of chicago. and chick-fil-a can open. but we need to continue that process. >> so this is an interesting question from -- about the role of government. people have passionate views on this. let's just take starbucks, right? they were going to open up a starbucks in a small town. the small town's blocking them because starbucks has policies which support same-sex marriage. that town didn't like it so they said get the heck out of here. so isn't that really the same thing that you're doing on the other side? >> i think there's a difference. this is what the difference is. same-sex marriage is legal in many states.

its civil unions are illegal in illinois and will become legal. this is equal rights issue. this is not just an opinion on where you feel on the political or religious spectrum. these are equal rights for individuals. you can disagree. you have the right to disagree. that's protected. i would be the first one to protect that. >> how do you define what's a civil rights issue and what's someone taking a stand on something where you disagree and it's against your values but not against maybe somebody else's values? >> sure. because it's the equal rights of individuals to be able to have the same rights that i have as a heterosexual individual that a homosexual or lgbt community, they deserve the same rights as we do. if you're saying they don't, that's discriminatory. we're not talking about their beliefs. they can believe what they want to believe and i'll protect that. we're talking about their actionings. if those actions are discriminatory, that's a business -- we want responsible businesses in our ward in chicago, in the first ward. it's a great ward made up of great neighborhoods of diversity across the spectrum.

we want responsible business owners. this is -- not being discriminatory. they need to be responsible. again, erin, i'm confident we'll work chick-fil-a further and we'll come to a conclusion and we'll be able to move forward. >> thanks very much. appreciate you taking the time. now, let's bring in our senior legal analyst jeffrey toobin and john avlon. i'm curious what defines something as a civil rights issue. >> i think alderman was talking around the issue. this is very simple. what set off this controversy was the president saying he's against same-sex marriage. that's a position held by many people in this country, including the president of the united states, till about six weeks ago. >> right. >> that is not a basis for prohibiting a store from opening. and if, in fact, they do prohibit the store from opening, they are opening themselves up to a serious lawsuit and they could lose a great deal of money. if they want to criticize chick-fil-a, that's fine. but they cannot ban them because of a political view. >> and there are, john avlon, many companies in this country

which are working around this issue still. there are some who went out and said -- goldman sachs for a very long time has been very pro-same-sex marriage and benefits. there are many companies that still don't have all those policies in place. they're not getting banned. >> that's right. this is an appropriate area for persuasion. not education. you made the point that if this was a business -- if there was a town that was trying to ban a business because it was too gay friendly or had a gay ceo, that alderman would be incredibly upset. that's the principle at stake. we're judged by our principles. about whether or not the issue has integrity. no matter what side it's on. >> what if you had a town that said we don't want any democrats opening stores here or any catholics or any black people? i mean this is not the place of government. and they are in legal jeopardy if they do this. that's why -- that's why rahm emanuel's press spokesperson walked this back. because the lawyers got involved and said, hey, you just can't do that.

>> a lot people might say that's an open-minded way of looking at things from your point of view. maybe on another issue, once you open the gate -- >> that's right. >> to an intolerant government, right, then you open the gate. >> the mayor did this a lot smarter. he said "we don't share your values. we hope you don't settle here." that's him expressing his opinion it he's not using the power of government to ban them. that's a whole separate -- that would be a separate situation. and it's much better -- >> mayor bloomberg would say, hey, you serve bad food, it's making people fat, get the heck out of my town. >> i happen to like chick-fil-a -- >> but i don't try to argue it's good for my arteries. >> look at how this escalates. this decisive step of trying to ban a company whose policies of the ceo you don't agree with. when you try to block it using legislation and a local government, that is a dangerous precedent. >> i'm curious, jeffrey, what defines civil rights? how do you define what's a safe

civil rights issue and what isn't? >> if they had a policy that said, you know, we don't have gay employees for example, that would be a violation of illinois and chicago law. that would be a legitimate -- >> which they clearly don't have. >> that was what the statement said. what set off this furor was simply the president saying "i don't support same-sex marriage. that is an ideological position. some people agree. some people disagree. if you try to ban a store based on the political views of the president of the company, you're going to be in a lot of trouble. >> maybe the point of view is if you're the ceo of a public company or very visible company you should keep controversial points of view to yourself. >> that is one principle. the other one is just as old as well. i disagree with what you say but i'll defend to the death your right to say it. >> some ceos. he's become very out front on the issue of being pro-same-sex marriage -- >> good word choice, very out

front. >> see, it's -- it's working in. >> getting into your brain. >> that is -- you know, his privilege. but he takes a risk. >> it's hard to if you're going to take it on one side, then criticizing someone who's taking it on the other. appreciate you taking the time. next, my time at the mali refugee camp was an emotional experience. "outfront" next, we're going to explain how you can help tonight. re one of the millions of men who have used androgel 1%, there's big news. presenting androgel 1.62%. both are used to treat men with low testosterone. androgel 1.62% is from the makers of the number one prescribed testosterone replacement therapy. it raises your testosterone levels, and... is concentrated, so you could use less gel. and with androgel 1.62%, you can save on your monthly prescription. [ male announcer ] dosing and application sites between these products differ.

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open on tuesday, we brought you the story of mali's refugee children. we saw children, you know, sit listlessly for much of the day. many of them td us they wanted soccer balls. instead, they were doing things like playing this game where they killed birds. it was a very horrible image to watch. yesterday, we went back to the camp to distribute the soccer balls we had bought for the kids. and they were overjoyed. you can see there one of the more senior members of the carv camp was telling them they had to share. then they started playing as you can see. they set up some rocks. they set up goals.

they got a little game going. made the kids happy. you know, it's really just a temporary distraction from their situation because the truth is what these children and their parents really need food and medicine. we reported there's only enough food in the camps for one more month. for refugee crisis twice the size of syria's and growing, this is a serious problem. and people there were telling us how hungry they were. children are already starting in some cases to show the distended bellies of severe malnutrition. many of you had asked how you could help. we partnered with the nonprofit organization save the children to send food and medicine to the refugees. they really need your help. if you can, please visit our blog at cnn.com/outfront to donate. if you want, there's also a link to send the kids more soccer balls via one world football, which is a for-profit organization. it's hard to explain how much the people at the camp need. there's no electricity and no running water. we had a generator for our