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tv   Piers Morgan Tonight  CNN  February 28, 2013 6:00pm-7:00pm PST

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♪ now we've turned the page again with the rx f sport. ♪ this is the next chapter for the rx and the next chapter for lexus. this is the pursuit of perfection.
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right now, time for the ridiculist. that does it for us. join us for the bullying special, the bully effect. one hour from now. piers morgan tonight starts now. tonight, tick, tick, tick, the sound of a fiscal time bomb or just dysfunctional washington misbehaving as usual. >> how much more money do we want to steal from the american people to fund the government. >> i'll ask jack welsch if washington is cutting fat or cutting to the bone. >> a confessed killer breaks down on the stand. >> were you crying when you were shooting him? were you crying when you were stabbing him? >> i'll talk to a man who says jo jodyi arias killed him on the night of the killing.
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>> also, the pope stands down. >> good night. thank you, all. >> i'll go one-on-one to made the short list. he doesn't even believe in god. penn jillette. this is "piers morgan tonight." good evening. you're looking live at the white house where somewhere, somebody has got to be wondering how on earth did it ever come to this? $85 billion in spending cuts, and just about nobody in america wants, and nobody, not the president, not congress, seems to be able to stop. just a few hours, president obama will meet with leaders from both sides of the aisle. if you think that will put the brakes on the whole thing, listen to this. >> amazingly enough, there are republicans dancing in the streets, happy with the thought that sequestration will happen. >> we have done our work. they've not done theirs. the house shouldn't have to pass a third bill to replace the
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sequester before the senate passes one. >> so is there anything that anyone in washington can do to clean up the mess before it's too late. jessica yellin is at the white house now. on the face of it, it seems so utterly pathetic, childish and pathetic. am i wrong? >> no, you're not wrong, and i think you would be pressed to find anyone in washington who disagrees with you. the problem is that both sides are so dug in, and this is a case where each side thinks that they have absolute leverage, and just isn't willing to negotiate yet. so what we're going to have to see is the american people start, i think, start to suffer a little bit, before the two parties are willing to come together and really negotiate. >> which is astonishingly sellish of these politicians. i heard a statistic today that i want you to confirm if you can. the last time barack obama and john boehner met in person to discuss government spending was november 16th, 2012.
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>> that was before, during the fiscal cliff discussions. and i believe that date is accurate. they met before -- in the middle of those fiscal cliff discussions. they have spoken on the phone since then, but the white house's point is those in-person meetings aren't enormously productive anyway, and as we saw during the debt talks, they really didn't get us much progress. the bottom line is, they're talking past each other at this point. and the white house never expected these cuts to be triggered to begin with, so it seems there is a bit of a miscalculation on their politics on this, and the republicans have a bit of an upper hand right now, pearse. >> i think they do, and i think that the white house has played this very badly. i think the president tried to call their bluff, has he has in the past, and they have called him back, and he doesn't really have a credible answer. >> the problem for the president
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is that the republicans are right now okay with these spending cuts going into effect. so, you know, the president then loses his leverage. all he can do is sort of wait it out and see how long it takes until either the republicans say it's enough, we don't want these to continue, or the president gives up his position and says, i'm not insisting on tax hikes or loophole closings. i'll give in and let you guys win. so the two sides are sort of still in their standoff positions, and i don't see this playing out quickly. i think it will take a while. >> and finally, jessica, i think technically, the dread ed "s" word i'm refusing to use tonight starts at midnight tonight, but nothing is really going to happen tomorrow. this kind of goes into effect in the next couple days and weeks, right? >> when it hits, it will be like the mayan apocalypse.
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it sort of dribbles out. the people who feel the effects first are people who are on long-term unemployment insurance because their checks will be cut. low-income people who rely on housing and heating atd, and federal workers who work directly for the government, they might get 30-day notices that say they'll be furloughed. will businesses respond by cutting investment and dialing back in anticipation of what is to come? that could have a ripple effect on the whole economy. we'll just have to see. >> jessica yellin, thank you very much, indeed. >> thanks. i want to turn to a man who said the forced spending cuts are quote, represent worst management practices. jack well, former ceo of ge and founder of the jack welsch institute. it seems like pure aisle politics and the victim in all of this is the american people. >> piers, this is the silliest time of all in washington.
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i mean, when you think about it, we're talking about spending more money this fiscal year than we did last fiscal year. so these aren't cuts to a budget. these are cuts to an increase. these are modest cuts in trying to turn the curve of spending over, and as far as ms. yellin's report is concerned, it's the president's job as leader of the country to bring people into a room and start banging heads to talk about where we're going to go. so i don't -- this, to me, is a side show. i actually feel sorry for the public servants who have been governors and other things who are in the cabinet being sent out on these, the sky is falling missions, we won't have planes landing, we won't have people protecting our borders. it's a terrible thing to do to these grown-ups who had
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distinguished public careers to get in the cabinet and then have to go out and pander with crazy comments like this. >> i completely agree. the president has lost his sure footing on this. he had the republicans where he wanted them after the big debt crisis battle in december. and now i feel like he's eroding a lot of the public support he had because this is going to happen tomorrow. and it will have a direct impact on people, and i think eventually, they will blame him more than the republicans. >> and it won't be much of an impact. it won't be much of an impact on people, when you think we're going to spend more money this year than we spent last year in the federal government. now, the thing i said was a terrible management practice is the way they put this thing together, where you can't differentiate, where you have to cut everything the same. the idea of not using judgment in these cuts is insane. i mean, you couldn't run a laundry doing that, never mind a
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country. >> i've got a tweet from a friend of yours, actually, showing here now. this is something -- oh, from you, i think. let's see that again. get it back up. okay, this is mike barnacle, sequester is latin for incomp ten itance. and i have just said the dreaded s word. it seems to me across the board, jack, i saw your tweet as well. here's the point, when you see that john boehner and barack obama haven't met in person to discuss this economic meltdown in their country, this is what they're elected to do. they haven't met in person since the middle of november. i find that utterly shameful. >> and as the ceo of the country, who should call the meeting? >> right, but i think you can blame the president. at the same time, there's just no -- never mind no love lost between them. there's no camaraderie, no sense of working together for the bigger picture of the american cause.
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there seems to be a complete kind of frigidity between the speaker and the president, which is reminiscent, i think, of when newt gingrich and bill clinton co-conspired, inyou like, to the government shut down, but after that, they did sort things out and they did begin to get together and make things happen. but i don't really have much hope that the boehner/obama partnership is going to go that way. >> ronald reagan and tip o'neal were fabulous. >> do you see that happening? >> no, and i think it's incomant upon the leader to make that happen, not the speaker. >> but the speaker is just as intransigent? >> if i were the ceo of the country, i would be able to have a meeting when i would want to have a meeting, and i would work it out. this is a sideline discussion. this is not the biggest deal in the world. what's going to happen is as these cuts trickle in as your reporter said earlier, people
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aren't going to see much happening. and all this noise that went on is going to hurt the credibility of all of washington. >> is it all just fiddling while rome burns, jack? >> we're spending $3.8 trillion while we're talking about these cuts. >> let's talk about other issues. one is chris christie getting snubbed by cpac. what did you make of that? is this a problem for the republicans that their most positive in terms of public opinion politician, is already getting snubbed by the party? >> it certainly doesn't make the tent bigger, i tell you that. when a guy has 74% approval in a blue state, to keep him out of your convention when you're trying to rally the troops makes no sense at all to me, but i'm not a purest one way or another on the subject.
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it makes no sense from a distance. >> let's turn quickly to the story about yahoo. marissa mayor bringing in this plan to stop her employees from working at home. is she right to do this from a business point of view? do you think you can get more done as a team physically together? >> well, i think there's two parts to that question, piers. one is, working at home has certainly helped a lot of working women participate in the work place, and they have been effective in many different cases. particularly effective when the company is humming. but in this case, marissa mayor is taking on a turn around. she's got a crisis at yahoo. she came in to fix it. she's got to develop a culture, a direction, a team, a vision. and she can't do it with people all in their homes. she needs to see the whites of their eyes. she needs to see them there. she needs to be able to have a
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conversation and rally the team together and get a common purpose, get a common culture. so she's got a very tough job. i congratulate her for having the cuts to go against the trend in the midst of this turnaround, in the midst of silicon valley where ping-pong tables and dream sessions are the order of the day. to go back and retro, to get everybody in the room to rally around a new mission and a new culture, god bless her for doing it. that took guts. only a woman could do it, and she did it. and i comemend her for taking i on. although, in a well-run company, operating smoothly, people working at home give a lot of people a chance to participate effectively in the work force. >> i want to play a quick clip from an interview i did with cara swisser, the reporter who broke the yahoo story. >> in silicon valley, a lot of
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engineers work at home. facebook, the enj noor who created the camera app created it in his garage. the question is of a changing work place, and she's moved it in a different direction for a good reason on some levels, but you can't force an excited work place. what really has to happen is you have to make products that people like working on and that consumers use. and that's yahoo's problem. to me, this work from home thing, to attack all the work from home people, and it is an attack on them, is sort of odd. why not get rid of the work from home people who didn't work out? why not try to make it a more exciting work place. i don't think you can force camarader camaraderie. i'm curious how it's going to work out because she can try as much as she like tz, but until they make pruths that are exciting, no amount of free food, no amount of free dry
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cleaning, phosing people into the office is going to matter. >> if this does work and yahoo starts to compete successfully with its rivals, marissa will be heralds as a genius. you used to get rid of the bottom 10% of the work force for poor performance. would she have been better off targeting the underperformers and allowed the ones who have enjoyed working from home to continue? >> look, she's not going to throw out great performers. she'll use judgment. she'll let some have flex time. some come in, some not. but she's got -- she's got a problem. she's not running a perfectly oiled machine right now. she took over a troubled, broken company. and she's trying to put humpty dumpty together again. and she needs to get all hands on deck to work with her to come up with the best ideas. as yahoo progresses, or as
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special people are in different jobs doing certain work, piers, she'll let them do it. sheelz rr no dummy. she's not going to blow up good people to get them in the office, but she's got to get the majority of the people on the team developing a new culture to win. they don't have a 1ing culture. it's been a losing company for a long time. it's had a number of ceos. she's come in, courageously taken the job, and is making a bold move to move the company forward. and in a turn around, this is a turn around, remember that, she's going to take some actions that go against the grain. here, taking a retro move, which takes all kinds of guts for a young woman taking over the ceo's job here, so i commend her for the guts, and i hope it works, and i know she'll use good judgment and not take some genius in a silicon valley
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mountaint mountaintop coming up with the next great product and pitch him out because she's got to have him in the office. she'll use good judgment. >> you have as always used good common sense. good to talk to you. >> thanks a lot. i always love being with you. >> good to have you. >> when we come back, the prosecutor versus the crying killer. shocking graphic testimony in a arizona courtroom. the latest on the jodi arias case. you'll have the knowledge to advance your career while making a difference in the lives of patients. let's get started at capella.edu.
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♪ all on thinkorswim from td ameritrade. ♪ explosive graphic testimony in the trial of jodi arias is reaching a fever pitch today. she sobs as she. asked about the boyfriend she's accused of murdering. it comes on the 13th day on the stand. joining me now is jane velez-mitchell. we had it all, didn't we? >> we sure did. this is one of the most relentless cross-examinations of a defendant i have ever seen. the prosecutor, juan martinez, absolutely skewers jodi arias,
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ripping apart her story, which is full of holes, totally full of holes of how and why she killed travis alexander. she responds by sobbing, convulsing, and he blunts that. he says, were you sobbing when you were stabbing travis alexander? she stabbed him 29 times and shot him and slit his throat ear to ear, down to the spine. she claimed she did all this in self defense, after a afternoon of kinky sex, she is taking pictures of him in the shower, she claims he lunges at her, and she stabs him. she said she goes into a fog and can't remember stabbing him or slashing his throat. during this so-called fog, she manages to clean up the crime scene, take the gun, get in the car, drive into the desert,
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dispose of the gun, and perhaps in the most kichilling moment o all, and he describes this, she leaves the man she has just left a voice mail inviting him to a play. >> quite extraordinary behavior. let's take a look at a clip of her sobbing on the stand today. >> were you crying when you were shooting him? >> i don't remember. >> were you crying when you were stabbing him? >> i don't remember. >> how about when you cut his throat? were you crying then? >> i don't know. >> gloria allred, this is such a weird, sinister case. she seems to me to be a path logical liar and killer of almost epic proportions. >> well, if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck and so forth, then maybe it is. she obviously is a killer. the only question is was it justified by self defense or not? she's sobbing in the courtroom,
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the question is, who is she sobbing for? is she sobbing for the victim, for travis, or for herself. because now she's caught in all of her lies. and it's hard for her to explain her way out of them. >> allen, has she got any chance of getting off this from everything you're hearing? >> i don't think she has any chance of being acquitted. the question is will a young, relatively attractive woman who was involved in a sexual affair of this kind get the death penalty? in our country, you don't get the death penalty generally if you're comfortable and attractive, and i think this is an effort to try to keep that from happening. i think she's making it more likely that she's going to get the death penalty. the closing argument will include her sobbing, and then it will show her being interviewed earlier, saying, oh, she escaped from the intruders and the jury will be told when she is sobbing, she is acting. she's lying through her sobs just the way she lied when she
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looked earnestly at the television cameras and talked about how she escaped with her life from the intruders. so i think she's getting deeper and deeper, and moving herself closer to the execution chamber. >> and you know, she's in trouble when allen dursh wits, who is a very well known and respected defense attorney, is taking the prosecution's point of view and saying it's likely she's going to be convicted. i also want to mention, that voice mail you pointed out, piers, that she left some weeks after killing him, what was that all about? we can call that consciousness of guilt, trying to establish an alibi for what she did. my guess is it's possible that will also be used in the final argument in the case. >> when gueye come back after the break, we'll speak to somebody who worked with jodi arias and travis alexander and got a call from jodi at 3:00 in the morning on the night travis died. that should be a fascinating conversation.
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hey you, i haven't heard back from you. i hope you're not still upset i didn't come to see you. i just didn't have enough time
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off. it's okay, sweetie, you're going to be here in less than two weeks. we're going to see the sights. >> extraordinary moment today when jodyi arias read the e-mai she sent to her boyfriend after she allegedly murdered him. joining me is gus, who was jodi arias's mentor. welcome to you. extraordinarily, jodi arias calls you at 3:00 in the morning on the night she has killed travis alexander. what does she say to you? >> it was 3:30 in the morning. the phone rang. she was crying hysterically. i knew it was her from the id. i said, what's wrong? she said, travis is dead. i said what happened. she said, i don't know. i asked, are you okay?
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she said, yes. she said she was in northern california, which is like 1200 miles away. i said, do you need a ride? she said, no, she's going to rent a car. ie said, tell me what happens. >> is that before or after she had sex with the man in utah? >> i had no reason to disbelieve her at that point in the game. >> did you speak to her again where she denied killing him. >> that's the last time i spoke to her. >> that was it? >> that was it. >> she never gave any indication she was responsible for the death? >> no, he was dead, not that he had been killed. i said, what happened? she said, she didn't know. i said, are you okay? she said, wryes, i said, where e you? she said, northern california. a few days before, i met her and she was heading in that direction. it didn't seem ridiculous to me. you said she was addicted to travis. in what way was she addicted? >> i'm not saying he
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deliberately had a spell on her. she just couldn't seem to get away from him. like the time she came to me to visit to get away from him in the motor home. when he called, she originally wasn't going to answer the phone, then she answered the phone and then she tried to get off the phone. the moment he started yelling at her, she caved and capitulated to talking to him. from what you saw of them, was it an abusing relationship? >> i never saw them together. i met both of them, met both of them at the same time, at events, but they never publicly acted together in public. i never saw them act together as a couple. >> from what you knew of travis, was he an abusive character? >> i didn't know enough either way. it wasn't until i started mentoring her that this came out. >> you must have been shocked? >> when i first heard she was arrested, i called the d.a., i
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said, she hadn't confessed yet. i have some information that can free her or get her in trouble because they could check the phone tower. if it was in northern california, she would wibe off e hook. if she was in arizona, she would be in trouble. >> was she a liar from your experience? somebody you wouldn't completely trust? >> no, she was completely trust wor worthy. the whole lying thing that's going on now, i kind of understand it, it may not make sense to other people, but think about it. you have dud something horrific, you now have to defend your life, and you're going to do anything you can do to save your life. i get it, i don't condone it, but i get it. >> is this the behavior of a guilty woman, somebody who has deliberately murdered this man and is trying to cover her tracks from fake voice mails to
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e-mails, days, weeks after the event, talking about the happy times they're going to have together. it's a classic cover your tracks, isn't it? >> it's much worse than that. it's not only classic evidence of an attempted cover-up, of an attempt to create an alibi. it's also kind of classic information that constitutes aggravating circumstances when the jury has to decide whether or not to impose the death penalty, which is essentially diskreshzary. in arizona, there are aggravating and mitigating circumstances, and she is making it much easier. i did an appeal a few years ago on a case from a very prominent lawyer in delaware who got himself the death penalty because he insulted the intelligence of the jury by lying repeatedly at least in the view of the jury, but what he had done and why he had killed the person. so not only is i think she presenting classic evidence of guilt, but classic evidence that's going to open the door
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widely to aggravating circumstances that will get her the death penalty. >> and evidence that is abusing the memory of the victim. >> right. >> which i think can be very upsetting to some people on the jury. >> at least his family, as well. >> to his family as well, but the jury is going to take that into consideration as well. you know, you know people as an individual, but i think sometimes the chemistry, people together, may be different. >> from the moment you hear addictive about a relationship, alarm bells ring because they can lead anywhere. >> of course, sex can be an addiction. >> of course, it can, gloria. i bow to your expert defense of this. >> it's not a defense to murder. addiction, even if she was abused. even if she was addicted, it doesn't justify a planned, premeditated killing, planning the escape route, planning the alibis. that just doesn't qualify as battered woman's syndrome or any other defense. >> i have pity for the experts
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who now are at some point going to come on and testify about battered women's syndrome, because i think they're going to have a really hard time at least trying to hook it up to jodi arias in the case. >> one final question if i may, the cannibal cop trial. more incredibly lured details of this policeman, including a detailed blan to kidnap and cook his college friend, including he got details of her bra size, shoe size, height, weight, then researched the need for a gag or rope, chloroform, a top for the trunk, and other details. when you see this level of detail and the fact he was accessing a police database, which by the mere fact he was doing that, could have led to him being fired, is it getting more sinister? would somebody risk their job to do that kind of research? >> well, it really is getting sinister, and the irony, of course, is in that case, it's the prosecution who is trying to
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prove that the defendant is telling the truth, and it's the defendant who is trying to prove that the defendant had been lying all the time. it's all a question of fantasy, the exact opposite of what is going on in the arias case. but remember, in the cross-examination today, the witness was asked, could this be a screen play? could this be a detailed fantasy? did you actually search the trunk of the car when you found out he was planning to put somebody in the trunk of the car? and the experienced officers said no, we never searched the trunchg of the car because we knew it was a fantasy. this is going to be a very tough case for the prosecution. legally, emotionally, of course, it's a slam dunk when you think about all these horrible things that he's describing. >> he's a hideous individual who may will walk free. >> does anybody care about the fact that there's conversation that this officer is having about real women and about cooking them for entertainment and watching them suffer? i think it's really revolting, and i think we've got to end
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thinking of women as meat because this is really not funny. this is serious. >> i completely agree. gloria and gus, thank you for coming in. alan, thank you as always. i'm sure we'll be back to this neck week. thank you very much indeed for now. coming up next, a pope resigns. a one in six centuries event. what it means for a church in crisis. that's next. r advanced aspirin. in fact, in a recent survey, 95% of people who tried it agreed that it relieved their headache fast. visit fastreliefchallenge.com today for a special trial offer. visit fastreliefchallenge.com if youthen this willbrids arbe a nice surprise. meet the 5-passenger ford c-max hybrid. c-max come. c-max go. c-max give a ride to everyone it knows. c max has more passenger volume than competitor prius v and we haven't even mentioned... c-max also gets better mpg. say hi to the super fuel efficient ford c-max hybrid.
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i am no longer the pope. but i am still in the church. i'm just a pilgrim who is starting the last part of his pilgrimage on this earth. >> benedict xvi earlier today stepping down as pope. the first to do so in nearly six centuries. an extraordinary moment, but what will it mean for a church in crisis. joining me, monsignor nollty, a former v eer vatican official. let me lay my cards on the table. i'm catholic, a good old catholic boy, and i feel
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disquieting by what is going on with the pope retiring. i look at a man who seems to be no less infirm than pope john paul ii, his predecessor, and there's so much gossip and rumor mongering suggesting there's more than his age. >> i think there are two things going on. a lot of people are upset. it's something that's novel in the church, the holy father has admitted it's novel and he understands it's a grave decision. on the other hand, we have to thak the holy father at his word. >> is it an opportunity for the catholic church to really set about reforming itself, because there's a reeseabout survey i found fascinating in germany, and a poll came out that over 17% of all german catholics were in favor of male priests being able to marry, in favor of female priests being ordained, and in favor of divorced catholics being able to remarry in church.
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absolutely overwhelming murjoert that i suspect would apply all over the world, yet you'll never hear that from a pope until there's genuine re-formation. >> it is constantly needing to be reformed. the church was formed by christ, constituted by christ, so we always have to look at how we have turned away from that. we always have to look back to that form, the form that jesus gave the church, and it's a form that he built, that wasn't something he did in a vacuum. it comes to us from the old testament, from abraham calling someone to god, calling him on a mission, so modern society can always speak to the church, but they have to find a way to listen to what the church says because the teachers are eternal. they're not the passing fads of the world. they're the eternal teachings from god. >> one of the challenges will be who the new pope should be. some of the early front runners appear to be marc ouellet,
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cardinal turkson, and there is a sense that maybe africa would be the next place to go for the pope. it's one of the fastest growing for acatholics. >> we have to think about who we would pick, who do we want to lead the church. i probably couldn't get into any names because i can think of a number of the cardinals there who would make excellent successors of st. peter, but what you really want is someone who is going to be able to give the message of jesus. someone who is like jesus. the pope, one of the titles is vicar of christ. jesus had roles and those three roles had to do with the roles of the holy father. as a priest, he's involved in the liturgy, bringing beauty back to the liturgy. as prophet, he preaches the eternal truths of god, not just the passing things of the world, but the eternal truths of god,
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and as a passing king, he rules the church. >> i think it's all fascinating. i think the idea of an african pope appeals to me. the time may have come. it would be a great moment for the catholic church. thank you very much for joining me. >> thank you, piers. >> now, i want to bring in a man, who let's just say, he probably has a different view of all this. you know him as the talkative half of penn and teller. and he joins me now. welcome back, penn. >> good to be here. >> i couldn't think of anyone i would want to talk to about the unprecedented retirement of the pope than you. what is your honest reaction to it? >> i think i may be somebody who believes in the pope's position more than most catholics. i really take people at their word. and it seems like all of the cynicism and all of the who are we going to get in, modernizing,
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it's not supposed to be modernizing. it's supposed to be word of god. i know it's not all the time, but i really believe that if people believe, i don't know how they can have opinions on the catholic church. you call yourself a catholic, don't you follow everything? >> no, that's the point. have become increasingly like many young catholics, really disgruntled by the failure of successive popes and the vatican to move at all with the times when society is changing so fast. >> why would society move if they really were -- >> let me give you an example. here's an example. their literal interpretation of contraception, for example, means no pope can indorse the use of condoms even in places like africa, where it would have saved 10s if not hundreds of thousands of lives. i find it completely unacceptable that no pope has been able or allowed to or felt able to say if you're using it as a barrier to disease, like aids, you have my support. that would save lives.
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>> absolutely. >> it can't be christian to allow so many people to die through your interpretation of what something elis. >> this is great, what side you're picking here. i would say on my side, if you have someone who is a conduit to god and is speaking god's word, even if you can't understand exactly what god's plan is, even if you do see suffering, that you consider unacceptable or any suffering is unacceptable, that still doesn't mean you get to vote on what god actually believes. they pray, they study -- >> it's their interpretation of what god would believe. >> it's their interpretation of somebody who is at times divine. >> i don't remember reading jesus christ saying you cannot use condoms to prevent diseases. i don't remember him saying pryces, catholic priests can't get married. i don't remember him saying divorced catholics can't remarry
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or female priests can't be ordained. >> absolutely. now you're talking martin luther. that was martin luther saying an individual, i don't think he actually mentioned you by name, but an individual could interpret the bible themselves. the idea, as i understand it, of the catholic church is it's not interpreting the bible yourself. you have somebody who is actually able to do that. once you have somebody that is telling you, we are interpreting god for you, it seems like you either agree or you don't. you either say, like martin luther, i'm going to have a direct relationship with the word of god, or i'm going to go through a conduit of god on earth, which would be the pope. >> can't believe i have penn jillette in front of me, actually defending my church against my own criticisms of it. anyway -- >> you're getting more martin luther. >> this is unprecedented territory. we're going to come back and talk about joan rivers' joke about heidi klum and the
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holocaust. she's defending it. a lot of people aren't laughing, including many in the jewish community. it's an interesting issue for all comedians, and we'll discuss it after the break. ♪ you know my heart burns for you... ♪
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back now, my favorite athiest, although of course he can't bring himself to believe that. tell me this, a little fury happening over joan rivers. she said this, the last time a german looked this hot was when they were pushing jews into the ovens. she should have known better. the remark is so vulgar and offensive to jews and holocaust victims and all americans. the reason she does this kind of joke is to keep what happened at the holocaust and many of her family members died of it.
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is that an excuse? >> i don't think it's an excuse at all. joan rivers knows enough about comedy as anybody else in the world. >> that doesn't give her a license tm to it, did us it. >> it does. >> you have every right to be offended by it but she will not and should not apologize. i felt that when the onion did their apology, they actually made it worse because they took it out of the realm of joke and maybe it could have -- >> quvenzhane wallis, the little 9-year-old, i thought it was completely offensive and unacceptable. >> when you are doing trans gres sif humor, when the idea is to be shocking, when the idea is to get a laugh from something that's outside of the realm of what someone else would say, when that's your position, that is clearly her job. her job is to cross certain lines so we all get to think about it. i think there are limits to each
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one of us and our tastes and what we will enjoy but as a society i think blaming her or -- and this whole idea that people are supposed to apologize for jokes seems out of line. it's not funny. that's fine. but they is not in any way, shape, or form condoning the holocaust to even -- >> i think the only person who probably should feel rightly offended is heidi klum who had no right to be linked to germans or nazis during the war. >> it's backwards of what the anti-defamation league is claiming. it's a joke against the germans and the germans may say, can't we even have a hot model without that being brought up. so they are kind of again on the wrong side. i just don't know how i can support joan rivers more. i mean, i just think that it's absolutely okay to try anything in comedy and it's also okay for
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people to rise up and argue about that but she does not need to apologize. >> let's take a look at the all-star apprentice which starts sunday march the 23rd. you're in there. i'm in the premier. >> you're on the other side of the desk. >> i look at donald trump side and reengage with my old friend and it's extremely entertaining. i'll be back with one objective and i left a happy boy. i go into several episodes, actually. one of your colleagues in it, dennis rodman, is currently in north korea telling everyone that kim jong-un, the supreme leader, is his supreme mate. what is dennis up to? >> isn't that the most beautiful thing in the world? >> does he know what he's doing? >> it absolutely is. you know, we're talking about what really is going to bring people together. the first thing is always going to be it's elvis.
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he will elvis is cool and you've got a fan of basketball who's over in this horrible country treating their people terribly, nuclear stuff, and they've got dennis rodman, a good old american who is over there doing great stuff. >> we'll agree to disagree on that. you're getting a hollywood star walk of fame. >> yes. >> good to see you. >> wonderful to see you, piers. >> we'll be right back. for your first day?
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