tv Piers Morgan Live CNN May 1, 2013 12:00am-1:01am PDT
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good evening. this is "piers morgan live." welcome to our viewers in the united states and around the world. tonight, the death penalty and the bombing suspect. does the obama administration want to strike a deal that spares his life? i'll talk about that with the former director of national intelligence in just a moment. i will also ask him about president obama defending the fbi's handling of the boston bombing investigation, insisting there was no intelligence breakdown. listen to what the president said. >> the russian intelligence services had alerted u.s. intelligence about the older brother as well as the mother, indicating that they might be sympathizers to extremists. the fbi investigated that older brother. it's not as if the fbi did nothing. >> the president is also responding to senator lindsey graham who is comparing boston to benghazi, saying the ultimate blame falls on the white house. tonight, along with female dna,
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one fingerprint has been found on the boston bomb debris. a short time ago we learned the attorney for tamerlan tsarnaev's widow says the remains will be released to the family and she is cooperating fully with law enforcement. tonight for the first time, the suspect's carjacking victim named danny is speaking out in his first television interview. here's what he told john miller on the cbs evening news. >> i was counting one, two, three, four, just do it. and i did it. i felt tamerlan try to grab me. >> so you're going, he's reaching out. >> yeah. >> and now you're running. >> i was running. i run as fast as i can. never look back. >> it's really amazing escape. we begin with cnn's susan candiotti, who's in boston. susan, remarkable interview with the carjacking victim today who goes by this name danny, his american name. he's a chinese student. we have also seen for the first time, i believe, some footage of
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tamerlan tsarnaev where we hear his voice. tell me about that. >> reporter: well, it's really remarkable because you get to see him in his own element, when he was a boxer and of course, he dreamed of being a successful boxer, but as you will remember, he didn't get to continue in that role once the rules changed, he didn't get to compete in the competition like he had in the past, and so his boxing coach said you know, i think that might have played a role here but no one knows for sure what eventually led him to participate allegedly, of course, in this bombing. i think we have a clip of that, piers. >> state your name. >> tamerlan tsarnaev. >> you excited? >> yeah. why not. you know? >> so that's the first we've
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heard. we heard from dzhokhar yesterday. tell me about the new developments in terms of potential evidence, particularly the fingerprint that they found on some of the bomb debris. >> reporter: well, this of course, piers, could be a very important piece of evidence as investigators put together their case. and they found at least, my sources tell me, at least one fingerprint on part of the bomb debris. now, we don't know whether that has been identified yet, whether it belongs -- whether they know to whom that fingerprint belongs, but that of course follows on the heels of the news that we received yesterday about the female dna found on another piece of the pressure cooker bomb. still waiting for word. last check, we don't know yet to tell you whether they have been able to identify to whom that belongs. remember, piers, they did take dna samples, according to our sources, from the widow of tamerlan tsarnaev, but of course, it's unclear that even if she were the match, whether
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that meant that she had anything to do with putting together the bomb, that dna might also come, for example, from a store clerk. so impossible to know at this point from our sources. >> in terms of the funeral and burial for tamerlan tsarnaev, we know that his widow, her wishes that the remains be released to the tsarnaev family. when can we expect any kind of funeral? >> reporter: well, we don't know about that. we only know that she has put a statement out through her lawyer that she wishes the remains to be released to the tsarnaev family. of course, she is the widow, after all. but we can tell you, piers, that the uncle that you remember seeing early on, the uncle who lives in maryland, the one who called the two suspects in this case, in his words, losers, well, he was in town today in kingstown, rhode island, where the widow has been living with her parents for the time being. so we don't know exactly why,
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whether that had anything to do with helping to make funeral arrangements, we don't know. nor do we know precisely when the body will be turned over from the medical examiner's office to the tsarnaev family. >> susan candiotti, thank you very much indeed. joining me now is jon negroponte, former director of national intelligence, the president making it very clear today he doesn't think the fbi or cia dropped the ball here, but many other people think they did and they should have had a better track on the tsarnaevs. what is your view? >> well, my view is that it seems that the authorities have done everything they could. they've certainly moved very rapidly. this event only occurred about ten days ago and yet we have a tremendous amount of information. don't forget, hindsight is 20/20 vision. it's always easier to connect dots when you're looking at
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things retrospectively. my reaction to this is that people have handled it about as well as they could, and with regard to one critical question that i don't think we yet know the answer to is this was a radical inspired event, but was it also radically directed. was there somebody directing it from abroad. i don't think so. but i think we still have to give the investigation time to find out if there was anybody in russia who was somehow influencing and maybe even controlling events here. i doubt it, but i think that's got to be looked into. >> let me take you up on that. i'm curious as to why given that you were the former director of national intelligence, why you would doubt that, given what appears to be increasing evidence that that may well be the case. i'll put it to you like this. we saw that tamerlan tsarnaev disappeared for six months. the a.p. has reported today that the russian authorities lost him, lost track of him, after the death of this young canadian boxer that he had had some e-mail connection with called
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william plotnikov who was a very similar story. came to america, went back to dagestan, got radicalized, and died in a shootout with the authorities. so you have that information coming today. and we know that he was fine and then began to be radicalized, then disappears to dagestan and then comes back and commits this atrocity. i also would say to you, is it really feasible that these two brothers have been able to execute quite a complicated double bombing so perfectly just by finding the stuff off the internet? because i find that utterly implausible. >> i was trying to make a distinct between radically inspired on the one hand which i think obviously these two brothers were, i don't think there's any doubt about that, and i think we're going to learn more about who was influencing them. but radically directed, in other words, was this a plot hatched, cooked up, in some other country by people other than these two brothers, i don't think that's
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been demonstrated. although i don't think we can rule it out completely. i think we have to keep looking at that. but those are the kinds of facts that i think over time will emerge. i think in a ten-day period we've already found out a great deal. >> but in terms of the bomb making, do you really think with your old hat on that this is likely that they just learned how to do this off the internet and the first time they try it, it works perfectly twice? >> well, it's conceivable to me that they even learned some of these techniques over a period of time, including when they were in russia, but again, i go back to the question about whether this plot was directed by somebody else, or whether this was kind of a lone wolf, self-radicalized and basically self-motivated kind of event as opposed to externally directed. >> are there any changes that should be made to homeland security, for example, in terms of the fact that one of the more disturbing aspects i think of how they lost track of tamerlan,
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when he left the country, he's not even a full citizen of america, when he left the country, they didn't seem to have any big alarm bells that he was going or that he was coming back, yet he disappeared for six months to a place that is full of extremists, full of terror, and he comes back and commits a terrible terror atrocity. shouldn't alarm bells at least have gone off given we now know the russian authorities had contacted the fbi and the cia about this guy? >> well, it's not as if we didn't do anything. this gentleman was interviewed, the situation was looked at, the fbi came to the conclusion that they had no basis for considering him an immediate threat of some kind, so in that regard, i think we did take some steps to take precautions. now, again, as i say, hindsight is 20/20 vision and knowing what this person did, it now would appear that maybe we should have taken some of these signals that were emanating, we shouldn't have treated them like noise. sometimes it's very difficult to
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distinguish between noise and signals, and obviously, looking back at things, you always have a clearer and more precise and complete picture. a lot of this is going to come out in the investigation. i think we're going to learn more and more as time goes on, with all the work that's being done at this particular time. but do i fault anybody right now for the way they handled things? i take the president's word for it and i also know that director clapper, the director, my successor, twice removed, of the directorate of national intelligence is also as a precautionary measure doing sort of a lessons learned post-mortem reviewing all the intelligence that was available and seeing if there might have been instances where we could have handled it differently. that's a very wise course of action.
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we'll have to see what that produces. >> john negroponte, thank you very much indeed. >> thank you. suspect dzhokhar tsarnaev seems anxious to get the death penalty off the table, is said to be willing to offer more information about the attack in exchange for a lesser sentence. should be he face the ultimate punishment for his crimes? joining me now for more on the big story is attorney alan dershowitz and adjunct professor of law at georgetown university and special counsel for president george h.w. bush. welcome to you both. let me start with you, william otis. it's a curious panel tonight, the pair of you. i think i'm ready to say, alan, you're in support of forms of torture in this kind of
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situation with limits, but you, william, are not, yet you are in favor of the death penalty in cases like this, whereas you, alan, are not. can i ask you both if that is a correct assessment of your positions? >> it's not. >> do you know, as i was going through that, i thought i was probably going to get one of those parts of it wrong. let me start with william otis, then. on the death penalty, in relation to dzhokhar tsarnaev, he's an american citizen, committed an american crime on american soil. why do you think he should be executed for that? >> he should be executed because the death penalty is the only punishment that fits the crime. two weeks ago, i hope your viewers will remember that when you had on your program was not two law professors talking, you had gruesome pictures, pictures of blood-covered streets. you had pictures of victims, people who used to have arms and legs being carted off to the hospital. the victims that is except for the three who were dead, and then later, the boston police officer who was murdered by the bomber. you have every aggravating feature for the death penalty that you could conceivably have in this case. you have multiple murder, terrorist murder, murder of a police officer and child murder. a week ago today, there was something your viewers didn't see.
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they didn't see the private funeral of martin richard, the 8-year-old who was blown to bits by a shrapnel-packed bomb these bombers created. a society without the moral competence to impose the ultimate punishment for a crime like this is a society that has turned its back on a crime that shakes the foundation of civilized life and a society without that moral competence in the context of the death penalty probably has forfeited its moral competence all together. >> okay. alan dershowitz, it would be an abrogation of moral competence if america doesn't execute dzhokhar tsarnaev. what's your reaction? >> well, first of all, i'm opposed to torture under all circumstances. i do understand that torture would be used if we ever had a ticking bomb situation in which
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torture could help prevent a mass terrorist attack and what i called for is if we're going to have torture, there ought to be accountability and visibility. that's why i called for torture warrants. i'm against torture but in favor of a torture warrant. now, on the death penalty, look, if any crime deserves the death penalty, certainly it's this crime but we have to ask ourselves the pragmatic question. number one, would it do more harm than good to execute this person, turn them into a martyr, have the countdown, have his picture all over the muslim world, make him into a role model. remember that for the most part, we haven't executed other terrorists and we haven't lost our moral credibility, we didn't execute the weathermen, we're
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making movies of them now, one is teaching at columbia, another teaching at university of chicago. we didn't execute many of the other terrorists. yes, we did timothy mcveigh. this is a 19-year-old. he may have information that we can exchange for his life, but on balance, i think the main reason for not executing him is two-fold. number one, we don't want him to become a role model and somebody who is seen as a martyr. if he goes to an obscure prison somewhere in southern indiana and lives out the rest of his life in miserable obscurity, he's less likely to become a role model than if he's executed after a countdown and i think the other point as an opponent to the death penalty, you know, you can argue if anybody deserves the death penalty, he does. the obverse of that is if he doesn't get the death penalty, then no one deserves the death penalty. i fundamentally disagree with my colleague. i think this society like every european society and virtually every other western society can maintain its moral compass while abolishing the death penalty. that is not how we judge the morality of a society. >> let me go back to william otis. i sort of side with alan here. my concern about death penalty coming from a country where we
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don't have it is that dna evidence in particular that's come out in the last few years has already shown that a number of people on death row did not commit the crimes for which they were being detailed to be executed. so putting aside this particular case, on the wider issue of the death penalty, it's been proven to be extremely fallible and for that reason surely it doesn't have any purpose in a modern moral society as you may put it. >> let me make a couple of answers to that. india, the world's largest democracy, with well-developed law, and japan, also a modern democracy, both have and use the death penalty. the united states of course has had the death penalty from its inception. our three most revered presidents, washington, lincoln and fdr, all supported and used the death penalty. president obama supports the death penalty in extreme cases. chuck schumer, the liberal democratic senator from new york state, has said that he supports the death penalty for the bomber. dianne feinstein of california supports the death penalty. and three quarters of the
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american people support the death penalty. you mentioned timothy mcveigh, the domestic terrorist who was executed. in that case, something interesting happened. at that time, about 60% according to a gallop poll, about 60% of the american public in general supported the death penalty but when they were asked do you support the death penalty for timothy mcveigh, more than 80% said they did, including a majority of people who ordinarily on principle said they opposed it. >> final word to alan on that. >> well, you know, the majority of people do support the death penalty. the majority of people around the world, majority of western countries, don't. the trend is clearly away from the death penalty. i remember very clearly case of the man who killed tens of thousands of jews and the court reversed his death penalty
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sentence and i think showed the world that even in the most extreme of crimes, you can falsely convict somebody and i think the likelihood of a false conviction not in this case, but in other cases, militates against the death penalty and we can really show the world that we can maintain our moral credibility by imposing the harshest penalty and maintaining that the harshest penalty is life imprisonment and not taking another human life. that's the way a moral society should operate. >> gentlemen, thank you both very much for joining me. >> thank you. coming up next, arnold schwarzenegger joins me live. the former governor of california has a lot to say about the boston bombing case and much more, including the death penalty. also, the woman who almost married jason collins, the nba player who came out as gay gets the surprise of her life. plus breaking the news, abby huntsman, mark lamont hill here to break it down. what's this one do? i dunno. ♪every rose has it's thorn score planner is free to everyone. free score applies
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she was about to marry jason collins and she had no idea that he was gay. i'll talk with his ex-fiancee in just a moment. first, breaking news now, the big stories of the day. president obama is defending the fbi's handling of the intelligence in the boston marathon bombing. critics are saying the u.s. is dropping the ball when it comes to intelligence gathering. joining me are abby huntsman and mark lamont hill. let's start with the big story yesterday and it's been bubbling on today as well about jason collins. remarkable courage for him to be the first male american professional athlete to come out as gay. yet this little twist in the story today of this woman who i'm about to interview, who was with him for eight years and they were engaged to be married, he called off the engagement and she only found out last week, a lot after the event, when he
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called her to say i'm gay and i've always been gay. let me start with you, abby. courageous though he's been, and this may be a contentious thing to say off the top on this, but how courageous is it to have put that woman through eight years of i guess what turned out to be a lie? >> look, she's made it clear that she's proud of him. obviously she cares deeply about him. she was with him for eight years. she imagined spending the rest of her life with him. i'm trying to put myself in her shoes and obviously, we all think that jason collins is incredibly courageous to come out, the first nba player, but i put myself in her shoes and think if i were to date someone for eight years, imagine myself marrying him, all the while him knowing that he's gay, and not being able to love me the way that i love him and just kind of stringing me along, i can understand why she's shocked. obviously he kept this very well hidden, his twin brother didn't know he was gay, either. but i can understand where she's
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coming from. i think she's actually doing a job of showing that she's proud of him, she wants him to be happy, she loves, she cares about him, but i can understand her frustration as a woman. >> mark, she has shown extraordinary courage herself, i think, in being so positive about it, given she has just found out herself. does it tarnish at all, do you think, what he has done? >> no. i think it actually opens up a much more interesting and provocative conversation about sexuality. sexuality's complex. identity is complex. it's entirely possible that jason didn't know exactly who he was or what he was. he talked about being in those different stages of denial and doubt and negotiation. it's quite possible that in that relationship, he thought he was happy. it's quite possible that he thought she was the one. it's quite possible that he did in fact love her. sexuality is very dynamic, very complex. i don't want to create a kind of public narrative that somehow he was being devious or deceptive because there is a sort of narrative already of men and particularly black men who are gay or same gender loving who are somehow deviously deceiving
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their sexual partners. i think it's much more complex than that. >> abby, i was watching spike lee give an interesting interview to anderson cooper earlier in which he said the reality is a lot of african-americans remain quite homophobic and that would have been one of the main concerns, i'm sure, for jason collins was that even his own community, there would be a lot of people who would be quite bigoted towards him and that may have been one of the reasons he had this protective shield which involved carolyn and the relationship he had. >> absolutely. but to mark's point, i think he has made it clear that he has known for a very long time that he is gay. i think we're seeing that we all are made differently and i love the quote that he said that we're all trying to figure out the puzzle that we are, and you know, you can't help but think how courageous he has been. but at the same time, i mean, knowing that he has been gay, this is really back to his ex-girlfriend and i do
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understand where she's coming from. i do understand probably the frustration and it's probably going to take some time for all of this to set in not only for her but for those that are close to him. but i think everyone that loves him, everyone that is watching from the sidelines, is proud of him. i think we're all rallying behind him as a society and i think we're all proud of where -- how far we've come. >> okay. let's move on to another contentious, much more contentious, figure you may argue, amanda knox. she's given her first big interview on the back of a book that's coming out. let's watch. >> i was in the courtroom when they were calling me a devil. i mean, it's one thing to be called certain things in the media and then it's another thing to be sitting in a courtroom, fighting for your life while people are calling you a devil. for all intents and purposes, i was a murderer. whether i was or not. >> mark, my issue is not that she's unentitled to do a book. she's been through a harrowing experience although obviously the experience is not over yet. the italians want to retry her. but my issue is a bit more personal in the sense i know meredith kercher's father, who is british, obviously, as she is or she was.
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he feels extremely distressed obviously about what happened and very distressed about amanda knox going on this big publicity whirl and making lots of money out of it. he used to work for a newspaper i edited. i have a big problem with her making $4 million from effectively the death of meredith kercher. >> oh, no, i strongly disagree. let's for a moment suspend our disbelief and there's plenty of reason to doubt amanda knox's story but let's assume for a minute that she's telling the truth. she spent four years inside of an italian prison for a crime she didn't commit. she's had to deal with pain, trauma, dislocation. she has every right to tell her story and she has every right to give the american public and really the global public access to her perspective, and quite frankly, she has a right to be remunerated for the moment of money she lost. her family spent $1.5 million in travel alone due to her unjust incarceration if she didn't do it. i understand the kercher family feels extraordinary pain for
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their loss but if amanda didn't do it and you combine it with the fact they haven't reached out to her, they're continuing the public story that she did do it, she really doesn't have any obligation to them. if she's guilty, then the ball game's over. that's a whole other conversation. but if she's innocent, i don't think she did anything wrong. >> i actually agree -- >> but abby, the problem is at the moment we actually still don't know. she's going to face another retrial, whether she goes over or not. and i still come back to the point even if her costs are around the $1.5 million mark, that means she'll still be pocketing $2.5 million. to me, this is blood money, whether she did it or not. no one should make that kind of huge payday out of the death of a young woman. >> piers, money's always involved in books. i think anyone -- >> doesn't make it right. >> no, but i think any of us would want an extra $4 million in our bank account. but you know, that doesn't give her back her life. i mean, she talks about contemplating suicide. who knows all she went through.
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but the fact of the matter is we are all so interested in this story. the book is going to sell. we all want the know more about who she is, what she want through, the fact she didn't show any emotion when this happened which was shocking for a lot of people. we're seeing now a different side of amanda knox where she's crying, she talks about wanting to kill herself in the shower of the prison. so i think this book for the most part is about closure not only for her, but for her family. and i think for all she's been through, i think she deserves to tell her story. i think she deserves to define her narrative. >> well, i have no problem with her defining her narrative even if it transpires to not be the correct one. my problem is about the money and my sympathies lie more with the kercher family who are going through agony. >> we're all making money off it. networks are making money off it. 24 hours news coverage is making money off it. newspapers are making money off it. other investigative journalists are making money off it. if for a minute she didn't do it, how can we tell somebody who has been unjustly incarcerated for four years for a crime she didn't commit, demonized, not like she can get a job at the
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local supermarket, come on. this is probably her life's income. >> you make some good points. of course, if she's convicted again, in the retrial, then i would hope at least she may give the money back. thank you very much for joining me. i've got to leave it there. come back soon. when we come back, carolyn moos joins me live to talk about jason collins, the man she almost married before he told the world he's gay. upside down. >> hi. >> hi. you know, i can save you 15% today if you open up a charge card account with us. >> you just read my mind. >> announcer: just one little piece of information and they can open bogus accounts, stealing your credit, your money and ruining your reputation. that's why you need lifelock to relentlessly protect what matters most... [beeping...] helping stop crooks before your identity is attacked. and now you can have the most comprehensive identity theft protection available today... lifelock ultimate. so for protection you just can't get anywhere else,
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teammates for years, his long-time girlfriend and fiancee carolyn moos didn't know either. she is also a former wnba player and joins me now. welcome to you, carolyn. my obvious question to you is how do you feel about all the events of the past week? >> you know, for me, it's a lot of mixed emotions. obviously first and foremost, for someone to actually realize who they are and be happy in their own skin is a very important message for mass public. i think the important message here is to realize who you are early in life and to be able to be comfortable enough to bring that to mass public and those who surround you as in your loved ones, really understand who you are as a person, and to be comfortable enough to say who you are to those people. >> i totally endorse that. you spent eight years with him. you've said here that you had eight years, your dream was to have a husband, a soul mate, a best friend in him, which is what you had. in 2009 i think he called off your wedding and it was only
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last week when he telephoned you, that you discovered probably the reason why, which was that he's been gay the whole time. >> yeah. it's a lot to process at this point. but you know, i think that i still have those opportunities, i still have time to have children and my husband and all those wonderful things, so that is upside and it's a lot to comprehend in terms of really having quantifiable reasons or qualitative reasons that contributed to the outcome of 2009. i really care a lot about jason. he's a great individual. we had incredible moments together and you know, i want him to be happy and i want him to have a wonderful future. in looking back at eight years, they were great and i think for a woman, we tend to write scripts, in case you men don't know that, but we did. we planned a wedding, we planned
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our lives together, knew where i was going to have children and what school they were going to go to and dreams for their futures, and it's hard, you know, for anybody to rewrite their script in their life. that's something that takes a lot of strength to get through and you know, it is possible and so i would like to speak out to people that are dealing with those challenges of having to rewrite their life script. and then you know on the side of society, really taking a hard look at why is it so difficult for someone to be comfortable in their own skin and to be accepted or to feel accepted. maybe that's part of what contributed to that and i think that that's a progression in modern society. we have to be accepting and i certainly am, you know. i'm straight, i'm definitely -- i will have a husband at some point but i played professional basketball.
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i'm 6'5" and you know, i've had teammates that are different from me and i am very accepting for people not only just for how they play on the court, but more importantly, who they are as a person and who they are as a person dictates how much i respect them and how much i value them and their friendship. so i'm really, you know, i really see a lot about society that we're learning through this process and through the information that's been shared, and hopefully we can just help people become better at who they are. >> you're showing remarkable calmness, really. i can imagine that inside must be huge turmoil at such a shocking discovery about somebody you clearly were very close to and thought you knew so well. when he called you last week, what did he say to you? >> he actually called this past weekend and we spoke a couple of times on monday, so it's really fresh in my mind, to be honest with you, and i have close friends, close family, people i am just so thankful i can confide in them. my mom's a former psychologist and it's just wonderful to have that support system. but it's going to be a process, absolutely, and it just takes a lot of perspective and a lot of understanding and a lot of open conversation. i think open dialogue at this point is the healthiest thing.
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i really value that. i value that between jason and i and i value that between, you know, himself and his family and the ones that are closest to him. i think that that's where that comfort level comes from. >> right. did he apologize to you? >> i think he's in the process of taking ownership of the here and now which is actually coming out, you know. that can be very, i assume, overwhelming. you know, i did invest eight years in our relationship with a shared dream and vision with him and i value that. i had to rewrite the script and i still am rewriting it, and it's been very challenging. so you know, that's a natural -- hopefully a natural progression for him to look at things from all different angles and as he becomes more comfortable with himself, i think that time will allow some perspective for that as well. >> i think you've shown remarkable courage, talking
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about it so frankly. i really appreciate that. i think he has been remarkably courageous in what he did yesterday and it's just an extraordinary twist to this saga. i wish you all the very best in finding real happiness going forward. thank you very much, carolyn. >> thanks so much. >> carolyn moos, a very brave lady. next, arnold schwarzenegger joins me live. ♪ then it might alert your button flies all the ♪ ♪ girls and the guys wanna keep that credit score ♪ ♪ high like a private jet free-credit-score-dot-com ♪ ♪ don't forget! narrator: offer applies with enrollment in freecreditscore.com
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arnold schwarzenegger is talking about his american dream. today he was at the usc schwarzenegger institution for immigration reform. he has a lot to say about that and many other things. joining me live in the chair is arnold schwarzenegger. the reason i'm pronouncing your name schwarzenegger, you just revealed a bombshell to me. arnold, that is actually the correct way to pronounce your name. schwarzenegger. and nobody in the world ever says it correctly. >> you can't blame them. i think the austrians say it correctly. the germans say it correctly but over here in america, they say the american way.
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they say schwarzenegger. >> the correct way is -- >> the correct way is schwarzenegger. >> i love the fact i've solved this huge global mystery. let's talk quickly about boston, because in many ways, you personify the american dream to so many people. you came here as an immigrant and america has been great to you. these two tsarnaev brothers, the boston bombing suspects, both came here to try and live an american dream and that dream clearly went horribly sour. what do you make of that and what do you think of a debate now that the one who survived should get the death penalty? >> well, i don't think that this issue has much to do with immigrants versus americans. i think that anyone can go off the deep end and commit a crime like that. we've seen this in oklahoma bombing and so on where americans have done that. so i don't think it has much to do with immigration story at all. when it comes to death penalty, yes, i believe in the death penalty. and we had the death penalty here for years now in california. people try to reverse it all the time.
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i was all for it and you know, during my term, there were several people that were -- >> would you execute dzhokhar tsarnaev if he's convicted? >> i don't know the whole story. >> assuming he's convicted of blowing up the marathon. >> it's very hard, you know, i think the court should play this out, then we'll see what comes out of that. >> if convicted. >> if convicted, i think that yeah, he should get the death penalty. yes. >> you've been here discussing immigration today, and it has many facets to it. it's incredibly complicated. marco rubio apparently said the gang of eight proposal which you support has very little chance of succeeding. what do you say to the cynics who say you just can't have any kind of comprehensive immigration package of this type that works? >> well, i think that it's a very complicated issue and i always said even when i ran for governor that the only way to really resolve this is by having comprehensive reform where we look at everything. and because of that, it's very challenging and there are people way on the right and there's people way to the left and they can't get together. this is why i think it's very encouraging to have this gang of eight, four democrats and four
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republican senators get together, and try to figure out how they can make this work. >> you've dealt with this at the sharp end because when you were governor of california, california has more illegal immigrants pouring in than any state in america by a long way. in simple terms, what do you think is the best, quickest, most effective way to get this immigration issue under control? >> well, there is really no easy way and simple way. it's a very complicated issue. >> what are the things you found most effective? >> one of the things that i think i believe in is that you have to secure the border. it's a very important issue. i think that when you go back to 1986, when they had immigration reform under reagan, and i think that the president, president reagan, has done a great job with that and democrats and republicans came together and came up with a great agreement. but the only thing is that it wasn't really kept because you
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know, there was amnesty for three million illegal immigrants, but at the same time, the border security that was part of the deal never really was -- that end of the bargain was not upheld. you cannot have -- at that point, by the year 1992, they had around 3500 border patrol. what is 3500 border patrol when you have such a long border like that. now they have it up to around 20,000 to 21,000, but i have said when i became governor, i said you need 50,000 men there. that's as simple as that. >> and drones, as john mccain says? >> you know, drones or no drones, in other words, you need the man power there. there are some people that believe in the technology end. i think you can have both. but you've got to secure the border. that is the number one thing,
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because i think it's inexcusable that you have that many people just go back and forth like that the way it is. you don't have a secure border. that end of the bargain was not kept. >> let's take a quick break, come back and discuss this more. also about the american dream that so many want to come here to do. you're the perfect example of it. want to talk to you about that. ordinary rubs don't always work on my arthritis.
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arnold schwarzenegger. the talent of leaving this country will have a dynamic impact in our economy. this is all about the brain drain. so many bright, young people being forced to leave the country are not being allowed in. >> that's why i said earlier, the country needs immigration reform. it's not just about the people coming into this country illegally. but it's also the amount of people that we send back home. i mean, there's kids that are going to school here, they get a four-year degree, a masters or a doctors. they're sent back to their home country and they want to stay here and they want to use this new intelligence that they have gained here in this degree and work here and contribute to our economy. so why are we sepding them back? so there's something off with the whole system.
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and the schwarzenegger institute was saying the only way you can solve it where you don't look at the politics as much as let's do what's best for the country. that's why it's so encouraging when you see them coming together and leading and working it out. i have great hope -- >> when it hits on that market, there isn't a chance in getting passed. it just reminds everybody of the totally dysfunctional nature in washington. it seems like a good idea. first of all, one person says it doesn't have a chance of passing. the amount of times that i have heard, you know, around, you'll never be a body building champion and then i did it 13 times. i got into acting, became a leading man and became the
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highest-paid actor. i won and became governor of this great state. i don't pay much attention when someone says can't be done. it's to support this policy of eight senators. >> you were the great illustration of what it was before. has it changed? >> no matter where i go, piers, people are coming up to me and and asking me how can they get to america? how can they get to california? the amount of people still interested in coming to america is staggering. i think nothing has changed because, even though we've gone through difficult moments and times, and even though in washington, you know, our lawmakers are not yet getting
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together and getting things done. we are still the greatest country in the world. we are still the most powerful country in the world. this is why there's so many people that want to come here. and we have to figure out a system of how do we choose, really, the best people. do we come here? and do we look at the economic situations and say yeah, we need more workers, we need more situations, we need more nurses. we need more private people in silicon valley. let's bring them in. let's get them visas rather than
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it's called "dear piers." sound off to me and i get a chance to reply. send your tweets to @piersmorgan. anderson cooper starts right now. there is breaking news tonight. new reporting on what the dead bombing suspect may have been doing in russia while under russian surveillance. we're also learning that the government may also be thinking about taking the death penalty off the table for the younger suspect. you're going to meet a new lawyer who specializes in saving the worst killers from the worst punishment. later, spike lee. he's not known for holding back. he'll join me to talk about jason collins story. also actress catherine zeta-jones openly fighting bipolar disorder. dr. sanjay gupta
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