it is also just as deeply magical and enchanted. amazing, amazing country, incredible food, unbelievable music, old school colonial streets, mountains, beaches. did i mention the food? you should pray more attention to this place, man. it's our brother. it's right down there next to us. and it's really one of the greatest places on earth. >> and you can find out more tonight on anthony bourdain parts unknown. it airs at 9:00 p.m. eastern time only on cnn. hello, everyone. you are in the cnn newsroom. i'm randi kaye.

tensions are running so high in ukraine that world leaders are afraid that all-out civil war is close to igniting. this is the ukrainian port city of odessa, riot police fighting against violent groups of people demanding to be part of russia. the clashes started on the border. they've now reached the country's interior. the deadliest incident of the conflict happened on friday. a building in odessa burned with dozens of pro-russian activists inside it. 40 people were killed in the fire or jumped to their deaths. sta it was started by people throwing molotov cocktails. they say they want to vote and let the people decide whether or not to be absorbed by russia. in odessa today protesters

rioted and overwhelmed the city's police and forced them to release dozens arrested for street fighting. phil black is in odessa and watched it happen. >> reporter: randi, this big angry crowd surrounded the police station here in central odessa. hundreds, perhaps thousands, standing in the rain demanding that pro-russian activists that have been detained since friday in the station be released. some of the crowd seemed determined to stage a jailbreak. they were really attacking the building, smashing windows, doors, security cameras. they forced their way into the central courtyard at the police station. the police seemed powerless or unwilling to stop them. someone proposed a deal whereby if those who had been detained were released, the crowd would go home peacefully. that's pretty much what happened. these detained pro-russian activists released to joy u.s. tears, hugs, smiling. on this same day because of the violence this city has seen,

ukraine's interim prime minister came here to odessa pleading for reconciliation, national unity once again blaming russia for the violence that has been seen here. a tough message to sell because so many in this city now believe that people speaking russian are being killed or arrested by forces loyal to his ukrainian government. randi? >> phil black, thank you very much. a few minutes ago i talked to a former u.s. ambassador with much experience in eastern europe. he's one of the officials who fears that what's happening in ukraine is spinning completely out of control. >> i think as your reporters have found out, it's a pretty complicated picture there where there are many people who feel very close to russia, whether they speak -- prefer to speak ukrainian or speak russian, they want to be close to russia. so this is a very tough situation in the coming weeks. and it's not at all clear how it's going to turn out. >> former u.s. ambassador christopher hill, he spoke to me from his home in denver.

some frightening and crazy, those words describing a horrific hair hanging incident at the ringling brothers and barn hum and bailey circus. it happened just hours ago in providence, rhode island. it was all caught on tape. here it is. we want to warn you first the video is graphic. >> suspend ed -- >> witnesses who saw it happen describe the scene for us. >> first, i thought it was the act. we see them. they were doing acrobats with their hair. then all of a sudden it was like eight girls and all of a sudden just boom, it just falls. >> the chandelier, the metal bracket that they were actually attached to just dissembled from the main bracket and it tum beld right on top of them. >> a short time ago i spoke with

a man named sean who was in the audience with his girlfriend and they shot this video. again, it is graphic. this is how sean described how it all happened. >> well, it took me maybe 35 seconds just to finally realize what just happened. and the entire place, complete chaos at that time. freaking out. people were grabbing their kids, and i think they all left, honestly. >> just absolutely terrifying. what have you learned? >> we got an update from the department of public safety there in rhode island. they tell us 15 to 20 people were injured as a result of this circus accident. we know nine of those people were performers as part of this hair-hang act where acrobats are suspended about 35 feet in the air solely by their hair. we know at this time that this incident happened about 11:45 a.m. during their 11:00 a.m. show. something, as you heard there

from the witnesses, went wrong with the rigs that are welded together that support this so-called human chandelier. earlier we spoke to a spokesman for the parent company of the circus. and this is what he had to tell us about the incident. >> this apparatus had been used for multiple performances each week since this show launch back in january. each and every time that we come to a new venue, all of the equipment that's used by this group of performers as well as all the other performers is carefully inspected. we take the health and safety of our performers and our guests very seriously. >> it's an act that had just gotten under way before the accident happened. as you see there in this video we're about to show you again. we'd like to warn you if you are sensitive to dramatic video, now is the time to get out of the room. >> suspended --

>> now, randy, six performers have just vently been added in january to this performance chosen specifically because of their height, weight and hair. on the barnum and bailey website it goes into great detail about the procedures that these acrobats do on their hair because this act revolves around the hair hang to create this, as i mentioned, so-called human chandelier. we do know that three different rigs are welded together to support this hair-hang apparatus and performers are specifically chosen for this part of the show. randi? >> and nick, apparently, obviously, there's no safety net or anything for this hair-hanging act. >> no. >> what about the other circus performances? will they go on as scheduled or what are they saying? >> the 3:00 p.m. and 7:00 p.m. show for today have been canceled. no word just yet on the show tomorrow. barnum and bailey had just gotten in town on friday and were expected to perform till monday. you mention that no support system was beneath those

acrobats. it really speaks to the confidence that this troupe had in their performers. nothing had dpaun wrong up to this.. as the show started in january, but something went terribly wrong early this morning, randi. >> we certainly hope that they all turn out to be okay. nick valencia, thank you for your reporting on that. joe mchale had his pick of targets at the correspondents' dinner last night. he did his best to hit each and every one of them. presidential contenders might want to get used to that treatment. weekdays are for rising to the challenge.

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♪ ♪ ♪ [ male announcer ] great rates for great rides. geico motorcycle, see how much you could save. hillary's daughter's pregnant which means in nine months we'll officially have a sequel to "bad grandpa." it also raises the question, when the baby is born, do you give bill clinton a cigar?

ooh, boy, that was pretty tasteless there. the annual white house correspondents' dinner featured joke, if you want to call them that, targeting everyone. but as you just heard, the night also marked the return of jokes about bill and hillary clinton plus a whole lot of one-liners about new jersey governor chris christie. cnn political commentators mark lamont hill and ben ferguson join me once again. along with them katie glick of politico and ryan lissa. welcome to all of you guys. lots to talk about. if being talked about means your star is rising chris christie and hillary clinton have to be happy. ryan, i want to ask you, 2016 on the horizon. so should we get ready for a whole lot more clinton and christie jokes coming our way? >> no doubt. the tone and tenor of the christie and hillary clinton jokes were really completely different, right? christie was essentially mocked and the bridge scandal in new

jersey was sort of the butt of lots of jokes. hillary clinton at least obama's hillary clinton jokes were all about how she's going to be the next president and is sort of a prohibitive front-runner on the democratic side. if you're joe biden watching obama's speech, you're thinking, huh, why isn't the president making any jokes about how i might be president next and not hillary clinton? obviously this is a humorous evening, but there's a lot of real politics embedded in the jokes. >> yeah, certainly. we talked a little bit last hour about funny versus mean and actor and humorist ben stein, he was on cnn last night. he said some of the jokes were funny but others he thought simply went too far. >> the names that he called christie, the mockery that he inflicted on christie because of his weight is just unbelievable. unbelievably sadistic and mean-spirited. >> all right. katie, so has this dinner taken a new turn away from fun and

maybe more a little bit towards some settling some scores? >> well, it certainly depending on whom you ask. essentially with regard to joel mchale, he was perhaps viewed a little more controversially at the dinner. some thought his particularly barbed humor was going too far. kind of the nature of the beast. >> and ben, the celebrities certainly out in force last night as we saw. is the washington media, do you think, is the media crowd maybe a little too impressed when a celebrity walks into the room? what do you make of that relationship? >> i think they always love hanging out with people they don't see in their profession. celebrities don't hang out much with politicians unless it's someone like a bono with a foundation they want funding for. but we now see this blending of these two worlds where i think there's a lot of people that are celebrities that say, hey, i

want to have a relationship with the press or i want to have a relationship with someone at the white house or congressman or senator because it can help me with my career. at the same time i think those in washington, they love knowing they've got a big-time celebrity sitting at their table because they're not impressed by the politicians. if the president walks in the room, vice president, that's somewhat normal for the white house press corps and those of the correspondents but when you see the "duck dynasty" star or jessica simpson or from the show "veep" that's abnormal to your world. that's why this night becomes so entertaining. >> mark, there has been criticism that this dinner makes reporters and laurps seem just a little bit out of touch, perhaps. too much champagne, a little too much black tie. some are saying people can't relate. what do you make of it? do you buy that? >> no, to say that members of congress are out of touch, i don't think this din ser one of them. we can look from women's wages to the lack of a minimum wage. i don't think this is one of

them. i think this is a fun night. if there is a critique, it might be that the white house is too in bed with the washington establishment and the journalists are so cozy to the white house that they can't report on him fairly, there's a critique there. but let's just enjoy it and enjoy good jokes which joel didn't offer many of. >> i want to ask you that. go around our group here and get a read on how joel mchale was. >> you know, i actually talked to joel and his writers before it. and i was incredibly impressed with how much they had prepared for this thing and how much studying they'd done in reaching out to previous comedians. i thought he was great. i've been to almost every one of these dinners since 1998, sad to say, and i thought he was one of the best i'd seen. i thought he had a nice flow of going over the line with a few jokes which if you're a comedian, that's what you're

speesed to do, come to washington and make fun of the most powerful person and people in the world, that's what's great about our democracy. >> but did anyone else feel that he was sort of reading his jokes? >> he didn't have his material memorized, but that's not unusual at these dinners. >> that's normal. honestly, it has more of a roast feel to it than it does a stand-up monologue feel to it. >> exactly. >> they read off ipads, they read off papers, that's okay. i agree with ryan, you can make fun of everybody. but it should be funny. so many of the joke just died. he made predator drone jokes. maybe it's possible to make one. but he didn't last night. i find it hard to imagine one. >> people love watching a train wreck. the ones that push the buttons the most actually seem to get decent ratings and the question is, is this the new line that we'll have at the white house correspondents' dinner or more lighthearted and funnier? he had some of those funny lines

that he made, like, for example, hillary clinton, if you vote for her, we'll save 30% on our payroll because of women not making as much money. it was a big political issue. that's a funny joke. >> all right. >> there's a difference between funny and mean-spirited. >> let me give katie a chance to just quickly weigh in. >> sure. he certainly did not hesitate to take the gloves off, which is something that, you know, if you kind of take a look at some of his previous work, that might have given us a sense of just how far he might have been willing to go. sort of the question of how they went over in the room, certainly mixed reactions. some thought he was very much embracing the hot issues of the day, as was just noted, others thought that taking up the issues of drones, for example, that that was perhaps pushing the envelope a little bit too far. >> marc, ben, listen, thank you, guys, katie, ryan, we want you to stick around so we can talk more about the dinner with the

two of you later in the show. the playoffs were the least of the clippers worries this week but the team played a win or go home last night. they learned about the nba's push to find them a brand new boss with a surprising voice lending her support to that plan. ♪ ♪ ♪ gigantic, gigantic, gigantic ♪ a big, big love ♪ gigantic, gigantic, gigantic ♪ a big, big love ♪

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and the local community... and not by sacramento politicians. and we need to keep that legislation on track. man: so tell tom torlakson to keep fighting for local control of school funding decisions. today marks 44 years since the deadly shootings at kent

state university. the ohio national guard fired on students protesting the vietnam war. four students were killed, nine others wounded. listen as some of those kent state students relive that tragic scene in this week's american journey. i thought this was going to be perfect for my photography class. went out and saw the kids on the common and heard the bell. and saw them sent out a jeep to tell everybody this is an illegal gathering. >> leave this area immediately. >> and that was the part where i really started to get angry because it was on the campus. nobody was doing anything but standing in a group. >> general cantorbury said, okay, we're going to have to disperse them because it's an illegal assembly.

with that i brought my gren na deers forward and we tired tear gas on the hill and in front of them. >> i never imagined na the national guard determined that they had to break up the crowd, that we were illegally on the hillside, that we needed to get out of there. so i didn't like that. i thought, you guys haven't even given us a chance. >> i was about 150 feet away, about 50 yards away from the national guard. i was shouting at them mostly anti-war slogans, but perhaps a few insults if i remember correctly. i saw that they were aiming at me. they had their fingers on the triggers. i felt that my life was in danger, but still i thought it was unlikely that they would shoot. we all ran away back over the hill behind us, and we were very surprised to see the guardsmen come over the hill and chase us. >> when they reached the top of the hill, being a farm boy and a country boy, i saw them wheel

with their rifles. and i knew what that intention was. >> i saw them turn in unison, lift their rifles in unison and start to fire. [ gunfire ] >> you could see much more on this 44th anniversary of the tragedy at kent state, our cnn special report "witnessed: the killings at kent state" will air here on cnn at 7:00 p.m. eastern time. i'm beth... and i'm michelle. and we own the paper cottage. it's a stationery and gifts store. anything we purchase for the paper cottage goes on our ink card. so you can manage your business expenses and access them online instantly with the game changing app from ink.

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the l.a. clippers refuse to let the donald sterling controversy quash their playoff dreams. they're going to the nba western conference semifinals.

coach doc rivers and the team celebrated last night after beating the golden state warriors in a do or die game seven. the clippers appeared rattled last week and lost game six after their 80-year-old owner got banned from the nba over his racist remarks. the sterling scandal certainly ripe for mocking. president obama weighed in at last night's white house correspondents' dinner. >> how well does obama care have to work before you don't want to repeal it? what if everybody's cholesterol drops to 120? what if your yearly checkup came with tickets to a clippers game? not the old done sterling clippers, the new oprah clippers. >> oprah winfrey is one of several celebs interested in buying the clippers. oprah and other interested buyers may have to contend with a blond roadblock named rochelle sterling. she's the estranged wife of donald sterling and she's making

a move to distance herself from her estranged husband. joining me is deborah feyerick. boy, yeah, she's certainly outspoken. she is saying a lot about her ownership in the clippers. what exactly is she talking about? >> it's fascinating. this was an incredible statement she put out just before the game last night. five lines, but in those five lines she absolutely asserts her complete co-ownership of this team, her rights to this team. she says for the last 30 years she's just wanted the best for this team. she puts herself in a position of control. she says she supports -- i spoke to the nba commissioner. i support his actions, and i am looking forward to his active involvement in getting it done. she said, i welcome his active involvement in the search for a person of the utmost character, proven excellence and also someone who has a commitment to promoting equality and inclus e inclusiveness.

she's distancing herself from her husband because she's are qualities he's been criticized in lacking the last couple of days. she's essentially establishing her connection to the team and she may say you can kick him out, but you got me to contend with. kind of an interesting dynamic. >> a pretty smart move actually on her part. but the question is what if donald sterling files for divorce from shelly. how did that affect her ownership claim? >> they've been estranged it seems for a number of years. and she filed -- shelly sterling filed a lawsuit against his alleged mistress back in 2002. she just filed a new lawsuit against his female companion this year, which may have prompted all of this because the mistress or the alleged girlfriend wanted donald sterling to put pressure on his wife the back down. he said he couldn't. he just didn't have the power to do so. so the tape somehow got released. so there's a lot going on here. but trusts are created in order to protect property. it appears that the clippers team is in the sterling family

trust, and that means that they're going to use whatever legal means they can to keep this team intact. she's essentially saying, look, take away his ownership, kick him off the board of governors, but as far as our property, it's our property and you simply can't take it away. especially now that it's got so much increased value given the fact they're doing so well in the season and given the fact that the nba is negotiating media rights which means they can be getting multiples of what they're already getting. she is not going to get rid of this team in a fire sale and he won't get rid of this team without a viable fight. it's really interesting now. >> and the new ceo coming in. >> exactly. >> we'll see what that person has to say about it. thanks for the update. the arrest of 11 alleged militants in malyaz ya raises the hope we'll be closer to finding out what happened to the missing flight. does anyone actually trust what those authorities say at this point? what super poligrip does for me is it keeps the food out.

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the end of the month. and also this -- 11 suspected militants are under arrest in malaysia accused of being involved in a group that carries out terror attacks. but officials say there's no link between the 11 suspects and flight 370. here to discuss all of that, aviation analyst, a 77 captain and safety analyst, david souci, author of why planes crash. what do you think? malaysia saying absolutely not. there's no link to the downing of 370. do you buy that? would they even tell us? >> this is interesting. there's a reason why the accident separates accident investigation from our leaders and leadership because there's so much that would put doubt in the leadership. that's the big mistake malaysia made coming out with the leadership and saying we're in charge of this investigation. because now anything that comes up damages their credibility. here's this case in point. do we do anything that malaysian

police say? i do. but nonetheless, it puts this doubt in there, something that we could have learned from this accident. >> i wa nt to ask you about thi crucial meeting coming up tomorrow. we have china, australia and malaysia coming together. what has to happen to move this investigation in the right direction and forward? >> i think it's in the right direction with the inmarsat data and dave and i were talking during the break about the better calculations with this data and they're searching in the right place. from the standpoint of that, i think that it's just a reorganization. who is going to go where and do what? and i think that's what's important. i think it's necessary at this point in time. >> what about holding on to the bluefin 21, that's the drone that's going over the ocean floor, hasn't found anything on many missions already. $40,000 a day to extend this. we're looking at some video of how it works. do you think it's worth it? >> it's operating right on the

cusp of its depth limit. something that as we go north, which is the most probable area, going towarding the longer ping, the two-hour ping is north of there. that is much deeper. 5,000 or 6,000 meters there. the rema 6000 or perhaps another towed seas eed sonar. >> how much does that cost? >> probably the same amount of money but the right tool, it would be better. operating it, i would wait until you have a really good plan for what parts of the ocean you'll use which tools. >> is it worth it to throw everything at it no matter what it costs? >> i think this is something david will agree with me. the purpose of accident investigation is to find out what the probable cause is so it never happens again. whatever the cause of this whole thing there's a way to prevent it. there's usually numerous pieces of information that we find out.

it's never just one thing. >> speaking of the cause, we've talked quite a bit about the cargo on that plane and now learning just this week that, what, more than 5,000 pounds of lithium batteries which we know can spark and cause fire on an airplane. what do you make of that now actually knowing the numbers? >> you did an excellent story on these lithium batteries and how dangerous if they're damaged pull putting them on the aircraft. just this year cases of lithium batteries not able to be put on the aircraft because of their shipping. there's risk there. we haven't had reports of them going off on the aircraft, but that's because we have strict standards for what goes on and doesn't. does malaysia have those? they do have standards and they've met those when they put these on board. but it does raise questions. >> i had on my flight brazil the other day and we're restricted to 25 kilograms, at least in the u.s.

>> you're comfortable flying with them below you? >> you know, i have to -- there's a lot of trust involved. when they were actually located in the forward cargo compartment which is close to the electronics. >> why would it take so long to get the numbers on the lithium batteries that were in the cargo? why release it at this point? >> anything the malaysian government did early on in the investigation, they were so overwhelmed by this that their reaction was to just with hold information and now maybe this is their transparency program. >> between the lithium batteries and the arrest of the 11 militants, has your theory changed at all on what happened? >> still i think it hasn't changed a lot on what happened. why it happened, i still don't know. and that's the answers that we need to keep looking for. that's where we need to go. once we know why, we can prevent it from happening again. >> les abend, david soucie, nice to see you. missing school girls and time ticking with apparently

nothing done to find them. that's the nightmare parents are facing in nigeria right now. ahead the growing campaign demanding action finally forces the country's president to talk about this kidnapping. peace of mind is important when you're running a successful business. so we provide it services you can rely on. with centurylink as your trusted it partner, you'll experience reliable uptime for the network and services you depend on. multi-layered security solutions keep your information safe, and secure. and responsive dedicated support meets your needs, and eases your mind. centurylink. your link to what's next. this is mike. his long race day starts with back pain... ...and a choice. take 4 advil in a day which is 2 aleve... ...for all day relief. "start your engines"

worldwide protests have forced the nigerian president to step up efforts to find those kidnapped girls. this crowd here in london is

trying to rally international support. more than 200 students were till being held by a militant group boko haram which is violently opposed to educating women. here's cnn's isha sesay. >> reporter: nigeria's president goodluck jonathan commented for the first time on the abduction of 200 school girls nearly three weeks ago. while admitting they still don't know where the girls are, the president still expressed confidence in his government's efforts to find them. >> we'll surely get them out. one good thing that made us happy is that there's no store they any of them have been touched, injured. i would like to express my empathy to the parents and the relatives and, of course, the

guardians of these girls. we are fathers and mothers. they're up to 18 years old. and this is traumatizing. it is quite painful. >> the government has provided few details about the search and rescue mission. apart from confirming that helicopters and aircraft are being used to scan the area, the president didn't provide much in the way of significant operational detail on sunday. there is no doubt that the president was looking to blunt mounting criticism of his government's handling of this situation with his remarks but his comments suggest that lack of progress in finding the girls is due to lack of cooperation from the girls' family is unlikely to go over well here

with some from nigeria. isha sesay, legos. once a year at the washington correspondents' dinner they hear about what people think about them, whether they like it or not. would washington work better if they heard it more often? laygrod and i'm his mom at the dog park. the kids get trail mix, and here's what you get after a full day of chasing that cute little poodle from down the street. mm hmm delicious milo's kitchen chicken meatballs. they look homemade, which he likes almost as much as making new friends yes, i'll call her. aww, ladies' man. milo's kitchen. made in the usa with chicken or beef as the number one ingredient. the best treats come from the kitchen.

maybe you've been walking down the street, glanced up and saw it, a camera watching your every move. tonight morgan spurlock asks if we better get used to the end of privacy? >> does everybody get access to everything just for the fear of terrorism? is this the guise we'll live under forever? >> everything we say and do electronically is out there in the cloud and stored for an indefinite period of time.

>> this is real fourth amendment issue. sure, there should be protections, but at the same time as a citizen i should have privacy rights that are within my control. >> you have a camera here, second camera here, third camera there. today the anch new yorker is videoed 350 times a day. >> you can't help but start to feel like everyone's watching. >> every single major online entity is tracking your whereabouts. >> right now? >> right now. >> i think there's going to be more and more people who start to say, we have to do this differently. something else has to change. >> that's tonight at 10:00 p.m. eastern time. last night privacy in the nsa spying scandal led to more than one joke at the white house correspondents' dinner. >> colorado legalized marijuana this year. an interesting social experiment. i do hope it doesn't lead to a whole lot of paranoid people who think that the federal

government's out to get them and listening to their phone calls. that would be a problem. >> so let's use the president's comment right there about domestic intelligence gathering to talk a little bit more about last night's dinner in d.c. katie gleick and ryan lizza. also with us is david soucie who we normally talk about 370 and the missing airplane but he was just dying to get in here and talk about it. he watched the whole thing last night. we'll get his comments, too. we just saw the president joking about the nsa and heard jokes about the miserable debut of the obama care website. and there were jokes implying hillary clinton would be the next president and that joe biden might not even be up to the job. so ryan, i guess the question is, are people, the president included, revealing their true thoughts and feelings more at this dinner than they do the rest of the year in washington? and should we have more dinners

like this? >> a little bit. if you looked at the sort of politics of the 2016 and the way it was talked about, joe biden was sort of the butt of most of the vice president jokes, right? he actually starred in a very funny video with julia louis dreyfuss and the whole joke of the video was about these two poor vice presidents, one who is real and one who plays one on tv who have no power and no access and are dying to actually be presidents but don't look like they're ever going to make it. and that was the sort of gist of all of obama's jokes about biden is this sort of -- he's becoming like a dan quayle figure in pop culture whereas hillary clinton, all the sort of premise of all the jokes about her is how she's going to be the next president. so i think it's not reading too much into it to say there's something there. >> certainly sounds that way.

katie, joel mchale, obviously the comedian in charge there last night. he took on everybody with some pretty tough one-liners, didn't shy away from anything. what do you think in terms of the audience he was playing to, who was it? >> very interesting to see kind of how some of those jokes ended up going over in washington, which is, of course, a more conservative town. they liked that he was taking off the gloves going after everyone on all sides of the aisle. others thought by taking on more controversial issues making jokes about drones that was perhaps pushing things a little bit far. >> let david soucie weigh in here and give him a chance to talk about something other than missing mh-370. >> as much as i could. >> you had to turn away? >> he kept looking at his card and reading it. they were funny, there was some

truth to what he said. but i thought that the president by far outshined him as far as his comic ability. >> he had some pretty good comic timing, do you think? >> he really did, yes. >> so you were watching at home. were you laughing or did you thing it was funny? >> i was laughing, but some of the stuff about attacking cnn and things that happen there, it was like, oh. >> you took it personally. >> i still laughed about it. >> you all know us now. >> that's right. >> there were some people, i guess, ryan, when the room went sile silent. how do we take that, when the whole ballroom goes silent, does that mean that washington needs to get a little more thick skinned or what? >> yes, they do. the crowd that goes to these dinners has a very narrow range in terms of the jokes that they can handle, right? you can't go over the line. so like the cigar joke about bill clinton, that's too far. >> yeah, that was awful. >> but i it has to be sort of knowing an insider to get laughing out of this crowd as well. mchale, he basically was sort of

in that range with a few jokes that were both too -- going too far for the taste of this crowd, then a few jokes that were not knowing an insidery enough for this crowd. there are people that watch this thing in the real world that aren't in that ballroom that thought that he did a good job. >> katie, who do you think would be a great host for this? >> you know, president obama, he was pretty funny. and you know, this is always a kind of interesting task for someone to follow the president, a big job, that we've seen people like cole -- colbert up to the task before. the videos at the beginning of the speech, that video with julia louis-dreyfus and vice president biden, that's something that seemed to go over pretty well. >> i have a few names for that list. >> okay. >> i thing the white house

correspondents' association we've never had a female comedian do this dinner, maybe next year, tina fey, amy poehler or mindy kaling. >> ellen degeneres. >> would be fantastic. >> i know that obviously you're watching, we're talking about what's funny and what wasn't. was there something that sort of struck you. >> there was some truth to what was going on there that night. because i actually got a call from wolf blitzer. wolf said, can you help me find my table? and i thought, you know, maybe i can help him. i looked over at who was with me. i was looking for our table, actually. but i was in washington, d.c. up at the north route. so i was with the ambassador from bangladesh looking for it up there. i told him we probably won't be able to help him. >> we know wolf didn't really call you. >> right. >> playing off the joke about trying to find a table, trying to find the plane. what about the president going at the media. is that pretty risky, ryan? >> there's two tracks for the

precedence, self-deprecating humor otherwise you get attacked for not making fun of yourself. obama likes to weave in with his self-deprecating humor basically attacks on, for lack of a better word, his enemies, fox news, the press, certain republicans that have given him a hard time during the year. so he usually sort of has, you know, about a quarter of the material is taking shots at people who have -- who he doesn't normally get a chance to say something like that about. >> ryan, katie and david soucie, thank you all for joining in on the conversation. >> thanks for having us. i'm randi kaye, coming up tonight, two words from anthony bourdain, food porn. he eats his way through the food-obsessed city. then he dives into mexico as only he can. going beyond spring breakers and drug cartels while morgan

spurlock looks at who is looking at you. and right now, "witnessed" begins. watch it here only on cnn. have a great evening, everyone. hello and welcome to this cnn special report "witnessed: the killings at kent state." on may 4th, 1970, national guardsmen opened fire on a crowd of students on the campus of kent state university in ohio. some were part of a compass protest against the vietnam war. others were merely bystanders. 13 students shot by the guardsmen, 4 of them died. looking back, it's been suggested by some that something like the kent state incident was bound to happen. some anti-war demonstrations were becoming increasingly violent. but live ammunition had never been used on a crowd of anti-war demonstrators until this day. the shootings shocked the nation. many have called it the