that is it for us. thanks for joining us tonight. larry king live starts right now. tonight, president obama on the intelligence breakdown that could have killed hundreds. >> the system has failed in a potentially disastrous way. >>larry: what went wrong and what's he doing now to prevent future attacks? journalist bob woodward and insiders michael chernoff and bob brunt tell us what they would do to make america safe.

and joan rivers was kept off a plane. could the travel nightmare happen to you? next on "larry king live." >>larry: i want to remind you that richard heene, the father who led the whole country to believe his son was trapped in a helium balloon, will be here friday, his nifirst interview since being sentenced to jail and he says it wasn't a hoax. that's friday on larry king live. following the security team about the ongoing review of the foiled christmas day bombing attack, president obama summons up the failures and his reaction to it. >> i just concluded the bottom line is this. the u.s. government had sufficient information to have uncovered this plot and potentially disrupt the christmas day attack. but our intelligence community failed to connect those dots, which would have placed the

suspect on the no fly list. in other words, this was not a failure to collect intelligence, it was a failure to integrate and understand the intelligence that we already had. the information was there, agencies and analysts who needed it had access to it, and our professionals were trained to look for it and to bring it all together. now, i will accept that intelligence by its nature isn't perfect, but it is increasingly clear that intelligence was not fully analyzed or fully leveraged. that's not acceptable and i will not tolerate it. >>larry: the famed journalist bob woodward will join us in a couple moments. let's go to dan lothian, our correspondent. what struck you about his remarks? >> the president was very firm, and i think what was really important that came out that far statement, what appeared to be new is what you just heard there, that the president said the u.s. intelligence community did have the information and

could have connected the dots. we heard over the last few days that there were bits and pieces of information but no smoking gun. now the president comes out and says there were these red flags, that there was information that showed that al qaeda and the arabian peninsula did seek to not only strike u.s. interests in yemen but also here on u.s. soil, had been working with an individual who now turns out to be the suspect. so the information was there, it was just what was done with that information. the dots were not connected that could have placed this suspect on a no fly list. >> thanks, our senior white house correspondent that was on the scene. the prize-winning journalist with the washington post. his number one recent best seller was "the war within." what struck you about the president today, robert? >> this was a problem he thought was solved, that they really had set up all this apparatus and process, as everyone says, to

connect the dots, and it turns out that, as he said, there are system failures and human failures. i remember one of the former cia directors used to say in dealing with something like this, the solutions are middle management having good middle managers, in this case, watch officers, who are there on christmas eve and christmas day, and then having the data to sift through. clearly, people were asleep. if you listen to the president's remarks at length, i think he used the word failure or failed about eight or nine times. i mean, that is -- he's giving a knee to the whole intelligence community and the system that is set up to keep something like this from happening. >> what do you make of him? you know presidents as well as any journalist. what do you make of him in tone

and style? what's your read on this man? >> that -- specifically on this issue, you can't live in the modern presidency in the age of terror and he gets daily briefings, he has to make daily decisions about things that are being done, so he's up on his toes here about all of this. the problem is you've got to draw back and say, long-range, how do you solve the al qaeda problem? obviously it's something that this country has been working on for decades. we have not solved it. there are tactical efforts made. these drone strikes in yemen, in pakistan, these are unmanned aerial vehicles, missiles where they attack al qaeda leaders and so forth. but that's a tactical solution, and they run around and high five each other and say, oh, we

killed five today, we killed six. it's not a strategic solution where you've got to develop some way to say, okay, how do we really defeat al qaeda, and i don't think they've got that. >> what do you make of the cheney criticism? >> i think he's -- cheney is a little out of the loop, quite frankly. the reporting i've done on this obama is very, very aggressive and done all kinds of things that cheney would approve of, but to cheney, it sounds like obama is soft, and he's always thought of obama as soft. he opposed -- obama opposed the iraq war, something that cheney, you know, encouraged, to say the least. so he looks at obama as soft, and he's going to do these things with interrogation in

guantanamo. i think if you get into the details of it and somebody briefed cheney, he would find out the administration acquitted itself quite well on most of these matters. at the same time, you're going to have some of the government experts on. i think they would tell you in the end you can be lucky or unlucky on something like this. in this case it could have been one person on watch that christmas holiday who said, gee, this is strange, let's look at this and let's look at that and gone on alert. it just didn't happen. >>larry: i want to take a break and we'll be rate back with bob woodward. not surprisingly, bob is doing a book on the early days of the obama administration. how much difference is there between the commanders in chief, so to speak?

when we come back.

>>larry: this is between george w. bush and barack obama. >> we said he was a gut player, not a textbook player. he would go on his instinct and in reporting what he was doing, you had to find out what his instinct was and then almost always, it was okay, how are they going to carry that out? in obama's case, he's obviously

much moran lit c-- analytical ad systematic. he's the law professor to a certain extent in all these dealings. you saw the law professor today sko scolding the class, the intelligence community and his national security team. >>larry: how about those who say that he appears to lack passion? do you see that? >> i don't think we saw any lack of passion today. i think david gurgin was on cnn earlier saying he was smolderring. i don't know whether he was smoldering. he knew he had to smile and present a real atmosphere of utter seriousness, which i suspect he did. but here's -- if you kind of try to get to 30,000 feet on this,

the issue is al qaeda and their safe havens. and they have safe havens, particularly in pakistan where they believe osama bin laden is now, and this is, you know, after almost a decade of chasing him. there are safe havens in yemen. how do you deal with these safe havens? that's something, i think, they're still wrestling with, and as i said earlier, i don't know that there's a real plan other than these drone strikes and to get other countries like pakistan or yemen to use their own military force to go after the safe havens which lots of countries are not anxious to do, to say the least. >>larry: you've covered and written about war so frequently so well. is, frankly, the war on terrorism, is that a winnable war? >> well, george bush and barack

obama agree on one thing. they both said, we are going to defeat al qaeda. and that is the chief terrorist threat. you know, i don't know. if you dig into some of this, al qaeda has been set back at certain times, but they're also growing, they're quite talented in some of the die b-- diabolicl things they do, and someone told me this week they're spreading into north africa. north africa is a little smaller than the whole united states. this is a big area and there are al qaeda cells springing up in new places. so what do you do about that? >>larry: hoping to do what? >> hoping to, you know, somehow eliminate them, degrade them and

defeat them. you know, a giant task. i'm glad it's not mine. >>larry: do you fear them going to do other things in the united states? forget planes, how about shopping centers? ball games? >> exactly. we've talked about this, that you become generals fighting the last war. we're all worried about airline security. you go through an intense scrutiny getting on an airplane, but go on a train or go to a power plant or go to a mall where there are many more people than are on one of these aircraft, and something could happen. now, you can't get on a train in yemen and make it to the united states, so that's a problem for al qaeda, but this is the great question. you can ask the expert. there have been al qaeda cells or al qaeda affiliated individuals in this country

operating. >>larry: and watching us tonight now, maybe? >> you know, who knows. that's the problem. that's why this, i think, has really shocked president obama. because he realized, look, if that plane had gone down, dick cheney would be on the airwaves saying, see, i told you. this guy is weak, he let it happen. and the political implications for president obama if this doesn't work, if he doesn't solve this problem, are off the charts. >> thank you, bob. we'll be calling on you frequently. good luck with the book. >> thanks. >>larry: bob woodward. michael chernoff and don elaponte are here in 60 seconds.

we are building a website by ourselves. announcer: there's an easier way. create your own business site with intuit websites. just choose a style, then customize, publish and get found. sweet. get a 30-day free trial at intuit.com.

>>larry: some breaking news for you before we meet two outstanding public servants. before obama called his security team for a breakdown in intelligence gathering, cnn learned that security cameras who would have recorded the man who walked through newark international airport sunday were working, but they were not recording. that's according to a spokesman for transportation security administration. the former homeland security in chief, michael chernoff is with us. and also don elaponte. michael, what do you make of that? >> we've occasionally had breakdowns at airports. it happens. i'm quite sure the tsa director in that particular airport will be looking over not only the mechanical failure but if it was a human failure on someone slipping into an exit door that should have been locked.

>>larry: ambassador, is this kind of an overwhelming attempt here? it seems with all the people in the world, terrorism moving here and going there, that you're kind of up against it. >> i wouldn't call it overwhelming. i think it was -- if you took it in aviation parlance, it was a near miss. it was too close for comfort. it's like two airliners flying 100 feet from each other. you look at it and say, how did that happen? you have to take corrective measures. i think signals were mixed which often happens in these situations, and i took the president's appearance today to be a stern message about how we've just got to tighten things up here, and that's what they seem to be preparing to do. >>larry: by the way, michael chernoff is co-founder of the chernoff group, a security and risk management firm. their clients include a manufacturer of body scanning

machines and elaponte is adviser at a firm. body scanners will start to be used? >> we tried to get these to be used in 2007 and 2008, because what they do is allow you to see what's concealed in non-clothing. it has hit a lot of resistance from a small group of very determined people who have privacy objections, but you have to weigh in the balance the need to be able to ensure people they're not smuggling on bombs against the concern that some people have that you're intruding. we did put things into the system so we blur the face and we don't retain the image. so i think we did a pretty good job of balancing, but it's slowed up the deployment quite considerably. >> mr. ambassador, what about the white house decision in for

travelers flying into this country from 14 mostly muslim countries, is that effective, or as critics say, profiling? >> i was traveling myself this weekend, and a beneficiary of some of these enhanced measures, and i was coming from europe. i think that's a pretty natural thing to do under the circumstances, but i think the principal problem here was mixed signals that we were talking about earlier. any of these situations require both better intelligence, better analysis on the one hand and better physical security measures on the other. because you never know which of those two elements is going to be decisive in the end in preventing a terrorist attack from happening. for example, if there had been scanning devices that could have detected the material that was in this terrorist's undergarments, then that would have prevented him from boarding that aircraft.

>>larry: michael, is profiling going to be a fact of life? >> i don't think they're preparing to do imaging profiling. what i do think they're going to do, which makes sense and what we have done, is to look at things like where has someone been? where have they traveled? who have they traveled with? if they're a foreign citizen, of what country are they a citizen? those are all legitimate things to look at. we have used them from time to time based on intelligence, and i certainly think it's appropriate for the administration to consider these factors as part of the total intelligence mix. >>larry: we'll be back with more of our two outstanding guests after this. and grilled shrimp salad combination? or maybe our new savory shrimp jambalaya. seafood lunches starting at just $6.99 at red lobster.

so, at national, i go right past the counter... and you get to choose any car in the aisle. choose any car? you cannot be serious! okay. seriously, you choose. go national. go like a pro.

wow, that's a low price! wow, that's a low price! how many products do we carry? 7,000. [ man ] wow, that's a low price! i'll get him a cart. [ man ] hot diggity dog! yeah. that's a low price! [ male announcer ] staples has low prices on everything you need for your office. and we mean everything. staples. that was easy.

we talked with bob woodward about safety measures, what might happen. shopping malls, power plants, ball games. >> i thought that was a little bit overdramatized, if you will. i don't think they've got enough structure in this country to carry out those kinds of activities, at least not on an extensive basis. there could be one-on-one situations like what just happened here, but i don't think we're on that kind of a stage where anything can happen on a regular basis. obviously, we can't let our guard down. that's what it's all about. that's what it's about this evening. but i think the threat is more on united states interests abroad and a different part of our world with our friends and

allies. i think that's a greater threat than any threat we confront internally. >>larry: what worries you the most, michael? >> i agree with john that in terms of sophisticated plots the ones launched and guided overseas are the ones we worry about most. the real fear is a weapon of mass destruction, like a biological weapon or something of that sort. i do have to say that we're beginning to see the glimmer of a home-grown problem in this country as we've seen overseas in, for example, great britain, although it hasn't reached that level yet. but in the last few months, we have the zazi case disrupting an afghani living in the u.s. who was going to potentially blow up some buildings in new york. we have the five young men who went over to pakistan to fight. we have david headley who apparently was involved in the mumbai attacks. we're beginning to see this problem in the u.s., which in addition to being concerned

about overseas threats, we're going to have to focus on here at home. >>larry: ambassador, is homeland security working, in your opinion? >> we're certainly safer than we were prior to 9/11. i think intelligence is better integrated, and i think information sharing between it is agencies and working much better than it did before. so in that sense, i think, yes, homeland security is working, but just as we've seen in this episode that we're living through right now, the system is -- can always benefit from improvements and that it is subject to human error and human weakness, and so we've got to stay on top of it. and i think the president himself personally has got to stay on top of it, and if there is any real outcome from this, i suspect you're going to see president obama devoting a lot more personal attention to overseeing these matters than he might have done heretofore.

>>larry: michael, what problem in your mind still exists? >> i think we didn't complete the job in looking at the recommendations 9/11 suggested. one of the core recommendations of the commission was to secure documentation. we got a lot of that done, but it became very difficult in the last year or two. there was a lot of congressional resistance, local communities complained that if the border security was enhanced, it would affect commerce across the border. we still haven't gotten the secure driver's licenses done, so i worry that we lost some of the momentum and i'm hopeful, frankly, as tom cain said, that this near miss will serve at least a positive value of being a wake-up call and reinvigorating the effort. >>larry: ambassador, in the near

future, are you optimistic or pessimistic? >> i'm hopeful we'll be able to address the problems that arose in this particular case. we must not forget this was not just a domestic, american problem but an international one. we're talking about international terrorism, and it requires working with our friends around the world to deal with this situation, just like we're working with pakistan and afghanistan to deal with a threat emanating from the federal areas of pakistan. so, too, are we going to have to reinforce our efforts with companies like yemen to deal with the al qaeda threat in that area, and bob woodward mentioned haets happening in africa. it's not only in north africa, but in nigeria in particular, but also in sub-south africa where al qaeda has strengthsened in the last couple years. our plate is full, but it requires a proactive effort

internationally. it's not just defensive measures taken domestically, but we've got to work proactively with others around the world to address this threat. >>larry: we'll be calling on them again. two outstanding public servers. -- the left and right observe the war on terror. when we come back. charles needs those contracts tomorrow morning. we should send them overnight with fedex. i already sent them. i didn't use fedex. better cross your fingers. [ man ] oh, yeah, the accident. well, you better knock on wood. remember, we did a green renovation in here,

there's no wood. but russ bought a rabbit's foot. it's a bear claw. you could throw salt over your shoulder. actually, that's a salt substitute. but you should find dan -- i think he's a leprechaun. what is it about me that says leprechaun? can someone tell me please, someone? you should have used fedex. [ male announcer ] we understand. you need reliable overnight shipping. fedex.

>>larry: now to discuss the politics of all of this in new orleans, political contributor and public strategist who served as adviser in the public

campaign. how do you see the content of the president's remarks today? >> i liked it. from day one i thought that they should, you know, get to the bottom of this and that's apparently what he's doing. i thought he was aggressive, i liked to see the president saying, you know what, something went wrong here. i'm not happy about it, let's find out, and i think the word will reverberate through the agencies. when i see something like this happen, i want to see it safer here. so i liked his remarks, i really did. >> nancy, public criticism on the president's speech on national security. bob woodward says he's strong in that area. how do you assess him? >> i think the jury is out for sure. look at the fact that the american people, about 55% of them, thought we were winning the war on terror when president obama was elected. only 36% believe that today. the bottom line is no matter how

deeply you bow from the waist, there are still people out there who are intent on our destruction. and i think there have been really mixed signals sent by this administration. you've got janet napolitano who would not mention the word terrorist or 9/11 in her congressional testimony. you had her coming out with a report a few months later saying american veterans were as great a threat, if not greater than, radical islamists. you just had incident after incident. and the fact that the president did not respond for as long as he did not respond, i think, has hurt him with the american people. this was a step to try to heal that. >>larry: james, what do you make of vice president cheney's actions? >> let's give president obama credit, he didn't invade the wrong country. and let's further give him credit that he didn't have osama bin laden caught and backed away from it as vice president cheney did. we'll give him a big round of

applause there. they got a vice president and michael steele and sarah palin out. democrats couldn't pay for better criticism. again, i think the president stepped up fine. secretary napolitano, i actually owe her an apology. she was talking about the system after this incident happened. it clearly didn't work before it happened. that happens often in pundits. >>larry: even before he took office, mr. obama was on fire in closing the prison in guantanamo. he spoke about that today. watch. >> given the unsettled situation, i've spoken to the attorney general and we've agreed that we will not be transferring additional detainees back to yemen at this time. but make no mistake, we will close guantanamo prison, which has damaged our national security interests and become a

tremendous recruiting tool for al qaeda. >>larry: nancy, should he have, based on his promises, have closed this sooner? >> i think it was a mistake, and i think the fact we're shipping these people to northern illinois is ridiculous. you know, we're all concerned about traveling at this point, but i'm sure not flying through chicago. as much as i love the people and the food there. this was the type of thing where it was press release policy. you know, he came out with the press release because it was a campaign promise before they thought through how they were going to handle it. you've got serious, serious national security concerns related to this, and i just think that, you know, they're trying to kind of do clean-up after they've made a mess, and they feel like they can't back away from it. it's somewhat similar to that presidential debate where the commentator asked him if he would sit down and have direct talks with the three or four worst tyrants in the world and he was the only democrat who said yes, and then instead of saying, i made a mistake, he

tried building a foreign policy around it. we're not safe with korea, with iran. you name it. >> i fly to denver all the time. i feel very safe there. they have some of the worst criminals in the world in the federal penitentiary in denver. so i'm thankful we can have penitentiaries of any type in this nation. look, i think he's right to use it as a recruiting tool. it wasn't his administration who trained these people, by the way. i think we're perfectly capable to do that, and president bush said he wanted to close guantanamo. it takes a while to wind this thing down, but i think they're working hard, and when they get close, we can transfer the people of the in fact, the people in illinois requested they were perfectly capable of taking care of these prisoners, which i'm sure they are. >>larry: we'll be back after this. don't go away. y goodnight?

mom: g'night john boy. g'night mary ellen. mary ellen: g'night mama. g'night erin. elizabeth: g'night john boy. jim bob: g'night grandpa. elizabeth: g'night ben. m bob:'night. elizabeth: g'night jim bob. jim bob: g'night everybody, grandpa: g'night everybody. @y jim bob: g'night daddy. vo: geico. 15 minutes could save you 15% or more. i was short of breath,

so i couldn't always do what i wanted to do. but five minutes ago, i took symbicort, and symbicort is already helping significantly improve my lung function. so, today, i've noticed a significant difference in my breathing. and i'm doing more of what i want to do. so we're clear -- it doesn't replace a rescue inhaler for sudden symptoms. my doctor said symbicort is for copd, including chronic bronchitis and emphysema. it should not be taken more than twice a day. symbicort may increase your risk of lung infections, osteoporosis, and some eye problems. tell your doctor if you have a heart condition or high blood pressure before taking it. my copd often meant i had to wait to do what i wanted to do. now i take symbicort, and it's significantly improves my lung function, starting within five minutes. symbicort has made a significant difference in my breathing. now more of my want-tos are can-dos. as your doctor about symbicort today.

i got my first prescription free. call or go online to learn more. [ male announcer ] if you cannot afford your medication, astrazeneca may be able to help. time and again we've learned that quickly piecing together information and taking swift action is critical to staying one step ahead of a nimble adversary. so we have to do better, and we will do better, and we have to it quickly. american lives are on the line. >>larry: the administration is taking some flack for treating the christmas day bombing suspect as a criminal defendant

rather than an enemy combat ant. what do you make of that? >> again, i have to seriously disagree with the approach the administration has taken. when i was reading the news reports and they said that this individual was charged with destroying an aircraft, quote, unquote, rather than a terrorist attack, it's like this news conference was one of the first times i've heard the president or one of his cabinet secretaries actually acknowledge that we're in a war on terror and used the word terrorists. the american people are responding to that. they are not going to feel safe until they believe that the president understands the nature of this threat. so i think it is a problem. i think all the pretty words and the press conferences where you don't take any questions aren't going to fix the problem, that he's got to start calling this what it is, and that's a war on terror. these people are intent on destroying us.

>>larry: do you feel the same on this topic? >> they are criminals and they should be treated as such. the nazis, we didn't have war soldier trials, we had war criminal trials. i don't know where anybody else is from, but where i come from, the appalachian criminal is much more degrading than the appalachian soldier. what's really interesting is chief justice jackson deliberated those. when israelis caught ikeman, a war criminal, they took him into israel and gave him a trial and then they hung him, and that's the way this man should be treated. he is a criminal . we're perfectly capable of getting criminals. if our federal court can't protect us with so much evidence, how can they protect

me when i'm living in new orleans and i walk out on the street in i'm very passionate about this. this is the absolutely right way to do this, to treat them as criminals. >>larry: go ahead. >> i do not think these individuals deserve the same rights that any american would have brought before court in this land. and that's the bottom line. and you can either treat this as an act of war or as a mugging. the fact that this gentleman -- this gentleman, listen to me -- this individual was charged with destroying an aircraft rather than an act of terrorism is an a bott -- abomination, in my opinion. americans don't agree with it, and that's why those numbers have plummeted from 55% who thought we were winning the war on terror to 36% who think we're winning it today. by the way, those other numbers are plummeting for president obama and the democrats. they have to get more mainstream

america. >> they're criminals. the people at the nazi camp were criminals, we treated them as such. that's the accumulat what he de should be getting as such. >> i believe he has not earned the right to have the same protections that an american citizen has. there is an obvious reason why there is a disagreement here. there are people by and large with a military background saying, this needs to be treated differently. this can't be treated as a common thug. there is a greater intent here, there is a greater threat here. as horrible as it is, when one human being decides to take the life of another human being, it is different from when a nation decides to destroy another nation. our country and our culture are under attack, and if we do not

correctly assess the threat, we will not correctly protect ourselves. >> again, in other words, if we can't be protected from him, how can we protect anybody? ikeman was a war criminal. he was given a trial. he was actually given a lawyer. and that is what chief justice jackson did with nazi war criminals. by the way, justice should be public, people should see us do that, they should see us mete out the punishment. it's very important they be treated as such. thank you. >>larry: thank you guys. nancy, always good seeing you, and james carville. joan rivers a security threat? she's here screaming her own nightmare, and that's in 60 seconds. wow. [ chuckles ] when i was a kid, we -- we would just go to the -- the farm. [ cow moos ] [ laughter ]

no, seriously, where are you guys going? ni hao! ni hao! ni hao! ni hao! ni hao! ni hao! ni hao! ni hao! ni hao! ni hao! ni hao! ni hao! [ female announcer ] the new classroom. see it. live it. share it. on the human network. cisco. >>larry: you know joan rivers is the star of "how did you get so

rich?" and the fashion police will bring her back to e-entertainment television. we have her here tonight for a different reason. she was told she couldn't board her flight the other day because of a suspicious name on her passport. the name on her passport is aka joan rivers. even after she explained to the gate people that her married name was rosenberg, her seat was still given away and she could not fly. >> you were in costa rica with your family? >> a wonderful time. we were late getti-- early getto the airport because there was all kinds of trouble. i was taken to four different checkpoints, all of which i was glad to do, took off my shoes, took off everything. then at the last minute, some

moron idiot decided as we're literally going onto the plane and ripping your ticket, they didn't understand why my passport had two names on it. and i was denied access to the plane. >> has this ever happened to you flying before? >> never. i've been all over, larry. india, china, napal, korea, you name it. russia. never. >>larry: what was the gate agent's point of view, then? was it a he or a she? >> it was a woman, and i think she was premenstrual. and she was just in a terrible -- she just wasn't going to understand that i was flying under two names with my passport that the united states government says also known as, aka. >>larry: so you never boarded the plane? >> i was not allowed to board the plane. i was left in the airport which closed on sunday night. it was a very small airport.

and i was told, that's it. that's it. >>larry: more on this, joan, in a moment. joan rivers, our special guest. don't go away. where's my car?

where's my car?!!!! where are you?! arghhh... (announcer) dr. scholl's massaging gel insoles give you outrageous comfort, all-day-guaranteed. woah. it's not too far... (announcer) are you gellin'? dr. scholl's. hi, may i help you? yes, i hear progressive has lots of discounts on car insurance. can i get in on that? are you a safe driver? yes. discount! do you own a home? yes. discount! are you going to buy online? yes! discount! isn't getting discounts great? yes! there's no discount for agreeing with me. yeah, i got carried away. happens to me all the time. helping you save money -- now, that's progressive. call or click today.

let's check in anderson cooper. what leads tonight? >> we have breaking news, actually. the top of the hour. disturbing new details of a major failure in one of the nation busiest airports. newark airport security cameras were broken, had been for days. remember this is one of the airports the 9/11 hijackers left from. we'll have details. and the terror in the skies above detroit could have been averted. the president calling out the

jerns community saying he is demanding accountability. is he really? no one has lost their jobs. no one has stepped down. we're naming names and keeping them honest. and our new series kicks off. a big 360 interview with one of the greatest of our time. find out what they say and how your life had been different ten years from now. all that at the top of the hour. >> 10:00 eastern. back to joan rivers. your pass ported reads joan rosenberg aka joan rivers. >> the ticket was rosenberg but they had mixed it up and i didn't see it. they put a man's name on it. joseph. so i went through five -- i think four or five security points where they looked at my passport and didn't notice that it wasn't even my name. so they -- >> larry: in these frantic

times, do you think maybe the agent strictly going by the letter of the law, it didn't match? >> but larry, it should have not matched at the beginning. you don't make me go through the immigration, the customs, the checkin, the seat assignment, and then as you're boarding the plane, they say, wait a second. something is wrong here. that should have been told to me 2 1/2 hours before i arrived. when i first arrived at the airport. >> larry: they at any time know you in costa rica? the agent didn't know who you were? >> all the people in line knew me and were asking for autographs and taking pictures. at one point i got so frustrated, i said get the pilot. call the pilot. he will know me. they refused to do. that i said call the airline in new york city. they refused to do it. >> larry: did the rest of your family fly home? >> they had flown home a half-hour ahead of me so i was totally alone.

>> larry: joan, we spoke to continental airlines about what happened. and we're told, they provide names and information to the local immigration authority and if there is a discrepancy with a name on their passenger list, they may have to hold someone from boarding. >> absolutely fine, larry. absolutely fine. but they should have told me that when i checked in. and don't tell me i'm joseph rosenberg and then when i get to the gate they say this is wrong. i had my ticket. i had my boarding pass. i had gone as i said, through all immigration and customs. this is nonsense. and how dare they! how dare they! i find this outrageous. >> larry: what happened after? the plane takes off. the plane took off and i was told, i said, what do i do? i had $100. i had given melissa my money because she was going to change in atlanta. i said you'll need tip money. i had $100 and nothing in the middle november where.

in an airport that was an hour and a half from the hotel. i said what do i do? and they said -- they closed the airport on sunday night. they said maybe we can get out a plane on friday. how about that one? luckily, the man who was, i had one man who was pushing my luggage. and out of kindness of his heart thrg man named elton. he started getting me phone numbers and he went in the back and he said, if you drive, if you drive to san jose, there is another airport there. so i drove for six and a half hours in the car at night with a man i didn't know over back roads and got myself to san jose. >> larry: what happened at the airport there? >> the airport there, the next morning, continental had a wonderful man named joe -- arensik who from 4:00 on was on the phone with me. but they had sent me to houston.

even that got screwed up. >> larry: but they allowed to you get on with the name differential from the ticket? >> of course. of course. if it is good enough for russia and nepal and china and japan and korea and everywhere else i've been, i think it should be good enough for costa rica. >> larry: we'll ask joan in a minute if she throws it up to the nature of the times. right after this. i keep track of my entire business on this spreadsheet... and all of these.

paid invoices go right here. bang! - that hasn't been paid yet. - what? - huh-uh. - all my business information is just a phone call away-- to my wife... who's not answering. announcer: there's a better way to run your business. intuit quickbooks online organizes your business in one place. it easily creates invoices and helps you stay on top of your business anytime, anywhere. this is way better. get a 30-day free trial at intuit.com.

>> larry: joan, a couple of things in this incredibly puzzle story. who was the guy who drove you six and a half hours on back roads? >> i don't know his name. he was a lovely man.

and i'm sorry that i said the man named elton helped me in liberia and a lady named cindy helped me in san jose. and the other gentleman, i got his card and in my hysteria, i lost it. >> larry: he just said i'm driving to this airport. i'll give you a lift. >> this man elton arranged for it and got me there. >> larry: was try it that in your acker, you told the gate agent you were having a heart attack? she called the paramedics? >> what it was, again, it was about rich tourists, larry. they at any time know who i was. and i said you must be kidding. i'm going to have a heart attack over this. and the woman said click. woman having a heart attack. let's get the paramedics. and they brought them in. she knew perfectly well -- >> larry: frankly, joan, do you think this is the nature of the times? this is just the world now. >> let me tell you. it is a joke but it is not a joke. that we can have a couple break

into the white house. and they're not arrested? i find this outrageous. outrageous. first time in our history that a white couple, my joke, has broken into a black man's house and ha ha ha. but it is not funny. it is serious times and let's take they will seriously and let's be careful. but they -- >> larry: redding, pennsylvania. >> don't you feel ashald of yourself that you're calling a poor woman who is doing her job the way the federal guidelines are set up and calling her a moron? >> i don't, my darling. just hold it, mister. i was given a boarding pass with the wrong name on it. i went through five different security passes. and then a woman at the gate who will not look at my passport, who will not call continental, who will not call for help, who will not recheck into their records, says to me, you cannot go on? no. she is a