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Campbell Brown
Interview with Whoopi Goldberg; North Korea Pardons American Journalists; Secrets of the Secret Service; Confessions of a Drunken Pilot
Aired August 04, 2009 - 20:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CAMPBELL BROWN, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Tonight, here are the questions we want answered. What deal did Bill Clinton make with North Korea to free two American journalists held captive for nearly five months? Is he the diplomatic rock star who will be sent to hot spots around the world?
Plus, what secrets is the Secret Service keeping? A new book makes some startling allegations.
And my exclusive one-on-one with "The View"'s Whoopi Goldberg.
Whoopi on Barack Obama.
WHOOPI GOLDBERG, CO-HOST, "THE VIEW": This is a different kind of president, because this is like a guy. This is like a regular dude.
BROWN: Whoopi on Sarah Palin.
GOLDBERG: I think she was much smarter than she let on and it irritated the hell out of...
BROWN: Also, this pilot flew a 727 while drunk, and went to jail, but are drunk pilots still in the cockpit putting passengers at risk?
And President Obama's birthday surprise.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ANNOUNCER: This is your only source for news. CNN prime time begins now. Here's Campbell Brown.
BROWN: Hi, everybody. Those are our big questions tonight.
But we start, as we always do, with the "Mash-Up." It is our look at all the stories making an impact right now, the moments you may have missed today. We're watching it all so you don't have to.
And the "Mash-Up" starting tonight with some breaking news, word just in from the office of Bill Clinton. The former president has safely left North Korea tonight -- traveling with him, rescued journalists Euna Lee and Laura Ling. They are flying to Los Angeles where the women will be reunited with their families tomorrow morning, an extraordinary end to an extraordinary day. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KATIE COURIC, HOST, "CBS EVENING NEWS": An American president making a surprise trip to communist North Korea. But it wasn't Barack Obama. It was Bill Clinton. The 42nd president, whose wife is normally the top diplomat in the family, was on a private mission to win the release of two American journalists. And he did.
ANDREA MITCHELL, NBC NEWS: Bill Clinton was granted an audience with Kim Jong Il, the reclusive leader rarely seen since a debilitating stroke last year, to make his appeal for the release of the women.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Pictures of a grinning Kim Jong Il side by side with President Clinton, meetings with Mr. Clinton and a VIP state dinner. But the White House insisted today this was not an official visit.
CHARLES GIBSON, ABC NEWS: After he met with North Korea's Kim Jong Il, the women were pardoned.
JILL DOUGHERTY, CNN FOREIGN AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: This actually has been in the works for quite a while, a few weeks, but the person that the North Koreans really wanted and invited ultimately was Bill Clinton, and that was the decision by the White House.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They would not have sent him if they did not think it was going to work. You can a high-level envoy once, but not twice, and, when you send that person, it has to work.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: And our Sacramento affiliate, KCRA, caught up with Laura Ling's father. This was just a few moments ago.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Did you ever lose hope?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, I never did. I never did. I figured sooner or later they will be back.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They were not going to spend 12 years in a hard labor camp?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, no, no, because I have seen enough of these, just like the young lady in Iran. She was sentenced to seven years and they released her within a couple of weeks, I think.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Well, congratulations, sir.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: And no comment yet, we should mention from the White House. Knowing off-the-cuff comments can doom any sort of delicate negotiation, the administration very tight-lipped today and very much on message.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The White House statement spoke for itself. And at this point I don't have anything further on it. I don't have anything for you beyond what the White House has said. We have nothing that we can add. I just don't have anything to add. I have nothing to add. Nothing to add. Nothing further on it. I don't have any comment. As I said, no comment. So, you might want to save your questions.
ROBERT GIBBS, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: I don't have anything more to add on this. I'm not going to get deep into this issue at this point. I'm just not going to get that. I'm not going to get into this at this point. We weren't going to comment on. I'm hopeful that at a later point we can have a more fulsome conversation.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: The White House obviously wanting to make sure the girls were home safely first. We're going to have much more tonight on this developing story.
In Pakistan tonight, some alarming news of young boys trained for terror. This is an exclusive story from CNN's Stan Grant.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
STAN GRANT, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Look into the eyes of these boys. Pakistan's military says these are the lost souls of the Taliban's terror.
The boys tell me they were stolen from their families, abused, beaten and brainwashed by the Taliban.
In militant camps, they say they were being trained to be suicide bombers to do the Taliban's killing.
Would you kill for God?
"Yes," he says. In the right circumstances or the wrong circumstances, would they kill?
DR. FARIHA PERACHA, PSYCHIATRIST: They would kill them, two of them, wouldn't even feel it.
GRANT: They would kill them and they wouldn't feel it?
PERACHA: They probably wouldn't have an empathetic response to what has happened.
GRANT: These boys have been so badly damaged by this experience, psychiatrists say, it's difficult to know exactly how they are feeling. The doctors say some are psychotic, some psychopathic, and some pose a very real risk.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: The youngest of those boys only 13 years old.
Here at home, a growing debate over those increasingly out-of-control town meetings, all over TV today, Democratic lawmakers getting shouted down in their districts. Here's the very latest.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RICK SANCHEZ, CNN ANCHOR: Green Bay, Wisconsin, last night, Democratic Congressman and medical doctor Steve Kagen. He called a meeting to discuss the crucial issue of health care reform. Since he is a doctor and a politician, he wanted to meet with his constituents. Here is what happens.
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Kill the bill.
(SHOUTING)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: So, the big question tonight, are the protests a true sign of public anger or the creation of a vast right-wing conspiracy? Well, that depends on who you ask.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. LLOYD DOGGETT (D), TEXAS: This is not grassroots, pitchfork- waving folks. This is a coordinated campaign by the Republican Party and the insurance industry.
GLENN BECK, HOST, "GLENN BECK": I know some of the people that are going to these street gatherings, and they're not community organizers. They're regular folk that have never gotten their butt off their couch until now. They're involved. They're informed.
GIBBS: I think what you have seen is, they have -- they have bragged about manufacturing to some degree that anger.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: American people have a great concern about what's going on. We're trying to express that concern. That is our right as Americans.
KATHLEEN SEBELIUS, U.S. HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES SECRETARY: It was clear that this is kind of a nationally driven campaign.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: Well, one thing beyond dispute here, real or not, these protests making it awful hard for Democrats to get their message out right now on health care reform.
Another unbelievable story about rage, this time definitely not manufactured. Check this out. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You know what they say about a woman scorned? Well, what happens when there are three of them?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A married man took one of his girlfriends to a motel. Listen to what happened. Court documents allege her sister, another girlfriend, and his wife were waiting for him.
GOLDBERG: They bound him, gagged him.
(CROSSTALK)
GOLDBERG: Wait. It gets better. They glued his...
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
GOLDBERG: ... his member, his penis, to his stomach.
(LAUGHTER)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He got free, apparently, by chewing through his bindings. Now, the women were arrested.
BARBARA WALTERS, CO-HOST, "THE VIEW": One of them wasn't even involved. She came along for the ride.
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, she was watching the door. She was just watching the door.
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: "Glue it! Glue it! Glue it!"
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: OK, ladies. You saw Whoopi Goldberg right there. We should mention she's my guest tonight. We're going to talk with her about President Obama, Sarah Palin, a whole lot more. That's coming up in just a little bit.
But, first, tonight's guilty pleasure. Reality show phenomenon "Jon & Kate Plus 8" back on the air last night, six weeks after the couple announced their separation. More than four million people tuned in to watch. Here's the hour in a minute.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JON GOSSELIN, FATHER: It's kind of strange that, you know, we're remodeling our kitchen in the middle of our separation and stuff like that. It landed at a good time, that Kate could take the kids to the beach. I could oversee cabinet construction. It also gave us a break to think about what we needed to do as parents for our kids. KATE GOSSELIN, MOTHER: It is my new attitude that I'm going to do things I have never done before. If I have never grilled before, I'm going to grill. If I have never camped before, I'm going to camp. It might take me a while, but I can figure it out.
J. GOSSELIN: Well, at this point of our life, we're tracked 24/seven by the paparazzi, photogs, and the reporters. So, you know, it's a shame that Kate and the kids had to sneak out at 4:00 in the morning, get on the bus and go down to the beach. It didn't work anyway. They found them at the beach.
K. GOSSELIN: We had about three to five paparazzi who stuck around outside of our house, just like they did at home. What do you do? I'm living my life and if they have to be there and take pictures, great, but I'm not going to keep my kids inside and stifle their existence.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: TLC has ordered up 40 more episodes of this stuff.
And that brings us to our punchline tonight. This is courtesy of Conan O'Brien, who takes a little shot at a political wordsmith.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CONAN O'BRIEN, HOST, "LATE NIGHT WITH CONAN O'BRIEN": The man who wrote many of the speeches for President George W. Bush is now working on his memoirs. True story, yes. The book will be called, "Me Do Bad Job."
(LAUGHTER)
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: Conan O'Brien, everybody, and that is the "Mash-Up."
Breaking news tonight, though, we're going back to it. Bill Clinton wheels up from North Korea with two American journalists just released from captivity, there a big victory for the U.S., but is the former president upstaging his wife?
Plus, my exclusive interview with the one and only Whoopi Goldberg. We're going to talk politics, including her take on Sarah Palin, President Obama, and her own co-host on "The View," Elisabeth Hasselbeck.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GOLDBERG: I will tell you what Elisabeth has done for me. She has made me realize that I have to listen, as well as talk. And, sometimes, she will say something that makes absolute sense to me, and I know I'm getting better, because I heard it. You know what I mean?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Our breaking news tonight, President Clinton has safely left North Korea with freed U.S. journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee, their plane now headed for Los Angeles, mission accomplished after Clinton swooped in for an unannounced meeting today with North Korean President Kim Jong Il, who then issued a special pardon, clearing the way for the journalists' immediate release, a major P.R. victory for the White House and for Clinton, who was at sharp odds with Barack Obama during last year's Democratic primaries.
Well, after word of the pardons late today, we spoke with New Mexico Governor and former Clinton Cabinet member Bill Richardson, a one-time U.S. ambassador to the U.N., who has traveled to North Korea a number of times to negotiate freedom for other Americans held there.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Governor Richardson, thank you for joining us.
GOV. BILL RICHARDSON (D), NEW MEXICO: Thank you very much for having me.
BROWN: Let me first ask you about the families, because I know you have been in touch with Lisa Ling who is, of course, Laura's sister. And I cannot even imagine how relieved they have got to be feeling today. What did she tell you?
RICHARDSON: Well, it's a huge relief. I talked to Lisa earlier.
These two women journalists have been in captivity almost five months. And even though they're treated -- seemed to be pretty reasonable -- they were in a guest house. They were properly fed. They were allowed to call home. The Swedish ambassador who represents us was able to visit us.
It's still enormous strain on the two women, because they were actually sentenced to eight to 10 years of hard labor. And they didn't know what was happening. When you're in North Korea -- and I have been there several times -- you have a sense of isolation. You don't know what exactly is happening, because they don't tell you much. So, it's an enormous relief that this ordeal for that family is going to end soon, because the two women have had some physical problems, not serious, but hopefully they will be able to come home and they will be fine.
BROWN: So, what kind of physical problems? Are they OK?
RICHARDSON: Well, they're OK, yes. But there's a lot of mental strain. And it's very difficult at North Korea because you're isolated. No one talks to you. Your information is limited.
BROWN: Let's talk about how this came about, what President Clinton was able to do, because you probably have as much familiarity with how something like this works as -- as anyone. Explain to us most likely how this all came about.
RICHARDSON: What I suspect happened -- and I'm not speaking for the administration, although they asked for my advice -- is that the North Koreans wanted a high-level envoy to come, and Bill Clinton is the price.
And Kim Jong Il, the leader of the North Koreans, wanted to make a big splash domestically at home. There's some question about who's going to succeed him. He wanted to show his constituency that he could deliver a former president.
And so I am sure that the North Koreans said, if you send Bill Clinton, maybe something's going to happen. Now, I'm not sure of that, but I suspect something like this happened.
BROWN: What do you think this could mean in terms of U.S. relations with North Korea? Could this mark a breakthrough of sorts?
RICHARDSON: The fact that we are talking directly with them for the first time, even though it's an intermediary, it's not a member of the government, but it is former President Clinton, could really help a cooling-off period in a very tense relationship.
And -- and what it might lead to is perhaps President Clinton and Kim Jong Il talked about resuming a dialogue. We haven't had a dialogue talking among our diplomats directly, or doing it through the six- party talks, which has been the negotiating venue in the past, which the North Koreans hate. So, it could be a little bit of a breakthrough.
BROWN: Governor Bill Richardson for us tonight -- Governor Richardson, thank you for your time. Appreciate it.
RICHARDSON: Thank you.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: And let's bring in senior political correspondent Candy Crowley, who is in Washington and has been covering this from Washington. And with us from Honolulu also Victor Cha, who was director of Asian affairs at the National Security Council under President George W. Bush. He's now at Georgetown University.
Candy, let me start with you on this. Bill Clinton gets his glory. He's now on his way home with the two journalists, but as you point out, this is really Hillary Clinton's triumph in many ways.
CANDY CROWLEY, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, certainly it is partially her triumph.
Before Bill Clinton got on that plane, the deal was set. This was cooked before he got on the plane to go over there. And, as Governor Richardson pointed out, clearly, what North Korea wanted was a high- profile non-official official, because this administration wasn't going to send someone official over there, though many people had volunteered. So, what you had was weeks and weeks of trying to work this out. It began with Hillary Clinton beginning to walk back what before she had said, that the charges against these two women were baseless. And then it became, well, the families are very sorry for what happened, we're very sorry, we know there's a way to work this out.
So, it's been this gradual work of diplomacy both in the State Department and at the White House. Bill Clinton was the final piece of that. He is the one that went to North Korea, that gave them those photo-ops. This is a country that very much wants to be a player. And to have him come, this is a man at this point who is a senior statesman from the U.S.
But he has the Obama -- what they wanted, which was not to be a member of the Obama administration, so he fit both those bills. And I just think that his part was the final part. But weeks and weeks before that, it was the administration working on this.
BROWN: Right.
And, Victor, the bottom line here is these two young women are coming home. But there has been some criticism that sending a person of Bill Clinton's stature rewards North Korea for bad behavior. And you have negotiated with the North Koreans. How are they seeing this?
VICTOR CHA, FORMER NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL MEMBER: Well, I think -- yes, I think you will hear some criticisms from conservative circles about rewarding bad behavior, allowing the North to use an event like this for a propaganda victory.
We saw how the North Korean news agency immediately announced that President Clinton conveyed a message from President Obama, and then the White House coming out and saying that that was not the case.
But, in the end, while this may be a propaganda victory for the North, as Candy said, the price was basically that you get these two Americans back. And that makes it all worth it, in my opinion.
BROWN: Indeed.
And, Candy, this is a little bit cloak and dagger, I guess. It's just that we so rarely get an opportunity to see Kim Jong Il even. And there have been so many rumors about his health, who will take over for him, so little information.
And what Bill Clinton can do in addition to being able to bring these journalists home is provide probably some of the best intelligence the U.S. has had about what's happening there in quite some time. Is that fair?
CROWLEY: Sure. Sure. I think that's fair, because he has spent some time not just with Kim Jong Il, but also with those around him. So, he -- you know, you pick up things.
And former President Clinton is very, very smart. He understands how this works. He's also a good diplomat, and I can't imagine -- or can imagine that he's going to be debriefed. They're going to want to say, does he appear sick? How sick does he seem? Is there anyone around him that seems to have more power than anybody else?
So, I think he can be -- rather than come back and say, hey, they want to restart the six-party talks or this or that, I think it will be much less specific than that. I think it will be just the feel. What is this leader? How is he looking? How's he feeling physically? What's your sense of things?
And I think that can be valuable, because you need to know what you're dealing with.
BROWN: Victor, obviously, a very different approach from the Bush administration, which, you know, you served under. But, still, and we talked about there is obviously a short-term win in the fact that the journalists are home, but are there longer-term perils here for sort of where this may ultimately take the Obama administration?
CHA: Well, I think this action itself fit very well with the -- the campaign policies of the -- when Obama was running for president, as well as the initial statements that the administration made when they first came into office about the willingness to go with higher-level negotiations to try to move the process that we worked on in the Bush administration forward even more quickly.
They then got hit with all these North Korean provocations, and they backed away from that a little bit. I mean, in the longer term, while this is an issue that is related to the humanitarian problem, it does, as Candy says, lower the temperature a little bit and perhaps provide an opportunity for the actual negotiators to reengage on the nuclear issue.
In that sense, President Clinton's trip helps the North Koreans pull themselves off a ledge, which they always put themselves on with these provocations.
BROWN: Right. All right. Victor Cha for us tonight, as well Candy Crowley from Washington, thanks very much, guys.
CROWLEY: Thanks, Campbell.
BROWN: Imagine being a passenger on board a jet where the flight crew was so drunk, so trashed, the airport had to yank them from the cockpit. Tonight, I'm going to talk with a pilot who got caught. He went to prison for it and he says it is still happening.
Plus, secrets of the Secret Service. Is the president as safe as we think he is? A new book has some startling charges that may surprise you when we come back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: And now some of the other must-see stories of the day, Erica Hill is here with the "Download."
ERICA HILL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Campbell, toxicology reports out today show a New York mother was drunk and high on marijuana when she drove the wrong way on a highway just north of New York City last week. She was among the dead in a head-on crash that killed four young children and three other adults.
The children included her own children, as well as some nieces. Tests show Diane Schuler's blood alcohol level was 0.19. That is more than twice the legal limit.
In Louisville, Kentucky, swamped today by flash flooding, heavy thunderstorms dropping six inches of rain in three hours. Cars were submerged. The University of Louisville's campus had to actually shut down. Horses at the famed Churchill Downs racetrack evacuated to higher ground. And people even had to be rescued by boat. Talk about a mess there.
The U.S. Marine Corps is banning the use of military computers to visit Web sites like Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace because of concerns over security. Marines can still use those social networking sites on their personal computers, but the brass apparently doesn't want to expose the military's computer networks to hackers. Pentagon officials are looking at a uniform policy that would apply, Campbell, to all branches of the military.
BROWN: All right, Erica, and we are going to be seeing you back at the end of the show a little bit later.
And, when we come back, the always outspoken, the sometimes politically incorrect Whoopi Goldberg, she sat down with me for an exclusive interview today. I asked her if, as the first black president, Barack Obama has to sometimes bite his tongue when it comes to certain issues.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GOLDBERG: You know, I don't think he so much has to bite his tongue, but he has to recognize that people are not used to the president sounding like their next-door neighbor.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: One thing you know for sure about tonight's newsmaker, she doesn't hold back. As the moderator and co-host of ABC's "The View," Whoopi Goldberg has a lot of smart things to say about politics, personalities, you name it.
This afternoon, I sat down with the Oscar, Emmy, Grammy, and Tony winner for an exclusive interview. And I asked her how she thinks President Obama is doing so far.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
GOLDBERG: With what he came in with, he's doing fine, because I don't know how many people would have actually been able to try to keep juggling it. When I think about what -- what he's doing, you know, a lot of people are very upset about his health care policy. And people keeps saying, well, he keeps saying we have got to do something, but what are we going to do?
But the truth of the matter is, we do have to do something. And we have to figure out how many people need it, you know, how many people we give it to who are not here legally. We have to take that number, put it over here, and then look at the number of Americans who actually need it.
Like, I don't need a new policy, because I have great health care. I have fantastic health care. So, there's a section of the population that also goes over here. Those folks who are left who don't have anything, who end up going to the emergency room because their kid is sick and they don't have the money, the people who wait until they get really sick to go to the doctor because they can't afford it, those are the people we need to really say, OK, this is the first focus we're going to take care of. These are the people we're going to help first and foremost. The rest of you guys can kiss my ass, but this is what we have to do first.
BROWN: As the first black president, do you think he has to bite his tongue sometimes when it comes to what he can say about certain issues, as we sort of saw play out with the arrest of Professor Gates.
(LAUGHTER)
GOLDBERG: Yes. Well...
BROWN: You laugh.
GOLDBERG: I do laugh, because I just -- I -- what I -- what everyone is starting to realize is that we do have cultural differences, and we do respond to things in different ways.
Now, most of us, if our friend, if we had half of the information, which, normally, most of us have anyway, and you heard that your friend got roughed up by the police, you would say, you know, that guy's a bonehead, man. He's a bonehead. And then you get the facts and you go, oh, well, you know, you maybe should've done it a little bit different.
You know, I don't think he so much has to bite his tongue, but he has to -- he has to recognize that people are not used to the president sounding like their next door neighbor. And I think the people, we have to recognize that this is a different kind of president. Because this is like a guy, this is like a regular dude, you know.
CAMPBELL BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: So why -- why is this a different kind of president? Is it because he's a black president? Is it because he's of a different generation? What is it?
GOLDBERG: I really think it's generational.
BROWN: More than anything else? GOLDBERG: Yes, I hate saying it too. I hate saying it, but I think it is generational. I also think it has to do with the fact that his, you know, Sonia Sotomayor got in big trouble by saying, you know, my culture gives me a different perspective.
Well, the same is true even though there are some people out there still saying he was born some place somewhere else pretty much, you know, he's the American president but he's had different experiences. And I think this is the kind of the first time probably since Lincoln that we've had a president who actually grew up not in a large family that is -- that has a lot of political background.
BROWN: Right.
GOLDBERG: That doesn't --
BROWN: He was never groomed to be president.
GOLDBERG: No, nobody was -- everybody was going, yes, right, OK. But I think he has a different take. And so, yes. Part of the thing that everybody's got to get used to is yes, he is black and he has some different ideas about things because he comes from a different place. And while some folks will say, well, he should have done this or he should have done that, the truth of the matter is, you know, this is my hope anyway for this president, that this is a guy who will say in two or three years, you know what? I changed my mind about this. I don't feel the same way I felt last year about this. Because now I've seen more and I'm feeling like this. I think people are not used to presidents who are more likely to sound like you and I.
BROWN: Right.
GOLDBERG: You know, or more likely to recognize the same things that you and I recognized as being here for whatever. You know, it's just that he is not -- he's not your grandfather's president. That's the way to put it.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: More from Whoopi Goldberg, she lets loose on Sarah Palin. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GOLDBERG: What bothered me about Sarah Palin is I thought she was pretending to be dumb and I didn't like it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: If you listened to Whoopi Goldberg all over the past year, you might not expect her to call Sarah Palin smart. Well, that's exactly what she said when we talked earlier today. Of course, there was a catch. Here's Whoopi on Palin.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) BROWN: Let me ask you about the other probably most talked about politician of last year -- Sarah Palin. What is it about her that gets people so riled up?
WHOOPI GOLDBERG, CO-HOST, "THE VIEW": I think what -- it depends on who you're talking to. Some people, I think, are riled up because they feel that maybe people -- it's condescending, you know. If you're going to grab a woman to put out there, is this the right woman for your party? Is this the woman you want representing you? Is this how you want to be represented, especially if you're saying this is an all-inclusive party?
This party is supposed to include everybody. So is there a better person to get out there with a little more of oomph to her? Some don't like it. Of course, she's really cute. I mean, she's really cute.
BROWN: How much do you think looks played into it?
GOLDBERG: Oh, with the guys?
BROWN: I mean, the strong reaction that people had to her and --
GOLDBERG: Oh, my God, all you have to do is listen to some of the --
BROWN: Commentary.
GOLDBERG: Commentary and you could hear the thuds under the table. Come on. You know.
I mean there are a lot of things that play into what bothers people about Sarah Palin. What bothered me about Sarah Palin is I thought she was pretending to be dumb and I didn't like it.
BROWN: You thought she was pretending to be dumb?
GOLDBERG: Yes, I thought she was pretending. I thought she was trying to pull off I'm just a regular old person, you know. And maybe you are, but you don't get to be governor --
BROWN: By being a regular --
GOLDBERG: By not knowing your geography, your not knowing how to communicate with people, and certainly not putting people down for being somewhat different. Because, you know, if you talk to the inner (ph) community, there's a whole different community up in -- I love Alaska. I think it's one of the greatest states in the world, you know. But I think she was much smarter than she let on and it irritated the hell out of me.
BROWN: Why do you think she felt the need to, you know, have that persona?
GOLDBERG: Well, maybe that's what they told her she was supposed to be. I mean, because, listen, on Monday, John McCain did not have a running mate. On Tuesday, he had this woman. And it was a gorgeous woman, like, OK. Well, what do you have to say? Because you better be as smart as the other woman in this race. You better as smart and as on top of it.
It bothered me that she didn't -- that she didn't put what I thought was her best foot forward.
BROWN: Elisabeth Hasselbeck, of course, one of your co-hosts...
GOLDBERG: Yes.
BROWN: She's a huge fan of Sarah Palin.
GODLBERG: Yes. Yes, she is.
BROWN: You and Elisabeth have very different points of views.
GOLDBERG: Yes. Sometimes, not all the time. Sometimes.
BROWN: Well, I was going to ask you that. Has she ever -- she's very conservative. Has she ever convinced you, brought you around on an issue that the two of you have debated?
GOLDBERG: I don't know if she's brought me around on the issue. But I'll tell you what Elisabeth has done for me. She has made me realize that I have to listen as well as talk. And sometimes she will say something that makes absolute sense to me, and I know I'm getting better because I heard it, you know what I mean?
BROWN: Yes.
GOLDBERG: I can hear her, and I think we have that -- we've had that effect on each other. Sometimes we still get passionate. But the great thing about "The View" and particularly with she and I and really with all of us, is that it's not personal. You know what I mean? It's like you're sitting with your sister and your brother and your aunt, you know, your crazy aunt in the corner. And wanting to hear --
BROWN: Which one is the crazy aunt in the corner?
GOLDBERG: And somebody says something, your crazy aunt says something and you go, are you out of your mind? You don't mean are you out of your mind you're an idiot. But it's family talk.
BROWN: Yes.
GOLDBERG: And so what we do is we get together and we family talk. And sometimes we don't agree and sometimes it's absolutely you're never going to change my mind, you know, but let's talk about the newest pasties they have, you know. It's a very odd dynamic.
BROWN: It works.
GOLDBERG: But sex and politics seem to go together no matter how you put them.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: All right. We're going to have more with Whoopi Goldberg tomorrow night. But first, we've got some pictures we want to show you right now.
This is live pictures I believe you're looking at. This is tape, sorry, not live pictures. But this is tape and these are the pictures of them departing, President Clinton and the two young women departing from North Korea. You can see the pictures there of Laura Ling, Euna Lee.
Here are the two young women boarding the plane with President Clinton. I believe that's Doug Band (ph), the president's aide on their way back to Los Angeles where they will be arriving, we're told, tomorrow morning to be reunited with their families. A huge relief as you can imagine for their families as they will be seeing the two young women tomorrow morning.
Again, boarding a plane there in North Korea. You're watching this with us as it's feeding in right now. We're going to have a whole lot more on this tomorrow night. Obviously, we expect to hear from the families tomorrow, some words -- a few words from Laura Ling's father this evening. Much, much relief after this big diplomatic victory for President Clinton, for the Obama administration. We'll be back right after this break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.
BROWN: Some breaking news to share with you right now. You are looking at pictures we are just getting in now of the two young women, Laura Ling and Euna Lee leaving North Korea. They are boarding the plane there with President Clinton's aide, you can see walking just in front of them, President Clinton having boarded the plane just before the two young women. They are on their way now home to Los Angeles where they will be greeting their families tomorrow morning.
This is, of course, come after -- there's President Clinton there you can see in the doorway of the aircraft as the two young women board. And this has come after a long diplomatic effort that has been underway for months now. We should mention this is the first time we are seeing pictures of these young women since March since they were initially taken into custody there in North Korea.
We received a statement a short time ago from former Vice President Al Gore who said, "We want to thank the Obama administration for its continuous and determined efforts to achieve this outcome and President Clinton for his willingness to undertake this mission." The girls, of course, worked for Current Media for Al Gore's operation. All of us at Current, he says, are overjoyed at their safe return. Our hearts go out to them, to their families for persevering through this horrible experience.
The family also releasing a brief statement earlier saying that they are counting the seconds until they hold Laura and Euna in their arms. Again, they are expected to arrive in Los Angeles tomorrow morning. We will have all of the details for you right back here tomorrow night.
And we want to shift gears now and tell you about another story that's getting a lot of attention. Almost nothing is bigger than the story of an assassination attempt on a U.S. president. Yet, my next guest says there are many more threats than most people ever hear about. So how does the Secret Service protect the president and his family while keeping their secrets?
That is the question tonight we have for Ron Kessler. He is the author of "In the President's Secret Service," a new book out. It's a very hot book that has a lot of buzz surrounding it.
Welcome to you. It's good to have you here.
RON KESSLER, AUTHOR, "IN THE PRESIDENT'S SECRET SERVICE: It's very good to be here.
BROWN: So let me ask you that question we just teased there, because the Secret Service are obviously privy to a lot of secrets. We're going to get to that in a second, but their top priority is preventing an assassination attempt. As you write, there's way many more attempts than we realize, especially when it comes to this president, to President Obama.
KESSLER: Yes. The threat -- threats against this president have increased 400 percent as compared with when Bush was president. When Bush was president, there were about 3,000 a year. Now, it's about 12,000 a year. Of course, a lot of them are not credible, but you know, it is a factor of his race, unfortunately.
But at the same time, the Secret Service has been cutting corners ever since it was acquired by the Department of Homeland Security.
BROWN: And this is what the agents are telling you?
KESSLER: Yes, agents are telling me and the fact they've admitted on the record, interviewed the head of protection at the Secret Service, they did cooperate. Nicholas Trada (ph) and he admitted that yes, they have not been doing metal detection in a lot of events. At first he said it's wonderful that we use metal detectors, this is the way we stop assassinations. But then when I said, what about all these instances when you don't? He started defending that and saying, well, you know, maybe it's far away from the president.
Well, anybody can run up to a crowd and, you know, with weapons or with grenades commit an assassination. Before DHS acquired Secret Service, they never would have done that. I have on the record Secret Service agents up to the level of deputy director from those days saying we were never under (ph) pressure from staff to stop metal detection because there were stragglers.
In the case of Joe Biden throwing out the first pitch at the Orioles game last April, they actually did no metal detection whatsoever.
BROWN: So -- and a lot of the agents are concerned about it.
KESSLER: And they are concerned. That's one reason I did this book because agents came to me and said this is risking an assassination. You know, and what is more important than protecting the life of a president in a democracy? If you don't have -- if you have an assassination, you don't have democracy.
BROWN: Well, let me ask you about some of the other nuggets that you share in the book. One of them being that President Obama still smoking on a pretty regular basis even though he claims that it's more of a very rarely kind of slip up on his part.
KESSLER: Yes. You know, the book is partly about how the Secret Service does its job, but also what they see behind the scenes because they're like human surveillance cameras, they see everything. And one thing they've seen is that Obama does continue to smoke on a regular basis despite his plan.
BROWN: Where does he smoke? How does he smoke?
KESSLER: He can do it on his balcony. He can do on a limousine. He can do it in a hotel room. There are a number of places where he does smoke.
But at the same time, they say that he treats agents very well with great respect, which is quite different from someone like Jimmy Carter who was so phony, he would actually tell agents he didn't want them to say hello to them in the morning. It was just too much bother for him to say hello to them.
He would pretend to carry his own luggage, but actually it was empty, or else he would have aides carry after he was out of the camera range. He would come into the Oval Office at 5:00 in the morning and say, tell the press to tell the press I was in there working hard at 5:00 in the morning and then he would nod off to sleep.
Jenna and Barbara Bush, you know, gave their detail a hard time, especially Jenna. She would go through red lights trying to evade the Secret Service. And she went to a Halloween party with Henry Hager who's now her husband. He became so drunk that the Secret Service had to take him to Georgetown University Hospital.
So, and on the other side, you have Ronald Reagan who was, you know, a very endearing figure, loved the Secret Service, chatted with them, watched TV with them. Laura Bush, of course, and we also have --
BROWN: Chelsea Clinton also, you write about it.
KESSLER: Chelsea Clinton was a model first child. She was --
BROWN: Can't be easy with children, especially.
KESSLER: That's right. Yes, I mean, it's rough for everybody. But she was very obedient respectful, treated those agents very well.
There are also it turns out affairs that some people had. Spiro Agnew, for example, and he's a champion in family values was having several affairs according to the agents who actually would take him to hotel rooms for this assignations. And John Snow who was Bush's treasury secretary that the agents describe taking him to Richmond almost every weekend where his wife lived but also there was this woman they describe as his mistress.
BROWN: All right. Well, we'll certainly I'm sure be hearing much more about all this. Quite a number of pretty startling allegations in this book.
Ron Kessler, appreciate your time tonight. Thanks very much.
KESSLER: Thank you, Campbell.
BROWN: Next up, flying while drunk. It happens much more than you may think. In a minute, we're going to talk to a pilot who went to prison for flying a passenger plane under the influence, when we come back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: In 1990, a Northwest Airlines crew got so drunk in the hours leading up to their flight, they were pulled from their plane, fired, and they each spent time in federal prison. Well, now, a member of that crew, Joseph Balzer has written an extraordinary book about what happened and about his own struggles with alcoholism. It's called "Flying Drunk."
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: So you spent a year in prison after you were caught flying drunk. Tell us about the incident. What happened?
JOSEPH BALZER, AUTHOR, "FLYIND DRUNK": Well, I was basically trying to quit drinking on my own for a year prior to the Northwest incident. And I had a blackout out in Los Angeles on a layover with Eastern Airlines. I told my best friends at that time that I wanted to stop drinking, that for some reason I couldn't drink like other people. So I basically white knuckled it for a year.
But just -- this was a five-day trip, this particular incident that occurred in March of 1990, I was -- went out on the last night of a trip, tried to work some things out with one of the crew members and we all decided to get together and try some things and talk about some things and the whole thing ended up backfiring.
BROWN: So you got on that plane and you were inebriated.
BALZER: Yes, I was convicted of actually flying under the influence of alcohol. If you have a blood alcohol content over 0.04 under the federal aviation regulations, you are -- you don't have any business being on an airplane for sure.
BROWN: And you mention these other incidents, I mean, this wasn't a one-time thing for you. You had done this before, gotten on a plane, flew a plane drunk. BALZER: Yes, this is true. After I was sober for three years, I started to get a lot more clarity on things that occurred in the past, which is common for people who are alcoholic and stop drinking. And what I realized was there were some times that Eastern Airlines where I had gone out the night before a flight and ended up having way too much to drink and that's the problem. I can't predict how much I'm going to drink when I do or don't drink, and that's one of the indicators of early stage alcoholism.
BROWN: I know and not to -- you know, I just want to stress this, I think, for a lot of us watching, you know, it's not about you. It's about the other people whose lives you put at risk. I've got to ask you what you were thinking.
BALZER: I can't defend what occurred. You know, I embarrassed my company. I embarrassed my profession and my licenses were revoked by the FAA. And for that I spent five years in the system, a year on bond, one year in federal prison. Some of that time was spent behind a 30-foot wall at the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary. It was very, very hard, difficult time. And I've paid my debt to society. Today, I'm part of the solution rather than part of the problem.
BROWN: Do you believe today that there are other pilots out there who are flying drunk?
BALZER: Well, I was approached just this past week I launched my book at EAA Oshkosh (ph). And there's always people that approach me and want to tell me their stories. There are people in every profession that come to work and have had too much to drink the night before.
BROWN: Yes. You're flying again. You're a pilot now for American Airlines. And I know they're going to be some people who say I don't know if I'd want my pilot to be the author of a book called "Flying Drunk." Should you have gotten your job back?
BALZER: Well, I think that we're a lot better off if we're helping people who suffer from a disease. It's 100 percent fatal disease, and if people don't stop drinking, they end up dead.
The fact that so many pilots have been rehabilitated is a wonderful sign. Let me reference prior to 1972, there was a rule where pilots were caught or diagnosed as alcoholic, they lost their career forever.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: That was pilot Joseph Balzer, author of "Flying Drunk." And that's going have to be it for us tonight.
"LARRY KING LIVE" coming up next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LARRY KING, HOST, "LARRY KING LIVE" (voice-over): Tonight, breaking news, American journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee on their way home. President Bill Clinton secures their freedom from North Korea during a high-stakes meeting with Kim Jong-il. Five harrowing months in captivity and a sentence of 12 years of hard labor are now behind them.
Plus, Michael Jackson exclusive, his manager reveals for the first time how he told the children about their father's death, how they reacted, and how they're going to make it without him next on LARRY KING LIVE.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
