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Democrats Bowing Out; Airline Terror Suspect Indicted; Gilbert Arenas Backlash; Brit Hume's Advice to Tiger Woods

Aired January 06, 2010 - 15:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RICK SANCHEZ, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Making news right now: Senators Chris Dodd, Byron Dorgan, Governor Bill Ritter, all Dems, all not running for reelection. Who wins? Who loses?

SEN. CHRISTOPHER DODD (D), CONNECTICUT: Now, there's nothing more pathetic, in my view, than a politician who announces they're only leaving public life to spend more time with their family.

SANCHEZ: The NBA basketball player caught with guns in his locker apologizes, sort of.

KARL MALONE, FORMER NBA PLAYER: Any other person out there that takes a firearm to work would probably be terminated, no questions asked.

SANCHEZ: Karl Malone lashes out on CNN.

FOX News analyst Brit Hume suggests Buddhism can't offer Tiger Woods redemption, like Christianity can. What does Hume know about Buddhism? What do you know about know about Buddhism? We are going to find out together.

And a brilliant writer who says our rampant consumerism is ruining us. Does this include you?

Smart talk as we count down to January 18 and the premiere of Rick's List, where my access to newsmakers becomes your access.

The national conversation starts right now.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SANCHEZ: And hello, again, everybody. I'm Rick Sanchez.

We have just learned literally seconds ago as we're getting ready to begin this newscast something that was really expected, but nonetheless it's important, it's newsworthy, noteworthy, and something I should share with you.

We have just learned that Abdulmutallab has now been officially indicted by the U.S. government for trying to bring down a plane. Those are the very first pictures. Count one is attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction. That is the information coming in. Count two is attempted murder within the special jurisdiction of an aircraft in the United States. Checking this. And count three is a willful attempt to wreck and destroy an aircraft.

Again, this is literally coming into my ear as I am sharing it with you. My producer, Andreas Preuss, is sharing the information. Aha. Here we go. I just was able to finally open up this attachment that shares the information with us. And I will go through with it just one more time.

All times -- do we have a steady cam that we can bring around? Go ahead, Robert. See if you can make your way over here. Let me just share this with the viewers real quick. I'm going to open this up. I don't want to take too much time on it, but being that this is an important story, I do want you to see it. Here we go.

Let's go in tight on this thing. You ready? Here we go. Grand jury charges common allegations at all times material to the indictment. Delta Airlines was a United States commercial flight. There's two. It goes on to explain exactly what happened there. There is Abdulmutallab, the defendant, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. He is a Nigerian national who was a passenger on the flight.

Then you -- Eastern. And then it talks about PETN, the high explosive and thus an explosive within the meaning of Section 921 United States code, all the stuff that essentially we have been talking about over the last week, but this just makes it official.

And there we go, count one, attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction. That is the first charge. Let's see if we can find count two, once again, attempted murder within the special aircraft jurisdiction of the United States, and count three, willful attempt to destroy and wreck an aircraft within the special aircraft jurisdiction of the United States, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. So, there you go.

That is the indictment literally coming to me just as I was getting ready to do this newscast. I wanted to share that with you as breaking news. And, obviously, if there is any more comment or anything else to add, we will do that during the course of the next hour.

Continuing now, here is the question that you can't avoid asking today as well. Are big-name Democrats losing their nerve? Do they know something that maybe you and I don't know about where their party is headed in the election this coming November? Now, the answers may be no and no. I get that.

But those questions need answers after one, two, and three. Chris Dodd, Byron Dorgan, Bill Ritter, all in the space of 24 hours, all completely out of nowhere, all three say they are not going to run for reelection. Did you know that? Now, how did that happen? These are three heavy hitters, folks.

Chris Dodd, five terms, that's 30 years in the Senate. Who saw that coming? No one, even though we know that Dodd had some problems with the voters, the banking thing, the Countrywide thing, as you know, among others.

Now, I have got to tell you, though, I liked hearing this. And so will you. Here is Dodd's -- here's Senator Dodd refusing to use his family as his reason for bowing out.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DODD: Now, there's nothing more pathetic, in my view, than a politician who announces they're only leaving public life to spend more time with their family. The result of this announcement today, I hope, will create that opportunity. But it is not the reason for my decision.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: Can we all kind of join hands and hope that spend more time with the family thing is hereby retired?

Either way, Dodd is an interesting case. And I'm going to circle back to him in just a little bit. But let's look at these other two as we continue to make news here on CNN at 3:00.

Byron Dorgan in the Senate 17 years, not the stature of Chris Dodd, but guess what? Perhaps a bigger loss for the Democrats. His successor from North Dakota -- this is important -- is likely to be a Democrat, not -- I mean, is likely to be a Republican -- pardon me -- not a Democrat. That's important. The Democrats are likely to lose that seat.

Bill Ritter bailing out early in Colorado. Bill Ritter is a governor. His state is political gold, political gold, because it swings either way. Sometimes, it is Democratic. Sometimes, it's Republican. The Democrats are losing that incumbent.

So three heavy hitters, right, Dodd, Dorgan, Ritter, gone? Coincidence?

Gloria Borger is our senior political analyst.

Gloria, thanks for being with us.

GLORIA BORGER, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Sure. Sure.

SANCHEZ: Is this a blow to this Democratic president?

BORGER: Well, it is interesting. As you point out, in the case of Chris Dodd, he was already in trouble. He had political advisers telling him privately, look, Senator, you are not looking real good in this race.

And if he withdraws now, as he did, he has already got the attorney general, Richard Blumenthal, lining up. It took about a nanosecond for him to declare his candidacy in the state. He is a Democrat. And he may be more likely to win that seat, ironically, than Chris Dodd would have been. Byron Dorgan in the Senate is the real loss, because the Republican governor there may run for the seat, and he is quite popular.

SANCHEZ: Well, is this a sign of things to come? Is this going to be a bad year for the Dems, and, if so, how bad?

BORGER: Yes. You know, the conventional wisdom is called conventional wisdom because it is usually right.

(LAUGHTER)

BORGER: And, in this case, usually, presidents in their first term lose seats in their midterm elections, OK? And that is clearly going to happen to Barack Obama.

In the Senate, he really doesn't have any margin for error if he wants to keep that 60 votes, the filibuster-proof majority, which he now has, so he can't even lose one seat. He's not going to lose control of the Senate. He would have to lose 11 seats to Republicans. Nobody thinks that is likely to happen. He is going to lose a bunch of seats in the House, Rick.

But some people say, ironically, this could force this president to become a little more bipartisan and get things done with some Republicans.

SANCHEZ: You said historically. You and I were talking on the phone a little earlier and you told me that you have looked into this a little bit. Well, it is your life's work really. You said that, historically, presidents who have lost in the midterms have come back and had pretty good showings, huh?

BORGER: Yes. You know, they recoup, because they figure out, OK -- you know, the public swings like a pendulum. Here they decided they wanted the Democrats to control everything. This next time, they may decide, well, you know, that didn't work so well.

So, you go back and you look at Ronald Reagan, he lost 26 seats in the House in 1982. He ended up -- he had 10.4 unemployment. He ended up working with Democrats to pass a whole bunch of legislation.

Bill Clinton lost control of the House in 1994 -- 1996, passed a welfare reform. So, it forces presidents to kind of cut the deals that they might not have cut when they had the huge majorities. Big question mark, how will Republicans behave? They are not too popular out there either. They may decide heading into 2012, we have got to show the American public that we can actually get something done here.

SANCHEZ: Let me ask you a question about Dodd. Let me just circle back to him. He is such -- be honest with you -- he is a likable guy. Say what you will about his problems in the last year of which by the way I should add some of them are very serious accusations that have been leveled against him.

But his demeanor today and his reason to do this, let's think about this for a minute as two people who, you know, work in a pressure-filled world also filled with big egos and lots of issues and problems -- you know, his dad did not go out well.

BORGER: No.

SANCHEZ: He decided that he was going to leave today, and it almost sounded to me, Gloria, like, he just wanted to put this behind him and didn't want to get ugly and he didn't want to lose. He didn't want to go out losing, did he?

BORGER: Sure. No, he really didn't. And what we tend to forget about politicians is that they are actually human beings.

And Chris Dodd lost his best friend this year. And that was Ted Kennedy. They served in the Senate together as young men and as older men. And that is his best friend. He lost his sister this year to cancer as well. He also had prostate cancer, himself. He has a wife and a young family. And, remember, he moved that young family to Iowa when he was running for the presidency. We forgot that he also tried for Democratic nomination against Barack Obama.

SANCHEZ: It was a disaster, by the way.

(CROSSTALK)

BORGER: It was a disaster. And he quit right after Iowa.

But this is a man with a great deal of history. And I think you are right. As you look back to his father, who was censured in the Senate, and lost a reelection, I bet Chris Dodd took a look at all of that and said, you know what? The signs are there. It is time for me to move on and do something else.

I doubt he is leaving public life forever. He may be doing something in the Obama administration. We just don't know. We will have to see.

SANCHEZ: And I am glad you put that caveat on there, because it is one of the few times that in this business you and I can spend time talking about the man and not necessarily the politics.

BORGER: Right.

SANCHEZ: That is maybe not such a bad thing.

BORGER: Yes.

SANCHEZ: Gloria, as usual, thanks for being on. We appreciate the conversation.

BORGER: Sure, sure.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: 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.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: The president talking tough on terror and the political criticism is rolling in like that which you just saw.

By the way, some of the criticism is not coming from Republicans. Last night -- I don't know if you saw this. I'm going to share it with you. It came from some high-level Democrats. That is ahead.

And there is more behind the price of goods and services that we buy. We are talking to an economist who says our ignorant consumerism -- follow me here -- our ignorant consumerism is turning our country into a place where the free market has run amok.

Also, you know we are keeping a list here, right? Wait until you hear who is on our list and what he is saying about Chris Dodd. This is like a caveat to that conversation that I had moments ago with Gloria Borger. Michael Moore has just tweeted. And I'm going to share with you what he says. You may be taken aback with what he has to say about Democrat Chris Dodd.

Stay right there. I'm going to share that with you in about a minute-and-a-half.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SANCHEZ: Welcome back. It seems like every day when we come on the air, there is a lot of stuff going on. No exception today. I am keeping a list for you, as you know, where every day, I am going to divulge for you what newsmakers are tweeting about. My access to them becomes thus your access.

First up, guess who is tweeting? Michael Moore tweeting about Senator Chris Dodd and in no uncertain terms. Four tweets. Here we go.

Eric in Washington, if you're ready to go, let's take them through this. This is Michael Moore. We have been monitoring what he has been saying and he has got a lot to say. Let me read you the first one.

It says: "Once exposed, Dodd sank in the polls. Had he run again, the Republicans would have picked up a Senate seat from Connecticut. Now the Dems have a chance."

Flip to the next one: "But Dodd was the chairman of the Senate Banking Committee. He and his committee over the years changed laws to make it easy for Countrywide and banks to screw people."

This is Michael Moore talking about Christopher Dodd. "If you haven't seen the movie, Dodd was getting loans and sweetheart deal" -- his movie, by the way -- "from Countrywide, one of the companies that caused the crash."

That is him, Michael Moore, talking about his movie about capitalism. And, finally, he finishes with this: "One Connecticut senator down, one to go."

Again, these are tweets that we have collected as a part of our list, what we call Rick's List here every single day, information and people who are relevant to the stories that we are telling. We are the only folks doing this for you, and I am glad we are.

Meanwhile, this:

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RAJ PATEL, AUTHOR, "THE VALUE OF NOTHING": Rich countries owe poor countries about $5 trillion. And that is a pretty big bill that we have managed to escape paying for generations.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: This is a fascinating interview. I can't wait for you to see this, because I want to hear what you think. I'm going to be listening to your tweets. My God, we got 44 new tweets coming in just during this last minute.

Is ignorant consumerism -- yes, that's us -- ignorant consumerism leading to our nation's ruin? Do you know the difference between the price of something and the cost of something? You should. We are going to go through this together. That is next.

Also, you have probably heard of Brit Hume's comments about Buddhism, right? Well, what is the truth about Buddhism? I am going to fact-check it for you.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SANCHEZ: Once again, we received breaking news literally seconds before I went on the air today at 3:00. And that is that the official indictment from the U.S. government has come down against Abdulmutallab, the Nigerian who tried to blow up that plane and was arrested in Detroit. There is the picture.

I have actually got the indictment in my hands now. I had read you part of it. There's some more that has been coming in. Here it is now. I am going to take you through the rest of the indictments.

There is count two and count three, which we had received. There's a couple more pages. There's another count, four, five, six. I am going to filter through those and then I will be sharing those with you in just a little bit. No big surprises, by the way. It pretty much just makes official what we had been discussing over the last several weeks.

Nowadays, people know the price of everything and the value of nothing. That is a quote. It is a quote. You know who that quote is from? It is from Oscar Wilde. But it may be more true today than ever before.

This is kind of a heady conversation, but stay with me here, because I just think it is really interesting. I think that this is something that we, as Americans, should probably be talking about at our kitchen tables more often.

We have become -- like I need to tell you this, right? we have become rabid consumers. I mean, it's like we live to buy things in this country, even stuff we don't necessarily need. If we continue this way, will it hurt us? Will it even ruin us? Can we continue to just be this way, just buy and buy and never even consider where the goods come from or what effect they're having us, on our health, on our country, on our planet?

Former World Bank economist Raj Patel, this is an interesting character. He has written a book about this. It's called, interestingly enough, "The Value of Nothing."

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SANCHEZ: The idea that if I buy a 75 cent bag of chips or a candy bar, it really isn't about 75 cents. That 75 cents should really be more. Could you explain that to our viewers?

PATEL: Sure.

I mean, everything that we produce has a cost. And often those costs don't feature in the price. The way that we consume today in rich countries, for example, impacts everyone around the world.

And if you add up the costs of the way we have been consuming for the past 40 years, if you add up the amount of -- the way that, you know, the energy that goes into our car will change the climate or the way that we use spray cans will damage the ozone layer, the way that we consume fish will empty the seas, if you add up all of that and you assign a gentle, a very sort of conservative dollar value to it, it turns out that rich countries owe poor countries about $5 trillion, according to one study in the proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

And that is a pretty big bill that we have managed to escape paying for generations.

SANCHEZ: But some people would say, wait a minute, we're doing favors for people in poor countries. We're able to send them food that is easily digestible.

PATEL: You are right. There is a lot of overseas aid. And that is why poor countries owe rich ones about $1.8 trillion, which is -- if you add up all the international debt that poor countries owe rich ones, it is $1.8 trillion.

But what we owe them is way bigger than that, and I think that we need to get into perspective the idea that we are doing them a favor, when, in fact, we end up taking from the poor far more than we give.

SANCHEZ: In the free market, shouldn't you be able to make whatever you want and charge whatever you want and, you know, the devil be damned?

PATEL: Well, but, in a free market, shouldn't you also have to pay the full cost of what you do?

I mean, the whole point of a market is that for it to work properly, prices need to reflect the full cost of things. If, for example, I can sell you a television set for $200 and a huge television, 50 inches, wow, absolutely fantastic, $200, it happens that I stole that from someone, but it is a free market. You can choose to take the $200 television or not.

You would like, no, there's something wrong with it. Sure, it is a cheap television. I love cheap televisions. But there is something wrong about the prior conditions where you have taken it from someone.

(CROSSTALK)

SANCHEZ: Wait. It's an interesting analogy you just gave me, because that analogy says that stolen television comes with consequences.

PATEL: Think about cigarettes. We once upon a time thought that cigarettes were fine. And then we started realizing that, no, actually, there are some big health care costs associated with cigarettes.

And so we started taxing, we started restricting the advertising, we started restricting availability. We stopped making cigarettes attractive to children. And we have had great public health consequences as a result.

Now, in the United States today, one in five health care dollars is spent caring for someone who has diabetes, one in five of our health care dollars. And the predictions now is that one in three kids or one of two people of color born in 2000 will develop diabetes. Now, that is a huge health care cost.

And I think that it is only fair that those who contribute to that massive incidence of diabetes should pay for it.

SANCHEZ: You know what you are doing? You are really bucking the system. You are saying our system isn't necessarily broken, but we need to rethink how it is that we run our capitalistic system and our government in this country, our profit motive. You are not necessarily saying turn it on its head, right?

PATEL: No, I mean, all I am saying is actually we need a bit more democracy than we have at the moment in our economy. At the moment, our economy is run by a small gang of people. And what we need is more economic democracy.

SANCHEZ: The name of the book again is "The Value of Nothing."

PATEL: Thank you, Rick.

SANCHEZ: Thanks for coming on.

PATEL: Thank you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SANCHEZ: Brit Hume, an accomplished network correspondent and generally a damn good host and anchor, but should he be using FOX News' airtime to discuss what he doesn't know about Buddhism? I'm going to ask an expert on Buddhism. That is coming up in just a little bit. This is going to be good.

Also, I want to let you know you can join us here in the national conversation whenever you visit Atlanta. All you have got to do is to call this number, 877-4CNN-TOUR. This thing is starting to really get popular. Call soon. Love to see you.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SANCHEZ: The PGA Tour begins tomorrow in Hawaii, and neither golfer Tiger Woods, nor FOX News' analyst Brit Hume is going to play in it. More on that combo in just a little bit.

Here is the latest picture of Tiger Woods to surface in "Vanity Fair" magazine. It shows woods without a shirt and pumping iron. By the way, it was taken in 2006, long before sorts of his marital scandal made headlines.

As for when Woods will reappear in public is really anybody's guess, and plenty of the pundits are indulging themselves in that guessing game, which brings us to Brit Hume, the FOX News anchor turned analyst who suggests that Tiger Woods needs to turn to Christianity, which, as a Christian, I think is a fine suggestion.

But listen to what else he says about Woods, what Hume believes is Tiger's religion, and what Hume believes that religion may or may not do, key word here twice now, believes.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BRIT HUME, FOX NEWS: He is said to be a Buddhist. I don't think that faith offers the kind of forgiveness and redemption that is offered by the Christian faith. So, my message to Tiger would be, Tiger, turn your faith -- turn to the Christian faith and you can make a total recovery and be a great example to the world.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: The story, by the way, did not end there. After much criticism, Hume made another appearance to perhaps clear up what he meant or maybe apologize. Where did he go to do this? FOX News. Better yet, Bill O'Reilly. Then, of course, "The Daily Show" picked up on it. Here is their take.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "THE DAILY SHOW WITH JON STEWART")

JON STEWART, HOST, "THE DAILY SHOW WITH JON STEWART": So, Brit Hume was himself forced to confess his sins last night before the great father.

BILL O'REILLY, HOST, "THE O'REILLY FACTOR": Was that proselytizing?

HUME: I don't think so.

(LAUGHTER)

STEWART: Of course, it is not proselytizing. He is not saying Tiger Woods badly needs to come to Jesus to save his soul.

HUME: I think that -- that Jesus Christ offers Tiger Woods something that Tiger Woods badly needs.

(LAUGHTER)

STEWART: Time machine?

(LAUGHTER)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: By the way, to be fair to Brit Hume, he did later say that he was not trying to belittle the Buddhist faith.

Here is what I want to do with this. I, like Mr. Hume, have to be honest and admit that I really don't know much about Buddhism. Really don't. However, unlike Mr. Hume, I am not going to go on national television and try to explain what is right or what is wrong with Buddhism compared to perhaps my religion or any other religion for that matter, because again, I'm not an expert. I don't know a lot about Buddhism, but this I can tell you, I would love to know more about Buddhism and think that this is maybe a great opportunity to do so, thanks to Brit Hume. So let's do it.

Joining me now is Ethan Nichtern who does know a lot about Buddhism, because he is a scholar who has written about it, and I understand -- correct me if I am wrong -- are you Buddhist?

ETHAN NICHTERN, BUDDHIST TEACHER: I am, definitely.

SANCHEZ: Let me ask you, first of all, about the statement. Let's start there. This is what he says, and I think that you heard it, but let's go over it. He says that, "He is said to be a Buddhist. I don't think that faith offers that kind of forgiveness and redemption that is offered by the Christian faith." What is your reaction to that statement?

NICHTERN: Well, I definitely don't want to speak for all Buddhists, but I do think that when I look at what Buddhism is, it is basically a system of meditation techniques and psychological teachings for working with skillfully with emotions and stress. And then it is an ethical system for how to take care of yourself and take care of others around you. And that whole system adds up to a process for creating greater self-awareness and understanding which to my mind is the very essence of redemption and forgiveness. So, and then the idea -- go ahead.

HUME: Well, I just -- I am curious, do you believe in any way, some people have offered that Mr. Hume was presumptive to say what he said, because he says, he says, he is said to be, and he says, "I don't think that faith offers that kind of forgiveness and redemption." Just taking his statement, before we start on discussion about Buddhism, as a Buddhist, do you think it was presumptive?

NICHTERN: I think it's inaccurate, and it may have come from not having complete awareness of what Buddhism is or what it teaches or all the different forms of Buddhist teachings there are and I don't know what the motives are.

HUME: That is fine and I think that is perfectly fair. By the way, he is a good guy and a hard-working guy and a darn good journalist and if I was to judge everyone by the fact that they have made a mistake from time to time, my next segment would be on me and it would be longer than this one.

So, his premise seems to be, and this is where I can learn about Buddhism -- his premise, it seems to be that Buddhism is as good a religion of redemption -- is not as good I should say -- is not as good a religion for redemption and forgiveness as Christianity is. Is there anything to back that up, is that true? Is Christianity better than Buddhism as far as redemption and forgiveness goes?

NICHTERN: You know, a whole half of my greater extended family is Christian, but I definitely am not a comparative religion scholar enough to know. I know a lot of great Christians and I know a lot of great Buddhists and I know a lot of confused Christians and some confused Buddhists, too, so I'm not -- I don't feel qualified to do a comparative statement.

SANCHEZ: That's fine. You know what, I appreciate the honesty. By the way, is there anything wrong with Hume saying that Tiger would do well to become a Christian?

NICHTERN: I mean, I think when I think about forgiveness, in my way of thinking about that statement, if that is what he wants Tiger to achieve, that has a lot to do with open mindedness and primarily whatever tradition or whatever spiritual or religious or psychological tradition a person is practicing, forgiveness to me really is about acceptance. It doesn't come across to me as a self-accepting --

SANCHEZ: You wouldn't think there was anything wrong with that, right? I mean, you wouldn't think, on its face -- all he's saying there is look, I am a Christian and I love Christianity and I love Jesus Christ and come and join me, it will be great.

You know on its face, there it doesn't seem to be a problem with that statement. Where I think that we need more answers is where he seems to imply that Buddhism is not a good faith for someone who is looking for forgiveness. So let me just ask you flat out, answer the question as best you can.

NICHTERN: That is something.

SANCHEZ: Can you be -- let me ask you the question, and then you answer it. Is Buddhism a good place to look for redemption or forgiveness? Does it offer it?

NICHTERN: I think that it definitely does, especially meditation practice, I think a lot of people who study mediation and practice it regularly feel that it is a great way to become more in touch with your own mind and your own heart and see what things, what patterns you may have gotten into in the past that you may want to change or let go about yourself and actually work with those in a very personal and direct and ongoing way.

And it is a very gentle system for working with your own mind, and also I think what I want to say and I think part of what is a little bit maybe bothering me about the frame of the conversation is it acts like Buddhism and Christianity are two, it is a dichotomy, that there is an oppositional force between them, which I think a lot of the Buddhist meditational techniques can be practiced by anybody of any faith. I think if a Christian minister learns mindfulness meditation and loving kindness techniques and the techniques that are in Buddhism can be of great help in their faith too. It is more of a system of self-transformation.

SANCHEZ: It sounds like Buddhism as you described it is a very accepting faith, a very accepting religion.

NICHTERN: Yes.

SANCHEZ: We thank you for taking us through this. Look, we wanted to use this as an opportunity to be able to learn something, and I think you have taught us a thing or two. My thanks once again for coming on and taking us through this.

NICHTERN: Thanks for having me.

SANCHEZ: By the way, we've got a lot of feedback on this, and we are going to be checking on that in just a little bit as well. We've also got an amazing exchange that we just picked up on Twitter. Remember, I will be checking these lists of seeing who is newsworthy and who is talking about what. This is between Arenas, the basketball player who is in a lot of trouble, and Al Sharpton. Wait until you hear this exchange between these two guys. Stay there, I will be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SANCHEZ: Well, we are getting a lot of comments since we just had that conversation. And again, it was meant to be explanatory. It was meant as an opportunity for us to maybe be able to learn things that we didn't know. Let's go to the Twitter board, if we possibly can, Robert. First one says, "Buddhism sounds very accepting towards others, not like them. I admire that in a belief."

Regarding Buddhism and Christianity, Catholic monk Arthur Thomas Merton (ph) saw areas of common grounds and wrote about them. We are happy to know that.

The next one says, "Buddhism is a wonderful and forgiving religion unlike your Christianity." That is kid of an interesting way for a religious person to speak.

And then don't Buddhists believe in coming back to life? I don't want to be a tree. Trees become toilet paper, so sad. Well, huh, takes all kinds. We thank you for the comments, and we will continue to share.

By the way, we are trying to get to this next segment, because we've got something coming up I really want to share with you. There is a bold robber who poses as an average shopper and then walks his loot out of the very front door, and guess what? The police are looking for this guy. He has done it repeatedly, and they can't find him.

And then, Rick's List, there is a brouhaha you might say that started out between the Reverend Al Sharpton and Gilbert Arenas, the basketball player, who is in a whole lot of trouble. In fact, today, we learned he may be even in more trouble, but this war between them on the Twitter, I'm going to share it with you. It gets kind of ugly. Be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SANCHEZ: You have to like this Rick's List. Welcome back to your national conversation.

If you are checking in to see what we have on Rick's List, boy, do I have a doozie for you. An apparently Twitter face-off between Reverend Al Sharpton and Gilbert Arenas about that Washington Wizards locker room gun incident. All right, should we start with Sharpton? Let's start with Sharpton.

Let's start with what he Tweets and then I will take you back and forth. First of all, this is Sharpton. "I am still concerned about all of this gun play is OK in the atmosphere of pro sports. This incident in the Wizards' locker room sends bad signal to young fans. Whatever did or didn't happen, we cannot make guns acceptable to our youth. I spoke to NBA commissioner Stern about it."

Now, let's go to arenas. "Al Sharpton comments, I will try to be as nice as he was to me on my tweet." This is Arenas now talking about Al Sharpton. "For a kid who does a lot of work for the black community," referring to himself, "I didn't get the memo you were still one of our black leaders, because if you was, you wouldn't have made a comment like that before getting all of the facts straight. All of the facts straight. I have my black leaders tattooed on my leg, and I call it Black Rushmore."

This is Gilbert Arenas firing back at Al Sharpton for criticizing what the scandal that he is involved in now. And by the way, we are going to be letting you know exactly what is going on with the story. It doesn't seem to want to go away.

Let me reset something else for you if we possibly can. As we started this newscast today, we had new information on the bomber, the Detroit alleged, Detroit bomber who was caught trying to blow up a bomb in his underwear of all things. The indictment has just come down. I have got it. I will be sharing it with you.

Stay there, I will be right back

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SANCHEZ: Welcome back.

I wanted to let you know that we have, in fact, received the indictment for Abdulmutallab, who tried to according to the Feds blow up that plane coming to the United States. There is the picture of him. Go ahead and come over here, Robert. Let's go through the last counts if we possibly can. Have you got them over my shoulder here, Johnny? OK. Let's go through them. This is count three, willful attempt to destroy and wreck an aircraft within the special aircraft jurisdiction of the United States. Again, this is the actual indictment that I received just as I was ready to go on air. Some of the parts of it, and this is the last part of it.

Let me go through count four, willfully placing a destructive device in upon in the proximity of an aircraft within the special aircraft jurisdiction of the United States, which was likely to endanger the safety of such aircraft. Interesting wording, isn't it?

Possession of a firearm destructive in furtherance of a crime of violence. Count five and finally, I believe there is a count six, there it is, final count against him, possession of a firearm destructive in furtherance of a crime of violence.

So there you have it. Six counts, and essentially, they're throwing the book at him as we expected. The indictment is in and we will continue to follow that for you as well, and a lot of other news, like this.

This is an irate customer. He's caught on a surveillance camera. Have you ever had one of those days? Well, you are going to see this one play out. And then guess who is joining me today? My fave, Roland Martin. I could hang out with this guy forever. We probably would argue forever. He has got homeland security and the census on his mind, and something special we are holding back. Stay right there, and we will be right back.

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SANCHEZ: Whoa, we got breaking news once again. Just well three or four seconds ago, I was informed that the NBA has put out a statement. You know, Commissioner David Stern, he's usually been a pretty serious guy about stuff like this. Look, this does not look good for the NBA, and I think the commissioner knows that. And look what just happened. I just got it over my shoulder. Johnny, can you get in with this? I'm going to read this cold on the air. I haven't seen it. Don't know what the commissioner's decision is on this, but -- let's read it together. Let's read it together. Let's see what it says. Have we got Roland? Is Roland standing by? All right, Roland and I are going to be getting into this as well.

National Basketball Association Commissioner David Stern -- "the possession of firearms by an NBA player in an NBA arena is a matter of the utmost concern to us. I initially thought it prudent to refrain from taking immediate action because of the tendency of a criminal investigation involving the office of the United States attorney in the District of Columbia and the metropolitan police, and in consideration of this matter by a grand jury," blah blah blah. "For the same reason, I directed the Wizards, the Baltimore Wizards, to refrain -- or Washington Wizards," right? "To refrain from taking any access. Wizards' personnel continued to be interviewed by law enforcement. Some are scheduled for appearance and the grand jury proceeding with the intensity which one would expect for such a serious incident." Reading on. Boy, this is hard to do the way this is.

OK, here we go. I think we got to the bottom here. "Although it is clear that that the actions of Mr. Arenas will ultimately result in a substantial suspension and perhaps worse, his ongoing conduct has led me to conclude that he is not currently fit to take the court in an NBA game." Folks, he's being suspended. He's out of here.

"Accordingly I am suspending Mr. Arenas indefinitely without pay, effective immediately, pending the completion of the investigation by the NBA." They're throwing the book at him, folks. "I am suspending Mr. Arenas indefinitely without pay, pending the completion of the investigation by the NBA."

Roland Martin is standing by now to bring us his -- I'm sure you've been following this story.

ROLAND MARTIN, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Yes.

SANCHEZ: We have here a lot of folks have been following this. It's an interesting case, it's specially the way Arenas himself has been reacting, then his tit for tat with Sharpton. And now this for Stern. Put it all together for us, your thoughts, your take.

MARTIN: Well first of all, keep in mind, David Stern has gotten a lot of criticism because he was being silent. He alluded to that in that particular statement. But there's no doubt in my mind he recognized the seriousness of this nature because it's known by many NBA players that the locker room is their inner -- it's their sanctuary. And so you don't do that.

Arenas, he said, well, this was a joke, and so he does not understand the seriousness of this. So Stern recognizes that you are damaging the product, the NBA. Not only that, the Washington Wizards used to be known as the Washington Bullets. The former owner, Abe Pollin, who just died changed the name because he did not want that the name in a city where their murder rate was so high. So you have history there as well, so Arenas was nuts playing around with this.

SANCHEZ: I don't understand why a guy would need to carry not one, but three or four guns as is being alleged. But hold your thought on that, because I really want to talk about this and I also want to talk about the Sharpton thing. Let's get like a 45-second break in, folks. I swear, we'll be back in some 50-some seconds, I'm told. Stay right there, I've got Roland Martin. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SANCHEZ: Look at what Reverend Al Sharpton says. By the way, for those of you just now joining us, Arenas, the basketball player with all the guns in the locker room, allegedly, has just been suspended, effective immediately, pending the completion of an investigation, without pay, so says the commissioner.

Here's what Al Sharpton tweeted earlier today. He says "This incident sends in the Wizards locker room sends bad signals to young fans. Whatever did or didn't happen, we cannot make guns acceptable to our youth." He says he spoke to David Stern. You know, he's essentially saying to Arenas, you're making us look bad, man. Is he right?

MARTIN: Well first of all, he is right, because also, take it a little bit further. And that is, more black men, young black men die as a result of gun violence in this country every single year than anything else. And so what Al Sharpton is saying, here you are, a role model, an NBA player, folks wear your jersey and this is the kind of action? Again, Plaxico Burress carries a gun in a club, shoots himself in the leg, now sitting in prison. There have been a number of other gun incidents involving NBA players. Some guys say, hey, we're targets.

Look, I just spent time in Miami with several NBA players down there for vacation, and look, not a single one of them said, hey, this makes sense. They all said this is stupid, his actions were stupid, and they made no sense whatsoever. And so I'd be surprised -- here's what you should watch out for, Rick.

SANCHEZ: By the way, just wanted to let the viewers know, this guy makes $111 million.

MARTIN: Well first of all, over several years. It's not a Rush Limbaugh contract.

SANCHEZ: But I wouldn't complain with that.

MARTIN: Here is the other piece though. The Wizards could very well void the contract. That's one thing. But the thing to watch out for, will the NBA Players Association appeal the Stern ruling? That's going to be a real interesting thing to watch out for. If they do that, because oftentimes they do. Latrell Sprewell choked his coach, they appealed that, and actually won. This is going to be a little bit different, I think.

SANCHEZ: What do you make of Arenas even just -- we've been following -- you know, we do this thing called "Rick's List." I think a lot of people are starting to learn about this. And we've been following relevant people. Arenas, he's been on our list every day for the last four days. He's tweeting like a mad man about this, unapologetic until last night around 7:00 when I checked my list.

MARTIN: This shows how some people are stupid. Common sense is no longer common. And so Gilbert Arenas clearly did not understand that he was putting a $100 million contract in jeopardy. You also don't play with the product. He is not bigger than the Wizards or the NBA. They will cut him in a heartbeat. So he has to understand that. So -- I bet he understands it now, but whoever was advising him, they were clearly idiots. And if they were advising him right, and he wasn't listening, guess what? The joke is now on you, Gilbert Arenas, and you can sit at home and now wonder if you're going to have a career and have a big contract.

SANCHEZ: We're down to about 45 or 50 seconds on that. The news is that Gilbert Arenas has been suspended from the NBA. We're with Roland Martin. Do you think he doesn't understand how serious this thing is?

MARTIN: Well first of all, if you're constantly tweeting, and you're joking about it, not taking it seriously, the first rule -- keep your mouth shut in any crisis. Keep your mouth shut, show humility, apologize profusely. He didn't do any of that. And so he was simply blowing it off. Guess what? He can't play around with it.

My advice -- stop tweeting, stop talking, go sit your butt down and get with a crisis intervention team because you have some serious heat that you're now facing. And look, this thing could go on and on. It doesn't mean he's going to be back on the court in a couple weeks. And I wouldn't be surprised if the NBA bars him from the all-star game and other things as well.

SANCHEZ: I'll tell you. Roland, you know what I like about you? You're always afraid to say things.

MARTIN: Hey, just cut to the chase.

SANCHEZ: Roland Martin, my guest. Thanks for helping us through this breaking news.

Let's take it now to Wolf Blitzer, who is standing by in "THE SITUATION ROOM."