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CNN Larry King Live

Interview with Rudy Giuliani; Family Pledges to Lose Weight Together

Aired January 09, 2010 - 21:00   ET

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

LARRY KING, HOST: Tonight, Rudy Giuliani. He saw New York through a terror attack that brought America's biggest city to its knees. How does he think President Obama is handling the crisis that confronts America today? He is here to tell us.

And then, their bodies are their prisons, defined by morbid obesity that could kill them. Connie Wilson is still battling. So is The Biggest Loser winner. And a family that weighs a ton telling us how they're fighting the war against weight.

Next on LARRY KING LIVE.

(MUSIC)

KING: We begin with the former mayor of New York, Rudy Giuliani. He sought the Republican nomination for the presidency in 2008. Lots to talk about. What about, you are not going to run for governor, you are going to run for Senate? What is next for you?

RUDY GIULIANI, FORMER MAYOR, NEW YORK: What is next for me is continuing to build my two businesses, Giuliani Partners and Bracewell & Giuliani. I'm involved with a security consulting company. We're doing security, various parts of the world. And a worldwide law firm, Bracewell & Giuliani. I'm very busy, having a great time and not the time to leave, too many things going on.

KING: Might you consider it sometime down the road?

GIULIANI: Yeah, sure, sure. You never know. Life is -- what I found is life changes and politics changes. And who knows what is going on happen. But right now I am involved in so many things. We are getting involved in doing security for the Olympics and the World Cup in Brazil, a bunch of other projects like that in other parts of the world. I'm involved with my firm in a lot of cases. I'm very active and I'm enjoying myself which is the most important thing in life, right?

KING: You're not kidding. All right, let's get to things current. The Detroit terror suspect indicted today. Liz Cheney and some other Republicans say he should be classifieds an enemy combatant before a military tribunal. Now you were a prosecutor. What do you think of trying him in the criminal courts?

GIULIANI: Well, I don't think it's really a question of trying him so much as the opportunity that was lost. I think the president made a very big mistake in not making him an enemy combatant because the minute you make him a criminal justice defendant, you cut off the ability to really question him. In fact, as far as I know, I don't know the inside story here, he went talking until he went out and got him a lawyer, cut him off from talking.

You want to talk to this guy for about a month. You want to keep him an enemy combatant for about a month or two to get all the intelligence he is willing to give you because that intelligence could be about other possible attacks on the United States.

And I really believe the president and Attorney General Holder really should rethink this. They should really rethink this rigid commitment to the criminal justice system. After all, this guy came from outside the country. What he was planning was an attack on America. This is a war-like act. He should not be treated like a domestic criminal.

KING: Can you later treat someone as a military combatant and then later try them criminally?

GIULIANI: You can do anything you want. The Justice Department could move him around in all different ways. The reality is, in this particular case, he should have been treated as an enemy combatant.

After all, the president and the attorney general have authorized military tribunals. Now if you are going to have military tribunals and you're going to try some people in a military tribunal, somebody who comes to the United States with a bomb to blow up an airplane in one of our cities, should be treated as a wartime criminal, not like a domestic criminal. That may be an academic dispute for some people. But here is the difference. If you treat him as a criminal justice defendant, you cannot question him the same way as you can question him if he's an enemy combatant. And we want to know, I'd like to know everything he knows. I'd like us to have the benefit. And he sounds like somebody that you could crack pretty easily. It sounded like he wanted to talk and we cut it off.

KING: What did you make of the president's strong statement yesterday of security measures and the like and tightening them up?

GIULIANI: I think the president has to make a major correction in the way he is dealing with terrorism because I think he has mishandled the situation. First of all, it was 10 days too late. This is something you react to immediately, not 10 days later after your vacation. The president of the United States, when there is a potential massive attack on this country, which is what this guy was going to do, should have been on top of this immediately, not 10 days later, 11 days later, 12 days later.

We should have had our response ready. After all, this is not an unexpected act. We are in the age of terrorism. We don't need 10 days to respond or figure out our response. All that does, I believe, is convince our enemies that we are not ready, that we are pondering too much and thinking too much. So, you know, there is -- you want to take some time. But this has been an extraordinarily long time given the magnitude of this kind of attack. KING: President Bush took six days once in a similar incident.

GIULIANI: Well, six days is less than 10. And the reality is that President Bush was criticized for taking -- what was it, like 20 or 30 minutes in delaying his response to September 11th. And I believe that six days was before the September 11th attack.

I think one of the things that I note about the administration, that I believe there's time for them to change this. I mean, President Kennedy famously by his own admission mishandled the Bay of Pigs early on in his presidency and learned from it.

I hope the president has the whatever leadership qualities or whatever to learn from the mistakes that he has made in the way that he has handled this. He delayed too long in responding to it. His response has been too tentative.

The reality is the very first descriptions by the administration were entirely inaccurate, including the suggestion that everything worked which doesn't give people a lot of confidence. Maybe from now on, there will be a quicker response and a more accurate one.

KING: Bush waited six days on the shoe bomber.

GIULIANI: That's correct.

KING: Do you think heads should roll here Rudy or is it too soon?

GIULIANI: That is up for the president to decide. I don't know enough of the internal situation here to tell you that people deliberately missed things or they mishandled things, and it looks like they did. But I can't tell you which ones. I think the president has got to take the responsibility for his own response, which has been very much delayed and extremely tentative. There is enough time for anybody in Yemen who might think that we are going to respond to it to go somewhere else by now. It's been a long time to deal with it.

KING: All right how about since 9/11, we have been talking about both administrations connecting the dots. We still haven't really put it all together in all honest, right, Rudy?

GIULIANI: Well we haven't, no. It's clear from both the Ft. Hood attack and this attack, there is something seriously wrong here. And here I would say, this is not in any way a criticism of just this administration. This is an enormously complex thing to do. And we haven't gotten it right yet. We haven't given it enough priority to the correct situation. Now, it may seem easier in retrospect to kick them out. It's easier once somebody is caught with one of these bombs or somebody runs into Ft. Hood and starts killing people to figure it out.

But when you see what was available on both of these people, the guy in Ft. Hood clearly should have been somebody that should have been thrown out of the army a long time before he ever had access to the base and this guy never should have been allowed on the airplane. And you wonder what the heck is going on that we can't spot these things.

KING: Former mayor of New York, Rudy Giuliani, we will talk about Sarah Palin, the future of his party and more, ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RICHARD HEENE, FATHER OF BALLOON BOY: This was not a hoax. We had searched the house high and low. And --

FALCON HEENE, BALLOON BOY: we did this for the show.

KING: You're swearing that none of that was staged.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: I want to remind you that Richard Heene, the father who led the whole country to believe his son was trapped in a runaway balloon, will be here Friday night, his first interview since he was sentenced to jail. He says it wasn't a hoax. That's Friday night's LARRY KING LIVE.

Our guest is Mayor Rudy Giuliani. Mayor, a study out of Duke University released today says that the threat posed by radicalized Muslim Americans has been exaggerated. Do you favor profiling?

GIULIANI: Well, you know, it depends on how you define profiling. You profile when you make a logical deduction about who the suspect is. If somebody calls me up and tells me that a person who just committed the crime is a 6'2" blonde guy, well then you look for 6'2" blond guys. And if you get a thousand reports like that, those are the people that you look for. So of course, you have to profile in the sense that you have to some criteria for what you're looking for. And if in fact, the major threat that is occurring comes from misguided, perverted Muslims, meaning people who are perverting the religion, then there is nothing wrong with putting more attention on that area than some other area. Otherwise, you're wasting a lot of resources and a lot of time. So it depends on whether the profiling is rationally based or its based on some kind of an unfair prejudice.

KING: And could that be a delicate line though?

GIULIANI: It is a delicate line. But if you take away the ability to use rational analysis for determining where the threats are coming from, you are putting yourself in great danger. I mean, the reality is, if in fact the threat is 90 percent coming from one area, and roughly 90 percent of your attention should be in that area. That isn't prejudice. That is rational sensible reaction to a set of facts and leads you in that direction. You couldn't solve any crimes unless you did that.

KING: The Justice Department has decided to try the accused 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Muhammad in New York City. Let's listen to what the president said and I'll have you comment.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I'm absolutely convinced that Khalid Sheikh Muhammad will be subject to the most exacting demands of justice. The American people will insist on it and my administration will insist on it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Now Rudy, that's your city. You have tried cases there. They know how to do it in New York.

GIULIANI: They sure do.

KING: What are you concerned about?

GIULIANI: I think this could be one of the worst mistakes that any president has ever made.

KING: Why?

GIULIANI: Well first of all, he has military tribunals for other terrorists. If you are going to have military tribunals, then they obviously also can provide justice.

KING: If the crime was committed there, wouldn't you feel that all the people who lost relatives want that man tried in their city on their territory?

GIULIANI: Actually Larry, most of those people, not all, you never have all -- most of those people would rather see him tried in a military court. So the president didn't take their wishes into consideration. There is no question it adds a level of threat to New York, not the only kind of threat New York has, a tremendous burden. The mayor is asking for a significant amount of money to have to deal with this. I had to close down New York when we had similar trials when I was the mayor and it cost me a lot of time, a lot of attention.

And the reality is you're also by using this method, cutting yourself off from getting intelligence like he has done with the situation in Detroit. So I think is one of the big mistakes he has made. And the reality is, both he and the attorney general have already announced that this guy is guilty and I think one of them has said he's probably going to get executed.

So I mean, I don't know what they are talking about in terms of a fair trial. And I don't know what happens if he gets acquitted. The president of the United States can't be saying to the world, we're going to give him a fair trial, but he's going to get convicted.

So if we're doing this for public relations and creating these burdens on ourselves, I don't see why we want to do that. This man organized an attack from outside the United States on the United States. It was an attack very much like Pearl Harbor and nobody would have ever thought of prosecuting the people who attacked Pearl Harbor in a civilian court. President Lincoln didn't do that. President Roosevelt didn't do that, President Bush didn't do that. I don't know why President Obama wants to do that.

KING: Back with Rudy Giuliani in 60 seconds.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: Back with Rudy Giuliani. The president is fighting two wars, trying to keep the country safe at home. What kind of message does it send when the former vice president openly says that he is not seriously fighting the war? Do you think it's a good idea what Dick Cheney did?

GIULIANI: You know, Larry, nobody was really concerned about that when everybody criticized President Bush day in and day out including Democrats calling him all kinds of names when he was trying to prosecute the war in Iraq. And the reality is, that's just part of the First Amendment, part of debate. Vice President Cheney is entitled to his view. I share some of them. I don't share all of them.

My hope is -- and I really mean this. I hope that this administration does a mid-course correction much like President Clinton did, which I always thought essentially showed President Clinton's practicality in terms of being fair. I think he has gone way too far to the left, President Obama. President Clinton had some of those problems early in his administration. He made a mid-course correction and then accomplished a lot of good things -- welfare reform, other things like that, criminal justice reform.

I hope President Obama is in a learning process and we see a change for the good of the country. Forget partisan politics. I would like to see him reverse his decision on the trial in New York. And I would like to him treat these people who are trying to attack this country as enemy combatants so that we can get the maximum amount of information out of them. If he made corrections like that, I think that would show great leadership.

KING: You are in the security business. What do you make of the Newark airport, right next door to you, the breach last Sunday. We now learned that cameras were running, but they weren't recording. The TSA takes full responsibility. How do they let that happen?

GIULIANI: You know, these things happen and they shouldn't happen and we need a lot more concentration on it. And you know, I think maybe one of the good things that can come out of the situation that just happened in Detroit, which thank God didn't involve the loss of life is this can act as a wake-up call for us. We've become too lackadaisical since September 11th.

The threat to this country is just as great now as it was then. September 11 is not part of our history yet. It's still part of present. The same forces that wanted to attack us then, ideological misperceptions that were present then are present now. And we have got to invest a lot of our time and effort in making ourselves secure and you know, I think maybe we have become a little too lackadaisical, which may account for not connecting some of the dots for some of these mistakes that are occurring.

KING: When we come back, we'll ask Rudy Giuliani about guess what, politics. Don't be shocked. Don't go away, we'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: Let's get into some politics with Rudy Giuliani, the former mayor of New York. What do you make of Chris Dodd bowing out today?

GIULIANI: Well I guess it sounds to me like he's doing that probably for the good of the party, since they think they have a stronger candidate. Of course, I hope that gives us an opportunity, meaning the Republicans, to pick up a seat in Connecticut. I think the opportunity is out there for Republicans in this election year, are pretty darn good. You see all these Democrats resigning, opening up seats. An open seat is always easier to take than an incumbent seat. So who knows what it's going to be like in November. But right now, as a Republican, I'm feeling pretty good about the pickups that we can make this year.

KING: And Byron Dorgan also will not run.

GIULIANI: Yes, there's another one. I think that may be an example of what the president having pushed the agenda a little too far to the left, which is what I was saying before. We'll have to see if the president makes a correction or not because he is putting a lot of these seats, it seems to me, he's putting them in jeopardy, particularly in the House where you have a lot of Democrats sitting in districts that were Republican districts up until the last election or the one before that.

KING: All right, now your own party. Is Sarah Palin viable in the face of your party now?

GIULIANI: Sure. Gosh, who knows three years before a presidential election who the face of our party is. Sarah Palin is extremely popular, she's extremely articulate. She's somebody who's run for vice president and she has the right to make her case to the Republican Party, which will all happen after 2010.

But she certainly generates an enormous amounts of enthusiasm. Larry, I took her a baseball game last year. Judith and I took her to a baseball game at Yankee Stadium in the Bronx, which you know is Democratic territory and she got an absolutely great response. Everybody wanted to take a -- even the Democrats wanted to take pictures with her.

KING: It's a good sign. There is a "New York Times" report today that Democrat Harold Ford was moved to New York. Maybe will run the primary against the senator who replaced Hillary Clinton. Now we know that you can come into New York and win. Hillary Clinton, Robert Kennedy and others. Can Harold Ford be a viable New York candidate?

GIULIANI: I know Harold and I see him quite a bit at different things. New York is a place where we have a history like that. If we were talking about some other state, I would say that is a tough thing to do. It's a tough thing to come in and at least immediately run for the Senate. You can't run for governor in New York, you have to have a five-year residency. But you can run for the Senate. But gosh, I guess in New York, anything is possible.

KING: Why didn't you run for governor?

GIULIANI: I didn't want to leave my business and law firm right now. I took a lot of time off to run for president. A lot of things got disorganized. I put them back together. We are in the middle of and on the verge of doing a lot of exciting things like the thing in Brazil. My firm has grown. I started the New York office of Bracewell & Giuliani four years ago and it's gone from three lawyers to 70.

And we are continuing to grow. So this wasn't the right time to do it. It creates a tremendous amount of disruption in your business life. And I guess, I was enthusiastic about what I was doing. But that doesn't mean I'm not tremendously interested, I'm not going to help Republicans to the extent that they want my help and that I'm not going to be involved in all these issues because they are part of me.

KING: Republicans are constantly accused by the other side of being only negative. So tell me something you like about the president.

GIULIANI: Well I like the fact that he dealt with Afghanistan in the right way. I think that he had a tough choice to make. I did think he took a little too long in make, but that may be his decision style. But I support his realization and his acting on this campaign promise to make Afghanistan a priority.

I respect him as a leader. I think he has got enormous abilities to communicate. I wish he would use it for purposes that I agree with more. I hope -- and this I don't know about him because I don't know Barack Obama personally. I don't know the balance between ideology and practicality.

I worked for Ronald Reagan and Ronald Reagan is often described as a highly ideological, very right wing. Ronald Reagan was one of the most practical people I ever met and had an understanding that if you can get half a loaf, it's better than getting nothing. If you can get 60 percent or 70 percent, you probably won. You rarely get 100 percent.

I hope Barack Obama has that same capacity to readjust himself and having gone what I regard as too far to the left.

KING: One other thing, Rudy. How do you regard your old foe Senator Clinton as secretary of state?

GIULIANI: Well, I admire the job that she's doing. It's a very difficult job particularly for someone who has run for president, run against Barack Obama. I think she is doing -- from what I can tell, I don't know the internals of what goes on there, I think she is doing a good job. I've disagreed with Hillary Clinton quite often, but I have tremendous respect for her.

KING: Always good to see you, Rudy, we'll see you in New York.

GIULIANI: Thank you, Larry.

KING: Mayor Rudy Giuliani, the former mayor of New York City.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: Welcome back. Carnie Wilson is here, singer, entertainer and host of "The Newlywed Game" on GSN, and star of the new reality series "Carnie Wilson Unstapled," which, by the way, premiers January 14th on GSN. She underwent gastric bypass surgery in 1999.

Jillian Michaels is back. She's a health and wellness expert and trainer on NBC's "The Biggest Loser." She's the author, by the way, of "Master Your Metabolism."

Let's begin by taking a look at a clip from Carnie's new reality show "Carnie Unstapled."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CARNIE WILSON, "CARNIE UNSTAPLED": I don't know about this one. With my very pale calves.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Let me try something.

WILSON: Can't breathe.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This will help give you the waist.

WILSON: The waist I don't have?

Do I feel like I'm going to lift off?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We can tweak the sleeves a little. Let me give you something else.

WILSON: Do you like it? Whoa. I feel like I'm about to go to the prom. Veins coming out. I hate mirrors.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Carnie, why has weight been such a problem to you?

WILSON: Oh, gosh.

KING: Looking back, why?

WILSON: It's been my Achilles' heel. It's my life story.

KING: As a kid?

WILSON: Oh, yeah, four years old, yeah. I think that it will probably always be a struggle. I think that I've been up. I've been down. It might be that way forever. I crave and strive for balance.

KING: How up have you been?

WILSON: I've been up to over 300 pounds.

KING: How down?

WILSON: I've been low as 148, 146.

KING: Don't you miss the 148?

WILSON: Yeah. I mean, I miss maybe wearing a size six. But, you know, what I don't miss is having, you know, things associated with morbid obesity. I was very, very sick at 300 pounds. And I had sleep apnea. I had high blood pressure, high cholesterol. I was pre- diabetic. My liver was inflamed. I was in really, really bad, poor health at 31. I have none of those now. So I'm very grateful.

KING: Jillian, amazing statistic, two thirds of adults, 67 percent, are overweight or obese. With all the emphasis on the shows, your show, the rest, why?

MICHAELS: I actually believe it's a matter of economics. And, of course, people that are prone to that type of self-destruction. We all have dysfunction. I think it manifests in different ways for many people.

KING: Sixty seven percent?

MICHAELS: I really do believe that's a matter of economics. When I say that, I think it's because Americans don't realize what they're eating. Now, you know, with the dollar menu, everybody is struggling to make ends meet. When you can get a burger and fries for a buck, I think it's difficult. I think that's a huge part of the problem.

WILSON: I agree. I don't think -- I mean, I wouldn't say obesity is a dysfunction. I mean, obesity is a disease. There's definitely people that are predisposed --

KING: Childhood obesity, is that a disease? The kid wants French Fries.

WILSON: I think there's a huge genetic component here. If there's a child that has the obesity gene -- they have discovered that there is -- if they eat that stuff, by the time they're 12, 13, 14, they'll be more obese than other people.

KING: What was gastric bypass surgery like?

WILSON: It was life save -- it was life saving.

KING: How many pounds did it take off?

WILSON: It took off 150.

KING: In one operation?

WILSON: No, no. It was over the course of a year and a half, with obviously much less calories taken in, mixed with exercise and a definite change of lifestyle. I have changed my lifestyle. I don't eat fried foods anymore. Sugar is hard. But I could snack all day long and the weight can creep up. It's not an answer or a cure for morbid obesity. But it's definitely a cure for Type II Diabetes, and it took away all my comorbidities.

But I strive for health. I'm not perfect. My message is that I'm not perfect. I strive for balance.

KING: Exercise is just one of the instruments. Right?

MICHAELS: Absolutely.

KING: It's your baby, but it's one of the instruments.

MICHAELS: You can eat your way through any amount of exercise. A piece of pizza is 500 calories and so is an hour on the treadmill.

WILSON: Right, true. Calories in, calories out.

MICHAELS: Without a doubt. Exercise accelerates weight loss. It, In my opinion, is number one form of preventive medicine. You shouldn't skip exercise. But it is not the sole solution. It's a combination of diet, exercise, doing the emotional work, taking care of yourself internally as well.

KING: A man who lost more than half his body weight and gained a brand new life is here. The latest "Biggest Loser" winner is next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: OK, Carnie and Jillian remain, and Danny Cahill joins us, the winner of the eighth season of NBC's "The Biggest Loser." Get this, Danny lost 239 pounds, more than half his body weight. He lost 56 percent of his body weight. Let's take a look at how he did it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Danny, your starting weight is 430 pounds.

DANNY CAHILL, "THE BIGGEST LOSER": This thing has stolen my life. I want my life back.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Look at that word, believe, okay? Right there.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do it! Press. One more.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Let's go. Pop it.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Danny C. is a freak.

CAHILL: I'm not afraid to believe that I can do what I need to do.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Maybe the greatest "Biggest Loser" ever. When you look at that now, and you look at your 460 pound self, what do you think?

CAHILL: I remember what it felt like and it hurt. It did hurt. I was terribly unhealthy. I had high blood pressure.

KING: How did it get to that?

CAHILL: You know, it was a combination of not being mentally right. I put away my dreams, my aspirations for something else. So I stopped making myself a priority. And then it was also, you know, eating the wrong things and not exercising. It was exactly the opposite of what Jillian said. You know, it's a combination of diet and exercise and mine was neither.

KING: Do you fear a reversal of form?

CAHILL: You know, it's --

KING: When you see Carnie talk about up and downs all her life.

CAHILL: I've been there too. This season was called "Second Chance." I was overweight and obese until I was 15. Then I lost about 80 -- 75 to 80 pounds over a summer, because I just put my mind to it and said I'm tired for this. I kept it off for eight, almost nine years.

KING: Then what happened?

CAHILL: Then I -- it started when I got engaged and got comfortable. You know how you get comfortable and kind of -- you know, I got engaged, so I'm going to quit running now. I don't have time to run right now. You know, I started putting away the exercise and I got comfortable and it didn't stop from there. It just escalated.

KING: Jillian, are you comfortable he's set now?

MICHAELS: I'm actually very comfortable. Danny had a psychological shift early on in the show. And we had a moment about it. And I realize that he grasped -- he was capable of more. He believed he was worth it.

KING: Carnie, when you look at something like that, what do you think? You look fantastic.

WILSON: I relate. I -- it's touching. It's moving. It's inspiring. You know, I've been there and I know what it feels like to be completely depleted of all of yourself and your spirit just crashing. Going to feeling that inspiration and that deserving of being in better health.

KING: What about the show did it for you? CAHILL: You know, what the show was, I think, was my accountability. You know, I had reached a point where I was going to do something about it, but -- and I had done things about it a few years before. But I would always retract and stop. And it was lack of accountability.

I think the show -- what the show gave me was the accountability. Hey, you're out there. You know, you have to do it now. You need to be accountable to someone. I was accountable to the whole country.

KING: What do you do for a living?

CAHILL: I was a land surveyor and musician.

KING: Now?

CAHILL: Now I'm doing music and I'm going to do some inspirational motivational speaking and some other things. I want to --

KING: Do you win money on that show?

CAHILL: Yes, I won a 250,000 dollars.

KING: That's a pretty good incentive.

CAHILL: That was a very good incentive. That's not why I went though. I went to get my life back. Then when she's talking about I had the switch, that's when I actually pictured myself, I can do this; I can be the "Biggest Loser."

KING: We're going to meet a family -- they're in North Carolina. Everybody in the family is over 300 pounds. Can you fathom that?

WILSON: Absolutely. It's genetic. That's very common.

MICHAELS: It is -- people are genetically predisposed. But you can control your genetics. Genetics are dynamic. They're not static.

CAHILL: My father was not overweight. My mother was overweight. And, you know, it does tend to run in the family. You can do something about it. You can do something about it. You have to get this right.

KING: We'll take a break and a family that's packed on the pounds wants to put a stop to it all. They want to end eating and stop doing the wrong things. Mom, dad, brother and sister in 60 seconds.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: We're joined by a family now in Indian Trail, North Carolina, that loves each other and losing weight together. Norris Coles, the dad, stars in TLC's "One Big Happy Family," along with his daughter, Amber, his son, Shayne, and mom, Tameka. Each weighs more than 300 pounds. They've decided to get fit as a family without the help of trainers or nutritionists.

Here is a clip from "One Big Happy Family."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TAMEKA COLES, "ONE BIG HAPPY FAMILY": That does kind of make me feel guilty that these are habits they learned early on. Norris and I, I think that we both were to blame.

We got to make some changes.

SHAYNE COLES, "ONE BIG HAPPY FAMILY": I think we should all try together. I need the family's help.

T. COLES: Did you hear that?

S. COLES: I heard it.

T. COLES: OK. Thank you, doctor.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Without his family's cooperation, Shayne is going to be -- Shayne will develop Diabetes within two years unless this entire family works together. As you look at Shayne's mom and you look at Shayne's dad, it's pretty clear to me that the entire family's at risk.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Tamika Coles, how did this start? You're 36 years old. You weigh 380 pounds. How did this start?

T. COLES: Well, you mean as far as the weight gain?

KING: Yeah.

T. COLES: Well, basically, Larry, food is really good. Food is our comfort. It has been forever. And we've always just loved to eat and never really exercise. So the pounds just started adding up and packing on.

KING: Didn't you realize, though, how it was affecting your children?

T. COLES: You know, I've never -- I never really looked at it as me hurting them. I never really looked at it as them really being at risk, until really we went to the doctor's office that day and God basically spoke to my husband, me, and my kids, through the doctors, and that's when the red light went off and said, OK. There's a problem here. And we need to do something about it.

KING: We're going to take break and find out what you're doing and get the thoughts of our panel here in Los Angeles as well. Don't go away.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(NEWS BREAK)

KING: Back to the Coles family. Norris, you're the father and weigh 340 pounds. As a family, what do you try to do together to get rid of this problem?

NORRIS COLES, "ONE BIG HAPPY FAMILY": Well, as a family, Larry, we try to stay focused on basically losing weight. And the way we're doing it is through a buddy system. We're going to the gym. We're watching what we eat. We're eating good food. I mean, we're eating food that's organic. All this stuff is new to us, but it's working.

I mean, we're losing drastic weight. Our confidence is up. Shayne's Diabetes is down. My high blood pressure is down. My cholesterol is down. It's working.

KING: Amber, did you --

N. COLES: My doctor told me to keep to what I'm doing.

KING: Amber, did you want to go on the "The Biggest Loser?"

AMBER COLES, "ONE BIG HAPPY FAMILY": No, I never wanted to go on "The Biggest Loser."

MICHAELS: Who could blame her?

KING: Could they go on as a family, Jillian?

MICHAELS: On "The Biggest Loser," the most we've had is couples so far, parents and kids, brothers and sisters. I'm going to be dealing with families on my new show, "Losing It." So hopefully I could work with a family like that. But it doesn't seem like they need me. It seems like they're doing amazing on their own, and that's really inspirational.

KING: Shayne, you're only 14. Have you -- is it hard for you not to eat those Oreo Cookies?

S. COLES: Actually, at first, it was hard for me not to eat Oreo Cookies. But I realized that it was something I had to do, something I had to change, so I could better myself. I mean, I don't want to die early just for Oreos.

KING: What do you make of this, Carnie?

WILSON: You know, I feel for them. I wish them all the best of luck. I think the buddy system is incredible. They can really inspire each other. I think the main thing to be concerned with is their health, like he was saying. That was a brilliant comment because it is a realization. They have to do it for themselves individually. They can't do it for everybody else, especially because they're on a TV show. I know what that's like to be under a microscope and have the world watch you lose weight or gain weight.

KING: Danny, what do you make as you look at this family? CAHILL: You know, it brings back a lot of memories, because what inspired me to even get up and get moving and get on "The Biggest Loser" was my daughter. My wife became overweight. My daughter came in and said, daddy, I want a belly just like yours. I caught her closet eating like I was her when I was young.

So the fact that they're all going to be accountable to each other, using the buddy system, it works because my wife lost 70 pounds while I was on the show.

KING: Tameka, the mother of all this, are you confident you and the family are going to lick this?

T. COLES: Absolutely. I'm very confident and they're very confident. It's going to happen. Whether we're on the show or not, it's going to happen.

KING: We'll take a break. It's time for home inspection. We're going to look at what's in the Coles' refrigerator after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: Carnie Wilson, Jillian Michaels and Danny Cahill are with us in LA. In Indian Trail, North Carolina, the Coles family, Norris, Tameka, Amber and Shayne. And Tameka is now at the family refrigerator. What's in there? What are you going to show us?

T. COLES: OK, Larry. I'm glad you want to look and see what's in here. Well, now we have a lot of fruits and vegetables, especially like cucumbers. We really love cucumbers. So we eat a lot of these. We have fresh green beans. I like to cook fresh foods.

And everybody knows Norris' favorite, spinach. Now we have spinach in here as well. And we don't use regular cheese anymore. Everything is kind of fat free or low fat. Apples. And we don't use regular, like, miracle whip. We use Mayo with olive oil now.

KING: What's in the freezer?

COLES: In the freezer we have a lot of veggies, a whole bunch of veggies. We do have those times when we have cheap days and we don't want to go out because always stalking us, you know. So we do have times when we cheat. We have these hot dog things. We love these things. They're the bomb. Ground turkey.

KING: No ice cream?

COLES: No ice cream. We had to give up ice cream because they love ice cream too much. They can't have ice cream.

KING: that's impressive, is it not, Carnie?

WILSON: It is. They're on the right track. I know for me, when I have brown rice, lots of veggies, fresh organic food, that I make taste really great, that I'm happy to be eating that food. If it doesn't taste great, then I'm not happy. I don't like to feel deprived. I don't have to be deprived.

KING: What did you Do, Danny, when you're hungry? You're on this big diet but you're hungry.

CAHILL: When I was hungry, you know, I tended to -- what I did was I started to eat more meals throughout the day and a little less calories.

KING: Smaller meals. What do you do, Norris, when you're hungry?

N. COLES: When I'm hungry, what I do, I just eat a Bocca Burger, or I might eat something fresh like a grapefruit or papaya. It's a whole different transition in my brain. So it's working good and I'm sticking with it and I'm getting good results. That's what I do when I'm hungry.

KING: Amber, are you all under doctors care?

A. COLES: Yes. We're all under doctors care. And it's very important. Before we started any of this, we all consulted our doctor.

KING: Shayne, do your classmates make fun of you?

S. COLES: No. My classmates do not make fun of me. My classmates love me, as far as I know. And they're proud of me for making this lifestyle change.

KING: You're very lovable.

WILSON : I love him.

KING: What about exercise, Jillian? Should they be exercising?

MICHAELS: Seems like you guys are exercising. The trick with exercise is it's going to accelerate your weight loss. So Danny lost 100 pounds in, what, eight, seven weeks?

CAHILL: Nine weeks.

MICHAELS: That's exercise. That's totally unrealistic. But the reason it was so fast is because he was exercising so much. I have to advocate exercise, without a doubt.

KING: There they are exercising. Carnie, they put a lot of pressure on themselves by going on television. It could be embarrassing if they gain weight.

WILSON: If they don't lose it or they gain. All I can say is they have to keep in mind that they're doing it for themselves. They're doing it as a family. They're going to inspire people. That's why I had a gastric bypass on the Internet. I wanted people to know that's an option. Medical intervention is an option. It works for some people.

KING: Should they think of gastric bypass?

WILSON: You know, I have to say a very staggering statistic. And that is that only one percent of people that lose over 100 pounds will keep that weight off. And medical intervention is sometimes necessary.

KING: That's hardly encouraging.

WILSON: You know, I applaud them. I encourage them for doing it the right way, which is exercise and diet. However, I did that along with a gastric bypass. That worked for me.

KING: Guys, the best of luck for you. Norris Coles, Tameka Coles, Amber Coles, Shayne Coles. We're going to follow you. We're going to follow you. In six months, I'm going into that refrigerator again. Better not be frozen pizza.

Thank you, Carnie Wilson, Jillian Michaels, Danny Cahill, and the Coles family. Don't forget Carnie's show "Unstapled." It premieres on GSN January 14th. Looking forward to that.