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Piers Morgan Live
Interview with Rick Santorum; The Selling of the President; The Hunt for Joseph Kony
Aired March 08, 2012 - 21:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PIERS MORGAN, CNN HOST: Tonight, Mitt Romney's worst nightmare.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RICK SANTORUM (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: When it becomes a two-person race for the Republican nomination, the conservative will win that nomination.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MORGAN: Rick Santorum tells me how he plans to beat the frontrunner to the nomination.
And President Obama goes all Hollywood. His glitzy new campaign ad and the Oscar winner who made it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TOM HANKS, ACTOR: How do we understand this president and his time in office? Do we look at the day's headlines? Or do we remember what we, as a country, have been through?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MORGAN: Plus, the real story behind the extraordinary video the whole world is talking about.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We fear that if we sleep at home, we can be abducted by the rebels.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MORGAN: Invisible children, the Kony 2012 video already seen by 30 million people and rising fast.
Also, "Only in America," the last word on last meals.
This is PIERS MORGAN TONIGHT.
Good evening. Our "Big Story" tonight, Rick Santorum doubles down. If you thought the candidate would back off of his tough talk, well, just listen to what he's been saying on the campaign trail. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SANTORUM: What's wrong with America's government today, and what is sickening the American spirit today. And there's this noxious, oppressive, "we believe we're smarter than the rest of America" attitude in Washington.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MORGAN: Tough words. In just a moment, I'll ask Rick Santorum if he really thinks he can overtake Mitt Romney and become the Republican nominee.
And later, the tin man behind the video that millions of people are watching around the world and their mission to put a Central Africa warlord out of commission, permanently.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's not done until Joseph Kony and the LRA are disarmed permanently.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And let's be honest, if this happened in any other country, it would make world news. It's taken 26 years and nine years of our work to say, this is important. These children's lives matter.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MORGAN: But we begin tonight with our big story. Rick Santorum is riding high, going to the primaries in Alabama and Mississippi next Tuesday. And he joins me now.
Senator, welcome back.
SANTORUM: Thank you, Piers.
MORGAN: I've got to say, I've been looking at you physically in the last couple of weeks. You're looking in pretty good shape. I remember last time when I interviewed you in person, you were planning a sort of fitness regime. But you've lost a bit of weight, haven't you, and buffed up a bit?
SANTORUM: Well, I wouldn't say that, no. No time for buffing here on the campaign trail, but I have my daughter and wife, who are traveling with me regularly, and they are, well, let's just say, they're buying the food, not me anymore.
(LAUGHTER)
MORGAN: How grueling is it? I had Cindy McCain on yesterday, talking about how incredibly, physically tiring an election campaign is, of any kind, in America, particularly these days. With all the 24-hours news media. How are you finding the pace of it? SANTORUM: Oh, I've got to tell you, I love it. I don't find it actually grueling at all. I feed off the opportunity to get a chance to be in front of people and, you know, find out what they're thinking. Always, they hand me little messages and notes they want to pass on bits of advice, you know, pass along that they're praying for me. All of those -- all of that encouragement, that to me is just energizing. I love it and I just feel like we're out here speaking for a group of people who, you know, don't necessarily have a voice in this country.
MORGAN: Well, talking of voices in this country, we've got a fantastic example of your new anthem, "Game On," with patriotic lyrics and references to God, the Constitution and Ronald Reagan. Let's just watch a little bit of this.
(VIDEO CLIP)
MORGAN: I mean, it's quite a catchy little number there, Senator.
SANTORUM: Yes, well, it was a group of -- a family from Oklahoma, and we were in Tulsa, and they said, oh, look, we put this together, you know, and literally, a 48-hour period of time after they had a chance to see me and were very excited about the message that I was delivering, and so they went out and wrote a strong and produced it, you know, on a street corner, on top of a bus.
It's very -- it's sort of the way the campaign is. Just folks all across the country, who, you know, are getting excited about a -- you know, about a campaign that's talking about, you know, really the meat and potatoes issues that are affecting ordinary people, and that we've got an idea and a vision of how to deal with those things. And people are connecting.
MORGAN: What is extraordinary about this whole battle, so far, is that Mitt Romney, by any yardstick, on Super Tuesday, he won six out of 10 states. He's got more delegates than the other three candidates put together. And yet the media coverage was still fairly downbeat in saying, look, he's not the out and out frontrunner, he's not the clear nominee yet. And I'm curious as to why you think that is.
I mean, obviously, you're partly responsible, but why is he not getting, as he would see it, due credit for results?
SANTORUM: Well, I think most of the, quote, "experts" have looked at the fact, which is the states early on were fairly well stacked in his direction. He's been running for six years, he's been out there working with the states to move their primaries to where they want -- where is advantageous to them. And he's very successful. He has the establishment's support, I get that, and you know he's had his -- well, at least now two or three of his home states, I don't know how many home states more there are left, at least another couple more left.
But, you know, I've got one home state and it doesn't come until April. And you know some of the real states that we know we can do well in are yet to come. Like for example on Saturday in Kansas. We expect to do very well there. We're going to do well here in Alabama and Mississippi. We're going to do well, you know, when we get around to Wisconsin and Pennsylvania and some of those other states.
And hopefully we'll have an opportunity where there aren't a whole bunch of conservatives in the race after a short period of time, and then we'll have a one-on-one chance against him, and once that happens, all bets are off. I think we have the possibility of getting on a roll. And no matter what the money that they're going to throw at me, we've got the people excited, we've got the best message, we've got the best contrast with Barack Obama, and I think that's going to win the day in the end.
MORGAN: You had what I would describe as a tricky week leading up to Super Tuesday. Sort of a triple whammy of what people perceived to be not great moments for the Santorum campaign. One was a sort of reasonably disappointing debate by your standards. Then there was the JFK speech "made me throw up." And then the snob college comment.
What was your feeling at the end of that week? I mean if you -- a lot who what people like about you is the plain speaking, it's the -- you know --
SANTORUM: Yes.
MORGAN: The removing the normal shackles of political talk. But there is a downside, which is if you get it slightly wrong, boom.
SANTORUM: Sure. Yes -- no, look, you know, I don't have a speechwriter, I don't have anybody giving me talking points. I go out there and I think when you're running for president, you're running for a position of leadership. It's not your voting record that's the most important thing, it's your judgment. It's your -- it's your passion. It's your integrity, it's your character. It's -- you know, it's your honesty.
It's all of those very, very important things that, well, if someone's -- if you're reading off someone else's words on a teleprompter, you're having a hard time communicating that message. And that's why I just felt like I was going to go out and maybe do something that I know presidential candidates simply don't do anymore, and just try to be who you are and, you know, you've known in the few interviews we've had and certainly people have read, I'm a pretty passionate guy.
I can get -- I can get pretty wrapped up about, you know, how important this country is to not just providing a great future for our children, but also for the world. And sometimes I get a little, you know, say the wrong word. And as you know, you know my bride very, very well, usually the phone rings very quickly if she isn't there in person to say, you know, Rick, you shouldn't have said that.
(CROSSTALK)
MORGAN: Would I be right in assuming --
SANTORUM: She has been a good radar on these things --
MORGAN: Am I right on assuming that she rang you a few times that week?
SANTORUM: Oh, yes, the snob comment did not go over very well. And she reminded me, you know, it's snobbish. You can say it was a snobbish thing to say, but don't call him a snob. And I said, you know, I -- that was -- I made a mistake. I'm sorry. I just got all wrapped up and said it.
And look, I understand that that's going to happen, and, you know, obviously the media, who complains that candidates are pre- packaged, but then when they get one that isn't, they just have a field day of any little mistake that's made. So I just got to live with it.
MORGAN: Let's turn to Rush Limbaugh's comments, which caused such a fury in the last week. Because you said at the time that he's being absurd, but that's what an entertainer can do. Entertainers can be absurd. I thought that was rather like Mitt Romney's "I wouldn't have used that language," a sort of slightly weasely way out of wriggling out of actually attacking him, because what he said wasn't absurd or even entertaining, it was just incredibly offensive.
And whether you guys like I or not, he is a very big figure in the Republican movement in America, or isn't he? Now that you've had time to reflect on what he said, do you want to go a little further?
SANTORUM: Well, well, I -- to be honest with you, I haven't really paid much attention to it. I really mean that. I don't think I've even heard all of the comments. I just -- I would just say that I'm not going to be in a position as a presidential candidate of commenting on every commentator's, you know, actions. I'm going to focus -- if it was one of my opponents, I'll absolutely comment on it. But beyond that, I'm going to focus on my message and what I believe is best for the country.
MORGAN: Well, I had, I had Cindy McCain on last night, who was pretty outspoken about it. I'll play a little clip of what she said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MORGAN: But no one would criticize Rush Limbaugh because he runs the party.
CINDY MCCAIN, SENATOR JOHN MCCAIN'S WIFE: He does not run the party.
MORGAN: He doesn't?
MCCAIN: He does not run the party. He is an entertainer. So he said -- he has said that, and obviously, it's had a huge backlash. Now whether or not, you know, I know he's sent an apology out, but I think he was kind of forced to.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MORGAN: I suppose -- look, I don't want to flog a dead horse on this one, but I mean given that you aren't completely up to speed with it, Rush Limbaugh did call a law student a slut and a prostitute for wanting to have insurance cover for her contraception. And now I presume you wouldn't view that as either absurd or entertaining. You'd view that as pretty offensive?
SANTORUM: Well, of course not, no. No. Well, of course, as I've said before. But, again, I'm not going to spend -- I don't want to -- I want to spend my time talking about how we can grow the economy. What I'd like to talk about, which is offensive, which is Governor Romney out there for almost a year telling the people in the Republican primary that he never advocated that Romneycare would be a federal model.
That he never advocated for an individual mandate, that government at the federal level require people to buy insurance, and now we find on several occasions, just in the past week, article after article, interview after interview, where Governor Romney did just that in 2009. Now, to me, that's offensive.
For the -- for someone to go out and deliberately misrepresent his record, what he did at a very critical time, when people were making decisions on the issue of health care, for him to go out and recommend that to President Obama and then tell the voters on debate after debate that he never did any such thing, not only is his policy bad, not only did he recommend the wrong policy for the country, that he didn't tell the truth about what he did.
And to me, that's something that should be a much bigger issue on, supposedly, the leading candidate in this race, on the most important issue that we're going to be dealing with in this election.
MORGAN: Is he a liar then?
SANTORUM: Well, this goes to the snob, snobbish, issue, which is, you know, he clearly did not tell the truth, that you don't necessarily go and, you know, accuse the person of -- on a personal level. You describe the action. I did and I accurately described Governor Romney did not tell the truth to the Republicans at the debates, serially telling him, telling people that he did not do what we now know he did repeatedly.
MORGAN: I mean, unless I'm mistaken, I think not telling the truth repeatedly is lying, isn't it?
(LAUGHTER)
SANTORUM: Well, I'll let you frame that one and take responsibility for it. I just -- I said all I'm going to say on this.
MORGAN: You're becoming such an accomplished politician, Senator. That's half the problem.
SANTORUM: Well, no, I'm just -- I'm heeding my wife's advice, Piers. Come on. You want to -- I'm going to have Karen call you on this. You're trying to bait me into being -- to the behavior that my wife has rightly curbed me in the right direction. MORGAN: I will happily talk to your wife at any time, you know that. I'm a huge fan of your wife.
(LAUGHTER)
MORGAN: Let's take a short break.
SANTORUM: The feeling is mutual. I hate to say it, Piers, but the feeling is mutual. She likes you a lot, too.
(LAUGHTER)
MORGAN: Let's take a short break and come back and talk Iran, Israel, and Afghanistan.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SANTORUM: As I've sat and watched this play out on the world stage, I've seen a president who has been reticent. He says he has Israel's back. From everything I've seen from the conduct of this administration, he has turned his back on the people of Israel.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MORGAN: That's Rick Santorum on Tuesday at the American Israel Public Affairs committee conference. He's back with me now to talk about America's role in the world.
An interesting poll has come out today, a February survey by the Israel Democracy Institute in Tel Aviv University. They found that nearly two-thirds of Israeli Jews oppose a military strike with U.S. assistance against Iran, 53 percent of Israelis believe a lone strike in Iran would fail. So it doesn't have the majority of public opinion in Israel to strike unilaterally.
SANTORUM: Right. Well, I think you read the reason why, which is there's a grave concern, I think, in Israel and those who support Israel and are very gravely concerned about Iran and a nuclear weapon, and what would be an existential threat to the state of Israel. There's a concern that, you know, there's one thing worse than not striking and allowing Iran to get a nuclear weapon, and not just striking and not deterring them and not slowing or impeding their progress.
Then you have the worst of both worlds. And so I think a lot of Israelis, in reading probably the same public and open information, source information that I'm reading shows that, you know, the ability to be able to fly missions, not having the naval capability, the missile capabilities, you know, from the Gulf. Not having, you know, the ability to refuel midair, depending on the countries you're flying over and the permission to fly over.
I mean, this is a very, very complex mission for Israel to be able to do unilaterally, which is all the more reason why president -- excuse me, Prime Minister Netanyahu, I think, expressed frustration that President Obama and this administration has done anything but being supportive of them and what they believe is a growing, you know, a shorter time frame to do something militarily to stop them from that ultimate, you know, first detonation of a nuclear weapon.
MORGAN: Isn't the big problem, though, with rattling the old war drum again, so soon after the troops have been withdrawn from Iraq, that the American people, as the British people and others, have been led down a path of bad guys have weapons of mass destruction, and we've got to take them out? And then, of course, it the turned out bad guy didn't have any weapons of mass destruction.
If America were to get involved in another military action based on a hunch or a premise that, you know, Ahmadinejad and his cohorts there did have nuclear weapons and it turned out they didn't, it would be another disaster, wouldn't it?
SANTORUM: Well, they've actually admitted, and inspectors have already certified, that they've -- you know, have a number of centrifuges, they're enriching uranium, far, far -- already far beyond what is necessary for nuclear power. Five percent is necessary for nuclear power. They're at 20 percent. It's far beyond what's necessary in volume for, quote, "medical research," is what they're saying.
You know, it's just hard to have any reasonable person look at what's going on in Iran. Look at the sanctions that they're taking. Look at the isolation that's going on, the threat to the stability of the government that some of that sanctions is causing. The problems to the people of the country that the sanctions are causing. And have a country that has 200 years of oil and gas to power their country for as long as the eye can see. And yet they're building nuclear facilities?
You know, it's like -- you know, "Casablanca." You know, when a guy walks into Rick's Cafe and says, oh, there's gambling going on here. I mean, we know what's happening. Now the question is, how far along are they?
MORGAN: Turning to Syria, obviously, John McCain yesterday came out and said, quite stridently, it's time to launch airstrikes against the leadership there. What is your view of that? Is it time that America got involved in some kind of military action?
SANTORUM: Well, I mean, this is a related issue to Iran, because, you know, Syria is just a puppet state anymore of Iran. Assad completely relies on the Iranians for his military support. There are Iranians that are there actively supporting the Syrian military and the regime. And so Syria becomes a very important flashpoint. Iran, without Syria, is a much diminished country from the standpoint of their ability to spread their reign of terror, particularly into Israel and throughout the Middle East.
So Iran is going to -- is going to work hard to make sure that Syria is stabilized. It's one of the reasons I believe Assad has been able to stay in power. This is Syria's part of a bigger picture. And so we have to be very, very careful of how we act because we're not just talking about a singular country, like we would have with Libya, where the consequences were fairly contained.
Syria is a very, very difficult situation. While I have a lot of respect for John McCain and his military acumen and his understanding of the situation on the ground, and I do support the United States in directly helping the rebels on the streets, I think right now I'm a little concerned about whether a military strike would be the absolute right thing to do at this time.
MORGAN: A funny sentence there. I had a bit of a fury on the show last Friday when Kirk Cameron, the "Growing Pains" young heartthrob of the '80s, came on, and he's an ardent Christian now. And he got into hot water by being fairly, as many people saw it, homophobic in the language he used when talking about homosexuality and gay marriage.
You and I have discussed this several times on the show. And I know your position, I know your biblical, religious beliefs and so on. The one thing that struck me about it all was that Kirk Cameron's real problem wasn't that he wanted to stay true to his religious beliefs, but it was the language and rhetoric he used appeared to be quite hateful and derogatory.
And I suppose my question for you would be, given the way that the gay marriage debate is going, gay rights debate is going, is it time that people, even if they have strong religious conviction on this issue, stop using inflammatory language to demean the gay community?
SANTORUM: Well, here's what I would say about this. I think both sides need to respect both sides. For example, in the Ninth Circuit opinion that threw out Proposition 8, the Ninth Circuit basically said anybody that believes that marriage should be just between a man and a woman is irrational and the only reason they could possibly feel this way is because they're bigots and haters.
Now that's a court saying that that's the only reason someone could hold the position of marriage being between a man and a woman. And of course, that's not just the courts saying, that's what the people who made the case to the court argued that the court should find. So as someone who's, you know, been very public about this, I respect people who disagree with me. I think they have a right to go out and make their case and sell it to the American public and try to change the law if they see fit.
But I don't use language that, you know, calls them bigots or haters, and nor should they think that someone because they simply disagree with them on that subject should be -- should be treated the same. So I think rhetoric on both sides needs to be judicious and fair and respecting people's difference of opinion.
MORGAN: Did you personally find anything Kirk Cameron said offensive? SANTORUM: You know, I hate to sound like I'm completely out of touch with what's going on in the popular culture, but I did not hear Kirk Cameron's remarks, so I don't know what he said.
MORGAN: You've really got to watch this show more often, Senator. This is half the problem.
SANTORUM: Yes, I'm sorry. I -- you know, I'm doing rallies and meeting people and, you know, flying around the country. It's been a grind. I've sort of been tuned out a little bit of a lot of what's been going on in America and just focused on, you know, I don't know, trying to save the country, things like that.
(LAUGHTER)
MORGAN: Well, Senator, I do appreciate you taking the time, as you regularly do, to come on the show and it's good to see you in such chipper spirits. Good luck next week.
SANTORUM: Thank you, Piers.
MORGAN: Coming up, selling of a president. A star-studded new video from the Obama campaign. I'll talk to the award-winning director who made it, David Guggenheim.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HANKS: How do we understand this president and his time in office? Do we look at the day's headlines or do we remember what we, as a country, have been through?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MORGAN: That was the latest salvo from President Obama's reelection campaign. "The Road We've Traveled" is a glitzy 17-minute video narrated by Tom Hanks and directed by the man behind "An Inconvenient Truth" and "Waiting for Superman," David Guggenheim is that director. And he joins me now exclusively.
David, another fascinating project. I suppose the obvious question is, it's not really a film or a documentary, it's an election campaign promo, right?
DAVID GUGGENHEIM, FILMMAKER: It's a film, Piers. And you know, my MO is I make movies about things I care very passionately about. And I believe this guy is an extraordinary president, and I want my fellow Democrats to fight even harder than we did three years ago.
MORGAN: Right, so you're transparently a Democrat, and this is the guy you want to get re-elected. What is the essence of this?
GUGGENHEIM: Well, I think what the opportunity of this movie is, you know, we're used to looking at politicians and politics in a very small window. You know, the day or the week in politics. And this is a chance to look back at his term and see what kind of president he is. And if you look closely, you know, his big decisions as president define his character and who he is.
So as a story teller, someone who's interested in people, you know, this is a great, really fun job, and a deeply important job to me.
MORGAN: How -- if you don't mind me saying, how sort of positive is it, nay sycophantic? And the reason I ask is, if it doesn't have any of the negatives, you've got a guy with only 40 percent or 48 percent approval rating who is battling to win the next election. A lot of his supporters, even, say he hasn't lived up to the hype, which nobody could, I guess.
But, you know, you've got to be careful as a filmmaker if you're making a thing like this but he doesn't come over as too everything Barack Obama touches is wonderful, haven't you?
GUGGENHEIM: Well just because I live in L.A. doesn't mean I'm a sycophant. I make documentary films. And you know, I -- I chronicle some of the really tough decisions and the crises that he had.
And the interesting thing, Piers, is that, you know, we forget what it was like in his transition, with the economic meltdown, and with the economy falling apart. And when -- and when you look at how -- what he -- the situation he was in when he took office, it's amazing what we've forgotten.
In fact, the first line of the movie is, what do we remember? I think it's really important for us as a country, when we think about this president, when we make the tough choice about who's going to be our president for the next four years, what kind of choices does this man -- does this president make?
And when you watch the film, it's -- it's quite impressive.
MORGAN: The Republicans, I guess predictably, responded to the trailer to your movie by saying "the American people don't need a movie trailer or a 17-minute documentary to know what the president's accomplished over the past three years." A positive start.
"Unfortunately, Americans feel Obama's accomplishments each and every day, after President Obama led our country to higher unemployment, record debt, and higher gas prices."
That's their response.
GUGGENHEIM: Look, if you look at the auto industry bailout, you know, he was confronted with a crisis. People in Michigan, in that moment, Democrats in Michigan, did not want him to bail out the auto companies. And it was politically not the right thing to do.
But he did it anyway. So here's a guy who -- there's millions of people who have jobs now because he made that choice, not for quick political gain, but because he cared about middle class jobs. And he's -- you know, having interviewed him and interviewed all the people around him, who worked with him, you just get a sense of seriousness.
You get a sense of this guy is making tough choices not for quick political gain, but for long-term change. And he's fighting for everyday Americans. I believe that to my core.
MORGAN: Let's take another look at a clip from the movie. This is about Osama bin Laden, which indisputably, whichever side of the fence you're on, was one of the more audacious moments committed out by any president.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOE BIDEN, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The entire national security apparatus was in that room. And now we had to make a decision. Go or not go?
And as he walked out of the room, it started to dawn on me, he's all alone. This is his decision and nobody is standing there with him.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MORGAN: It's gripping stuff, as indeed the original event was. And it certainly, it seemed to me -- it flew in the face of the perception at the time that Barack Obama didn't have any real guts, didn't take risks, was too safe. When he ordered the strike on Osama bin Laden, all that went out the window, because if that would have been gone wrong, he would have been facing the same nightmare that Jimmy Carter had back in the '70s.
GUGGENHEIM: Exactly. Another -- another tough decision and could have done -- there were easier choices, if you talk to the national security people. There were easier ways of not sending soldiers in and not, you know -- and remember those helicopters, you know, beached in the sand in the failed mission that Jimmy Carter sent.
He -- his presidency was at stake if that had gone wrong. And Vice President Joe Biden talks about it. His national security people talking about it. This was a -- and Secretary Gates, a Republican, said it. He called it one of the gutsiest decisions he's ever seen a president do.
MORGAN: Most documentary makers balance these movies with the negative as well as the positive. What are the negatives in your movie about Barack Obama?
GUGGENHEIM: Well, I mean the negative for me was there were too many accomplishments. I had 17 minutes to put them all in there.
MORGAN: Oh, come of it! You can't say that with a straight face. Come on.
GUGGENHEIM: I'm looking at you right now with a straight face. I mean, look --
MORGAN: The only negativity about Barack Obama is there are too many positives?
GUGGENHEIM: That was the negative -- excuse me, that was the negative for me.
MORGAN: Oh!
GUGGENHEIM: The challenge for me was I wanted to put more in there. I really did.
MORGAN: But are there any negatives in there?
GUGGENHEIM: I think there are negatives in the sense that the challenges, when you're trying to pass health care in a really toxic environment -- there are negatives in terms of the opposition he had, in terms of the political climate in Washington.
I think that's -- time and time again, you hear that from people who work closely with him. He said -- he really ran hoping to change the political climate in Washington, and that hasn't changed. And he's fought -- you know, he's wanted to bring people together. He's wanted to compromise. He's wanted to, you know, bring people together to make tough decisions.
I say that in the movie. And he hasn't had another side working with him.
MORGAN: But where do you find fault in him, personally?
GUGGENHEIM: I -- you know, I don't. I don't, frankly.
MORGAN: He's a perfect human being?
GUGGENHEIM: Well, no. But I'm really quite in awe of him as a -- as a leader, and the choices he's made.
MORGAN: The reason -- I mean, I'm only asking because you are a well-known documentary maker. And this would be the first movie, I guess, you've made where it's all completely positive. And even you personally don't see any negative at all to the guy.
Do you think you were the right guy to make this? I mean, are you dispassionate enough to do a Barack Obama video?
GUGGENHEIM: But, Piers, you haven't seen the movie. You've only seen the trailer.
MORGAN: Well, I've asked you to list all the negatives. And you said the only negative was you couldn't put enough positives in.
GUGGENHEIM: Well, that's true. That's true.
MORGAN: How much did it cost and who paid?
GUGGENHEIM: Well, I'll let the campaign tell you that. I -- you know, I took a pay cut to make this. But the --
MORGAN: I'm surprised you weren't paying him, by the sound of it, for the sheer honor and joy.
GUGGENHEIM: Look, some people who believe that this is one of the most important choices we're going to make in our country, is who going to be our next president -- some people knock on doors. Some people write checks. I gave four months of my life because I believe that this is what -- the best thing I can do for my children and my country, is to get this guy re-elected.
MORGAN: Fair enough. David Guggenheim, thank you very much, indeed, for joining me tonight. I appreciate it.
GUGGENHEIM: Thank you, Piers.
MORGAN: When we come back, the story behind Kony 2012, the extraordinary phenomenon that 30 million people have now seen in video about one Ugandan guerrilla war lord. I'll ask the man who made it how they hope to track him down and bring him to justice.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: For 26 years, Kony has been kidnapping children into his rebel group, the LRA. Turning the girls into sex slaves and the boys into child soldiers.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MORGAN: That's from the extraordinary viral video that's been seen by millions in just days, Kony 2012, the documentary that uses social media to bring a wanted warlord in Uganda to justice. His name is Joseph Kony. He's the leader of a militia gang that has terrorized and brutalized men, women and children for more than 20 years.
Kony 2012 was launched by the nonprofit group Invisible Children. With me now is the CEO, Ben Keesey, and co-founder and Kony 2012 filmmaker, Jason Russell.
Ben, Jason, thank you both for joining me. An extraordinary couple of days for you guys.
You've gone from putting a video out there on the web, and suddenly, 20, 30, 40 million views. How are you feeling about this?
JASON RUSSELL, FILM MAKER, "KONY 2012": We're excited the world is waking up. Young people are saying, this is what we want this year. This is what we want. It's not about politics. It's not about money. It's actually about humanity.
You know, our technology is global. And our finances are global, but our humanity somehow got left in the dust. And so that's what this movement is about. It's about elevating the conversation of what we want to talk about. The youth of the world is demanding justice. And we're going to do it. And we're going to do it quickly.
MORGAN: And Jason, tell me about Joseph Kony. For those who don't know about this man, describe him to me.
RUSSELL: So, he is a cult leader. He has used spiritual tactics and brainwashing on children. He's been abducting them for over 26 years. The numbers range from 30,000 to 80,000, depending on the report you look at. That's why we call it invisible children, because no one really knows the true number of the children who have been abducted.
He's been getting away with murder. And what he does is he brainwashes them, makes them kill their parents, slaughter people, cut of people's faces. And he's been getting away with murder for a long time.
The thing is, the International Criminal Court has indicted him. They indicted him five years ago. But the world doesn't know about it, because the International Criminal Court doesn't have a company that's spreading this around, the story around.
And so we need to make sure that when he is captured and brought to the International Criminal Court, the world knows and the world celebrates.
MORGAN: Ben, it's certainly a case now that the world knows. I mean, you've got the whole world following this now on social media and on televisions around the world and so on. What is the next move for your organization?
RUSSELL: Well, I still don't know if the whole world knows.
BEN KEESEY, DIR/CEO, INVISIBLE CHILDREN: It doesn't yet. It doesn't yet. I mean, only 45 -- or 45 million people have watched the film, which is incredible, and blew away our expectations.
RUSSELL: Crazy.
KEESEY: But what if that's 100 million. Why not 200 million?
RUSSELL: I want to go for a billion. I do.
MORGAN: I'll tell you what, I think you're going to get there. I'd relax if I were there, guys. I think the speed that this is going around the world, I really do believe, within a week, you will be over 100 million, 200 million, because it's completely riveting.
I was talking to people last night. You know, my son rang me to tell me about it. He's 14. My producer's children told him about it. This is what's happening now literally virally, around the globe. So I think that you're going to get this incredible amount of eyeballs.
The question, really, I guess is what do you think can actually come of this in the next couple of months, say?
KEESEY: Right. Because the next step is, how do you translate the awareness and how do you translate this amazing movement into tangible change and action? And so the beauty of "Kony 2012" is it starts with the movie. The movie is the entry point to a mission. And the mission involves influencing our policymakers, influencing our culture makers, so they can take the steps on the ground, from disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration of all of the LRA fighters.
RUSSELL: And here's the beauty of what the times we're living in. We're living in dramatic times. So the world is waking up to the fact that Joseph Kony right now is listening to the world. And what we want the world to know and start hash-tagging right now, because he can hear my voice -- hash tag Kony Surrender -- Kony Surrender.
Because he can hear us. He knows. He's watching. And we don't want this to end with war. We don't want a bullet through his head and we don't want bombs dropped on him, because there are innocent children and women surrounding him. That's why he's gotten away with murder for this long.
But he can hear us and he can make the choice to surrender. A 14-year-old boy came out this last September and has talked to Kony. And Kony was debating whether he should surrender or not, because the great power is after him. That's what he said.
So he knows. He's aware. And we will stop at nothing to make sure that it happens and it happens soon.
MORGAN: Well, look, he certainly will know. And there will be huge pressure now building on him, I would imagine, and on other countries around the world to take action, thanks to you and your video.
Let's take a short break, and come back and talk about some of the backlash the video has attracted. I want to get your answers to some of the direct criticisms of your organization.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RUSSELL: We built a community around the idea that where you live shouldn't determine whether you live. We were committed to stop Kony and rebuild what he had destroyed. And because we couldn't wait for institutions or governments to step in, we did it ourselves.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MORGAN: Using the Internet to take on a Uganda warlord, the documentary "Kony 2012" is doing just that in a spectacular fashion. The film has gone viral. I'm back with the two people responsible for it, Jason Russell and Ben Keesey.
Jason, let me ask you about some of the criticisms you've attracted. I'm sure you expected some of this. The key one, I guess, is about the fund-raising. Some reports suggesting that only 30 percent of the money that you have raised actually ends up going toward the effort.
What can you say about that? RUSSELL: Yes. We're an unorthodox organization. We work outside of the traditional box of what you think about charity and nonprofit. And we break it down with three Ms. We have the movie, which is going viral. That costs money to make powerful movies. We know that.
We spend about a third of the fund-raising dollars on the movie, to make it amazing. And then we spend a third on the movement. The movement is actual volunteers around the world, our vans that tour the movie to high schools and colleges, the t-shirts, the website to make it powerful and aggressive.
And then finally a third is the mission, which is to end the war, to stop Kony and rehabilitate the war effected children through education, reintegration and building jobs in the community.
So that's our model. That's who we are. We're not World Vision. We are not these other organizations that do amazing work on the ground. If you want to fund a cow or you want to help someone in a village in that component, you can do that. That's not -- that's a third of what we do.
KEESEY: Yes. So all our financials are available on our website for the last five years. Everything is fully transparent. Our job is be honest about our financials and honest about our mission.
So 81 percent of money last year went to programs. But like Jason said, our different because our goals are comprehensive. It's not just a one track approach. It's a three track approach.
MORGAN: What -- another criticism that's come is that this guy has cleaned up his act to a certain degree. He's listened to world pressure since President Obama committed some troops to going after him. He's kind of become a new guy. What do you say to that?
RUSSELL: I say to anyone who is watching, go to the LRACrisisTracker.com -- LRACrisisTracker.com This is a real time website. It's so unique in the world. It's never been done before.
And teenagers and college students funded this. And it's actually amazing. Go there, and you can find exactly where the LRA attacks, the deaths and the abductions in real time.
KEESEY: Because you're right, Piers, that the scale of LRA violence has decreased, which is a good think. It's a result of this effort. It's a result of the international community and the Ugandans staying committing to end LRA violence permanently.
But like Jason was saying, on the LRA Crisis Tracker, you'll notice over 2,000 abductions in the last two years, over 1,000 murders of innocent civilians. The scale is way too high for the world to say that's done. It's not done until Joseph Kony and the LRA are disarmed permanently. RUSSELL: Let's be honest. And if this happened in any other country, it would make world news. It has taken 26 years and nine year of our work to say this is important; these children's lives matter. And we need to get that.
We need to understand that. And we are. We're waking up to that. And it's changing the world.
MORGAN: Listen, if you want my personal opinion, I think it's fantastic what you have done. The guy is a total monster. I don't care if he's doing as much now as he was then. He's a monster. And the fact that you have embraced social media to do this is as effective as it was in the Arab Spring and other things that we have seen. It's terrific.
So I suppose the last question I would ask you is you deliberately enlisted the help of certain celebrities and public figures. What was the strategy? Who was helpful to you? And where do you take that part of the operation?
RUSSELL: Yes. We know this is a human issue. So this is not a celebrity thing. And we don't want your money. We really don't. It's not about that. We're actually giving away products now for free because that's what it's about.
The celebrity strategy is simply, you have a voice. We're on television now, and it's making waves. It's making waves around the world right now. So you're human. I'm a human. And we want you to join on that side of humanity.
That's as simple as that. Some people have a larger voice than others. We're not obsessed with celebrities. We're not celebrities ourselves. We're human beings. That is what this is about.
MORGAN: Give me the new hash tag again, the surrender one.
RUSSELL: Hash tag KonySurrender -- hash tag K-O-N-Y Surrender..
MORGAN: We will be broadcasting that immediately after this interview. Thank you very much indeed for your time, for your effort, for your commitment to getting rid of this guy. It's an incredible thing you're doing. Keep it going.
RUSSELL: Thank you. Please continue to help us.
KEESEY: Thank you so much.
MORGAN: We will. Thank you very much.
Next, Only in America. How one state is making a mockery of capital punishment.
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MORGAN: Tonight's Only in America, what meal would you eat if you had just minutes to live before somebody executed you? It has always baffled me not just that people on Death Row in America are given the chance to gorge themselves for one last time, but then they actually then go and eat the food.
I mean, would you feel even remotely peckish armed with the knowledge that someone was about to kill you with a lethal injection or an electric chair? Not me.
It's a weird tradition, based on the even weirder premise that a soon to be dying man is a hungry man.
I'm not a supporter of the death penalty. It doesn't exist in Britain for precisely the reasons I don't believe it serves justice well here. There are too many mistakes, too many innocent people being punished for crimes new DNA evidence later proves they simply didn't commit.
But it has always fascinated me what a condemned man would choose to consume in those last few moments of life.
Now photographic artist Harry Hargrieves (ph) has painstakingly and ingeniously re-created nine such meals for infamous offenders exactly as they were served them. Some were just gluttonous.
Robert Mormon, put to death last February for murdering his mother, ordered a double hamburger, French Fries with Catsup, beef burritos, three colas and Rock Road ice cream.
While serial killer John Wayne Gacy opted for 12 fried shrimp, a bucket of KFC chicken, French Fries, all topped off with a pound of strawberries.
And a few were very simplistic. Oklahoma City Bomber Timothy McVeigh requested two pints of mint and chocolate chip ice cream. That was all.
And kidnapper and murderer Victor Figure (ph) went one step. He just asked for a single unpitted olive presented on a huge ceramic plate and accompanied by a knife and fork.
But perhaps the most appetizing was murderer Angel Nieves Diaz, who asked for precisely nothing, which is I suspect the exact gastronomic order that I would put in if I had just been told I was about to be killed.
That's all for us tonight. "AC 360" starts now.
