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Piers Morgan Live

Questions about Anti-Romney Ad; Starbucks Square Deal; Interview with Montel Williams

Aired August 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, HOST: Tonight, a most shocking attack ad yet.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE SOPTIC, FORMER STEEL MILL WORKER: When Mitt Romney and Bain closed the plant, my family lost their health care. A short time after that my wife became ill, there was nothing I could do for her.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MORGAN: An Obama super PAC blames Bain Capital for a woman's death. Does it go too far? I'll talk to Frank Rich about the nastiest race ever for the White House, Romney's new gaffe, and the frantic fight to grab the most cash.

Also the CEO of Twitter and Starbucks on "Keeping America Great," their new partnership. And I'll ask Twitter founder Jack Dorsey if his creation has become to powerful for its own good?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JACK DORSEY, FOUNDER AND CEO TWITTER, SQUARE: This is a learning moment. It's a learning opportunity.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MORGAN: Plus, the always outspoken Montel Williams.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MONTEL WILLIAMS, TV HOST/AUTHOR: I'm a gun owner. I was trained by the military. Why would you want to take away my gun?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MORGAN: And moment of impact. Extraordinary video from inside a cockpit as a plane falls from the sky. The crash, the aftermath and the unbelievable story of what happened to everyone onboard.

This is PIERS MORGAN TONIGHT.

Good evening. With both sides spending billions of dollars, this bitter election campaign isn't just the most expensive in history it's also turning out to be the ugliest. And tonight, we're seeing fresh proof of just how far President Obama and Mitt Romney will go to win in November. And it's not a pretty sight in the form of the latest attack ad from an Obama super PAC. And it shows, if anything, Mr. Obama is doubling down on its shots at Bain Capital.

And this new ad all but says the company that Romney ran may have played a role in a woman's death. In fact, let's just spell it out. My guest, Frank Rich, here from "New York" magazine.

Frank, I've been getting very angry about this as the days worn on. As I've heard the excuses, the explanations, the distancing from the super PAC and all the rest of it. The bottom line is, this ad that has come out, and we'll see a bit of it in a moment, it basically says to the viewer, the casual viewer, Mitt Romney killed this guy's wife. That's what it says. I mean they can flower it up any way they like. That is what they're saying.

FRANK RICH, WRITER, NEW YORK MAGAZINE: Well, yes. And I guess the question it raises is given that there's so many legitimate issues about Bain, about Romney's taxes and business dealings, why this sort of desperate fictualization in August. And then of course you have on the Romney side, their ridiculous ad that doesn't have murder in it, but it does have --

MORGAN: The welfare ad.

RICH: The welfare ad which --

MORGAN: Which is also riddled with just downright lies.

RICH: It's complete lies and also hypocritical because what Obama is being attacked for is exactly what Romney wanted as governor of Massachusetts. So the question is at what point they become sort of silly even if it does become the issues, just all becomes white noise, each of them drowning each other out.

MORGAN: Let's watch a little bit from the Obama super PAC ad.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SOPTIC: When Mitt Romney and Bain closed the plant, I lost my health care. And my family lost their health care. And I don't know how long she was sick, and I think maybe she didn't say anything because she knew that we couldn't afford the insurance. And she passed away in 22 days.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MORGAN: The casual viewer that sees this, left under no doubt that somehow Mitt Romney's connected directly to this guy's wife's death. The reality is that Mitt Romney gave up day to day control of Bain in 1999 to go run the Salt Lake Olympics. This firm was shut down and made bankrupt as a result of the association with Bain in 2002. At least 2 1/2 years later. But more importantly, the woman concerned, this man's wife who sadly died in 2006, but that is five years after the plant shut down. Five years. She didn't even go and get the diagnosis until I think a year before. So there's just this unbelievably tenuous link between Mitt Romney and this woman's death.

RICH: Well, the ad --

MORGAN: And I think it's not just tenuous. I think it is deliberately mendacious. It is a deliberate attempt to lie and smear about Mitt Romney. And I find it contemptible. I mean I'm really appalled.

RICH: Well, the ad cannot be defended. I mean, for all the reasons you say, it is essentially a fictionalization. It takes one from column A, one from column D, and puts them together. I think the real question it raises -- I'm not sure it's an effective ad. The real question it raises is given that there's so much fodder that the Obama campaign could be using, it seems almost desperate in that context.

MORGAN: They are -- they are trying to defend it. Bill Burton who worked with Obama at the White House, until recently. He was on with Wolf Blitzer earlier. Let's watch a bit of this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BILL BURTON, SENIOR STRATEGIST, PRIORITIES USA ACTION: It's clearly lost on some folks but make no mistake about that, but the truth is what this ad is about is what Mitt Romney wants his campaign to be about.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MORGAN: Yes. I mean, you know, it's what Barack Obama wants the campaign to be about, which is Mitt Romney's record at Bain, which has, as you say, perfectly valid areas to critique. You know, did they lay off more people than jobs they created and so on? But to actually come out with something like this is grubby, dirty politics, I think.

RICH: Well, it takes -- it takes the edge off legitimate ads. And you know, when Romney ran against Ted Kennedy in 1994 for the Senate, Kennedy, (INAUDIBLE) by Bob Shrum, had very effective ads about Bain with workers who had been, you know, lost their jobs, lost benefits and all the rest of it. So given all the material that's out there, I don't get it. I certainly can't defend it. On the other hand, the Romney campaign chronically lies about Obama. It's sort of pick your poison in this campaign.

MORGAN: Just, by the way, you're not discussing many times on this show which is just this real kind of putrid environment in Washington where their hatred for each other comes out now in this public forum as we start electioneering properly through to November. And it's really unpleasant. And I think it misses the point of what the American people are looking for. They want bold positive leadership. They want to know the way out of the country's malaise. They don't want to see these pathetic playground squabbling arguments over really horrible stuff.

RICH: Well, I do think history shows that negative ads can work. And there's such a thing as negative ads that's effective in a good way because it actually does frame a big issue about the future of the country as well as about the content of a candidate. But this stuff does seem like playground material, precisely because it's all fictional and it's so small bore.

I think at certain point, it will just tune it out. I'm not sure it's going to decisive at all in the campaign.

MORGAN: There was a -- you know, I agree with you that the welfare ad in its own way was just as --

RICH: It was ridiculous.

MORGAN: Untrue, I mean, completely absurd.

RICH: Yes.

MORGAN: So it works both ways. I just found the Obama-backed one particularly offensive, using a woman's death to try to smear an opponent. I think is --

RICH: It's pretty -- it's pretty low.

MORGAN: When there's so little evidence to link him to any part of it I think is ludicrous.

RICH: Right.

MORGAN: I want to play you something now. It has to do with the Romney-hood/Obama-loney campaign stuff. (INAUDIBLE). Let's watch a bit of this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: It's like Robin Hood in reverse. It's Romney-hood.

MITT ROMNEY (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We've been watching the president say a lot of things about me and about my policies, and they're just not right. And if I were to coin a term it would be Obama-loney.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MORGAN: I mean, you know, Romney-hood, Obama-loney. Again, it's all a bit pathetic, isn't it?

RICH: It is. You wonder how many people in a room conspired to come up with that brilliant --

(CROSSTALK)

MORGAN: I want to say to President Obama, no, you're not in the White House Correspondents Dinner. This is not some sort of --

RICH: Right.

MORGAN: -- jokey thing. You're not slow-jamming with Jimmy Fallon. This is now a serious business. We are within three, four months of the -- of the election. People have to decide who's going to run the bigger super power in the world and all they're doing is cracking sort of one-liner puns, coming out with poisonous attack ads.

(CROSSTALK)

MORGAN: And you think where is the big picture? Where is the leadership America was crying out for? Where's the vision for America? I don't hear or see one. Do you?

RICH: No. But -- I'll say this, at least Obama actually has policies that we know. Some of them may be popular and some of them may be unpopular. One thing that Romney is doing is not coming up with specific policies about anything. So there's no big picture from them at all. And from Obama, you know, the descent into -- you know, Romney-hood is stupid anyway because it implies in a way that he is taking from the rich and giving to the poor when he wants to say the reverse. So as a -- as a slogan or --

MORGAN: It doesn't work.

RICH: It doesn't work. It actually conveys the wrong message.

MORGAN: The one area I would love to hear from both of them about is guns. You know, in the space --

RICH: Good luck with that.

MORGAN: Well, exactly. I mean there's just this deafening silence about what I think is one of the big issues in America. And I'm curious as to why you think that is, other than the obvious, because we've had these two appalling shootings now in the space of three weeks. Two of the 10 worst mass shootings since 9/11 to put it in perspective. And yet I don't hear a word from either Barack Obama or Mitt Romney about what they actually intend to do, if anything, to try and make it even more difficult for crazy people to legally buy assault weapons and handguns to commit these atrocities. There's just this terrible wall of conspiratorial silence.

RICH: Well, it's cowardice. And this was true, by the way, in 2008. Obama has not as a national candidate ever been a strong proponent of more gun control measures. And of course, the Republican Party is essentially owned by the National Rifle Association, and so it's just not going to happen.

And if you have these two mass killings that are horrific, also the sentencing of the Tucson --

(CROSSTALK)

RICH: Assassin. And none of that moves the needle in terms of the public, forget about the politicians. It's not as if the public is clamoring for it either. There are, of course, people who are advocates for gun control that appear on stations --

MORGAN: Even more disturbing to me is the public just buy into this argument always put out by the NRA and the gun lobby, and so on, which is that if everyone had been armed in the place where these atrocities go on, then actually it would have all been fine. That the shooter would get killed quickly.

So everybody goes out and buys more guns. And so the volume of guns in circulation goes through the roof and just carries on rising. And so you end up with just more and more weapons available to unstable to people at a time when there are ever more unstable people.

RICH: I agree. But it's so built into this culture of this country and it's so concerned --

MORGAN: But how do you change it, Frank? I mean you're -- you're a smart man. How do you change the culture so that at the very least you can start to put some kind of controls on these types of people legally buying assault weapons and so on?

RICH: I honestly don't know. Look at Mike Bloomberg. No one is more in favor of gun control. No one has more money to devote to the issue and would campaign for it. He can't figure it out. He's -- he can't get even, you know, Romney or Obama to listen to him on the subject.

MORGAN: Well, they don't react. They just say nothing.

RICH: They say nothing because they're afraid and it's just so --

MORGAN: Well, what are they afraid of?

RICH: They're afraid of a public that wants to have its guns.

MORGAN: But why don't you -- rather than just follow what the public are being told by people with an agenda, isn't being president or wanting to be president about leading? Perhaps being a bit unpopular? Obama has done it on gay marriage and issues like that.

RICH: Right.

MORGAN: Why doesn't he have the balls to do it on something like this?

RICH: He just never has on this issue as a national candidate and it's a real defect in him. There's no question about it. And he can also sort of not feel the heat because he knows the other side is never going to lift a finger on the issue.

MORGAN: Well, it's not good enough.

Frank, very quickly, one word or one name, who's your current favorite for VP for Romney? RICH: Whom I want or --

MORGAN: Who you think it's most likely to be?

RICH: Besides Clint Eastwood?

(LAUGHTER)

RICH: I don't know, I think it's going to be one of the boring white guys, as they say. So --

MORGAN: Who's the most likely boring white guy?

RICH: Well, the most boring is Portman but the second most boring is Pawlenty.

(LAUGHTER)

MORGAN: Frank, as always, thank you very much.

RICH: Great to see you.

MORGAN: Next, the founders of Starbucks and Twitter tell me what it takes to "Keep America Great" and they should know.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MORGAN: With me tonight, two of the most powerful CEOs in the world who also happened to be two of my favorite guests. Howard Schultz who runs Starbucks and Jack Dorsey, founder of my addiction, Twitter. And his new invention, Square. They're here to talk about "Keeping America Great" and their exciting new partnership that may well be taking the country by storm before not too long.

Welcome, gentlemen.

HOWARD SCHULTZ, CHAIRMAN AND CEO, STARBUCKS: Thank you.

DORSEY: Thanks for having me.

MORGAN: Square. Show me. Because you and I were in a restaurant last year and you simply out of your pocket produced this things, like some sort of weird magician. And I know you just got on to Twitter then. So I said, well, OK, this guy is clearly a genius. What's the next thing? And he said it's this.

DORSEY: This was a -- this was a -- this is how we started. We started with a very simple idea which is that everyone should be able to accept credit cards. And we gave out these free credit card readers that they could plug into their phone, swipe a card, and the money would be deposited into the bank account the next day. So we started with personal trainers, garage sales, taxi drivers, you know, bake sales, and then we went up and up and up into larger and larger merchants. So it's a very, very simple idea with some very simple hardware.

MORGAN: And all this has come now to Starbucks who are the most successful coffee firm in the world.

Why have you gone for this, Howard? Because you're a smart guy. You're not (INAUDIBLE) fools. You clearly believe in this. Why is this right for Starbucks?

SCHULTZ: Over the past year or so when we introduced mobile payments at Starbucks, we have never seen anything adopted so quickly. We're currently processing over a million payments a week already. And so we've been looking to see how we could significantly enhance that experience. So we've been talking to every tech company about this.

When I met Jack and got underneath the Square-hood, so to speak, we were so impressed with the level of innovation, the entrepreneurial spirit, and the fact that together we could do something for the American consumer that had not been done before. This is going to be a breakthrough moment not only for Starbucks but for the marketplace.

MORGAN: It's a simple premise, if I were to walk into Starbucks, if I'm signed up to Square, and I have one of these on me, and I walk in and I say my name.

SCHULTZ: Yes.

MORGAN: They tap it into the iPad or whatever it is they have behind the counter, up come all my details, purchase. It's done. That's it?

DORSEY: That's eventually it. We're starting -- we're starting much smaller, we're starting much simpler. So we're starting by carrying every single Starbucks transaction. So all credit card transactions, all debit card transactions, the mobile app, what Starbucks has today. But also a new app that we have called "Pay with Square," which was a mobile phone app for IOS or Android. It allows you to find the Starbucks card, has a barcode on it, and you just put in front at cashier, throw out the barcode scanner, and it pays from the credit card that you link. So super simple, super easy.

MORGAN: Is the advantage to this that Starbucks has more geeks per square foot of customers than any other company in America, other than Apple? And just to understand what you just said. You've got to be pretty savvy. But I mean that as a compliment. Your crowd -- if I go to every Starbucks, everyone's on a computer, they're always using mobile phones. This is a high-end -- relative high end --

SCHULTZ: Sure.

MORGAN: -- aspirational crowd used to gadgetry.

SCHULTZ: Well, I would think to a degree that's true, but the fact is that the phone has become a primary device of our life. It has replaced the PC. And as a result of that we're communicating on the phone, we're in social media, and now commerce.

MORGAN: How far does this Square concept go? In your dream world, in 10 years' time, if everything goes according to your plan, your master plan, and you have the same plan with Twitter, and now virtually the whole world is on it, so you are a man whose plans tend to work. What is the dream? What's the end game?

DORSEY: Well, we believe in simplifying the very complex. So where Twitter is around, simplifying communication and allowing everyone, enabling everyone to speak their mind and share what's happening around them and also participate in a global conversation.

And with Square, we believe that the technology, the whole Hermit Mechanic (ph) needs to fade away so you can focus on that pure exchange of -- that very personal approach. And that's what Starbucks has focused on for over 40 years. They put the customer first, they put the experience first. It's not just about what they're producing but it's also how.

MORGAN: The cynics will say, look, come on, I've got phones, I've got iPads, I've got computers, I've got technology coming out of my ears. Why can't I just use a credit card? Which presumably will get faster anyway and all the rest of it. Why do I need this in my life?

DORSEY: I think it's -- I think it's more added to what you can do. It's a tool that opens more doors. And as we -- as these technologies mature, they could come easier and easier and simpler to use and to start with. And traditionally, technology is just really hard to understand and really hard to learn. But that's fading away. We're learning how to build clever interfaces, intuitive interfaces that really scale with the users.

MORGAN: How many of your customers, do you think, will, say in five years' time, potentially be using Square to buy coffee?

SCHULTZ: Already 25 percent of all of our customers are using the Starbucks card. And many of them have already evolved into the mobile payment. I think a large percentage of our customers over the next five years will be paying cashlessly.

MORGAN: When we get to a stage where you can walk into a Starbucks through the door and there'll be -- some sort of thing go off which recognizes who you are and your coffee is waiting as you get to the till. Could that happen?

SCHULTZ: I love -- I love that.

MORGAN: Like "Star Trek." Why shouldn't it be like that really?

SCHULTZ: I think it -- I wouldn't say that's not possible. But I think what we want to do is, we don't want to lose the human experience, we don't want to lose the emotional relationship that we have with our customers. We want technology to be a tool and a resource. But we don't want to replace the human experience. And I think people want that.

MORGAN: Let's take a break. I've got two addictions in life, Starbucks coffee and Twitter. So you two addictive characters are going to tell me after the break how we're going to fix America's problems. You've got about five minutes to do it. So no pressure.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MORGAN: That's last month's ground breaking of a new Starbucks manufacturing facility in Augusta, Georgia.

Back with me now, Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz and Twitter founder Jack Dorsey.

I mean you put your money where your mouth was, Howard. We've discussed this before. And I've got a real bugbear about very powerful successful American companies outsourcing all the jobs to China and so on just to save money. I think it's a duty of care to the American people to at least bring some of that back to America. And you've done that. You've opened this factory and you could have opened it anywhere in the world.

When we look at the election coming in November, and we've had several conversations about the state of America and you've been very vocal about this, and about this kind of broken state of Washington right now, we've got to make a choice. I mean, America has to decide in November, are they going to go with Barack Obama or Mitt Romney? Who should they go with? I mean what is the -- what is the right call for America?

SCHULTZ: I'm not here to call the presidency, I appreciate the question. I would rephrase it perhaps a different way. I think America is so hungry and longing for authentic, truthful leadership and the question is who's going to bring that to us. I think we're living in a time in America where we all know and feel there's something deeply wrong, not only with our political system, but the direction of the country. And I think the vocal minority on both sides, the extremists, have somehow captured the agenda. And the people in the middle who are being silent have got to speak up.

MORGAN: It's funny, when I've been interviewing all the Olympic athletes, for example, I see absolute personification in so many of them of the American dream at its best. Then I interview a lot of politicians, jabbering away at each other, point scoring, creating arguments about what -- rather fatuous things, missing the big picture. Meanwhile, the edifice crumbles.

I mean, Jack, you know, you're a -- you're a young thrusting entrepreneur in America, very successful. What is the answer to America incorporated?

DORSEY: We have to give people simple tools that they can define a new reality and a new destiny. And, you know, I'm very proud of both Twitter and Square in that sense in that, you know, Twitter gives people a voice that can be heard around the world instantly. And Square allows them to essentially start a business and a passion they've been thinking about for a long time but have had so many excuses not to do it.

MORGAN: Howard has talked before to me about moral capitalism, a phrase I'm a huge fan of. If you were suddenly making billions of Squares, would you feel that sense of moral capitalistic duty to actually make as many as you could here in America? Rather than the cheaper route of making them in the Far East?

DORSEY: Absolutely. And it's something -- it's something that we're striving to do as well. You know we want to -- want to make sure that we're acting locally as well as thinking globally in everything that we're doing. And it's always been part of our story in helping local businesses and Twitter, helping, you know, the local person who has, you know, a $5 cell phone in the middle of Iraq.

MORGAN: How hard is it running Twitter? Which started as this bit of fun. You know, we're going to try a conversation, and I used to think it was ridiculous, call people tweets and -- then I suddenly started doing it, realized it was utterly addictive. And I love it as a news source, as a fun source, whatever you want to use it for. But there have been a few incidents recently involving Twitter where your sense, I guess, of grown-up corporate responsibility has to kick in.

Because you're so big, so powerful, the repercussions of what people do on Twitter now can have very lasting effects. And I suppose the obvious example was the NBC situation with the British journalists, Guy Adams, a guy I know, you know, who was a bit outspoken. He put in the corporate address of one of the NBC bosses, complaining about the Olympic coverage and he got yanked off Twitter.

Tell me about the thought process of that kind of thing and how Twitter has had to evolve perhaps to deal with things like that?

Well, we've had to -- you know, to your point, we started the company sick years ago. And there was for us, it was something that we wanted to see in the world and the world took to it. It grew and grew and grew extremely fast and we had to learn extremely fast as well and mature both the technology and also the policies around the technology as we do so.

So this is a learning moment that we spend a lot of time inside the company talking about and thinking about. But we always want to make sure everyone has access in this technology and they can use it in a very compelling way.

MORGAN: I predicted that guy could be back on Twitter for 24 hours. There will be such an outpouring about suppression and all the rest of it. The fact it was just sort of public address. That was my gut feeling about it, but I also totally understood.

I'm sure you would understand that too. When you're a new fledgling company like this and it grows so fast, so quickly this kind of issue is going to throw up all kinds of ethical dilemmas that you have to wrestle with, right?

SCHULTZ: They've done a very good job. They really have. I think you have to give the entire management team enormous credit for not only managing the growth of the company, but this has become a global social phenomenon overnight.

MORGAN: Do you tweet? SCHULTZ: I do not.

MORGAN: I was luring you into my tripe. Why don't you tweet?

SCHULTZ: I have so much going on in my life that I feel if I add one more thing, I don't have the time.

MORGAN: The biggest issue in the election is going to be jobs. How much responsibility falls on to the American public here? How much of the problem has been also cultural issues of people just wanting a fast buck, perhaps not wanting to put the graft that their fore bearers put in?

SCHULTZ: I don't put the burden on the American people.

MORGAN: At all?

SCHULTZ: No, I don't. I think it's the government's responsibility to set the foundation for the -- to address the issue of unemployment. I have spoken a lot about one big idea and that is the repatriation of the $2.2 trillion sitting on the balance sheets of public companies overseas.

Bring that back at a lower tax rate than 35 percent, 10 percent, 15 percent or zero, but tie it to one specific thing. And that is you do not get the lower tax rate unless you employ people. That's a huge idea. If you do the math, we could reduce unemployment by half and yet no traction. I don't know why.

MORGAN: Well, we're going to get some answers. I would love to talk to you again about it. We talk regularly. I think it's a great debate to have.

You two are fine examples of keeping America great. Long may you continue to be successful chaps. I will be taking my Square to my Starbucks after this and tweeting the results to the world, which is the only evidence you ever need what you're doing works. Thank you both.

Coming up next, Montel Williams on guns, government and getting back on track.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MORGAN: He's an Emmy-winning talk show host, an inspirational speaker and he's charged up over this year's presidential election. Montel Williams is a firm believer that American can and should do better.

He's a health advocate. He's also waging his own public battle against MS. Montel is back with me now. Welcome back, Montel. You bring fire and passion so many debates that are raging. I want to talk about guns and America.

MONTEL WILLIAMS, FORMER TALK SHOW HOST: Sure. MORGAN: I've been having an ongoing debate really on this show with all sorts of voices about this. You're the perfect guy to talk to because you're not only were a Marine and served in the American militia for over 20 years. You also hosted a talk show where many times you would have done interviews with people connected with gun outrages and so on.

WILLIAMS: Absolutely.

MORGAN: What is the current position do you think between America, its relationship with guns, these massacres? What is the answer?

WILLIAMS: How about America get a grip with its current state of depression and let's discuss that first, because the gun really isn't the problem.

The gun is just one avenue -- today in the Bronx, there is a man who randomly walked by and slashed two people, slashed their throats open with a knife, not a gun. He attempted to kill two people.

So violence is a part of our society. We need to figure out how we are doing. Now when I talk about this national oppression, let's figure how we can tone down some of this rhetoric so that we can get some of this hate that's right there at the cusp.

I got to tell you, my friend, I watched everything that we all do. I appreciate the way you cover topics and deeply, but sometimes for 15 hours a day, we are doing nothing but reporting hate, discontent, anger.

Reporting at a level that we showed two days ago the speaker of the House being called a liar and a cheat. Can we calm down some of the rhetoric and remember that there are people like this young man who walked in and shot up that movie theatre who's a schizophrenic, at least alleged to be.

And if he is, they don't understand the difference between rhetoric and can't filter it. Can we help a little bit of that? That's the bigger discussion. I'm a gun owner. I was trained by the military. Why would you want to take away my gun?

I'm not going to go out and blow somebody up, but why can't we change the way we allow people to buy them?

MORGAN: I agree totally with everything you've just said. What I would take issue with you is, I totally understand and respect an American's basic right to defend themselves, to own a firearm.

It's in the constitution, second amendment and so on. The real problem I have is that all these shooters that have been active since I've joined CNN, for example, the Aurora, Wisconsin.

I don't think any of these people should have been able to legally buy weapons. Enough flags should have gone up saying they shouldn't be in gun stores and helping themselves to killing machines. And when the talk of gun control, it's particularly that. I'm not after removing your guns. I'm after a sensible compromise that makes it incredibly difficult for these kinds of people to arm themselves to commit atrocities.

WILLIAMS: Here's how ridiculous this is. I knew we couldn't have an argument because I agree with you 100 percent. I want us to change the way a person that has ability to walk in and purchase one.

OK, let's talk about this for a second. I own quite a few. I was in the military. I have a couple of weapons people say should not be owned by civilians. OK, mine were always purchased. If you want me to give it up, I'll have to talk about this for a minute.

But for the new person walking in to purchase a weapon, why can't I do a back ground check on you? Why can't I find out if you're visiting a psychiatrist or a psychologist?

MORGAN: Why is it the media within a few hours of this latest atrocity of the Sikh temple are able to find out so much information about the shooter.

But had that been flagged up on a cursory Google search, for example, in that gun store, he would have never been given a gun. But it wasn't. This guy is a white supremacist, he's a skin head.

He's kicked out of the military. He's got a criminal conviction. He's a dangerous accident waiting to happen.

WILLIAMS: Until we start reporting things like the fact that these two incidences alone, if you just count up the number of family members that might be associated with each person of the victim, and look at the temple and count up the number of people who are members of that parish, you're hitting 1,000 people that were personality affected immediately.

Their lives are now destroyed, 1,000. We're not reporting that. We're talking about, and we need to talk about the victims, the 59 injured. The other 10 injured. But expand that out and start reporting its damage to us as a society and maybe we will say you know what, it's time for us to relook the way we purchase a gun.

I'll give you another thing we need to do. Why is it that with the technology we have today, I'm got going make a lot of gun owners mad. Why can't we put a chip in the gun? I have a credit card in my pocket that has a chip in it. They could find me anywhere I go.

MORGAN: You have a cell phone.

WILLIAMS? Yes. So why can't I put a chip in a gun? I have a right to buy a gun. It's my gun. But I as the government have a right to set the laws in the way you get to purchase it. Let's track them. Why can't we do that?

MORGAN: I completely agree. On that side issue, the Trayvon Martin case, my issue there was -- I never believed it was necessarily a race crime. What I felt was you had a guy who if he hadn't been armed, Trayvon Martin would still be alive. If the gun hadn't been there, there would have been no shooting.

WILLIAMS: I agree with you. Had the gun not be in the equation, we would have been talking about a whole other situation. And that situation might be assault, battery, a lot of other things. And a young man alive and another young man not facing a life behind bars the way he might be.

I'm glad that we can have a discussion about this and not doing at a point where I've got to scream to tell you that you're so wrong. And maybe this is the way we should hold some of these other discussions right now. Bring them down a little bit.

MORGAN: In the end, this is what Washington should be doing about all issues. There's got to be dialogue and debate. It can't be hysterical. And if you don't agree with me, we're done. It's going to be what's the compromise? Where do we meet in the middle? Where do we meet to make America a better place?

WILLIAMS: That's the deal, but guess what, unfortunately, the main people who are in charge of this whole process in the country, the first three letters of the constitution, we the people have laid over and played dead. Until they get back up and demand better of what's going on --

MORGAN: Hold that thought. Let's come back to that after the break because I like that.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MORGAN: Back with Montel Williams. Quickly talk about the election coming up. Clearly, a very polarized America, polarized Washington. Where are you going? What's your thinking on this?

WILLIAMS: Please don't let me polarize more people. But I'm going to tell you, I hope this is a shining example to America that we the people need to step up and say enough.

Do you recognize by the end of this election $400 million will be spent to denigrate one person or another person and denigrate entire half of the nation or the other half. If you support this person you're crazy or that person you're crazy.

I really thing that I want to use this as an example because one the election over no matter who winds up in the White House I want to start talking to the people about the fact that.

Why don't we bring America into this millennia and figure out a way to change these term limits to stop these people who think they have a permanent lifetime profession at telling me what to do.

Let's put term limits to stop -- we have people who served in Congress for 59 years. They're not even showing up to vote. They call it in. And we vote them back in? We have people who have been to jail. We have people who are stealing from America. We put it back in office.

And wait a minute, when they go in, when they go in, they go in all middle class. They come out on the other end of the pay scale and then try their best to figure out how to protect themselves.

It's time we have another conversation. I know people want to find out where I am. I'm an independent. I believe the person who's going to do the most for the sick, for the downtrodden, for those who are disenfranchised.

That's the portion I'm going to vote for. Once I hear what they have to say and listen and with my own two eyes and clear out the garbage and pontificators who really have their own individual agenda.

MORGAN: How long have you had MS now?

WILLIAMS: If we go by diagnosis, it's my 13th year. If we go through what I've been able to discern from my medical records, I've probably had this for 23 years.

MORGAN: And the reason it's significant is you look as fit as a fiddle, but I interviewed Jack Osborne recently. This is what he told me on the show.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JACK OSBORNE: I've been told by all my doctors if you're going to have MS, now is the time to have it. Because there are I think two or three new drugs coming out on the market within the next six months.

And you know, from talking with Montel, he was telling me about this stuff that's a few years down the line. I do believe that there will be a solution in sight within my lifetime.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MORGAN: He's a great guy. There's been a falling-out between Sharon and NBC because she believes Jack had been lined up for a couple of shows.

One was a high octane show. He did lots of stuff involving some exercise and they believe as a family that he was offered the job and it was removed because of his condition.

Whatever the merits of that, the question I have for you is that should Jack Osborne, this early stage of the diagnosis be ruled out for anything active. I mean, you seem to be as active as you've ever been.

WILLIAMS: I don't understand why in America we don't applaud those who are differently abled. Because of this diagnosis, we have labelled him disabled for some reason and he's not supposed to be capable of doing things.

Jack Osborne, I believe about a month and a half ago, two months ago before his announcement, ran a small half marathon in the middle of a desert. So physically capable, he is. I don't think I'm speaking out of turn, because I cherish the relationship I have with him, we're friends, we speak, I support him as much as he supports me.

And I appreciate the fact somebody of his generation had the courage to step out and say look at me. Watch what I'm going to do. So the answer to the question is number one, he should be able to do whatever he wants to do.

And, again, I don't understand the merits. I think a lot of this that went down is misunderstanding. I truly do. I don't believe that anybody had an intent, but I think they went about this the wrong way.

And there were things that could have been done that would have swayed some of this and their fears would have been put in the right place. That being said, I'm hoping that Jack is going to do -- he's out doing a lot of different -- producing a show.

MORGAN: You're off to Chile, right? You're going to be doing this heliboard?

WILLIAMS: This is my 13th anniversary with MS, I have been working. Last time I was here, I told you about four years ago, I hit a wall with my disease and it almost took me down. I've literally been working my tail off. I'm working with supplementation, exercise routine and training myself as hard as I can.

So for my 13th anniversary, I'm going to get a chance to do something I haven't really had a chance to do for the last four years because my illness had stopped me. I'm going back down to Chile this summer.

One of my sponsors, Tony Copper, we're going to blow up a huge commercial, 14,000 feet, I'm going to heliboard for three days. I'm going to show you that though I may do it a little differently, I got a little limp, but home boy, I am capable.

So I'll get out there in that mountain. You remember the last time I was here I showed you the product. I'm on it all the time. And now, see, everywhere I go I do this, what they all do is run around and pull up my shirt. When I'm down in Chile next week, I'll take a hard-core shot and I'm sending it just to you.

MORGAN: People with MS can lead perfectly normal in fact more active lives than people haven't got MS. That's why I like having you and talking about it. So why Jack should keep talking about it and I hope he gets a new job soon where he can show the people you can be active with this.

WILLIAMS: Absolutely. You don't have to push the limits like me or Jack. You just have to understand that we can't be defined by the disease that we claim to have been diagnosed to have.

MORGAN: Montel, good luck in Chile.

Tonight, America on full display in London with the Golden Girls sprinting away to the top. Allison Felix made it look ridiculously easy. They win in the 200 meters.

She is a three-time world champion. She won a gold for the relay in Beijing, but this is all hers and it was clear when I spoke to her before the games began this was a prize she was really gunning for.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MORGAN: You've won a gold in the relay. You've won all the world titles. You've won everything else. But in the end, if the 200 meters is your thing and you've got this incredible rival, if she is beating you when it really matters.

This is it, isn't it? London Olympics, you're at the peak of your powers. This is it. You've got to win this.

ALLYSON FELIX, ATHLETE: I've got to win. That's what it's all about. I've done all this other stuff, but this is the one missing thing and it's a thing that I really want. So I need everything to come together at the right time.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MORGAN: And it certainly did. A world class athlete at the top of her game and a great lady too. Congratulations to Allyson Felix making all of America proud tonight.

Coming up next, only in America, an incredible first time view of a plane crash from inside the cockpit and what happened to those aboard. It's quite remarkable.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MORGAN: For tonight's only in America, plane crash survivors and the terrifying cockpit video recording every second of the crash and the aftermath. It is simply extraordinary and it's all on tape.

The flight aboard the small single engine prop begins with smiles and clear skies. The pilot, his son and two other men takeoff from an air strip in Idaho this past June.

Shortly after takeoff, it becomes obvious something is very, very wrong. The pilot is having trouble ascending, barely getting about the trees. In few minutes, the unthinkable happens. Watch this.

The movement of impact, a horrifying crash and with it, utter silence, but the cameras as still on. What the recording next is virtually unbelievable. All the men survive, dazed, battered and bloody, but alive.

The pilot is on the ground and in serious condition. He and his son are taken to the hospital. The other two men walked away without any injuries.

According to the report of the NTSB, the plane experienced a down draft and clipped the trees and plummeted to the ground. You have an incredible story to tell with their words and this video. That's all for us tonight. "AC 360" starts now.