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Don Lemon Tonight

Interview with Cliven Bundy; News on Search for Flight 370

Aired April 24, 2014 - 21:00   ET

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

BILL WEIR, CNN HOST: Good evening. I'm Bill Weir. And thank you for joining us here on CNN Tonight.

I can't declare the plane lost. That is what Malaysia's Prime Minister told CNN today 48 days after Flight 370 was lost from radar. We will get into what that means for the search and the families tonight.

And we have incredible story of love and friendship amid psychological torment and international intrigue. It happened when three Americans went for a hike and ended up in the most notorious prison in Iran.

But we begin tonight with the battle over big government set in the Sagebrush of Nevada, how cows and armed militia and Fox News turned one man into a modern folk hero and how that man turned himself into a political pariah overnight.

CNN's Dana Bash now brings us the legend of Cliven Bundy.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: For 20 years, Nevada Rancher Cliven Bundy has been battling federal authorities over his cattle grazing on public lands.

It came to a head two weeks ago when armed militia members came to Bundy's defense joining in an old west style showdown with the feds.

CLIVEN BUNDY, NEVADA RANCHER: The federal government is here with an army stealing my cattle is what it is.

BASH: Bundy's anti-government crusade made him a conservative hero thanks especially to Fox News and support from host Sean Hannity.

SEAN HANNITY, THE SEAN HANNITY SHOW HOST: We think the federal government might be thankful because you're cutting a lawn for free.

BASH: When Nevada's Democratic Senator Harry Reid called Bundy a domestic terrorist. Republican Dean Heller said this.

SEN. DEAN HELLER, (R) NEVADA: What Senator Reid may call domestic terrorist, I call patriots.

BASH: Now, it's not Bundy's anti-government rants getting attention, it's this weeks racist remarks. BUNDY: I want to tell you one more thing I know about the Negro. They abort their young children, they put their young men in jail, because they never learned how to pick cotton. And I've often wondered, are they better off as slaves, picking cotton and having a family life and doing things, or are they better off under government subsidy?

BASH: He tried to clarify but not back down.

BUNDY: I'm not saying that I thought they should be slaves. I'm not even saying they was better off. I'm wondering if they were better off?

BASH: Before those comments, Bundy drew praise from GOP presidential hopefuls.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There was something incredibly wrong when a government believes that some blades of grass that a cow is eating. If so, an egregious affront to the government of the United States ...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're a rule of law country and private property is at the base of it.

SEN. RAND PAUL, (R) KENTUCKY: It really is government overreach, government gone amuck.

BASH: Now, some who jumped on Bundy's anti fake government bandwagon are running the other way.

Rand Paul tweeted his remarks on race are offensive and I wholeheartedly disagree with him. And a spokesman from Nevada Republican Dean Heller underscored, he called Bundy's supporters patriot not Bundy himself. Senator Heller completely disagrees with Mr. Bundy's appalling and racist statement and condemns them in the most strenuous way.

On his radio show, Sean Hannity was blunt.

HANNITY: I'm pissed off today.

BASH: Condemning Bundy's comments.

HANNITY: People that, for the right reasons saw this case as government overreach. Now, we're like branded because of the ignorant, racist, repugnant, despicable comments of Cliven Bundy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: Kennedy argued there's a double standard that when Liberals say or do something ignorant other Democrats don't get linked to it the way Conservatives do.

Still, the GOP Senator wary of the Tea Party movement told me this is what happens when Republican candidates pander. They risk getting burned. Bill.

WEIR: All right. Dana Bash in Washington, thank you.

And joining me now from Bunkerville, Nevada, the man of the hour, Cliven Bundy, thanks for being with us, sir. How are you?

BUNDY: I'm good. I'm happy to be here tonight.

WEIR: All right. We appreciate you taking the time. You know, I got to hand it you, Cliven, it's not every man who can bring sort of our divided nation together, it's not every guy who can have Harry Reid and Sean Hannity agreeing but both men today came together with the idea that your ideas are ignorant, racist, and repugnant, and hateful, and extreme. Do you understand why so many people from both sides of the political spectrum are so upset with what you said?

BUNDY: No, I don't understand. I feel like that I -- what I said, I said to my heart. I didn't say that as a racial thing. I felt like there's a group of people, we're talking about the black community.

You know, my question was I'm wondering whether they're that much better off in this situation we're in now with government overreach and these you know I can see these people suffering and my heart is going out to them, it's not against them and then I compare it with slavery that I didn't really mean because what I meant with slavery I meant to compare it with maybe a life on the farm or life back in the south where they had, you know, some chickens and gardens and they have something to do and that's what, you know, it seemed like the people in the city and their life and they wondered what to do. They don't know what happened to their children, they don't have, you know, the family units (ph) ruined. And so that's what they heard. I don't think that -- I don't think they have the life that they should have. They don't have the freedoms and liberty and they should have -- and I felt like that, you know, the government has a lot to do with this depression that ...

WEIR: Yeah. But, Cliven, c'mon, man. I'm going to send you a copy of a book called "12 Years a Slave" because it doesn't seem like you understand the pain that this entire group of people went through for so long. We live in an era now when a black man can be president instead of being owned by another -- US pass freedom. It's just deeply offensive.

First of all, you refer to these folks as the Negro and just because you drove by some people in Vegas and you make such sort of disgusting general judgments about people, it's deeply hurtful.

BUNDY: Well, you know, I would really like to that this discussion with private families instead of with the world.

WEIR: Yeah.

BUNDY: But I still make my stand. That's my feeling and I felt -- I feel that because I've seen it and, you know, I'd love to have this discussion with private families. If I'm wrong, OK.

WEIR: OK.

BUNDY: But I don't think I'm wrong. I think I was right.

WEIR: Well, let me ask you this. Here is where the irony really gets thick is that you are writing off a whole class of people, African- Americans, as sort of dangerously dependent because they get government assistance, at the same time you're grazing your cows on public land for free. So how are you not sort of a welfare queen in a cowboy hat?

BUNDY: Well, you know, I might be a welfare queen but I tell you I'm producing something for America and using a resource that nobody else can use, would use or could use and I'm putting a red meat on your table and I know maybe I'm not doing enough but I'm trying.

WEIR: I've love a burger. I love a good fillet but there are 16,000 other ranchers in Nevada who pay grazing fees, aren't you mooching off for them?

BUNDY: Well, I'll tell you those 16,000 people are not very happy and those 16,000 people are signing contracts with the United States government and they should be thinking about sovereignty of the state of the Nevada and signing contracts with their county government and not the United States I can tell them that much.

WEIR: But this land has been federal since we got it from Mexico in 1848. The grazing laws had been on the book since 1934. I know your family has been there for a long time but you own a little bit and we own the rest and it doesn't seem reasonable.

BUNDY: You better start respecting my rights a little bit and start respecting the state sovereignty a little bit and then you show me in the constitution where United States could possibly own this land that I graze my cattle on. Just take five minutes and show me.

WEIR: How does it feel to be abandoned by your friends on Fox? I mean the only reason we could get you on tonight is that I'm guessing they didn't call.

BUNDY: You know, I don't think I've been abandoned. I think maybe they misunderstood me a little bit but I think Fox and I think Hannity and I are just right on and I have no doubt that he would resupport me if he understood my -- really what's in my heart. And I think he does understand me. I don't think there's a question there.

WEIR: Well, he called you an ignorant, racist, repugnant and despicable.

BUNDY: Well, I hope I'm not that way. I'll tell you what, I'm not.

WEIR: Let me ask you about the folks there who love you. It came from around the country packing their guns. Now, there are plenty of people out there who agree with you on principle, who agree that the government is too big and too stupid. But where you lose them is on the idea that every time we got mad at paying taxes or a fee or a zoning line, or if we all grab the guns, we would all go back into the Middle Ages. Are you and your supporters really willing to spill the blood of another American over where your cows eat? BUNDY: Well, is America really willing to spill our blood and we the people stand up for a little bit of liberty and freedom. I think that's the question.

WEIR: Well, they backed off. I mean maybe they learned their lesson from Wako but they backed off. The only reason they say they came in so heavy was the threats that you made and your resistance overall these years.

BUNDY: Well, how could I ever be that threat, I'm only one man. You didn't see me with any army. You've never seen me carry arms. You've never seen me threat any physical level. So how can he call me I'm such a threat?

WEIR: So you're going to keep the, was it the oath keeper, are you going to keep the militia around you just in case the BLM comes back for the cows?

BUNDY: No, you know, I'm not keeping them. Those people come volunteer and they can leave volunteer. I don't give them any orders. I never have. I've never asked them to come. I'm not going to tell them to go away either.

WEIR: OK. And what about the million dollars you -- the government says you owe for those grazing fees?

BUNDY: Why don't they send me a bill if I owe them that much money?

WEIR: They haven't been sending you bills all these years? These 20 years?

BUNDY: No they haven't. No, they have never sent me a bill. And, you know, they've raised it on -- from $300,000 a couple weeks ago to a million. I wondered how those cows ate that much grass.

WEIR: Would you pay it if you had it? If you could work out a payment ...

BUNDY: I pay it to the proper government.

WEIR: I'm sorry?

BUNDY: I don't know. I'd pay it to the proper form of government.

WEIR: You would.

BUNDY: If I owed it.

WEIR: Do you believe in the federal government? Do you have any reverence for what happens in Washington D.C. at all?

BUNDY: Well, sure I do. You know, I stated that I pledge legions to the flag, I think our constitution is the best form of government in the world, I think that each one of those in Washington D.C. that we've sent there as representatives and senators have a job to do. I think United States government has jobs to do, a lot of jobs. But I don't think one of their jobs is to be out here pointing guns at we the people here in the state of Nevada. That's not their job.

WEIR: If they agreed to come back without any guns, would you talk to them and work this out?

BUNDY: No. I have no business with them. If the county sheriff would want to come or the state governor, I'll talk business with them.

WEIR: OK. Well, Cliven Bundy, we appreciate your time tonight. Thank you for telling your side.

BUNDY: Thank you for having me.

WEIR: You're welcome. Well, you've heard what the most controversial rancher in America has to say.

When we come back, how he became the darling of the right wing. (Inaudible) for former fans and culture wars in this country. Stick around.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WEIR: Well, you heard from him just a second ago but how did Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy become such a conservative celebrity, a poster boy for the Tea Party in many quarters and what do they think of them now.

Here's CNN's Brian Stelter with that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BRIAN STELTER, CNN SENIOR MEDIA CORRESPONDENT: From angry rants.

HANNITY: Your government has gone absolutely wild.

STELTER: To news made to look an old western showdown.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Meet Cliven Bundy.

STELTER: Conservative outlets, most notably Fox News turned to Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy into a sympathetic star.

HANNITY: They got dogs and they got snipers surrounding his ranch. I mean over grazing fees.

STELTER: His class two weeks ago with federal authorities drew national attention when wranglers came to impound his cattle camera crews were there. But it was after the beef was over the conservative media really went hog-wild.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The standoff over the Bundy cattle ranch now igniting a statewide movement.

STELTER: By then, Jon Stewart had heard enough.

JON STEWART, THE DAILY SHOW WITH JON STEWART HOST: How is this guy Bundy a hero for ignoring federal law?

STELTER: Maybe Fox would have moved on but Senate Majority Leader Democratic Harry Reid had said this about Bundy's supporters.

SEN. HARRY REID, (D) NEVADA: These people who hold themselves out to be patriots are not, they're nothing more than domestic terrorist.

STELTER: Lines drawn, sides chosen as liberal MSNBC attacked Fox News led by Sean Hannity shoots back.

HANNITY: Are they going to send 200 armed agents to everybody's house, snipers to everybody's house, really? Well, we're not ashamed of our coverage. We're actually proud of coverage.

STELTER: A new Tea Party celebrity had been born.

BILL O'REILLY, ANCHOR, FOX NEWS: Mr. Bundy is a sincere man, do you believe?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, I believe he's a sincere man, patriot and a hero. He happens to be at the vortex of this anti-government movement.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

STELTER: What a different the day makes and what a difference a reporter makes. All of those comments we just heard were before the racist remarks from Bundy surfaced in the New York Times this morning.

And Bill, what's amazing to me about this is those comments that he made on that ranch were from Saturday. A New York Times reporter happened to be there didn't publish them for five days. But because reporters have left the scene, Fox News kept covering up but no reporters were there. Nobody else heard what he said until 24 hours ago.

WEIR: Yeah. Sort of a sketchy betting job there if you're going to pick a hero.

STELTER: Absolutely.

WEIR: Brian, stay with me and let's bring in two men likely to disagree on this. CNN Political Commentators Ben Ferguson on the right, Marc Lamont Hill on the left. Gentlemen, welcome here.

Marc, let me start with you with this idea that Hannity said after he called these comments repugnant that there's a double standard. If someone on the left says something really offensive it gets brushed under the rug.

MARC LAMONT HILL, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: First, I'd like to see these left wing comments that he's raising. I need a counter example. I don't know any left wing incidents or major political forces who stand up and talk about slavery or romantic (ph) but white nationalism who hurl the N word like Paul Adin (ph) did.

I mean whenever this stuff happens, it tends to happen from the right not the left. So I don't see a correlate here.

WEIR: Ben, do you have any examples?

BEN FERGUSON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I think there's a name Sarah Palin and there were somebody once that said that they should defecate in her mouth, do you not count that one as being a little extreme? Both sides have extreme people that say ...

LAMONT HILL: That's not what I said, Ben. Ben ...

FERGUSON: Let me finish my point.

LAMONT HILL: Finish then I'll tell you how you're wrong.

FERGUSON: They do say extreme things including Harry Reid saying that this guy is a domestic terrorist that's how it gets retched up.

Now, what he said about race is absolutely wrong. It's sick. It's weird. It's perverted. Everything you want to pile on the guy you should say about him. I totally agree with you. But the idea that the government should come in this way is what the original story was about.

Now, before you stand next to the guy, you might want to vet him and a lot of people didn't vet this guy. The principle of the issue was does the federal government really have time to be gun-toting down to some ranch in the middle of nowhere over a guy in grazing rights and are they abusing their power in that way ...

WEIR: Ben, that message gets lost. That message gets lost with what he said there and ...

FERGUSON: Sure.

WEIR: ... so I mean if you do -- if you look at Ted Nugent, who else, I mean there's other examples but how will this affect the Republican Party in terms of picking a folk here or de jure?

FERGUSON: I took a lot of heat for saying this on my show. I said I actually was very cautious of Mr. Bundy because I said look he's at a 20 year riff with the government. I think we ought to step back before we champion him. And I think that's what people are going to learn from this is just because in principle you agree with the idea, you might want to find out who the heck he's been for the last 20, 30, 40, or 50 years and no one seem to really do that because it was the principle of the government coming down the little guy and bringing in guns in this Wako type way. And we already saw what happen in Wako in history. Do we really want to go there again? And was this all worth it? The money wasted, the ratcheting up, the standoff, the ...

LAMONT HILL: Wow, Ben.

FERGUSON: ... overgrazing rights. I don't think it was.

LAMONT HILL: Let's just say your argument -- but it's a selective indignation about government overreaching, a selective indignation about government overspending on the little guy. I can make -- maybe some argument about immigration reform, WI can make some argument about the war on drugs, I can say where picking on little people and we have so much government intervention.

FERGUSON: 15 million people coming in this country is a little different than grazing rights of cows out in the middle of nowhere.

LAMONT HILL: That's not the argument here. The point, Ben, is that when we talk about this guy, I could argue that he's taking nearly millions of dollars from the federal government. There's some woman in Chicago who may have gotten $100,000 in the government of her entire life, you know, he's stealing all of that money and he's a -- no, let me finish, Ben. And his representing not of one person but of a broader range of people who are doing the same thing he does. He's not just one Bundy here. There's a lot of people here doing this is the concern.

And the other thing here is that -- Ben, let me finish the point. The other thing here is that while I agree most of the right including from Sean Hannity went down or went up how you think about it have run away from this comment and I think they should have. Oftentimes, what Republicans are really saying is you can't be this explicit with it, you can think that black people are stealing from the government, you can think that subsidies are bad, you can think that maybe there's a level of dependency here that's pathological. You just can't say it like that. It's like the pine tar you might say. You can do it ...

STELTER: By association, now does worry me in this case.

WEIR: Here's the thing though for me. I'm new to cable news. So this feels like my first night in the prison cafeteria. I don't know who's going to -- but isn't this about Fox News really more than anything else? They are the ones who crowned this guy.

STELTER: And you know what, the shows at Fox News are doing tonight, they're focusing on Harry Reid. They're going back to Harry Reid. Fox is very effective at taking a story, focusing on it and then moving away from it at the time that it decides the story is over.

WEIR: Right.

STELTER: Although, to their credit, Andrew Napolitano tonight for example said who can support him after this? I'll support his legal rights but not him. We are seeing a lot of Fox News ...

LAMONT HILL: No, it can't.

STELTER: ... commentators move away very quickly from him today.

WEIR: When Mr. Bundy said I hope I'm not this way. It was a little bit of humanity that came through there so.

STELTER: I thought so too.

FERGUSON: It's denial though.

WEIR: Yeah.

FERGUSON: I mean it's denial. I mean you saw him tonight and I think he doesn't want to realize that what he said was so out of whack with reality and now he's probably trying to deal with this and this is unfortunately going to be the biggest, you know, asterisk of his entire life ...

WEIR: Yeah. Exactly.

FERGUSON: ... of everything he's done, every -- his fight is going to be but he said maybe they should have been learning how to pick cotton. That's the end of the story for him in my opinion.

WEIR: All right, Ben, Marc ...

STELTER: ... stories become a part of our culture for the country.

WEIR: It's what is inside, what our values are, right?

Anyway, Ben, Marc, Brian I appreciate you guys.

When we come back, if you could ask Malaysia's Prime Minister any question about Flight 370, it would probably about after 48 days, you've finally ready to declare the plane and its passengers lost? His surprising answer is next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WEIR: In what might be the understatement of the year. Malaysia's Prime Minister says there are things his country did well and things they did not do well in the search for Flight 370.

An exclusive interview with CNN's Richard Quest and Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak also says a preliminary of reports on the plane's disappearance will be released next week and Richard Quest joins us from Kuala Lumpur now for more.

So he says he's not ready. I guess was it out of respect for the families that he's not willing to say it's lost?

RICHARD QUEST, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: Yes. Absolutely. When you put it bluntly to him, he's quite clear that obviously the situation is such that the evidence points to the plane being lost.

Malaysia Airlines has come out and said the plane went into the South Indian Ocean and no one survived. But the Prime Minister feels that it will be inappropriate for him to come out and state something like that at least until the search has not been -- has gone up for a bit longer because once there is real debris, once there is one piece of debris, Bill, that they can point to showing across aircraft then he will come out.

Eventually of course, he's going to have to say that the flight was lost. He's just not prepared to do it just yet.

WEIR: You also asked about the first night, what was detected on radar and what they know going forward. What did he tell you?

QUEST: Well, there's been more rumors and gossip and speculation about who did what, where, when and why on that first night.

Essentially, once the plane had turned left and was coming back over Malaysia, were the Malaysians ignorant of what it was doing? Because after all the ACARS was off, the transponder was off, there was total radio silence. So the Prime Minister, did the military see it in real time?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NAJIB RAZAK, MALAYSIAN PRIME MINISTER: Now, the military radar, the primary radar, has some capability. I tracked an aircraft which did a turn back but they were not sure -- exactly sure whether it was MH370. What they were sure of was that the aircraft was not dimmed to be hostile.

QUEST: No planes were sent up on the night to investigate.

NAJIB: No, because simply because it was dimmed not to be hostile.

QUEST: Don't you find that troubling that a civil aircraft can turn back, fly across the country, and nobody thinks to go up and have a look. Because one of two things, I understand that the threat level and I understand that either the planes in trouble and need help or it's nefarious and you really want to know when somebody's going up not to do. So, as Prime Minister, don't you find that troubling?

NAJIB: You see, I'm coming back to my earlier statement is that they were not sure whether it was MH370.

QUEST: Even more reason just go up and have a look.

NAJIB: They were not sure, but it behaved like a commercial airline.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

QUEST: Nobody is fooled, Bill. This is the smoking gun. This is the elephant in the living room. This is -- it might also made one just a (ph) difference to the final results because by that stage, the plane was doing whatever it was going to do with whomsoever it was going to do it. But, it would have told us what was going on, mechanical, nefarious, we'd have known a bit more about it. It will have to come out in an investigation.

WEIR: Richard Quest, good get. We appreciate it.

And we come back, how three adventurous friends from California found themselves, as political pons (ph) in the most notorious prison in Iran and how love and friendship kept them sane and got them home. Their story is next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WEIR: Imagine you are an American being held in an Iranian prison and you realized a sloppy guard has left the key to your cell in the lock. This actually happened to a young man named Shane Bauer, and after hours of nervous plotting, he waits until the guards are asleep, reaches out and clicks open that lock. But instead of escaping, he darts across the prison hallway and opens the cell holding the love of his life, Sarah Shourd.

They fall together in passion, as for 20 minutes forget the blindfolds, the interrogation shares the yelling, the screaming. We have defied them. Sarah remembers a fabric of this place is forever torn. I will carry this love like a shield. When Shane is not back to his cell, he had no idea that their ordeal was only just beginning.

Along with his friend Josh Fattal, he would spend 26 months as prisoners and political pons (ph) while Sarah spent over a year in a particular hell that is solitary confinement. The three known as the American hikers, have a new book, "A Sliver of Light," and this is their story.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WEIR: Great to meet all of you.

SHANE BAUER, CO-AUTHOR, "A SLIVER OF LIGHT": Greetings.

SARAH SHOURD, CO-AUTHOR, "A SLIVER OF LIGHT": Yes.

WEIR: This is a psychodrama and a love story and a political thriller, all in one, and it's an honor to meet all of you. But I have to start with the most annoying question, I'm sure you get. You were captured, of course, hiking on the Iraq-Iran border.

BAUER: Right.

WEIR: What's wrong with your sanity (ph)? You're from Northern California, the Red Woods are nice, what were you doing there, Josh?

JOSH FATTAL, CO-AUTHOR, "A SLIVER OF LIGHT": Well, just visiting my friends. They are living in Syria often time and we went to visit Northern Iraq, and the hotel manager when we say "Where do we go to hiking?" He said Adamawa. He says it's a good place to go. We went. And sooner after we found out it wasn't such a place to go, it was near border area that we didn't realize how close we were to the border when we started hiking.

WEIR: But it's so beautiful, I mean, that's what you think this is war-torn land and what American or Iraq man would go there but it's alpine, it's like the Sierras.

FATTAL: Yes.

WEIR: There's waterfalls there and then you had this attitude as tourists. In fact, we have a little bit of Josh rapping. Let's get a sense of your mindset before that pivotal moment. Watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) FATTAL: Yo it's hot. Yo it's hot. It's because I'm in Iraq. Yo it's hot. Yo it's hot. It's because I'm in Iraq. Someone get me a fan. Someone get me a fan. Someone get me a fan because I'm in Kurdistan. Someone get me a fan. Someone get me fan. Someone get me a fan because I'm in Kurdistan.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WEIR: And you're ...

FATTAL: Why did you. I could've that done for your right.

WEIR: You couldn't do that. I played it (ph).

FATTAL: Now, it's too late, the entire ...

WEIR: It's too late. We blew it there, but I just wanted to give the sense. You know, you care free, young friends, young lovers of hiking. You're playing this game. Would you rather -- you're hiking on the hill, would you rather come across mountain lions or Al-Qaeda.

BAUER: Yes, yes.

WEIR: But you had no idea that Iranian (inaudible) were even in the mix. And so, you're going up this trail and you see a soldier, I guess Sarah, and he waves at you -- towards you.

SHOURD: Yeah. And we assumed too he was a courageous soldier that he would just want to talk to us for a few minutes. It's a common occurrence when you're an American traveling in Middle East for various intelligence or soldiers or police in countries to want to take a few minutes of your time and entertained themselves with questioning. We didn't think there was anything to worry about.

WEIR: And there was no markings, no border, no fence or anything (inaudible).

SHOURD: No.

WEIR: And what went to your mind when you realized, "oh, my gosh, we're in a wrong ...

SHOURD: Well, I think that I tried to believe that everything was going to go OK for a long time. I mean, I was scared, but I thought it would be over after they, you know, looked at our bags, really, as we don't speak (inaudible), that we hadn't, you know, absolutely nothing on us to be suspicious of, whatsoever.

WEIR: They wanted to put you in a car.

FATTAL: When they drove us -- they put us in a car when they drove us down the mountain then was taken to a police station. Now, they questioned us a little bit and there was a man outside the police station saying, "You know, Americans have detained Iranians for two years. They're suing (ph) Iranians for two years," and he kept saying that "two years, can you believe it?" I was -- and I thought to myself, well, there's no way I'm going to -- I have anything to do with that and of course that was just day one.

WEIR: You're in a car at one point and you see the man in the front sit cock a gun? And you begin to think that he might just shoot us like dogs out of the desert. Was that a real fear at that point?

BAUER: Oh yes. I mean, we -- those -- especially those first few days, we are being passed off from one group to the next. We had no idea what was happening. And that night, we actually had been hold in an apartment and we're being interrogated and we're taken out at night and it's kind of driven out to the country and this man pull his gun out and we were terrified, you know. And we were then taken to a kind of an empty country jail and held there for a couple of nights and then driven all the way across the country and blind folded and put in on central prison.

WEIR: You were able to call a friend before you got in their initial car. So, at least somebody known, who knows if you haven't done that where you'd be today?

BAUER: Right.

WEIR: But imagine the sinking feeling because you described a dream of being taken back where you're hiking and released and then you realized you were driving east towards (inaudible).

BAUER: Yes.

WEIR: And you get into the prison. Do they torture you, initially? What were the initial interrogations like?

FATTAL: We were blindfolded sitting in a chair with people walking there circles around us, asking us to write our life story on a piece of paper. It took about two months for the interrogation to end but, within a few weeks, they can tell we had nothing to do with the American government or the intelligence agency there, anything espionage related. And they said, you know, it's obvious your innocent, this is just political.

WEIR: Really? They admit that? Even though because they found pictures that, I guess, of the trip you took to Israel, camera and that -- oh boy, this is bad news.

BAUER: Yes.

WEIR: These are spies working for their ...

BAUER: Well, I mean, I think, at some point, you know, the first couple of days, they weren't sure what, you know, what we're doing and then it kind of shifted to being -- it's starting feeling like they wanted to prove that we are spies even though they didn't know that we were. So any kind of piece of evidence they found, they wrapped into that story.

WEIR: Right. BAUER: But ultimately, they told us they knew we weren't spies but -- and everyone in the prison, the guards, everything, they told us that we weren't spies, but that's not what it is about at that point because we were stuck in this political damn (ph).

WEIR: And so, you were high value prisoners?

BAUER: Yes.

WEIR: So, there weren't beatings the way we might imagine or dread. But there's a certain kind of torture that it comes with solitary confinement, right? So the two of you were eventually put together which created enormous jealousy and sort of frustration. But describe Sarah, what happens to the human mind and body at solitary? What are the stages?

SHOURD: Well, in the beginning, it was just total panic and I just tried to calm my emotions by just going over multiplication tables in my head. So, I'm getting into my more rational brain would, you know, reduce to my emotional distress. After months, you're reduced to almost an animal like state.

I would spend -- I would compulsively pace in my cell back and forth, back and forth. Crouch down by the slot in my door just listening for sounds to orient myself. I completely lost control and awareness of myself and screamed and beat up the walls of my cell.

WEIR: You described them -- forcing yourself not to look at the wall to see the beam of light that would come through the window because that was all the stimulation you had look to look forward to in the day.

BAUER: Yes. It was kind of the way that we mark time, you know, that light would come through. It moves across the wall. You know, in a particular cell I was in, I knew that when it reaches a certain corner, you know, the interrogators might come. And being alone despite how much I hated being interrogated. I hoped that they would come everyday because I needed interaction that badly. I was just trapped inside of myself.

WEIR: You were given time together and then exercise your (inaudible) regularly.

BAUER: We're pretty much (inaudible)

WEIR: And you decided, "I'm going to propose to this woman."

BAUER: Yes, yes.

WEIR: You made a ring out of what threads of a shirt?

BAUER: It was towel and underwear.

WEIR: How romantic.

BAUER: I actually decided this well before that when I was in solitary but, you know, I thought when this is over, when we get out, I'll proposed to Sarah. I didn't want to do it in prison. But we start getting kind of hints that Sarah might be released before us and I didn't know how long it would be before I suffer again. So, I thought, you know, I want her to know that, you know, for us to be able to look forward to that, not just to the terrible thing ending but to have a kind of a new beginning.

WEIR: And what we heard, that was not what every girl dreams about being proposed to in an Iranian prison, but did that carry you? Do you talk about that shield of love?

SHOURD: Well, the first thing that I thought when Shane proposed to me was that he beat me to it, been thinking of doing the same thing for months and months. And so, I was a little bit of -- that I was also elated. No, it did help. It helps a lot.

WEIR: It did help. And what also would helped the one of the real emotional turning points in the book is when your mothers are allowed to visit which turned out to be bitter sweet. It was propaganda. It showed the day Ahmadinejad is doing something. But, you were worried about a lump in your breast and they -- and your mother, it was a nurse encouraged you to use that story going forward. And little that you know, they had all this people working to your behalf and after what -- just over a year, you were released first.

SHOURD: And that was brilliant strategy in the part of my mother in our whole campaign because they knew that the Iranian government was getting a tremendous amount of international pressure that they needed to ease that pressure against them and release at least one of us, if not of all three of us. So they played at my health problems even though they knew that I didn't have. I had clean bill of health. The Iranian government knew that as well ...

WEIR: Right.

SHOURD: ... but it was a way for them to not look weak, not look like they were giving into pressure from the U.S.

WEIR: So, when we come back, we're going to talk about who is in most instrumental in getting you out. What you two had to go through and for another year after she left. It's an incredible story of Shane and Josh and Sarah. Stick around. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SHOURD: Josh and Shane felt one-third free at that moment and so did I. The only thing that enabled me to cross the Gulf from person to freedom alone was the knowledge that Shane and Josh wanted with all their hearts from my suffering to end.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WEIR: That is Sarah Shourd after her release from Iranian prison speaking of Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal, her two friends, and one, now husband, as they were (inaudible) held captive there.

So you got back the states. Emotionally, how hard was it to adjust the freedom of going from that solitary confinement? Did you carry those scars? Was there a post-traumatic stress involved?

SHOURD: Yeah, of course. I mean, it's like going from a world -- the size of a shoe box to being, you know, (inaudible) down to the global stage. I met with President Ahmadinejad and Obama in the same day. I was on Oprah and then I found myself speeding through the streets of Los Angeles with Sean Penn escaping -- trying to escape paparazzi because he played a really constructive role with many people in our case.

WEIR: And that was so striking you had. He was working Hugo Chavez in Venezuela to (inaudible) and Ahmadinejad, you had of course all the human rights activists. But how would you characterize the American government, Hillary Clinton in the State Department -- their efforts?

SHOURD: We tried everything. I mean, we worked every angle because you don't know what's going to work. Into this day, we don't -- it was, you know, we'll never -- you can never point to a one thing. It was a combination of so much pressure from so many angles. But as far as the U.S. government goes, I mean, there's no excuse for what the Iranian government did to us, but its decades of animosity and failed diplomacy that kept us in prison for as long as we were. And very simple gestures could have speeded up their release. Things ...

WEIR: Do you think Hillary Clinton could have done more speed in your ...

SHOURD: I wouldn't point any specific politician in the U.S. government, but there was that -- everything was a no starter. There was unwillingness and no political will to really get the job done.

WEIR: Yes.

SHOURD: Luckily, where diplomacy failed and international campaign eventually succeeded.

WEIR: Meanwhile, back at imprison, your hunger striking at times, you're trying to retain you sanity, your roommates, there's all kinds of tense moments just between the two of you.

FATTAL: Yes.

WEIR: What was that you're like?

FATTAL: I mean to begin -- you know, when and Shane and I first cell together, it was like this relief of coming out of solitary compartment. And now, as for a little bit, solely sharing a small cell together started to, you know, the big (ph) is difficult to really be constantly be seen, constantly being looked at.

WEIR: Right.

FATTAL: And so, we have someone constantly in my peripheral vision, never time alone and never really much other sociality besides Shane all the time and a little bit of Sarah that -- until she was released. And then after Sarah's released, it really made our world even smaller. And we found ourselves, you know, coming up to like a bitter rivalry of over where to place a water bottle in the sala (ph) like ...

WEIR: Right.

FATTAL: ... we became like -- it became small.

WEIR: But you're also trying to make a moon shine under the sink and then all these sanity exercises. And what also struck me was the relationship you built with these guards.

BAUER: Yes.

WEIR: How do you regard them now? Is there a sense of excitement?

BAUER: I mean, sure. I think, you know, anyone who works in a political prison, there's something wrong with that job, you know, but at the same time, (inaudible) was and I'm grateful that there were certain people there who helped us. You know, there are people who got me (ph) so that we could see each other, who gave us pens when they were at legal (ph). One guard, you know, gathered some antenna so we'd watch the World Cup, you know, and it was those kind of momentary human connections that made our lives a lot easier in many ways. And there other guards that were sort of tyrants at the same time.

WEIR: And also ...

FATTAL: And I feel that we were able to get back a little bit to the guards because when we were free, there was probably like three gallons of moon shines sitting (inaudible).

WEIR: That will not go well with the Muslims.

FATTAL: Yes, it's illegal.

WEIR: It's illegal.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WEIR: When we come back, how a mystery man got Shane and Josh released from prison.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WEIR: Sarah Shourd, Shane Bauer, and Josh Fattal were tricked across the border and arrested by Iranian forces in July of 2009 charged with espionage and then thrown into Iran's most notorious prison.

Sarah wasn't released until September of 2010, but Josh and Shane, they spent another year behind bars.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) WEIR: So ultimately, the reports I've read was the Sultan of Oman was your savior in this. Paid half a million dollars for a release (ph) and million for you.

BAUER: Yes.

WEIR: Why and how? Why this guy?

BAUER: I mean, I think, you know, Oman, I think was this kind of Switzerland of the Middle East, you know, they play or -- it's kind of intermediary role and they, you know, it helped Iran, it helped the U.S. which are -- they're both for their allies, you know.

WEIR: What do you remember about your first moments of freedom, your first hug with your now wife?

BAUER: Oh, it's a blur, I mean, it was just as pure emotion. It's flying at the airplane, jumping into Sarah's arms, seeing my family, everyone is crying. It's just a moment of pure joy that I've never experienced ...

WEIR: Amazing.

BAUER: ... other than that.

WEIR: And the other romantic happy ending for you, there was a high school sweetheart you were thinking of all those days locked up, and you now have a seven-month old son with her.

FATTAL: Yes. Since his been joy of my life, Isaiah, seven months old. And I was grateful because I was locked and I had no idea, and if she was thinking about me, and I would talk to Shane and I'm like -- me just dreaming about this woman who I haven't seen or talked to or anything, and he'll say, "You know, you haven't talk to her for a really long time, you don't know what she's thinking out there." But when I came out, luckily, she was thinking about me, so ...

WEIR: And what he's middle name?

FATTAL: Isaiah Azad.

WEIR: Which stands for "free." Impressive. Josh, Sarah, Shane, it's all great to meet you. The book is called "A Sliver of Light." And I'm telling you, it's a fantastic read. It tells us a lot about ourselves, Iran, and the human condition.

Thanks for being here.

BAUER: Thank you.

SHOURD: Thank you.

WEIR: All right.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WEIR: Sarah Shourd, Shane Bauer are married in San Francisco in 2012. Josh Fattal was their bestman and he is a new dad.

That's all for us tonight.