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AT&T Acquires DirecTV; Republicans Attack Hillary Clinton; Wildfires Down for the Count in California; Could Karl Rove's Clinton Remarks Backfire?; Does Anyone in D.C. Ever Get Fired?; SNL Spoofs Jay-Z, Solange Elevator Drama
Aired May 18, 2014 - 17:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN ANCHOR: You are in the NEWSROOM. I'm Miguel Marquez, in for Don Lemon.
We start with potentially huge business deal to affect your TV and internet options. AT&T is reportedly in talks this afternoon to acquire DirecTV. If the boards of the two companies finalize the deal, it would be worth about $50 billion.
CNN has seen an internal presentation outlining what they say is consumer benefits of a merger between the two companies including internet speed. For example, DirecTV satellites can't provide faster Internet connections to customers demand but AT&T can. This potential deal comes just a few months after another blockbuster telecom deal, Comcast announcing it was buying Time Warner cable, a deal worth $45 billion.
To politics now and the race that's a long way from getting started. And the candidate Washington can't stop talking about, Hillary Clinton. Not even the race yet at least not yet, chatter today is all about remarks by Republican strategist Karl Rove who's questioned the seriousness of Clinton's concussions from days as secretary of state.
CNN's Erin McPike is standing by at the White House.
Erin, it sounds like Hillary Clinton is getting a tough reminder of 2008 very early on.
ERIN MCPIKE, CNN GENERAL ASSIGNMENT CORRESPONDENT: Miguel, she sure is. An d Massachusetts governor Duval Patrick was on CNN "STATE OF THE UNION" this morning and he suggested that that very thing, the inevitability factor going for her in 2007 and 2008, was a big turnoff for voters and he's worried about it again going forward.
Now Jerry Brown, the California governor, was also on a Sunday show this morning. He was on ABC's "This Week" and listen to the point he made about that.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GOV. JERRY BROWN (D), CALIFORNIA: I can't see any opposition or even potential opposition. Whether it's good thing or not, it does carry with it risks. Being a front-runner is being on a perch that everyone else tries to knock you off of.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MCPIKE: Certainly like Karl Rove and those health comments he made that have a lot of Democrats angry and worried about this front-runner status but as it goes with the health issue, Republicans are saying it's fair game.
I want you to listen here to Reince Priebus who is the Republican National committee chairman who was in NBC's "Meet the Press" this morning and here's how he justified it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REINCE PRIEBUS, CHAIRMAN, REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE: I think that health and age is fair game. It is fair game for Ronald Reagan. It is fair game for John McCain.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MCPIKE: And Karl Rove defended his comments as well this morning on FOX News Sunday suggesting that she might not run as a result. However, Clinton's own spokesman was put out a very strongly worded statement this week saying her health is 100 percent.
But it's not just health coming up. Her record at the state department and specifically leadership over Benghazi has had Republicans talking for a couple of years now.
Dick Cheney was on FOX News Sunday saying we haven't heard the end of it. Republicans are going after her on this, but California Senator Dianne Feinstein was on "STATE OF THE UNION" this morning as well. And she specifically said that that's akin to a hunting mission for a lynch mob, Miguel. A lot of strong words going back and forth.
MARQUEZ: It is only just begun. I'm guessing it gets more interesting before it's over.
Erin McPike at the White House, thank you very much.
Now, the words Californians have been waiting to hear. The wildfires are down for the count. Cooler winds and moist, ocean air returned helping to bring one of the most dangerous fires to its knees. Families in San Marcos are now being allowed to return home. Three other active fires should be contained soon.
The weather change is also good news for the thousand weary firefighters out there on the fire line but their work far from over. This year's fire season expected to be one of the worst ever. Now, California residents are dealing with smoky air. People are being told to limit activity outdoors until it clears.
CNN meteorologist Alexandra Steele has more on the weather that's giving fire crews the upper hand.
ALEXANDRA STEELE, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yes, Miguel, finally some good news. We are seeing some improvements in the weather forecast and that's for the short term, though. We have seen now a change in the wind direction, a southwesterly wind bringing the cool ocean air. The temperature and the moisture from the ocean coming inland and what that's doing is increasing the humidity.
So here's the humidity throughout the day and into tonight. 40s, 50s, 60s into the 70s, so certainly that's good news. Also, we're seeing some moisture begin to make the way south. You see with that ridge being removed and low pressure coming in, that rain coming down but not making it unfortunately as far south as the fires are.
Also, we are seeing temperatures go from the 90s to where we have been at 97 in Los Angeles down to the 70s. So temperatures are coming down. Humidity is coming up. So that is certainly good news. Weather forecast is favorable.
Unfortunately, Miguel, the fire forecast is less so. This year alone we have doubled the five-year average. So last year, the driest year on record in California, this year looking even worse. The first time in a century the entire state has been in a severe drought or worse.
MARQUEZ: Not good. Thank you very much, Alexandra Steele.
Weather isn't the only saving Grace in southern California. The massive team of fire crews had more than 100 engines in service, plus two dozen water trucks and bulldozers and that is not counting the ranks of firefighters from the marine corps base and their equipment.
CNN's Indra Petersons have up close look at how firefighters are battling the blaze from the air.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
INDRA PETERSONS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A wall of flames closing in on an airstrip, a military base under siege.
COL. WILL HOOPER, 3RD MARINE AIRCRAFT WING: I watched as this marched from half a mile away almost to within 200 meters of us and I could feel the heat on my face as this thing approached.
PETERSONS: Enter the third marine aircraft wing and 22 helicopters ready to battle the flames. On this flight, we're headed for a lake on the base with a 300 gallon bucket in tow. Our chopper is guided by a crew team, manning a door in the chopper floor known as the hell hole.
From our window you can see the delicate balance as other choppers lower toward the lake, our pilot does the same lowering the bucket until it's submerged. Once it's full, we head to the fire line.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You can see how badly buttered this is area is after these fires.
PETERSONS: Again, using the hell hole and a lot of precision, the crew chief spots the right moment the make the drop. On his signal the water is released. In all, these choppers made over than 900 drops.
As the fires peak, Captain Bradley Gibson pulled it off with zero visibility.
CAPT. BRADLEY GIBSON, PILOT: You see your lead aircraft go into smoke and he just disappears. You don't know if this is going straight ahead. You don't know if he is coming after left. You don't know if he got his bucket dropped off or not. So, the best you can do is hope.
PETERSONS: The smoke so intense it cut off the main water supply on the base forcing the crews to look elsewhere. This video show a marine chopper hovering over the Pacific Ocean.
HOOPER: Actually, reassuring that these my neighborhood.
PETERSONS: These marines don't just fight fires on Camp Pendleton but in nearby communities. In some cases water drops like these are to protect even their own homes.
HOOPER: You knew if you had confident. And it can grow, you know, I can call home, call the wife and say, hey, the neighborhood looks good.
PETERSONS: Their water drops these marines couldn't make in 2003 when the massive cedar wildfire killed 20 people. Today, new policies have united the marines with local firefighters.
HOOPER: So rather than having to go back to Washington, D.C. to launch aircraft to fight these fires, the local commanders here can make the determination that there's an immediate threat to life and property and we had our aircraft airborne inside of hours.
PETERSONS: Immediate action helping marines' safe property and lives. In this case, those lives were their own.
Indra Peterson, CNN, Camp Pendleton, California.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MARQUEZ: Now, "The New York Times" publisher is getting personal about why he fired Jill Abramson, the paper's first female executive editor. Arthur Sulzberger Jr. says co-workers complained about Abramson's quote "arbitrary decision making and failure to consults, inadequate communication and the public mistreatment of colleagues." His comments are getting strong reaction.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SHARON WAXMAN, THERAP.COM: It would only suggest that the publisher of "The New York Times" is so worried about being regarded as a sexist that he's willing to take the risk of legal liability here by detailing how terrible a manager Jill Abramson was.
(END VIDEO CLIP) MARQUEZ: Now, Abramson will speak publicly tomorrow for the first time since fired four days ago giving the commencement speech at Wake Forest University. Abramson's daughter posted this photo on Instagram showing her mom's new hobby, boxing. Her daughter wrote Friday, this story isn't over, not even close.
Now, turning to horse racing in a possible roadblock to California chrome's bid to the triple crown and it is over nasal strips. The Kentucky derby and Preakness winner wore nasal strips to improve breathing. The strips are legal in Kentucky and Maryland, but in New York, home of the Belmont stakes, doesn't normally allow them. So today California chrome's trainer hinted the horse may not run in the Belmont, the longest of the triple crown races without the strips.
Meanwhile, New York racing officials are saying make a request for the strips and we'll let our racing stewards decide.
Is Hillary Clinton too old and unhealthy to be president? Those are arguments to be made by several Republicans. We'll hear what our analyst have to say about that.
But first, you don't hear this every day. The North Korean government apologizing. We'll tell you why after a quick break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MARQUEZ: Just hours ago, gunmen stormed Libya's parliament in Tripoli, after lawmakers had ended their session and left the building.
(VIDEO CLIP PLAYING)
MARQUEZ: Two militia groups have claimed responsibility for the attack. Witnesses say the violence is spreading across Tripoli an appears to be the worst since 2011 revolution that ousted Moammar Gadhafi.
This comes a retired general vows that his self declared Libyan national army will keep attacking Islamist fighters in the city of Benghazi. Seventy five people killed there on Friday.
China is evacuating thousands of its citizens from Vietnam after deadly riots broke out there over a Chinese oil drilling.
(VIDEO CLIP PLAYING)
MARQUEZ: Protesters are outraged because China sent an oil rig to drill in ocean waters both countries claim as their own. China's state-run media reports two Chinese were killed and more than 100 injured last week in Vietnam. Five Chinese ships are sailing to Vietnam with help on the evacuations.
Sunday newspapers in turkey all scream the same thing on their front pages -- anger, disbelief and sadness. All the bodies have now been removed from a coal mine where an explosion and fire this week killed more than 300 miners. People are furious how the government responded to the emergency. Getting physical with demonstrators and appearing insensitive to victims' families. Twenty five people have been detained in connection with the disaster. Three of them have now been indicted.
Also, overseas today, something we don't see or hear very often. A public apology from North Korea. That's after an apartment building collapsed last week injuring or killing a still unknown number of people.
On state-run media today, North Korean officials apologized for what they call a serious accident and said the building was not constructed properly. North Korea rarely calls attention to its internal problems.
At least 13 people have died in flooding across Bosnia and Herzegovina. Nonstop rain fall has pushed water levels to the highest in recorded in the last -- ever recorded for the former Yugoslavia. Officials say parts of the country got two months worth in two days and pushed rivers way out of the banks.
It's bad, too, in neighboring Serbia. More than 24,000 people had to be evacuated out of the flooded areas. Red Cross officials say many people are refusing to leave their homes. The water is chest deep in some places.
MARQUEZ: It was ten years ago, a historic moment for gay and lesbian couples. Years after fighting for the right to legally wed, one state became the first to allow same-sex marriage. That's ahead.
But first, an opera sing we are a soaring career with a metropolitan opera in New York. Then a stroke nearly up ended his career. Dr. Sanjay Gupta has the story about how the singer fought back in this week's "human factor."
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ERIC JORDAN, OPERA SINGER: Every time I sing my soul is bared.
DOCTOR SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): When he had a stroke a year and a half ago, opera singer Eric Jordan's ability to bare his soul to sing was stifled.
5:30 a.m., the morning of the stroke. 18-month-old Gabrielle crawls into bed with his parents then everyone goes back to sleep except Dan.
CHRISTINA ARETHAS, ERIC JORDAN'S WIFE: I thought he was trying to settle down again and get comfortable. He never stopped kind of moving around and jerking around. Then I realized there's something wrong.
GUPTA: Then the jerking around stopped abruptly.
ARETHAS: I slapped him. He wouldn't wake up. He couldn't open his eyes.
GUPTA: Later at the hospital a doctor revealed three large blood clots in Eric's brain.
ARETHAS: I explained to him that Eric was an opera singer. I urged him to do whatever it took to get the clots out of his brain especially in the speech area of his brain.
GUPTA: Doctors removed the clots, saving Eric's life and against the odds, his ability to sing. Only eight weeks after his stroke, the bass was back onstage at New York's metropolitan opera.
JORDAN: This is a very magical house.
GUPTA: Singing again somehow came easy. Speaking is still difficult. So is memory loss.
But those are minor challenges, considering he's alive. And it's not lost on him that one reason why is Gabrielle, crawling into bed with his parents that morning.
Jordan: He saved my life, and --
ARETHAS: We look at him and we just reminded of our blessings, right?
JORDAN: Yes. Every day.
GUPTA: Eric says that the incremental nature of his recovery has taught him to slow down., to savor life's small blessings.
JORDAN: I can say it's better to be thankful for the little things. All these little victories add up.
GUPTA: Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN reporting.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MARQUEZ: It was ten years ago this weekend, two men set up legal residence in Massachusetts so they could do something within the letter of the law, get married.
Alexander Field has a story of a marriage that helped make history.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ALEXANDRA FIELD, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A star studded affair, Sarah Jessica Parker was there. Jimmy Fallon, too. That was ten years ago when the wedding made headlines and grooms became part of history.
BILL SHEA, MARRIED 10 YEARS AGO: This is really about love and it's about commitment and it is about something that everybody wants. So it's not just becomes a political issue. It becomes a human issue.
FIELD: Frank Selvaggi and Bill Shea were among the first same-sex couples in the country to marry legally, renting property in order to fulfill Massachusetts residency requirements after the state Supreme Court made gay marriage legal. It was seven more years before same- sex marriage became legal in their home state New York.
FRANK SELVAGGI, MARRIED 10 YEARS AGO: New York state was for me was like the waterloo for the anti-marriage movement. It is like once New York happened, I said, I thought to myself, this is going to happen in a much quicker rate.
FIELD: Last summer advocates got the momentum they had fought for. The Supreme Court struck down a key part of a law that denied federal benefits to legally married, same-sex couples.
EVAN WOLFSON, FOUNDER, FREEDOM TO MARRY: As these cases make the way through the courts we're making the same strong case in the court of public opinion as our advocated are making in the courts of the law in order to get the country where it needs to be.
FIELD: A decade after Massachusetts did it, 16 other states have legalized same-sex marriage along with the District of Columbia. Roughly 40 percent of people live in states where same-sex marriages are legal and marriage equality lawsuits are pending in 30 more states.
SELVAGGI: Certainly now I think it's, you know, it's just a matter of time.
FIELD: For Bill and Frank, that's progress that was tough to imagine just ten years ago, even for a couple that helped lead the way.
Alexandra Field, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MARQUEZ: And this just in to CNN. We told you about this at the top of the hour. Now it's official. AT&T and DirecTV have announced plans to merge. The boards of the two companies finalized the deal this afternoon and said to be worth about $50 billion. The combined company able to offer consumers bundles that include video, high speed broadband and mobile services using all of the sales channels.
AT&T has 2,300 retail stores and thousands of authorized deals and agents of both companies nationwide. The merger approved by federal regulators a few months after another telecom deal, Comcast announcing it was buying Time Warner cable. That deal worth about $45 billion.
Tonight at 9:00 p.m. eastern, Anthony Bourdain embarks on a new adventure to one of the most foreign places he's ever visited. No, it is not a third world country. It is the Mississippi delta. He tells our Don Lemon why.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ANTHONY BOURDAIN, CNN HOST, PARTS UNKNOWN: In the words of Donald Rumsfeld, we don't know what we don't know. And only thing I know about Mississippi? Except for maybe only history and not much of that is good. One of the things I didn't know is how much interesting, uniquely wonderful, uniquely American stuff is going on down here.
DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR, NEWSROOM: Mississippi delta.
BOURDAIN: Yes.
LEMON: You think about -- when you think about down south, you think New Orleans is a monopoly on food and Louisiana and you take us to Jackson, Mississippi?
BOURDAIN: Jackson, Greenville. Deep dive into the delta. Look. I wanted to see a place that's very different than where I grew up. A place, a state that I think a lot of people from -- you know, a lot of people who grew up where I grew up the way I grew up look at it with a mixture of contempt and fear honestly. So it seemed like I should go there and gate little smarter about the place. It's also a place as I really found firsthand and I think people need to be reminded, everything awesome about American culture came from -- I mean, rock n roll, the blues, R&B, funk.
LEMON: Thank you.
BOURDAIN: Rap, soul. It's all from the delta. This one crazy area of the country. And we look a little bit at how that happened, why and who. Came out with all sorts of exceptions. And finding myself liking it a whole hell of a lot.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MARQUEZ: Four days adventure through the delta premiers tonight at 9:00 p.m. eastern, only here on CNN.
Up next, is Hillary Clinton too old and unhealthy to be president? Those are the arguments being made by several Republicans. We'll debate next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MARQUEZ: Now whatever you might think about Karl Rove, he's certainly no political amateur. He certainly knew that by bringing up the concussion Hillary Clinton suffered in December of 2012 that he would inject new questions about her health into the 2016 race for the White House.
Let's talk about it with CNN commentators Marc Lamont Hill and Ben Ferguson.
Marc, let me come at this in a slightly different way. Is Karl Rove doing her a favor by getting this issue out there early? She's going to have to talk about it anyway.
MARC LAMONT HILL, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, he's done her an enormous favor. One, because he gets the conversation on the table, he gets his issue out of the way. But also, people are going to come to her defense. People were outraged that he would not only put something out -- put something like this out there but he would litter with it so many untruths about how long she was in the hospital, what type of technology she had on her face. By doing that, she made -- he made women empathize with Hillary Clinton more, because they see this as a gender, sexist attack, and he also made the elderly sympathize with Hillary Clinton more.
This did much more for Hillary Clinton than it did for any potential Republican nominee. She should be sending Karl a thank you card.
MARQUEZ: We'll see about that. Ben, Republican strategist Alex Castellanos, your colleague, he says that Rove's attack on Hillary Clinton, whatever the victory Republicans feel about it right now it may leave a bitter taste. Could all this backfire on him?
BEN FERGUSON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, it certainly could backfire. I also think it brings up the obvious which is she is the front-runner and she was in this position before and I think the earlier you kind of say to everyone, this is the candidate, the more pressure it also can put on a campaign. She was in the exact same position and then Barack Obama really took it from her. And so I do think it brings that up.
I think it may have been played a little bit too early. I certainly wouldn't have suggested this idea out there. I disagreed with it. But it is going to bring up the issue of age and health, the same way that we always do with candidates, people did it about -- Democrats did it about John McCain saying, you know, the guy's too old and, you know, there was also suggestions out there about him that maybe when he was tortured that he may not all be there together.
And that came out when he was running for president. So unfortunately, this is the ugly, bad part of politics that a lot of people say they don't like. I'm one of them.
MARQUEZ: Yes, well, and that certainly came out closer to the election so maybe this is good for Hillary Clinton.
FERGUSON: Sure.
MARQUEZ: The hard ball politics isn't limited to 2016 race. Down in Mississippi, the Republican Senate primary is getting really nasty. A report this weekend says a conservative blogger who supports the challenger to Senator Tad Cochran has been arrested. He's been accused of sneaking into a nursing home and taking photos of Cochran's bed-ridden wife who suffers from dementia.
Ben, you're from the magnolia state, what in the world is going on in this race?
FERGUSON: Yes. Well, you've got -- you've got a crazy blogger that is a conservative who went entirely too far. Should have been arrested. He has not worked for the campaign, advise the campaign, been a big, you know, person in the campaign of the Tea Party candidate that conservatives (INAUDIBLE) Cochran. And he crossed a line. He should have been arrested for it. He was.
And then you see the media jump on this to imply that somehow the underdog was in charge of this or made this happened which he didn't. I mean, the facts have come out about it that he didn't. And so you know, this is -- this is a very, very intense race. And unfortunately, you have a guy that's got a computer that broke into a retirement facility to take a pathetic, sick picture of an elderly woman that has been fighting a long-term disease and that's something that should be condemned and I'm glad he got arrested and I hope he stays in jail for a while.
MARQUEZ: Mark, do you think this will have an effect on the race out there?
LAMONT HILL: Yes. Again, it further frames the Tea Party -- Tea Party members as extremists and wing nuts. I don't know whether the challenger had any connection to this guy. According to all the evidence he did not. But nevertheless, this speaks to this growing sense in the nation that the Tea Party is filled with extremists and people who are odd balls, people who politically can't be trusted.
I'm not saying that's a fair characterization of the Tea Party, but that's part of the national conversation. If you look at more recent polls --
FERGUSON: Well --
LAMONT HILL: If you look at more recent polls, not only do most Americans have less satisfaction with the Tea Party than they did four years ago, but maybe more Republicans are dissatisfied with the Tea Party so I think it will affect the race.
(CROSSTALK)
FERGUSON: But let's be clear.
LAMONT HILL: Let me finish the thought.
FERGUSON: The Tea Party in Mississippi made it very, very blunt that they condemned this immediately.
MARQUEZ: Yes. They did.
LAMONT HILL: Because main line Republicans become more and more turned off by the Tea Party, I think not only have local implications, it will have national implications.
MARQUEZ: Well, we'll have to see about that. They're certainly minimizing it at the local level so far this election cycle.
You guys don't go anywhere. Ben, Marc, the head of the Veterans Administration, the latest Obama Cabinet member to come under scrutiny. That has some asking the president is too hands off a manager? We'll get you what you guys think just coming up after a quick break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MARQUEZ: Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki says he is mad as hell about allegations that some veterans have been forced to wait for treatment at VA hospitals, some hospitals waited so long, in fact, that several dozen vets died while waiting for treatment. Shinseki has no plans to resign and it doesn't look like he's going to get fired either.
Let's bring back Marc Lamont Hill and Ben Ferguson.
So Shinseki is keeping his job. Kathleen Sebelius wasn't fired for the botched Obamacare rollout and no one involved in Benghazi has been fired either.
Marc, the president has a reputation of being a hands-off manager. Is he too hands off?
LAMONT HILL: Well, let's take Benghazi off the list just for a moment, I think that's sort of an outlier in your example. But if you're asking the question that the president -- does the president not have enough oversight, I would say probably. I mean, if you look at the Health and Human Services issue, to not know the Web site was dysfunctional in June and then in August, you know, is kind of odd and then it rolls out in the fall and I had no idea that this was happening. Sebelius had no idea this was happening. That seems to be inexcusable.
When it comes to Shinseki, I'm not sure that he could have known, the president could have known this. But either way, if the constant narrative is I didn't know and my team didn't know, you have to take accountability for it.
Now let me say one more thing. I don't necessarily believe the Obama administration always doesn't know. I think their position is to distance themselves from the stuff as much as possible because they see it to be politically expedient, and sometimes it is. But in the longer term, if you have mistake after mistake and you never know about it, then that looks equally bad.
MARQUEZ: Ben, on Shinseki --
(CROSSTALK)
MARQUEZ: But on Shinseki --
FERGUSON: Yes, no -- go ahead.
MARQUEZ: Him staying -- from a Republican point of view, him staying, does that hurt the president more or him leaving? Will the Republicans smell blood and go after him harder?
FERGUSON: I don't -- I honestly don't think this is a Republican or Democratic issue for once because this is Veterans Affairs which affects anyone that ever served in the military and there's a lot of Democrats and Republicans affected in a negative way. I mean, when people die like this because of a list, you have to fire the CEO whether they knew about it or not because that's your job to know.
I understand Benghazi, why he didn't fire anybody. He asked Susan Rice to go out on TV and tell a story, tell a lie to protect the presidency and his re-election campaign. So I get that one. I even understand Health and Human Services from a political point of view. If she admits it was a debacle and he fires her, that's actually going to hurt him. So he kept her around to protect her and really to protect him and his White House.
This one I don't understand because no one is going to say it's political when people died on a list. You should fire this person because people, in fact, did die.
LAMONT HILL: No, Ben.
FERGUSON: And they should be -- and we should care about our veterans. It should not have anything to do with politics and that's what I don't get about this one. I think people would applaud him for firing him. I really do.
MARQUEZ: Do you think that, Marc?
LAMONT HILL: No. I think there's a gap in Ben's logic here. I mean, he's right that the impact of this is not partisan but the impact of health care wasn't partisan. The impact of Benghazi wasn't partisan. The victims were Democrats and Republicans. The question is, is the president hurt by firing somebody?
And if the president would have fired Shinseki right now or asked for his resignation, it would become another thing on the list of mistakes the president extensively made. Whether it's true or not, so the president has a political investment in not allowing Shinseki to go either.
FERGUSON: But not near -- here's my point, Marc. It's not near as much as the other two which were policies. The VA is not a policy of the presidency like health care was or a foreign policy position like Benghazi was. That's what I'm saying. I think Republicans as -- for one I would support the president in firing this guy who's in charge because --
LAMONT HILL: No, you did not.
FERGUSON: -- this should be a nonpolitical issue.
(LAUGHTER)
LAMONT HILL: No. What Ben would say --
(CROSSTALK)
LAMONT HILL: No. If he were to fire Shinseki, they would say the president was asleep at the wheel. He finally woke up and thank God he fired Shinseki unlike what he did with Benghazi, unlike what he did with the Treasury Department, unlike what he did with Health and Human Services. They will chart off that stuff.
(CROSSTALK)
FERGUSON: Let me ask you this. Let me ask you this, though. Can you and I -- can you and I take politics out of it for a second? Wait, Marc, Marc, Marc?
LAMONT HILL: Let's not pretend that there's any moment in the last six years the Republican Party has applauded President Obama for his decision.
FERGUSON: Marc, Marc, can you and I take politics out of it for a second., you and I maybe show some leadership if other people at the White House are watching and agree that we both think that the guy in charge at the VA when this happened should no longer be in charge and saying I'm mad as hell, he's not good enough?
MARQUEZ: Gentlemen, gentlemen, I need you to hold on for one moment. I want you to go to your separate corners. I love this conversation. But Michael Sam, I want to change gears in just moment. Michael Sam has said he just wants to be a football player but then word came out that he had a TV deal in place before he was drafted.
I want your thoughts on this and our sports contributor Terence Moore will join us to talk about that and maybe a little Donald Sterling, too, after a quick break. Hang in there.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MARQUEZ: Michael Sam says he wants to be known and to be judged as a football player. But shortly after he became the first openly gay player drafted by the NFL he revealed plans to give everyone a window into his life off the field. Sam agreed to take part in a documentary, you might call it a reality show series produced in partnership with the Oprah Winfrey Network, a press release promised a personal up close look at what it calls Sam's private journey as he tries to make the St. Louis Rams. The backlash erupted and the show has been postponed.
Let's bring back Marc Lamont Hill and Ben Ferguson. We're also joined by CNN.com sports contributor Terence Moore. He's also a columnist for MLB.com.
Terence, the show officially postponed. Should it just be canceled?
TERENCE MOORE, CNN.COM SPORTS CONTRIBUTOR: Well, I tell you what. It's hard to say no to Oprah. I know because I was once on Oprah's show way back in the day.
(LAUGHTER)
But in this particular case, you've got to pull the plug. And this has got to be said. Either Michael Sam has lousy PR people or he's not listening to them. I mean, everything he has done since he's been drafted has been a disaster from the PR sense. And then let's go backwards. OK? If you're seventh round pick, you cannot -- and I'll repeat it, you cannot have a reality TV show. You just can't do it. All right?
The second thing, if you're trying to make a social statement and just want to tell people who you are and all that sort of thing, it's perfectly fine after you're drafted to have this sort of interaction he had with his boyfriend. I mean, that's fine. But if you truly want to be remembered as a football player, you cannot do that. So he's got to have it one way or the other. He can't have it both ways. But so far, this has been awful with what he says he's trying to do.
MARQUEZ: Yes. Any rookie walking in with a TV show doesn't really set up things well for the locker room.
FERGUSON: No.
MARQUEZ: Marc, do you agree? Is this a bad idea?
LAMONT HILL: Well, let me respond to the last piece first. I think to say that, if he wants to be treated like a football player, he shouldn't kiss his significant other on TV to me is a bit unfair. He wants to be a football player but he also doesn't want to give in to the terms of homophobia.
You know many players, when they get drafted kiss their girlfriend or their wives or their partners and their families. And that's a normal practice. He did what everyone else does and part of what he's trying to do which I think is quite revolutionary is normalize the idea of the gay football player as perfectly human with the same experiences as everyone else.
Now to the reality show, I understand the logic. Look. The guy was a seventh round draft pick. He almost wasn't drafted. I think it's kind of interesting if he weren't drafted to have a reality show getting into the league and to have a little bit of financial security since he didn't get drafted but now that he has been drafted and he is a teammate, you have to worry about alienating other players in the locker room, you have to worry about getting too much attention, of getting first round attention as a seventh round pick.
That part I do agree with. But I don't think this was supposed to be sensational. I think it was supposed to be very much a journey. And let's not forget every year --
(CROSSTALK)
FERGUSON: But it is.
LAMONT HILL: Well, yes.
MARQUEZ: Ben, Ben would you watch -- Ben, would you watch a show with Michael Sam?
FERGUSON: I might watch part of it, but here's the thing. This isn't about a journey. This is about the sensationalism which is reality TV. Oprah's very smart. This is not a normal seventh round draft pick and it's obvious that he wants to be an activist, as much if not more than a football player. I mean, he should look at Manti Te'o. Remember all the controversy around him when he left Notre Dame. And guess what happened, he shut up and he went and played football because he didn't want it to be about anything else.
And the first thing he did, which put I think a bull's-eye on him by other guys in the league was when he said, well, I should have been drafted second or third round, no one had him in the second or third round. They had him five through seven throughout his entire career after he graduated. And all the training camps. And so when you do this, somebody should talk to him and say, if you really want to make history, if you really want to do this, you better make the team and making a reality TV show is not going to help you make the team.
(CROSSTALK)
MARQUEZ: All right. Terence, Terence, I want to go to Donald Sterling. Terence, I want to go to Donald Sterling. He's fighting the NBA's lifetime ban, the fine. How's this going -- how long is this drama going to play out? Where is this going, do you think?
MOORE: Well, I mean, this actually has much ado about nothing because here's the point, he says he is not going to pay the $2.5 million fine. Good. Because according to the contract he signed back in 1981, when he first bought the Clippers it says that any owner that does not pay a fine after 30 days can be and will be terminated by his fellow owners. So that's going to take care of itself.
The other thing is, this is pretty much analogous to what we saw with the Frank McCourt case with the Dodgers. That was a nasty divorce situation going on there.
MARQUEZ: Yes.
MOORE: But in the end it ended up getting settled because (INAUDIBLE) half of the team, they sold the Dodgers to the current ownership group with Magic Johnson as the face of the franchise. This is going to take care of itself, particularly with that moral clause where it says that you cannot do anything that adversely affects the NBA and what this guy's doing, Donald Sterling being the modern day Bull Conner, I think that sort of violates that position.
MARQUEZ: Well, Marc, I can't imagine he's going to be around next season. But if he is, do you think players will refuse to play, if he's still -- if he's still involved with the Clippers?
LAMONT HILL: If he's around, he'll be the only one there. The Staples Center will be empty on Clipper night. No one is going to play. I wouldn't be surprised if there were boycott around the league. I seemed players threatened to boycott for a lot less.
MARQUEZ: Ben, you think the same?
FERGUSON: Yes. I wouldn't be surprised if that's accurate. But I also think, you know, they say there's nothing scarier than a bunch of lawyers, it's a guy that's crazy and all with a lot of money to pay a lot of lawyers. And so I think that's what this comes down to.
I don't know if he's worried about losing money here. I think he's older, he doesn't care and he's going to lawyer up, it looks like as of now, and he may just do this just to make everyone mad and to just stick it to the league and make this a nightmare. Maybe he and Michael Sam can do a reality TV show together. Now that I'd watch. (CROSSTALK)
MOORE: Can I add a quick thing? I think nobody is talking about here. This is his third set of lawyers here. Nobody wants to take on this case.
MARQUEZ: Yes. Yes.
MOORE: The first --
FERGUSON: Somebody will for the cash.
MOORE: Well, they're taking it off but it tells you that even the lawyers know that this is a loser.
MARQUEZ: Yes. And Terence, I think, I think you have the idea here that the scarier than a bunch of lawyers is saying no to Oprah. I think we will leave it there for now.
MOORE: That's exactly right. I would never do that.
MARQUEZ: Gentlemen, thank you all very, very much.
Up next, "Saturday Night Live's" response to the elevator battle between Jay-Z and his sister-in-law. We'll play it for you after a quick break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MARQUEZ: Well, a "SNL" true style, the show took on this week's Beyonce, Jay-Z and Solange drama offering up an alternative reason for the elevator scuffle.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Now that I have you alone, I've been waiting to do this a long time. As God is my witness, I would never do anything to hurt you.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You know what? And the proof, we got an exclusive look at the leaked video this time with the audio included.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It tells a completely different story.
Man, what a great party.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I know, yep.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh my god, there's a spider on you.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What, get it?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's moving.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Kick it.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I got it.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Great job. I love you, Solange.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I love you, too.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So if you think I condone this invasion of privacy, then you must not know about me, you must not know about me.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MARQUEZ: Oh, dear. Marc, are you buying it? Spider on the shoulder?
(LAUGHTER)
LAMONT HILL: That was my theory the whole time. I feel vindicated by "SNL". I said spider on the shoulder the whole time.
MARQUEZ: Ben, what do you make this crazy episode --
FERGUSON: Yes, don't ever hit --
(CROSSTALK)
FERGUSON: Yes, don't ever hit the stop button in an elevator. That's the moral of this story. Always go to your destination and the floor that you hit originally, and as soon as you can, get out of the elevator. That's -- I'll leave it at that.
MARQUEZ: Yes, Marc, the privacy issues that this has brought up are obviously a concern. Is this -- is it too much? Have we gone too far now? Is -- should they be feeling this much heat over something that's clearly very personal in an elevator?
LAMONT HILL: I mean, Donald Sterling would probably raise the same question. But I mean, there's two issues here. One, we live in a surveillance culture, right? Where everything we do gets seen from our technology, to the cameras, to the Internet. All of this stuff we're always being watched is quite scary. There's literally no space for a private moment of error or a private moment of poor judgment, a private moment of honesty.
But then the other part of it is, we have this sixth sense of entitlement to everybody's else's business. Like we're all like demanding the answers to what happened it elevator as if it's our business. I would love to know what happened in that elevator but the truth is --
(CROSSTALK)
FERGUSON: I do think -- I do think it's kind of funny, though, how stars want to become famous, So when they're trying to become famous, they would die for any type of publicity like this, it would get them to a higher stage. Then when they get there, they're like, hey, you guys leave me alone, stay out of my life, I need some privacy. Well, you should have thought about that before you put everything that you did on a reality TV show, or on Twitter or Instagram, on Facebook, and then you call people that have cameras and say, I'm going to be at this club, take a picture of me, please sell it?
(CROSSTALK)
MARQUEZ: Gentlemen, Gentlemen. Marc, Ben, thank you very, very much. We're going to have to leave it there. You've done a yeoman's duty today. Thank you.
LAMONT HILL: Thanks.
FERGUSON: Thanks.
MARQUEZ: You are in the CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Miguel Marquez.
