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David Sweat Eluding 1,200 Officers; Attackers Kill People in Three Countries; ISIS Claims Responsibility, No Link Confirmed; Services Held For Three Shooting Victims; "Glen Campbell: I'll Be Me" Airs Sunday Night, 9 PM; Search for Lone Remaining Escaped Inmate; The Week That Changed a Nation; Sean Parker Wants to Hack Philantrophy. Aired 5-6p ET

Aired June 27, 2015 - 17:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[17:00:18] POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Top of the hour, 5:00 Eastern. I'm Poppy Harlow joining me from New York. And we begin this hour with new details in that manhunt for an escaped convicted murderer David Sweat. Police now admitting that their bloodhounds not able to pick up his scent anywhere in the area where his fellow convict was shot and killed. Richard Matt, just yesterday. Right now roughly 1200 members of law enforcement have set up a hard perimeter in New York State, Upstate in the Adirondacks. Still though, no sightings of David Sweat.

He is believed to be armed, possibly with a gun taken from a nearby cabin. NBC News obtaining these pictures of one of the cabins where police believe that Sweat and Matt hid at some point during their three weeks on the run. Now Sweat is on his own and they say he could be more dangerous and more desperate than ever.

CNN's Alexandra Field joins us live from Malone, New York. Alex, how confident are the police that they do have Sweat contained, if they have, as they admit no eyes on him?

ALEXANDRA FIELD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Right. No eyes on him, no credible sightings at this point. But we do know that they are keeping this hard perimeter. They are going to stay in place to allow the search teams to complete their grid search of this area. So, that does definitely speak to the fact that they have some degree of confidence that he is contained in this 22 square mile area. Out here, we are not seeing a tremendous amount of activity. There's a road block behind me but if you look over to Titus Mountain in those deep, deep woods, that's where the searchers continue to do their work. There are more than 1200 law enforcement officers who are on the ground, methodically combing through this very heavily forested area.

In fact, we just saw a truck full of provisions pass through those checkpoints seemingly delivering some supplies to the searchers who may have another very long night ahead of them. They are not giving in or shifting this perimeter to any extent at this point, Poppy. I spoke to the Franklin County sheriff and asked him what degree of confidence he has that David Sweat remains in this search area. And here's how he put it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SHERIFF KEVIN MULVERHILL, FRANKLIN COUNTY, NEW YORK: We were very adamant about getting that perimeter set up right after the Matt shooting. I don't believe that if he's in there, he's slipped the perimeter. However, we still don't have any confirmation that he was in fact with Matt. And that's why we insist on following all those leads that are outside the perimeter, everything is being run down. We are not putting all our eggs in one basket.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FIELD: Poppy, I will remind you that when authorities closed in on Richard Matt just a day ago, little bit more than 24 hours ago, he was armed with a shotgun.

HARLOW: Right.

FIELD: He refused to surrender to police. He refused to put his hands up. That's why they fired on him. And they are expecting fully that when they encounter David Sweat he too could be armed. So, they are completing the search and proceeding with as much caution here as possible.

HARLOW: What about the people that live there, Alex? I mean, I can't imagine having a home in this area, you know, how nervous, how scared I would be thinking that this guy's on the loose possibly right around me.

FIELD: Yes. There is a tremendous sense of relief that you could feel when Richard Matt was captured by police.

HARLOW: Right.

FIELD: Gunned down yesterday afternoon. And there was so much optimism it seemed at that point that the next big bit of news would break that they would quickly close in on David Sweat, because of course, we had learned from investigators that they had found a second set of tracks which they hoped would lead to David Sweat. So, a day later there is certainly that sense of relief that Matt has been taken down but at the same sense, they know that there is still a fugitive on the loose who may very well be armed. They are however being incredibly vigilant, the people throughout really this county. They are the ones who have continued to call police, continued to report when they see things that are out of place, continued to report when they believe that they may have spotted one of these fugitives. And Poppy, that's really what put police on Richard Matt's trail yesterday, when they closed in on him. A series of tips from individuals who were aware of the situation, alert to it. They called 911 at the right time and police were able to make that capture.

HARLOW: Alexandra Field reporting live for us there where they gunned down, killed Richard Matt yesterday. Thanks, Alex. Appreciate it.

Let's talk more about this, the manhunt with Matthew Horace, senior vice president for FJC Security, former ATF. Also with me again, criminologist Casey Jordan. Matthew, what's your take on this? I mean, it just seems sort of shocking that if they thought they were together, that now they have no scent trail, they have no eyes on him, they believe he's contained but we don't have a lot of details.

MATTHEW HORACE, SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, FJC SECURITY SERVICES: Well, Poppy, remember, what the police are telling us and what they know are two very different things here. I think when you saw what happened yesterday, they were in hot pursuit. That's what we were told in the afternoon. That means to me that someone put eyes on them at some point. And remember, that forest is very, very, very dense. It's not like an average park setting where you can see between trees. It's very dense. And I would have to think that if they are keeping those resources on the ground it's because we have good information that Sweat is actually there.

HARLOW: Take us into the mindset. I mean, that's what you do, Casey --

CASEY JORDAN, CRIMINOLOGIST: Right.

HARLOW: -- as a criminologist. What is the mindset of someone who has escaped from prison, daring escape, he's been on the lam for 22 days but until yesterday had a partner in crime with him. Now, he's all alone.

[17:05:14] JORDAN: That's correct. And Sweat was very known back in his hometown and among his friends and family for being extremely organized. He had to make lists in order to do anything. And this breakout took a year. He would have had a very meticulous idea of how this were going to go. That's great if it goes according to your plans but if your plan gets thrown off course, these kind of those -- people do decompensate very quickly. So, inside the mind of Matthew Sweat, if he's still alive which is a possibility that we should consider, or David Sweat, is the idea that he is completely out of his element. He is desperate, he's hopeless, he's freaked out, he's afraid and without his buddy, he may have no idea of what he's doing next.

HARLOW: Take me into the mind of the law enforcement officer who is going after David Sweat right now, knowing that, you know, his fellow criminal Richard Matt had a gun and fired a shot at a civilian in an RV -- civilian in an RV. So, law enforcement here having to protect themselves as well.

HORACE: Absolutely. If you go back a week and a half ago, they were considered to be dangerous. We changed their profile at some point last week to armed and dangerous. That's because police knew or had reason to believe that some firearms were missing from cabins up there in that area. Now, he's still armed and dangerous. So, I think police, we have to approach him with some sense of caution and right now you see the search going very deliberately, very cautiously and very slowly for good reason so that no one else gets hurt.

HARLOW: Casey, how does it change someone's mindset when they know that at the best case scenario I guess that they are going to be going back to prison under even worse circumstances for life than they were before?

JORDAN: Yes. That's what we call honestly an atomic bomb, it is somebody who has a complete disregard for their life, the lives of others, they are all in. Like in a poker game where you are just going for broke. And the hopelessness of that is going to make him start committing mistakes, almost in a subconscious way. We see people who are on the lam, at the end they are just tired, they can't think. You can wear them down just by the knowledge that we will never give up, you will spend the rest of your life looking over your shoulder. So, towards the end, the mindset is one of almost surrender but not usually surrender alive, but surrender to the reality that the police are going to kill you and sometimes as we know, when people, when the jig is up they kill themselves.

HARLOW: What does it mean Matthew for the criminal justice process playing out in the case of Joyce Mitchell who allegedly helped them escape from prison, right? She is now sitting behind bars, she's going to have her own trial. If they do capture David Sweat alive, do you think there's a likelihood he testifies against her? I mean, it's not going to win him any -- this guy is not getting out of jail if he gets captured alive.

HORACE: Now, I can guarantee you that law enforcement is going to go after him very vigorously to try to ascertain what was involved with this plan. But let's face it, there's no benefit or advantage to him talking to police. But let's go back for a minute. First, Ms. Mitchell was charged, then she was charged with a very small crime, then she was charged with something else, now we have another arrest of another employee. I think as the investigation ensues, this is going to be like a house of dominos. People are going to start falling because more information is going to come forward and we will have a better and clearer picture of what happened as a result of the escape and now the manhunt.

HARLOW: What do you think this does Casey, to the minds of other inmates in prison? By the way, many of them watching TV, they see what's going on.

JORDAN: Sure.

HARLOW: What does it do to them to watch all of this?

JORDAN: I think that it's almost a Hollywood effect to them. I mean, everyone, we were calling this initially the Shawshank escape. I mean, there is almost a Hollywood impact even three weeks later, this whole idea of Richard Matt, you know, carrying a gun and the police getting him before they got him because he wouldn't put his arms up. I mean, I think that it's very surreal to them but the moral of the story is not lost. You can dream about escaping over the prison walls but in the end, it's extremely rare and it never works. It's simply not worth it.

HARLOW: It never works. Matthew Horace, thank you very much. Casey Jordan, thank you as well. We will continue to follow this, bring you any updates when we have them. Also this though. Two hundred and twenty five people injured after a

huge fire broke out in a water park. Look at those images. Frightening. We'll going to tell you about how it happened and how people are doing straight ahead.

Also, terror in paradise. We will hear from someone who was on this beach when bullets started flying. And lived to tell about it.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[17:12:51] HARLOW: Overseas today, people in three different parts of the world are dealing with the aftermath of three separate shocking terrorist attacks. This is Eastern France, where someone set off an explosion at an American-owned factory on Friday. Police have a suspect in custody. They also found a decapitated man's body in the suspect's van.

In Kuwait the funerals of 27 people killed in a suicide bombing in Kuwait City were held today. It is the worst terror attack there in a number of years. ISIS has claimed responsibility. And in Northern Africa, tourists fleeing a popular beach resort one day after a man on a beach sprayed bullets, killing 38 people, 16 of them British citizens. An Irish woman recounting the horror.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I just got out of the water after being in the water with my sons. And they were still in the water. I was looking towards them. As I heard the sound to my left which I thought sounded like fireworks or crackers or something. I didn't know what it was. It was like machine gun because it was rapid. It definitely wasn't one shot or two shots. It was a rapid fire. So, as I heard, started to hear the second, I was running into the water, trying to tell the boys, we've got to get out, we've got to get out without scaring them but they're shooting, we've got to go, we've got to go. All I was thinking was, I've got to get the boys into our room and hide. That's all I could think of.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: ISIS is also claiming that the shooter in Tunisia was one of their own. CNN's Nick Paton Walsh reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Even murderers come to say good-bye. That's what Saif Al-Deen Al Rezgui seemed to do here at his family home Thursday. His uncle recalls nothing different about him, just a normal regular visit to his parents now being questioned by police.

But he does identify Saif in the picture ISIS released when they claimed the attack. He loved only studying, he says. Neighbors stunned at what became of the boy who loved dance class at school. He used to love soccer, one says, always him and his father playing in front of the house. He couldn't have done it, another says. It's like some radicals kidnapped his mind.

(on camera): The owner of this coffee shop didn't want to appear on camera but described how Saif Al-Deen Al Rezgui who worked here for a matter of weeks in August last year. As punctual, hard-working and like so many people in this sleepy town, struggles to reconcile the person he knew with the monster that police say Saif Al-Deen Al Rezgui went on to become.

(voice-over): His Facebook page beginning in 2010 with Eminem and after he moved north to study in 2011, soon filling with Islamist videos. "This says, if Jihad is a crime, then let the world witness me being a criminal." But still, they insist here as they let us into their home, no clues of what to follow. Nothing here, either. Perhaps nothing his family lived on. Sharing this small room, father, mother, sleeping on floors. His cousin didn't want her face shown.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's a catastrophe. You never think it can happen in your own home.

WALSH: This small world from which a cold killer emerged, now public, under scrutiny. He made victims of his own family, too.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HARLOW: Nick Paton Walsh reporting for us. Investigators in all three of these countries where the terrorist attacks occurred, France, Kuwait and Tunisia, working to see if there was indeed a link between all three of them. Something beyond the timing. All three happened within the space of just a few hours.

Let's talk more about it with Phil Mudd, former CIA official who specialized in counterterrorism. Phil, what do you think? I mean, you know, Peter Bergen was saying these kind of attacks are the new norm. Do you think it is coincidence or there was a coordination here beyond the timing?

PHIL MUDD, CNN COUNTERTERRORISM ANALYST: It's sort of coincidence. I don't think these three were coordinated among themselves. I don't think what happened in France, in Tunisia and Kuwait were coordinated. But you had a message from ISIS saying, during the Ramadan period go out and attack. I do believe there are people out there saying, let me listen to the message of the people sending the message, that is ISIS, and try to figure out whether I can attack during this period, so I think there is an ideological coordination, if you will. I do not believe there's any communication among these three cells who conducted these attacks.

[17:17:26] HARLOW: So, looking at Tunisia, I mean, this was after the Arab Spring and the ousting of Ben Ali in 2011, Tunisia was looked at as a beacon of hope after the Arab Spring. And then the mass attack at the museum, a tourist focal point and their entire economy relies on tourism. Then this attack at a luxury resort on a beach. What does this tell us about the future for Tunisia?

MUDD: I don't think it tells us that the ISIS guys and the Islamic militants will succeed. Let's go back to the 1990s. We saw attacks in Egypt which depends a lot on tourist income in Luxor, for example, that is a major tourist location for Egyptians and for foreigners. Those attacks led Egyptians to say, hey, why do we want these militants on our soil who are going to destroy tourist income? If you go to Tunisia now, 20 years later, I think the Islamists are still making the same mistake. They're trying to send a message that says, we want to expel the westerners but six or seven percent of people working in Tunisia, that's Tunisian nationals, are working in the tourist industry. What do you think they're saying today? I think they're saying, we don't want these guys on our territory. We are going to reject this kind of extremism.

HARLOW: But at the same time, officials have calculated something like 3,000 Tunisian citizens going to Syria and Iraq to fight with other jihadists. And when you have a country where there is such a lack of economic opportunity and a serious economic problem especially for the young people, could it be that that's why we are seeing, you know, thousands of these people leave to go fight with extremists? They are trying to cling to something.

MUDD: I think some of this is lack of economic opportunity. I think there is a bigger message. And I know this is painful but let me give you that message. The message from ISIS is look, we live in a world of Islam. There is a better way to live. Come to the land where Islam is practiced in purity, that is Syria and Iraq, come to a place where people aren't sitting on a beach in bikinis, where people practice Islam in purity. Three thousand people in a country like Tunisia is not a lot of people. But that fringe of people will say the message I'm receiving from ISIS is clear and that message is compelling. My sort of conversation with you Poppy is pretty clear. That message whether we like it or not for a small fringe of people is very compelling. There is a way to live a better life and if you want to live that better life, expel the foreigners from your territory.

HARLOW: Phil Mudd, scary reality we are talking about here.

MUDD: Yep.

HARLOW: Thank you.

MUDD: Thank you.

HARLOW: As always, very much.

Coming up next, some horrifying images. An explosion at this water park leaving more than 200 people hurt. It was not terrorism. What happened, next?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[17:23:54] HARLOW: It's being called the worst incident of mass injury in New Taipei City, Taiwan, that has ever been seen. I want to warn you. The video you're about to see is very disturbing.

A flammable powder exploded in midair over a crowd of people at a water park and then a fireball engulfed the stage. As you can see, people running for their lives through the flames.

Taiwan's official news agency reporting the fire was pretty quickly brought under control but not before at least 229 people were injured.

(SPEAKING A FOREIGN LANGUAGE)

We are told 97 people right now are being treated. They are in serious condition. An investigation under way into how that could have happened.

Also, three more victims of the Charleston Church massacre were laid to rest today. Cynthia Hurd had worked as a librarian for 31 years. She was just in her four days, shy of her 55th birthday when she was shot dead along with eight other people at Bible study at Emanuel AME Church. Today hundreds gathered at that same church to remember her. Also paying their respects, United States Congressman Jim Clyburn and also South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. NIKKI HALEY (R), SOUTH CAROLINA: I love the fact that she lived by the motto that be kinder than necessary. That's what I will take with me. Be kinder than necessary. It's an amazingly powerful phrase. And I will tell you that while we are incredibly sorry, I am sorry this happened on my watch, but we will make this right. We will make this right.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: A few hours later, the funeral for Tawanza Sanders and Susie Jackson was held. Jackson was Sanders aunt, he was reportedly shot as he tried to protect her. Both remembered as a team service.

Also, this happened early this morning in the state's capital of Columbia. An activist group filming their own activities as you see that person climbing the flagpole there on the state capitol grounds, taking down the confederate flag. That's the same flag that the governor of South Carolina Nikki Haley wants removed. She announced that this past week with fellow members of Congress. One of the members of this activist group took down the flag. Two people were arrested. They posted a $3,000 bond each. They were allowed to leave the state.

Well, America knew him as the rhinestone cowboy. Tomorrow night, a remarkable film we will going to show you here on CNN, "Glen Campbell I'll Be Me" reveals how one of America's greatest musicians would not give up on his family or his music against all odds. Here's a preview.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Last night, you sometimes forgot what key it was in but you could always remember the melody. How is that?

GLEN CAMPBELL, MUSICIAN: I couldn't answer it but I can do it. And I can do it when I want to do it. It's amazing. Sometimes I don't want to do it. No, it's just something that's in your system that I really don't know what it is. I wish I wish I knew.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Look over there.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Well, during the course of our touring we would have, you know, a few weeks here or a few days there where we would get to come back to Malibu and try to enjoy a normal life.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Play the piano for me. Open and close.

CAMPBELL: I'm a guitar player.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I can see. Open and close your hands. Come on!

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You know, but we're still dealing with the little things every day that are so difficult for Glen like, where's the bathroom in your own home and every second is a challenge for him.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[17:31:07] HARLOW: Armed, dangerous and desperate. That is what 1,200 law enforcement officers are facing right now as they hunt for the lone remaining fugitive on the run in Upstate New York.

Davis Sweat still on the lam in the heavily wooded areas just south of the Canadian border. His running buddy, Richard Matt, gunned down by police on Friday. Right now, bloodhounds that are searching for Davis Sweat have come up empty, no trail. They are unable to catch his scent as they comb through that area right around Malone, New York.

Meanwhile, police are manning roadblocks as they have before, checking every single car in and out of that area, hoping for another break in this case. Regardless of the weather, the terrain, the search goes on day and night. Let's talk about what these officers are facing, why it has taken three weeks now.

I'm with former FBI special agent in charge, Rick Schwein, he also who led the search for the Olympic Park bomber, Eric Rudolph.

Thank you for being here, Rick.

Let's talk about this. When they know now the other fugitive, Richard Matt, had a gun and fired a shot, how are they operating here, assuming the same is true of Davis Sweat?

RICK SCHWEIN, FBI SPECIAL AGENT: Oh, absolutely. They've got to make that assumption in the interest of not only their safety but the safety of the public that lives in that area. They are going to be in a state of hyper alertness. They are going to be very methodical and deliberate as they continue their search within the perimeter but they are also going to be developing contingency plans so they can react to any leads that might come in from outside of the perimeter.

HARLOW: Does it surprise you that the bloodhounds have not been able to get a scent? SCHWEIN: Not at all. Having worked with bloodhounds on other

fugitive investigations and certainly during the Eric Rudolph investigation, you know, there can be a great tool but they can also be dependent upon a lot of different factors, weather, the handler, how fatigued the animals are. And the fact they haven't picked up a scent doesn't mean the scent isn't out there. They just may not have run across it.

There are other tools that law enforcement's going to use. They're going to use aviation assets. They're going to use man trackers, specially trained individuals. This is an art in search and rescue as well as law enforcement and in our military special operations forces.

People leave evidence of their presence when they cut across rural areas. They leave footprints. They leave disturbed places in the ground. They leave brush that is broken. If they lay down, they may depress grass and other foliage.

So, they're going to be using people that are experts in man-tracking to try to get on Sweat's trail and bring this to a safe and successful resolution.

HARLOW: Does Davis Sweat have a better chance now that he is separated from Richard Matt in terms of getting away? Or does this make it even harder for him because he doesn't have the confidence of someone else by your side to run with?

SCHWEIN: You know, that's a great question. That's really a question for a criminal psychologist. I heard one of your early guests talking about that specific dynamic. Some people, people like Eric Rudolph, do much better by themselves. Other people are bolstered, empowered by the presence of another human being.

Clearly, the two of them fed off of each other and needed one another to facilitate the escape and successfully evaded to this point together. I think going forward, it puts Sweat at a disadvantage. And I think this will likely come to an end sooner and I hope it comes to an end sooner rather than later.

But sometimes, these things ebb and flow. There are many cases, the case last year with Eric Fein in Pennsylvania, he was on the run for 48 days before he was finally captured.

HARLOW: Right.

SCHWEIN: So terrain can be an obstacle, weather can be an obstacle. Just keep in mind, he has to be lucky with every decision that he makes, every place that he hunkers down at night, every direction of travel that he picks.

[17:35:05] Every decision that he makes, he's got to have luck on his side. Law enforcement just has to be lucky once.

HARLOW: It's been remarkable that he has been able to be on the lam for this long.

Appreciate the expertise. Thank you, sir.

SCHWEIN: Thank you, Poppy.

HARLOW: Well, coming up next, some are calling it the week that changed this nation but is this the week that will define President Obama's legacy? Ben and Marc join me next to talk about it.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARLOW: Whether you are a supporter of his or not, President Obama just completed one of the most remarkable weeks of his presidency. CNN politics reporter Steven Collinson writes it has been a week that will define this president, a week that has changed this nation.

The Supreme Court handing the president two major victories, the decision legalizing gay marriage across this country, upholding also a key provision of Obamacare. The president this week also speaking about race, delivering the eulogy for Reverend Clementa Pinckney in Charleston yesterday. He led the crowd in singing "Amazing Grace."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES (singing): Amazing grace, how sweet the sound --

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: And overshadowed by all of this, rare cooperation with Republican leaders on Capitol Hill earning the president expanded powers to negotiate new trade deals.

[17:40:07] Let's talk about it with Ben Ferguson and Marc Lamont Hill.

Marc, let me begin with you. Just your reaction -- is this the week that defines this president?

MARC LAMONT HILL, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, you can never define a president by one week. This was certainly a moment that President Obama and his team, his administration and his supporters would like to be the defining week and it should be a big part of it. Amazing things happened this week. But the legitimacy of Obamacare was reaffirmed.

Many of the powerful moves he made a few years ago on gay marriage have now been expanded to the federal level, with the Supreme Court decision, affordable housing. We could go down the list of things, free trade. All of these things are part of the presidency.

It doesn't mean we ignore drone strikes. It doesn't mean we ignore corporate welfare. It doesn't meant we ignore, you know, decrepit education systems.

We can't ignore everything that happened before this week. However, this is an amazing week and the best part of this week. And to me, the finest moment that President Obama has ever had was when he stood in that pulpit and led America and tried to usher America into a new moral vision and to try to reaffirm the tradition of the black prophetic tradition, the black freedom struggle, and quite honestly, Jeremiah Wright.

HARLOW: A name that comes up in all of this.

Ben, let me ask you this. I want to take a look at some of these polling numbers, right? So, recent CNN/ORC poll found that 59 percent of Republicans under 50, Republicans under 50 say same-sex couples do have a constitutional right to marry. That's compared with 36 percent of Republicans 50 or older.

Now, when you look at GOP candidates and some of the reaction we got, it was very different if you compare Mike Huckabee reacting to the high court's decision and Jeb Bush, saying I don't agree with it but this is the law of the land. What does this do for the GOP debate in this election over same-sex marriage? There has been a lot written about whether this is a good thing because now a lot of them can say if they didn't want to get intertwined in this debate, look, it's the law of the land.

BEN FERGUSON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Certainly, there are going to be some that will say hey, it is what it is now, let's move on to other major issues and I'm not going to spend a lot of time on this.

For other candidates, I think it's still very much going to be a defining issue for them. You saw how Ted Cruz made it abundantly clear how dissatisfied he was with the Supreme Court and that's going to be something he's going to be talking about with primary voters around the country that are probably older voters. Lot of primary voters are older voters, and you're going to see him try to capitalize on that and the poll numbers that say a lot of older GOP Republican people that are going to go out and vote may look at him and say, that's the guy I want because he will stand up for something I believe in.

At the same time, you look at Jeb Bush, I think he thinks you know what, I may be able to bring in younger people into my campaign because I don't have to deal with this issue so much.

HARLOW: Yes.

FERGUSON: So, a lot of it depends on your strategy as a candidate, you know, which way do you want to play this and you are going to see very different players do this in different ways during this campaign.

HARLOW: I want you both to weigh in, you first, marc, just on what we heard from the president on race yesterday in this eulogy, saying something that really stood out to me.

Let's listen to that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OBAMA: We're guarding against not just racial slurs, but we're also guarding against the subtle impulse to call Johnny back for a job interview but not Jamal. (END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: Marc, this is a president who some have criticized over the years, especially closer to the beginning of his first term, for not addressing race enough head-on. Is this -- is this the reaction that a lot of people wanted from this president?

HILL: It's the reaction I wanted from this president. I waited six and a half years for this to come out. This is much better than what I call the Philadelphia compromise speech that he made early in 2008 when he was forced into a corner, sort of throwing Jeremiah Wright under the bus.

This is different than the speech he gave after Ferguson where he tried to equate black rage from police terrorism with white anger and rage. And white supremacist anger and rage. It was baffling.

But in this moment, he didn't equivocate, he didn't try to establish false equivalencies. He said there's a racist structure in place we need to unhinge. This is an intractable problem and the Johnny/Jamal thing, it was brilliant. It's exactly what we need. That's the best of the black church in that moment.

HARLOW: Yes.

Ben, your take on that?

FERGUSON: Look, first of all, I thought it was incredible to watch the president lead all those people in song and he obviously gave lots of comfort to the people there that lost their loved ones because of a racist individual that went in and was a terrorist and murdered people because of the color of their skin.

You know, take away from it outside of that is the president going to continue to talk about these things and I think what you're hearing from Marc, we actually agree on a little bit. I think the president has been very cautious some days to say some things certain ways and all of a sudden he finds the right audience and then he'll go a different direction. Is he going to become more consistent in this, moving forward?

HILL: That's not what I said.

FERGUSON: I'm not sure you're going to see that.

But I think you will agree with me on this.

HILL: We don't agree on that. You may think that. I don't think that.

[17:45:01] FERGUSON: Let me say this. I think it's fair to say President Barack Obama when he goes into this church and other African-American community churches like this, it's his wheel house but where is that outside of that. I think that's one of the issues.

HARLOW: And we'll be watching. Ben, Marc, thank you so much. Great to have you guys on as always.

HILL: Pleasure.

FERGUSON: Thanks.

HARLOW: Coming up next, we're going to switch gears here. This is a 35-year-old, a 35-year-old billionaire, who founded Napster at 19 years old. He is taking on a new challenge and telling us what industry he wants to hack, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARLOW: He has been a rebel in Silicon Valley. But today, Napster cofounder and former Facebook President Sean Parker is out to disrupt an age-old industry. The 35-year-old billionaire penning an op-ed in today's "Wall Street Journal" called, "A Hacker's Guide to Philanthropy".

I sat down with him at his home in Los Angeles.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE

HARLOW: You co-founded Napster. You were the founding president of Facebook. You became a billionaire. Now, you are giving $600 million away. Who is Sean Parker today?

SEAN PARKER, ENTREPRENEUR & PHILANTROPHIST: Probably the same person I was more or less when I was 19, which is somebody who is very interested in trying to understand how the world works and feeling mostly like an outsider.

[17:50:09] HARLOW (voice-over): A self-described perennial outsider, Sean Parker doesn't want to see his name on any buildings.

PARKER: The incentives are set up in such a way that donors are rewarded for giving money and to some extent I think cuddled because the currency in that world is recognition.

HARLOW: He wants to disrupt a model that hasn't ever really been disrupted about.

PARKER: In any field outside of flint, if a company released a product and just continued to inch sift it was working when it wasn't it and didn't listen to feed back from customers and didn't change, they would probably fail.

HARLOW: We met Parker at his home, a symbol of the immense wealth he and his fellow hackers, the name he likes to use, have so quickly accumulated.

PARKER: I think that success carries a certain responsibility. So often, people in the technology world who come from nothing and maybe they succeed very quickly, it takes them a while to figure out they have any power in the world at all. HARLOW: He tells me why he launched the Parker Foundation, backing it

with his $600 million donation and why he doesn't want it to play by the rules.

PARKER: They're just too many of these massive institutionalized charities, we need more philanthropists to deploy resources more quickly within their own lifetimes. And actually Gates and Buffett have signed up to this idea themselves.

HARLOW: The way he puts it, the geeks were not supposed to inherit the earth. But in many respects, they have, and the huge wealth transferring into the hands of young Silicon Valley hackers, means a new model of giving he says is needed.

PARKER: This generation of people who are young they're referred to as geeks, they've probably referred to themself as hackers, come into their own and start to realize that that they have a responsibility. That having, you know, enormous wealth, being, you know, one of the thousands or so riches people in the world, it's incumbent upon you to do something with that. Part of this new generation of philanthropist will bring to the table is the idea that everything is on the table.

And that's actually what gets me going.

I find it very strange when I look at entrepreneurs or successful business people who had a huge impact largely by taking chances, but they make that switch to being philantrophist, they suddenly become very conservative. If Andrew Carnegie had been alive to see the creation of the Internet, would he have shifted gears, would he have stopped building libraries and instead built Wikipedia.

PARKER: Risk is something Sean Parker knows like the back of his hand. When you're building a product like Napster, it's really an experiment. You have no idea if this is going to work, whether or not it's even legal.

HARLOW (on camera): And you said, you're scared about making mistakes with how of these capitalists deploy, but be willing to be criticized.

PARKER: I think it's incredibly important that you're willing to take criticism and that you're also capable of being wrong.

HARLOW (voice-over): Parker hasn't said yet what the biggest causes are that he'll fund or how much he'll risk to change the philanthropic world.

(on camera): A lot of people may not know, but your severe allergies have landed you in the hospital dozens and dozens of times, so much so you've been this close to death.

PARKER: I have spent a lot of time in hospitals. So, I think it does reframe your perspective. You know, I think that there's a point in everyone's life where they start to appreciate their own mortality.

HARLOW: Do you think about your own mortality right now? PARKER: I think everyone thinks about their own mortality, and they

probably try to suppress those thoughts as much as possible. The biggest shift I think is when you have kids. You start thinking about the world you're going to leave for your children.

HARLOW: Are you calling on the young tech entrepreneurs, the young tech billionaires to commit like you have, to giving away half or more of their wealth?

PARKER: I think it's really just conducting an experiment, right? I -- it would be presumptuous of me to make any claims about what's going to happen. What I would love to do is create a model that could demonstrate some success.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HARLOW: All right. Thanks to Sean Parker for that. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARLOW: Nearly 20 percent of veterans struggle with PTSD. One man has come up with a way for them to overcome it through his love of the outdoors.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You take back a lot of things from war you didn't think you were going to bring back.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I was angry at everyone and didn't want anything to do with anybody.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It can be kind of hard. You just get kind of anxious.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You stop feeling, basically.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All three of my deployments were intense. There was no time to cope.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I decided to hike the Appalachian Trail because it had been a dream of mine growing up. Two thirds of the ways, I realized I was processing these experiences I put away. I knew there were other combat veterans that need to do that.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The Warrior Hike provides veterans with all the supplies they need to complete along the distance hike. It's just like a deployment, instead of going to fight a war, your mission is to be a civilian again. Veterans that need to do that.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Just being in the woods. Out here, there's nothing to do but think.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There's an internal quiet. And some of the problems that you're dealing with are hammered away.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Just being around other military is more than words could say.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How many years (INAUDIBLE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Fifteen years.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Our veterans also receive (INAUDIBLE) town support along the way.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hello.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How are you?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Good. How are you?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You can see how much they care. It helps.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We help veterans prepare for the next chapter of their life.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You're learning to take it as it comes and move on.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm looking for that sense of calm, the step I take, I think I'm going in that direction.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HARLOW: I'm Poppy Harlow in New York. I'll be back here with you at 7:00 Eastern.

But "SMERCONISH" is next.