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Refugee Crisis in Europe; Sarah Palin's Exclusive Interview; Drone Disrupts Football Game; Faith on the Job; Harvard Professor Lawrence Lessig to Announce Presidential Bid; Stephen Colbert Starts New TV Stint Tuesday. Aired 4-5p ET

Aired September 06, 2015 - 16:00   ET

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

[16:00:00]

MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN ANCHOR: Happening now in the NEWSROOM, 11,000 refugees making their way through Austria today alone. The crisis so grave that Pope Francis is imploring Catholics across Europe to shelter them.

Plus an exclusive interview with Sarah Palin. What she thinks America needs in its next president and what she would do if she were in charge?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

FMR. GOV. SARAH PALIN (R), ALASKA: I don't think the public gives a flying flip if somebody knows who today is a specific leader of a specific region or religion or anything because that leader will change.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SAVIDGE: And speaking of flying flips, for the second time in a week, a drone crashes at a major sporting event. "EWSROOM starts now.

Hello everyone. Thank you for joining me. I'm Martin Savidge, in for Fredricka Whitfield. So we're going to begin with some very powerful images from the refugee crisis. Where an estimated 11,000 are crossing into Austria. And that's over the last 24 hours.

Federal police say some 5,000 have also crossed into Germany. After weeks of exhausting travel, a heart-warming scene finally unfolding at the train stations in Munich and Vienna. Take a listen.

OK. So that's the good news. The bad news is the U.N. says that Austria cannot sustain this influx of asylum seekers and other European countries must step up and share that burden.

This morning Pope Francis called on every religious community in Europe to take in a refugee family. The Pope said that it's going to start with his own diocese right in Rome. Although thousands of refugee families have reached the countries where they plan to seek asylum, it's important to recognize their excruciating journey to get to that point. And no has covered that story like CNN's Arwa Damon. She has climbed into the same fishing boats that these refugees have taken across the Mediterranean. She has boarded those crowded train cars. She has walked hours alongside them on a Hungarian highway.

She traveled from (INAUDIBLE) Turkey through Macedonia, Serbia and Hungary. Along the way, she filed this reporter's notebook.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ARWA DAMON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): At the Greece-Macedonia border, four days spent under the rain after the Macedonians shut it down.

UNIDENTIFED MALE: We'll die.

DAMON: The children's clothes did not even have enough time to dry before the showers started again. And no one, not a single nonprofit, not the government, to even provide something as simple as a tarp. A pregnant Syrian woman who did not want to be interviewed grabbed my arm in the crowd. Eyes welling up, she pleaded, please do something. I don't want to lose my baby.

Hours after me met, the Macedonian police finally started letting people through. Some so desperate they threw themselves across. Others making a run for it. A mother lost her son. She frantic, begging the police to let her through. It just didn't make sense. How could they be treated like this?

Brief flashes of relief. Trains departing carrying them through Macedonia. Small faces pressed up against the glass. Hands waving. But the respite, short-lived. The further into Europe they moved, the worse their treatment became. Often traveling overnight on foot. Train tracks lead the flow of humanity from Serbia into Hungary.

Here, the real nightmare for most begins. Parched they arrive, but there is no water. Just hours of waiting under the beating sun where buses finally arrive to take them to a (INAUDIBLE) transit camp where all say the conditions are inhumane and they are treated like animals. Herded around like sheep and forced to scramble for food and water, and we are not allowed in.

At the Budapest train station after having waited for days if not over a week sleeping on cement, a moment of slight hope as a packed train departs, also short-lived. An hour into what should have been a journey to the Hungary-Austria border, it stops. Whatever hope they had shattered. A little girl unconsolable. Her mother unable to speak. All they want to do is get out of Hungary. Police ordered refugees off into a camp but they refused.

[16:05:00]

Bedding down for the night, up in the overhead compartments, parents trying to make their children as comfortable as they can. Still struggling to believe that in Europe they are finding themselves reduced to this. It is heartbreaking to witness. Thousands take matters into their own hands and start walking from Budapest to the Austrian border. No longer willing to exist at the mercy of European leaders. We are in awe of their resolve.

Here, they see the compassion of some of the Hungarian people, ashamed of their government's treatment of the refugees, handing out water, food, and more. He was on his crutches the entire way. But then again, someone stopped and actually gave them a child's stroller. The injury's from a barrel bomb. The men have children living under ISIS in Syria, getting to Germany means a chance of bringing and saving them.

Almost all of these people have fled the war zones of Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. Homelands that no longer offer a future for them or for their children. The world yet unable to resolve those wars, the people suffering the consequences deserve better than this.

Arwa Damon, CNN, Hungary.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SAVIDGE: Our thanks to Arwa Damon for her remarkable reporting.

Joining me now, Michelle Nunn. She is the president and CEO of the humanitarian organization CARE, which everyone is familiary with. She just got back from the Syrian border. First of all, nice to see you. Welcome back.

MICHELLE NUNN, PRESIDENT & CEO, CARE: Thank you.

SAVIDGE: The situation there is quite dire. And this of course is sort of the source for everything we're starting to see take place in Europe. What did you see there?

NUNN: So first of all, you have to understand there are four million refugees that have spilled out across the borders of Syria, Jordan and Turkey and Lebanon. What I saw, I was visiting CARE's work there supporting refugee families, trying to give them the shelter, food, and support that they need just to get by.

And it's an enormous set of challenges. And it is at the root of this migrant crisis that we now see in Europe.

SAVIDGE: And is CARE able to keep up? You mentioned millions, can you look after our care for that number of people?

NUNN: Well, the larger global humanitarian response is falling far short of where it needs to be. Only 30 percent of what the U.N. said it requires to meet the needs there are being met. For instance CARE, only 40 percent of what we set our sights for in terms of our resources for the crisis have been met. So we're falling short in terms of scale and intensity of support.

SAVIDGE: And I presume some of what we're seeing this migration, people now deciding that they can't go home, meaning back to Syria. Now they're going to look for a new life. And the closest place they look to go is Europe. In essence, they turned away from the past and realized life has got to be somewhere else.

NUNN: Well, I sat with a family of four little boys and the mother and father, the two older boys in Jordan were working to support their family. So not going to school. The mother was devastated by this. She pulled up the shirt of her six-year-old boy with -- showed me the shrapnel that has come in and pierced his stomach in their home.

She said, what choice did I have but to leave? So what choice did she have but to leave Syria and now she faces a future without hope for her children. So again, she is considering what are her options.

SAVIDGE: And we have to think -- we talked about this. Ten, 15 years down the road, Syrians may be returning and how do we prepare them for that?

NUNN: Well, how do we make sure, for instance, that the children of these refugees have the chance for schooling. Right now in Jordan and Turkey, only 25 percent of the refugee children are in school. When you think about that, several years of interrupted education, what are the possibilities for that generation? Do we face a lost generation? And what we need to make sure we get them in school, that we give them some hope for the future. Hopefully that they can rebuild their country one day about in the meanwhile, that they can be productive citizens and supporting their own families.

SAVIDGE: Michelle Nunn from CARE, who is doing a very large share of looking after all these people. Thank you.

NUNN: Thank you very much.

SAVIDGE: Now, let's talk a little bit more about the Pope's response to the refugee crisis. At the end of his message in which he delivered today, he said this, "I appeal to the parishes, the religious communities, the monasteries, the shrines throughout Europe to express the reality of the Gospel and accommodate a family of refugees. Every parish, every religious community, every monastery, every sanctuary of Europe has to host a family and that is starting with my own diocese of Rome."

CNN's Delia Gallagher is in Rome, and Celia, how many families are we talking about that the Vatican is likely to host?

[16:10:00]

DELIA GALLAGHER, CNN VATICAN CORRESPONDENT: Well, to begin with, the Pope says he's going to start with his two parishes inside the Vatican. One of which is St. Peter's Basilica, which we all know. There's another small one called St. Anne's, just outside the Vatican gate.

So one family for each of those parishes. Martin, I spoke to the Pope's spokesman, Father Lombardi, earlier, who said that the families will not necessarily stay inside the Vatican. That the pope's appeal was not just to the priests of the various churches, it was also to the families who attend mass at those churches. So that the hope might be that the families who attend mass at the Vatican may also host refugee families.

Now, there are some 75,000 parishes between France, Germany, Italy and Spain alone. That doesn't even include the monasteries, the convents and other religious institutions that the Pope appealed to today. So clearly, an opening of doors would go some way to helping this refugee crisis.

We should also say, Martin, that a lot of this is already underway in some of the diocese in Europe. In Milan, for example, they already have some 900 places made available in their archdiocese. An archdiocese is made up of the church parishes. So this is the Pope's program already in action.

In Vienna, some 1,000 places are also available. In addition, there are the Catholic relief services and the Catholic aid charities which work on the front lines with immigrants, providing food, water, translation services, health care and so on. One of those agencies that's called (INAUDIBLE), based here in Rome, gave an early response to the Pope's appeal saying we could go even further and offer a sponsorship program whereby European families would pay for families from the Middle East or Africa to come to Europe and thereby avoid those sometimes harrowing journeys by land or sea to get to Europe. Martin.

SAVIDGE: Delia Gallagher joining us from Rome, thank you very much for that.

Coming up, Hillary Clinton, she's falling behind in the presidential race in New Hampshire. And we'll have an exclusive interview with Sarah Palin. She speaks out about very personal feelings including Down syndrome and abortion.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:16:16]

SAVIDGE: The race for the White House is heating up on the democratic side certainly. A new NBC poll shows that Bernie Sanders now has a nine-point lead over Hillary Clinton in New Hampshire.

But first, Sarah Palin in an exclusive interview with CNN's Jake Tapper is speaking out about what she would do if she was in charge. And she opened up about a subject that hits very close to her heart, abortion.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST, "STATE OF THE UNION": Ohio lawmakers are soon going to bring up legislation that would ban women from being legally allowed to terminate a pregnancy based on a diagnosis of Down syndrome. Governor Kasich has not taken a position on the bill. Do you want him to?

PALIN: Yes, I want him to. Do you think it should be legal for a mom to snuff out the life of her baby just because the child has one extra chromosome. Not to personalize it too much but Trig's inside. I wish that he would so often does, come over and tap me on my shoulder and want to whisper something to me and share whatever experience I'm going through. I wish that more people could meet kids like Trig and so many others who have that extra chromosome.

They're amazing, wonderful kids. They teach us more than we're going to be able to teach them. They keep us grounded and put things in perspective in our lives. No, I don't think because the child has one extra chromosome they should be able to snuff that life out. When I was pregnant and very early on at 12 weeks got the diagnosis that Trig would be born with Down syndrome, I know what moms go through when they're giving that -- at the time to be honest with you, kind of devastating news.

It makes your world stop spinning for a bit there. There's some fear there of the unknown. Certainly there was fear in my heart about how in the world are we going to be able to handle the challenges up ahead. Not necessarily thinking of the beauty that could come from a child being different, being unique. And as the months went by though and as I prayed about it, god, please change my heart and my eyes so I can see the beauty in all this, so that I'll be ready to be a good mom to this child. He answered my prayers. Awesome, Trig is wonderful.

But I do know what moms go through. Jake, I think the reason that 85 percent, in some areas 90 percent of babies who have Down syndrome are aborted is that fear of the unknown and because culture has told these women -- and again, I was there -- has told these women, you're not capable of being able to handle and nurture and love and raise a child with special needs.

It's just so much easier and convenient for you to just end it, pretend like it never happened, get rid of the child, get rid of the baby and get on with a convenient life of your own. With culture's overall mind set of life being able to just be thrown away, I know why that stat is what it is, is so high. It's tragic. Heck, whatever I can do to help parents, though, who are facing such a challenge at the beginning especially to let them know, you can do it and it's beautiful.

I wouldn't change anything about Trig. I wouldn't change anything about how this has solidified our family support for the sanctity of life and for tolerance, for accepting people who are a little bit different.

TAPPER: Donald trump says he would love to have someone of your strength in his administration. Would you take a look at the cabinet?? Is there a particular area you think would line up best with your strengths, a position you'd want to serve in?

PALIN: That's a great question. I think a lot about the Department of Energy. Because energy is my baby. Oil and gas and minerals, those things that god has dumped on this part of the earth for mankind's use, instead of us relying on unfriendly foreign nations, to import their resources. I think a lot about Department of Energy. If I were head of that, I would get rid of it and I'd let the states start having more control over the lands that are within their boundaries and the people who are affected by the developments within their states. If I were in charge of that, it would be a short-term job, but it would be -- it would be really great to have someone who knows energy and is pro-responsible development to be in charge.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

[16:20:00]

SAVIDGE: Sarah Palin speaking to Jake Tapper. All right. So that gives us a lot to talk about here. And we've got a great panel to do just that.

Brian Morgan Stern, a lawyer and political strategist, and Ellis Henican, a columnist and a popular television and radio commentator. Good to see you both back again.

Ellis, let me start with you. As we know, Sarah Palin has a Down syndrome child of her own. She really opened up and spoke very passionately, very personally about the topic when it comes to aborting children with Down's syndrome. I'm wondering, do you think that her voice and her stance will sway the opinions of, say, those in Ohio when it comes up for a vote?

ELLIS HENICAN, COLUMNIST: Martin, it's heart wrenching to listen to her tell that story. You've got to honor and respect whatever decision any mom in that situation makes. There's a political question underlying it that goes beyond that. It's ultimately, who should make these decisions. Should women and their doctors and their clergymen and their other family members or should politicians be deciding and prosecutors and police officers and governors and legislators? And then what kind of penalties would we impose against women who violated Sarah Palin's view of the right decision?

Do we want to send those women to jail? What would be the proper -- to me, the personal story is absolutely riveting. The political story, I don't know, Martin. It seems pretty scary to have a bunch of politicians making those decisions.

SAVIDGE: Right. And I get the difference you point out there. Brian, she said that she wanted to be sort of head of the energy department, which she believes she's qualified to do but then she said she'd immediately over a short period of time, get rid of it, handing this kind of federal empowerment down to the state level. Do you think that makes sense?

BRIAN MORGENSTERN, POLITIAL STRATEGIST: Well, it goes along with a very popular Republican theme which is states' rights and getting centralized control out of Washington. That's been a theme on a number of topics, not just energy. That is a particularly hot one because of the Keystone pipeline, because of drilling licenses. A lot of coal regulations in West Virginia. In a lot of key states, this upcoming election, energy will be a very

important topic. So, you know, giving power back to the states is going to be a pretty appealing message for a lot of voters. But again, it's come up in a lot of different areas. Common core is a big topic in the education realm. A lot of Republican candidates over the years have talked about getting rid of the Department of Education and putting the power back into the hands of parents and students as opposed to having some bureaucrat in Washington, what your kid's going to learn in school. This is not a crazy idea in that a lot of people at home want control over energy policy because they feel like Washington bureaucrats are taking away their livelihood, just in the same way that in other areas people feel sort of overwhelmed by government intrusion.

SAVIDGE: It's not common though to hear a person say I want a job and then by the way, the first thing I'm going to to do is get rid of that job. Let's talk about the polls because I can't let you go without doing that.

I'm talking about the NBC (INAUDIBLE) polls. Hillary Clinton saying yesterday that she expected a competitive race. Be careful what you wish for because she's got one. Ellis, do you think that the Hillary camp could have ever imagined that Bernie Sanders would pull ahead in New Hampshire as he appears to have done?

HENICAN: Martin, there's no way to expect a competitive race. Certainly, not from Bernie Sanders. Listen, it's got to be worrisome. Imagine, if Bernie wins in Iowa and New Hampshire, then it's onto South Carolina. That will turn this race upside down. Nobody was expecting that.

SAVIDGE: Yes, I tend to agree. Brian, speaking of potential upsets, you know, we got Carson now getting ground on Donald Trump. Again, according to these polls in Iowa. So should Donald Trump be worried at all about this?

MORGENSTERN: I don't think Donald Trump knows how to worry. I don't think that's an emotion that he has in his basket of emotions. He's the most confident guy I think we've ever seen run for office. So worry, I don't think so. Frankly, I don't think any of these candidates really need to be worrying about polls. It's really when you get into the four to eight weeks before an election that polls have any sort of predictive value whatsoever.

While they're fun for us to talk about, I never get tired of it. These don't necessarily tell us what's going to happen.

SAVIDGE: Brian Morgenstern, Ellis Henican, thank you both for joining us and keeping us politically grounded. Thank you.

Reminder to pass along. Be sure to watch the next Republican presidential debate because it will be here hosted by CNN, Wednesday September 16th. It starts at 6:00 p.m. Eastern. We'll be back in just a minute.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) [16:28:16]

SAVIDGE: As college football kicks off this weekend, authorities had to deal with a drone scare at the University of Kentucky last night. The unmanned aircraft crashed into the stadium just before the Wildcats took on the Louisiana Lafayette team.

CNN's Sara Ganim joins us now from the U.S. Open where they had a drone issue of their own. Sara?

SARA GANIM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Martin. You know sporting events are one of the few places where it is illegal to fly a drone. Just think about it, you're a spectator, like you're at the U.S. Open watching a match or at a football game watching your team playing. You're looking down at the game. You're not looking up at the sky thinking a drone might fall out of it. But twice that has now happened in the last week.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFED MALE: It seemed as if they fell from somewhere.

GANIM (voice-over): Just days after a drone crashed into the stands at a match at the U.S. Open, a second drone crashes into a Kentucky stadium. This black and white drone fell into the stands just before kickoff at the University of Kentucky football team's home opener.

A university officials say it was being flown by a student and it was hovering near the scoreboard while skydivers parachuted during pregame fest activities. No one was injured but drones are banned on the university's campus and the FAA has banned them from sporting events. Authorities are considering what to do next.

MARY SCHIAVO, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: What we have right now is a real patch work of laws.

GANIM: CNN aviation analyst Marcy Schiavo says banning drones over stadiums simply isn't enough to protect people.

SCHIAVO: There's no requirement that the drones have what's called a go home chip. In other homes, if your radio signal is broken or you have a problem with your power, what does the drone do?

[16:30:04]

Does it tumble out of control and fall to the earth or does it go home?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Early conjecture seems to be that a drone has landed in the stadium seats.

GANIM: Friday, a New York science teacher was arrested after this drone slammed into an empty seating area at the U.S. Open, confusing broadcasters.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have a moment here where we're not entirely certain as to what it is that landed in the stands.

GANIM: -- and temporarily halting games.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think both players heard it. They both sort of stopped and looked at the chair umpire.

GANIM: Again, no one was hurt, but Schiavo says the laws simply have not caught up.

SCHIAVO: There isn't a regulation right now that says those blades must be protected.

GANIM: These incidents are becoming more frequent with at least three people detained or questioned by police for flying drones over sporting events in the last several months.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

GANIM (on camera): Martin, if you have a drone at home and you're thinking about taking it out for a flight, there's a few other places that you can't fly it here in the U.S., one of them is airports. We've heard of a lot of close calls with airplanes in the last several months, also sporting events, not just here at the U.S. Open or at college football games, also major league baseball, the NFL and many racing events, also military bases, another place that they are banned and finally national parks, Martin?

SAVIDGE: Interesting, and sad to see. Sara Ganim, thank you very much for that.

Well, the U.S. is warning Russia about building up its military presence in Syria.

Still ahead, how could this complicate the civil war there? Could it get anymore complicated for the coalition fight against ISIS?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:37:55]

SAVIDGE: So the Daily Beast had a pretty interesting article. It was basically asking you know is Russia secretly conducting a military intervention in Syria. Writing about that in the Daily Beast is Michael Weiss. He said there is, "A flurry of reports that Russia has made plans for a direct military intervention in Syria's four-year civil war and may actually have started one already." The U.S. is so concerned about that possibility, that Secretary of State John Kerry apparently called his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov to raise the issue.

Let me bring in Michael Weiss. He's the man of course who knows this conversation, he's a CNN Contributor and a Fellow at the Institute or (AUDIO GAP) Russia, and he's covered the fighting in Syria from its inception. So let me ask you this, Michael, what evidence have we seen or have we been seeing of Russian involvement in Syria up to now? MICHAEL WEISS, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: The most compelling bit of evidence

was actually produced by a pro-Assad media outlet, the television channel for the National Defense Force, which is a sectarian militia built by Iran that has been fighting alongside the Syrian army against the rebels. This was footage taken from the coastal province where the Assad family had once lived. It showed a BTR-82. That is an infantry fighting vehicle sent by Russia.

What was interesting in the footage is you could hear Russian operators driving the vehicle. So was this a training exercise or were they actually engaged in active combat operations that the BTR was firing presumably at a rebel position. It has been contested by a consortium of Islamist rebels that they are indeed pushing into the coastal region.

Other bits of evidence have included a report in an Israeli newspaper which cited western diplomats that Russia planned to send an "expeditionary force" to Damascus which would include air force pilots that would be piloting Russian jets. Another piece of evidence was (Inaudible), the Al Qaeda franchise in Syria uploaded to a social media platform photographs of what indeed looked to be the Russian Air Force flying fighter jets and drones. What was interesting about this is they said that the footage was taken in Northwest Syria. There's no ISIS in that province. There is Nusra and there are other Islamist rebel groups.

(CROSSTALK)

SAVIDGE: Before we run out of time, Michael, and here's the basic question. What for the United States is the real concern here? We know there is a coalition force and U.S. Air Force that planes that is flying in that area. Are we concerned of some sort of direct confrontation or accidentally or intentionally between the Russians and the U.S. over Syria?

WEISS: I think that's the lesser concern. The greater concern is what the Russian's motives in Syria are. Is it going to be to fight ISIS or is it going to be also to bomb rebels that the Pentagon and the CIA have been working with because Russia does not consider that opposition to be -- viable opposition. Putin came out and said we'll only work with the "healthy opposition." What he means by that are people that are still loyal to the Assad regime, so higher lings or loyalists to the current government. That I think is what is exercising Secretary Kerry and the U.S. government.

SAVIDGE: It's a very interesting article in the Daily Beast. Michael Weiss, thank you very much for talking to us about it. It's clearly going to complicate what is already a very complex situation even more. Thanks.

Ahead, Muslim flight attendant, she fighting back after being grounded for refusing to serve alcohol, why she says her religious freedom is under attack.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:43:55]

SAVIDGE: Faith on the job, a Muslim flight attendant says that she was suspended for refusing to serve alcohol. Charee Stanley who is employed by Express Jet says her faith doesn't allow her to consume or serve alcoholic beverages. And she says that she's being discriminated against because of her religion. CNN's Nick Valencia is here with the details on this and of course this story resonates because of another story out of Kentucky along these lines.

NICK VALENCIA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Critics would say that she knew what she was getting into before she took the job there in Kentucky. The clerk of the court had the law change on her as she was in her job. But there was a reasonable accommodation worked out earlier this summer that changed about two months later when a co-worker complained that Ms. Charee Stanley was not fulfilling her job responsibilities. Now her lawyer says she's the victim of discrimination.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

VALENCIA: Charee Stanley says she was suspended from her job as a flight attendant because of her religious beliefs. This week, the 40- year-old Michigan woman filed a charge of discrimination against regional airline Express Jet. The issue, Stanley converted to Islam two years ago. She says she only learned recently that her faith prohibits her from serving alcohol. She and the airline did work out an accommodation for two months, until she says one of her coworkers filed a complaint against her saying, "She was not fulfilling her duties as a flight attendant by refusing to serve alcohol." Four weeks later, Stanley's religious accommodation excluding her from serving alcohol was revoked by the airline. She was suspended.

LENA MASRI, MUSLIM FLIGHT ATTORNEY ATTENDANT'S ATTORNEY: What we're asking for is that her employment be reinstated and her reasonable accommodation be reinstated as well.

VALENCIA: Her lawyer says her client's "Sincerely held religious beliefs should not keep her from being a flight attendant."

MASRI: In this situation, the law requires that the employer accommodate her beliefs and she's not required to search for another job in order to have her beliefs accommodated.

VALENCIA: A spokesman for Express Jet declined to discuss Stanley's complaint. But in a statement to CNN said, "We embrace and respect the values of all of our team members, we are an equal opportunity employer with a long history of diversity in our workforce." CNN Aviation Analyst Mary Schiavo says a reasonable accommodation for Stanley may be difficult, given she works for a small airline.

SCHIAVO: In the case of the airlines where you have just one flight attendant on a flight of 50 seats or less, the pilot can't come out of the cockpit and serve the drinks.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

VALENCIA: So what happens next? The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission will launch their own investigation, at which point Express Jet has an opportunity to respond, as for Ms. Stanley, she is currently on unpaid administrative leave. She is suspended right now, Martin.

SAVIDGE: All right, we'll watch that. Thanks to you.

Coming up, late night TV is getting the newest addition.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is a huge chance to see the very first Steven Colbert Late Show, which apparently now has a new host. I hope is Amy Schumer, she is hilarious.

SAVIDGE: Will Stephen Colbert become the new king of late night? We'll have that next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:54:01]

SAVIDGE: Just in, there will be a new Democratic candidate for President starting this week, that guy. Harvard Professor Lawrence Lessig says that he's going to announce his bid on Wednesday. He tweeted today that he hit the fundraising benchmark he had set. He raised $1 million through a kick starter program and that was all done by Labor Day. Lessig says that he's going to focus on changing campaign finance laws. And he says once that change is made he would step down and put his Vice President in the Oval Office, interesting.

Late night TV will look a lot different starting this week. Stephen Colbert begins his new stint Tuesday, as the Host of the Late Show, replacing David Letterman. Nine months after signing off on the Colbert Report in Comedy Central, the comedian is said to be ditching the fake newsman persona, which of course made him famous. With speculation on which Stephen Colbert will show up to the Late Show this Tuesday, he addressed those very thoughts on CBS "Sunday Morning".

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STEPHEN COLBERT, CBS HOST, THE LATE SHOW: I worked really hard to be that other guy for ten years. But I hope people -- thank god, you know who I am. I hope they'll find out pretty quickly that the guy they saw for ten years was my sense of humor the whole time, it is flattering that people thought I was an actual pundit or a newsman eventually over the years. But it's really nice to not have to pretend it anymore.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SAVIDGE: I bet it is. Colbert has been busy this summer becoming his own kind of king of self-promotion. One of his stints filling in as a host of a local cable access public TV show in Michigan, and among his local guests Detroit native rapper Eminem. CBS is hoping that Colbert's unique appeal will of course translate to ratings. So joining me now to talk about the whole issue here is Comedian Pete

Dominick. He warmed up the crowd for the Colbert Report and he is now the Host of Stand up with Pete Dominick on Sirius XM Satellite Radio, Pete, very good to see you.

PETE DOMINICK, FORMER AUDIENCE WARM-UP FOR THE COLBERT REPORT: Martin Savidge, great to be here with you, buddy.

SAVIDGE: So let me ask you this. What kind of show is it going to be? We already know what the competition is. Is this going to be heavy thinking, political, what kind of man is now going to take over this late night program?

DOMINICK: Well, a brilliant man, probably the greatest comedian of our generation simply because he can do anything. Sing, dance, he can speak Latin during the writers strike. He had no teleprompter. He wrote the entire show himself, so he's a writer. I don't think he's going to reinvent late night, Martin Savidge. But to be fair, he's been doing late night, 11:30, and he's been doing this sketch -- for ten years he did a sketch as the Colbert Report -- you know we watch sketch comedy usually only lasts two minutes. So I don't think he's going to reinvent the wheel, but he's definitely going to reinvent himself every night -- challenge himself, all the things we did at the Colbert Report were so unbelievable, from the White House correspondents dinner when he roasted George W. Bush, he went to Iraq and broadcasted the Colbert Report from one of Saddam's former palaces, and under the president's orders, shaved his head, the rally for sanity and fear. He went to the Vancouver Olympics and he made a mockery of the citizen's united, the horrible Supreme Court decision with all of the money in politics, he brought so much enlightenment to that.

SAVIDGE: Before I run out of time because I quickly am here. As far as what we think the show is going to be like, is it going to be more cerebral than some of the other fare we're watching at that hour?

DOMINICK: I think that he's going to challenge the audience a little bit. But he understands his audience and he has the goofiness of Conan, the edge of Jimmy Kimmel, he can do the impressions and sing and everything that Jimmy Fallon can do. He's got all of their tools in his box. And I really think everybody is going to love Stephen Colbert as the Host of the Late Show.

SAVIDGE: And quickly now, we know that he says he doesn't want to focus on politics, yet I look at the list of guests for the first week, and there's certainly either politicians or politically-active people. What do I make of that?

DOMINICK: He's hosting a relevant show, Martin Savidge. He's going to have plenty of those guys on but he's going to have more than just politics. He's going to comment on everything from culture to parenting. I think he's going to do a little bit of what John Oliver is doing at HBO and certainly a little bit of Jon Stewart did, but he's going to do a lot of what Stephen Colbert does best which is make us laugh every night.

SAVIDGE: We certainly need that. Pete Dominick, thank you very much for your insights. We'll be back in a moment.

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[16:59:10]

SAVIDGE: All right before we go, we wanted to share with you a great story out of Houston. It's the selfie of a teen, but it's who else is in that photo, a female officer and this photo has gone everywhere. It all happened after the officer was getting gas for her patrol car. And the teen asked if he could standby to watch her back. He said he wanted to make that she was safe. The gesture of course comes after a deputy was killed while refueling his patrol car.

And coming up, we are going to hear from that young man. His name is McKinley Zolner. And he's going to be on in the 5 o'clock hour. So make sure you tune in for that.

Thanks for joining us today. Thanks for being with me. I'm Martin Savage. The next hour of CNN NEWSROOM begins right now, with Deb Deborah Feyerick. Deb?