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Cain Says She Was Making Huge Claims; Banks Drop Debit Card Fees; European Debt Plan Asking For National Vote; Workers Struggle To Restore Power In Northeast; Hillary Clinton's Mother Dies; Obama In Excellent Health; Emergency Landing In Poland; Cardinal's Manager Retires; The Future Of Personalized Web; Occupy Wall Street Movement; Conrad Murray Will Not Testify

Aired November 01, 2011 - 13:00   ET

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

RANDI KAYE, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, everyone.

First the no comment, then a vague recollection, then a whole lot of newly remembered details. But through it all, Herman Cain has flatly denied treating female employees in an inappropriate manner while head of the National Restaurant Association in the 1990s. After no new fewer than five speeches and interviews yesterday, the top tier GOP presidential hopeful answered questions this morning on our sister network HLN. Before you hear a clip, I want you to hear why so many questions remain.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HERMAN CAIN (R), PRESIDENTAL CANDIDATE: If the Restaurant Association did a settlement, I am not even -- I wasn't even aware of it.

I am unaware of any sort of settlement.

I was aware that an agreement was reached. The word settlement versus the word agreement you know, I'm not sure what they called it. And yes, that was some sort of settlement or termination and I don't even know what the contents of that was.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KAYE: Well, he came out this morning that Cain had a pretty good recollection of that settlement, slash agreement, from the very outset.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CAIN: It started out where she was making some huge claims about sexual harassment. I do recall that she was asking for a large sum of money. I don't remember what the sum of money was but as the review of this moved forward, that sum of money negotiated -- my attorney negotiating with her attorney got less and less and less because her attorney started to figure out she didn't have a -- she didn't have a valid claim. She couldn't find people to corroborate some of these things that she was making and so as it got smaller and smaller and smaller it turned out to be, from my perspective, which is why I didn't go back and ask to see it, more of a separation agreement rather than some sort of legal settlement.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KAYE: So is this a political pothole, a brick wall or a windfall? We'll look at the impact on the Cain campaign in our "Fair Game" segment later on this hour.

Our other big story comes from the only field more volatile, less certain, and faster changing than politics. The stock markets, they cheered when Europe came to terms on debt and bailouts, now they are plunging on a bombshell decision by Greece to put that agreement to a nationwide vote. Overseas losses range today from bad to brutal.

CNN's Alison Kosik joins me now from Wall Street.

Alison, what are investors so worried about?

ALISON KOSIK, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: You know what they're worried about, Randi? They are worried that last week's big European debt plan may not happen at all, and we all thought it was a done deal. But now as you said, Greece's prime minister wants people in Greece to go ahead and vote on it, and the reality is it may not pass because it would include some very unpopular austerity measures like job cuts, pension cuts, higher taxes, raising the retirement age, and the big worry is that the euro zone's future is at stake here, not just Greece and not just the Euros then either, all of Europe and that can kind of reverberate right here to the U.S. -- Randi.

KAYE: Some good news though on the debit card front, something we've been hearing a lot of about. Apparently, more and more debit card holders are dodging those fees, what's going on there?

KOSIK: Well, it turns out that Bank of America, Randi, calling off its $5.00 debit fee all together. It started backing down a little bit last week saying some customers would be exempt. But now it says, you know what? We're going to scrap it all together. This is coming after some other big banks have dropped their fees on debit cards. Regions bank is going to be ending its debit card fee today, tomorrow Sun Trust will stop charging its $5.00 fee, this follows J.P. Morgan, Wells Fargo, they said they're going to do the same and this is all because of all of the customer outrage that we reported on. You know, this one really hit a nerve with consumers and the banks are backing down -- Randi?

KAYE: Well, that is good news for consumers.

Alison Kosik, thank you very much. Nice to see you.

Still suffering from the big snowstorm, more than 1.5 million customers in five states began the day without electricity as utility company workers struggle to restore service. The snowstorm that hit the Northeast last weekend downed tree branches and power lines and is now blamed for 15 deaths.

Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, has lost her mother. Dorothy Howell Rodham died in Washington D.C. at the age of 92. There was no word on the cause of her death. Clinton had canceled a scheduled trip to Britain and Turkey this week so that she could be with her mother in her final hours.

The doctor is giving President Obama a clean bill of health. The White House has issued a report on the president's most recent physical exam. It says he's fit for duty and will likely remain in excellent health for the rest of his presidency. It also appears that Mr. Obama has been successful in his efforts to give up smoking. The report says he was found to be tobacco free.

And take a look at this dramatic emergency landing in Poland today. This Polish Airlines plane was carrying 230 people from Newark, New Jersey when its landing gear failed to work. The Boeing 767 circled the Warsaw airport for an hour before it landed, as you see there, right on its belly. Incredibly, no one was hurt.

They are camping out in cities across the country and around the world, Occupy Wall Street. Some call it the beginning of the liberal offensive. What this movement could accomplish, and has its emerged? We'll go in depth.

But first, talk about going out on top. St. Louis Cardinals manager, Tony La Russa, announced his retirement yesterday, just three days after his team won the World Series. He was a major league manager for 33 seasons, 16 of them with the Cardinals. He is the third winning as manager in baseball history with multiple pennants in both leagues. And for all of that and more, Tony, you are today's "Rock Star."

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAYE: So, have you ever looked for a new pair of shoes online and then started to get ads for the exact same pair on other Web sites? It can be pretty bizarre and even pretty annoying, right? And then, have you ever wondered why you see some of your friends' activity listed on Facebook but maybe not others? It's because of sophisticated personalization filters that tailor the Web to our personal taste. It's a story that we think has been "Undercovered" and we're joined now by Eli Pariser, author "The Filter Bubble." Eli, so help us understand how this all works and why you say that this actually has some dangerous consequences?

ELI PARISER, AUTHOR, "THE FILTER BUBBLE": Well, increasingly online, we don't see the same thing. If you load up Google, and I load up Google and we search for the same term at the same time, we may see very different results. And this is because Google and lots of other companies are getting massive amounts of data. They're collecting as much data as they can about each user and trying to show us what we think they want to see, not necessarily what we need to know. Obviously, that's a problem because there are important things that can get edited out.

KAYE: Yes. I want to read a quote for our viewers from Eric Schmidt, the CEO of Google. He said, it will be hard for people to watch or consume something that has not in some sense been tailored for them. So, I mean is this true? I mean is there a way to know which sites aren't filtering content?

PARISER: Well, right now it's very difficult. You know, it's very hard to tell if the version of Yahoo! News that you're seeing is anything like the version of the Yahoo! News that someone else is seeing. And in fact, Yahoo! Recently announced that it was doing 13 million different versions of its home page every day based on this kind of user data. This is one of the problems with personalization. You know, there's nothing wrong with showing people things they want to see necessarily, but because it's invisible to us and because it's being done without our consent basically, and because it means that the algorithms are essentially making big editing choices without our input, it means that you can get a distorted view of the world and not even know that you're getting it.

KAYE: I know that you say that there are 57 different signals that Google looks at to tailor your results. Can you give us some of those key signals -- maybe the key signal?

PARISER: Well, you know, the 57 signals that the engineer that I interviewed talked about, you know, are signals even if you're not logged in. So, even if you take a new computer out of its box and put it on your desk, Google is looking at things like where you're logging in from, what kind of hardware you're using, what kind of software you're using, even perhaps how long you're lingering over a link before clicking it. That gives you -- it a sense of what kind of person you are, are you moving quickly or are you moving slowly? And that internalize it to tailor content.

KAYE: So, if your results are being filtered, I mean is there any way to find out what you're not getting, what is being filtered?

PARISER: Well you know, most of these companies sort of bury somewhere in their privacy policies the ability to turn this down or, you know, see the unfilter feeds, but I really don't think that's good enough. I think, as we're moving into this world where algorithms are doing many of the things that -- where code essentially is doing many of the things that editors used to do in the 20th century world, we need, you know, good controls and transparency, we need these -- the code to do as good a job of filtering information as editors and producers did at their best in the -- you know, in the 20th century world.

KAYE: Yes. And anyone who might be watching might be wondering, you know, where does this stop? I mean, is it computers, smartphones, iPads, is this happening everywhere?

PARISER: It is happening everywhere, and in fact, mobile is the big frontier for this, because all of the information that comes from your phone comes from your location attached most of the time. So, where you go obviously says a lot about you, and these companies are gathering all of that data and using it to target ads and also to target content. The danger here actually was summed up by Mark Zuckerberg, the Facebook CEO, who said, you know, the great thing about the Facebook news feed is that a squirrel dying in your front yard may be relevant to you than people dying in Africa. That's the quote from him. And you know, I think we need to know about both. We don't just want to be looking at the front yards.

KAYE: Absolutely. Eli Pariser, author of "The Filter Bubble." Thank you so much, that was a very interesting discussion, appreciate it.

Occupy Wall Street is a lot of things to a lot of people. To my next guest, it is history in the making. Doug Brinkley joins me live when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAYE: Politicians, police, the ultra privileged don't know what to make of the "Occupy" movement. And St. Paul's is struggling, too. That landmark cathedral in London, a long way from Wall Street, today decided not to evict occupiers who have camped out in tents for two and a half weeks now.

Here at home, we've had crackdowns and court orders and now from Iowa plans for a first in the nation caucus occupation targeting, what else, the Iowa presidential caucuses. But turbulent times make great history and that brings me to best selling author and historian Douglas Brinkley. He is watching this movement from his post at Rice University.

Douglas, nice to have you on the show. We've heard a lot of parallels with protest movements of the past. I mean what, if anything, does Occupy Wall Street remind you of?

DOUGLAS BRINKLEY, RICE UNIVERSITY: Well, it has little bits of some of 20th century protest movements. It reminds me of the 1960s a little bit. College campuses unrest and a lot of young people who at the time had a kind of counter culture attitude going after the man, going after, you know, corporate structure. This protest, however, is aimed at Wall Street, not the federal government, at least at this juncture. And Martin Luther King's march on Washington. It was a march for jobs also.

But this is, in my view, unique. I mean in 1992, when Bill Clinton became president, e-mail didn't exist. By the time he left office -- or existed in a mass way. By the time he left office, a billion e-mails were ricocheting around the world an hour. And now we're dealing with the world of FaceBook and social media.

This is a global, social media movement. It's connected to the air of uprising. And it's very unique. It's part of the fact that at any moment people can text or e-mail each other and say, let's meet at a given time and set up these sorts of rally spots around the world.

KAYE: It is fascinating how easy it is to organize these days. Now a lot of people, though, have said that this movement doesn't have a leader. Do you agree with that?

BRINKLEY: Yes, it has a leader. The leader is the Internet. It doesn't have a particular face. I mean you can have old timers like Pete Seeger coming down to Wall Street to sing a song or Al Sharpton making a guest appearance. But right now there's not a person. In fact, in that way, it does resemble the Tea Party movement. It's not sort of leaderless or has people that are engaged with occupation Wall Street.

I would say Michael Moore is the historical figure that jumps to mind. He came out with a book and started talking about this issue. Certainly his documentary dealt with Wall Street abuse and how the average American in the middle class is getting reamed. It's been a more theme (ph) for a while. So I think when this gets written about 50, 100 years from now, Michael Moore's name will be a vote.

KAYE: And when it does get written about him, just curious, I mean what will its place be in history, do you think?

BRINKLEY: It's a work in progress. We don't know right now. I think, though, you can say it's helped President Obama. Really ever since the health care debate and the birth of the Tea Party movement and in the midterm shellacking, you see the president in a kind of defensive crouch. Once his jobs act didn't go through and this occupation Wall Street happened, it gave people to vent at somebody other than President Obama. In this case, the fat cats. The investment banks. The people that are getting, you know, getting away with ripping off the American people.

KAYE: So do you see it continuing to grow or do you think it will fizzle out?

BRINKLEY: Well, you have winter coming up. They've survived this snowstorm. But if you're just looking at the Wall Street occupation, I think you're going to see -- have these sort of wildfire protests constantly occurring, particularly with the election year coming up. Whether that's something that occupation Wall Street can be sustainable through the cold winter months and whether it will grow in numbers, instead of a revolving door of 1,000 or 2,000 people, it suddenly becomes 100,000 people taking to the streets of New York has yet to be seen.

There -- in some ways this has a little bit in mind of the original Earth Day in 1970 when a lot of young people started creating Earth Day regularly and protesting year after year. So there are elements here of a lot of things. But I think it's all going to depend on the way the economy goes and what happens in this election. I doubt very much if Barack Obama gets re-elected you would see this say two years from now happening. It seems to be of the moment. And as the Tea Party blames Democrats and Obama, occupation Wall Street's blaming Wall Street and Republicans.

KAYE: Yes, certainly interesting to watch it all unfold.

Douglas Brinkley, appreciate your insight. Thank you.

The defense's key witness back on the stand today, trying to prove Dr. Conrad Murray's innocence. But he may need a little help. Will his testimony push Michael Jackson's former doctor to take the stand? That's next in "Crime & Consequence."

But first, on this day in 1991, a University of Iowa graduate student with a grudge goes on a shooting rampage. Gang Lu's dissertation had been passed over for an academic honor and he targeted members of the physics department. Five people were killed and another was badly wounded. And the shooter took his own life. That is today's shame in history.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAYE: Breaking news. We are just learning Michael Jackson's doctor, Conrad Murray, will not testify in his trial. His decision is critical to the direction of his trial and possibly the verdict as well. I want to go straight to defense attorney Mark Geragos, who once represented the king of pop himself.

Mark, first, I guess I have to ask you, what do you make of Murray's decision not to testify?

MARK GERAGOS, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Well, you labeled it breaking news. I label it as obvious. I didn't think there was any way, once the prosecution put on that tape of his, that the defense was ever going to let him testify in this case.

KAYE: Yesterday it was a pretty heated day in court. I know you had a chance to watch some of it. Dr. Paul White, the key witness, the Propofol expert for the defense, he's actually now going to be fined apparently $1,000 for sharing some of his personal conversations with Conrad Murray. It's sort of a way to get the story out there without putting Murray on the stand. I mean is that a good tactic?

GERAGOS: Yes, I think it is, actually. I -- you know, I understand what the judge did. I don't fault Dr. White for it in the least. I think he's in a tough situation. You've got a judge who wants this trial over. He's trying to reign it in. I think this morning he's been a little irritated as well, the judge has. But this is the defense's most crucial witness. Most judges, I think, would give him some latitude. And this cross-examination, frankly, in my opinion, is the most critical part of this trial. Whether he withstands the cross- examination by David Walgren is going to, I think, in a lot of ways, determine what way this jury goes.

KAYE: Obviously there are two sides to how this really went down. The prosecution believes that Conrad Murray gave Jackson the fatal dose of Propofol, but the defense is saying that Jackson injected himself very quickly. That's what Dr. Paul White is saying. Let's listen to a little bit of Dr. White in court yesterday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DAVID WALGREN, PROSECUTOR: So Michael Jackson's walking around, wheeling the IV stand, attached at a condom catheter, and Conrad Murray is somewhere else on the phone. That's the assumption underlying your scenario, correct?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KAYE: With all that Jackson was hooked up to, Mark, I mean it sounds like Walgren, the prosecutor, was making this scenario sound pretty ridiculous. Did it work?

GERAGOS: Well, I don't know. I had commented earlier, David has got a great way about him and jurors like him. I've known him for a long time and known those who tried cases with him. So he builds up a lot of capital, if you will. Goodwill with the jury.

At the same time, a lot of jurors find it distasteful if you beat up a witness too kind of unfairly or if you're rude or obnoxious to them. I don't think that was the case here. But at the same time, if I were a betting man, I still think this looks like it's programmed for a hung jury.

KAYE: Really? Hung jury? Is that the scenario you think this is going to end with?

GERAGOS: Yes. I -- if I had to predict, I'd say you're looking at something like a 9-3 or 10-2 favor of guilt hung jury. That would be my guess. I'll make that prediction now. You've got it on tape.

KAYE: We do have it on tape. I'm going to hold you to it.

Just very quickly, what do you think they'll be hung up on exactly? What will be the problem?

GERAGOS: I think this is exactly what the issue is going to come down to. There's a jury instruction that Judge Pastor is going to give. It's going to talk about, first of all, his gross negligence. And I don't think there's going to be any dispute in the jury room about the gross negligence. I think clearly he was. He deviated from the standard of care. Even Dr. White, their best witness, says that or admits that.

The key to this case is going to be the causation. Did that gross negligence cause Michael Jackson's death? There is a word in that jury instruction talking about intervening cause. Intervening. Something else. So the defense is going to say Michael Jackson was the intervening cause that was the result -- and the result was his death. That's where the battle is going to be. Some jurors I think may have problems with that.

KAYE: All right. Well, we'll hold you to it. We'll see if your prediction is correct whenever this trial ends.

Mark Geragos, nice to see you. Thank you.

Herman Cain finally sticking to one story.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HERMAN CAIN (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I have never committed sexual harassment in my entire career, period.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KAYE: Will damage control clear his name or cause more damage? That is "Fair Game" next.

But first, our political junkie question of the day, since 1900, which third party candidate captured the largest percentage of the presidential vote? The answer is just ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAYE: Well, before the break, we asked since 1900, which third- party candidate got the highest percentage of the presidential vote? The answer is Teddy Roosevelt.

He ran as the Progressive Party's candidate in 1912. The former president got 27 percent of the vote that year finishing second behind Woodrow Wilson, but beating out incumbent William Howard Taft. Hope you got that right.

Time now to go to beyond partisan talking points to the heart of the political debate, where all sides are "Fair Game."

Herman Cain has denied claims that he sexually harassed two women while he was head of the National Restaurant Association. He also said he knew nothing about settlements to the women. Oh, wait, maybe he did. Not long after denying it he said he remembered more than he was saying.

Joining me now is CNN creditor Maria Cardona and Republican strategist Ron Bonjean.

Maria, let's start with you. Public perception is the key here. What does made people think of Herman Cain?

MARIA CARDONA, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Well, I think it continues to underscore, Randi, two things, first one that this is not somebody who is ready for prime time, not somebody who was ever prepared to go the full way.

And secondly it really brings up doubts, if this is somebody that is looking to actually be president, huge doubts about his credibility, about whether he's able to handle a crisis communication situation. And I think ultimately it will make voters think that this is not somebody that they can really see as their commander in chief.

KAYE: Well, we have a new interview with Herman Cain. He spoke with our Robin Meade this morning over at HLN. Let me just play just a little bit of that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HERMAN CAIN (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I just started to remember more. Remember, in 12 years, a lot of stuff can go through your head. This wasn't exactly something that I had top of mind where I was trying to recall every little detail that went on 12 years ago.

After 12 hours, during the day, many events and many interviews, I was able to gradually recall more and more details about what happened 12 years ago. So, that's what I would do differently. But, you know, I wasn't given the opportunity to think about it for a day before I had to start answering questions.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KAYE: Now, Ron, if you look at what Politico is reporting -- they are the ones who broke this story -- Politico says that they gave him about 10 days to respond before posting the story but he's saying he only had about 24 hours to remember the details. Does that hold?

RON BONJEAN, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: Well, no, it's a great question. I mean, it's hard to say because I don't work for Politico or the Herman Cain campaign.

If it's true that he had 10 days to think about it, then obviously they should have put together a polished answer and vetted it and made sure that there were no holes in it because clearly this has not been something that the Cain campaign wants.

Republican primary voters like Herman Cain because he's always talked directly to them. He has talked about he has a great business background, and he doesn't sound like a politician. And I think we're seeing some products of that, some byproducts of that and some downsides of not being a politician, because he's not used to a situation that he has to try to get out of like this.

You know, if I were him at this point, I would stop all media interviews and stop talking about this completely and try to let this move on because the more he talks about it, the more he's getting himself in trouble. I would just take the shovel away and stop all of these interviews.

KAYE: Maria, one thing he is talking about and the campaign is talking about is this fund-raising effort yesterday. They raised a huge amount of money, about $300,000. What does that say about what this has done for him?

CARDONA: Well, that's a very interesting point, Randi, because I do think that it underscores what Ron was just saying about how a lot of conservative Republicans do like him and do support him. Frankly the line that he used at the very beginning when this first started about how this is all the fault of the liberal media, that works with the base.

That's what I think is working for him in terms of fund-raising. The problem is that's not sustainable. And the problem with what Ron just said, which I agree, I completely would take him off the air. But what he needs to do is answer the questions and frankly, he did not do that in the interview with Robin Meade. There were other questions that were raised and it goes directly to his credibility.

It is baffling, Randi, for somebody who was really supposedly prepared to run for president that he and his advisers did not gather and say, what is out there about Herman Cain that can be brought up, whether it's the opposition, whether it's the media, whoever. What is it in his background that can come back to haunt us?

And you put a plan together, and that plan is not to then ignore the media and then recall things after you have denied them. It is to put everything out there yourself so you can define the message. That is something that he has not done.

KAYE: Well, we will see if he continues to try and define the message or if he just stops talking.

Maria Cardona, Ron Bonjean, thank you both very much. That is "Fair Game."

We're going to take you to a Southeast Asian country that has been plagued by political unrest in recent months, but right now the problem is catastrophic floods.

Can you guess the country? The answer is straight ahead when we go "Globe Trekking."

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAYE: Today's "Globe Trekking" report starts in Thailand, where there is growing anger over the government's response to recent floods.

While central Bangkok remains mostly dry, diverted water is flooding land to the northeast and west of the city of the city. More than 370 people have died since the floods began and it's estimated that 200 million people are affected in one way or another.

Hundreds of people have taken shelter in an airport terminal. Some expect to be there for weeks if not months.

Next to the French Riviera, where thousands of protesters are getting ready for this week's summit of G20 world leaders. The slogan for a demonstration in Nice, France, today was people first, not finance. Protesters say world leaders should concentrate more on helping people and less on bailing out banks and financial markets.

A United Nations agency will lose $60 million in U.S. funding as the result of a vote yesterday. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization voted to grant the Palestinians full membership despite U.S. objections. The U.S. State Department calls the vote regrettable and says it will withhold a $60 million payment to the agency scheduled for this month. The U.S. normally gives the agency $80 million a year, about 22 percent of the total budget.

A Mexican drug cartel may have a new challenge from a shadowy group of computer hackers. This new Web video has surfaced purportedly from the hacker group that calls itself Anonymous. The hacker group has been blamed for online attacks against banks and government institutions.

A man wearing a mask claims that the Zeta cartel kidnapped an Anonymous associate in the Mexico state of Veracruz. He threatens to retaliate by releasing the names, photographs and addresses of Zeta supporters. None of the claims on the video can be verified. Van Gogh, known for these paintings and being a tortured artist who took his own life, but is that really how Vincent van Gogh died or was he murdered? Van Gogh's mysterious death next in the assignment.

But, first, she's definitely no van Gogh. Kim Kardashian, divorce number one you dismiss for being too young. but remember what you told Joy Behar just last year?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think Kim is like Elizabeth Taylor. I think she will be married like eight glamorous times.

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think just like dripping in diamonds and emeralds just every 20 karat engagement ring will be on her finger.

(CROSSTALK)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KAYE: Oops. Kris Humphries makes number two, and think, after just 72 days looks like your little sis was right, Kim. Your 15 minutes, especially when it comes to marriage, are up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAYE: When you think of Vincent van Gogh, you think of this, his brilliant paintings like "Starry Night." But what do we really know about the genius behind the brush strokes?

By most accounts the genius swirled with madness, both on canvas and in life. Art historians have long painted a picture of a troubled artist, his fits of madness, cutting off his own ear and van Gogh's suicide. But that, his suicide, is being called into question by two Pulitzer Prize-winning authors in this new biography, "Van Gogh: The Life."

Both authors, Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith, join me now from New York.

Nice to see both of you.

Steven, let me start with you. You say that you have evidence in this book that van Gogh may have been murdered. This is a pretty radical theory. What kind of evidence do you have?

STEVEN NAIFEH, CO-AUTHOR, "VAN GOGH: THE LIFE": The problem with the myth that that's out there is that the information doesn't really make sense. The medical evidence was that the gunshot came from an oblique angle and from perhaps too far for him to have pulled the trigger. Also, it -- my ear is not working.

GREGORY WHITE SMITH, CO-AUTHOR, "VAN GOGH: THE LIFE": I think what Steve is trying to avoid saying is that even though we have reexamined the evidence and we don't say that murder was involved, there was not intentionality to commit murder, the scenario we think happened based on the evidence that we reexamined is that he was in a situation with two teenage boys in town who were -- and all three of them were drunk and one of them had a pistol that was known to malfunction, and that it was as a consequence of that sort of that -- the three of them getting together -- and the boys were known for teasing Vincent and Vincent was known for getting drunk and exploding.

You had in that kind of situation, anything could happen. But there was no -- in our opinion, there was no intentionality to kill Vincent, nor -- and this is what's different from the myth -- nor did Vincent have an intentionality to kill himself. So it was really the result of an accidental shooting. And that's the -- where we have rewritten essentially the myth of Vincent van Gogh.

NAIFEH: Because the myth didn't make sense. If he shot himself, why in the abdomen? Less than 2 percent of the people who shoot themselves shoot themselves there. It's a very painful, long death.

(CROSSTALK)

SMITH: And he missed.

NAIFEH: And he missed.

SMITH: He missed.

NAIFEH: And why did he not pick up the gun and finish himself off, rather than die this long, agonizing death? How did he get from the wheat fields down to the (INAUDIBLE) which is a very long escarpment in that terrible condition?

Where did he get the gun? Who would have given Vincent van Gogh who was known to have come out of an insane asylum -- and in fact the whereabouts of the gun did not come to light until 1956, when one of these two boys gave this interview that we use in the book.

(CROSSTALK)

KAYE: What about the majority of the art historians? There are art historians though who have said and continue to say that van Gogh was suicidal for some time, that as you know he hacked off part of an ear. Even his last words were reportedly: "Do not accuse anyone. It is I who wanted to kill myself. This is how I wanted to go."

Why cover it up?

SMITH: Well, actually, his words to the police were -- they said, did you try to commit suicide? And he said, I don't believe so. And then he said, don't accuse anyone else.

Now, if you think about that for a minute, how many suicides would the police likely have thought somebody else was involved? So suicide is typically a solitary event. And so that was one of the accounts that we found just odd.

(CROSSTALK)

NAIFEH: Also, he was not...

SMITH: And let me just -- and the other really particularly odd fact was that the gun was never found, nor was any of the painting equipment that he took out with him that day ever found.

NAIFEH: And also he wasn't really suicidal. He had talked about suicide in his letters repeatedly and he always said it was an act of cowardice and that he would never, ever do it.

And also when he cut off his ear, he was in the middle of a psychotic episode. He had a form of epilepsy that produced psychotic episodes and that accounted for the terrible ear incident. But he was not in one of those psychotic episodes when he died because his brother came from Paris to be with him as he died and they had a long, coherent conversation. It is very hard to believe that he would have done something like this when he was coherent.

SMITH: Right.

KAYE: It's very interesting. It really is a really interesting book.

Steven Naifeh, Gregory White Smith, "Van Gogh: The Life" is the book. Thank you both very much for your time. Appreciate it.

(CROSSTALK)

SMITH: Thank you so much.

KAYE: Well, every day on this show we call out someone who just makes us scratch our heads.

So, to Rome, Georgia, we go where the administration at Shorter University is making its employees pledge to reject homosexuality. They have to sign a pledge saying they are not gay in order to work at the Christian Baptist university. They call it a -- quote -- "personal lifestyle pledge." It has a lovely ring to it, don't you think?

The university told us any faculty who choose not to sign will be -- quote -- "choosing to end their employment at the university." I think that's a fancy way of saying they will be fired. The 200 employees being asked to sign the pledge promise to reject homosexuality as well as premarital sex and adultery and other behavior the school says violates the Bible's teaching.

The school's president told us in a statement -- quote -- "Through our policies we seek to honor Jesus Christ. We understand that there are those who do not agree with our beliefs. We are not trying to undermine their right to those beliefs, but want to be transparent about our own."

Not trying to undermine their right? Sure, you can work here as long as you are not gay or support gay friends. Come on. For your petty pledge, Shorter University, it is time for to you face the music.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(NEWS BREAK)

KAYE: Story number one comes from Ozark, Arkansas, where a family has reunited with a long-lost brother.

Harold Lovell left his Illinois home in 1977, and he never came back. His family thought this man got him. This is notorious serial killer John Wayne Gacy. After all, Lovell fit the profile of other Gacy victims, but his body was never found. Police recently reopened the case, trying to identify eight anonymous bodies.

The Lovell family came forward expecting the worst, sisters Theresa and Alice and brother Tim. Instead, they found that their brother was alive and living in Florida. They also learned that he had two daughters, Amanda and Melissa, and four grandchildren.

Joining me now on the phone is the man himself, Harold Lovell.

Harold, did you know that your family thought that had been killed by John Wayne Gacy?

HAROLD LOVELL, FOUND BY FAMILY: Not at all.

(CROSSTALK)

KAYE: Did you know that they were looking for you?

LOVELL: Not one bit.

KAYE: So tell me how your family was able to find you.

LOVELL: I guess through some detective work. My nephew found me on Google.

KAYE: Had you ever tried to reach any of your family members over the year?

LOVELL: At one point in '83, when my first daughter, Melissa, was born, we took a ride up to Chicago and I had missed my mother by two days.

KAYE: And what was it like without your family all of these years?

LOVELL: Lonely.

KAYE: And so you have obviously reunited with them. First of all, what was your reaction when they found you? Did they give you a call and say, hi, this is your sister and brother?

LOVELL: Yes, my brother was the first one to call. Theresa was the next, and my sister Alice. Unfortunately, she's not here with us right now.

KAYE: And could you believe it when you got the call? How did you arrange to get all together and have a reunion?

LOVELL: They got the bus for me together that day. And I was on a bus to Alabama about 5:00, arrived about 2:30 in the morning.

KAYE: Did you ever actually meet John Wayne Gacy? Explain the concern that maybe you might have been one of his victims.

LOVELL: Yes. A couple days, I worked with him, mowed some grass, raked some leaves, pulled some weeds and things like that.

KAYE: How would you describe him?

LOVELL: Sickening.

KAYE: Why is that?

LOVELL: Very disturbed.

KAYE: What is your plan now, now that you have had a reunion with your family? Where do you go from here? Will you all stay together now?

LOVELL: I'm going to stay in Alabama. I'm not going nowhere.

I love you, Alice.

KAYE: Well, listen, I think it's great that your family did try to hunt you down, even though they were expecting the worst. It's great news that you're alive and well.

Harold Lovell in Florida now with your family, great news. Wish you all very well. Thanks for coming on the show.

And from that, we will turn to Washington and check in with our friend Paul Steinhauser, who is watching all things politics.

Paul, what do you have for us today?

PAUL STEINHAUSER, CNN DEPUTY POLITICAL DIRECTOR: Let's talk about the first lady, Michelle Obama, Randi. We don't talk about her that often when it comes to the race for the White House, but her husband is up for reelection about one year from now.

And where is she today? New Orleans. She's going to be the keynote speaker at a Democratic National Committee event. And we're seeing Michelle Obama do a little bit more of those party events and maybe starting to slowly, slowly turn her attention, to a degree, to her husband's reelection.

Check out these brand-new numbers. This is a Marist poll and you can see right through Americans have a very favorable opinion of her, 63 percent in this brand-new survey by Marist, the national poll. We had a CNN poll last month which had similar numbers . And her numbers, yes, of course better than her husband's. But this is just the delicate part here, Randi.

As first lady, you don't want to appear too political. Yes, she wants to help her husband out when it comes to running for reelection, but at the same time, she doesn't want to appear too political and rather keep her first lady status. So that's kind of the trick here.

And we will see how much next year Michelle Obama is part of her husband's reelection campaign. Let's talk about somebody who is definitely running for the White House. And that's Rick Perry, the Texas governor. He's out with brand-new commercials in Iowa. They started yesterday. This is the second week in a row where Rick Perry is putting up paid ads. I'm not talking about Web videos. I'm talking about really paid ads on cable and broadcast.

In this commercial, Rick Perry is touting his jobs program, what he has done in Texas, all the jobs he's created there and says he can do the same thing for the country.

And a super PAC. We always talk about these PACs. A super PAC which dedicated to helping elect Rick Perry is also up with brand-new ads in Iowa and South Carolina, the first Southern state to vote, for Rick Perry.

Randi, here's a time where we're about two months away from the first votes in Iowa and Rick Perry seems to be starting to spend some of that campaign cash that he has on brand-new ads to try to get out the message and try to boost those poll numbers -- Randi.

KAYE: Yes, he's spending that money and I guess Herman Cain is bringing that money in, huh?

STEINHAUSER: Yes. We just found out today -- of course Herman Cain was on HLN with Robin Meade on the "Morning Express" program and he said that yesterday they raised almost $300,000, one of his best days ever, on online ads.

KAYE: Yes, incredible.

STEINHAUSER: Yes, incredible, Randi.

KAYE: All right. Paul Steinhauser, deputy political director, thank you very much.

And thank you for watching today, as always. I would love to hear what you think of the show. You can continue the conversation with me on Facebook or on Twitter @RandiKayeCNN.

Enjoy the rest of your day.