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Romney, Santorum Step Up Attacks; Apple Puts Its Cash To Use; Manning To Sign With Denver; N.C. State Upsets Georgetown; Radio Show Retracts Apple Allegations; A Case For Optimism; "The Female Obama"; Filmmaker, Activist's Bizarre Breakdown

Aired March 19, 2012 - 13:00   ET

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

SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN ANCHOR: Top of the hour. I'm Suzanne Malveaux. I want to get you up to speed.

Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum sharpening their attacks on each other a day before the Illinois primary. At a campaign stop this morning, Romney calling Santorum an economic lightweight, while Santorum said, Romney doesn't have a core. At an Illinois diner, Romney also bragged about his big win in Puerto Rico.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MITT ROMNEY (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: These pancakes are something else, I'll tell you. These pancakes are as large as my win in Puerto Rico last night. The margin was just about as good.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MALVEAUX: CNN's latest delegate count shows Romney with 518 to Santorum's 239. It takes 1,144 to win the nomination.

And Apple holds almost $100 billion in cash reserves. Well this morning, the company announced what it would do with some of that cold cash. Apple announced that $10 billion stock buyback, that would begin in October. It also would begin giving shareholders a quarterly dividend for the first time since 1995.

And ESPN's Chris Mortensen is reporting that Peyton Manning will sign with the Denver Broncos. Four-time NFL most valuable player had been deciding between Tennessee and Denver. Indianapolis colts released the quarterback just two weeks ago after injury forced him to miss the entire 2011 season. Well in 2006, Manning led the Colts to a Super Bowl championship.

All right. Didn't do my brackets any good but North Carolina state upset Georgetown in the NCAA tournament. That happened this weekend. It was one of several big March madness upsets. The 11th seeded wolfpack ran away from the number three seed down the stretch. Lorenzo Brown sealed the game with three free throws in the last 10 seconds, last gap from LaJolla's (ph) miss the mark. N.C. State is going to face Kansas in the next round.

Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum on the final campaign blitz across Illinois and headed to tomorrow's big primary. Now, both candidates are turning up the heat and the political rhetoric. A new poll shows Romney widening his lead over Santorum. Jim Acosta, he is in Chicago where Romney's going to be talking about economic freedom in just a couple of minutes here. Jim, tell us a little bit about Romney already talking about the economy. He took aim at Santorum ,President Obama, but he is also saying some positive things about the economic recovery as well, yes?

JIM ACOSTA, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. He's got a pretty tough needle to thread right now, Suzanne. Mitt Romney is feeling pretty good after that victory in Puerto Rico. He was talking about that earlier this morning. Talking about how the pancakes were as big as his victory down in Puerto Rico. He's campaigning across Illinois, as is Rick Santorum, for this primary that's happening here tomorrow. There's a big delegate load at stake.

And if you look at the polls, you're right. Mitt Romney does have the advantage here, but, you know, if you listen to the rhetoric in the last 24 hours between these two candidates, you know, this race might be a little tighter than the polls suggest at this point. Those polls suggested that Mitt Romney was way out in front down in Mississippi and Alabama, that he had a stronger lead going into those two primaries. But we ended up at the end of the night, Rick Santorum won both of those primaries. So they're going to fight pretty hard for these votes.

But you're right. Earlier this morning, Mitt Romney was referring to Rick Santorum as an economic lightweight saying that you don't want to replace an economic lightweight. And the president, in Mitt Romney's words, with another economic lightweight. But at the same time, he was acknowledging that the economy is getting better. Let's take a listen to what Governor Romney had to say earlier this morning.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROMNEY: I've had the experience of leading and guiding enterprises. I'm someone experienced in the economy. I'm not an economic lightweight. President Obama is. We're not going to be successful in replacing an economic lightweight with another economic lightweight. We have to replace him with someone who knows how to run this economy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ACOSTA: So, Mitt Romney has a tough task on his hands. He's not only going after Rick Santorum before this primary tomorrow, but he's also trying to save some time while he's out on the campaign trail, Suzanne, to go after President Obama, but the Obama re-election campaign, which, of course, is based right here in Chicago, Romney is in the Obama re-election campaign's backyard, is going to be going after Mitt Romney later today holding a conference call on his economic record. So, Mitt Romney is going to be taking it from all sides today, Suzanne.

MALVEAUX: And Romney is not emphasizing so much the delegate count, I guess it's more about the message, the record. A lot of people were saying it's kind of dry and stale to talk about just the math there, but does he have the numbers? Is he looking good?

ACOSTA: Yes. Suzanne, I mean, unless something really dramatic happens in this race, you know, he is cruising to a commanding lead in this delegate count. If you just add the 20 delegates he won with that overwhelming victory in Puerto Rico last night, he now has more than double the number of delegates than Rick Santorum has. So, you know, Santorum I think acknowledges all of this.

He said in a number of interviews, you know, that basically what he hopes to do at this point is sort of deny Romney that magic number of 1,144 delegates. If he can do that, he can force some kind of fight on the convention floor in Tampa where he hopes he can make the argument that a real conservative in his mind, should get the nomination. He thinks that's where he has the upper hand with Mitt Romney.

But you know, there is no guarantee in any of this, Suzanne, --

MALVEAUX: Right.

ACOSTA: -- that Mitt Romney will get that magic number of 1,144. That is part of the reason why Illinois is so important. He has to win this primary tomorrow.

MALVEAUX: All right, Jim. We'll be watching very closely tomorrow. Thank you, Jim.

Again, just coming in -- reports coming in as we speak that former Colts quarterback, Peyton Manning, is going to sign with the Denver Broncos. Manning had been choosing between the Broncos and the Tennessee Titans.

I'm joined on the phone by "Sports Illustrated" writer, Jim Trotter, to tell us the back story here. What -- how did this all go down?

JIM TROTTER, SENIOR WRITER, "SPORTS ILLUSTRATED" (via telephone): Well basically, Payton, after he got released, he was contacted by at least nine teams. He whittled it down to three, to Denver, to San Francisco, and Tennessee, and today, he made the choice that it would be the Broncos.

MALVEAUX: Why the Broncos?

TROTTER: Well, I think, one, it's a great fit for him. He's out of the NFC, which is a tougher conference, and it's where his brother plays. Two, the Broncos have some good defensive talent, they've got an excellent offensive line. And I think he was impressed with John Elway, the new Bronco's executive who was in his first year last year, as well as with the coaching staff. So, it made sense. And also, an interesting back story here, but last week, Philip Rivers, the San Diego Chargers quarterback, said he hoped that Peyton came to the AFC west, where the Chargers also play, and so that makes for an interesting story line that we'll have those two battling it out.

MALVEAUX: How is he going to play? There was a lot of discussion, as you know, when he was leaving his former team, about those injuries. He had to sit on the sidelines for the 2011 season.

TROTTER: You know, Suzanne, no one knows at this point. Until he gets on the field, and he's cleared and he's 100 percent, we just don't know. Now, I talked to a scout last week who broke down Peyton's game tape from 2010, the last season that he played, and the scout told me that he was a very effective quarterback that year. But the question becomes, if he takes certain types of hits, if the nerve damage flares up in his neck and in his arm, what kind of force will he have on his throws? At this point, we don't know. So, if the Broncos are getting the Peyton Manning of 2010, they clearly become the favorites to defend their AFC west title. If they don't, you have to look at another team.

MALVEAUX: And somebody who -- everybody is following and talking about, someone I had a chance to actually talk to, Tim Tebow, quarterback for the Denver Broncos, how does he -- how does he fit into all of this?

TROTTER: Well, he doesn't fit into the Bronco's picture. They were never comfortable, even last year when Tim led them to the playoffs, they were not comfortable with his style of play. He's more of a runner than a passer. He's not very good in the pocket. And I think that John Elway and the team wanted a traditional pocket passer, and they're going to look to move to trade Tim Tebow at this point.

And I don't know how many football people necessarily are going to be interested in Tim, but you can count on some owner wanting to sign him, because one thing about Tim, he brings a lot of attention to a team and helps put fans in the seats. So I think you would have to look at a team like Jacksonville and a team like Miami. And there's a possibility that maybe he's a good fit in Philadelphia where they have a mobile left handed quarterback in Michael Vict. And in so, in some ways, Tim's game mirrors Michaels to a little bit.

MALVEAUX: All right, Jim Trotter, thank you very much. Peyton Manning to the Denver Broncos. Appreciate it.

Here is a rundown on some of the stories we are covering over the next hour. If you have a 401K, you will want to take a listen to this. Apple giving back $10 billion to its shareholders.

Then, an author lies to a national radio road show about what he saw at an iPad factory in China. So, what is it really like there?

And the Kony 2012 breakdown. What the founder's strange behavior means for his online movement to capture that ruthless warlord.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MALVEAUX: It's a nice problem to have. What do you do with $100 billion in extra cash? Well, Apple answered that question today. The tech company plans to share the wealth. Alison Kosik, she's at the New York Stock Exchange with some of the details. Wow, sharing the wealth. What does all this mean, Alison?

ALISON KOSIK, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Yes. So, sharing the wealth. So, what Apple is essentially doing, Suzanne, is it's returning some of that money, some of that value back to its shareholders. So, beginning this summer, Apple is going to begin paying a quarterly dividend. It means that if you own it -- if you own shares of Apple, you're going to get a check from Apple, $2.65 for each share you have. It's also buying back $10 billion of its own shares. And what that winds up doing is usually that winds up boosting the stock price even more.

So, what Apple is essentially doing is spending about $45 billion of the $100 billion that it has in cash over the next three years. So yes, it's a little bit of a bone that they're throwing to investors, but at least it's something. Here is a funny thing. Apple is probably easily going to make back that $45 billion that it gives back to its shareholders just with its iPad and iPhone sales this year -- Suzanne.

MALVEAUX: Why are they doing this? This is something that the late Steve Jobs was against, paying dividends.

KOSIK: Exactly. Steve Jobs was dead set against paying dividends. What he liked to do instead is hoard cash, and Jobs -- the reason is because Jobs was still kind of feeling stung after Apple came very close to going bankrupt in the '90s. Many other tech companies, right now, they pay dividends, like Microsoft, Cisco, and IBM. So, Apple has really been feeling the pressure lately to really deliver something.

So, new CEO, Tim Cook, even said $100 billion, it's more money than Apple really needs to run the company. So, Tim Cook wound up saying, well, OK, let's go ahead and issue this dividend and this buy back. And you know what? Why not? You look at Apple stock, it's really a great investment. But shareholders were saying, you know what? They want some of that cash returned to them especially when you look at how shares have been doing over the past year. They're up almost 80 percent over the past year. Right now, shares are getting very, very close to that $600 mark. Apple shares trading at $599.17.

MALVEAUX: All right, so what does it mean for everyday investors? If you don't even own Apple shares, should you care?

KOSIK: Well, you know what? You may -- you may even own Apple shares and you may not know it, Suzanne.

MALVEAUX: Really?

KOSIK: There are many mutual funds -- yes, really. So yes, listen, you may want to look into what your portfolio really includes, because many mutual funds, especially these index funds, actually hold Apple stock. And the dividends, that means that more funds are going to begin to buy Apple shares, these dividend funds, because many of these funds they won't invest in a company unless they pay a dividend. So, this means that funds in your retirement account, they probably own Apple stock, so you may be getting some of that $100 billion of that Apple -- that Apple will pay out. Obviously, I mean to say the $45 billion that it's going to pay out, so look closely at the portfolio, Suzanne. MALVEAUX: I'm going to take a second look. All right, thank you, Alison.

Well, Apple's stock price has not suffered from persistent reports of poor conditions at its manufacturing plants in Asia. So in January, an hour-long program aired on NPR called "This American Life" detailed horrific conditions at one of Apple's factories in China. Last week, the show dedicated their entire hour-long show, point by point, retracting what they presented in their original program. I want to bring in Howard Kurtz from CNN's Reliable Sources to join us to go through the particulars of this. So Howard, first of all, talk to us about what was exactly in the original report regarding Apple and these factories in China?

HOWARD KURTZ, CNN's "RELIABLE SOURCES": Well, the original report, Suzanne, had to do with whether or not there were serious labor abuses, particularly at one Chinese factory that builds these iPhones and iPads. And the whole radio program of "This American Life," most popular show, most popular episode I should say in the hit of this program, was built around the first person account of a guy named Mike Daisey, who's an actor and a performance artist, who, it turns out, embellished would be far too weak a word. He basically fabricated, made up and then covered up much of what he claimed to have seen at the Apple factory in China.

MALVEAUX: OK, and the Apple factory in China, we're looking at pictures, it says Foxconn. So we want to make sure that that's clear to folks, what they're actually seeing there. And then, how was it uncovered that these stories were not true?

KURTZ: There was a reporter for another public radio show, called "Marketplace," who's based in Shanghai and who just thought, none of this really sounded right. And so he tracked down the Chinese translator who had helped this actor, Mike Daisey, interview at least some of the Apple workers at this Foxconn plant. And the translator said that much of what Daisey had reported had never happened.

For example, vivid example here. Mike Daisey said, and this was repeated in "This American Life" report, that he had talked to workers whose hands were shaking uncontrollably because they had been poisoned by a cleaner used to clean the Apple iPhones. Well, that never happened. Neither did a while lot of things.

And what's really striking here is, rather than just apologize and admit that he had lied, Daisey started to use phrases like, well, I engaged in poetic license or dramatic license. And yet he basically took the credibility of a very respected public radio program and flushed it down the toilet.

MALVEAUX: And, Mike Daisey, he released a statement here. I want to make sure that we get this in here. He says, "what I do is not journalism. The tools of the theater are not the same as the tools of journalism. For this reason I regret that I allowed 'This American Life' to air an excerpt from my monologue. 'This American Life' is essentially a journalistic, not a theatrical, enterprise and as such it operates under a different set of rules and expectations." Quickly here, who's to blame? I mean you've got this program, you've got this story out there. It turns out that at least parts of it are dramatically, grossly inaccurate. Where does the blame lie?

KURTZ: Well, Daisey bears a lot of the responsibility. But you cannot take away the fact that "This American Life" and the host, Ira Glass, were willing to put this on the air even though he could not produce the translator when the program was trying to fact check this. So, by its own admission, it screwed up royally. I would say this is a tremendous embarrassment that really raises questions about the reporting on Apple. And you never should pin your entire journalistic creditability on a guy who is, by his own admission a performance artist, without some fact checking. When he couldn't produce that translator, that story should have been killed.

MALVEAUX: All right, Howard Kurtz, thank you very much. Appreciate it.

We are also looking at something else. Something you don't hear often these days. We're talking about good news for the future. I'm going to talk to a scientist who's certain that he's got the key to solving the world's biggest problems. So we're talking, what, hunger, over population, pollution. He says the future may be a lot better than you think.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MALVEAUX: Natural disasters, terrorism, wars, starvation, and super viruses. Scary stuff out there these days. You're not alone if sometimes you find yourself worrying that the world is frankly going down the tubes. Do not lose hope. My next guest has good news about what is to come. Peter Diamandis is co-author of "Abundance: Why The Future Is Better Than You Think." It's soaring up "The New York Times" bestseller list.

So, Peter, tell us, why is the future better than we think?

PETER DIAMANDIS, CO-AUTHOR, "ABUNDANCE": It turns out that there are a number of forces in play that made the last century, the 20th century, extraordinary. We literally doubled our human life span. We tripled the per capita income for every human on the planet. We reduced the cost of food by ten-fold, the cost of transportation and electricity and communication by hundreds of thousands of fold. Those same forces that made the last century good are accelerating and making this next century tremendous.

MALVEAUX: Do you focus on the things that we have in surplus, not the thing that we're short on. Tell us a little bit about that.

DIAMANDIS: Well, in this book I explain to readers really what are the forces that are driving us to a world of abundance. How we're going to be creating a world of abundant energy. The notion that every year we have 5,000 times more energy than hits the earth's surface from the sun than we consume as a human species. And as it turns out, the technology for converting that sunlight to energy, solar, is growing exponentially. The cost of solar dropped 50 percent last year. We have technologies coming online to give us abundant water. And there's really transformations coming on in education and health care. We all hear the bad news, but the good news is growing exponentially.

MALVEAUX: So tell us a little bit about -- I mean you've got 7 billion people on the planet now. That number is going up exponentially. How does the planet survive overpopulation? Is there going to be a point where there's just too many folks than we can take care of?

DIAMANDIS: So, again, in "Abundance," I'm showing people really how the world is changing. One of the ways is that as a country becomes healthier and better educated, its population growth really drops. Morocco is a perfect example. Thirty years ago there were about 7.8 kids per family. As the new leadership came in and gave it better health and better education, it dropped from almost eight to under three kids per family. Over and over again. So this is about how technology and a series of forces are going to change your life, that of your kids, your business, and everything about the future you should care about.

MALVEAUX: And the president, he's been pushing green jobs now for years without a whole lot of success, because we've seen these electric cars, these hybrids hit the market, but not a lot of enthusiasm from consumers. Why do you think the world is so slow to embrace this new technology that's already available?

DIAMANDIS: It takes a while for this to be adapted. You know, in the book I talk about how the rising billion, the next 3 billion people coming online, are going to transform how the world innovates, the marketplaces. You know, if you think about the fact that a masi (ph) warrior in the middle of Kenya on a mobile phone today has better mobile communications than President Reagan did 25 years ago. And if they're on Google on a smartphone, they've got access to better information and knowledge than President Clinton did 15 years ago. The world is changing very rapidly.

MALVEAUX: It is a positive, hopeful message. Peter Diamandis, thank you so much.

You can see more of my interview with Peter on my FaceBook page, facebook.com/suzannecnn.

She's the first female and the first African-American and the first Asian American to serve as California's attorney general. Well, now she's using her success to fight for homeowners. I'm going to talk to Kamala Harris about shattering glass ceilings and keeping a roof over people's heads.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MALVEAUX: Kamala Harris, she has been called the "female Obama." A rising star in the Democratic party. And like the president, she's turning heads and making history. For starters, Harris is the first female, first African-American, and the first Asian-American attorney general in California. She is also the first South Asian-American attorney general in the country. And she is joining us live from San Francisco.

Thank you very much. What do you think, female Obama? KAMALA HARRIS, CALIFORNIA ATTORNEY GENERAL: You know, I have an incredible degree of respect for the president of the United States. I'm humbled. But, you know, there's only one Barack Obama and thank God he's our president.

MALVEAUX: OK. You're a powerhouse in your own right. I understand that in an interview with "The New York Times," you said you're a big reader, and cookbooks is your love. Is that right?

HARRIS: Oh, yes.

MALVEAUX: You love to cook?

HARRIS: I love to cook. I love to eat. And, you know, my mother raised -- you like to eat, you better learn how to cook. And I love to cook. And, you know, in fact, I'm going to be in New Orleans over the spring break and I can't wait to just eat my way through New Orleans, starting with, you know, anything that Paul Prudhomme (ph) has done.

MALVEAUX: Well, that's my family's hometown, so you'll enjoy it.

HARRIS: I know.

MALVEAUX: Want to get to some of the issues here. You've gotten a lot of attention for securing $18 million from the nation's banks for California homeowners. And a lot of people are wondering and asking, how do you make sure that those benefits actually will get to the homeowners? What kind of challenges are you facing making that a reality?

HARRIS: Right, Suzanne. So that was a real priority, which is making sure that promises made are promises kept. And in furtherance of that desire, I actually appointed a monitor specific to California. So there's a national monitor for the entire deal. But I brought someone in, Kathleen Porter (ph), who is a professor at the University of California Irvine, who will review the data and just make sure that California homeowners are actually benefiting and, as quickly as possible, benefitting from the terms of the deal. And in particular around principle reductions and their ability to refinance their loans.

MALVEAUX: You introduced a homeowners bill of rights in California to change the process in helping folks with their mortgages. Is this the kind of thing, a model that can be used on a national scale?

HARRIS: Absolutely. And it actually models the national settlement. But what a lot of folks don't realize is the settlement only spans for a duration of three years. After that, it's business as usual. And I don't think anyone wants to go back and turn back the clock. And we need to really -- we need to fix the system and change the rules.

So the California Homeowner Bill of Rights that we've created does things like require that there will be one point of contact for those homeowners. You know, they're having such a difficult time navigating a system where often they speak to a different person every time who asks them to fax or send the documents as though it's the first time. It's not fair to the homeowners and there's a better way to do it.

The other thing we want to end a dual track, the system where the people are in the process of foreclosure and in the process of modifying their loan and two systems don't talk with each other. So again, the homeowner loses out when they really do have a good faith ability and interest in paying to stay in their home.

MALVEAUX: And you focused on another issue, which affects a lot of people here, because we're looking at our Smartphones, our Blackberries, but you have released a new series of privacy protections for folks who use these kinds of things. What kind of changes can consumers actually see? Is this really a big problem?

HARRIS: Well, it is a problem, and so what we did is we realized when all of us -- I have Flashlight on my phone. I have all kinds of mobile apps that I have downloaded. Well, the technology is such that when you're downloading that mobile app, there is also the ability on the other end for them to download your contact list, for example. And I think that users of this great technology want to know and have a right to know what they're giving up in exchange for a service or a benefit. So good for the top-six platforms, and they are Google, Apple, Microsoft and others, who came together and said we're going to require that the mobile app developers give us privacy policies.

MALVEAUX: Kamala, there's a lot of buzz around you, if Obama wins a second term, that you might be part of the administration. Are you interested?

HARRIS: I love my job as attorney general of California, Suzanne, and this is where I plan to stay.

MALVEAUX: All right. We'll ask you that question again later. We'll see.

(LAUGHTER)

All right, Kamala Harris, thank you very much. Nice to have you on.

HARRIS: Thank you, Suzanne.

MALVEAUX: As an activist, he created a media frenzy, but a bizarre breakdown by the founder of "Kony2012." It is threatening the group's mission to bring down a warlord?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MALVEAUX: More bizarre twists and turns surrounding the "Kony2012" documentary that went viral. You might have heard its director, Jason Russell, was stopped by police in San Diego last week after he was running through the streets naked and screaming. Now Ugandan officials are denouncing his campaign. The prime minister is personally tweeting celebrities for support and fighting back with a YouTube video of his own. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

AMAMA MBABAZI, PRIME MINISTER OF UGANDA: I must correct the mistaken impression created by the "Kony2012" video. Uganda is not in conflict. Uganda is a modern, developing country which enjoys peace, stability and security.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MALVEAUX: CNN international correspondent, David McKenzie, is joining us on the phone from Kenya.

David, obviously, two very different pictures painted of Uganda. One of rape and murder, Joseph Kony, and the other one from its leader saying this is one of the top places in the world to visit. How do we make sense of what is taking place in Uganda now?

DAVID MCKENZIE, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Well, I think you have to just look at the timing, Suzanne. The "Kony2012" campaign deals with history more than the present when it comes to Uganda. That's kind of why the prime minister and others have been so incensed by the video.

We've just gotten back from a Uganda business meeting with policymakers and they are scratching their head, wondering what all the fuss right now. Even in 2006, it was a safe country relatively speaking. Joseph Kony has moved on to other countries in the region. And then some say that it glosses over that fact. Some who supports the campaign, they say it doesn't matter where they end up. They're still doing what they did in Uganda and other countries and should be stopped.

MALVEAUX: He may not be in Uganda but what do the Ugandan people think of this documentary and the fact that more than 80 million people clicked on YouTube and really became enraptured by it all?

MCKENZIE: Well, I think there are different opinions. One is that, you know, one has to remember that internet penetration certainly in the areas in which Joseph Kony was active in northern Uganda was very low. We went to one screening of the "Kony2012" documentary for legal people there. There was a sense from people they wanted to be part of the conversation. It's very hard for them to download this whole film, 30 minutes or so, even if they do have access to Internet.

We're just talking nuts and bolts. Logistics of shooting it is difficult in some parts of Uganda. Others, international bloggers and the like, have been kind of relatively negative, I would say on the whole about the campaign, saying that it's simplified and it doesn't really go into the complications of this war. Many others, victims especially -- I went with one of the boys featured in that film. He said it doesn't matter where Joseph Kony has gone onto. We're sort of missing the point if we only focus on the flaws in this and really Joseph Kony and any other person causing havoc for civilians should be stopped.

(CROSSTALK)

MCKENZIE: -- it really depends on you who you talk to.

MALVEAUX: All right, David, thank you so much. We really appreciate giving us that perspective.

I want to bring in Howard Kurtz, joining us again from Washington via Skype, on how this might impact this movement here.

You have the director, Jason Russell, who has this -- what looked like somewhat of a breakdown. Russell's family released the following statement about this saying that "Jason has never had a substance abuse or drinking problem, and this episode wasn't caused by either of those things but, yes, he did some irrational things brought on by extreme exhaustion and dehydration."

So do we know, first of all -- I mean, this was unprecedented in this movement around his video. Do we know if it's had any impact on the video or on his movement because of this?

KURTZ: To state the obvious, it can't help if the guy who made this film now seems to be engaging in erratic behavior. I don't know what caused it, but it's such a bizarre story, Suzanne. First of all, he makes this video about an African warlord that not much of the world has heard of, and then more than 100 million people see it. And then just as it's getting renewed attention on networks like CNN, to go out and have this public breakdown obviously distracts attention from this cause he's trying to champion.

MALVEAUX: Do we know if in this flurry of attention, because it was extraordinary when you talk about over the course of two or three days, you have more than 100 million -- we had more than 80 million clicking onto this YouTube video. Did anything come of it? Did anybody do anything with it? We know it created awareness, but did it stop? Did it disappear?

KURTZ: Other than creating awareness -- and that's no small thing --

MALVEAUX: Sure.

KURTZ: -- given the difficulty in getting the news media to focus on a country like Uganda in the first place.

MALVEAUX: Right.

KURTZ: It's hard to point to any concrete results. He's been criticized for focusing on a guy who was more of a threat to Uganda in the past than is true today. The video has also been criticized for trying to peddle merchandise as a way of raising money. So while it would make a nice heartwarming story for me to say to you, yes, after these 80 million people clicked on this video, many of them rose up and decided to do something about it. At this point, I can't say that.

The only good news is that it has heightened our interest in the country and its problems but that can be very ephemeral, as you know.

MALVEAUX: Right.

KURTZ: It's similar to George Clooney getting himself arrested to protest conditions in Sudan. It becomes a great two-day story in the media but I don't think Sudan remains in the news very much after Clooney goes back to making movies.

MALVEAUX: What do you think about the power of social media, that people can be whipped in a frenzy for a week, and then move on to something else?

KURTZ: I think it says something healthy. That is the people who wanted to draw attention to this 10 years ago, they would have had to come to some news organization and talk to a "New York Times" columnist, CNN, ABC, NBC and having to convince a journalist to produce or write or broadcast a story. Here, one man making this video, even if he did later engage in some unusual behavior, was able to rivet the attention of the world simply by using social media. That is an avenue that never existed before and we're just starting to see now, Suzanne, the potential when people are able to act simply by making something that interesting.

MALVEAUX: And what's interesting, too, Howard, is that you have the leader of Uganda responding in his own YouTube video. That's also pretty enlightening as well.

Thank you so much. Good to see you.

So some out-of-the-blue wins this weekend busting up my March Madness bracket. I am not out of the running yet. I'm still trash talking. That's right. We're going to take a look at where things stand now.

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MALVEAUX: President Obama's Republican rivals are blasting his energy policies. The president is bragging about the benefits of health care reform law, but can these claims pass the "PolitiFact" test.

Bill Adair, the Washington Bureau for the "Tampa Bay Times," editor of PolitiFact.com.

Good to see you, Bill.

Let's start with President Obama, health care reform and a campaign video. He says, "Because of the new law, 17 million kids can no longer be denied for a pre-existing condition." True or false?

BILL ADAIR, WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF, TAMPA BAY TIMES & EDITOR, POLITIFACT.COM: We gave that one a mostly false on our truth-o-meter. What he's done is something we see a lot. He has cherry picked the highest possible estimate of the number of children that might no longer be denied that kind of coverage. They lumped in children whose families would simply have to pay more for their coverage and depending on how to define that number could be as low as about 160,000. So mostly false on the truth-o-meter.

MALVEAUX: Let's take a look at another claim by the president on health care. He says, "Because of the new health care law 2.5 million young adults have coverage." How does that measure up?

ADAIR: That gets a mostly true. This number comes from the Department of Health and Human Services. It's one of two possible numbers for it. The other number is lower but this one did seem to be more solid in terms of the methodology, so it's a reasonable number mostly true. This is, of course, referring to the people who are -- would have to be covered under their parents' policy up until they turn 26.

MALVEAUX: All right. Finally, the claim from Rick Santorum. He says, "President Obama's energy policies have forced many parts of the country to experience rolling blackouts." Really?

ADAIR: Pants on Fire for this one.

MALVEAUX: Oh!

ADAIR: This one gets our lowest rating. We checked with some experts. We talked to one expert who said, if you find a real case of these rolling blackouts, let us know.

We looked at the numbers. It's just not the case. The number of planned outages, in other words, where a utility has to have an outage and takes the power down, isn't even actually as many as outages caused by animals. It's entirely likely that there are more outages caused by squirrels than caused by planned outages, let alone to blame them on the president's energy policy. So this one is just ridiculously false. It earns a Pants on Fire.

(LAUGHTER)

MALVEAUX: Those Pants on Fire always get everybody's attention.

Thank you, Bill. Appreciate it.

ADAIR: Thanks, Suzanne.

MALVEAUX: A new study finds a lot of American teenagers are now using synthetic marijuana and they're going to the hospital because of it. A report in this week's journal, "Pediatrics" says poison control centers got 4,500 calls related to synthetic pot in the last year. It's a legal product sold in places like gas stations and convenience stores. It is a blend of plant material that has been sprayed with chemicals which mimic the effect of marijuana. Scientists say that is the toxic part. Teens are using it because it doesn't show up on drug tests.

And the father of JonBenet Ramsey says he has finally learned how to forgive after losing his daughter.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) JOHN RAMSEY, FATHER OF JONBENET RAMSEY: Forgiveness really is a gift that I give myself. It's a letting go. It's a moving on. It has nothing to do with the person you're forgiving. They may not want to be forgiven. They may not even know you forgive them, but it's a release.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MALVEAUX: We're going to hear more from John Ramsey in his own words.

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MALVEAUX: My NCAA bracket not looking too good. I do have three of the four final picks still alive, and I'm beating Chad.

CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yes, you are.

MALVEAUX: That's a good thing, right?

MYERS: I went to a football school. I don't know this basketball stuff.

MALVEAUX: I kind of don't either.

(CROSSTALK)

MALVEAUX: Well, I'm getting a little help, right? We lost Georgetown this weekend.

MYERS: Yes.

MALVEAUX: But Michigan State, I still got Michigan State to win it all. How do I look?

MYERS: You look good if that happens.

(CROSSTALK)

MALVEAUX: Am I competitive at least with the other anchors?

MYERS: You are competitive because I had Michigan State out, beaten by Murray State. And Murray State went out badly. They didn't even show up.

MALVEAUX: There were some upsets this weekend that --

(CROSSTALK)

MYERS: There were some upsets, yes.

(CROSSTALK)

MYERS: We are holding up the bottom of the bracket. We are the strongest members of the bracket. That means we're on the bottom.

(CROSSTALK)

(LAUGHTER)

MALVEAUX: What? I thought that was a good thing.

MYERS: Sometimes it is. Sometimes you want to be the foundation of things, sometimes you don't. Brooke Baldwin is the winner so far.

(CROSSTALK)

MALVEAUX: She's trash talking already. I can't believe it.

(CROSSTALK)

MYERS: I wonder how did she do that. I want to show you her bracket in a second. We have to go all the way down through Rob and John King. Do that again. And all the way to Randi Kaye, and then back down to the bottom. There goes Don Lemon. We're still not there. There she is, Suzanne, with a pretty picture.

(CROSSTALK)

MYERS: And then there I am down below Ashleigh Banfield. That's because I made some bad decisions. That's sometimes what I do. There's your bracket. You're still good.

MALVEAUX: OK.

MYERS: You still have a lot of people in this thing.

MALVEAUX: Good. Good.

MYERS: You still have Kentucky. You still have Kansas and Michigan State in here, with Michigan State going to the final two and eventually beating Kansas for the number-one spot.

I, on the other hand, have a completely different bracket than you do. I have Kentucky still but I lost my Murray State. I don't even have that team. It's out of my --

(CROSSTALK)

MYERS: UNC and Syracuse -- Syracuse did very well, even without their center that became ineligible. And I have UNC winning. But if you can get Michigan State to go all the way to the final two and win --

MALVEAUX: Then I'm back in.

MYERS: -- you will win it.

MALVEAUX: Good. That's my dad's alma mater. So we've got to win it. We've got to win that one.

MYERS: Hey, Sparty shows up all the time. You never know. They come to play. (LAUGHTER)

MALVEAUX: All right, thanks, Chad.

And, yes, we will take a quick break before trash talking with Brooke Baldwin on that one.

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MALVEAUX: Hard to imagine, but JonBenet Ramsey would have been 21 years old had she lived. She was a child beauty queen, murdered a decade and a half ago. The crime riveted the country. And her case is still unsolved. Stories about JonBenet's parents filled the tabloid, so did speculation that they were somehow involved. Well, they have since been cleared. And her father, John Ramsey, says he's over the anger but not the anguish. The unanswered question, what happened to his little girl? Ramsey has written a new book, "The Other Side of Suffering," and he talked with our Ashleigh Banfield.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RAMSEY: I can say I have joy in my life, which is a deeper appreciation of what life is all about, what your purpose is, where you're going in life, what the future holds.

There was a period in time that I was so angry, if I knew who it was, we wouldn't need a trial, and I would have no remorse, but that anger has passed to a point now where I want to know why. Why did this happen to my child?

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: How did you get there?

RAMSEY: Well, it took a long time. I spent a lot of time thinking about and reading about forgiveness, the whole topic of forgiveness. Then I realized that forgiveness is really a gift I give myself. It's a little letting go, moving on. It has nothing to do with the person you're giving. They may not even want forgiveness or know you're forgiving them, but it's a release.

BANFIELD: What would you want people to know about JonBenet?

RAMSEY: She's so much more than a beauty queen as she's tagged as and it really hurts when she's tagged that way because that was just a small part of her life. She was energetic. She was incredibly smart. She was an amazing young child.

BANFIELD: You called her Johnnie B.?

RAMSEY: Yes, Johnnie B.

BANFIELD: You should be a much more bitter person.

RAMSEY: Well, I heard in a sermon once that said you could be, after a tragedy, bitter, broken, barren or better. And the opportunity is to be better.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MALVEAUX: Powerful interview that Ashleigh Banfield did. Thank you.

CNN NEWSROOM continues right now with Brooke Baldwin.

Hey, Brooke.

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: Hey, Suzanne. Thank you so much.