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Highway Shooting Suspect Arrested; Heckler Interrupts Sebelius Speech; Civil Rights Legend Speaks; Comedy For A Good Cause; G-8 Leaders Meet At Camp David; Andrew Young Celebrates 80 Years

Aired May 18, 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: And enjoy your meal out.

I'm Suzanne Malveaux, I want to get right to it. After two people were killed along Mississippi highways, police were nervous about driving at night. And so, now, police have arrested this man, James Willy. They say he has a long criminal record. They found him with a gun used with the roadside killings when they arrested him for another crime. Fear had spread across a three-state area because investigators thought the highway gunman might have been posing as a police officer. Now, they say the shooter was apparently not impersonating an officer.

An event that enraged the Catholic church was interrupted by an abortion protester. It was a speech by health and human services secretary Kathleen Sebelius at Georgetown University. Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KATHLEEN SEBELIUS, SECRETARY, HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES: Having spent my entire life in public service.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE) abortion.

SEBELIUS: I spent my entire life in public service.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MALVEAUX: Cheers of support there from the graduates. The church had blasted Georgetown for inviting Sebelius, not because of the Obama administration's position on abortion, but church leaders instead were angry over Sebelius' support of a law requiring employers, even religious institutions, to provide birth control coverage.

The most hyped stock offering of the year got off kind of to a bumpy start. Shares of Facebook jumped more than 10 percent in the first minutes of trading, but then they started to go the other way. At one point, the stock was hovering around an initial point of $38 before rising again.

Alison Kosik, she's been watching all this at the NASDAQ market site. So Alison, give us a sense -- I imagine people were pretty surprised that the stock didn't take off. ALISON KOSIK, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: And that's what you saw happen with the numbers. You saw that play out in the numbers. You know, the expectations were really high to see Facebook shares jump, you know, even as much as 30 percent. When out of the gate, they didn't jump that much, I mean, 12.5 percent. It's a good day to start, but the expectations were beyond that. So, what you saw at least according to one analyst I talked to said when they didn't -- when a lot of traders and a lot of investors didn't see that pop materialize, they went ahead and sold. Right now, though, Facebook shares are doing pretty well. They're up a little over 8 percent. Other Internet stocks not doing as well. Groupon, linkedIn, right now, are down. That is because of that initial pop that didn't happen.

Now, we've also learned that shares of Zynga have been -- have been held right now. That's after a circuit breaker kicked in which basically means that the stock fell too far too fast. And one analyst sort of termed it this way. He said, a lot of people who held onto that Zynga stock, Zynga was actually the appetizer, that would -- once Facebook went public, the thinking was that they would either hold it if Facebook did well, but because Facebook did not have that pop, you saw investors run to the exits, at those investors who had Zynga -- Suzanne.

MALVEAUX: Now that the stock is being traded for Facebook, can individual investors, can they actually start buying in on these shares?

KOSIK: Exactly. That's what they can do right now. They can go ahead and look to buy that price at $40.94 if they can get in at that price, something around there. Yes, Facebook shares are open to the public. The initial offer price was 38 -- was $38. Obviously, shares are up now a little over 7 percent -- Suzanne.

MALVEAUX: All right, Alison, following all the developments. Thank you, Alison.

Nerve-racking, possibly life-changing day for John Edwards. A jury is now deliberating his fate. The former presidential candidate could face three decades behind bars if convicted on all six corruption charges. A verdict could come any time now. Diane Dimond, she's outside the courthouse in Greensboro, North Carolina. She's a special correspondent for "Newsweek" and "The Daily Beast," and also we're privileged to have her every day to talk about this from the courthouse.

So first of all, Diane, just tell us what we find -- what did you find out about what the jurors asked the judge?

DIANE DIMOND, SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT, "NEWSWEEK" AND "THE DAILY BEAST: Yes, the jury has been seated. The four alternates have been chosen and put in a different room, so we're left with four women and eight men on the panel. They were in deliberations for about two, two and a half hours. And they came out to ask their first set of questions. First of all, they want a complete exhibit list, all the exhibits that came in, they'd like to have a list of that, no problem. They also want a list of -- they want to see and handle and hold and read all of the notes that Bunny Mellon sent to John Edwards and, or Andrew Young while she was mailing these checks to them. Even some of the notes before that that she just wrote, you know, to say, I'm a big supporter.

Additionally, they wanted the transcript of Bunny Mellon's attorney, Alex Forger. He is the one who came to this courthouse and he said, you know, I warned her that she had already given the max. This could not be considered a campaign contribution and she would have given him money even if he wasn't running for president, she liked him that much.

Well, the judge told the jury, I'm not going to give you that transcript, you need to rely on your own memory about what he said. So, she brought them in -- last I was in the courtroom, she brought them in to tell them this and tell them, you know, stop for a while, go eat some lunch, and then have at it in the afternoon.

MALVEAUX: Yes, maybe with a little lunch they'll remember some things there. What does this say, do you think, about the mindset of these jurors here that they have asked for all these transcripts and all this information early on in the process?

DIMOND: You know, it's really interesting because, to my mind, it was the Bunny Mellon money that the prosecution never specifically tied John Edwards to. They tied him, I thought, to the Fred Baron money that came later. He was overheard on an airplane ride with Fred Baron discussing hiding Rielle Hunter from the media. So, I think maybe the jury thinks like I do, you know, what about that Bunny Mellon money? You know, can we tie John Edwards to that money or was that all Andrew Young as the defense says? So, it tells me that they're thinking very logically. The first counts that they're supposed to go through, the first two, go to Bunny Mellon. So, they're probably just taking it chronologically which is really smart.

MALVEAUX: And Diane, paint the outlook, if you will, for John Edwards if he is found guilty or if he's not found -- not guilty. What -- his fate is in their hands now.

DIMOND: Oh, yes. And, you know, when I was last in the courthouse, John Edwards is not in the courtroom. The media is in there. We're able to mill in and out, but John Edwards is outside, right outside the door sitting on a bench with his attorney, Abbe Lowell, and his parents. It's like they don't really have a special room for him to go to, so that's where he sits.

He faces 30 years in prison and a $1.5 million fine. Even if he is acquitted of all the charges, Suzanne, I can't imagine what he will do in the future. He certainly cannot be an elected official again, I wouldn't think. I don't think his dream of becoming a U.S. Supreme Court Justice is going to come true. I don't know if he could be an effective trial lawyer again. He was so successful doing that here in North Carolina. So, look, I don't want to be flip about it, but he's a multimillionaire. He has a huge estate in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. He has three young children to take care of now alone without his wife, Elizabeth. So, what does he do? I think at least for a while he just retreats into his life and keeps his head down if he is acquitted.

MALVEAUX: And final question here, Diane. You say that they don't really have a special place for him or his family. Are people able to actually approach John Edwards or approach his team and actually go up to him and talk to him, not the jurors themselves but other people who might -- you know, yourself or others covering the story or just people who are curious about what's going on?

DIMOND: Yes. Yes, as a matter of fact, now that the jury, you know, has the case and the case has rested, we are allowed to approach and speak, not many do. But this morning when John Edwards walked in, my colleague from "The New York Times", Kim Severson, looked up and said, hi, John, how are you doing? And he said, I'm doing OK and he went over to his seat at the defense table. I think there is a room in the back where they're able to stow their briefcases and their sweaters or coats, you know, in the early morning, but for some reason he's sitting right out in front today, right outside the door.

I have to tell you, Suzanne, yesterday after closings, they left the building, and I shouted out a question like, you know, how did you think the closings went? He didn't answer. But there was a member of the public in the scrum there with us, and she shouted out to Kate Edwards, Mr. Edwards, I love your daughter. Go home to her. I hope you get to go home to her. It was a touching little moment that, you know, a member of the public took time to come down here and say, hey, at least I'm with you.

MALVEAUX: Yes, and they know --

DIMOND: So, he just nodded her way and said, have a good evening.

MALVEAUX: Interesting bit of color there. Diane, thank you. Obviously, if there are any developments, we'll come back to you. Thanks again.

Here is what we're working on for this hour.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MALVEAUX: The world's biggest super powers meet up in the mountains. So who is in and who is out at the G8 summit?

And a civil rights legend takes us through the battles of the past to talk about the fight for justice now.

Then for him, it's about more than a few laughs.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Has your mother ever made anything as good as the McDonald's fry? Not even close. (END VIDEO CLIP)

MALVEAUX (voice-over): It's been helping veterans come back home.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MALVEAUX: President Obama playing host this weekend to two major gatherings of world leaders, the NATO summit in Chicago, the G8. That is the annual meeting of leaders of the world's largest economies. It's President Obama's first time as host. The summit begins later today and continues tomorrow. France's president has arrived and the leaders of Germany, Japan, and Canada will also be there.

Richard Quest is in London, and, Richard, I have been to about 10 of these summits. The U.S. President attends every year, and there's always this debate whether or not the G8 summits or even the NATO summits accomplish all that much. This go-around I think it probably is going to mean something when they look at Greece's economic crisis. What do you think?

RICHARD QUEST, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, the important thing here is that the summit is at Camp David, and he's trying very much to get it back to the original idea, the G3 and G5 which is how it all started, the fireside chat at Versailles by France and that is what it was all about, from (INAUDIBLE) who got the leaders together and that's how it started.

Now, it only became a circus when the likes of you and I started turning up and shoving microphones everywhere we could. Now, what they're trying to do, of course, is now get it back to a forum where the leaders can talk amongst themselves. Until that extent, I think the president is trying to do that with Camp David. What will be on the agenda? There will be the usual thousand and one issues, but the focus -- the focus, without doubt, Suzanne, is going to be on the economy, the Eurozone crisis and austerity versus growth.

MALVEAUX: Yes. I think you bring up a good point there, because it does turn into -- it's gotten bigger and bigger. They've got swag bags, the whole thing, when you go to these G8 summits. And so, I've been to Camp David, it's a quiet, peaceful place. And that is a good place for them to meet. And what do you think about the fact that you've got President Obama, Chancellor Merkel, and now you've got these new guys, new leaders from France and Italy in the same room talking about this economic crisis. Do you think that these are leaders -- do you think they're going to get along? Do you think they will accomplish what they set out to accomplish?

QUEST: First of all, Monti is well-known to them all because he's been around for years. Hollande is new character. But this is the fascinating part about G8 summits, in fact, any of these meetings. They are used to the fact that you turn around and old Jacques has gone. You turn around and George is no longer there. You look across the table and Gerhardt has lost an election. So they are used to this terrible, awful machinations that the table changes because somebody lost an election. And I think the difficult person here is probably going to be Hollande. He will be -- he'll be quite -- you know, he'll get through it fine, but he's not an international politician. He's not known to the others. He's not sat at the top table globally before. And he's the one who's coming with a very firm change of policy. No austerity, more growth. But he will find favor from the U.S. president, President Obama, because he very much is going to be saying, well, hey, guys, you in Europe, that's what we've been doing. We know there has to be cutbacks, just not yet.

SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN ANCHOR: Right. And, Richard, let's talk about the bigger meeting that's going to happen with world leaders in June, the G-20 in Mexico. So you've got not only the G-8, but you've got more folks --

QUEST: Ah, waste of time. Waste of time.

MALVEAUX: More folks involved. China, India, Brazil. Really?

QUEST: Waste of time.

MALVEAUX: Why waste of time?

QUEST: Waste of time. I'm not listening. I'm not listening. No.

MALVEAUX: You have emerging economies. You have new leaders. You have, you know, other issues at the table. Why a waste of time?

QUEST: Because there's 20 countries with completely different economies, different forms of political systems, some market economies, some communist, some fast-moving emerging markets, others -- the G-20 reached its nadir in January -- or reached its height, I should say, in January of 2009 in London. It slipped later in the U.S., and it's been on an downward trajectory ever since.

MALVEAUX: All right.

QUEST: A six-page -- a six-page communique with all these countries. What's needed is a G-11 or 12 to reflect emerging markets. But a G-20, save the money.

MALVEAUX: All right, save the money. Save the money on the shawag (ph) bags, too, because I know you and I have been to a lot of these summits here and they provide those little bags with the summit label and everything. All that lovely stuff.

QUEST: You once -- hey, you --

MALVEAUX: You can save the money is what you're saying essentially?

QUEST: You won -- you won the name dropping today. You've been to Camp David.

MALVEAUX: Well, you've been to all the other summits for God's sake. You were in London I'm sure.

QUEST: Buckingham Palace.

MALVEAUX: Ah. Well, OK. Well, I've been there, too.

QUEST: All right.

MALVEAUX: But we won't compete in the name dropping. Have a good weekend, Richard.

QUEST: Have a good one.

MALVEAUX: All right.

Well, they matched the gun with the bullets and they've got a suspect in custody. So are Mississippi drivers finally safe after two killings on the highway?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MALVEAUX: Police in Mississippi have a man in custody, suspected in two nighttime highway killings that terrorized drivers and led to an intense manhunt. They arrested this man, James Willie, from Sardis, Mississippi. Now investigators say he's a convicted felon with a long criminal record. He had the gun used in those two killings when they arrested him. Ed Lavandera is following the new developments from Dallas.

And for a while investigators thought the shooter was posing as a police officer. They don't believe that's the case anymore, right?

ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, they, at this point, that was a theory that they had thrown out there as a way of trying to warn the public that this was going on, that this was a possibility. They were trying to figure out, and they're still trying to figure out, how it was that this man was able to get two people to pull over in the early morning hours in the darkness, 1:00, 2:00 in the morning. So they're still, I think, a little bit baffled by that and trying to figure that out.

Law enforcement agencies there in northwest Mississippi are holding a press conference as we speak outlining the details of how all this came to be. And this is very interesting, actually, Suzanne. On Thursday afternoon, authorities in the town of Tunica, Mississippi, get a report of a disturbance in a nearby apartment complex. They go over there and in the process of -- once they get there, a woman there tells them that this man, James Willie, had just raped her. So they take him into custody. And one of the detectives notices a nine millimeter handgun that is on him and perhaps think that he'd heard that that was kind of a similar gun that was used in these highway shootings. So because of that, they send it off for ballistics testings at the state crime lab in Mississippi. They put a rush on it. And yesterday afternoon it came back as a positive match, that it was the gun used in those two deadly shootings last week.

So now this James Willie man has been charged with two counts of capital murder, as well as kidnapping and rape. So very serious charges. And authorities still trying to investigate how exactly these two people were able to come cross with him and get pulled over in the middle of the night basically.

MALVEAUX: All right, Ed Lavandera, thank you for the update. Appreciate it.

LAVANDERA: Sure.

MALVEAUX: He was ambassador to the United Nations and he's a civil rights legend. I'm going to ask Andrew Young about the battle that is still ranging today for equal rights.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MALVEAUX: He is known the world over. Andrew Young helped galvanize a movement that transformed this nation through nonviolence. But he didn't stop there as a civil rights leader. He is a human rights leader. A former congressman, ambassador to the U.N., and mayor of Atlanta. Andrew Young joins us as he prepares for a huge birthday celebration. He is turning 80 years old.

Ambassador Young, good to have you here. I know your birthday was in March.

ANDREW YOUNG, GOODWORKS INTERNATIONAL: It was actually in March, but the hotels are so busy, we couldn't find a space available till March --

MALVEAUX: You're celebrating this weekend here in Atlanta.

YOUNG: May 20th, yes.

MALVEAUX: And it's a big celebration. A sold out affair, I understand.

YOUNG: It is. And when you've been around a place this long helping as many people and making as many friends, they show up when you turn 80.

MALVEAUX: They show up. You look beautiful. You look amazing.

YOUNG: Thank you.

MALVEAUX: Tell us a little bit about -- just a little bit about your life. About your reflections here. Most of us know you through the civil rights movement and --

YOUNG: You know, I grew up in New Orleans. And I don't know how well you know New Orleans, but --

MALVEAUX: My family's from New Orleans.

YOUNG: I know. Right downtown on Cleveland Avenue, one block off of Canal Street, and on the corner of my house was the headquarters of the Nazi party. On the next corner was an Irish grocery store. On another corner, an Italian bar. And you had blacks, creoles, cajuns, and every variety of European in that one neighborhood. So I ended up having -- I say I had to become an ambassador at (INAUDIBLE) Jones Public School because growing up in a mixed neighborhood, then going to an all-black poor school, I had to develop negotiating skills. I couldn't -- I was young and small. I couldn't beat everybody. I couldn't outrun everybody. So I had to use my brain. My daddy always said, if you're in a fight and get angry, you lose the fight. Don't get mad, get smart.

MALVEAUX: Did you use some of those skills when you became ambassador, the first African-American to the U.N.?

YOUNG: All of them (ph). You know, there was nobody, no dictator, no bully, international bully that I met that was as fierce as the people I grew up with at (INAUDIBLE) school. I mean people like Saddam Hussein, piece of cake. You know how to deal with thugs. By the time I got to fifth grade, I was a good ambassador with all kinds of bullies.

MALVEAUX: Why do you suppose Congress cannot seem to negotiate? They don't have those same kind of skills. Why do you suppose we're in the situation we are in now in Washington?

YOUNG: Because we don't know where we are. I mean we have an out -- we have an irrelevant ideology. Both parties. We're talking about a world that no longer exists. Your guy that was just on, Quest, you know, he's still got that old English view, imperialistic view of the rest of the world. And it's not like that anymore.

MALVEAUX: How so?

YOUNG: The world is a global marketplace. The problems in Syria and Egypt are not about democracy. You have in Egypt an economy that works for 35 million or 40 million people but you got 80 or 90 million people. And you have 80 or 90 million people with cell phones and computers and Internet access, and they're trying to really integrate the economy.

Now, that's actually what we did in the south. One of the reasons why Atlanta works so well is that we didn't -- we weren't trying to break down the barriers to be like white people. We were trying to break down barriers so that we together could create an economy that served the needs of rich, poor, black, white, male and female, when, in doing that, we created an environment that attracted people from all over the world.

And we won the Olympics, by and large, because we conquered the questions of diversity and economics injustice. Everybody felt like they were part of the Olympics.

MALVEAUX: Do you think that -- you say it's not about democracy but it's about the economy. Do you think democracy is a critical element, a critical component to bringing about that economic equality you talk about?

YOUNG: Only if it's accompanied by free enterprise. See, the world wants to be capitalists. The challenge of the world today is to make capitalism work for the poor. Now, we do that in Atlanta. We built an airport out here. Cost us probably $20 billion. Nobody paid any taxes for it. It's a public/private partnership invested -- we used Wall Street to loan us money to build an airport. It cost $20 billion over 20 years, but it generates $31 billion a year and creates 60,000 jobs. So we just tomorrow, or today, opened a new international terminal.

MALVEAUX: Right.

YOUNG: Another $1.5 billion, which will create for itself and create another 2,000 to 5,000 jobs.

MALVEAUX: We will talk more about what's taking place in Atlanta and your amazing 80 years of life and what you think about some of the situations that are going on around the world.

We're going to take a quick break and have more with former U.N. Ambassador Andrew Young about the raging battle that is taking place over civil rights.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MALVEAUX: We're back with Andrew Young, one of the most recognized leaders of our time. He's served as a civil rights leader, a human rights leader, former Congressman, ambassador to the U.N., and mayor of Atlanta. He recently squeezed 80.

You have squeezed a lot in your 80 years.

YOUNG: I started young.

(LAUGHTER)

MALVEAUX: You did? We were talking about civil rights and, obviously, you lost a dear friend, Martin Luther King Jr, and you held him, you saw the assassination of your friend, and you led a movement there. Do you think, at this time, when people say same-sex marriage is a civil rights issue, do you agree with that?

YOUNG: Let me go back to Martin Luther King first because the movement was always about not just race but about war and poverty. And we've made progress, enormous progress on race, enormous progress on war. Not much on poverty, and because we haven't dealt with the questions of poverty, issues like same-sex marriage or family planning, you know, which are totally irrelevant to what's really going on in the world -- I mean right now, we've never had a problem with homosexuality or gay marriage in Atlanta because we got good jobs. Everybody is working. The gay community came in here from all over the south. They chipped in. They created businesses. They revived communities, taught in our schools. They did everything -- I mean, that was one of the largest migrations. We got the smartest white people from all over the south because they happen to be gay. And so they were always an integral part of Atlanta's growth and development. And nobody has ever raised a question about it because they're productive, tax paying, law-abiding citizens that make a positive contribution to the rest of us.

MALVEAUX: So -- (CROSSTALK)

YOUNG: And how they live together, as long as it's nonviolent, which is, you know, difficult even with different gender marriages --

(CROSSTALK)

MALVEAUX: So you approve. You think this is --

(CROSSTALK)

YOUNG: I come from the United Church of Christ. It's, for us, a religious issue. And we were the church who were the Pilgrims that first came out against slavery before the Civil War. John Adams was a member of the United Church of Christ. John Quincy Adams, his son, argued the case for the freedom of the slaves in the Amistad Rebellion. Out of that, they came south and founded Howard University, where your father taught, and Atlanta University, Talladega, colleges all across the south. And they ordained black people first. They also realized that women could preach and that, if you read the Bible accurately, women were always around Jesus. Women actually probably helped serve communion in the early church. So we ordain women. Then we realize we had a lot of people in our church who were gay. And we decided that the Bible probably says a whole lot more about adultery than it does about homosexuality. We haven't put the adulterers out of the church yet.

(LAUGHTER)

(CROSSTALK)

YOUNG: So we just accept people. We believe in a Christianity that accepts people just as they are and that god loves us, forgives, us Christ died for us as sinners. And so we don't try to discriminate against the varieties of weaknesses that we suffer as human beings.

MALVEAUX: How do you suppose -- what do you think the Obama administration -- how do you suppose the Obama administration is doing now? What do you think of the job he's doing?

YOUNG: Actually, Obama happens to be a member of that church. And that was where he became a Christian and he grew up late in life, but it was in that tradition, which is a progressive but a Christian tradition that, if you go all the way back to the Pilgrims, they have probably been right on more issues more often than any other church.

MALVEAUX: Do you think when you talk about the economy and how people -- this is about economic equality, and so many people are out of work who are suffering. Do you think the Obama administration is doing enough to recognize, acknowledge poverty?

YOUNG: Well, they're trying, but --

(CROSSTALK)

MALVEAUX: Does he need to do more? YOUNG: Well, he can't, because you've got some people over here that want to create more poverty.

MALVEAUX: Who are those people? Who are you talking about?

YOUNG: The whole Republican side of the aisle. They want to cut back on taxes and throw people in the streets, you know, let them shift for themselves. They don't realize what a tax they're paying. They're paying more taxes now because the biggest tax we pay in America is the tax -- the crime tax. When we stop educating children, you end up having to put them in jail. Could you educate them for $10,000 a year? It will cost you $40,000 a year to put them in jail. Your new attorney general out in California has said, from the time a crime is committed, the investigation, the trial, the incarceration, it costs $1 million per crime.

(CROSSTALK)

YOUNG: I asked a department store -- when I was mayor, I said to the owner of the largest department store, Rich's, I said, what do you figure crime costs you in your downtown store? And he said crime is probably a $50 million tax on our business. I think we can find a better way to create jobs, put people to work. When we were having the Olympics, when everybody was working, we had no crime.

MALVEAUX: I want to turn the corner, if I may. I know Republicans would disagree with your characterization --

(CROSSTALK)

MALVEAUX: -- about wanting people to be jobless or poor --

(CROSSTALK)

YOUNG: No, they want them to make it on their own, but they forget that they got educated in at a Roosevelt time where their parents got low-interest loans -- college tuition, when I went to school and when my wife got her master's, was $40 a year.

MALVEAUX: Right, right.

YOUNG: We thought it would be better to subsidize education and have intelligent people creating jobs and paying taxes.

MALVEAUX: Let me ask you this. You have lived a long, long life, 80 years. Technology has changed. I'm sure you --

(CROSSTALK)

YOUNG: That's the problem.

MALVEAUX: You started off with a VHS. And we have C.D.s. We have iPhones. We've got --

(CROSSTALK)

YOUNG: No, I started off with no telephone.

MALVEAUX: No telephone.

YOUNG: No telephone.

MALVEAUX: How is that --

(CROSSTALK)

YOUNG: And then a party line, see. And I only got that because my father was a dentist. But that's our problem.

MALVEAUX: Why?

YOUNG: We're still thinking of the world as our parents thought of it. The world is automated. You got your computer there. You can find out what's going on anywhere in the world just by pushing a few buttons. But everybody else out there has got one, too. They make computers in China for a couple hundred dollars.

MALVEAUX: Do you think this would have helped the civil rights movement?

YOUNG: Oh.

MALVEAUX: Do you think this would have changed the civil rights movement, the technology we have today, being able to tweet, sending messages through Facebook --

(CROSSTALK)

YOUNG: Actually, we did. We used the only media we had. Gladys Knight said, "I Heard it on (ph) the Grapevine." We use the grapevine through the churches and the neighborhoods. The news wouldn't cover us. The national news would cover us but the local news wouldn't. So we knew that every night we had 90 seconds on three networks. Dr. King thought of that as educational TV. So the demonstrations were designed to educate the nation on what our problems were about. So when we went to a bank and asked for a job and they didn't even give it to us, and we kneeled down and prayed and then they took us out and threw us to jail, intelligent people said, well, why can't they have jobs? Every day we found a way to dramatize a different issue.

MALVEAUX: Is there anything that has just surprised you over your 80 years? You fought for civil rights. And we have a black president.

YOUNG: That surprised me. I've always believed that white people were a whole lot better than anybody thought they were. In fact, one of the reasons we've been successful here is it was white people -- Mayor Hartsfield -- it's the Hartsfield-Jackson Airport. Hartsfield bought that land for $90,000. He invited Delta here and put up red lights, and he got thrown out of office in the next election. And he decided there weren't enough progressive white people so he reached out to the Atlanta University complex and we formed a business black intellectual coalition that has basically worked together and run this city --

MALVEAUX: OK.

YOUNG: -- and the whole south.

MALVEAUX: I got to leave it there. I'm sorry we've run out of time. It's been a pleasure talking with you.

YOUNG: Thank you.

MALVEAUX: And again, happy birthday.

YOUNG: Thanks.

MALVEAUX: All right. Ambassador Young.

We'll be back after a short break.

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MALVEAUX: All right. This is the guy who elevated the lowly Hot Pocket into international prominence. We're talking about Jim Gaffigan. He is a stand-up comedian, writer, actor. And his concerts are selling out all the time. Special cables are classics. Now, Jim is doing something that is not just for laughs. He's supporting a group dedicated to helping American war veterans and their families. And by the way, he really likes McDonald's. Check it out.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JIM GAFFIGAN, COMEDIAN, WRITER, ACTOR: Because there's a McDonald's denial. We all embrace it. No one is going in there innocent. We're walking into a red and yellow building with a giant "M" over it.

(LAUGHTER)

What's this, a library?

(LAUGHTER)

I'll get some fries while I'm here.

(LAUGHTER)

Those McDonald's fries are truly amazing.

(APPLAUSE)

GAFFIGAN: Has your mother ever made anything as good as a McDonald's fry?

(LAUGHTER)

Not even close.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(LAUGHTER)

MALVEAUX: Jim Gaffigan joins us -- big french fry fan. He joins us from New York.

Hey, Jim.

I love your stuff. It's so funny. I'm one of those food snobs, one of those people who said, I don't go to McDonald's, and then I go to McDonalds.

GAFFIGAN: You go there. You're lying.

(CROSSTALK)

MALVEAUX: Exactly.

GAFFIGAN: We're going to get Anderson Cooper to get you -- he's going to keep you honest.

(LAUGHTER)

MALVEAUX: Why are you so into food? You talk about it in your stand-up all the time and it's hilarious.

GAFFIGAN: Thank you. I talk about food mostly because I'm a glutton or a pig.

(LAUGHTER)

But I don't know. I talk about -- I try to talk about things that are universal and things that I'm passionate about. And food, unfortunately, is one of those.

MALVEAUX: There's one for everybody. I have a picture for you. This is our copy editor. This is in honor of you, the Hot Pockets there. He eats them every day so we wanted to make sure you knew you were not alone in this.

GAFFIGAN: You know, the Hot Pocket thing is a blessing and a curse. It's almost as if I made a deal with the devil. The devil was like, you can tour and do theaters throughout North America, but you will be ever known as the Hot Pocket guy.

(LAUGHTER)

And I was like, all right, I'll take the deal, that's fine.

MALVEAUX: I'm sorry. Jim, tell us about what you're involved in. I know you have been doing a lot of stand-up comedy but you also are giving your proceeds to a very important cause. Tell us a little bit about it.

GAFFIGAN: Well, I'm doing a download of my latest special, Mr. Universe, for $5 on my web site, JimGaffigan.com. As I was doing this, I realized it was not going to be a highly profitable adventure. It was more of an experiment. Louis C.K. (ph) done it and I wanted to add in an element where I would communicate to people that were buying it that this was not just me trying to make a lot of money. I decided one of every $5 would go to a charity and I picked the Bob Woodruff Foundation. It was a nonpolitical group that helps veterans. Let's be honest. I know nothing about the military really. I have no association with the military. I just know, as a country, I think veterans kind of get ripped off. I picked the Woodruff Foundation because I knew Bob and Lee are not scumbags.

MALVEAUX: Bob Woodruff, a correspondent injured in his coverage overseas in war. Obviously, a very good cause there. How have people reacted to the fact you've embraced veterans and how do they respond to you?

GAFFIGAN: It's an interesting thing. I only want people to buy the special because they hopefully think it's funny, but I think there's an added element of maybe they are doing something a little bit good. I guess my main thrust behind doing it was to kind of bring up veterans as kind of this hidden group I don't think we, as a country, appreciate enough, and I include myself.

I decided on the Woodruff Foundation when I was taking a subway ride here in New York. A guy sat down next to me and explained he was a veteran, went to Iraq, an "A" student, and now he wasn't confident he would graduate college. That stuck with me. And I had met Bob and Lee and had done a benefit for them. I don't know. I don't have expectations that it will change anything, but I was raised that you should do something decent. It's not that I'm a great person at all. I wanted to do the right thing. The charity element was something I think worked into what I wanted to accomplish with the download.

MALVEAUX: You're absolutely doing the right thing. I want to ask about this new model you have for getting your entertainment, as well as other people's entertainment, directly to your fans. You embrace the download method as a way that people can buy your material without this middle man. Explain what that is. Is that the next model for entertainers?

GAFFIGAN: I think it's working now. Who knows? Comedians are essentially independent business men or small business people. Normally, we would go through a distributor similar to a record company or DVD distributor or iTunes. In that process, there would be more hands in the pie. So what Louis C.K. did was he kept the price really low and made it easy to purchase. Meaning it's two clicks. It's not undifferent from the easiest purchase you made on the Internet. Therefore, people who like your comedy, instead of paying $9, $10 or sometimes $20, are only paying $5 and they own it forever. There are no restrictions. We all purchased things on iTunes and you can only move it to so many devices. We got rid of that hurdle. Who knows? I think it makes sense now. It makes sense for people that like my comedy.

MALVEAUX: Right.

GAFFIGAN: It's an experiment. I don't know what the world will be like in three years.

MALVEAUX: We'll see how that experiment works.

Jim, thank you so much. You're a funny guy. You have an amazing cause. We appreciate it. We'll try to get to one of those performances and maybe McDonald's, as well.

GAFFIGAN: I'll see you at McDonald's. Thank you.

MALVEAUX: I'll see you at McDonald's.

We'll take a break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MALVEAUX: Heart-wrenching setback for a young Georgia a woman battling a dangerous case of flesh-eating bacteria. Aimee Copeland's father revealed today the 24-year-old graduate student will lose both of her hands and her remaining foot. The amputations are needed to help her survive. Copeland contracted the infection after she fell from a homemade zip-line and cut her leg two weeks ago. Parents can do a simple test that may help them get an early clue about the possibility of autism, a condition that affects one out of 88 children. Look for head lag from a lying position. From a lying position, pull your baby to a sitting position. The baby's head should move forward as you do. If it lags behind, it shows weak head and neck control and could indicate the nervous system isn't developing correctly. Researchers say this is just one possible indicator, not an automatic sign of autism.

CNN NEWSROOM continues after this with Ashleigh Banfield.

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