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Kidnapped Nigerian Girl Makes Her Escape; Dangerous Trek to Where Girls Abducted; Does Hashtag Activism Work?; Michael Sam Drafted in NFL; HGTV Cancels Show

Aired May 11, 2014 - 19:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

RANDI KAYE, CNN ANCHOR: You are in the CNN NEWSROOM. Hello, everyone. I'm Randi Kaye.

We begin with a horror story no one would ever want to live through but one girl who made a heroic escape from her terrorist captors was brave enough to share her story. She recalled the night Boko Haram fighters snatched her and more than 200 other school girls from their beds.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They say ok -- enter this lorry we go down. Then I think I will drop down.

NIMA ELBAGIR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That was really brave of you.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes we would rather die than go. We ran in the bush.

ELBAGIR: You ran in the bush?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.

ELBAGIR: And what happened then?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We ran and ran and we were gone.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KAYE: So in this most dangerous assignment, any CNN correspondent have had this year, Nima Elbagir and her producer and photographer made the frightening four-day journey from Abuja to Chibok. She is the first international reporter to reach the northeastern Nigerian town where the girls were kidnapped.

It's now been nearly a month since the 276 girls were abducted from this boarding school, taken into the jungle and possibly split up maybe even sold as child brides.

Nima joins me live now from Abuja. So I guess you know in this very emotional interview that she was giving you a lot of people probably wondering, you know, where did she find the courage and why did she decide to share her story first hand with CNN?

ELBAGIR: Well, she said it was three of them; it was her and two other friends. One friend actually, unfortunately, broke her leg attempting to escape. She said that they came on to trees and her friend just clung to first branch that she could grab hold of. She jumped from that tree, broke her leg and was picked up again by the militants. She was eventually found later on in the forest in quite a bad state. It seems that they decided she was -- that she was too heavy a burden to take on.

You can understand being in that position and trying to weigh up that risk, where are they taking us, what are they going to do to us. And in that moment she said it was just -- it just became very, very clear to her that she couldn't do that to herself. She couldn't take that risk for her family. So -- so she jumped.

And miraculously, she landed, she rolled, there were some cuts and bruises on her, but -- but that was it. And then she hid in the forest, waited until dawn. And you can only imagine what it must have felt like for her mother having sat through that night, hearing the gunfire, watching the flames, unable to get to her daughter only to see her walking in -- Randi.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ELBAGIR (on camera): By an absolute miracle, some of those girls managed to escape on that horrifying night, but even for them this nightmare isn't yet over. One of them has agreed to speak to us, but she's asked that we don't identify her in any way, that we don't give away her name, her family house, anything that could bring about what she fears the most, that the kidnappers could come back for her.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He said go and enter this car.

ELBAGIR: What kind of cars?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A big lorry.

ELBAGIR: Was it one or more?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Seven.

ELBAGIR: Seven lorries?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.

ELBAGIR: And this was at 10:00 at night?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: In the night.

ELBAGIR: So did that make you feel that they had come to get you, to get the girls?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.

ELBAGIR: That's when you knew that they'd come to kidnap you?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes. They said ok -- we enter this lorry. We go. I said I will drop down.

ELBAGIR: That was really brave of you.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, we would rather die than go. We run in the bush.

ELBAGIR: You ran in the bush?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.

ELBAGIR: And what happened then?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes we ran and we were gone.

ELBAGIR: Can you describe the men that came and took you? What did they look like? Were they wearing civilian clothing or military uniforms? What were they wearing?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don't understand.

ELBAGIR: But what was their dress? What were they wearing?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm feeling afraid.

ELBAGIR: Did they look like soldiers?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm afraid.

ELBAGIR: You feel afraid?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.

ELBAGIR: You don't want to talk about what they look like.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No.

ELBAGIR: That's ok. I understand, I understand. I'm sorry.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KAYE: And then when you went to the school where these girls lived. I want to take a look at that and then we'll talk in a moment.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ELBAGIR: Once they gathered up the assembled girls, they marched them through here out of the school gates and then their rampage began. They burned or broke everything that they could see in front of them. Most of this is pretty much unrecognizable. They went through the library, they went to the lab, they wanted to make as sure as they could that none of this could be used again.

(END VIDEO CLIP) KAYE: So what was that like I mean being in that place where these girls were seen?

ELBAGIR: Well, I think for me it was just -- what was heartbreaking is that these girls should have been on the verge of a future. They should have been about to, you know, sit for their school (inaudible) exams. These girls were some of the brightest of the girls in all the surrounding villages. These are the girls who had been sponsored by their communities, they paid the money. In that kind of environment in those poor rural areas to put up the money to have your daughters in a dormitory studying for the university exams -- a lot have been invested and a lot was hoped for, for these girls.

And to have that opportunity taken away from them and to see the vindictiveness first hand of the men that did that, for you to not want to leave a single recognizable scrap of paper, they burned everything that was burnable and they ripped apart the sheets of metal -- I hope you can see that in the photos we're showing -- they ripped the sheets of metal apart. This was the amount of hatred that was in their hearts and how much they wanted to stop these girls from actually just getting out of their grip, moving out of Chibok and having a life -- Randi.

KAYE: And in terms of elsewhere around the town of Chibok were other people there as shaken up and as afraid of Boko Haram as the school girl that you spoke with?

ELBAGIR: Absolutely because Boko Haram is still very much a real presence in that area. Just on the road we were traveling on the day before, there was an exchange of gunfire between police and Boko Haram. I mean that shows -- and that was during daylight. You can imagine the degree of brazenness that they're still marauding when the government has said that they going after them in a very serious way. That clearly isn't having any impact from them.

So you're -- you know, you're fending for yourself, you feel isolated, you feel abandoned. And at the same time we spent the night with them. And I have to tell you Randi it was probably one of the longest nights of my life. None of the men slept.

They were just patrolling with some pretty trivial weapons in the face of what Boko Haram are armed with. Boko Haram have RPGs, they have heavy artillery, they have machine guns and these guys were trying to protect their families with bows and arrows and machetes. I just -- I can't imagine what it's been like to do that every single night since April 14th when that abduction happened.

KAYE: Yes it sounds absolutely terrifying for you and certainly for them as well -- anyone there. Did you see Nima any sign of Boko Haram in that town or evidence even that they had been there?

ELBAGIR: Well, we saw the burned-out marketplace and of course we saw the school, but it's very difficult because this -- this is their terrain. This is their hometown. And it's very easy for them to disappear until -- until they're not, until they're riding through your town shooting their machine guns in the air. And that's what makes them so terrifying. That they -- they melt back into the forest bordering a lot of these towns and they disappear in the undergrowth until they strike.

KAYE: It's just a fascinating report and to see that girl speak to you with such fear still -- just certainly terrifying.

Nima stay with us because we want to talk more about how far you and your team went to cover this story.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ELBAGIR: It's been checkpoint after checkpoint and we have definitely as we've been traveling north from the Nigerian capital Abuja seen evidence of those promised security reinforcements that the government is sending to combat the Boko Haram threat. But as we've traveled deeper towards that Boko Haram heartland, much of that presence seems to have evaporated.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KAYE: Four days and 700 miles to one of the most dangerous regions on earth in a place where many Nigerians lived plagued by terrorists and vulnerable to them at every hour of every day. That's ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAYE: It is one of the most remote and dangerous places on earth, the northeastern corner of Nigeria. And CNN has become the only international news organization to go there gathering first hand accounts about the abducted of more than 200 school girls nearly a month ago.

Our Nima Elbagir alongside her producer Lillian Leposo and photographer Nick Midway, you see them there in these photos -- they all made that dangerous four day journey from Abuja to Chibok, Nigeria, the town where the girls were taken. The journey was nearly 700 miles and was full of twists and turns to avoid fighting and of course the most dangerous areas. But you can't forget that many people call this place home, living with the threat from Boko Haram every single day of their lives.

Nima Elbagir is back with me now from Abuja. So Nima share with us this journey that your team went through to try and get there.

ELBAGIR: I think it was just really important, I think we all felt it was really important to go the way that, as you said, normal Nigerians would be going. That anybody was trying to get in or out would be taking these roads and would be taking these kind of risks. And it really drove home to us how isolated Chibok is and also given how much uproar internationally there is, given how much focus there has been on these girls. And you know the disparity between that and the reality on the ground and how abandoned these people still feel, was -- it was just really heartbreaking that to feel that nobody has helped you in spite of -- in spite of how much you're hearing that they want to help you or that they say they will. I don't think we were really aware when we were doing it that it was as bad as you're now making me realize it clearly was. I think it was just really important to get there and how isolated these people are. We knew this was the only way to do it. And what can I say I'm really lucky. I work with some amazing, amazing people.

KAYE: And as you said, I mean you went there and you heard from these girls. I mean they haven't even been interviewed, at least the one girl that shared her interview with us, she was never even been interviewed by authorities which is amazing the fact that you are there now and have been able to speak with her.

But tell me a little bit more about the journey. I mean this is such a dangerous part of the world, I mean I'm sure there must have been some scary moments there along the way, some particular moments.

NIMA ELBAGIR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, I think what was quite extraordinary was how unreinforced this road was. So if you are a normal Nigerian taking this route and you have an expectation of a certain amount of security, to have that security get less and less the further you get away from the towns and the urban centers where the government is based, is just -- is horrifying.

And I think it was important for us to live that, that as we were driving out of the towns we'd see the reassuring sights of armed men and checkpoints and people checking cars because Boko Haram have stormed towns before. They've killed police officers.

In fact, when we were out there, just a hundred kilometers or so from where we were staying in another town called Maiduguri, the capital of Borno State, about 300 people were killed. And until you get there, because it's so difficult to get that news out, you don't really have a sense how free Boko Haram's reign is up in the northeast of Nigeria.

I think it's always difficult to say what the near misses were but seeing that reality of how exposed people are on those roads and that deep, deep scrub, you understand why that area's so insecure and why it's so difficult to find those girls -- Randi.

KAYE: And did you see any signs along your journey of Boko Haram and their prominence and their power in that area?

ELBAGIR: Absolutely. We saw (inaudible) villages. We saw burned-out cars, even some police stations and army command points. You could see the evidence of recent attacks in burning marks that they were trying to paint over. It's very much an ever-present reality I think for people's lives out there. I think it's also important to remind people, yes, this is a very remote part of Nigeria. But Nigeria is Africa's largest economy. Abuja just hosted the world economic forum. This disparity is extraordinary that some people could be living in this booming, burgeoning growing middle class African economy and other people are living through hell.

KAYE: Just a terrifying experience for so many there. A story that leaves so many of us angry but also feeling so powerless. So we certainly appreciate you sharing some of that with us.

And ahead we're going to talk a little bit more about that. We're also going to be talking about what can be done to help the girls and prevent this from ever happening again. Does hashtag activism actually work? And will a military response solve this crisis or perhaps make it even worse?

And just last hour, by the way, the L.A. Clippers won a nail-biter over the Oklahoma City Thunder erasing a 16-point deficit in the fourth quarter. Their NBA playoff series all tied up, two games apiece.

Magic Johnson, who you may remember was attacked in those audio recordings by Clippers owner, Donald Sterling and he would never attend another game while Sterling was owner. well, guess what -- he was at the game.

Shelly Sterling, meantime says she's going to divorce Donald Sterling soon and fight for control of the Clippers.

We also want to let you know this, our Anderson Cooper sat down today with Donald Sterling -- picture right there of the two of them talking. You can see his exclusive interview on "AC360" tomorrow night 8:00 p.m. Eastern. We'll also have a sneak peek tomorrow morning on "NEW DAY" which begins at 6:00 a.m. Eastern time. So don't miss the exclusive interview with Donald Sterling -- the full interview tomorrow night right here on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAYE: I want to continue our conversation about the hundreds of Nigerian school girls who were kidnapped and what the waiting world can do to help. So let me get back to CNN's Nima Elbagir in Abuja and Paul Lubeck, associate director of African Studies at Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies.

Paul, what can we do? I mean our viewers are certainly concerned. There are groups that are concerned. I mean how do we act? Is it about money? Is it about protests? What is the answer?

PAUL LUBECK, JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF ADVANCED INTERNATIONAL STUDIES: The answer is citizens need to put pressure on the Jonathan government to guarantee security and the funds that are allocated for security in this region. There needs to be accountability. The women that launched the social media campaign are demanding governance, they're demanding security, they're demanding resources that were voted be allocated to protect the girls, to protect the population. There's been a collapse of governance and the whole issue of Boko Haram has become a political football where one region has blamed the other.

The military announced that they had been recovered at one point and then announced that, no, it was false. This is incompetence. If you read the Nigerian press, it's full of stories about incompetence, about embarrassment. This is a tragedy, but it's a man-made, human- made tragedy on the part of the government and the inability to provide security to people in this region.

It will be very difficult to solve the problem. There's a forest nearby and there's a border and a mountain range --

KAYE: Right.

LUBECK: -- so the countries of Niger, Cameroon, the French would all have to be brought in, in order to do this. But for the moment it's important to support the women that have made this issue the reason why we're here this evening.

KAYE: Yes, well a lot of people have been signing on to the Twitter #bringourgirlsback. I guess Nima, the question is, you know, does hashtag activism work? I mean if it did force Nigeria to act, what else can hashtag activism do?

LUBECK: The evidence is here, we're here right now, for the lesson for the women leading it, wouldn't be here.

KAYE: Let me have Nima respond to that.

ELBAGIR: I think well, -- sorry, but what it does do is I think it expresses to whether it's the leadership in the U.S. or the leadership in the U.K. or internationally, that this is something their citizens care about. And what we need to do is maintain -- well, what people out there need to do is maintain that pressure so that this doesn't just become an easy score, a bandwagon for people to hop on to.

We've seen the First Lady, we've seen the President, we've seen the U.K. prime minister all of them posing holding up "bring back our girls". Well, now put actions behind those words. Pressure the Nigerian government to put actions behind their words. The Nigerian government has been talking about a thousand Special Forces, about helicopters and fighter jets. We saw no evidence of that on the ground.

The U.S. has a bilateral agreement with Nigeria. They have the capacity to exert pressure. And U.S. citizens, if American citizens, are showing their government that this is an issue they care about, then the U.S. will use that power to pressure Goodluck Jonathan to actually finally put troops, his troops where they should be, Randi.

KAYE: So Paul, what about military intervention? I mean there's certainly been criticism of it saying that it typically leads to an erosion of democracy, is that a danger, do you think, in this situation?

LUBECK: To have American -- first off the Nigerian military will not cooperate with the Americans in providing support. That's one of the findings of my research.

The second is many of these troops have serious human rights violations associated with them. They would have to be cleared by American law in the Leahy Amendment. Another issue is having more American troops in another -- this area is a Muslim majority region needs to be entered into very cautiously because it's provocative. The issue is to put pressure on the Jonathan government to use the resources. Billions of dollars have been allocated for security as part of the budget. There's no accountability at all. Corruption is rampant. And there needs to be accountability that forces the funds to be allocated to guarantee the human rights of these girls.

That's the issue that Americans should be demanding and be less concerned about a safe supply of oil and more concerned about fulfilling their commitment to the girls and, as your correspondent mentioned, when the media frenzy dies down, these girls are going to be there.

KAYE: Absolutely. Paul Lubeck, thank you. And Nima Elbagir, incredible reporting, thank you so much for bringing us that story.

LUBECK: Thank you.

KAYE: A dangerous storm system is moving across the Midwest and sending people scrambling. We'll have the latest on where the system is headed and how many people might be in danger.

And then today is the first day of Michael Sam's new life as the NFL's first openly gay football player. Ahead we'll speak with one of his teammates about his own experience being drafted and what lies ahead for Sam.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAYE: We are tracking a dangerous tornado threat, a twister touching down in Nebraska. It's been on the ground now there for a while. Jennifer Gray is following it for us. Jennifer, what can you tell us?

JENNIFER GRAY, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yes, when we came on before like it was headed straight for Lincoln. It has basically made a jog a little bit to the north and is now just to the north of Lincoln. So good news there, Lincoln will be spared this one, sort of dodged a bullet. You still see nasty storms in Lincoln but it doesn't look like this one that's producing a tornado, of course, is just on the north side of you right now.

So this tornado warning to the north of Lincoln including the counties of Lancaster and Saunders is in effect until 7:00 Central Time. Green, Richland and Rock Creek all in the path of this one. So get into your safe spot, that small interior room that we keep talking about. Of course, a little bit farther to the west right over Beaver Crossing, we've been looking at a very strong cell. It looks like that tornado warning that they had just reissued a couple of minutes ago is now not in effect any more. So the tornado threat right there is gone.

There is another one, though, just to the southwest. We'll click on that one and let you know the threat, of course, this one is headed right towards Ponti Rock, Great Bend. This tornado warning in effect is until 6:45 Central Time. Pleasant Grove and Ripper, those cities in the path of this one. So these dangerous storms continuing to pop up all over Nebraska, even down into Kansas and we're going to see these into Iowa as we go to the next couple of hours. Randi.

KAYE: All right. Jennifer Gray, thank you very much for the update from there. We're talking a lot about Michael Sam, the person and Michael Sam, the football player, but Michael Sam, the brand, also a very big part of this story. In fact, he already had an endorsement deal even before he became the NFL's first openly gay player during yesterday's draft. Well, here he is shortly after he joined the St. Louis Rams.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MICHAEL SAM, FIRST OPENLY GAY NFL PLAYER: I am overwhelmed. I am excited and I'm proud to be a Ram. I knew I was going to get picked somewhere and every team that passed me, I was thinking how I'm going to sack their quarterback. I'm proud to give everything I've got for St. Louis. So many people are proud of the St. Louis organization for being the one to make history.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KAYE: Michael Sam is just a rookie but he sounds pretty media savvy, doesn't he? Well, let's talk about it and his brand with Martha Pease. She's a branding expert and the CEO of Demand Works and Terence Moore is back, of course, contributor to CNN.com and a columnist for mlb.com.

All right. So Martha, to you first. What stands out to you about Michael Sam? How would you say he's handled his debut so far?

MARTHA PEASE, CEO DEMAND WORKS: Well, he's an incredibly courageous guy, I think, for even having made the move that he made a few months ago before the draft knowing what he was putting on the line. He's very authentic and I think he speaks from the heart and he's so obviously a team player, that he's moving his brand, I think, toward or how people perceive him toward the mainstream in a really effective way. But I also think that Michael Sam is benefiting enormously from a shift in American opinion in general.

I mean, in 2003, 55 percent of the population opposed, for example, same-sex marriage and today 59 percent of Americans support it. So there's been this really rapid and extensive shift in American opinion around inclusiveness, around sexual orientation issues, around the kinds of things that have been very polarizing. It helps his brand. Not to say all that has disappeared but a different environment, a different landscape for him that didn't exist a few years ago.

I think he's also being helped enormously - this is to take nothing away from him - but he's being helped enormously by brands like the NFL and Roger Goodell, you know, having for many years laid pipe around inclusiveness, around behaviors that bring people in and don't exclude them. The NBA is there, Notre Dame just last week launched an extensive inclusion campaign directed at LGBT athletes. Even the Miami Dolphins -

KAYE: That's all part of it. PEASE: It's all part of it. The Miami Dolphins got their player back on the page after a negative tweet about Michael Sam. So there's a groundswell that I frankly have never seen before.

KAYE: Let me bring Terence in. Now Michael Sam, Terence, he's a trail blazer, but he's certainly not alone, right. He has a pretty strong support base to work from, doesn't he?

TERENCE MOORE, CNN.COM SPORTS CONTRIBUTOR: He definitely does. To add to what Martha said, this Visa commercial is very interesting because the slogan of the commercial is Visa Everywhere. So they're trying to use him to say that in all different communities you can have Visa, they're trying to expand that.

Of course the president is behind him and, as Martha pointed out, the entire NFL establishment when you have the player for the Dolphins yesterday come out with a negative tweet, he was immediately slammed by the general manager. Now, that being said, OK, we've shown this over and over again, the celebration yesterday of Michael Sam and his boyfriend after he was drafted and the kiss and the hug and the cake and that sort of thing.

I'm still wondering how in the long run that's going to play for people on the fence, particularly since he's trying to appeal to a wider audience. It may play well. We just don't know. That's the one thing that we still have to watch here. And we're going to find out probably sooner than later just how inclusive people are in general.

KAYE: And I'm not talking about being coached on the field but Martha does it sound like to you that he - I mean, this is a guy who had a pretty rough upbringing, a pretty rough start. Does it sound like he's being coached along the way to help lift his brand?

PEASE: Well, I'm sure he has good advice. I don't know that I would call it coaching. It sounds to me like he's got good advice. And it sound to me like he's a pretty well grounded guy on top of that. I think any athlete who operates at the level that he does recognizes that ultimately it's going to be his performance that will have the impact on his brand, that will be the lasting impact on his brand and that the headline of first openly gay player in the NFL draft will not be the headline that really characterizes all of his career because he's going to have to perform, to Terence's point.

I mean what's going to get people off the fence is going to be performance in the end. And you know, he'll be up to that. And he'll compete on those terms. But I think he's media savvy but he's very authentic. I think ultimately brands that, people, personalities that portray and authentic aspect of themselves are ones that win.

KAYE: He comes off very real and very warm.

PEASE: Yes.

KAYE: As well.

PEASE: Yes.

KAYE: Terence Moore, thank you very much. Martha, I'd like you to stick around.

Imagine waiting for that phone call that changes your life and makes your biggest dream come true. That's the call that Michael Sam and 255 other young men got this weekend. There's Michael Sam getting his call. What is it like to get a call like that and how will Sam fit in as the first openly gay player in NFL history? We'll speak with one of his teammates, straight ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAYE: Waiting to be drafted by the NFL must be a nerve-racking experience. The tension, the fear, wondering if your devotion to football was all for nothing. We're getting an inside look at the draft day experience.

Joining me now on the phone new St. Louis Ram E.J. Gaines who was also a college teammate of Michael Sams. E.J., congrats to you.

E.J. GAINES, ST. LOUIS RAM DRAFT: Thank you.

KAYE: Really, that's great news, such terrific news for you. Take me back to the moment. I mean, I guess even before the moment. How worried were you, if you were worried at all, that you might not get drafted and maybe be skipped entirely?

GAINES: Oh, man, I can't even explain how nerve-racking it was. You know it's a blessing just to get drafted at all, but going into the draft people are telling you might go second, third, fourth and waiting until the sixth round was definitely nerve-racking.

KAYE: So from what I understand you were the 188th pick. Tell me about it when you got that call from the Rams, what did they say, what did you feel like?

GAINES: Oh, man, it was like a weight got lifted off my shoulders. Coach Fisher he got on the phone he said, E.J., you can breathe now because your name's about to be called.

KAYE: Tell me about the emotion you were feeling.

GAINES: It was everything, I was excited, I was happy, I was crying, you know, something like that is not only life changing for me but also for my family. So like I said, it was all the emotions in one.

KAYE: So where were you and who were you surrounded by? Who was celebrating with you?

GAINES: I was at a sports bar out here in Kansas City.

KAYE: What? You were just at a sports bar? That's incredible. You were just hanging out at a sports bar and that's where you got the call?

GAINES: Yes, I was just shooting pool with my friends and my family so -

KAYE: Wow, that is really amazing. So I guess you have this teammate named Michael Sam also joining you. We've talked about him a little bit as well. You played with him at the University of Missouri. How excited are you for him?

GAINES: Oh, I'm so excited. You know, it's honestly a family atmosphere when we go to Missouri. That's like a brother to me. To see him get drafted, I was excited. To find out it was for the Rams, I was even more excited. I can't wait to get out there tomorrow to talk to him.

KAYE: Have you guys had a chance to talk yet since you were both drafted?

GAINES: No, no, I haven't. I was going to wait for, you know, things to kind of settle down a little bit. So I'm going to just wait until we both get out there to St. Louis and talk to him and congratulate him.

KAYE: So we can't ignore, obviously, all the excitement about the fact that he's making history here, the first gay NFL player. How do you think he's going to be received there? You know, when he joins the team and goes into that huddle, is that going to be just about football, do you think?

GAINES: I couldn't tell you, but honestly, I think it will be. Going to a place like that, it's about football. I think just everything about his character, you know, how courageous he is on and off the field. I think that will settle in the locker room.

KAYE: Well, we're thrilled for him and we're also especially thrilled for you. E.J. Gaines, we'll be rooting on the St. Louis Rams, rooting you guys on. So congratulations again on being drafted.

GAINES: Thank you. I appreciate that.

KAYE: Well, the L.A. clippers are celebrating a victory tonight. A short time ago the Clippers won a thriller over the Oklahoma City Thunder erasing a 16-point deficit in the fourth quarter. The NBA playoff series tied now at two games apiece. Magic Johnson, who you will remember was attacked in these recordings by Clippers owner Donald Sterling, well, he was at the game.

Shelly Sterling meantime says that she's going to divorce Donald Sterling soon and she has plans to fight for control of the Clippers now as well. Donald Sterling breaking his silence right here on CNN.

Anderson Cooper's exclusive interview airs tomorrow night 8:00 p.m. Eastern. You can get a sneak peek of the Sterling interview on CNN's "New Day" that airs tomorrow morning from 6:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. Eastern Time.

They stood up for their beliefs when their show was cancelled. Up next, why HGTV backed away from a planned show when the hosts spoke out. Was it about politics or performance? (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAYE: The Bennett brothers, twins, David and Jason, were poised to begin a career as hosts of their own HGTV show about home renovations but the network canceled the program after reports surfaced that the twins had made critical remarks about homosexuality. HGTV's decision has caused plenty of controversy. I spoke with them about it earlier this weekend.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JASON BENNETT, EX-HGTV HOST: We emphatically built that. We love those folks. We know even if there's silence on their part, we know they love us. And I think honestly that they would rather have us back for me and not necessarily him, but (INAUDIBLE) riding my coattail.

DAVID BENNETT, EX-HGTV HOST: But the more important thing is HG doesn't need to apologize to us. Jason and I and I cannot say enough, we are not victims. We stepped back and now we're going to go right back to the grindstone selling houses in North Carolina, loving our wives, loving our kids, trying to be good community men and hopefully doing some solid things for the lord, but they owe us no apology, but we would love to be with them, if we could.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KAYE: So let's talk more about this. Martha Pease is back, branding expert and CEO of Demand Works.com. So Martha, HGTV, they pulled the plug on this whole series pretty quickly. They acted pretty fast. They didn't say much about it. How would you assess I guess their decision? They're not used to controversy. You don't usually associate controversy with HGTV.

PEASE: With HGTV. That's exactly right. Well, I think first of all you have to acknowledge just in the whole environment that there are people who are going to be upset about whether it was politically correct, motivated, whether they were bullied into it, how the decision was made. You have to acknowledge that some people are upset about that. But I think you got to move on from that and said look, HGTV is a business and they made a business decision.

They're the number one cable network in some day parts, some weekend day parts, in fact. They have the most affluent audience on cable television and those are assets they really need to protect and they need to grow, and I think even beyond the demographics and the value of their audience to advertisers, they're a brand that is a retreat for viewers. You turn on HGTV to get away from the 24/7 news cycle, oddly.

It's a little ironic that they're like the oasis, they're the refuge from the news and all of the vitriol and all the volatility. They're the place - I mean, even Hillary Clinton has gone on record with the "New York Times" saying when she wants to get away from campaign questions, and Benghazi, she turns on HGTV and her favorite shows.

KAYE: Learns how to decorate the White House or whatever.

PEASE: There you go. I mean it's a brand - the serious point is, it's a brand that is not associated with the kind of conversation that would be created if they had put the series on air. So they needed to take steps, I think, to separate and protect their brand from that kind of conversation.

And you know, I think in that sense, they have made an astute business decision and they probably handled it well because they have been pretty succinct about it and not engendered a whole lot of conversation around it.

KAYE: All right. Martha Pease, appreciate you weighing in on that. Thank you.

PEASE: A pleasure. Thank you.

KAYE: Well, our next guest says that she's nobody's mother and doesn't ever want to be. The flipside of mother's day which really hits home for a whole lot of people. See what you think, right after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAYE: Three words, call your mother. It is one of those rules of the universe on Mother's Day, but that call today can also go to sisters, to aunts, teachers and all the special women who stepped up when a mother could not.

Kat Kinsman is here. She writes for CNN Living and edits our food blog, Eatocracy. Kat, so great to see you on mother's day because you wrote this amazing piece for CNN.com and it's about the women in your life, when your mother is not. You actually asked for CNN I-reporters to weigh in and help you out with this. I guess they shared some of their personal stories as well.

KAT KINSMAN, CNN WRITER, CNN LIVING & EDITOR, CNN EATOCRACY: It's so lovely. This is such a complicated day for so many people. It's really joyous for a lot of people getting to take their mother to brunch and celebrate but for people whose mothers might be sick or not present or is not able to be there for some reason, it is really complicated.

Luckily, there are a tremendous bunch of women who stepped up and help out. Yes, we asked I-reporters to share their stories. I was bawling at my desk reading about teachers, bosses, family friends, aunts, sisters who saw that there was a child in pain, who needed somebody to be there to have these life lessons, to share life lessons and really brought them up into adulthood.

It's a really lovely thing that people just do instinctively and they may or may not get the bouquet of flowers today, actually did send a bouquet of flowers to my mother and my mother's twin sister for everything she did. But it's a really great day to give a phone call to those people as well.

KAYE: Was there one that stood out?

KINSMAN: There really was. There was a woman who was saying her father had remarried and her mother had died suddenly in an accident, and she didn't like her stepmother, she was, you know, she kept saying to her "you're not my mother, you're not my mother" and this woman already had three children of her own. She and this woman's father did a tremendous thing. They stayed married, they moved into separate houses and each watched their own kids, and she learned to love this woman and now calls her her other mother and she almost lost her to cancer last year but she's come back, she's doing really well and now this woman really appreciates the woman who stepped up.

KAYE: So it ended beautifully.

KINSMAN: It's a gorgeous story.

KAYE: You've also been very open here on mother's day about your own decision not to be a mother. I guess all the questions that you get when you're a married woman, a healthy married woman, and yet you don't have children. What do they say?

KINSMAN: Well, it's an interesting thing because say, a gentleman stood up to tell me I had failed at my biological reason for being a woman without children.

KAYE: Wow.

KINSMAN: Amazing what the internet will do. But more than that, actually, people who have stepped up since I wrote that piece and said oh, my gosh, I thought I was the only one, people treat me like I was broken, like you don't know what you're talking about, maybe you will make another decision later. The more of us who talk about this, the fact that this is just something we don't want or can't have or there are a million reasons not to be a mother, the more of us who stand up and talk about this, the less alone all of us feel. Slightly less awkward mother's day is going to be. I wish happy mother's day -

KAYE: Right. Just very quickly, what do you say to people who say why don't you have kids?

KINSMAN: I don't want to.

KAYE: That simple.

KINSMAN: Yes. It's just something I don't want and this doesn't mean, people assume you're a child hater, they assume a lot of things and that's just not the case. I take care of the people I love and the creatures I love in my life and I feel fully fulfilled with that and I know other people do too.

KAYE: I thought it was amazing. Both of them were incredible articles on CNN.com. Kat, appreciate you sharing with us. Happy Mother's Day.

KINSMAN: Happy Mother's Day to you, too, Randi. KAYE: I'm Randi Kaye in New York. Anthony Bourdain eats his way through Mexico and Russia tonight on CNN "Parts Unknown" begins right now. Have a wonderful evening.