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Erin Burnett Outfront
New Video Of Clashes In Ukraine; New Warning To Airlines About Explosives In Shoes; Facebook Buys WhatsApp For $19 Billion
Aired February 19, 2014 - 19:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ERIN BURNETT, CNN HOST: Next breaking news out of Kiev tonight. Late word of a truce, will it hold. We are live from the Ukraine. We have exclusive footage for you tonight.
Plus breaking news, Facebook pays a jaw dropping $19 billion for an app. Is it worth it?
Ted Nugent calls the president a subhuman mongrel. Let's go "OUTFRONT.
Good evening, everyone. I'm Erin Burnett. We begin OUTFRONT tonight with the breaking news. Military forces in Ukraine on the move ready to defend bases and weapons depots. You are looking at live pictures of the capital, Kiev, tonight. There is word of a truce after a second day of bloody and violent clashes between security forces and protesters in Kiev.
But how fragile is this piece? Take a listen to this exclusive CNN just obtained. That was the scene less than 24 hours ago in Kiev. As you can see, this violence and bloodshed has been incredibly difficult to control. Twenty six people have been killed since yesterday as protesters fight against their government's decision to align with Russia instead of the west. President Obama made it clear today where the United States stands.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: We hold the Ukrainian government primarily responsible for making sure that it is dealing with peaceful protesters in an appropriate way, that the Ukrainian people are able to assemble and speak freely about their interests without fear of repression. We'll be monitoring very carefully the situation recognizing that along with our European partners and the international community there will be consequences if people step over the line.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: Unclear what the line is or what the consequences are, but Secretary of State John Kerry said that the United States is considering additional sanctions on Ukrainian officials deemed responsible for the violence. Now this fight is important to the United States in one way describing it as this, it's a proxy war. Look at the Ukraine on a map, smack in the middle between Russia and the west. For Putin Ukraine is the largest and most strategically important of the former Soviet satellite states. So Putin's goal is rebuilding Russia's influence in the world.
And his first step is getting Ukraine firmly on his side. That's something President Obama doesn't want to see happen. So what will a truce mean for the battle between President Obama and Russia's President Putin? Nick Paton Walsh is in Kiev tonight. I hear obviously all the noises behind you, Nick. Will the truce hold?
NICK PATON WALSH, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Unlikely at this point to be honest. We can't see much of a truce as it stands. We know there's been an announcement from the president that he met three opposition leaders that they agreed on, one, a truce, and two, to talk about ending the bloodshed here and the position leaders say, yes, they want to a cease-fire too and would like to see him be serious about talks.
But since we've heard about that, things are continuing as expected down here. We've seen fireworks fired by protesters at the police. Molotov cocktails thrown back and forth. We hear constant loud bangs probably stun grenades of some description. Fireworks, as I say, the reason you can't see the protest me behind me is there still a thick black smoke from tire fires being used as barricades to keep the police back.
No signs of lessening of tension here despite the sort of at times eerie and pacifying noise we've been hearing. There's a priest conducting a mass to try and I think keep spirits of the protesters here high -- Erin.
BURNETT: Nick, the noises that we are hearing. Those are protesters talking on the bull horn, am I right?
WALSH: They're trying to keep people here during this cold weather, their spirits high. We are going to see tomorrow potentially some more diplomatic movements, three key European foreign ministers. That may be behind Kovic's bid to try to calm things down. Hours earlier he was talking about how the radicals in the ranks are denouncing them and his head of security was referring to the need for an anti-terror operation across the country.
That has people in the square quite concerned. We were talking to them. A lot of them very worried about this hard rhetoric they're hearing from their government. Being called a terrorist is very troubling anywhere in the world. It seems to give the governments carte blanche.
Their concerns here where we're seeing continued standoffs. Large amounts of riot police moving around, and continued back and forth with the Molotov cocktails and missiles. Real concern about how tonight goes -- Erin.
BURNETT: All right, thank you very much, Nick. We appreciate it. And of course, you can hear all the noise going on there. It is 2:00 in the morning.
Now to our other top story tonight, the breaking news here at home, a new terror threat issued by the Department of Homeland Security warning airlines of terrorists attempting to hide explosives in their shoes. They are asking airlines to pay extra attention to flights from overseas.
Now 25 to 30 specific cities are listed on the advisory, including Cairo, Johannesburg, cities in the Middle East, London. Officials say there is no specific threat or known plot, but intelligence collected by the United States indicates terror groups have been working on new shoe bob designs.
Joining me, Phil Mudd, a former CIA director of counter terrorism. Phil, what do you make, they are listing specific cities? How concerned are you about those details?
PHIL MUDD, FORMER CIA DEPUTY DIRECTOR OF COUNTERTERRORISM: I'd be as concerned about the bomb maker as I am about the bomb. Look, when I was following al Qaeda from CIA, you'd be surprised how difficult it is for a terror organization to find a bomb maker with the sophistication to build a shoe bomb. We're not talking about a roadside device. We're talking about something that can get past sensors in an airport. So I'd be trying to figure out not only how to stop the bomb, but how to find whoever can make something like this.
BURNETT: I'm also curious flying out of a lot of those airports and airports in the Middle East, I mean, you know, I'm going to be pretty blunt here. Some of them really don't have a heck of a lot of security.
MUDD: I think that's true. I think what it also shows us how much this terror threat in the past decade has changed. Americans don't worry about this clearly as much as they used to. Ten years ago, though, we would have said, this threat may emanate from a place like Pakistan in the places you might see explosions, Madrid, London, New York, relatively limited.
Today, we're looking at terror threats in Iraq, Syria, North Africa. You remember, we had the underwear bomber and cargo threats out of Yemen. It really shows you how much the terror threat has metastasized.
BURNETT: So what can the United States do to stop this? I mean, how unusual is this warning? They are saying -- I mean, it's pretty specific, right. Shoe bombs but then 25, 30 cities, and they're saying it's not, quote/unquote "specific." It's hard to interpret.
MUDD: It is, but usually you're not going to put this plot out if somebody walks into, for example, an FBI office and says, you know, I know somebody with a bomb. You have to get to a level above that to warn the American people. I look at this and say it's not a dime a dozen. It's also not sort of an everyday occurrence. They've got to have something that's motivated them, especially during the Olympics, to come out and warn so many people worldwide.
BURNETT: All right, thank you very much, Phil. Appreciate your taking the time.
MUDD: My pleasure.
BURNETT: Well, OUTFRONT next, breaking business news, Facebook goes on its biggest shopping spree ever. I mean, just saw a headline just crossed about an hour ago. Why did the company decide to spend $19 billion on an app? We're not joking here.
Plus, a disturbing case of friendly fire, how close a 500-pound bomb came to killing American soldiers.
And Ted Nugent is under fire tonight for this?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TED NUGENT: Chicago, communist raised, communist educated, communist nurtured subhuman mongrel.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BURNETT: Breaking business news, Facebook with a $19 billion buy just announced in the past couple hours. The social media giant announcing it has just bought a mobile messaging app called "WhatsApp." It's Facebook's largest buy ever, but is it worth it and what the heck is WhatsApp?
All right, CNN technology analyst, Brett Larsson and Mediaites, Joe Concha are OUTFRONT. Brett and I were joking that I have a Blackberry so I'm not really an app person. All of this is Greek to me, but obviously this is worth a hell of a lot of money, $19 billion. I'm stunned. So what is this?
BRETT LARSON, CNN TECHNOLOGY ANALYST: It's a messaging app that is incredibly popular. They send billions of messages a day, exchanged, using WhatsApp. It's got a very young demographic, which is something that Facebook really desperately needs because they're both losing young users and not attracting young users so they risk going away of MySpace, Friendster of AOL.
BURNETT: If I get a text on my phone, this is my mobile app, right? I'm still paying Verizon, AT&T, or somebody something, why is this better than texting? a stupid person question asked by Erin Burnett.
LARSON: There are no stupid questions. In layman's terms texting traditionally takes away from a bucket of texts that you may get. You may have unlimited texts and it doesn't really matter. Texting in forms of data as a data exchange is very, very small amounts of data. Even if you only have a one or two gigabyte data plan sending hundreds of messages is not going to eat big into that.
BURNETT: So it's a little cheaper?
LARSON: Definitely.
BURNETT: All right, so Joe, do you buy into this? I get it, apps are popular but $19 billion?
JOE CONCHA, MEDIAITE: It's not the $19 billion that I'm looking at. It's the 450 million users that they have. They are signing up 1 million people per day. I mean, think about that. We have 320 million living in the entire country of the United States and they have a 130 million more.
I think the challenge, Brett mentioned it before, I talked to experts, experts being my nephews and nieces on my way over here, it's funny. They don't use Facebook anymore. Why? Because geriatrics like us are on there --
BURNETT: Right. You don't want to be where we are.
CONCHA: Right.
BURNETT: So what is this? Is this something -- I'm not just texting you or having a little conversation with the two of you, I can text on this thing or whatever the right word is. I can my app it, let's app it with a whole group of people?
LARSON: Right, and internationally also. It also has that -- you know, you're not paying to text someone in London. You might be paying a different amount. It's all over the web, which is this sort of data and exchange free for all.
CONCHA: There is a revenue stream attached to this though.
BURNETT: What is it?
CONCHA: It's free for the first year, but then at one year end they charge each user $1. That's a nice little revenue stream that we're talking about here.
BURNETT: But I mean, the whole thing to me seems to be, you know, by the time I learn the name of one of these things it's not cool, right? You talk about MySpace, but you have now Instagram is hot. There was something else. I can't remember the name of it before Instagram. Then that might go away. I mean, $19 billion is not a fad kind of thing.
(CROSSTALK)
CONCHA: Right, true.
But, look, no one uses the phone anymore. No one makes phone calls.
LARSON: No.
CONCHA: I just had my birthday three days ago, admittedly enough. I got one phone call.
BURNETT: Happy 39th.
CONCHA: It's actually -- it's the 14th anniversary of my 39th birthday, to be quite honest with you. (LAUGHTER)
CONCHA: I got one phone call, but I got 170 messages. And that's how everybody communicates.
LARSON: Because you can do it easier on Facebook. It reminds me it's your birthday. And I quick type a thing in that says happy birthday.
BURNETT: It just means you have got to spend more time responding to people. If it really mattered, you would pick up the one and call. That's why I'm a Luddite.
CONCHA: I'm old-school for that. So, I say to Stacy Black (ph), the one person that called me on my birthday, thank you.
(LAUGHTER)
CONCHA: And to everybody else on Facebook that sent that easy message, you know what? Pick up a phone. Show some effort.
(CROSSTALK)
BURNETT: You see, they're hoping you don't answer.
LARSON: But this is now the new world that we live in, where it's easier to message, it's easier to send an instant message over Facebook.
It's easier to send an e-mail. It's less intrusive. You can do it on your own time if you live in different time zones. I prefer e-mails and texts and everything, because then I can go to bed whenever I want and not to have to worry about my phone ringing.
BURNETT: Well, that's true.
Now, are people going to like this, the Wall Street world? A lot of people who watch this show were trying to get into the Facebook IPO, bought into that IPO. Are people, are they going to go, oh, my gosh, these guys are overpaying, the stock is going down, or no?
LARSON: Well, no, I don't.
I think they're going to have a positive reaction to it. At the end of the day, the reality is, Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg not innovators. They haven't innovated. Facebook isn't a big innovation. Facebook is just another social media site that came along with Friendster and all the other ones and all the MySpaces. They just happened to succeed. For Facebook to continue being the 800-ton gorilla that it is, without innovation, it's going to have to start buying up little things that are working and attracting big audiences.
CONCHA: Little things for $19 billion.
(CROSSTALK)
BURNETT: Look, I just am so -- I'm just far behind. Not only do I take pictures and text them. I use a BlackBerry.
(LAUGHTER)
(CROSSTALK)
LARSON: Exactly. Right. They wish they had that money.
I will hold your hand and take you to the Apple Store when you are ready to make that move.
(LAUGHTER)
BURNETT: Thank you.
LARSON: No problem.
BURNETT: All right, still to come, many say a white man who shot and killed a black teen over loud music got away with murder. And tonight, we hear from the jury for the first time.
Plus, another Bridgegate apology, this one from a Chris Christie appointee. What does it mean for the governor?
And some Hot Pockets recalled because they could contain diseased meat.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BURNETT: A Bridgegate apology tonight, not from New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, but from the chairman of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, David Samson.
His agency of course orchestrated the lane closures. Samson is a Christie appointee. He's not publicly spoken since the scandal broke. Today, he's sorry. It could be a significant move for the governor.
And our Chris Frates is covering this.
Chris, what does it mean for the governor of New Jersey?
CHRIS FRATES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, not much yet, Erin.
But we may hear more from Governor Christie tomorrow at his first town hall since Bridgegate.
Now, today's apology came during a meeting for the Port Authority board of directors. Chairman David Samson wasn't exactly taking responsibility for the lane closures that snarled thousands of commuters in traffic, but he did say he didn't want the Port Authority to be mischaracterized by the actions of a few individuals.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DAVID SAMSON, CHAIRMAN, PORT AUTHORITY OF NEW YORK AND NEW JERSEY: On behalf of the board of commissioners, we are deeply sorry for inconvenience caused to our travelers. While I would like to comment more specifically about some of the outstanding issues, I recognize that there are established efforts to examine the events that occurred.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
FRATES: Now Samson says the public will have a complete picture of exactly what happened after the investigation by the state legislative committee is over. And, Erin, it's important to note that Samson himself has been subpoenaed by that committee.
BURNETT: Right.
And that committee, they have been looking at -- we made this point. They have been looking since October, subpoenas and subpoenas, trying to find what really happened and trying to find the proverbial smoking gun for the governor.
Now, there are new developments on that front as well.
FRATES: Well, that's right, Erin.
Today, the state committee doubled down, trying to get documents from two former top Christie aides. That's Bridget Kelly and Bill Stepien. And it filed papers in a New Jersey court today. Now, Kelly and Stepien have so far refused to hand anything over.
They're arguing that the subpoenas violate their Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination. But in explaining the court documents to me, a source boiled down the committee's legal arguments like this. Kelly and Stepien lost their Fifth Amendment right as soon as they hit send on those texts and e-mails. In other words, Stepien and Kelly can't further incriminate themselves by providing documents that have already been shared.
And Stepien's attorney, he tells me -- quote -- "We received their brief late this afternoon, but have not reviewed it yet. We will do so and respond appropriately."
Now, it's important to note too that Kelly's attorney has not returned my request for comment yet, Erin.
BURNETT: Interesting.
All right, well, thank you very much. Appreciate it.
Chris Frates has been covering this very important story of course for 2016.
Well, now it's time for the OUTFRONT "Out Take."
Prince Charles is on a tour of the Middle East this week. And today he attended a cultural festival in Saudi Arabia. During the ceremony, he wore robes. Where is he? Where is he? Where is he? And he carried a sword in a traditional dance. I'm sorry, but he must have looked utterly ridiculous. Look, we love to see a world leader from one country celebrate the history of another. And yet, when we watched it today, it just finally kind of seemed like he phoned it in, kind of like not like really getting into it with the sword.
Surely, the heir to the British throne has taken a few dance lessons before. Why not show off what you can do, like these dancing dignitaries?
I'm impressed we had Nixon in there.
Still to come, Ted Nugent unleashed with incredibly harsh words for President Obama and CNN.
And an American aircraft drops a 500-pound bomb almost on American soldiers.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BURNETT: Welcome back to the second half of OUTFRONT.
Mystery aboard the Maersk Alabama. Two former Navy SEALs have been found dead on the same ship that was targeted by Somali pirates in 2009 and made famous in the film "Captain Phillips."
It's not clear tonight how the two men died, but Maersk said in a statement that their deaths were not related to vessel operations or their duties as security personnel.
And when we talk about those duties, of course, the Maersk goes through that pirate alley of which the Seychelles, where they were found, is at the bottom. The vessel was docked at the Seychelles, which is off the southeastern coast of Africa. Their bodies were found by a colleague who was checking on one of them. And autopsies are expected this week.
Diseased and unsound animals, that's what prompted Nestle to recall two varieties of Philly steak and cheese Hot Pockets. The microwavable sandwiches may contain some of the 8.7 million pounds of diseased meat that has been recalled by the USDA. No illnesses have been reported so far though. It is important to note.
And just in: a major United States university hacked. A database at the University of Maryland with more than 300,000 names, Social Security numbers, date of birth and university ID numbers for faculty, staff, students has been compromised. In a letter to the university, the school's president says that no financial or health information was stolen. That, though, could be of little consolation. It means they have their Social Security numbers.
The feds are investigating. In the meantime, the university is offering a year of free credit monitoring for those affected, which has become the standard.
A stunning new video shows a group of American soldiers as they nearly escaped from being hit by a 500-pound bomb dropped in a wrong spot by a U.S. aircraft. Let's show it to you.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There it is.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
(EXPLOSION)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (EXPLETIVE DELETED)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What the (EXPLETIVE DELETED)?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: The video was shot in Afghanistan in 2012 but wasn't posted online until this week.
Our Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr is OUTFRONT.
Barbara, I mean, you think of the devastation that could have wreaked. Do we know how this near-miss happened?
BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: We do, Erin. The military is telling says they conducted an investigation after this and you see the devastation from this bomb, landing on these troops. Thankfully no one was hurt or killed.
Apparently, it happened because the air crew overhead that was dropping the bomb had the wrong GPS coordinates somehow. The investigation determined that it was an accident. No one was held liable. No one was punished for it. It was an accident.
It does happen, but rarely, and thankfully this time, everyone was OK, but what a scene to see what happens when a 500-pound bomb lands on your head.
BURNETT: All right. Barbara Starr, thank you very much. Shocking, incredible video.
Well, tonight, Ted Nugent, the rock-star-turned-political-firebrand was supposed to be a guest on this show. He actually promoted it on his Twitter account and we promoted it here on the air at CNN. Just over two hours before our show, though, Nugent canceled. He said he was sick.
Here's why I wanted to talk to him. Nugent campaigned with Texas gubernatorial candidate Greg Abbott yesterday. Democrat slammed Abbott for aligning himself with Nugent because he called the president a subhuman mongrel.
I want to play for you what he said with the full context.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TED NUGENT, MUSICIAN: I have obviously failed to galvanize and prod if not shame enough Americans to be ever vigilant not to let a Chicago communist-raised, communist-educated, communist-nurtured subhuman mongrel, like the ACORN community organizer gangster Barack Hussein Obama to weasel his way into the top office of authority in the United States of America.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: All right. So, after that happened my colleague, Wolf Blitzer, reported on Nugent's use of the racially loaded term "subhuman mongrel". Now, he noted that it's a term that Nazis called Jews to justify the genocide of the Jewish community. They used the term "subhuman" and "mongrel" in multiple events and editorials.
Then, Nugent attacked this network and Wolf with tweets saying, quote, "CNN, Joseph Goebbels, Sol Alinsky, propaganda ministry mongrels, and Wolf Blitzer is a journalist and I'm a gay pirate from Cuba."
Joining now, conservative commentator Ben Ferguson and Democratic strategist Paul Begala.
All right. You are both two great men from the state of Texas where these things happen.
Ben, before, though, I mean, obviously there is some humor in this but there is also, you know, something deadly serious, and that is this term subhuman mongrel. I mean, that's not like saying you dislike the president or even hate his policies, which we all know Ted Nugent does, right?
BEN FERGUSON, CONSERVATIVE COMMENTATOR: Sure.
BURNETT: "Subhuman mongrel" is a term used by white supremacists. It's a term used in Nazi Germany. It's racist.
FERGUSON: It's certainly a term that any politician would not use and most people that would be talking about this would not be used. But we're not dealing with most people. We're dealing with a rock star here.
We're dealing with rock stars like Pearl Jam that took a blowup doll of George Bush on the stage in Birmingham, Alabama, that I witnessed and no one freaked about that.
We're dealing with people like Dave Grohl that mocked the president of the United States of America from the Foo Fighters, and no one cared about that.
We're dealing with Dave Matthews who said he would get the president drunk and help him become an alcoholic again if it would get him out of the White House. These are what rock stars say.
And to act like he's not some inflammatory crazy rock star I do think is a little bit funny, just from the aspect of -- we're not talking about a pastor, priest, or politician. He's a crazy nut job rock star and people go to choose to see just that happen.
BURNETT: All of that may be true, but -- and, Ben, let me ask this to Paul but I'm going to want your response to it.
FERGUSON: Sure.
BURNETT: He appeared introducing by the side of the front-runner for governor of Texas at a political event. So it was OK for that politician to be with him. Is that OK, Paul?
PAUL BEGALA, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: I think that's where the story goes. Look, I've interviewed Ted Nugent. Ben is completely wrong. He's not a star. He's a has-been. He was star in the first --
FERGUSON: Go to a concert. They will disagree.
BEGALA: Excuse me for talking while you're interrupting. He was a star in the first year of the Carter administration, before -- I mean, certainly before we even had CDs. The guy is a washed up hack who's trying to keep himself relevant by being a controversialist. I get that.
And what he said, of course, is offensive, it's racist. But the First Amendment still applies, by the way, to hack rock and rollers who are washed up and racists, OK? Who say racist things. It still applies.
By the way, we've talked about this, Erin, on those programs. People said the same words about Jefferson and Lincoln. So, that's not where the story is most interested.
It's most interesting as a political strategist as how Greg Abbott, the attorney general of Texas, running for governor --
BURNETT: Right.
BEGALA: -- how and why his team said, let's associate with him. They knew what they were getting.
This is really puzzling to me because Abbott is not a stupid man. And why would he associate himself with somebody who also says, he's been saying these things for decades. That's what's interesting. And I can't figure that out.
It's really hurting Greg Abbott. It's a really dumb move for Greg Abbott.
FERGUSON: All right. Let me explain to you why they did it. They did it because Ted Nugent is a guy that people associate with freedom when it comes to guns. And you have a flip-flop and the Wendy Davis coming out and acting as if she's some sort of gun-toting Texans, which she's not.
That's why they brought them in. They didn't bring him in about any other issue. It was simply the issue of guns and the issue of Ted Nugent calling around.
BURNETT: Now, Ben, you're totally right. That's what Ted Nugent is known for. He's been on the show talking about his use on guns. But, you know, but he said this, right? Wendy Davis -- FERGUSON: Sure.
BURNETT: -- the likely Democratic gubernatorial nominee in Texas released a statement on this, and Nugent himself called Abbott a blood brother, saying -- you know, how can you do that? That's my question.
FERGUSON: Well, I think it's a prime example of, look, you're dealing with a rock star that's all the over the top. Whether you think he's a has-been or not, this is what they do --
BURNETT: That just seems like an excuse, no matter what you are. We'll use that to justify genocide in the Holocaust, I don't care who says that.
FERGUSON: I totally understand your point there. But also, look at the people that was on the stage in the Democratic Convention and then go read the lyrics to their songs, whether it be rappers or the Foo Fighters. I mean, if you really want to full tape, go full tape on those guys if the president of the United States, Barack Obama, had them come to the White House, Jay-Z and Beyonce and others who have done things and saying things and written lyrics that are incredibly questionable to put on the stage with the president, but no one batted an eye at that.
So, why the double standard now is all I'm saying?
BEGALA: Because of double issues. What someone does in their art is very different. Johnny Cash, who is one of my favorite artist, wrote a song about -- I won't use a word -- I can't forget the day I shot that bad woman down. He used a different word. He didn't mean that in his real life, it was a character in a song.
I suspect, it's not my genre, that rappers do the same thing. So, what an artist does in her or his art is very different than what Mr. Nugent did was racist. But it was not surprising. It was typical.
And I keep coming back to this is what it says about Greg Abbott. There are moms and dads all across the state of Texas who are appalled by this and it's not about gun rights.
Hell, I've got 20 guns. Everybody in Texas got guns. You can find a lot of people who are not saying racist things who have Mr. Abbott's rather extreme view of guns. You don't need to go there to get this guy. And they knew what they were getting and that's what I'm puzzled by.
BURNETT: So, Ben, let me just make sure I understand exactly what you're saying. You're saying, yes, it's racist, right? I mean, you're acknowledging that.
FERGUSON: Sure. No, no, absolutely.
BURNETT: But you're saying you're OK with it because he's a rocker.
FERGUSON: No, I'm saying, I don't have a very high threshold for guys that are in rock bands are people that the president surrounds himself with that are rappers, talking about popping a cap in somebody. I mean, to imply that somehow Ted Nugent is not going to be outlandish and crazy and that you should expect him to act like he's some sort of politician or a pastor is laughable. And I think they knew that you're getting the crazy Nugent. It was on an issue of guns.
What he said, and this made me be clear, because some people think that he said this at the event with Greg Abbott. He said this months ago, at a gun show that had nothing with this.
BURNETT: He said this last month.
But, Paul, I mean, my question to you is, you know, Abbott then called him a blood brother. You know, when you say you can pick someone -- I mean it seems to me that you've got to acknowledge, he's not just -- you used the word washed up. I mean, this is a guy that has millions of people who follow him and listen to him and love everything he says.
BEGALA: Yes.
BURNETT: That's why Greg Abbott wanted to latch on to him, and that's why using the term "subhuman mongrel" which you both admit is racist is problematic.
BEGALA: It is. And the people who follow him, they're called losers. They're already voting for Greg Abbott. He's getting everybody who believes these racist things about our president. They aren't swing voters.
I'm just looking at this as a strategist. This is really dumb.
Now, he has associated himself with somebody, who not in his art, but in his political statements, had said these really outrageous things. I say he's known this, he's done this for years.
Abbott knew what he was doing. I think it's a bad strategy. I think it's bad. I think it's, frankly, really bad for my beloved Texas that Abbott is doing this.
But that's why -- I wish you could get Greg Abbott on and I hope you will, because I'd like to ask him why he chose, of all the people who support an extreme view on gun rights, why did he pick the guy who had earlier said these racist things?
FERGUSON: I promise --
BURNETT: He's saying he doesn't know about this specific comment.
BEGALA: He don't have a Google machine? He's attorney general of Texas.
BURNETT: It is the first thing that comes up. That is correct. That's why.
All right. Well, look, thanks very much to both of you. And I do want to clarify, it was Ted Nugent that called Abbott his blood brother. I believe I said it the other way around. I want to make sure that I clarify that.
BEGALA: Let me say this for Nuge. He called me that, too, because I'm a fellow hunter. He uses that phrase about a lot of people. So, I won't overreact about that.
BURNETT: OK.
BEGALA: Ben makes a good point. He is an ex-rock and roll star, rock and roll hack. But to me, it's about Greg Abbott. Why do you associate with the guy like that? I don't care what Nugent calls Abbott. Abbott calls him --
FERGUSON: Paul, I have to say this --
BURNETT: Ben, how many guns do you have?
FERGUSON: I've got five or six, I think. One of them that actually saved my life.
BURNETT: So you're telling me that the Democrat had 16. The Republican has five or six.
FERGUSON: Paul Begala has been known to have some fussy math out there with the people he's advised. So, it may not be 20.
BURNETT: When he said that number, I had to ask you.
All right.
BEGALA: Come to my house. I'll show you all 20.
BURNETT: Thank you very much all of you.
Still to come, a white man fired a gun into an SUV full of black teenagers. Some think he may have gotten away with murder. And tonight, we hear from a juror about exactly what happened in that room.
And is model Kate Upton so hot, she can actually defy gravity? Jeanne Moos with that story.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BURNETT: Now let's check in with Anderson with a look at what's coming up on "AC360".
Hey, Anderson.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Hey, Erin. Yes. We're going to have more on the breaking news, of course, tonight in the program. This is what the fighting in Kiev, Ukraine, looked like for much of the day today, before a truce was struck between the government and protesters. The question now, how long will that truce hold and what comes next? We're going to speak with Nick Paton Walsh, who's been on the middle of it.
Also, the heated deliberations in the jury room in the trial of Michael Dunn for the shooting and killing of 17-year-old Jordan Davis. We're going to hear from one of the jurors and I'll speak to Jordan's aunt who says the family is not giving up the fight. That's tonight's race and justice in America segment. Plus, the Ridiculist, all that and more at the top of the hour -- Erin.
BURNETT: All right. Anderson, looking forward to hearing that interview.
Now, we're going to talk a little bit about that case. We were learning what was taking place inside the jury room as the 12 men and women were trying to decide whether Michael Dunn murdered a black teenager or was trying to protect himself, i.e. self-defense.
It's a case that put race and self defense in the spotlight again.
Speaking to ABC News this morning, juror number 4 says while she believes Dunn got away with murder, three jurors did not agree. And she added that despite this being such a highly charged case, with a clear racial aspect, the jury made a decision to not consider race as part of the evidence at all.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
INTERVIEWER: For a lot of folk in America they would say, white man shoots and kills a 17-year-old black boy, how could it not be about race on some level?
VALERIE, JUROR #4: Sitting in that room, it was never presented that way. We looked at it as a bad situation where teenagers were together and words were spoken and lines were crossed.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: Natalie Jackson is defense attorney and CNN legal analyst. She also, of course, was involved in the Trayvon Martin defense and Danny Cevallos is a CNN legal analyst, both OUTFRONT.
OK. Great to have both of you with us.
Let me start with you, Natalie. When you hear what the jurors said, you know, they made a decision not to consider race. I mean, I'm sure they believed that. I'm not trying to say anybody lied.
But do you think that's possible, that they could remove race from their analysis of what happened that night?
NATALIE JACKSON, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: I think that they can not talk about it but I don't think that it was removed. That's what happens in both of these cases that we've seen recently.
In the other case, the Trayvon Martin case and this case, is that everyone said that they were not going to talk about race, but it was in the room and when it's in the room, what happens is that the race is there and by not confronting it, it just lingers and it forms your opinion. It's a part of your opinion.
BURNETT: I mean, Danny, do you agree? Because it seems that happens a lot of times. People want to act like it doesn't matter, it's not going to influence my decision, and yet it so often does and it might have in this case.
DANNY CEVALLOS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Yes. I'm going to -- listen, race is an issue in the justice system, but this case, the Dunn case, is not a parable for that truth. When it comes to a jury in a deliberation room, if you have a race agenda, the last thing you're going to advance that is in a roomful with 12 strangers with the whole world watching. I think it's clear this jury got hung up.
And by jury, I mean, just three jurors. The rest of the jury got it right. They got hung up on the definition of self-defense. And sometimes, you just can't stop a deadlocked jury. That doesn't have to do with race.
BURNETT: All right.
CEVALLOS: Overall, the jury got it right. It was two or three jurors that just deadlocked. You can't help that.
BURNETT: So, Danny, what about this though, when you talk about how they deadlocked and they were going to take race out of the table. I have to play this. I know, a lot of the viewers may not have heard this, a jail house phone call between Dunn and his fiancee when he was first arrested.
He talked about the black teens in the car that night and here's what he said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MICHAEL DUNN: She found some YouTube videos of these guys and they're all gangster rappers. You know, because when the police said that these guys didn't have a record I was like, I wonder if your a just flying under the radar.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Right.
DUNN: Because they were bad.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: Is that about race?
CEVALLOS: OK. First question was about the jury. Now, we're talking about Dunn.
Was Dunn a racist? Maybe. But a jury convicted him on almost every single charge and wanted to convict him of murder except for one, two and three jurors.
So, is that a -- was he a racist? We'll never know. He would say he was not. BURNETT: All right.
CEVALLOS: But it looks like the justice system ran its course.
(CROSSTALK)
BURNETT: Natalie, I'm curious because it sounds like, I don't know, right? I mean, you could say -- you could ask the question, look, give than he said that, that attitude was conveyed. And that sound bite we just heard that he would have been more likely to shoot a black teenager than a white teenager. In that case, how can self- defense hold if he say -- you don't know what he would have done. If he wouldn't have shot the white kid and he did shoot the black kid, right?
JACKSON: Motive is a part of the legal system. What motivates someone to act? In this case we've had the only person that advance Dunn's self-defense theory was Dunn, who was impeached on the stand by his own girlfriend.
CEVALLOS: Sure, also true.
JACKSON: So, how can you omit the reason and the motive of why he did what he did? And one of the theories is that it was because Jordan Dunn was a black teenager. It's very important. And I think that would a jury consider that and when the two -- the three jurors who were on the side of self-defense consider that, it had to play into some part of their psyche, whether they admit it or not.
BURNETT: Danny, what do you think about that? He felt more threatened because they were black, and it was self-defense but only because they were black. Is that still self-defense?
CEVALLOS: Well, probably not. Look, Dunn may have been a racist, maybe that factored into his shooting. But to say -- but to say that Dunn's actions, this one man, is representative of some kind of generalized white fear in America of young black males --
JACKSON: No one said that. We're talking about this case and subject --
(CROSSTALK)
JACKSON: No. People are talking about subjective versus objective fear.
CEVALLOS: We agree. There was no objective fear. Dunn should have been convicted of second degree murder.
(CROSSTALK)
JACKSON: So why was he not? That's what people are wondering.
CEVALLOS: Because of three jurors who were aberrations. We'll never know why they didn't understand the definition of self-defense?
JACKSON: Why?
CEVALLOS: We don't know. Maybe they'll say it had to do with race. I seriously doubt they're going to come out and say it had to do with race.
JACKSON: I agree with you. That doesn't mean we can't talk about it.
(CROSSTALK)
CEVALLOS: Trouble with the definition of self-defense.
BURNETT: Natalie. Go ahead. Sorry, I just want to give you a chance. You're just talking over each other.
JACKSON: I'm sorry. I was just saying that just because a jury won't talk about it or those three jurors won't talk about why they thought it may have been self-defense, Dunn's unrational fear which I think is an objective judgment of his fear. But that doesn't mean that America can't talk about it. And I think it's very important. If nothing else comes out of this, we need to wonder why is the young black man -- the young black man this object of fear.
BURNETT: All right.
JACKSON: And do they risk their lives because of it.
BURNETT: Thank you very much, both of you.
Still to come, Kate Upton is out of this world for real. Jeanne Moos tells you the story.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BURNETT: "Sports Illustrated" is known for its sultry swimsuit editions. This year's photo shoot with Kate Upton was literally out of this world.
We go, of course, to Jeanne Moos for more.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JEANNE MOOS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): We've seen everything from toothbrushes to tortillas in zero gravity. But gravity turns to levity when it's a "Sports Illustrated" swimsuit model floating by.
That's Kate Upton, up, up and thankfully not upchucking away. Kate and the "Sports Illustrated" crew boarded G Force One in Florida for their top secret photo shoot. Talk at manual labor. The plane climbed steeply, then dives.
At the top of the hump, passengers experience weightlessness for about 30 seconds. And pay 5,000 bucks to fly up and down about 15 times.
But now, it was Kate Upton's turn. Zero G or bust.
KATE UPTON, SWIMSUIT MODEL: Twirling, I was upside down. It was one of my favorite experiences so far in my life.
MOOS: Zero gravity flights have a reputation for being so-called vomit comets.
(on camera): But the company ZERO-G says only 4 percent of their passengers actually get sick. And Kate Upton wasn't one of them.
TERESE BREWSTER, PRESIDENT, ZERO-G: Kate was a dream up there.
MOOS (voice-over): C president Terese Brewster notes the fuselage is padded so when gravity returns you don't get hurt in her teeny weeny $35 bikinis knees from Target, Kate was wearing less than Sandra bullock did in "Gravity."
Kate's "Sports Illustrated" shoot seemed to be channeling the famous opening credit scenes from "Barbarella." Not only did Jane Fonda do a spacey strip tease, but the credits maintained Fonda's modesty.
Last year, Jimmy Fallon was interviewing Kate about her last swimsuit edition shoot in Antarctica when he mused about a final frontier for her next shoot.
JIMMY FALLON, TV HOST: Space.
UPTON: Next year. Next year.
FALLON: Think about this. There's no gravity.
UPTON: It's incredible.
(LAUGHTER)
MOOS: We know what Jimmy and the audience were imaging.
(on camera): How does the absence of gravity effect the position of your bosom? Do things float?
BREWSTER: Well, no, I think they just don't -- they move, really.
MOOS (voice-over): America's first female astronaut, Sally Ride, was once asked if you need to wear a bra in space. Her reply, "There is no sag in zero g."
And guys, don't bother hoping the bikini will just --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Lift off.
MOOS: Jeanne Moos, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BURNETT: "AC360" starts now.
