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Campbell Brown

BP Exec: We Care About the Small People; New Clean-up Concerns

Aired June 16, 2010 - 20:00   ET

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

ANNOUNCER: CNN prime time begins right now.

CAMPBELL BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Hi, everybody. On day 58 of the oil spill disaster, BP pulls out its checkbook to the tune of $20 billion, but there is still enormous anger at the company over how they have handled the disaster, how they are managing the cleanup, not to mention the overall lack of transparency. And we're going to talk about all that tonight with the newest member of BP's team.

We will also preview our special investigation into BP's behavior during another disaster, including e-mails that the company would rather you didn't see.

Also tonight, a decision coming soon in a crucial court battle over same-sex marriage in a CNN exclusive, you will meet the unlikely duo fighting to give that right to millions of people.

But we're going to start with BP's costly day and it was costly on two fronts. The oil giant county tried to calm an angry president and nation by agreeing to put $20 billion in an escrow account. The company's chairman apologized to the nation for all that has happened, but then two words came out of his mouth, words that whether lost in translation or not, may only fan the flames of resentment toward BP.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CARL-HENRIC SVANBERG, BP BOARD CHAIRMAN: We care about these small people. I hear comment sometimes that large oil companies are greedy companies or don't care but that is not the case with BP. We care about the small people.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: In Louisiana, a restaurant worker was steaming.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We're not small down here. We take care of ourselves. Give us a situation, we can handle it.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: On Pensacola Beach, this real estate broker was baffled and offended.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're certainly not small people. This is a beautiful part of the country. I don't know why he's doing that.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Does it angry you?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes it does. It makes me very angry. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And Gulf Coast historian, Douglas Brinkley, says this is becoming familiar.

DOUGLAS BRINKLEY, GULF COAST HISTORIAN: Every time a BP executive opens their mouth, whether it's in a commercial or on a talk show, they do more damage than good they do.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: BP also announced today that it is canceling its quarterly stock dividend. Now, CNN has attained a copy of the statement BP CEO, Tony Hayward, will give to Congress tomorrow, and it reads in part, "we understand the seriousness of the situation. We know the world is watching us. I understand that only actions and results, not mere words, ultimately can give you the confidence you seek. We will be and deserve to be judged by our response."

For much of the past eight weeks, we have repeatedly invited BP to appear on this program. Each time, the company has declined, until now. Jamie Gorelick has just been brought on by BP as an adviser, and she is also a former deputy attorney general, and she is joining us from Washington. Jamie, welcome to you. I appreciate your time tonight.

JAMIE GORELICK, BP ADVISOR: Sure, Campbell.

BROWN: I don't have to tell that you that there is enormous frustration over what many view as a lack of candor by BP on so many issues and also this unwillingness to -- until this moment, to talk to the media, to talk to the people most harmed by the disaster. So, I just want to go through with you, a lot of areas where people don't feel like they have gotten a straight answer, and why don't we just start with flow rate, first of all. Why can't BP given accurate assessment of how many barrels of oil are leaking? It's been revised upward so many times. We almost can't keep track, but it's always getting worse and not better.

GORELICK: Campbell, I was asked to come on and talk about the agreement that BP made with the president, which I helped on. I actually don't know anything about flow rate.

BROWN: But you are working for BP as an adviser now?

GORELICK: Yes.

BROWN: OK. So, you're very limited in what you can talk about?

GORELICK: No. I just don't know about flow rate. I've been spending the last week engaged in trying to create this fund that will secure payments for individuals and businesses in the Gulf that are affected, and I can tell you how the claims process will work, I can tell you how the fund will work, but I really don't know about flow rate, and I'm sorry if you had some expectation that I could speak about that.

BROWN: I have no expectations at all. I'm just so happy to have any representative from BP on this program right now. I'm going to ask my questions and if you can answer, great, if you can't, hopefully, next time, BP agrees to send some on. They'll send someone who is knowledgeable --

(CROSSTALK)

BROWN: We're also frustrated that we can't get answers to.

GORELICK: I appreciate your frustration, but they -- I was told that you were asking for someone to talk about what happened today and the arrangement and agreement that was Made, and I'm sorry if there was some miscommunication, but I'm a lawyer who negotiated an agreement. So, that's all I can do for you.

BROWN: But you obviously have opinions about this. I'm sure you, like most Americans, have been following this incredibly closely and understand how devastating this is to a huge portion of the country. I mean, I'll just tell you -- I talked tonight to two friends in New Orleans. I grew up in Louisiana. My mother lives in Pensacola on the beach. And what they are telling me, and I'm sure you -- if you haven't heard it already, you're going to be hearing it from a lot of people given your current position as an adviser to BP now, it's the feeling that the criminals are now in charge of cleaning up the crime.

Whether that's fair or unfair to put it in those words, those are the words they are using. I mean, how do you feel about that, given whether you're, you know, focused on negotiating this -- these escrow accounts or working for the company more generally. I mean, this is a huge problem that you got to address.

GORELICK: One of the ways we're trying to address it, any number of issues that have been raised by you and others in the media and -- reflecting concerns in the Gulf States. One of them has been how do we keep our businesses alive? How do we keep ourselves employed and functioning? And so, what we decided to do was to create a claims process that is independent of the company that is -- where claims will be adjudicated according to law by an independent person with access to three judges with a claim that will be determined within a very fast period, and access to money that will be set aside.

So, this is an attempt -- may not go to flow rate, may not go to all the frustrations that you have, but this is an attempt to try to meet some of the concerns which have been about, in part, how do we get compensated? How do we get our claim adjudicated? Where is the money? Will the money be there? This is the company saying -- this is an extraordinary thing. This is an extraordinary event. But the company is setting aside $20 billion to be available to pay claims for -- from people who have been hurt.

BROWN: OK. Well, sorry for all -- not sounding grateful enough, but given what's happened, I don't think anybody is feeling like --

GORELICK: I'm not saying --

BROWN: This is all that extraordinary. GORELICK: No, it -- normally, a claim is made and then the company pays it.

BROWN: There is nothing normal about this situation.

GORELICK: I completely agree with you. I'm not asking and I don't think the company is asking for gratitude. I'm simply -- I came on in good faith to try to explain the agreement that was struck today, and if it's not satisfying to you, I really don't know what I can say. Sorry.

BROWN: Let me ask you more specifically about that as head of the legal team. I know you got this account going. You are obviously going to face a barrage of legal claims.

GORELICK: Yes.

BROWN: I believe if I'm right, the company said it's spent $1.5 billion and has promised to pay every legitimate claim. So, can you guarantee, that I guess, if those numbers get into the hundreds of billions of dollars, well beyond the fund that you've set up that BP is going to be there to pay those claims?

GORELICK: Well, BP does have to continue as a functioning, vibrant member of the economy in order to pay those claims. And what we're trying to do is structure a fund so that the monies will be there to meet the claims as they come in. The company knows, and you heard from the chairman today, that this is a long haul, that the damage that has been done is profound. You heard that he made an apology to the president and repeated it before the cameras. And you know, BP know it needs to be here for the long haul to help -- to help fix what has happened here.

BROWN: Let me ask you again, because you're an attorney, has there been any gag order placed on any of the people doing cleanup and who are working on this more generally? Across-the-board, frankly, we had a producer down in Louisiana who spent 12 days trying to get information from some of the cleanup workers and all told her that they were instructed to not talk about any of this.

GORELICK: I have no knowledge of that.

BROWN: All right. Well, Ms. Gorelick, I really appreciate you taking the time to talk to us. I feel bad if you believed coming on this program that we would limit our questions in anyway, only to --

GORELICK: I only -- yes, I only agreed to come on because it's the subject that I know about. I wouldn't -- I wouldn't have -- I wouldn't have agreed because I actually can't answer your other -- your other questions, and I'm happy to give you the name of the person who --

BROWN: I believe we got his name and have been calling. You know, in the future, if anyone from BP would like to come on and talk about the big picture, we sure have a long, long, long list of questions, and we would really appreciate that. GORELICK: Sure.

BROWN: Jamie Gorelick. Jamie, appreciate your time tonight.

GORELICK: Sure, Campbell.

BROWN: Still ahead, growing concerns over the Gulf Coast cleanup. Why frustrated residents are demanding action and organization as millions of gallons of oil move closer and closer to shore, right after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: We have some new information to bring you right now. You remember earlier, we played you that clip, this was from BP chairman, Carl-Henric Svanberg, the one where he says that BP cares about the quote "small people" affected by the oil spill. Svanberg has just released a statement clarifying his comments, and he writes, quote, "I spoke clumsily this afternoon. For that, I am very sorry. What I was trying to say is that BP understands how deeply this affects the lives of people who live along the Gulf and depend on it for their livelihood. Will best be conveyed not by any word but by the work we do to put things right for the families and businesses who have been hurt."

Now, in addition to that $20 billion fund to aid oil spill victims, BP today, announced a separate $100 million for oil rig workers forced off the job by the president's six-month moratorium on deepwater drilling. The economic relief certainly welcomes, but in Louisiana tonight, the focus very much still on cleanup where some pretty frustrated local folks are calling for more equipment and certainly more organization, and above all, I think more urgency in all of this.

And joining me right now from New Orleans to talk us to is radio talk show host, Kaare Johnson and also Chris Roberts, Jefferson Parish councilman who has been with us on the show, talking to us a lot about what's been happening on the ground. Welcome to both of you.

Kaare, let me start with you here, I know you got your ear to the ground. You've been talking to a lot of people on your radio show. Talk to me a little bit. I know you've also been touring around about the cleanup efforts, the situations what folks in Washington, what people outside of the Gulf need to know tonight that's not getting across.

KAARE JOHNSON, WIST-AM RADIO: I would think a very unorganized cleanup effort, Campbell. No one's in charge. The buck stops nowhere. It's agonizing. I think if it was more organized, I think if the feds would have attacked this quicker, local officials, too. I'm not going to say it's strictly the feds, and obviously, BP, we've seen (ph) less damage on the coast, less oil on the coast and not as much wildlife getting crushed by this oil. So, very unorganized down here, very disappointing.

BROWN: Let me go to you, Chris, because you are one of those local officials, in a way. Why do you think that there has not been a -- I guess that coordination across lines between BP, between the feds, between local officials in order to try to address this better?

CHRIS ROBERTS, JEFFERSON PARISH COUNCILMAN: Campbell, very similar to the hurricanes and dealing with FEMA. We've had people rotate in and out constantly, and you meet with some folks, you make request, you show up at the next meeting, it's not the same face, you're starting back over at point A. It's a very frustrating process. We're almost two weeks now beyond the date when we were told barges were going to be moved into Bayou Barataria.

We had news this morning saying someone else from the coast guard was going to review the plan again. You know, a lot of times, we're getting to the point too where we want to question whether or not some of the coast guard officials are working for BP or are they working for the federal government. And it's frustrating to us that are here on the ground.

BROWN: So, what do you think is the primary source? Is it the federal government that's been, I guess, the primary source of your frustration and do you agree with Corey that there has been extraordinary level of disorganization?

ROBERTS: Oh, there's no question about it. It's been very disorganized. It certainly has led to more areas being impacted. I think that there are some people within with the federal government that really want to try and make things right, but yet, particularly on this plan in Southern Jefferson Parish, rocking the passes in the Barataria Bay, it has been a total nightmare for us. We get inconsistent information. They bring new people into meetings. We miss deadlines time and time again, and as a result of it, you got a lot of our areas that have been impacted by oil.

BROWN: Kaare, our folks have been down there from CNN trying to get cleanup workers to open up a little bit, to talk with them, and I tried to ask the representative from BP about this a little earlier, not with much success, but that -- you know, what we're hearing is there is nothing, frankly. And it feels like this gag order has been put on anybody sort of involved in the cleanup in anyway. People are being extraordinarily cautious. Are you, because you are there every day, you are local, having anymore success in sort of getting the real sense of what's happening on the ground?

JOHNSON: I think like after the workup, the work is over with and the crews are heading maybe to restaurants and the like, and Louisiana crew people, they will kind of talk a little bit. But I noticed the folks from Texas, anyone from out of town, that BP or their subcontractors have hired, I've tried to talk to them and the boat captain will call them over and they're looking at me, looking at the guy, you shouldn't be talking to people.

I'll ask them later, did he tell you not to talk to me and they're like, yes. So, BP, I don't care what Doug Suttles says, hey, everyone's free to talk. We can learn from all this, it's nonsense. BP definitely has stifled their subcontractors, the employees that are doing the supposed cleanup from talking about it. No doubt. BROWN: Let me ask you about the moratorium here, Chris, because I know this is a job killer. I mean, most people understand, I think, that the economy of Louisiana is incredibly dependent on oil even in light of what happen, you believe this moratorium ought to be lifted, don't you?

ROBERTS: Absolutely. And I think that's in sync with all of our other local leaders along with our governor, both of our U.S. senators, our congressional delegation. This is not just going to impact those individuals that work on rigs. This is supply vessels. This is anyone who produces, any of the mechanical equipment that goes onto the rigs. And then you talk about the ancillary effects when people don't know whether or not they will or won't have a job, then they get gun shy. They don't know what to do whether or not they should make purchases.

I heard from some real estate agents along the coast, they're worried about whether or not there'll be any home sales because people really -- they're kind of in a standstill right now and it's going to be a ripple effect. You're seeing it in restaurants. You're seeing it in automobile dealerships. You're seeing it at local malls. Everyone just doesn't know whether or not they're going to be employed or not, and it's causing people just to go into this, you know, complete mode of just not making any purchases at all.

BROWN: A very trying time I know. Certainly, hoping things ease up a little bit for folks down there and we get good news or more signs of progress soon. Kaare Johnson, Chris Roberts, to both of you, really appreciate your time, gentlemen. I'm sure we will be seeing you again soon. Thanks so much.

Still ahead, victims of another deadly BP disaster are speaking out. Why employees say damage control is the company's first priority and they got the e-mails to prove it. We're going to have a preview of our exclusive special investigation.

And up close with Energy Secretary Steven Chu, the man at the center of the White House ever to plug BP's massive oil gusher. Next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Tonight, a rare glimpse inside BP's spin room. It is a public relations nerve center where critics say damage control is top priority, no matter what the body count. Among the most vocal critics are the victims of another deadly BP disaster, a Texas refinery blast that killed 15 workers and injured 180. CNN's Abbie Boudreau has obtained hundreds of internal BP documents that reveal a corporate culture that employees say puts profits over people. And Abbie is joining us right now with a preview of her special investigation from Atlanta -- Abbie.

ABBIE BOUDREAU, CNN INVESTIGATIVE UNIT CORRESPONDENT: Campbell, lately, we've heard so much about BP's safety culture. Now, we're getting an even better idea of how this company handled a different crisis by reading e-mails written by company employees. We talked to Texas attorney, Brent Coon, about those e-mails and hundreds of other BP documents.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BRENT COON, PLAINTIFF'S ATTORNEY: Look for that one smoking gun where somebody internally says if we don't fix this, we're going to have a problem, and in this case, what was shocking was that we didn't just find the smoking gun. We found an entire arsenal.

BOUDREAU: BP would never have wanted these documents out?

COON: Oh, no. I don't think anybody that had documents like that would ever want them to see the light of day.

BOUDREAU (voice-over): He says these documents now have a whole new meaning and give a rare insight into the culture of BP.

Do you remember this e-mail?

COON: I remember that. Made me sick to my stomach.

BOUDREAU: Sick to your stomach?

COON: Made me sick to my stomach.

BOUDREAU: This e-mail was written with only hours after the Texas City explosion. BP's public relations machine, hard at work. The subject line says media coverage and loss of life. It goes on to say, looks like injuries and loss of life are heavy. Expect a lot of follow-up coverage tomorrow. Then I believe it will essentially go away due to the holiday weekend.

COON: This is the public relations director that is telling the president and the other people of that plant that we got good news. We just killed a bunch of people, but it's coming up on a weekend. That's the best time in the world to kill a bunch of people is just before a weekend, an Easter weekend, a long weekend or a holiday, because everybody gets distracted and forgets about it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOUDREAU (on-camera): And Campbell, there just happens to be another big breaking news story at that time it. As the last line of the e-mail points out, this is a very big story in the U.S. right now, but the Terri Schiavo story is huge as well. Of course, Terri Schiavo was the brain-damaged Florida woman who is at the center of the right- to-die debate and her story had just captivated the country. By all account, BP seemed glad that story would distract people from the fatal Texas City explosion that had just killed 15 people, injured 180.

We contacted BP, and they provided a statement. This is some of their response. "BP has spent more than $1 billion at Texas City to address safety concerns since 2005. We are determined to learn from this event and get better as a company." Campbell, tomorrow night, we will expose even more internal documents from BP's past.

BROWN: And we will be looking forward to tomorrow night. Abbie Boudreau for us tonight. Abbie, thanks very much. Appreciate it.

Up next, the nation's Nobel prize winning energy secretary now in charge of stopping the massive oil spill in the Gulf. So, how is he doing? We're going to try to answer that when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: He was brought in to transform the way America uses energy, to turn us into a green society, powered by windmills, sun, and nuclear fuel. Simply put, Energy Secretary Steven Chu was brought in to help break our addiction to oil. And now, the oil prices in the Gulf are consuming his every waking hour. CNN's homeland security correspondent, Jeanne Meserve, looked into the Nobel prize-winning physicist at the very center of this daunting battle.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEANNE MESERVE, CNN HOMELAND SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Steven Chu is a science superstar and the administration has gone to great pains to let you know he is front and center in its offensive against the oil spill.

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I assembled a team of our nation's best scientist and engineers to tackle this challenge. A team led by Dr. Steven Chu, a Nobel prize winning physicist and our nation's Secretary of Energy.

MESERVE: But how is Secretary Chu doing?

WILLIM GALSTON, BROOKINGS INSTITUTION: Well, it's very difficult to tell because he's doing all of his work behind the scenes. It's extraordinarily difficult to pierce the veil and figure out what's actually going on.

MESERVE: Chu traveled to BP's Houston command center several times in May and June, giving technical advice on efforts to plug the leak. He has briefed the president, enlisted the expertise of other scientists and just this week, helped the Flow Rate Technical Group reach consensus on how much oil is spewing from the well. One member says Chu participated in discussions but never pushed the scientists towards a particular conclusion.

PROF. STEVE-WERELEY, FLOW RATE TECHNICAL GROUP: I was happily surprised that in my opinion, politics played no role at all in this flow rate determination. It was an open scientific discourse to try to come up with the best possible estimate using multiple pieces of information of what the flow rate is.

MESERVE: Chu has history with BP. The company gave half a billion dollars to a national lab when Chu was its director. And one of Chu's top lieutenants at the Energy Department is a former BP scientist, though he's been recused from oil spill matters. Chu has made few public comments since delving into the spill response and some think that's a mistake.

GALSTON: I think that someone like Steven Chu could be very, very helpful in explaining to the American people what the efforts to stop the oil spill are actually amounting to, what the technical difficulties are and what the next steps might be.

MESERVE: Chu was among the nation's brightest scientific minds and though he may be giving his spill his best effort, as of now, his best effort and the effort of all the others involved has not been enough to stop the flow of oil into the Gulf of Mexico.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: And Jeanne Meserve is joining us right now from Washington. And, Jeanne, you mentioned Secretary Chu's ties to BP, which I know did raise some concern, especially kind of early on in this process.

MESERVE: Yes. A lot of money went to the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab at the University of California-Berkeley when Chu was head of it. The money was to fund research into alternative energy sources. And we have talked to some people who are uncomfortable with that flow of money and feel that perhaps the company was trying to hijack the research agenda. We've also spoken to someone who's very uncomfortable with the former BP scientist who's now at the Energy Department, saying this exemplifies the sort of revolving door that we hear about all the time between business and government that perhaps in some cases may create relationships that are a little bit too cozy. But nobody be who we talked to felt that the money or the relationships and associations had in any way affected Dr. Chu and his approach to the oil spill and to BP. In fact, we got a message from one scientist, an independent scientist who is working with him who said, "I am proud to be on his team" -- Campbell.

BROWN: All right, Jeanne Meserve for us tonight. Jeanne, thanks very much.

Coming up in just a moment, down to the wire in California's legal battle over same-sex marriage, as millions await the judge's decision. We're going to take an exclusive look at the unlikely duo who argued the case.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: After a week of deadly ethnic violence, the first U.N. help is finally coming to the people of Kyrgyzstan. And that's our number one international story.

Today, a plane carrying 800 tents arrived in neighboring Uzbekistan, a drop in the bucket for the 100,000 people who had fled their homes and now live in refugee camps along the border. CNN's Matthew Chance is there talking to those who survived the bloodshed that has claimed nearly 200 lives now.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I'm walking through this refugee camp. You get an overwhelming sense that the people who have managed to get here, mainly women and children, are just happy to be safe at last. They've got food, they've got blankets, they've got shelter, they've got security. But there's also a deep sense of concern amongst everybody I've spoken to.

Did you see any of the violence that took place in Osh the past few days?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, I see -- I saw the Kyrgyz people come to our region and they begin to -- begin to kill our people.

CHANCE: With guns?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, of course.

CHANCE: Are you afraid of the Kyrgyz army, Kyrgyz government?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes. Kyrgyz people, all of them.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: The U.S. is committing more than $10 million right now for humanitarian aid during the crisis.

The landmark trial over California's ban on n same-sex marriage nears the finish line, making the closing argument for gay marriage. New allies who used to be political enemies, that's coming up. But first, Joe Johns is here with a look of some of the other stories we're following tonight.

Hey, Joe.

JOE JOHNS, CNN SENIOR CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Campbell. Today, the Obama administration announced new sanctions against Iran, targeting its nuclear and missile programs. This is an addition to the sanctions voted on last week at the U.N. The White House identified more three dozen companies and individuals it says are involved with Iran's nuclear program. Those companies' assets have jumped up under jurisdiction would be frozen. Iran has defied recent U.N. sanctions by promising to build more nuclear reactors.

How radioactive is your cell phone? If you buy one in San Francisco, you're about to find out. The city is the first in the nation that will soon require retailers to post notices showing how much radiation is emitted by the cell phones they sell. The FCC says there's no scientific evidence to date that proves cell phones are a health risk.

Seattle police are investigating an officer caught on tape punching a teenage girl in the face. The officer was trying to ticket a 19-year-old girl for jaywalking and she tried to walk away from him. He went after her. That's when the friend shoved him. The officer then punched that 17-year-old girl. Seattle's police union says the officer did nothing wrong and is undergoing training review on street tactics.

It looks like the stormy relationship between Sarah Palin's daughter, Bristol, and the father of her baby, Levy Johnston, is on the mend. In a statement, Bristol Palin says she and Levy are co- parenting their son, Tripp, and "Us Weekly" report Palin is back together with Johnston. The magazine quotes an unnamed source close to Bristol who claims the two are very close. And that is one long- running soap opera there.

BROWN: Yes. I'll believe it when I see it. All right, Joe Johns. Joe, thanks very much.

Tonight, a CNN exclusive. The lawyers who fought on opposing sides of the Bush/Gore election battle join forces in the fight over same-sex marriage. They sat down with our Gloria Borger. We're going to have that when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Closing arguments just wrapped up in a case that could have nationwide implications on the very controversial issue of same- sex marriage. The legal battle stems from California's 2008 ballot initiative that banned gay marriage in that state. And the case brought together an unlikely pair to take up the fight for same-sex marriage advocates. Ted Olson who successfully argued for George Bush's election before the Supreme Court in 2000, and the man he defeated, David Boies, who represented Al Gore. It is an improbable alliance that seemed hard to imagine almost 10 years ago.

And a short time ago, I talked to senior political analyst Gloria Borger about the case and the two men. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Gloria, the judge really pushed each side to arguments today --

GLORIA BORGER, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Sure.

BROWN: -- with several pretty pointed questions. Could you get any sense of how the case appeared to be going?

BORGER: You know, it's really hard, Campbell, because you just don't know how the judge is going to decide. Before the closing arguments today, there were a lot of legal observers who say that David Boies and Ted Olson seem to be having the advantage, but it's very hard to tell. We don't know when he's going to issue his ruling either. What we do know is that it's going to be a really important ruling that could go, of course, all the way to the Supreme Court.

BROWN: So I was going to say, is there -- is that kind of the assumption, given how high the stakes do appear to be --

BORGER: Yes.

BROWN: -- this is the first federal trial to challenge the constitutionality of gay marriage.

BORGER: Yes. And the assumption is that no matter what is decided in the ninth circuit that one side is going to appeal and that that case will be taken to the Supreme Court. And that has been a little controversial, Campbell, because originally, there were a lot of gay rights activists who said, you know, just let this play out in the states. Why are we rushing things before a conservative Supreme Court? And to that Ted Olson and David Boies say, you know what, sometimes the courts are more prepared to do the heavy lift than the states.

Right now, you've got 44 states that ban gay marriage. They look back to the case more than 40 years ago in the Supreme Court that allowed interracial marriage. And they say if it weren't for the Supreme Court, you still might be banning interracial marriage in this country today.

BROWN: So, let's also talk a little bit about the lawyers you just mentioned.

BORGER: Yes.

BROWN: About Ted Olson, David Boies. They have teamed up to argue against the same-sex marriage ban. And they are part of the reason I think the case is getting so much attention in this political odd couple who surprised just about everyone.

BORGER: Yes.

BROWN: And you spoke to them recently about why they decided to join forces. I want people to listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BORGER: If anybody had said to me nine years ago that I would be about to be interviewing the two men who fought each other tooth and nail in Bush versus Gore on the same side of a constitutional fight, I would have said are you crazy?

TED OLSON, ATTORNEY: Actually, David and I talked about this in 2000, as we were getting ready to argue in the Supreme Court, that someday we'd like to be on the same side in the United States Supreme Court. And we said someday, someday -- someday --

DAVID BOIES, ATTORNEY: Right.

OLSON: Someone is going to come to us to who will want to get married and they will be gay.

BORGER (voice-over): It would take nearly a decade for that to actually happen.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What do we want?

PROTESTERS: Equal rights.

BORGER: Olson was recruited by a group of Hollywood activists who wanted to challenge Proposition 8, the controversial 2008 ballot initiative that banned same-sex marriage in California.

OLSON: Good morning, everyone. Thank you for being here.

BORGER: He said yes, which was startling enough, but he knew he need some political balance on the team, so he picked up the phone.

BOIES: And he told me what the case was about. I think it took me about 15 seconds to --

OLSON: No, it didn't take you 15 seconds.

BOIES: No --

OLSON: It took you less than one second.

BORGER: It was a case made for David Boies, and Olson knew it.

BOIES: I think it is in some sense the last major civil rights battle that we're fighting in this country hopefully. And this is not a liberal conservative issue. It's not a Republican Democratic issue. It's an issue of civil rights and human rights.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: And, Gloria, talk to me a little bit about how conservatives reacted when Ted Olson decided to take this case on.

BORGER: Oh, shock, horror, dismay. You know, he told me he went and spoke with a lot of conservative colleagues. The more libertarian ones were OK with it, but it's very clear that here you have this legal icon in the conservative community who is saying it's OK for gays to marry. So he took on a lot of water there and I think, you know, in certain ways he's still taking it on. Conservatives kind of I talked today shake their heads and say why is Ted Olson doing this? And his answer to me is that he's doing it because it's a constitutional issue, a civil rights case, as David Boies just said, and that it violates the equal protection clause if two people are not allowed to marry.

BROWN: Gloria Borger, Gloria, always, appreciate it. Thanks so much.

BORGER: Sure. Sure, Campbell.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: And stay tuned to CNN for all the latest on the California case. Also, don't miss Soledad O'Brien's special, "Gary and Tony Have a Baby." It is going to air June 24th at 8:00 p.m. Eastern right here on CNN.

And coming up, just trying to be a kid when you are gay in the Deep South. Students fight a school's ban on same-sex dates. That right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: It's graduation time across the U.S., but in Mississippi, one young woman didn't walk on stage with her classmates. Her high school heartbreak centered around that all important event, the prom. And her story says a lot about what it means to be a lesbian in the Deep South. Soledad O'Brien reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We're going to introduce one of our special guests tonight, Mr. Lance Bass (ph).

LANCE BASS (ph): Welcome to your prom.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The beginning of a prom unlike any other ever held in Tupelo, Mississippi.

BASS: Right now, you're making history. We're here and we're not going anywhere.

O'BRIEN: Among two of the attendees --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And the next award is going to go to Ceara Sturgis.

O'BRIEN: Ceara Sturgis and Constance McMillan. Two young women, seniors in high school who live 250 miles apart but share one thing in common. They both stood up and fought for gay students in this conservative state.

CONSTANCE MCMILLAN, GAY TEEN: Ceara's story was like the inspiration for -- when I heard her story, you know, it inspired me to stand up for myself.

O'BRIEN: What Ceara did was fight to wear a tuxedo in her yearbook portrait. She didn't succeed but her story had a real impact on Constance. She fought for the right to take her girlfriend to her high school prom in Itawamba County, despite the school's ban on same- sex dates.

CEARA STURGIS, GAY TEEN: We just started talking. I was telling her that, you know, she shouldn't let her school tell her what she can and cannot do, and that she should go to prom with her girlfriend and stand up for herself.

O'BRIEN: Their connection wasn't entirely random.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Tonight is about us becoming a stronger family.

O'BRIEN: It was facilitated in part by the Mississippi safe schools coalition, a group of mostly high school and college students dedicated to reaching out to gay kids and making schools in Mississippi safer for them to attend.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You all are going to find out quick this is full-time work.

O'BRIEN: The group stepped up outreach this year, their second year, after winning a $100,000 grant from the Queer Youth Fund, to work on gay issues in Mississippi.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mississippi was the only state to receive a negative grade.

O'BRIEN: The National Gay Rights Group glisten deemed Mississippi to be the state most hostile to gay kids. They began to gather statistics on gay youth, launched training sessions to start gay/straight alliance clubs in high schools, lobbied for anti-bullying legislation and launched a prom watch, to help kids like Constance. Administrators at Constance's school canceled the prom rather than let her attend. The ACLU filed suit on her behalf, hoping to get the prom reinstated.

MCMILLAN: The judge ruled that they had violated our student right three times by not letting me bring my girlfriend, by not letting me wear a tux and by canceling the prom. And --

O'BRIEN (on camera): But?

MCMILLAN: But they did not -- they didn't make them host the prom.

O'BRIEN (voice-over): The judge allowed parents to host the prom. Constance claims the event she was allowed to attend was a fake, with the real one held elsewhere.

MCMILLAN: It seemed like a joke, so a couple of couples went, handful. There was my date and I and my friend, and there was six other people.

O'BRIEN: The school district denies it routed Constance to a sham prom.

It made this event in Tupelo, just miles from her high school, that much more special for Constance. It's called the "second chance prom" and it's hosted by the Mississippi Safe Schools Coalition.

(on camera): You are dressed to the prom.

MCMILLAN: Yes. I wanted to wear a tux to my prom.

O'BRIEN: Yes.

MCMILLAN: Not because I don't like dresses and feminine clothes. I just wanted to wear tux because just, I mean, just because. And I felt like, you know, it was going to be a special night and, you know, my girlfriend was going to wear a tux, too. Just a thing that we were going to do.

O'BRIEN: A thing that cost her nearly all her friends.

MCMILLAN: My best friend from like -- we had been friends for like seven years, has not spoke to me since the day they canceled prom.

O'BRIEN: She even lost the last few weeks of high school, choosing to finish elsewhere because of all the stress.

(on camera): Do you regret either of you doing what you did? No? No regrets?

STURGIS: Everything happens for a reason and I think this is the start of something new. I think that this can be the change of, like, gay youth. One day, it's going to be different and someone has to start it, so why not us?

O'BRIEN (voice-over): Reporting for in America, Soledad O'Brien, CNN, in western Mississippi.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: "LARRY KING LIVE" starts in just a few minutes.

But up next, the late night laughs. Here is just a sample.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAY LENO, HOST, "THE JAY LENO SHOW": A 52-year-old construction worker, a guy from right here in California, was arrested in Pakistan today armed with a pistol and a 40-inch sword. He said he was on a mission to capture Osama bin Laden. Hey, at least somebody is looking for the guy. Give him credit.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Finally tonight, "The Punch Line." And once again, oil is the word.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LENO: You've got a big screw-up in the U.S. match against England. I guess the ball hit their goalie right in the hand, slipped -- slipped right through, into the net. It was almost as if the British goalie had oil on his hands. I don't know what it was.

DAVID LETTERMAN, HOST, "LATE SHOW WITH DAVID LETTERMAN": Well, are you sick of the oil spill down there in the Gulf of Mexico?

AUDIENCE: Yes.

LETTERMAN: I mean, they might as well pave the damn thing, you know what I mean? That way the Cuban could just walk to Miami.

JIMMY FALLON, HOST, "LATE NIGHT WITH JIMMY FALLON": President Obama also ordered a lemon/lime snow cone on the beach. A little awkward. Obama is like forget the oil spill for a minute. Can we figure out how to fix the leaks in the bottom of these paper cone things?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: That's it for us. "LARRY KING LIVE" starts right now.