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Corey Haim Dead at 38; Mind of Mencia

Aired March 10, 2010 - 21:00   ET

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

JOY BEHAR, HOST: Tonight on THE JOY BEHAR SHOW, Corey Haim, best known for the movie "The Lost Boys" was a lost boy himself. He died today at the age of 38.

Then, Eric Massa appeared on "The Glenn Beck Show" last light and Beck came off as the sane one. I tell you, it`s the end of the world as we know it.

And Jesse Ventura, the man sees a conspiracy in everything. He even thinks Little Miss Muffett and Mother Goose were in on that whole spider thing together. Oh yes.

Those stories and more right now.

Another former child star has died under tragic circumstances. Corey Haim, a one-time teen idol, suffered from what police are calling an accidental drug overdose early this morning. Haim starred in films like "Lucas" and "The Lost Boys" and in the reality series "The Two Coreys".

Here with the latest on this very sad story is "People" magazine`s senior editor Kate Coyne. Kate, the guy was 38 years old, young; and he died of an apparent drug overdose. What happened?

KATE COYNE, SENIOR EDITOR, "PEOPLE": What we`re hearing is that he has battled an addiction to prescription drugs for decades really. That for years and years now, he has tried, sometimes successfully for a short period of time, but generally in vain to beat this addiction and it would seem that finally he just lost the fight.

BEHAR: What kind of prescription drugs?

COYNE: We don`t know specifically what the drugs were. I mean nowadays, they all seem to be within either the Vicodin or Oxycontin sort of family. But clearly they were the sort of drugs that were powerful enough to radically affect his appearance, his behavior. I mean this was a really serious addiction.

BEHAR: He was living with his mother, right? I understand she was there when he collapsed.

COYNE: His mother was there, he was apparently living with his mother partially because he was tending to her. She is reportedly battling breast cancer. But even were that not the case, he`s extremely close to his mother. They have pretty much lived together all of his life.

BEHAR: Oh, I see. I didn`t know that.

Now, he spoke about his struggle with cocaine and crack in the past.

COYNE: He`s had problems with various substances. It seems like the prescription drugs were the ones that have really had the longest, tightest hold on him. There have been other ones. Some people have suggested that there was a crystal meth problem. But the ones that we know at the magazine have had the strongest hold on him have been the prescription drugs.

BEHAR: Were there any other kinds of drugs around, illegal drugs?

COYNE: No, there were no illegal drugs found in his apartment. The coroner is saying that all that they took from the home were four different bottles of prescription drugs but no illegal substances were found.

BEHAR: Do you know if all of the prescriptions were given by the same doctor?

COYNE: I don`t know if they were. They were all in Corey`s name -- they were all in Corey`s name which is almost unusual in these cases as well.

Nowadays you`re hearing about celebrities who have these drugs under four different names, aliases, their parent`s name, their spouse`s name. But apparently the drugs that were taken were all in Corey`s name.

BEHAR: Now the man -- the guy was -- he had some flu-like symptoms right before all this happened. Is that -- was there any relation to that?

COYNE: It`s hard to say. One close friend of Corey`s told us that he had a terrible heart condition that he had just clogged arteries. This is someone who for a while there Corey Haim was essentially a shut-in and for ten years never left his house and ballooned up to nearly 300 pounds.

BEHAR: Wow.

COYNE: So he had a very bad heart. He had a lot of other health conditions but this flu-like symptoms shortly before the death, the prescription drugs -- it sounds eerily familiar to Brittany Murphy.

BEHAR: Right.

COYNE: It seems as though these symptoms are actually the early stages or the onset of an eventual collapse due to years of abuse or a cumulative effect.

BEHAR: Right. I want to bring in Tiffany Shepis, actress and friend of Corey Haim. Tiffany, I`m very sorry for your loss. I know that you were once engaged to Corey.

Tell us about him, what was your relationship with him like?

TIFFANY SHEPIS, FRIEND OF COREY HAIM: Thank you, by the way. I met Corey ages ago. Like everybody else, saw this really charming, really sweet, really kind of full of life kid that had issues. And, you know, like everybody kind of wanted to help him through it. We said all you really need is a support system and all you need is friends to stand by you through it. And unfortunately that`s not really all it takes.

BEHAR: When was the last time you saw him?

SHEPIS: I haven`t seen Corey for a few months due to issues with his addiction, me not really understanding it and knowing how to help him with it. Like there`s only so much that I could have done.

But the last time I did see him, he looked so much better and actually he said he felt better. Was off everything that he had been on and he was starting workout regimens and he looked great. So it`s kind of a shocking surprise to hear this today.

BEHAR: I know that he, as we were just talking about, he seemed to have struggled with addiction. Was that the case when you were with him? Was he addicted to drugs then and did that cause the breakup?

SHEPIS: Yes. He was pretty hard-core addicted to a lot of different things and it was only pills that I ever saw. And, you know, he tried. And he would go to different doctors and say he really wanted to do it for his career, for his health. And it just never -- it never took.

I think that many years of addiction, you see people that just smoke cigarettes and it`s impossible to kick. Imagine kicking eight or nine different types of pills that you`ve been taking for 15 years.

BEHAR: It begs the question why he wasn`t in rehab if that was happening.

COYNE: He had been in and out of rehab. He had been in countless rehabs. He was working with an individual addiction specialist, one on one. He had gone to rehab, he had come out of rehab. It seems like every time he went, it was effective for a while, but it was always a matter of time before a relapse would occur.

BEHAR: How would you -- Tiffany, how would you remember Corey? How would you like to remember him?

SHEPIS: You like to remember the times when he was there, and there with you. Because like I said, he was kind of -- I think you get the most out of all these kind of child actors. They`re children and charming and fun and he would walk on the set and everybody would light up.

That love scene and we loved remembering him as Lucas and funny and even with the fact that he was very honest about his addictions was really helpful to a lot of people. We would stop in places and have people say I watched your show and I`m feeling the same thing and I want you to know that I kicked my habit because of you. And he took great pride in that. So it`s kind of a shame that he couldn`t pull it together himself.

BEHAR: Very, very sad.

All right guys. Don`t go anywhere. We`ll be back in 60 seconds with more on Corey Haim`s tragic death.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BEHAR: We`re back talking about the death of former teen idol Corey Haim. Joining the discussion is radio talk show host on 94.1 WYSC in Philadelphia and former child star himself, Danny Bonaduce. Danny, you`re a former child star, a recovering addict and Corey has struggled. So what do you think happened here?

DANNY BONADUCE, RADIO TALK SHOW HOST: If I just had to guess off the top of my head, my guess would be he od`d from his drug addiction. He`s battled drugs -- as the young lady was saying -- for decades.

For the 20 or more years that I`ve known him, he was battling with drugs at one time or another consistently for the last -- maybe even 30 years.

BEHAR: Well, he was -- Haim was asked in the last ten days to join "Celebrity Rehab". Just three weeks ago TMZ asked him about being sober. Let`s look at that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Corey, are you doing anything?

COREY HAIM, FORMER CHILD STAR: Yes, I got a whole bunch of things coming up. I`m directing some (INAUDIBLE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did you go to rehab? Are you sober now?

HAIM: I haven`t (INAUDIBLE) -- in a while man. Actually, we`re going to be doing -- a bunch of things happening.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BEHAR: What is your read on that situation?

BONADUCE: Are you asking whether if I read whether he`s lying or telling the truth about being sober? I would venture to say he`s probably lying and let me be not the first one to cast aspersions because you`re nobody until you`ve lied in TMZ. I`ve told TMZ I was sober 10 different times when I was lying.

That`s what you do when you`re addict and you`ve admitted and you`ve tried to be brave and you tried to quit and you failed. And you tried again and you were brave (ph). Pretty soon you`ll get humiliated because you have failed on national television five times and that`s when you start lying.

BEHAR: Well, a producer on Haim`s last movie said today that Corey was a professional and had no sign of any drug abuse at all. What do you think about that?

BONADUCE: I think that it`s completely manageable and doable. I`ve been doing morning radio now for the past 20 years. That means I get up approximately 4:00 in the morning and I`m on the air at 5:30 completely prepared. I`ve never missed a day of work. And I had a terrible drug problem for the first decade

So the fact that he could handle these drugs I guess was good for his career but he couldn`t -- in the end I think they overpowered him.

BEHAR: I don`t think he could handle it.

COYNE: I think because there`s a -- there`s records at times that he has shown up for work clearly inebriated -- clearly under the influence, clearly not pulling it off. There is a chance and we obviously won`t know until the coroner`s report comes in, that he was currently clean.

But that -- decades and decades of drug abuse --

BEHAR: Yes.

COYNE: -- you know systematic and of weight gain, weight loss and what he put his body through and what we know of him having a very poor heart condition, it may have just taken a toll. And his body finally gave in.

BEHAR: Yes.

COYNE: He may have actually been clean, maybe even for the past week, two weeks. We don`t know. But it`s possible that he died from drug abuse just not current active drug abuse.

BEHAR: Right. Tiffany, do you have any -- any comment on any of this?

SHEPIS: Well, he definitely did have a heart condition. I mean, I`ve been with him to doctors that diagnosed it, said he needs to get it fixed; he needed to go for a surgery. His excuse it was, his insurance is in Canada, he can`t get back there, it`s expensive.

But, I mean, the drugs, the not eating properly, the, you know, constant struggle that he had with everything, I think just ate into all of it.

BEHAR: All right. Ok, everyone. Stay right there. We`ll hear from more of Corey`s friends and colleagues when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ED WINTER, ASSISTANT CHIEF L.A. COUNTRY CORONER: Corey woke up around 1:30 this morning, became a little dizzy. He kind of went to his knees in the bedroom. His mom assisted him into bed. He became unresponsive. That was around 1:30.

She called paramedics. He was transported to the hospital where he was pronounced at 2:15.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BEHAR: We`re discussing the sudden death of actor Corey Haim.

I`m back with my panel and joining us now is actor Alan Thicke. Alan, you had the chance to work with Corey. Does his death today surprise you at all?

ALAN THICKE, WORKED WITH COREY HAIM: Well Joy, first of all, my condolences to his mom. It`s another tragic tale of gone too soon. I know mostly in recent years what the rest of us know from tabloid fodder. But the first film that I did when I first met Corey was some 15 years ago and I think if I recognized anything vulnerable about him at the time, he`s terribly charming and a terribly anxious to please.

But there was probably that sense of desperation when he was in his early 20s about what is the next chapter of my life going to be? You peak at 15.

I`m sure Danny would agree that one of the dangerous drugs here is fame. You know, it`s really tough to have a lot of heat and then not have it. And I think that you`re bullet proof at 15. You hate to think you`ve peaked. You`ve been adored, you`ve had the money and friends and sycophants --

BEHAR: Yes.

THICKE: And then you have to -- it`s a shame to have to reinvent yourself when you`ve just barely been invented. And I got the sense back then that Corey was anxious to prove himself, establish something of substance. And in the intervening years, the combination of that and any substance abuse issues would have been difficult for him.

BEHAR: Danny do you -- can you relate to what Alan is talking about?

BONADUCE: Absolutely and certainly. Looking back and thinking that you`ve peaked -- "The Partridge Family" was canceled at 14. The entire four years of "The Partridge Family" paid me a grand total of $75,000 for the whole thing.

BEHAR: That`s it?

BONADUCE: So -- yes, that`s it for all four years combined. We didn`t pay real money back then.

BEHAR: Wow.

BONADUCE: So people think I spent this vast fortune on drugs and women. I did, just 20 years later.

What I think is -- I know Corey, I didn`t know him that well. He`s a very, very nice you man, a very talented young man. But he -- when he took his drugs, he took them with a ferocity (ph) that meant business. It was his vocation when he was taking drugs, it was almost like a responsibility to get as high as he possibly could.

And you know, when you`re looking to really escape, that`s when drugs -- not that drugs are ever a good idea, but I`m a living proof you can live through them. I sat it -- we`re talking about flu-like symptoms, maybe that`s the onslaught. I`ve watched people overdose and die while sitting next to me and they didn`t cough and sneeze first, they just died.

BEHAR: Yes --

BONADUCE: I don`t know about any side symptoms but I do know that when Corey would go, Corey would go.

BEHAR: That seems to what happened.

Tiffany, did you notice when you were with Corey that he had trouble being a teen idol and dealing with the pressures of the work?

SHEPIS: Not necessarily the pressures of the work. I mean, he absolutely enjoyed the fans; he enjoyed everything that came part of being a young teen idol. But he had a really hard time trying to, like you said, reinvent himself and he couldn`t because of the drugs and everybody would tell him time and time again, people will love you again and Hollywood is forgiving.

And just -- you`ve got to get the help and I can`t do it for you. And that -- that`s where his issues lied. He wanted the work and he wanted to be there but he just couldn`t because the pills overtook all that.

BEHAR: Right.

SHEPIS: You know, that became more important than showing up on time.

BEHAR: Well, you wonder which comes first, you know, the pressures, the young age. Alan -- Andrew Koenig, Corey Haim, you worked with both of them and also Andy Gibb, who also overdosed; I understand that you worked with him, too.

THICKE: On this very day, we lost Andy Gibb on March 10 some years ago this very day.

BEHAR: Yes. Is there something that you see that they had in common?

THICKE: You know, I think the cautionary tale here and it`s always easy to look at the parents and say where were the parents when they were growing up or when they were famous? But I think in the Hillary Clinton sense, it takes a village, not only to support young people when they`re finding themselves but also it takes a whole village to screw them up.

A lot of sycophants, a lot of people who will exploit young people and not the -- and that`s the way of the world. That toothpaste is out of the tube. We`re not going to put that back.

I think, the cautionary tale is try to get them while they`re young, I mean, as parents and try to get their attention and make them listen and understand that Andy Warhol was right, we`re all going to get our 15 minutes. It`s what happens in the 16th minute, what happens for the rest of the hour that`s going to be important.

And I think, that when it comes to show business, a very attractive field for our children now and we see however, that celebrities at the corner (ph) of the realm, there is a big payoff in just being famous, meaning you don`t necessarily have to be talented or do work of substance.

And I think, the cautionary tale is if your kid is interested in that business, there are a thousand jobs to do. If you`re lucky enough to be an actor for 15 minutes, great, enjoy that. It`s fun while it lasted.

But then maybe if you really have a passion and you care about the business, so many other things to do in reinventing yourself and take the pressure away from the need to be famous.

BEHAR: Ok, Danny --

BONADUCE: If I can say something in defense --

BEHAR: Danny, go ahead. Yes.

BONADUCE: -- if I could just say something in defense of parents and I had no great affection for my father and my mom was there for me and everything like that.

But you have to remember one thing. Drug addicts are incredibly clever. If I`m wrong, tell me how a guy with no job supports a $300-a-day drug habit for years at a time? There`s nobody craftier than a drug addict.

So sometimes parents are there, and they`re watching and they`re doing everything and they`re being vigilant as they can. And drug addicts are good at lying and sneaking. It`s a sad, sad scenario.

But don`t -- let`s not condemn anybody else before we condemn the drug addict who put the pills in his mouth himself. Every pill I put in my mouth, I put in my mouth myself. Every glass pipe I put a torch to, I did.

BEHAR: Ok. Thank you all very much. We`ll be back in a minute.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is Marcus`s son --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You towed my car. There was a sign. You can`t read?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I graduated USC --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Keep your voices down.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I`m not your brother, hombre.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Dad, dad.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You people --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You people? Go ahead and say it. Say the word.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Go ahead and say it.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He`s a jerk.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BEHAR: Hey, all the fighting and the name calling. I thought I was watching home movies of my wedding. That was the very funny Carlos Mencia in his new movie "Our Family Wedding". And he joins me now.

Welcome Carlos, very nice to meet you. I`ve never met you but your reputation precedes you as a funny person.

CARLOS MENCIA, ACTOR: Pleasure. Thanks. You know what it`s always nice to see like one of us make it in another genre. Everybody thinks we`re just funny. But you know what I mean? To see you do all that stuff, that`s great too. I like it. It`s good.

BEHAR: I`m not just another pretty face.

MENCIA: Neither am I.

BEHAR: So this is a family movie and you know something about that. You come from a family of 18 children, I understand.

MENCIA: There`s 18. Can you believe that?

BEHAR: 18, your poor mother.

MENCIA: That`s what everybody says. Poor me.

BEHAR: Why you?

MENCIA: You got to understand that by the time my mother had me, I was the 17th born. She had no tolerance whatsoever. So my mother would literally go, bam, go do the dishes. I`m like, "You didn`t even tell me to do them first. Why are you hitting me?" She`ll just say, "I don`t have time, go do the dishes."

BEHAR: You were 2 years old.

MENCIA: And I remember like my dad -- me talking to my brother going, "Was my mom like that? Did she hit you before she told you to do stuff?" And he was like, "No, she would tell me four, five times. So by the time I was there, she was done."

BEHAR: She was like the octomom of her day. The ochomom (ph).

MENCIA: This is real, though. When octo-mom got that TV show, my mother was so angry, because at that point, I`d had a show, she knew about TV. She was just like, why didn`t I ever get a show? I had 18 of you and none of you did nothing for me?

All of a sudden I`m right -- I love you mom. How much do you want? "Oh, you`re the best?"

Everything is solved with a check in my family.

BEHAR: Where were you -- so you were like towards the bottom.

MENCIA: 17th.

BEHAR: Yes, you were 17th. So did you get along with the older -- how old were the older ones?

MENCIA: My mom started at 15, ended at 46. That`s the span where she had all the kid

BEHAR: Wow. So she was pregnant every year practically.

MENCIA: She was literally pregnant for like 14 years. Like literally in a state of pregnancy --

BEHAR: Is she still alive?

MENCIA: She`s still alive. And she still scares me; like she`s this tall. She made me flinch the other day. I had to go to the bathroom and cry.

I`m a grown man and we were having dinner and she went like this. And I was like -- man, really I`m still that kid to you?

BEHAR: It will never end.

MENCIA: It never ends.

BEHAR: But you`re a successful comic. I don`t see a lot of Latino comics.

MENCIA: You know what`s funny? It`s like because we still hear -- like when Lopez had a TV show, we didn`t go pitch to ABC. Because ABC was like, we already have our Latino show.

BEHAR: Yes, that`s true. That`s what happens.

MENCIA: So, you know what I mean? When you have that kind of competition, it creates a lot of dissension sometimes and it makes you think that all those people are your competition. So when people are like, George Lopez and Carlos Mencia. Those guys are slow -- I`m better. You know, it is what it is. You just have fun and it`s great.

BEHAR: Carlos, thanks so much for coming down here.

MENCIA: Appreciate it.

BEHAR: Catch him on "Our Family Wedding" opening nationwide Friday.

Up next, groping, tickling, inappropriate texts; I`m not talking about a night with John Mayer. I`m talking about Representative Eric Massa`s ongoing meltdown. Stay tuned for the latest.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Coming up a little later on "The Joy Behar Show," Jesse Ventura shares his thoughts on conspiracies, corruption, and why the government should not be trusted. Now back to Joy.

BEHAR: Eric Massa resigned from Congress on Monday and was all over the tube yesterday addressing tales of tickling and groping male staffers. Thank goodness it all ended on last night`s "Larry King Live."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LARRY KING, HOST: It may be silly, but are you gay?

ERIC MASSA, FMR. NY CONGRESSMAN: Here`s that answer. I`m not going to answer that. In the year 2010, why don`t you ask my wife, ask my friends, ask the 10,000 sailors I served with in the navy. I`m not going to answer that.

KING: You don`t have to.

MASSA: Well, it`s an insulting -- Larry --

KING: I didn`t mean it to insult you.

MASSA: No, no, not me. It insults every gay American.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BEHAR: I wonder why he thinks it`s insulting. Let me ask my guest. Ana Marie Cox, Washington correspondent for GQ magazine, and Margaret Carlson, columnist for Bloomberg and Washington editor of the Week magazine. Anna, why does he say the question is insulting?

ANA MARIE COX, GQ: I think he`s just trying to avoid saying that he`s gay. And trying to even avoid the idea about it. I`m not sure why, because he made a lot of other PR mistakes, kind of some rookie PR mistakes. But he was, I think, ineptly trying to turn the question around and sort of blame the questioner for even asking the question. He`s not someone I would like to for a lot of PR knowledge. And I`m also not sure that he can totally be read right. He doesn`t seem to be completely together right now. So first trying to speculate about what he was trying to say might be a losing battle.

BEHAR: Right. A simple no would have been sufficient. You know the answer is no to the 10,000 sailors.

COX: He seems awfully proud of that 10,000 sailor remark, I have to say.

BEHAR: You know would this have been different, Margaret, do you think if he had been caught or admitted to tickling females?

MARGARET CARLSON, BLOOMBERG: I think it would have been the same. I mean gays don`t like to be singled out, their sexual practices. There`s no heterosexual harassment and homosexual harassment, there`s just sexual harassment.

BEHAR: Right.

CARLSON: And whoever is not on the receiving end of it, doesn`t like it. And it has usually filed a complaint about it. You know one of the things about the tickling I noticed that he seems to think that life on a navy ship is one tickling fight after another. I never heard such a thing about a navy ship.

BEHAR: I know. It`s a little odd. But you know, I showed this particular clip yesterday but I have to show it again because it is so strange, watch Massa on Glenn Beck.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MASSA: Now they`re saying I groped a male staffer. Yes, I did. Not only did I grope him, I tickled him until he couldn`t breathe and four guys jumped on top of me. It`s my 50th birthday.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BEHAR: Who does this on their birthday?

CARLSON: This is a special treat when you turn 50, Joy. Can I come?

BEHAR: Oh is that -- his story keeps changing. First he said that he left the congress because of cancer. Then it was because the Dems were driving him out. You know, now he said he was groping.

CARLSON: Well, to appeal to Republicans, he switched his story from, you know, the tickling to concentrate on you know, Rahm Emanuel, the son of devil spawn, and pushing him out, smearing him because he`s going to vote no on health care. Then when he got on Glenn Beck, you could see the disappointment that Glenn Beck felt that Massa wasn`t going to, you know, say the country is going to hell in a hand basket because of Obama but get back on to the groping and the tickling fights and the wrestling on his 50th birthday.

BEHAR: Yes. He just turned himself into a big joke. He`s like Sanford and the Appalachian Trail now.

COX: Yes, I think it is true, he`s actually done it - he`s done the Democrats a big favor in a way by becoming such a joke. I think in another context, that story about Rahm poking him in the shower while having a nice subtext that we all night talk about, would reflect badly on Rahm. It could lead to some coverage of the administration in terms of how much they lean on Congress. What their tactics they use to get the health care bill passed. But because it`s in the context of, well, you have to say it, the tickle fights and the groping and the wrestling, that Rahm story is almost the least strange thing that he`s told us about.

BEHAR: But you know, he also dropped - he dropped a hint that more scandals may be coming. Watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GLENN BECK, HOST: Are there Tiger Woods phone calls that are going to happen, text messages?

MASSA: No. I`m sure there`s text messages because we bantered back and forth all the time.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BEHAR: He told the Daily News that the texts are inappropriate. Do you think this is bound to get worse and what could happen next?

CARLSON: It`s bound to get worse because our interests may wane because he seems to be such a peculiar guy who is imploding before our eyes. Maybe it`s health related. What a lifestyle. He lives with his staff in a rented house because he purposely doesn`t pay them enough to be able to rent an apartment. This is a very unusual guy. You know what? A lot of them Joy -- you know, you do not want to pull back the curtain or the shower curtain on the members of congress.

BEHAR: Oh you`re funny, Margaret.

COX: So that`s why they don`t have shower curtains in the house bathroom.

BEHAR: But it does make Rahm Emanuel look like the devil spawn, it really does if it`s true.

COX: Well technically, he`s the son of the devil spawn, so he`s the grandson of the devil.

BEHAR: I see, oh thank you, ladies, very much for joining me -

CARLSON: Thank you Joy, bye.

COX: Thank you.

BEHAR: I want to turn now to the former governor of Minnesota and ex navy S.E.A.L., a legendary pro wrestler and the author of "American Conspiracies: Lies, Lies and More Dirty Lies That The Government Tells Us." joining me now with his take on Eric Massa is Jesse Ventura. Hey Jesse.

JESSE VENTURA, AUTHOR, "AMERICAN CONSPIRACIES": Well I guess my first question would be this, having been in the navy, how do you -

BEHAR: Yes.

VENTURA: Was he on an aircraft carrier?

BEHAR: I don`t know.

VENTURA: That could be a way to find out because he said he served with 10,000 navy men.

BEHAR: Yes.

VENTURA: Well the only place you`re going to see 6,000 guys at one time is on an aircraft carrier.

BEHAR: And why would he say -- ask 10,000 sailors, how would they know anything any way?

VENTURA: Well probably because it`s well known when you`re deployed overseas, and I`m of course speaking pre-marriage for me.

BEHAR: Yes.

VENTURA: Womanizing becomes very important when you`re deployed in these different ports. That`s what you do.

BEHAR: Oh you devil, you.

VENTURA: But then again, I`m not from the Blue Water Navy, I`m from the Brown Water Navy.

BEHAR: The Brown Water Navy?

VENTURA: That`s the slang term they call for the navy S.E.A.L.S and the river guys and all that. We are in the Brown Water -

BEHAR: So less tickling in the Brown, a little more tickling in the Blue?

VENTURA: I would say there`s way more tickling in the Blue.

BEHAR: In the Blue.

(LAUGHTER)

BEHAR: Now, this guy, you know, he originally says -- first it was cancer, then he said the Democrats ran him out of congress. You`re a conspiracy theorist. That sounds like a conspiracy theory, doesn`t it?

VENTURA: Well, I don`t know. Obviously as you said, Joy, this guy has some real problems. I don`t know. I can`t answer that. I don`t know.

BEHAR: You don`t know. Something is going on. These are two headlines from this week. Congressman admits tickle fight and no back wax for Rubio, which is this GOP guy, Marko Rubio, accused of using the RNC money to get a back wax. What is going on?

VENTURA: Well first of all, and I`m going to shock you with this. Most elected officials I think are underpaid. And that`s one of the reasons why they stoop to this stuff of making money on the side and all this.

BEHAR: Yes.

VENTURA: Like when I was governor, I got paid $120,000 a year. Okay, they made me pay for every meal that my family had in the governor`s residence it was deducted from my check, plus mileage vehicle going to and from the capital. You deduct taxes. I was the governor of the State of Minnesota and I was making $60,000 a year. But I was above --

BEHAR: Before taxes?

VENTURA: After.

BEHAR: After.

VENTURA: After. $120,000 to start with -

BEHAR: So 60

VENTURA: But I probably made $60,000 at the end.

BEHAR: Yes.

VENTURA: Well that`s why I did those other jobs on the side on the weekend. Remember, I refereed and got them all upset one night with the WWE.

BEHAR: Yes, they didn`t want you to do that.

VENTURA: Yes and I worked for the XFL on the weekend also. But my point being, and I took heat for that, but the thing was in my four years as governor, the capital was never opened on the weekend.

BEHAR: Yes. I see.

VENTURA: And yet I had a ranch where I bailed high for $3 a bail and no one complained about that.

BEHAR: No, they did not. (UNINTELLIGIBLE) Stay right there.

VENTURA: Sure.

BEHAR: When we come back, I want to get your take on Rush Limbaugh`s latest travel plans.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BEHAR: Back with me is the always outspoken Jesse Ventura. Let`s talk Limbaugh, Rush that is. This whole Massa controversy gave him an excuse to make a racial slur against New York Governor David Paterson. Not that Rush needs an excuse to make a racial slur. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RUSH LIMBAUGH: So David Paterson will become the Massa, whoever gets to appoint, whoever gets to take Massa`s place. So for the first time in his life, Paterson`s going to be a Massa.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BEHAR: So does the satire defense work here? Because you know when Sarah Palin went after him - when he used, said retarded, she gave him a pass at first because she said well, he`s a satirist.

VENTURA: Right.

BEHAR: Is this satire?

VENTURA: Well it`s definitely entertainment. It`s not news.

BEHAR: No it`s not news.

VENTURA: None of these shows -

BEHAR: But he`s not taken seriously as a news person, in many quarters of the country.

VENTURA: Not my me.

BEHAR: Not by me either but a lot of people do.

VENTURA: Sure. Is it satire? I don`t know. But he certainly has the ability, and I don`t subject him to anything bad because he does satire. Now what was racial about that?

BEHAR: Well, I guess to call David Paterson, Massa, because he`s a black guy.

VENTURA: Yes.

BEHAR: Well because he referred to Barack once as Barack the magic Negro. It`s like at least the most insensitive and thoughtless --

VENTURA: Yes but what does Massa mean? It means that guy.

BEHAR: No but yes, but he`s doing a play on words on like Massa - master from "Gone With The Wind".

VENTURA: Okay it must be flying over my head there. You`re getting it and I`m not.

BEHAR: Okay, all right. I mean Imus, you know Imus -

VENTURA: Sure.

BEHAR: He made a comment, called these girls nappy headed hoes -

VENTURA: Yes. Yes.

BEHAR: And he got thrown off the air. But Rush Limbaugh gets a pass, he`s still on the radio, no matter what he says.

VENTURA: Oh sure.

BEHAR: So, I`m for free speech.

VENTURA: Hey, it all comes down to money.

BEHAR: Uh huh, that`s true, he makes a lot of money.

VENTURA: Absolutely, he brings in ratings. So he`s going to get a pass when it comes down to money.

BEHAR: Yes unfortunately that`s the truth of the business. Karl Rove, you like him?

VENTURA: I respect him for what he can accomplish. Do I like him? I can`t really say I like him because I don`t really know him.

BEHAR: Well he says in his new book that Bush didn`t deliberately lie about WMDS. Do you buy that?

VENTURA: No, I don`t buy that.

BEHAR: You think Bush deliberately lied and Cheney the whole administration?

VENTURA: Yes, yes, because they clearly wanted to go to war in Iraq. We saw that from all the testimony after 9/11, a day later they were already talking about Iraq. Actually it was when Bush announced that we were going to go into Iraq, that`s when I started to question 9/11. I didn`t question it before that. But when he announced we were going into Iraq, I sat back and went wait a minute, there wasn`t one of these supposed hijackers that was from Iraq. Why are we going into Iraq?

BEHAR: No, that`s true, it was Saudi Arabia.

VENTURA: Yes, I felt going that going into Iraq was equivalent to Pearl Harbor when the Japanese attacked us. Well then let`s go get the Koreans after all, they are Asian too.

BEHAR: Uh huh.

VENTURA: You know, that to me is how I read it. And felt what does Iraq got to do with this?

BEHAR: But in your book, "American Conspiracies"

VENTURA: Sure.

BEHAR: You mentioned that - I mean, you tell it to me, what you say about 9/11 and the Bush Administration.

VENTURA: Well here`s the deal. When they had the 9/11 commission, Zelekow from the White House ran it. Now how do you get an investigation?

BEHAR: Yes.

VENTURA: And here`s the biggest part, let me hit this first. White Water, they spent $100 million to learn Bill Clinton cheated on his wife, 100 million. You know what they first allocated to investigate 9/11, which was stone walled for two years? $4 million. It ended up $13 million. 3,000 people die and they allow $4 million to investigate it? Yet White Water, $100 million to learn the president cheated?

BEHAR: Well White Water was a real estate thing.

VENTURA: Yes but what did they learn? Nothing.

BEHAR: They learned nothing.

VENTURA: The only thing ultimately they learned is the president cheated on his wife.

BEHAR: Okay so what do you make of that?

VENTURA: Well I make of it that they never, ever had any serious intentions for an investigation of 9/11. You can`t spend that little amount of money and get a true investigation. I mean you got Zelekow running the whole thing. Well what he did, he didn`t allow any information that didn`t point to what they wanted for them people to hear and see. Just like the Warren Commission.

BEHAR: Okay now you were saying either this morning or I read it or whatever that you think that the Bush Administration --

VENTURA: Knew.

BEHAR: Knew that they were going to attack the World Trade Center.

VENTURA: Well if you look, they never saw any MSA documents. They were withheld because of Zelekow. We`ve got the MSA documents through discovery. And the MSA documents state clearly as early as May that this threat was there. It ramped up in July to where they actually thought it was going to happen and it didn`t. And then ultimately it happened in September.

BEHAR: Well it was a memo. It was a memo.

VENTURA: Well yes, the August 6th memo.

BEHAR: That`s right.

VENTURA: Well there`s more than just that one. There`s a bunch from the MSA. Richard Clarke was from the MSA. And you got the August sixth memo and Condoleezza Rice sit there is in front of the 9/11 commission and says, we had no idea they were going to take planes and ram them into buildings. Well, that`s exactly what the memo said.

BEHAR: I know.

VENTURA: How could you not have an idea?

BEHAR: Well what they would respond to that is, you know, there were a lot of memos coming by. We`re not going to pay attention to some unsolicited memo. That`s what they said - I`m on the same page with you.

VENTURA: No, when there is the threat, this country is going to be attacked -

BEHAR: Right.

VENTURA: And everybody -- what was Condoleezza shopping, I think, George Bush was on vacation and all this going on. Well to me, that`s not taking protection of the nation very seriously. And plus, if they knew all this stuff, why weren`t they preparing for it? And here`s the other key. I come from the navy S.E.A.L.S where failure is not an option. I think air defense is the same way. We can all agree it was a major failure that day of our air defense system. Why was no one fired or demoted? Yet people were promoted.

BEHAR: Really?

VENTURA: Yes.

BEHAR: =I didn`t know that.

VENTURA: Nobody was fired. You don`t fire anyone if you don`t want an investigation. If you start firing people, people are going to start talking saying why am I fired?

BEHAR: Yes, yes.

VENTURA: This is what I did, bla, bla, bla and they`re going to start talking. If you don`t want an investigation, let business go on as usual Monday morning.

BEHAR: But, okay, but Jesse, you`re not saying that the -- what I understood this morning, that the Bush Administration was behind the attack?

VENTURA: I don`t know that.

BEHAR: But what do you say about that?

VENTURA: I say that they certainly knew it was going to come. They did nothing to protect us. And they may have enjoyed it because they had an agenda.

BEHAR: Enjoyed killing 3,000 people?

VENTURA: Because they wanted to go to Iraq. No, they enjoyed the fact that they would be able to carry forth their agenda. Let`s remember as I said earlier, you know, the Golf of Tonkin incident they now admitted it never happened. Well, 58,000 of us died after that little lie.

BEHAR: Yes. Well Robert McNamara -

VENTURA: 58,000 is a lot more than 3,000.

BEHAR: The truth came out with Robert McNamara many years to wait 30 or 40 years?

VENTURA: But how many years - well do we wait 40 or 50 years?

BEHAR: We`ll all be dead then when it comes out.

VENTURA: Not if I keep working.

(LAUGHTER)

BEHAR: Okay. I`m not done with you yet. More with Jesse Ventura in a minute. Stay there.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BEHAR: I`m back with Jesse Ventura. You know you talk about the lone up theory in the book.

VENTURA: Yes.

BEHAR: And it`s interesting to me because all of the ass sins in my lifetime have been alone in their assassinations. VENTURA: Yes and that doesn`t seem peculiar.

BEHAR: It is a little peculiar.

VENTURA: Very peculiar. They never spoke to anyone. They never planned anything with anyone.

BEHAR: Uh huh.

VENTURA: I mean who killed Martin Luther King? Robert Kennedy? John Kennedy. John Lennon? All of them. And here`s another interesting point.

BEHAR: Yes.

VENTURA: In all of these assassinations, there was never, ever a trial for any one of them.

BEHAR: That`s interesting.

VENTURA: Now why wouldn`t there be a trial? Because in trials, facts come out. Witnesses are deposed. And that can lead you --

BEHAR: How can they get away with that?

VENTURA: because they set it up that way. Well it was easy with Oswald, they killed him two days later. With Jack Ruby.

BEHAR: Yes, what do you think -- I remember watching that when I was a kid, I wasn`t that much of a kid but still, they always say where were you with the Kennedy assassination. Everybody knows how old you are so I always say I was in utero. But --

VENTURA: I can tell you honestly, Joy, I was in seventh grade - when it happen.

BEHAR: Okay, well when it happened I remember thinking isn`t that odd that now Jack Ruby kills Oswald. So that puts the clamps on all that information. And then Jack Ruby got cancer and died in jail. The whole thing was suspicious to me.

VENTURA: Absolutely.

BEHAR: Yes.

VENTURA: It should have been suspicious to you. It`s ridiculous. The key -- I`ll tell what you the key is to the Kennedy thing. You have the three bullets, okay? You got the head shot, the magic bullet and the miss. Everyone investigates the head shot and magic bullet. The key is the miss. Because you got to -- with a two second two shots with the hit. So you got to assume the first shot was a near miss. And it struck the curb and injured that Mr. Teague.

BEHAR: Yes.

VENTURA: Okay if you go from where it struck the curb straight back to Kennedy`s limo and a straight line it goes to the second floor of the DOW Text building. If you take it in a straight line up to the Oswald thing he missed by 22 feet high and 33 feet wide.

BEHAR: So what are you saying there were two of them in the building? What are you saying?

VENTURA: No I`m saying there were snipers in the DOW Text building.

BEHAR: Yes.

VENTURA: There was Oswald`s sniper and there was the grassy knoll for the head shot.

BEHAR: Oh boy.

VENTURA: I believe there were three shooter teams.

BEHAR: The other things that interesting you is say all the assassins have a first, middle and last name.

BEHAR: Like Lee Harvey Oswald -

VENTURA: Yes, they teach us that, Lee Harvey Oswald, Mark David Chapman, James Earl Ray.

BEHAR: Kathie Lee Gifford.

VENTURA: Not quite. But, yet, if I looked at you, Joy --

BEHAR: I`m just kidding. The camera. I`m just kidding, Kathy.

(LAUGHTER)

VENTURA: Anyway if you look at the situation of learning the three names.

BEHAR: Yes.

VENTURA: Okay, the most notorious murderer in U.S. history is Charles Manson. What`s his middle name?

BEHAR: I don`t know. But he wasn`t --

VENTURA: Exactly yet - yet you know the middle names - that`s the psychologically put it into your head.

BEHAR: Uh huh.

VENTURA: That this is it.

BEHAR: John Wilkes Booth.

VENTURA: John Wilkes Booth.

BEHAR: See that one we know. Somebody else was there.

VENTURA: Yes.

BEHAR: But that one -- see it took all those years for people to come to that conclusion.

VENTURA: Yes.

BEHAR: Or for people to expose that fact.

VENTURA: And it still it`s not being exposed. Because my nephew was 15 and I asked him what he knew about the assassination of Abraham Lincoln? He knew only John Wilkes Booth, nobody told him that there were eight people convicted, 12 people put to death, including the first woman.

BEHAR: Exactly. Who know about all that stuff about Lincoln? He might have even been gay, Lincoln.

VENTURA: You think so?

BEHAR: Thank you so much for joining us. The book is called --

VENTURA: How do you know all that, Joy?

BEHAR: Because you`re not the only one that knows all this stuff.

VENTURA: You know you`re a conspiracy theorist.

BEHAR: I am a little bit on your page. Okay the book is called "American Conspiracies." buy it. Good night, everybody.

END