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Carson: 'Absolutely I Stand by the Comments' on Muslims; Walker's Campaign Falls Short on Cash; Pope to Meet with President Obama; Four Tourists Taken by Gunmen at Philippines Resort; Carly Fiorina's Business Record Under Scrutiny. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired September 22, 2015 - 06:00   ET

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

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SEAN HANNITY, FOX NEWS HOST: Did you mean to say radical Islamists?

[05:58:16] DR. BEN CARSON (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: That was implied in the comment.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He has a right to want a president who doesn't profess Sharia Law.

JEB BUSH (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I don't think that religion should be a criteria for being president.

GOV. SCOTT WALKER (R-WI), FORMER PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I will suspend my campaign immediately.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: People out there are yearning for leadership.

CARLY FIORINA (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I earned my way onto the big stage. When I started this race, nobody knew who I was. Honestly.

SEN. TED CRUZ (R-TX), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: So if you want to change the marriage laws.

STEPHEN COLBERT, HOST, CBS'S "THE LATE SHOW WITH STEPHEN COLBERT": I'm asking you what you want.

CRUZ: I believe in democracy.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Today is the day Pope Francis comes to the United States.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What he's doing is expressing a sense of mercy, a sense of compassion.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He resists the idea that he can't have contact with people who are coming to see him.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He does things in a very real way.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ANNOUNCER: This is NEW DAY with Chris Cuomo, Alisyn Camerota and Michaela Pereira.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: What a mix of people in the news. Good morning. Welcome to your NEW DAY. It is Tuesday, September 22, 6 a.m. in the east. So here's the new state of play.

A Muslim should not be president unless they renounce Sharia Law and swear to put the Constitution before their religion. Will this non-apology clarification help Ben Carson cling to relevance in the presidential race?

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CO-HOST: Meanwhile, how did Scott Walker's candidacy crumble so quickly? The GOP field down to a mere 15.

Let's begin our coverage with CNN's senior Washington correspondent, Jeff Zeleny. He's live in Washington.

Give us all the latest, Jeff.

JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Ben Carson is standing by his comments that a Muslim shouldn't be president, comments that have drawn sharp criticism from Republicans and Democrats alike.

But overnight, a bit of clarity. He seeks to soften his hard line against Muslims. In an interview with Sean Hannity on FOX News, Carson said he was only referring to radical Muslims or anyone who is unwilling to follow the Constitution. He stopped well-well-short of apologizing, though, for those remarks.

He said a Muslim could become president with one condition. Let's take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CARSON: If someone has a Muslim background, and they're willing to reject those tenets and to accept the way of life that we have and clearly will swear to place our Constitution above their religion; then of course, they will be considered infidels and heretics, but I would then be quite willing to support them.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ZELENY: While Carson talked about the Constitution, he did not acknowledge Article VI of the Constitution, which says no religious test can be used for someone seeking public office.

Now, several of his Republican rivals have said Carson is wrong to suggest a Muslim should not be president. Of course, there are about three million Americans living in the U.S. who practice the Muslim faith.

In a different interview last night, Donald Trump walked a finer line. He tried to defend the idea behind what Carson was saying initially.

Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE (via phone): Ben was saying there are difficulties, and I think everybody knows what those difficulties are. And people want to be politically correct. But there have been difficulties, and a lot of people agree with Ben.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ZELENY: So Ben Carson will be campaigning later this morning in Ohio. And you can be sure this controversy will follow him there.

Muslim groups have called him to step aside and leave this race, which he has rejected. But it is one more thing Republican leaders certainly wish, Michaela, they weren't talking about this morning in this presidential campaign.

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: And we will be talking about it further, in fact, in just a few moments' time. Jeff Zeleny, thank you.

Meanwhile, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, who at one time was the GOP frontrunner in Iowa, announcing last night that he is ending his presidential campaign. This as two of his rivals hit the late- night circuit.

CNN's Athena Jones live in Washington with more on all of those moves -- Athena.

ATHENA JONES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Michaela.

Walker is the second candidate to drop out in less than two weeks. He's also the second candidate to do so while taking a swipe at frontrunner Donald Trump.

Walker had been seen as a real contender just a few months ago. Now he says he's pulling out of the race for the good of the party.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WALKER: I will suspend my campaign immediately.

JONES: Two down, 14 more to go this morning in the crowded GOP presidential race. Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker now the second prominent governor to drop out. The reason, money, according to a source close to the campaign. The candidate's super PAC raised a whopping $20 million in the first half of 2015. But the source says the money dried up after his poor debate performances.

BUSH: Scott is still going to serve and continue to do great work in Wisconsin.

JONES: Walker's message to the remaining 15: clear the field so the top contenders can beat polling juggernaut Donald Trump.

WALKER: I encourage other Republican presidential candidates to consider doing the same, so that the voters can focus on a limited number of candidates who can offer a positive, conservative alternative to the current frontrunner.

JONES: GOP candidates still in the running say not just yet.

MIKE HUCKABEE (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I don't have any intentions, just in case you wanted to know that I'm going to announce that I'm getting out.

GOV. CHRIS CHRISTIE (R-NJ), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Not going to happen.

JONES: As Trump's current closest competitor, Carly Fiorina, gets a warm welcome from Monday's late-night audience on NBC's "The Tonight Show."

FIORINA: It's only in this country that you can go from being a secretary to the chief executive of the largest technology company in the world and run for president of the United States. It's only possible here.

JIMMY FALLON, HOST, NBC'S "THE TONIGHT SHOW WITH JIMMY FALLON": Wow.

FIORINA: And I want to make sure that every...

JONES: Fiorina taking a jab at Trump's willingness to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

FIORINA: The two of them have a lot in common, actually. But we'll just leave it at that.

JONES: Texas Senator Ted Cruz receiving a less-than-friendly reception on CBS's "The Late Show"...

COLBERT: I'm asking what you want.

JONES: ... after dodging a question about whether he personally supports gay marriage.

CRUZ: I believe in democracy. I believe in democracy, and I don't think we should...

COLBERT: Guys, guys, however you feel, he's my guest. So please don't boo him.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

JONES: And more on Walker. A former campaign aide to the governor, who was fired earlier this year after making critical comments about the Iowa caucuses, took to Twitter to blast the Walker campaign for a series of mistakes. She said the governor was a flip- flopper who didn't understand the priorities of the GOP base -- Alisyn, Chris.

CAMEROTA: So much to talk about, Athena. Thanks so much.

Let's bring back Jeff Zeleny as well as "TIME" political reporter Zeke Miller. And CNN political commentator and political anchor for New York One, Errol Louis.

OK. Let's start with Scott Walker's rise and fall, because it's been impressive. At one time, he was a formidable candidate. He was, I believe, leading the pack in January. And then look at this: the rise and fall of Scott Walker. He in March was up at 16 percent. And then you see it slowly decline until this month he's a hash tag.

[06:05:10] Errol, he -- his PAC had $20 million two months ago?

ERROL LOUIS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes.

CAMEROTA: What becomes of all of those supporters and that money?

LOUIS: Well, the money was largely spent, which is part of the problem. He had a very top-heavy organization. I think they had maybe a little too much enthusiasm, maybe not enough in the way of smarts as far as how to spend that money. They were getting ready to run a 50-state campaign. They staffed up beyond any rational kind of reality on the ground.

And then a poor debate performance. If you look at what happened in the polls, right after the first debate he just -- it just fell off a cliff, his support.

So you know, you really can't blame anybody except a candidate whose message didn't take, whose organization was top-heavy and whose debate performance was disastrous. The second one was especially disastrous. There wasn't a lot that he could blame on Donald Trump or anybody else.

CAMEROTA: He said he wasn't getting a word in edgewise.

LOUIS: Well, yes, I mean, but part of what happens we saw with Carly Fiorina and others on that stage, you don't wait for the moderator to point to you. You jump in. You show some forcefulness and leadership, which is what people are looking for in a president, it turns out.

CUOMO: So Zeke, he's not blaming it on Trump, but I think Trump does have a practical effect on all of these guys. That's -- you know, he's on top. He's squeezing everybody to the middle.

Is it just that he couldn't sustain it as was the case with Perry or do you think that this was volitional, that he just didn't want it anymore?

ZEKE MILLER, POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT, "TIME": He certainly was at a point where he couldn't make payroll. You know, as Errol said, he raised $20 million in the super PAC side of things, but we're talking about hard dollars here. That's $2,700 increments. And that -- he only started raising at the end of June, really. And he never really raised a lot, because he was already starting his slide from the top of the polls.

When he got into that race, he never really got the same bump that the other candidates did when they entered the race and then followed by two sort of tepid, two bad debate performances. And the rise of Donald Trump really did squeeze him out from a financial perspective. He was at the point where he would have to shed staff. He would have to run a different type of campaign than he was really willing to run.

It would have meant focusing it all on Iowa, running a campaign that was lean and focused on the state like Bobby Jindal and others that are really only existent in Iowa. And that was not the type of race he wanted to run. So that's why he got out.

CAMEROTA: So Jeff, you know, we're asking here: did Trump destroy Walker's chances? Is this -- can Donald Trump take credit for Walker getting out?

ZELENY: He absolutely cannot. He deprived him of some attention, but Scott Walker did himself in. And I was struck by how open some of his advisers and supporters were. When we were calling around on this yesterday afternoon, these rumors had been circulating; and vultures have been flying around Madison, Wisconsin, I can tell you.

But I was struck by how some of his supporters and advisers say, "Look, he owns this loss himself." It was Scott -- the idea of Scott Walker as a national candidate was very appealing to many conservatives, but once he got onto this stage, it was clear he was not ready for primetime.

A lot of governors have problems answering questions on foreign policy and others. Scott Walker took it to a new level. He was -- he was floundering when he was asked about birthright citizenship. He said that we should build a wall on our northern border in Canada, at least be open to that. Some of his supporters were cringing every time he would say something like this. So he owns this himself.

CUOMO: All right. Well, he...

ZELENY: Of course Donald Trump made it more difficult, as he has for everyone...

CUOMO: So...

ZELENY: ... but he can't blame this on Donald Trump.

CUOMO: So if Donald Trump didn't make it any easier on him, it does seem as though, Errol, he's making it easier on Ben Carson. You know, Ben Carson is getting it from all sides here, and I think you'd have to argue justifiably so. His clinging onto it, I guess is some reverberation of base. But Donald Trump saying, "Well, no, I get where he's coming from." That's very un-Trumpish. What do you think of this dynamic going on, this Muslim absurdity?

LOUIS: Well, Trump has sort of wavered himself. He hasn't come out clearly and said that it's outrageous to sort of violate the Constitution and impose a religious test or to elaborate on that religious test, which is what Dr. Carson has been doing.

CUOMO: By making it the test that all elected officials must take. When your hand goes on the book or in the air, you say the Constitution comes first. This is not just for Muslims.

LOUIS: Well, exactly. And so both Donald Trump and Ben Carson, they have a base that is very fractious and in some ways weird, for lack of a better word. And in some cases, they want to hear you see that Sharia Law is some kind of a threat, although of course, it is not. That Sharia Law is, you know, the dream and aspiration of all Muslims, which of course, it is not. And so they can't just sort of blow them off, or they have chosen not to blow them off and say, "That's completely ignorant." They're sort of trying to play ball with them, and it will only get both candidates in trouble.

CAMEROTA: But guess what? And Zeke, I want to bring you in. Because Ben Carson says that since he made those comments, his Facebook followers have spiked significantly, and his donations have gone up. Mission accomplished.

MILLER: Exactly. As we were talking about yesterday. Excuse me. That was -- this is Ben Carson reinforcing his support among the base. You know, he's going to get credit, support...

[06:10:04] CUOMO: What base, Zeke? What base? Because you know there are plenty of GOPers coming out, saying, "This is not who we are." You know, this is one -- two steps probably worse than the division put with Latinos. So what base do you mean these days?

MILLER: Well, this is the 20 to 30 percent of the Republican Party that says Barack Obama is a Muslim, that says -- that is fearful of Islam as a whole. You know, you see it in a lot of polling. It's not -- it's not unique to the Republican Party. It's just they happen -- a bunch of them happen to be Republicans.

And that's who he's going for. It doesn't allow him to extend beyond that. But that's, you know -- you know, 30 percent in a contentious primary, still split 15 ways, is a win.

CAMEROTA: Do we want to hear what Ben Carson has had to say about trying to clarify his remarks? Because it is a little different than what he originally said. So let's listen to what he said yesterday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CARSON: If someone has a Muslim background, and they're willing to reject those tenets and to accept the way of life that we have and clearly will swear to place our Constitution above their religion; then of course, they will be considered infidels and heretics, but at least I would then be quite willing to support them. (END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: Couldn't you replace "Muslim" with "Christian" and get the same reaction from most of the base? You know, the Christians are doing the same thing with Kim Davis right now. Right? They're saying, "This is all about religious freedom. The Constitution shouldn't be seen as right. The Supreme Court isn't always right, isn't the final law." You know?

LOUIS: I think, look, the startling thing in all of this, is that Dr. Carson thinks he knows a lot about Islam and why and how people adhere to it. And it's clear that he doesn't have that kind of knowledge.

Maybe he read a briefing paper. Maybe he read a book. Maybe he scared himself, you know, late at night at some point. But this doesn't have anything to do with reality.

I mean, look, there are more -- there are more Muslims than, I think, Episcopalians in this country. You know, I mean, there's a lot of them. There are a lot of different flavors of how you adhere to this faith.

This notion that you have to renounce your religious faith before you can be sort of sworn in is exactly what the Constitution prohibits. And so he's not getting himself out of this mess. He seems to be, I think, as was suggested, holding onto 20 percent. Maybe he wants to take 20 percent of the delegates into the -- into the convention next year and see if he can negotiate something. But that's as far as that goes. This is not a country that's going to allow that.

CAMEROTA: Errol, Zeke, Jeff, thanks so much. Great conversation.

Let's get over to Michaela.

PEREIRA: Well, speaking of matters of faith, excitement and anticipation are building as Pope Francis makes his first historic visit to the United States in just a few hours' time.

A just-released CNN/ORC poll shows how popular he is among Catholics and non-Catholics alike in the U.S.

CNN's Michelle Kosinski live at the White House with a preview of the pope's visit, the meeting with the president, the first of his three-city tour -- Michelle.

MICHELLE KOSINSKI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, and this will start out with an honor afforded no other leader. The president, first lady, vice president and Dr. Jill Biden will all meet Pope Francis on his arrival at Andrews Air Force Base. They'll see him off in this motorcade before this meeting tomorrow in the Oval Office between the president and the pope.

What will that discussion be like? One senior administration official describes the top three subjects as poverty, climate change and Cuba.

So you can see that this comes at a perfect time for the president to tackle those issues that he really wants to in his last year in office.

However, it also comes at a time when the government could be shut down over debate over funding Planned Parenthood. The broader issue of access to abortion. Also, gay marriage has just become the law of the land. There's a big divergence of opinion there between the two of them. Here's how the White House sees it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOSH EARNEST, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: It doesn't mean they agree on every issue. They surely don't. But their focus and the context of this meeting will not be about politics, not about specific policies but rather about the kinds of values that both men have dedicated their lives to champion.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KOSINSKI: We've heard from a number of Republican lawmakers lately that the pope is becoming too political, calling his comments lately inappropriate, saying they don't want to be lectured by him on climate change. One Republican congressman is even boycotting his historic speech before Congress on Thursday -- Chris.

CUOMO: All right, Michelle, thank you very much. This is going to be a big deal any way you look at it.

We have some breaking news coming in to CNN. Tourists kidnapped by gunmen at a resort in the southern Philippines. Now officials say it appears these four victims may have been targeted.

CNN's Kathy Novak is live in Seoul with the breaking details -- Kathy.

KATHY NOVAK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Chris. The Philippines news agency says around 11 gunmen stormed this resort in the southern Philippines late at night and abducted two Canadians, one Norwegian and one Filipino woman.

Now, military helicopters and naval vessels have been searching the area. But there is still no sign of these four people or the kidnappers.

[06:15:04] Now this happened in the southern Philippines off the coast of Mindanao. And we talk about this region, when we talk about kidnappings, the fear is this is an area that has faced years of unrest, involving Islamists, militants and involving the taking of foreign hostages.

Now so far, one military official has told the Philippines news agency that there is no immediate indication that the terrorist group Abu Sayyaf is involved. But the identities of the kidnappers are not yet known. Now, the Canadian government says it is aware of these reports

that two Canadian citizens have been kidnapped, and it is seeking further information -- Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: OK, Kathy, thanks so much for that update.

We have more breaking news to tell you about. One of two inmates who used bed sheets to escape from a Louisville, Kentucky, prison is back behind bars this morning. Thirty-seven-year-old Christopher Cornelius was captured just hours after that daring escape. Twenty- nine-year-old Matthew Johnson is still at large.

Authorities say the two tied their sheets together and climbed from the roof of the building, down three stories to freedom. Both had been arrested for heroin possession. They are now charged with felony escape.

PEREIRA: A Navy pilot survives when his jet crashes near a California military base. The Super Hornet jet came down near Lemoore Naval Air Station. That's south of Fresno. The pilot was able to eject midair before impact and parachuted to the ground. He's said to be fine. In fact, he's said to have walked to emergency responders. No word what led to that crash.

CUOMO: Kentucky clerk Kim Davis is altering marriage licenses issued to same-sex couples, and that could be rendering them invalid.

The claim comes from the ACLU, which accused Davis of removing the names of the county and the issuing clerk from gay marriage licenses; thereby, violating a court order not to interfere with the process.

Davis, giving a tearful interview to ABC News about the onslaught of criticism she's hearing from the public.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KIM DAVIS, KENTUCKY CLERK: I've been called Hitler. I've been called hypocrite. I've been called a homophobe. I've been called things and names that I didn't even say when I was in the world. Those names don't hurt me. What probably hurts me the worst is when someone tells me that my God does not love me.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: Davis's attorney insists she has not interfered with the issuance of gay marriage licenses and has not violated a judge's orders. If the judge disagrees, going to jail will not be her choice this time.

CAMEROTA: So she hasn't interfered with the issuance, but she may have changed the face of the licenses, changed the lettering, the wording on it.

CUOMO: She was told, don't mess with the process.

PEREIRA: Right.

CUOMO: She is now messing with the process and crying about it.

PEREIRA: Right.

CUOMO: Kim Davis, under the eyes of the law, is not a victim. Prejudice rarely gets a lot of purchase with intelligence. It's usually emotion. She's crying; she's effusive about it. Because this is her faith. I get it. But it is not the law. And if a judge sees it that way, she's going to have a problem.

PEREIRA: Well, we'll be watching it happen, I'm sure, here on CNN.

CUOMO: And it's going to happen quickly, too.

PEREIRA: It will happen quickly.

Another thing that's happening quickly, she's rising quickly in the polls, touting her success as a CEO in her bid for the White House. A top Yale business professor says Carly Fiorina, though, was a terrible executive. He's going to tell us why next when he joins us on NEW DAY.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[06:22:43] TRUMP: The head of the Yale Business School, Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, wrote a paper recently. One of the worst tenures for a CEO that he has ever seen, ranked one of the top 20 in the history of business.

FIORINA: Jeffrey Sonnenfeld is a well-known Clintonite and honestly had it out for me from the moment that I arrived at Hewlett- Packard.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: Carly Fiorina says we need a great CEO as president. The question is does she qualify? Yale professor Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, who's not the head of Yale Business School nor Yale Law School, as Donald Trump has said before, but he is an esteemed professor. He says, as now a player in the election because of what you just saw, he says that Carly Fiorina was not a good CEO. In fact, I'm putting it gently. He says she's one of the worst technology CEOs in history.

Fiorina tells a different story. Let's suss it out.

Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, senior associate dean for the Yale School of Management, joins us now to make the case. Professor, thank you for joining us.

JEFFREY SONNENFELD, SENIOR ASSOCIATE DEAN, YALE SCHOOL OF MANAGEMENT: Thanks, Chris. It's an honor to be with you. CUOMO: One, let's deal with your qualification in this matter.

Are you not a shameless Clintonite who is out to take out Carly Fiorina, as you have been from the beginning. And when she was at H.P., you had it out for her for personal reasons. Is any of that true, sir?

SONNENFELD: No. And it's all jumbled; doesn't make sense. As she admits that I have been critiquing her since she was CEO, as I sit in judgment and review of the histories and leadership impact of many of our CEOs, if not most of the CEOs of our major firms. Many of them I endorse and celebrate, and others I just think it's really important for capitalism to work. We separate out the good guys and the bad guys and distinguish where the performance deserves to be celebrated.

This is not one case. And it's long before she became a political person. I don't see how she can say it's political bias if she admits it goes back well over a dozen years.

But a Clintonite, I mean, I'm not sure if that's in the periodic table of the elements or what that is. I'm not a Clintonite. I've been actually in contact directly with...

CUOMO: You do know the Clintons. You have admitted to taking runs with bill Clinton and talking to him for long points of time.

SONNENFELD: I know the Clintons have been a houseguest of the Bushes on repeated occasions. Four current Republican presidential candidates have come to me for advice as a nonpaid adviser. I just am not taking an endorsement position. I like each candidate to present their ideas in the best way they can and get rid of this personal injective, just to see what are the issues that separate them out.

[06:25:09] But I've worked very closely with people in both parties, and I pick a candidate based on their -- the qualities of the candidate, not the party.

CUOMO: All right. So let's do this by deconstruction. Fiorina says, "When I was at H.P., times were tough. All tech companies were taking a beating. However, I took less of a beating. I made some hard choices. I own those choices. Yes, we lost people, but actually, the number of jobs grew. And Hewlett-Packard in the years after I left did very well, and those on the board who came after me now celebrate the decisions I made." That's her case. What is yours?

SONNENFELD: Nothing in that is true other than the fact that she didn't take a big -- as big a beating as she should have. And that has to do with the beating from the political press.

Because up until now, she's been gotten an easy pass until the last few weeks.

I'm happy to say that whatever I did by surfacing the actual facts, the objective facts of her performance, we now have perhaps 200 business journalists that are finally getting the platform that they should have gotten that two weeks ago they didn't get, so that I was a lone wolf out there. Now we see that the watershed of great business journalists and

industry analysts who have been tracking her for quite a long period of time, we now hear what they say.

The board, you can look at all the published stories. At the time or currently, no board members, only one board member, that one board member who now speaks in her defense was the guy who pushed very hard for her termination. And he's quoted all over in the Cara Loomis (ph) piece in "Fortune" of 2005, explaining how she was such a disaster.

CUOMO: Then why is he supporting her now?

SONNENFELD: I don't know what in his mind has led him to -- well, you know, she sliced shareholder wealth in half. She likes to talk about she doubled the size of the company. She actually cut in half the value of the company. If the company was worth a dollar, it's worth 59 cents now. It's the gross distortion.

It was $60 billion of value she destroyed, and she got over $100 million of payment in payment for doing so.

Some of it that she failed, massive layoffs and things, and the fact that everything she bought has been shuttered or divested, that really matters.

Or the fact in the decade since -- let's say the media and I and investors and the board and everybody's wrong except her. Why in a decade has she never been given a job to run anything since? All I think she's gotten was invited to join the board of one company, Taiwan Semiconductor. She only showed up for 17 percent of the meetings. No badly-governed firm has ever had anybody who only showed up for 17 percent of their meetings. She's gotten -- in the last decade she's done nothing.

CUOMO: She says it's personal choice what she's done in the last years. She's taken different opportunities. That's what she decided to do with her life and that anything that happened to H.P. was a function of the marketplace, not of her decision making.

SONNENFELD: See, this is the trouble, Chris. This is why -- and the way she brings in me with personal invective and goes after me on all kinds of malice and defamation she throws up there, is that dissent to her is equated with disloyalty, more than failure.

By the way, it was some of our best leaders and most of our best leaders have had massive failure. I'm a big fan of redemption. We're going into a holiday period this week of Rosh Hashanah: atonement. Contrition is very opponent. Contrition or exoneration, coming back from failure. Our best business leaders have had it, our best political leaders have had it. They give us a path for coming through adversity.

But you have to acknowledge the failure. She's in denial of this. And she just recreates her history, this whole history about secretary to CEO. Her father is a federal appeals court judge. You know, her parents were circuit appeals court judges and dean of the law school at Duke. She -- after she pushed out, failed out, what happened at UCLA Law School, she worked as a receptionist for a few months. That's hardly, you know, a rags to riches saga.

She presents these things. This is loose and fast with the facts. Her lifestyle, reckless decisions. She bought this big company, Compaq, heavy metal equipment that everybody was vacating. She bought it basically the greater fool, Compaq digital equipment, and stapled together carcasses of the dying businesses when her now strategy was to be like IBM, going into IT services and consulting.

She tried to do that. She tried to buy PriceWaterhouseCoopers for even $14 billion. They didn't believe her price. Those partners sold themselves for a third of that price to, ironically, IBM for $4 billion.

So she flips around, recklessly, shocking everybody. How do you have your strategies going one way and then you flip it and go the other way? It's just the opposite of what say you wanted to do. All of her decisions.

She has to get a fancy Gulfstream 4 when all of her predecessors were happy to fly commercial, coach. She upbraids John McCain in this interim, when she was John McCain's national financier, by saying he's got his position on contraceptives all wrong. They have this weird spat. She says he's not qualified to be CEO of a corporation, while she's helping on his campaign. So it's an odd person.

CUOMO: So -- so let's do this. This is going to continue, because she's bringing out different numbers and statistics, and her supporters are saying things. Professor Sonnenfeld...

SONNENFELD: She doesn't challenge -- she doesn't challenge any statistics out there. What she does is she tries to attack the critics.

CUOMO: They are putting out defenses. So as they do it, please, let me invite you back; and we'll go through it as it comes out so the voters can get the clearest picture of it. Can we do that?

SONNENFELD: Happily. Sorry. Thanks.