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Piers Morgan Live
Interview with John McCain; Interview with 'Lego Movie' Directors
Aired February 20, 2014 - 21:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PIERS MORGAN, CNN HOST: This is Piers Morgan Live.
Tonight, Chris Christie's first town hall since Bridgegate, but the biggest question wasn't about the scandal. He came from one of the youngest constituents.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GOV. CHRIS CHRISTIE, (R) NEW JERSEY: Do you have a question for me?
NICOLE MARIANO: May you fix my house? It's still broken.
CHRISTIE: Your house is still broken? OK. Come here, Nicole.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MORGAN: Well, Nicole, her mother and her grandmother are live with me here tonight.
Plus, it's a dirty job but someone's got to do it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Because work is a beautiful thing.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MORGAN: Over 10 million Americans are out of work, Mike Rowe of Dirty Jobs fame just might have the answer or does he? I'll ask him why the ad he did for Walmart has people are asking is he a savior or a sellout.
Also, why one Washington (inaudible) calls President Obama the most naive president in history, his words not mine. John Mccain is fired up, and in a moment he'll tell me why. And a surprise blockbuster is number one on the box office.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Good morning apartments. Good morning doorway. Good morning wall. Good morning ceiling. Good morning floor. Ready to start the day.
Here it is, the instructions to fit in and have everybody like you and always be happy. Step one, breathe.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MORGAN: Why the movie has made more than 200 million around the world is not just kids stuff.
I want to begin though with a bit of kid stuff with our Big Story. A little lady who got the undivided attention of the governor of New Jersey today in Chris Christie's first town hall since last summer. He told this question. Listen
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHRISTIE: Come on under. All right. Come here. All right. So what's your name?
MARIANO: Nicole.
CHRISTIE: Nicole. OK. Nicole, how old are you? Three. Excellent. Do you have a question for me?
MARIANO: Yeah. May you fix my house? It's still broken.
CHRISTIE: You house is still broken? OK. Come here, Nicole. What town do you live in? Do you know?
MARIANO: New Jersey.
CHRISTIE: All right. Now come here. Come here. Now, is this your mom over here? Where's your mom?
Right there. OK. OK. So, here's what we're going to do. We're going to try to see if we can help you get your home fixed, OK? All right. So we'll get someone to talk to your mom after it's over you keep an eye on her for me, OK? Don't let her leave. All right, and we'll get someone to talk and we'll see if we can get your house fixed, OK?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MORGAN: With me now is the star of that moment, Nicole Mariano, who is three years old, also her mother Kelly Brier and her grandmother Joyce Brier. Welcome to all of you.
Nicole, you're famous. Everyone is talking about you. Is that exciting? Now, here's what I want to ask you. How did your house get broken?
MARIANO: By the storm.
MORGAN: By the storm. Almost, it's quite scary.
MARIANO: I don't know.
MORGAN: All your toys got ruined, didn't they? They all had to be taken away. All your toys are were. MARIANO: No, we can get new from those toy store.
MORGAN: Have you been to the toy store? Have you got new ones?
MARIANO: Yeah. But we need more toys.
MORGAN: You know what? I think your mom may get you some for making everyone famous in your family.
Let me turn to you, Kelly, if I may. It was an amazing moving moment. What I liked about it was I've watched all the politicians go on about Bridgegate and all that kind of thing. It was a real moment of a real family and actually through the mouth of a little three year old, a really compelling story which is your house got devastated by Hurricane Sandy and here we are 15 months later and it still hasn't been fixed. Tell me quickly what happened to your property.
KELLY BRIER, NICOLE MARIANO'S MOTHER: We received over about four feet of water that came through the first floor of the house and it destroyed everything. So we had substantial damage. I was approved for REM (ph).
MORGAN: I think someone's trying to direct all this. But do carry on.
K. BRIER: Are you directing for me?
MORGAN: You keep going, Nicole. I like this.
K. BRIER: We were approved for REM in the first rounds of approvals and our house is still unchanged from November 2012. It's exactly the same.
MARIANO: It's the house.
MORGAN: Are you angry that nothing more has been done from this time of period?
K. BRIER: It's incredibly frustrating. The process is definitely flawed and it's broken and there's a lot of finger pointing as to who's responsible for it but the reality, they're all responsible for it.
MORGAN: Now, Nicole, do you think that the governor -- did you like him? Did you like the governor? Is he a nice man? Yes. And do you think he's going to fix your house? Do you believe him?
Let me turn to your grandmother Joyce. She's a fantastic character. I mean, just like by hair. Someone will be laughing with their heads off. But she did skewer the governor a bit, put him on the spot and he seemed to say. "Look, I'm going to help you." Do you think he will?
J. BRIER: I do. How could you look at that face and not -- not say something? I, you know, and she believes it. . She sees a fan of his. She sees him on television. MORGAN: Are you as a family fans of the governor? Because, you know, he was hugely popular then came this big scandal, his popularity has taken a big dent. Do you still have confidence in him?
K. BRIER: I think that we watch him a lot. She knows that we watch him a lot because, you know, he's the person who is helping orchestrate the programs. We've watched him. He seems to have a no nonsense manner about him. I liked that a lot. I would be really upset if we find out that that's not really who he is.
MORGAN: It's interesting to me, it was more like Chris Christie doing what he really wants to do today which is he loves to fix things.
And I think whatever the outcome of the Bridgegate scandal I mean we don't know all the answers yet but it was good to see him actually getting back to I guess what a governor should be doing, which is helping its constituents or at least trying to.
Nicole, do you like being on TV?
MARIANO: Yeah.
MORGAN: Is it fun? Well, I think you should come back, Nicole, if your house gets fixed. Will you do that for me?
K. BRIER: When.
MORGAN: When your house gets fixed.
MARIANO: Yeah.
MORGAN: And if you do, I may have some toys for you.
MARIANO: Thanks.
MORGAN: Yeah? I mean you may even get the governor back on with you. Maybe the governor should give you some new toys. Would you like that?
MARIANO: And some bath toys.
K. BRIER: And some bath toys.
MORGAN: And some bath toys. So governor if you're watching, I'm sure you are, no pressure, but Nicole would like some new bath toys when you fixed their house, and you did promise and I wouldn't want to go back on a promise to young Nicole.
Nicole, it's been lovely to meet you.
K. BRIER: Say "thank you."
MARIANO: Thank you.
MORGAN: Nice to meet you both and I hope that you get what the governor promised which is some action on your property. It's pretty awful that's not been fixed up for 15 months and I hope that we can also be part of that process and getting you some proper renovation done quickly.
K. BRIER: Thank you.
MORGAN: Thanks to you and thank you so much for bringing her in. She's adorable.
Nicole, you can hang around for a bit. Don't worry.
MARIANO: OK.
MORGAN: Let me turn to a man who's taking a lot of heat for trying to create jobs in this country.
Mike Rowe, he's a popular host of Dirty Jobs on the Discovery Channel. He's teamed up with Walmart for an ad promoting the company's efforts to bring manufacturing back to America. Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MIKE ROWE, HOST DISCOVERY CHANNEL'S "DIRTY JOBS": At one time, I made things. I opened my doors to all and together we filled the pallets and trucks when it was mighty. And then one day, the gears stopped turning but I'm still here and I believe I will rise again.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MORGAN: Mike Rowe is also the founder of course of the mikeroweWORKS Foundation and he's with me In The Chair tonight.
Well, you've been through the ringer a bit in the last few days, Mike.
ROWE: My God.
MORGAN: Are you surprised by the reaction since this Walmart ad went out in the Sochi Olympic coverage? Have you been taken aback by the scale of venom that's come your way?
ROWE: You know, it's not, mostly it's been supportive. Obviously, there are some criticism but for my own perspective, it's mostly been weird. I mean I'm watching the Olympics. I go on Facebook after the commercial airs.
The comments are great. Some are, you know, not so great, and I responded to them. I posted it, I went to bed, I woke up, three million people were talking about it. Two days later, seven million were talking about it.
So obviously, Walmart is important. The topic is important. People have strong opinions and look I guess I asked for it so it's OK. MORGAN: The argument is this, is that Walmart is incredibly successful, one of America's great companies. 140 million Americans pour through its doors every single week of the year. But of course, many of those same people also have resentment towards Walmart because they know local stores and maybe family members and friends who worked in local stores who all got swallowed up and chewed up and spat out by the Walmart machine.
They also will have people who work at Walmart, employees that had been given some over a million people. Many of whom complain about low wages and bad treatment and so on, as a company that size is bound to attract that kind of criticism.
How much of that criticism if you're wearing your Mike Rowe Man of the People hat is valid?
ROWE: I've only got the one hat, and so for what it's worth, I would say all criticism is valid. In fact, I would assume for the purposes of the conversation that every critical thing that was ever said about this company is true.
I don't know if it is or not, I am not their representative but let's assume for a minute it is. They're putting a quarter of a trillion dollars into the U.S. economy over the next 10 years. The $250 billion of U.S. goods this stimulation that's going to occur with suppliers I think is pretty cool.
And so, my point of doing the commercial and my point in engaging on Facebook was to simply say, "Look, I get it." People have strong opinions. But do you or don't you want to see them succeed in this endeavor. I think they do.
MORGAN: And one of my big bugbears for the last couple of years when this show has being the fact that companies like Apple for example, a big example, have got 90 percent of their workforce in China.
ROWE: Sure.
MORGAN: Other countries, not in America and then see how that helps the American national interest even though they're making hundreds of million and billions of dollars of profit. You could argue that Walmart also driven a lot of manufacturing out of America they import other stuff and that has damaged the American manufacturing industry. I guess that's why you become this talisman for criticism because you're the man of the people.
ROWE: Look ...
MORGAN: Apparently endorsing this conglomerate beast.
ROWE: Sure, spit it that way. It's possible, and at a glance it's not wrong but it's not true either. You know, people find what they look for. You can look at "Dirty Jobs" and see a tribute to hard work and skilled labor. You can also look at "Dirty Jobs" and see a tribute to entrepreneurship and risk. It was both of those things. Now it's true I'm a fan of both of those things. And it's also true that right now, today, the country is engaged in this big dialogue wherein employees and employers are pitted against each other. I just don't think it's productive.
I appreciate it, but I'm more interested in looking at this and to your point saying, "OK what happens if Apple follows? What if Home Depot follows, or Lowe's, or Best Buy, or Costco, or Target?" You know, if suddenly the people on the Fortune 500 stepped back and go, you know, what? We have the funds to mitigate some of the risk in the supply line, guarantee contracts further down the road. That's going to open factories, I think that's good. Later, when jobs come back we can have this conversation about the difference between a good job and bad job.
MORGAN: Right.
ROWE: That's what the country is fixated on right now. I'm afraid it's a sucker's bet. I think there's a bigger conversation to have. People don't want to have it because, you go on social media you're likely to be called some nasty names.
MORGAN: Well, you mentioned social media and it causes the great irony this huge argument raging about you who is trying as you say to bring back manufacturing jobs to America. I know you have a social app called WhatsApp, a messaging service that has just sold for $19 billion U.S. and it barely employs anybody.
ROWE: Yeah.
MORGAN: And it seems to be completely mad. However, the -- an economist said it make sense.
Let's take a break. I want to get verdict on WhatsApp. What it means for American manufacturing if anything. And also, what do you think about the minimum wage argument? Because again, the common man and woman in the streets of America will say -- half of them will say it's a good idea and half almost say it's a bad idea to raise it.
ROWE: And the other half, who knows what they'll say.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ROWE: What I'm really focused on right now is partnering around initiatives like the one we were talking about before. I want to talk about manufacturing, I want to talk about skilled labor, I want to talk about the idea that employers and employees aren't enemies of each other and that, we've all got skin in the game, so that's the campaign I'm looking.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MORGAN: Mike Rowe's today on Glenn Beck's "The Blaze" and Mike is back with me now In The Chair. So whenever I've heard your voice I've always thought one of two things, this guys should either be a movie announcer or he should be an opera singer and I'm told that the second one is actually true, you do sing opera.
ROWE: Well, that's how I got in the business. Yeah, years ago in Baltimore I couldn't get into any of the unions that oversee our industry. And the way in for me was joining something called -- well, basically it was getting into the opera. If I can fake my way to the opera, I would automatically become a part of the club and then I could sort of work my way into the industry.
MORGAN: And do you still sing opera?
ROWE: Weddings, funerals.
MORGAN: Can you give us a little burst?
ROWE: A burst?
MORGAN: Yeah.
ROWE: (Inaudible) or you load 16 tones, what do you get. A little more appropriate for what we're doing. Another day older at -- like anybody can sing opera, you get in the shower, you know, turn the heat up.
MORGAN: Again, just for my benefit, can you do the "Jaws One" just when you thought you're safe to get back into the water?
ROWE: Just when you thought it was safe to go back in Piers' show, the questions begun again, it'll scare the crap out of you.
MORGAN: So you will never be out of work now. I've got you two whole different genres of work.
ROWE: I appreciate because my most two recent gigs are currently ...
MORGAN: So you have just -- you've just finished with Ford, right?
ROWE: I'm finished with Ford, I'm finished with "Dirty Jobs", really I mean ...
MORGAN: Are you actually unemployed right now?
ROWE: I'm unemployed for the first time in my adult life.
MORGAN: How does it feel?
ROWE: You know, it's odd but I mean seriously it forces you to step back and go, "OK. I've been really, really lucky ... " I know that " ... and what kind of relationships do you want, who do you want to work with, and ultimately what message do you want to help deliver?" It's tricky because you're going to break a few eggs for sure. But that's what brought me here tonight, you know, I mean honestly it's -- I saw the promos during the day, I get it, you know, it's fun to have some conflict. But I'm -- I'm not here as Walmart's representative, I'm here because I -- for 10 -- I've spent 10 years crawling through sewers, talking with people and employers who really care about the country, you know, and I just kind of feel like there's a chance to move the needle and stimulate things in a different kind of way. So I -- look what do I know? But I think it's conversation worth having.
MORGAN: When you saw the WhatsApp sale for $19 billion, and I actually use WhatsApp occasionally so I know what it is and know how it work, but to me it's just a straightful messaging system like BBM and the others. I couldn't believe the evaluation but apparently it makes sense in that world.
ROWE: Did you just say BM?
MORGAN: BBM the BlackBerry Messenger.
ROWE: Right.
MORGAN: You know what that is?
ROWE: No.
MORGAN: It's the messenger service on a BlackBerry, just like WhatsApp.
ROWE: Look I've been on Facebook about six, seven months, I'm figuring it out.
MORGAN: Do you understand how a company can be valued like that when it only employs like under 100 people?
ROWE: Actually, I mean I think I do. I mean in a market economy, a thing is worth what a person is willing to pay for.
MORGAN: Simple as that?
ROWE: Yeah. Yeah. Soap, cars a big company, a job, right? I mean we take our queues from the market and then we ether let it alone or we touch it and massage it and try to make it different. I'm certainly not an expert but yeah I think that's how it works.
MORGAN: And what is your view of the whole minimum wage debate the reason I say that now is that Gap have just announced they're increase their minimum hourly rate to $9 in 2014, $10 in 2015. Their CEO Glenn Murphy quoted, "a strategic investment to give more for their employees" and President Obama praise this saying, "I applaud GAP for announcing they intend to raise wages for their employees -- a decision that will benefit 65,000 workers in the U.S." "And there are two arguments on it about the minimum wage.
ROWE: Sure. MORGAN: Because Wal-Mart indicated they may follow as well and their argument is, "look, if we do it, it may benefit a large number of people who come through our stores." That's one argument. The other one argument is it cost jobs that you may achieve (ph) if you price up too much a minimum wage. You deter smaller (ph) employees from employing people.
Well, what do you say on this debate?
ROWE: I mean, I would say there's a third observation too which is it's either a willing thing that you do because you believe its good business, or because you're just an altruistic soul, or it's something that you're compelled to do.
We're really talking about it because, you know, this is not being presented in the -- they'll do it maybe with one thing. You're talking about legislation. Way beyond my pay grade, I've read people who have said that forcing a control on a price like that on a market economy is countered to it or it will ultimately lead to unintended consequences. I don't know.
If I run a big time company, I probably pull my hair up trying to figure it out. I don't. I have four employees. At any given time, 25 percent of them were upset with me about something. So, for a big company, I can't even imagine.
MORGAN: It's interesting to talk to you when -- as you say, you're currently out on work from the first time that you can remember. The American dream that I guess helped you become the man you are and the success that you've been, is that dream still obtainable in the same way or has it changed?
ROWE: Oh man. I think so. Look I'm -- I'm a bit of a smart aleck in real life, but honestly, I'm very hopeful. And my hope is based on my last 10 years. I -- the people I met on that show reached out in every state within 300 different jobs. These people don't talk about good jobs versus bad jobs. Everything on dirty jobs was opportunity.
And I'll tell you too, you know, for the whole run, even at the height of the recession, every single place I visited, every single one had helped one that signs up. I talked to all the employers and I heard the same message over and over. The thing that's for (inaudible) is the willingness to learn a truly useful skill and work your butt off. It's still for sale.
MORGAN: What is the one job you will least regret not having to do again?
ROWE: Least regret not having to do again.
MORGAN: What was the single worst thing you ever did in the whole lot of series (ph)?
ROWE: So, there's a thing called a lift pump. It's in a waste for the treatment plan that weighs four tons. It's a pump at the bottom of a five-story silo. The pump breaks the silo fills with the stuff that was in your toilet. When that happens, men descend the spiral staircase, muscle their way through watertight doors and swim to the ruptured device where upon they crawl upon it and somebody drops a cable from the top. They sends you off, you hang on the whole thing, goes up in the air. And as I've said before, the sound that are broken lift pump makes when it breaks the seal of crap, that was holding it to the floor, will hunt your dreams.
MORGAN: It sounds a bit like hosting this show.
ROWE: It's almost identical. Have you reset this chair because I think my lift pump just turned loose.
MORGAN: Mike, I could talk to you, so come back soon. I'd like to talk to you more about all this.
ROWE: What will happen if I just stayed here? Well, I do it -- if I just kept sitting here. I mean, really, I wouldn't play out?
MORGAN: I'll tell you what, stay here. We're going to interview John McCain and why don't you stay and react to what he has to say.
ROWE: Fantastic.
MORGAN: Great idea. And then we're going to talk to the guys who made the "Lego Movie." But yes, stick around with all the segment. I like this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MORGAN: The new details about warnings of the shoe-bomb terror threat and fears in al-Qaeda retaliate (ph) maybe behind it.
Well, joining me now to talk about that is Senator John McCain. Senator, welcome back to the show too. Let's talk about this terror threat and the apparent possible link al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. What do you know about this and how serious you think it is?
SEN. JOHN MCCAIN, (R) ARIZONA: I think it's -- any threat of course is serious and this is exacerbated by the fact that we are seeing the spread of al-Qaeda or al-Qaeda "affiliated organizations." They have one thing in common. They want to attack and destroy the United States of America. So, these attacks -- these threats, we much treat as credible threats whether they're actually credible or not. It's something that we're not exactly sure of. But, I have no doubt that with the spread of al-Qaeda throughout the Middle East and North Africa and other places in Africa that these threats will not diminish.
MORGAN: I want to turn to this tragedy is uncertainly (ph) in the Ukraine. I want to play a clip first what President Obama said about this. Listen to this and I'll ask your reaction.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) BARACK OBAMA, UNITED STATES PRESIDENT: Our approach is that United States is not to see this as some Cold-War chess board in which we're in competition at Russia. Our goal is to make sure that people of Ukraine are able to make decisions for themselves about their...
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MORGAN: Now, over a hundred people have now died, terrible scenes there that was seen all day long in our television screens. What is the solution here senator, do you think, to what is clearly a massive problem that's finally erupted in the way that we've seen?
MCCAIN: Serious sanctions. But, just let me say that the president just displayed his incredible naivete about Vladimir. Remember, after I'm reelected, will be -- tell Vladimir after I'm reelected will be -- he will be more flexible. He doesn't -- president doesn't think it's a chess game, certainly, Vladimir Putin does.
Vladimir Putin wants a restoration of the Russian empire of which the Ukraine is a crown jewel. And I'm very worried about what actions after the Olympics that Putin may take in order to ensure that. Remember, Russia is still occupying two parts of the territory of Georgia. And for us to not understand that Putin will do what he thinks almost unless he is restrained and constrained, he will do what's necessary to keep Ukraine a crown jewel of the Russian empire in the Russian orbit despite the fact that overall (ph) majority of Ukrainians want to be part of Europe and that's what this is all about. And again, this violence is escalating to a dramatic degree and what worries me is Russian intervention and possible losing parts of Ukraine especially Crimea as well as eastern parts of Ukraine.
MORGAN: We got footage of you when you went to the Ukraine. What kind of country is it? I'm one of the people who like there.
MCCAIN: Beautiful country, beautiful people, very sophisticated. They listen to European leaders. They listen to Europe. Their culture, their food, everything about them, alliance particularly, the young people with Europe and they will not be satisfied, one, to be part of the Russian empire but two, the corruption is horrendous.
The son of Yanukovych, the president, is a dentist and he's a billionaire. And there's oligarchs that run basically the economy of that country and they've run it into the ground. They're in dire economic situations. And the European, EU, has not done a good job. They kind of not -- they've been very not very well handled this situation, but they're going to need help from the IMF, help from the EU, and certainly support from the United States of America before the Ukrainian people can enjoy a better life and sanctions are a threat that must be employed.
MORGAN: Turn to Syria, we always see Kiev in flames, Venezuela in flames, lots of situations erupting around the world, but Syria remains a hugely difficult problem. Any improvement there or is it the situation worsening? MCCAIN: It's worsening. Our Director of National Intelligence testified that Bashar Assad side has gotten stronger while we've gone through this charade of the Geneva meeting. It was so outrageous and such as farce to think that they could go to Geneva and convince Bashar Assad to leave government to transition from being the head of Syria when he's winning, when he's winning on the battlefield. And that was a terrible joke.
Meanwhile, Piers, and with all due respect, these -- the battle bombs explosive filled -- fuel-filled trapped (ph) and filled-bombs are being dropped slaughtering innocent people by Bashar Assad, while Bashar Assad slow walks of removal of the chemical weapons. He has played us for fools and that meanwhile, the Russians, our buddy Vladimir and Sergey as we called them are flying in plane loads of Russian weapons which are killing people, and by the way, if you haven't seen on my website and on Twitter, the pictures that came out of Syria that are documented to be accurate, the horrific pictures of these people who have slaughtered by Bashar Assad and this president does not do anything of any affect and it's shameful.
MORGAN: I want to move to what has been a big contentious story this week which is Ted Nugent who normally wouldn't, I guess be that relevant politically, but he's made himself relevant by touching himself to a political situation. When he called President Obama and you find your issues with the president yourself when he called him a subhuman mongrel? What is your reaction to that?
MCCAIN: It's just -- it's a free country but that kind of language really doesn't have any place in our political dialog. It harms the Republican Party. I'm sure that it harmed that candidate there and it should be obviously repudiated from time to time. He should know, particularly in these days of Twitter and Facebook and the cloak of anonymity of Twitter, we see things that are really totally objectionable and makes you sad, actually to see. So that kind of thing is beyond the pale and I hope that our candidate down there learned a lesson.
MORGAN: Well, he's Greg Abbott. He's a Texas gubernatorial nominee. Should he now distance himself completely from Ted Nugent because of this comment?
MCCAIN: Well, if I were him, because those comments, I would, but because I don't think the people of Texas -- look, I am a severe critic of President Obama particularly on National Security but that kind of language, he's the president of United States, he's been elected and reelected and I believe we should treat him respectfully.
MORGAN: Two final points, senator, about the 2016 presidential race. Michele Bachmann in a new interview said she thinks many Americans aren't ready for female president. She said directly, "I think there was a cachet about having an African-American president because of guilt. People don't hold that guilt for a woman." What do you make of those comments?
MCCAIN: It's a free country. I would bet my friend as much as I hate to admit it, but right now, this is why we have campaigns. But right now, if the election were tomorrow, Hillary Clinton would most likely be the president of United States. I wish she wouldn't be my candidate, but I -- when you look at the growth of women in the senate, then I believe now 20 of them just a handful a few years ago. When you look at them in the House of Representatives, when you look at them in the Mayors and Governors, we're proud that we've had women governors here in Arizona, two in a row. And we have a long history of women governor. So I just have very different reading of the American political scene.
MORGAN: When it comes to the potential male Republican candidates, two names always in the frame, Chris Christie, Ted Cruz. I want to play a clip of Ted Cruz talking to CNN's Dana Bash early today.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. TED CRUZ, (R) TEXAS: What I try to keep an eye on is that I don't work for the party bosses in Washington. I work for 26 million Texans.
DANA BASH: But as a human being, you are a human being.
CRUZ: Look, as...
BASH: Does it sting?
CRUZ: As a human being, I can't control what they say, how they behave. I can control what I do.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MORGAN: You've got Ted Cruz continuing to be this kind of outsider, you know, explosion to renegade as we want to be part of that system. Can that be effective? Do you think he could win a nomination by playing that card?
MCCAIN: You know, I don't know. I have a cordial relationship with Ted Cruz. I disagreed with him vehemently on the shutdown of the government when we shutdown the government, what he did on the debt limit increase. He was exercising his rights as a senator which he had the right to do to demand 60 votes.
I will let the Republican Party judge but he has become an effective force in the Republican politic scene. I respect that. As I say, I disagree with him but I want to have this debate within my party, but I hope that would be respectful.
MORGAN: Is Chris Christie still a potential serious candidate despite everything has happened?
MCCAIN: I believe so. And I think he deserves the innocence until proven guilty. I went through a very serious scandal back earlier in my career which I wouldn't like to revisit with you. And -- so I think that he certainly has plenty of time to recover from this. I believe he's been a very good governor of a Democrat State showed by his overwhelming reelection. So I'm hoping he'll continue to improve and regain his status. He's going through a rough patch. We all know that. I happened to think that he's done a good job as governor, but you never know in one of these things, when another shoes going to drop.
MORGAN: Senator McCain, it's always good to talk to you. Thank you very much indeed, for your time.
MCCAIN: Thank you Piers.
MORGAN: Senator McCain. Now, I'm still here with Mike Rowe because he wanted to say so I said, "Yeah, you can stay."
ROWE: I got wake up ...
MORGAN: So Mike, I want to know your reaction to what John McCain's talking about and also, your reaction to this tweet I just got which was to you and me since ranted (ph) to me. I have blood, I have sweat, and I've cried taking care of my family has Piers Morgan. Well, we'll find out after the break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MORGAN: He asked to stay so I let him. Mike Rowe is still with me and I want to talk with him about what Senator McCain was just talking about.
On a more general basis actually, just about America's place in the world now, this should change very dramatically even in the last few years from automatically having a bit of world's policemen.
So a lot of Americans now are saying, "Well, no, we've got enough problems here.
ROWE: Yeah.
MORGAN: We don't want to be the global policemen anymore. And by the way, the Chinese can step up or the Indians or whoever it may be. It shouldn't always be us."
ROWE: Right. Yeah, I think there are a lot of assumptions that are, you know, people looking at again.
One of them -- I heard somebody say the other day with respect to policing the world, you know, we're not really as capable of doing that as we used to be if we ever were. And I said, you know, the same is true with skilled labor, like we have an assumption right now in the country that if we simply create the jobs, then they'll be filled immediately. But the truth is there is a real -- there's a dead zone and, you know, there are three or 400,000 jobs in manufacturing right now that can't be filled, you know.
And so our relationship with work, our relationship with the world, our relationship with ourselves, it does feel, you know, a little bit like an identity crisis.
MORGAN: You have this guy Daniel Fruik(ph) who tweeted me and you and darted at me, "I have blood, I have sweat, I have cried taking care of my family, has Piers Morgan?". A very extraordinary question, I mean of course, I've got blood, of course I produce sweat.
ROWE: I could see some.
MORGAN: And like everybody, there have been moments when you would shed a tear for your family taking care of them.
ROWE: Of course.
MORGAN: It's a strange attitude that some people have.
ROWE: Well, look, I think....
MORGAN: That just -- unless you're like him, you haven't ever done a day's work in your life, you know, whoever Daniel Fruik. Who are you anyway, Daniel Fruik?
ROWE: But right now, he's sitting home having a parade for himself.
(CROSSTALK)
ROWE: The senator said it well, this thing, right. It's not just the device. You're a broadcaster if you have this.
MORGAN: Right, right.
ROWE: You're your own network.
MORGAN: Right.
ROWE: And under the shade of anonymity, you can curl yourself up on your barcalounger and enjoy whatever your drink of choice is and just literally, just fire away. And here we are, actually on the television, checking our things to see, it boggles the mind, you know.
MORGAN: Had you -- and more importantly, have you ever used Lego to build things.
ROWE: Most of my childhood was defined by a mix of Lego and Lincoln Logs, a very frustrating period when I tried to combine the two. Nothing fit and the world is upside down for me but the short answer is sure, I love Lego.
MORGAN: Well, the Lego Movie has been an absolute phenomenon the last two weekends, and coming after the break, I've got the two guys who basically created it and they're going to tell us how to do this apparently to try and replicate what they did. It would take 15 million pieces of Lego.
I don't think I'll start tonight, but that should be a fascinating interview because it's an amazing hit movie.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WYLDSTYLE, LEGO: You found the Piece of Resistance, and the prophecy states that you are the most important, most talented, most interesting, and most extraordinary person in the universe.
That's you, right?
EMMET: Yes, that's me.
WYLDSTYLE: Great.
(END MOVIE CLIP)
MORGAN: $20 million dollars in two weeks, that's what The Lego Movie has earned in the box office since it opened. Premiers not just kids stuff.
Joining me now, a couple of very pleased men, I would imagine, Chris Miller and Phil Lord, the writer and directors of The Lego Movie and you might want just hanging around because he likes Lego and movies.
Gentlemen, before I get to talk to you, a couple of extraordinary piece of information I want to impart to viewers, one is that Lego comes from a Danish phrase "leg godt" which means "play well", which I never knew. Another one is that since Lego began manufacturing these little bricks, there have been, as of 2013, 560 billion Lego parts made. Did you guys know that?
CHRISTOPHER MILLER, WRITER/DIRECTOR, "THE LEGO MOVIE": I do now.
PHIL LORD: That first one is new to us.
MORGAN: Tell me, let me start with Christopher.
MILLER: I think like everybody gets like a hundred. Yes.
MORGAN: Christopher, tell me this. When you device the concept for Lego, did you ever in your wildest dreams and mentioned it would be this popular? What do you think is being the reason?
MILLER: Well, that's a good question. I don't know that we ever thought it was going to be this crazy popular but we that was, you know, it could be kind of fun.
I mean we try to approach it the same way we approached all of our movies whether we're doing, you know, already come, you know, like 21 Jump Street or a family movie like The Lego Movie. We just try to make each other last. We tried to do things that we think are fun and interesting. We try to find something interesting to say.
And we don't try to talk down to kids or to make it for this focused group or this group or not. We just think it for each other and just so happens that our sense of humor is so juvenile that kids, can go like it too.
MORGAN: And Phil, for more logistical and technical point of view, how difficult was it to create animated Lego?
PHIL LORD, WRITER/DIRECTOR, "THE LEGO MOVIE: Well, it took hundreds of people, four years to make it so it was insanely difficult. We had a lot of really smart people to help out, animal logic in Sydney. We were work with the Lego people in Denmark. We had our career here in Los Angeles.
It was really complicated. The biggest trick was trying to digitally figure out how to make really tactile, home made looking Lego bricks with scratches and dandruff and fingerprints and stuff like that because we wanted it to feel like a movie that a kid made in his basement, a really expensive basement.
MORGAN: I want to -- yes, let's watch another clip from the movie because it's extraordinary the way it's being made. Watch this.
(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I watch a lot of cop shows on TV. Isn't there supposed to also be a -- isn't there supposed to be a good cop?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh yes, but we are not done yet.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hi buddy. I'm your friendly neighborhood police officer.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Would you like a glass of water?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes actually.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Too bad.
(END OF VIDEOCLIP)
MORGAN: It was, at least, fantastic fun. You can see it. Here we go see because it brings in, you know, those are life issues, work issues. It's perfect movie.
What I like about you two is you met in college in Darthmouth. You've directed films ago and some of the biggest movies for a long time, Chance of Meatballs, sequels also stuff you've done, Jump Street's coming out again. And you've done everything together. So there's two friends who are educated together, now working together. Is that hard because normally, there's like one director, right?
LORD: We never fight.
MILLER: Never have a disagreement.
MORGAN: No. That can't be true.
MILLER: We're like brothers, so we do...
MORGAN: No.
MILLER: Yes. We're like brothers so we bicker and stuff. We have very similar point of view of things and similar sense of humor so we have a lot in common and we have love and respect for each other so that helps.
LORD: Most of the time. We try not to approach actors and have one of us go, "Do it sad and other one, and you do the opposite."
LORD: Yes.
MORGAN: You had some amazing voices on the Lego movie, Will Ferrell, Liam Neeson, Will Arnett, and Morgan Freeman, Jonah Hill, Chris Pratt, Elizabeth Banks, Channing Tatum, Shaquille O'Neal, Christopher Miller. Who the hell was the biggest diva (ph) of all those?
LORD: Christopher Miller was the huge diva. Yeah
MILLER: We didn't actually -- everyone came to have a good time and so everyone was having a lot of fun with it. We really don't have -- it was just a lot of...
LORD: I can't believe we got Shaq to say on that.
MORGAN: Shaq to me was about the stand out on all of those. I agree.
LORD: Yeah.
MILLER: He's a great thespian.
MORGAN: And finally chaps, and we got the Oscars obviously next week. I'm doing the red carpet for CNN on Sunday March 2nd, what are you tips -- is it a win best movie do you think?
LORD: Gosh. That's really hard to say. I really loved American Hustle. I think 12 Years a Slave has a really great chance.
MORGAN: Well that -- I want to get on my own -- yes, go sorry Chris, after you.
MILLER: I was going to say I like her as well but I really think that it's probably 12 Years a Slave to lose.
LORD: It's good to go on the record for something like this.
MILLER: Yeah. Perfect notification.
MORGAN: Well, you know, the good thing is if you're right, we'll obviously play the clip back and congratulate you and if you're wrong we'll pay the clip back and make a thought of you.
MILLER: We'll see who the genius is.
MORGAN: Yeah. No problem.
LORD: I agree.
MORGAN: Look, congratulations, seriously on The Lego Movie. It's fantastic. You must be thrilled with it.
MILLER: Thank you.
MORGAN: I appreciate you guys joining me from L.A.. I got to hand it with Mike though because he watch movies like me. Where does your money go? What's been the best movie you've seen recently?
ROWE: Honestly, you know, they're also different but we were talking before about the Wolf of Wall Street.
MORGAN: Yeah.
ROWE: They're great family comedy but the thing is it's the shortest three-hour movie I've watched.
MORGAN: That is so true.
ROWE: I could not believe ...
MORGAN: It flies by, isn't it?
ROWE: Yeah, yeah. And really the performances what's his name? Jonah Hill and everybody, everybody.
MORGAN: Jonah Hill and everything. Him and Matthew McConaughey and everything I've liked.
ROWE: And I mean nothing, actually.
MORGAN: Yeah.
ROWE: You know what, it's just not fair.
MILLER: You should know Lego movie.
ROWE: I should know Lego Movie. Give me Lego.
MORGAN: Look. It's good to talk to you guys. Lego Movie is currently on the same theatres. Mike, great to see you. I hope you get gained for employment before it's too late.
ROWE: I appreciate it. Thanks for letting me watch your work.
MORGAN: ... interview and in fact I'm talking of Wolf of Wall Street.
Tomorrow night, we're going to re-air my interview with Jordan Belfort. He's a real life Wolf of Wall Street. We got a lot of attraction in this interview and I think if you haven't seen it, you should watch out for that. We'll be right back after the break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MORGAN: I got a tweet here from somebody called Salanabeat74 (ph) saying, "Yes don't let Mike Rowe leave." Well, I can't because he's almost sleep. That's embarrassing. ROWE: What? Walmart?
MORGAN: Jobless, I think homeless and falling sleep on my desk, pretty ignominious end to one of the great careers on American TV.
Tomorrow night, the Oscar nominated movie is raunchy roar and some people say crosses the line. Martin Scorsese's says his Wolf of Wall Street of course, the real life wolf story is even more over the top. He's Jordan Belfort. I'll talk to him for the hour tomorrow night. It's a quite remarkable encounter.
That's all for us tonight though.
CNN Spotlight and the Nominees are starts right now.
