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Nancy Pelosi Under Fire; Interview With Rhode Island Senator Sheldon Whitehouse

Aired May 14, 2009 - 15:00   ET

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


(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RICK SANCHEZ, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Nancy Pelosi hip-deep in dangerous waters on water-boarding, quoting Karl Rove.

The man behind the screen who busted terrorists says Bush was lied to, by contractors, who screwed up the interrogations.

SEN. SHELDON WHITEHOUSE (D), RHODE ISLAND: On the instructions of the contractor, harsh techniques were introduced.

SANCHEZ: Question: Why were experienced FBI interrogators replaced with inexperienced contractors?

You saw it first here, a horrible, tragic and deadly accident at sea -- new pictures.

He learned not to trust this president and doesn't trust this one either.

VICENTE FOX, FORMER MEXICAN PRESIDENT: Take the bull by the horns, be responsible, and take decisions.

SANCHEZ: Vicente Fox joins the Twitter hour.

What may have happened when you mix Xanax with a 200-pound chimp.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, my God. Oh, my God. He ripped her apart. Please, God, hurry.

SANCHEZ: It is now a $50 million lawsuit.

And were the pilots overworked and underpaid? The crash near Buffalo that has victims' families asking those very questions.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I wonder how many other pilots, first officers, do the same thing that we're not aware.

SANCHEZ: Your national conversation for Thursday, May 14, 2009, begins right now.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SANCHEZ: And hello again, everybody. I'm Rick Sanchez with the next generation of news. This is a conversation. This is not a speech. And it's your turn to get involved. And here's what you're involved in. Let's go right to our Twitter board, because everybody seems to be talking about this. Look what's going on with this Nancy Pelosi news conference.

"In my opinion, this cloud hanging over Nancy Pelosi over her knowledge of torture should end her career."

But here's a dissenting opinion. "Hey, Rick, you must have been watching a different news conference than the one I saw. Bombed? No way."

Let's continue. If Nancy Pelosi were the Republicans' favorite target, she just made herself an easier mark, it seems. She held a news conference, right, today, and it seemed, by all indications, that she flat-out did the opposite of what she needed to do.

What she was trying to do was refute Republican charges that she knew about water-boarding six years ago. That's what she wanted to do, emphasis, wanted to

do. All right, let me stop right here. I want to bring somebody in. This is Dana Bash, because it was clearly Dana Bash's question at the end of that news conference that seemed to raise some serious doubt about Pelosi's story about not knowing.

Dana's here. She's going to watch this question-and-answer series together with you that she started.

Hit it, Rog.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DANA BASH, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: May I ask one last question?

REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA), SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: Sure.

BASH: OK. The question is: At the end of April, you had a press conference with us and you said very clearly we were not told that waterboarding or any of these other enhanced interrogation methods were used.

PELOSI: That's right. We, in that -- in that meeting, in the briefing that I received, we were not told that -- in fact, we were told that waterboarding was not being used because that's sort of one that stood out.

BASH: So in that press conference, we were all fairly trying to get at the broader question of whether -- whether you knew about waterboarding at all. And the idea that we got from you was that you were never told that waterboarding was being used.

But now we know that, later, in February, you were told. It wasn't in that briefing, but you were told. So...

PELOSI: No. By the time we were told, we are finding out that it's been used before. In other words, that was beyond the...

BASH: Well, why did you tell us at the press conference

PELOSI: Well, I told you what our briefing was. And our briefing was...

BASH: That you had been told, just not at that particular briefing.

PELOSI: No.

BASH: You've been very adamant that you didn't know that waterboarding was used.

PELOSI: No, that is right. We were told -- in the briefing that I received, we were told that they had legal opinions that this was legal. We were not told that it was -- that there were other legal opinions to the contrary in the administration. And we were told specifically that waterboarding was not being used.

When my assistant told me that the committee had been briefed -- now, I'm not on that committee any more. I'm now out of it. We have a new -- that ranking member wrote the appropriate letter to protest that.

And then we find out just slightly more subsequent to that that, perhaps, they were using waterboarding long before they tell us.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: Let's stop it there. Confusion, at best, obfuscation, at worst, are words that come to my mind as I watch that.

Dana, has she given Republicans new ammunition here?

BASH: It's entirely possible, Rick, because I think what I was trying to get at was that in this press conference that she had last month, she was very adamant that she did not know about water- boarding, but she didn't let on to the fact that she did know about it.

And it was basically -- what I was trying to ask was the spirit of what she was saying really seemed to be a contradiction back then, because she was really specific about talking about one briefing, but she didn't even bother to mention the other. So, that was what I was trying to get at. Didn't get much of an answer there, as you saw.

SANCHEZ: Has she, also, with these muddled answers, managed to take the attention off of former President Bush and former Vice President Dick Cheney, and really place it on herself?

BASH: Well, she has a little bit.

And, look, she said so many times in this press conference that Republicans are trying to shine the light on her and try to sort of detract from the real question, which is, president -- former President Bush and the -- the Bush administration and the tactics that they, in fact, did approve.

But, you know, when you look at the big picture here, Rick, the reason why this whole thing started is because, as soon as those Bush- era memos come out about the details of the interrogation techniques, Democrats said, we want an investigation.

And then the question came out, well, wait a minute, if there is going to be an investigation, one of the questions is, what did Congress know? And so that's what really started this whole thing, because Nancy Pelosi was a very important person. She was the top Democrat on the Intelligence Committee then.

And that's what kind of started this back and forth. And it hasn't helped that her answers seem to be changing a little bit about what she knew and when she knew it.

SANCHEZ: Well, you know, not only that, Dana, but think about it. And this is a question that has to be asked, because anybody who watched this probably had this question come to mind. She's the speaker of the house. She's a 20-year pro, comes from a family of politicians.

How could she have seemed so out of sorts during this news conference?

BASH: Well, look, she's clearly annoyed. I mean, there's no question.

SANCHEZ: Yes.

BASH: That was blatantly obvious -- with those of us asking the questions and even more so with Republicans who have had, let's face it, have had some success politically turning the tables here.

Now, she might have helped that along by having some -- some apparent contradictions in her answers. But I think -- I got to tell you, the other thing that was really fascinating and has certainly roiled Republicans and maybe those at the CIA is the fact that she really went after the CIA.

I mean, the way she tried to turn the tables on the question about her was coming right out of the gate and saying, look, the CIA misled, the CIA even lied to me and those of us in Congress, and they did it all the time. And that's another wrinkle here, a big wrinkle, and I don't think we have seen the end of that.

SANCHEZ: But the bottom line, before I let you go, because I know we have got Sheldon Whitehouse, who is coming up behind you there, and he's going to probably be sharing your spot, before I let you go, did she say things today that were different from what she had said in the past?

BASH: Yes.

And, specifically, what she said, specifically, for the first time today was that she, in fact, did know, because an aide was briefed and an aide told her in February of 2003 that harsh techniques like water-boarding were being used.

In the past, she said she had one briefing personally. That was in September of 2002. And she was not specifically told they were being used. Today, she confirmed for the first time that maybe she wasn't directly briefed, but she did know that those were being used just five months later.

SANCHEZ: Dana Bash proving once again she's one of the top-notch CNN reporters.

Great job today. It was fun watching it. Thanks, Dana.

BASH: Thanks, Rick.

SANCHEZ: If I watch my neighbor's house burning and I know someone set it on fire, and I don't call the firefighters, I'm clearly in the wrong for doing that. But, still, I am nowhere near as wrong as the guy who intentionally set the fire, right?

So, let's not go too far afield here. As important and as interesting as this Pelosi debacle was, the focus of the investigation, this interrogation investigation, remains on the Bush administration.

Let's be clear and honest about this. Less than 24 hours ago, that point was made by a former FBI agent, honorable guy, respected guy, expert interrogator, known for busting members of al Qaeda. From behind a screen, he said that water-boarding, far from saving hundreds of thousands of lives, as Vice President Dick Cheney had said, actually didn't even work.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ALI SOUFAN, FORMER FBI INTERROGATOR: These techniques, from an operational perspective are slow, ineffective, unreliable, and harmful to our efforts to defeat al Qaeda.

Al Qaeda are trained to resist torture. As shocking as these techniques are to us, their training prepares them for much worse, the torture that they would receive if caught by dictatorships, for example.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: I want to bring in the man now who made all of this happen, obviously not Ali Soufan, the guy who was giving the testimony, but the guy who called it, the guy who's the head of this subcommittee, Sheldon Whitehouse, who invited Agent Ali Soufan to speak.

Senator, you there? You ready to go? Say something.

WHITEHOUSE: I don't have audio.

SANCHEZ: No, I got you. I can hear you. Can you hear me, sir? I'm going to try one more time. I'm going to count to three on the air and you guys are going to see how we usually do this before we get everything set up.

Senator, this is Rick Sanchez. Three, two, one, can you hear me?

WHITEHOUSE: No. I heard it just for a second. Then it went off.

SANCHEZ: One, two, two. Let's do it in Spanish. Let's try it in Spanish. You ready? Tres, Dos, Uno. No?

All right, let's do this. Let's hold him. We will try and get him in at the back of the break. And we literally are hooking him up on the same system where I was just interviewing Dana Bash. That's the reason we're probably having a couple of problems.

We thought we could make this work, but, hey, it's live TV, folks.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The Colgan policy is they're not to sleep in the crew room, but it turns out that they are sleeping in the crew room.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: All right, a safety hearing reveals pilot fatigue, pilot fatigue may have been partly to blame for a crash that killed 50 people. And pilots around the country are saying, I told you so, including Sully. Remember him?

Also, why do these officers have to kick this man in the head after he's already down? You will see that kick to the head. It's pretty blatant.

Also, another beauty pageant contestant shows off her brilliant mind. You know that's why people watch these things, right? Because of their brilliant minds, right? Just like why men read "Penthouse." The articles, right?

(LAUGHTER)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SANCHEZ: Welcome back.

If I watch my neighbor's house burn, as I mentioned, and I don't do anything about it, I'm wrong, but not as wrong as the guy who started the fire, right?

This is the point that I think a lot of people have been making to me on social media throughout the day, as we have had this conversation about this Pelosi debacle, bombing, as I referred to it earlier. And some of you disagreed with me, by the way.

Sheldon Whitehouse is the man who called him there.

Senator, thanks so much for being with us, sir.

WHITEHOUSE: Glad to be with you. I think we have the technical difficulties solved here.

SANCHEZ: Yes, well done, sir. I'm sure you had a way of fixing that.

Before we do anything else, I want the viewers to listen to part of this testimony yesterday. This is Ali Soufan. He's basically saying a lot of things that didn't work in these enhanced interrogations that we have heard so much about.

Hit it, Rog.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SOUFAN: These techniques, from an operational perspective are slow, ineffective, unreliable, and harmful to our efforts to defeat al Qaeda.

Al Qaeda are trained to resist torture. As shocking as these techniques are to us, their training prepares them for much worse, the torture that they would receive if caught by dictatorships, for example.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: All right, you called this guy, Senator. There's a lot of people are wondering whether he should have been given so much credence.

Do you -- did you find him to be credible? Did you doubt him in any way? Do you think he's as proficient as we have been led to believe that he is?

WHITEHOUSE: Well, let's put it this way.

His first interrogation of Abu Zubaydah led to the CIA scrambling doctors to facilitate the medical care. His second interrogation of Abu Zubaydah led to the disclosure that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was behind the 9/11 plot, which is perhaps the most significant piece of intelligence information...

(CROSSTALK)

SANCHEZ: All right.

(CROSSTALK)

SANCHEZ: I'm going to stop you right there, because I know where you're going. And you know what President Bush said. President Bush said just the opposite of that. President Bush told the people of the United States of America that it was actually enhanced interrogations that got Zubaydah to give us that information.

That means somebody's not telling the truth, sir. Who do you believe...

WHITEHOUSE: Precisely my point.

SANCHEZ: Who do you believe is not telling the truth?

WHITEHOUSE: Well, I think that, when you have the interrogator on the scene willing to come before a congressional committee, and willing to describe consistently, because he has said it on other occasions, what he saw firsthand at the interrogation, it's very, very hard to doubt that.

This is a career FBI agent and a distinguished professional.

(CROSSTALK)

SANCHEZ: So, you're saying the former president of the United States was not telling the truth? Either witting or unwittingly, he was not telling the truth.

WHITEHOUSE: Correct.

And the focus of the hearing was the fact that the Office of Legal Counsel at the Department of Justice said the same thing. And the focus of our hearing was these OLC torture memos and what Agent Soufan did was to help us to demonstrate that not only did the conclusions come out wrong, but that the factual assertions that supported the legal conclusions were also not, in fact, factual, and indeed that some of the stuff was -- could be found to be untrue based on open source at the time.

SANCHEZ: Let me make some news here while I have you here, because you're certainly a newsmaker.

We're hearing from ex-Powell chief of staff Lawrence Wilkerson, and he's making the argument that he believes that what the Bush administration was actually doing with enhanced interrogations was trying to make a case for the invasion of Iraq and trying to justify what happened in Iraq.

Do you believe that is actually what enhanced interrogation, so- called torture, was being used for?

WHITEHOUSE: I have heard that to be true. There is some further evidence of that in Chairman Levin's Armed Services Committee report.

There is not a great deal of evidence that came out on our hearing one way or the other about that. The one thing I will say about that is that, if that is true, then it takes the application of these techniques out of the protective scope of the Office of Legal Counsel opinions.

(CROSSTALK)

SANCHEZ: And it makes them political. And it makes them -- it's not about, we were scared, we wanted to defend the country anymore. Now, it's about, we needed to have some political justification for something we wanted to do. That would sit a lot worse...

WHITEHOUSE: And it raises the prospect of there being a criminal prosecution.

SANCHEZ: I'm sorry. I didn't mean to step on you.

(CROSSTALK)

SANCHEZ: Say it again, sir. I'm sorry.

(CROSSTALK)

WHITEHOUSE: I said, and that raises the prospect of there being a criminal prosecution that could justifiably emerge from these facts, if that were, in fact, the motivation.

(CROSSTALK)

SANCHEZ: One quick thing before I let you go, as my producer's getting on me here. But -- so, am I hearing you say that, if there was evidence, enough evidence, on this particular subject, that it was being used to try and get or boost the reason for the war in Iraq, that you would be more likely to push for criminal prosecution?

WHITEHOUSE: Torture is criminal.

If it's not justified by the OLC opinion, if there aren't the defenses that that raises because you have gone outside of it, then it exposes people to that. That's a decision that should be made by the attorney general, by appropriate prosecutive officials.

SANCHEZ: But will you say on the record that, if you find evidence of that, you're more apt to want to push for a prosecution, yes or no?

WHITEHOUSE: One is more apt to do that, correct.

SANCHEZ: Thank you, Sheldon Whitehouse, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, who handled that -- that hearing yesterday.

We thank you, sir, for taking time to talk to us.

WHITEHOUSE: Thank you.

SANCHEZ: OK, Rog, I think we're supposed to roll an SOT here. Michael, did you tell him? All right. Let's try this, then. Let -- do me a favor. Roll Sully. If you got Sully, roll that, will you? OK, we don't.

Then, let's do this. Let's go to Michael -- let's go to Chernoff's package. This is the report from Chernoff that details what happened in that Buffalo plane crash and the fact that it may have involved pilots who were overworked and underpaid. Watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KATHY JOHNSTON, HUSBAND KILLED ON FLIGHT 3407: It is shocking.

CHERNOFF: Kathy Johnston is furious her husband, Kevin, died in a plane whose crew may have been functioning on little sleep.

JOHNSTON: I wonder how many other pilots, first officers do the same thing that we're not aware of. So, it is very shocking to all of us.

CHERNOFF: Colgan Air Captain Marvin Renslow had nearly a full day off before assuming command of Flight 3407. Yet, the NTSB investigation found, he slept in the Newark Airport crew lounge, against Colgan Air regulations. The airline, though, appears to have been lax in enforcing the rule.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The Colgan policy is they're not to sleep in the crew room, but it turns out that they are sleeping in the crew room.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: People can come in between their flights when they're on duty and take a nap.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is napping sleeping?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's a definition I'm not -- probably not prepared to answer.

CHERNOFF: First officer Rebecca Shaw had three days off before the flight, yet she commuted through the night from Seattle, catching rides on connecting FedEx flights to get to Newark.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We hire professionals. And those professionals, we expect, should show up fresh, ready to fly that aircraft.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You know, they're supposed to have their own accommodations, but we can't follow up on that. And that's totally ridiculous.

CHERNOFF: Captain Renslow hid his background from Colgan by not revealing two pilot exam failures in his job application. And the crew violated another rule that requires cockpit conversation to be focused on the flight.

MARK ROSENKER, ACTING CHAIRMAN, NATIONAL TRANSPORTATION SAFETY BOARD: I am concerned about the winking and nodding that I have seen in some of the policies of the company, your company, and crew members. And I don't believe it is only -- only within your company.

CHERNOFF (on camera): The NTSB acting chairman says airlines may have to toughen enforcement of their rules to improve air safety.

Allan Chernoff, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) FOX: Responsibility. Take the bull by the horns, be responsible, and take decisions.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: He's talking to the president of the United States there. Former Mexican President Vicente Fox tells me he trusts Obama about as much as he ended up trusting George Bush, and that ain't a lot.

New pictures on the tragedy at sea, a story that broke on this show yesterday. We will have the latest on the search for survivors.

And mentally disabled adults forced to fight, and it's caught on cam. But wait until you hear who organized these matches.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SANCHEZ: Lady Killer's (sic) watching. She says: "Look, I understand the technical glitches, Rick. Do what you can. Don't worry. Viewers understand."

(LAUGHTER)

SANCHEZ: I love that.

Thanks so much, guys, for taking -- thanks for having my back, as they say.

Decriminalize marijuana? Vicente Fox, the former president of Mexico, says yes. He's saying that on the record today.

Earlier this week, when I talked to him, he told me that the U.S. drug demand creates havoc in Mexico. And he also told me that he can't trust President Obama, because he learned not to trust President Bush.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SANCHEZ: Let me ask you directly, given how wonderfully things started at the beginning of his administration in terms of his relationship with you personally...

FOX: Yes, sir.

SANCHEZ: ... and with your country, are you disappointed with how things turned out and how his administration ended up handling the...

(CROSSTALK)

FOX: Of course, disappointed, and now skeptical about Obama's, or President Obama's offer during his campaign.

SANCHEZ: So, George Bush makes you skeptical about Obama?

(CROSSTALK)

FOX: He came -- he came and gave a big kiss to my mother in Rancho San Cristobal.

(LAUGHTER)

FOX: And to me, that was -- God, she felt the queen of the world. And, yes, we built a strategy. We built a commitment. We said we were going after a migration reform. And nothing happened. I don't be -- I don't want to be for bad luck, but I'm skeptical.

SANCHEZ: But you're a politician. You know that...

FOX: I was.

SANCHEZ: Well, that's true.

FOX: And not a very good one. Not a very good one.

SANCHEZ: You were a fine politician, sir.

Political expediency is about timing. And this may be -- may not be, for this particular president, who's being accused of being a leftist and a socialist and even a communist, the right time for immigration reform.

FOX: The right time for a president, and the only one word is responsibility, responsibility. Take the bull by the horns, be responsible, and take decisions.

SANCHEZ: Hmm.

FOX: Not play around with immediate answers. I don't like this idea of rescuing General Motors and Chrysler with 700 billion U.S. dollars of taxpayers. It would be much better that GM and Chrysler become competitive by working more closely with Mexico and with Canada and meeting...

SANCHEZ: But if he...

FOX: ... the challenge of Asia.

SANCHEZ: But if he were to try immigration reform, the first thing that many people would say is, oh, there he goes, giving amnesty to all those illegals in the United States. It would drive down his popularity or his approval numbers, thereby -- thereby making him less effective at doing the things he has to do.

(CROSSTALK)

FOX: Presidents think about next generation, and not next election. And that was a problem with President Bush, next election.

And that's why he decided Iraq, and look at the problem we're in with Iraq. And migration was delayed, and look at the problem. The drug issue, who is really being responsible in this nation to cut the supply of drugs to the U.S. youth?

Like Felipe Calderon is doing...

SANCHEZ: Yes.

FOX: ... he has decided to cut the supply of drugs, not only to U.S. youth, but also for Mexican youth. That's courageous. That's responsible. And, yes, we're paying a price for that. But it's still -- that's what a president has to do.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SANCHEZ: There is one cut of Nancy Pelosi's mind-boggling news conference earlier today that we haven't shown you yet. You will see it.

Also, a guy is kicked in the head by a police officer, and Ashleigh Banfield's going to want your opinion about it, because she's going to offer up hers, by the way.

(LAUGHTER)

SANCHEZ: Wait until you see what the suspect looks like. It makes you wonder. That's all I'm saying. I'm not trying to cast aspersions.

We will be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SANCHEZ: Welcome back. I'm Rick Sanchez here in the world headquarters of CNN. I'm about to show you some pretty unbelievable video. It kind of bothers you when you watch it. It's a police chase, again, routine enough, right? Until something happens that you might not expect, something worth paying attention to. It's an officer he runs up on a suspect already on the ground and gets a little bit forceful. Too forceful? You watch and decide. Here it is.

All right, this is going on in El Monte, California, it's near Los Angeles, that's part of the chase. These chases do drive police officers crazy. You can understand why they would be extremely mad after having somebody do something like this. But eventually the guy throws himself on the ground and watch the cop. Bang! Folks, that's a kick in the head. There's probably no other way to explain it. There's the police officer again, comes in and kicks him in the head. It's like he's getting aggression or something out. Ashleigh Banfield joining us now. She's going to be taking us through this. Ashleigh, as you watch this, you think what?

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, ANCHOR, IN SESSION: I think he's not going to be a police officer for much longer. And, listen, let me couch that by saying, a small clip of video is never enough, and that's why the police aren't saying right away that they're going to take action. They're saying they need to see it all. They always need to see it all. Rodney King, the clips we saw, wasn't the whole story and things dramatically changed once we saw a lot more of the video. However, Mr. Sanchez, this one is pretty damn clear, you do not -- when a man has both hands out and is not resisting and has completely given up, you do not boot him in the face.

SANCHEZ: Let me show you what this character looks like, by the way, these guy who put these police officers' lives on the line. There you go.

BANFIELD: I'm a big fan of --

SANCHEZ: What do you think?

BANFIELD: I'm a big fan of cops and I know this guy's a bad apple. By the way, the injuries that you're probably seeing on his face --

SANCHEZ: This guy has done a couple of tours in prison, don't you think?

BANFIELD: He has. He is a repeated gang member and he was flashing the gang signs during the police chase, which nobody likes, but it doesn't matter how bad the bad guy is. If he's not resisting arrest there are rules and these rules were clearly just broken.

SANCHEZ: There you go with that "but" again.

BANFIELD: I'm sorry.

SANCHEZ: Ashleigh Banfield. Listen, we got to save some time because I'm bringing you back in just a little bit for something else, thanks.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Just to be clear, you're accusing the CIA of lying to you in September of 2002.

REP. NANCY PELOSI, (D) HOUSE SPEAKER: Yes, misleading the congress of the United States.

(END OF VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, accuses the CIA of misleading congress in 2002 about interrogation techniques used on detainees. So what did she know and when? Well, it gets fuzzy, gets weird, gets mind boggling.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NATACHA CURRY, CNN ENTERTAINMENT CORRESPONDENT (on camera): The 62nd annual Cannes Film festival is officially under way in the south of France. Celebrities from Brad Pitt to former President Bill Clinton are heading to the event known for film and a touch of frivolity. (Voice-over): As glamorous as the Oscars. As care free as the Golden Globes. The Cannes Film Festival may be the only place you'll find stars in black ties or yellow stripes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They tell me Scorsese did the same thing last year.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's a three-ring circus, there's no question about it.

CURRY: But when all is said and done, it is still about cinema. Brad Pitt returns to Cannes this year with "Inglourious Basterds," the latest film from Quentin Tarantino.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is an action piece and it's a war piece where the violence will be maybe more acceptable than in some of his other films.

CURRY: Tarantino is not the only big name director at Cannes, joining him are Jane Campion, Pedro Almodovar, Oscar winner Ang Lee and Oscar nominee Terry Gilliam. He unveils the "Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassis." Featuring the final performance of the late Heath Ledger. Francis Ford Coppola hits the (INAUDIBLE) with "Tetro."

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He spent a year in Argentina and Buenos Aires making this film. It's very beautiful to look at. Quite elegant film.

CURRY: And for the first time, the festival kicks off with an animated film, Disney's "Up."

(On camera): The main focal point of the festival is the famed red carpet where all the premieres take place and some of the world's biggest stars will be heading up these steps into the Palaise and its massive theater. For an actor or director a big splash here can be life changing.

(Voice-over): "Pulp Fiction" came out of nowhere to win the festival's top prize in 1994, launching Quentin Tarantino's career. In 1982 it was Steven Spielberg who was finally recognized as a serious filmmaker after he premiered "ET" here. The Cannes audience gave it a rapturous response.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That was one of the most spectacular nights in my entire life and it's indelibly etched in my mind.

CURRY: What indelible memories will be made this year. The next 12 days will tell.

(END OF VIDEOTAPE)

CURRY: We're hearing that Angelina Jolie will be heading to Cannes to support her partner, Brad Pitt, on the red carpet. So this year's festival definitely won't be lacking glamour. Natasha Curry, CNN, Cannes.

(END OF VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SANCHEZ: Welcome back. I want to show you a couple of comments. You saw that police officer kicking that guy in the head on videotape? A lot of people are commenting on that. Let's start with Myspace if we can. "I watched this on my local news as well last night. I do not care what this guy looks like. The law is the law!" But perhaps it's best put in a tweet, that I'm going to share with you right now. Listen to this tweeter. Wow, talk about kicking a man when he is down. Well said.

All right, let's go back to this Nancy Pelosi debacle now. This is a story we led our newscast with. For those of you just now getting home from work who maybe didn't see this, I want to show you something else now, it's a piece of videotape I didn't get the chance to show you earlier in the newscast, it's Pelosi maintaining that she was officially out of the loop of the Bush administration's waterboarding policies. And for the first time she concedes what some republicans have been charging, that she was aware years ago of what the Bush administration was doing. Now, she says it was an aide that told her about it. Regardless. And take a look at how flustered she gets in this exchange. Let's watch this together now.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. NANCY PELOSI, (D) HOUSE SPEAKER: They informed me that the briefing had taken place. We were not in a place where he could -- that was all that he was required to do. We're not in a setting, we weren't in a -- I'm no longer the ranking member of intelligence. He just informed me and that the letter was sent. That is the proper person to send the letter, the ranking member of the appropriations -- of the intelligence committee. So, the let -- my statement is clear, and let me read it again. Let me read it again. I'm sorry. I have to find the place. I was informed that the department of justice opinions had concluded that the use of enhanced interrogations was legal. The only mention of waterboarding was that the briefing -- in the briefing, was that it was not being employed. When the -- when my -- when my staff person -- I'm sorry, the page is out of order. Five months later, my staff person told me that there had been a briefing -- informed me that there had been a briefing and that a letter had been sent. I was not briefed on what was in that briefing. I was just informed that the briefing had taken place.

(END OF VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: I got to tell you, no matter how you spin this, this is just not a good moment for her. I want to bring in somebody now who actually wrote a column just a couple days ago asking her to come forward and explain what the republicans were saying, or have some kind of explanation for their charge that she knew. That's A.B. Stoddard. She's good enough to join us now from Washington. She's the editor of "The Hill," as you probably know. What'd you think as you were watching this, after asking her to do what she did?

A.B. STODDARD, ASSOCIATE EDITOR, "THE HILL": Well, I actually wrote in that column yesterday, it was published today, that she is very shrewd, very skilled, experienced politician, who has never given republicans any ground, and in this whole controversy she has. She's let this become a three-week story, where the republicans finally have a real, credible issue on which to question the speaker. What her office called me to take issue with this. And in our conversation, I said, we just watched this press conference, where the speaker came out and blamed it on the CIA and said that they lied to her. This is something she could have told us three weeks ago.

SANCHEZ: Yeah.

STODDARD: In April. So, again, giving the republicans more reason to jump up and down. I'm not going to say that -- that she's lying. I'm not going to say that --

SANCHEZ: Right.

STODDARD: -- that she said anything wrong. But today we learned that she was informed in February of '03. We didn't know that before, and she did not formally protest through the channels and to the Bush administration that she had to protest, to raise objections about these techniques. That's the bottom line, and if it's all the CIA's fault, I think she should have said that in April.

SANCHEZ: And, look, a lot of folks on Myspace and Twitter have been telling me throughout the day, you got to remember, Rick, she may have known but it's not as bad as starting this thing or actually doing it, and we get that. But, still, she did not help herself, did she

STODDARD: That is the problem. That this is now -- we all know what happens in politics. It doesn't matter what started the problem. I mean, if you proceed with a truth commission or proceed with prosecutions, Nancy Pelosi is going to have to testify, in any kind of a truth commission setting, that the democrats want to pursue. Everybody knows that now. It doesn't -- she might be right. This might be a distraction from the larger context here, which is the techniques that the Bush administration approved of and used. But everyone is asking, including her most passionate supporters, everyone is asking why no objection? Why no -- why not talk about this until now? Why did it have to be dragged out of you?

SANCHEZ: A.B. Stoddard, all over this story. Thanks so much for joining us, as usual.

STODDARD: Thanks Rick.

SANCHEZ: The very latest on the search for missing boaters after yesterday's tragedy that you watched unfold right here, during this hour.

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SANCHEZ: Welcome back. Following up on some breaking news that we showed you yesterday. In fact, it unfolded right here during this newscast. Go ahead and show this video, if you would, Rog, there's a coast guard cutter taking action off of Florida. And there's people being rescued in the waters. They pulled 16 survivors out of that water after a small boat just tipped over. Nine others died. They couldn't get to them in time. Are there others out there? Don't know. Possibly, the coast guard is still searching. It believes the boat was used for bringing people over here from Haiti. And the people are believed to be from either Haiti or perhaps even the Bahamas. Using the Bahamas en route from Haiti.

All right, you saw Ashleigh Banfield just a little while ago, she's going to be joining us in a little bit just again. Why? Because this is an unbelievable video that we're going to be sharing with you. These are adults but they're in a mentally disabled school and they're being forced to fight by the very people who are assigned to protect them, and it's all caught on camera. And Ashleigh is going to help us take you through it. It's amazing to watch.

Oh and Ashton Kutcher, the publicity stunt, because it is right, I mean that's what it is. Can we call it something else? I don't think so. We'll be right back.

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SANCHEZ: Welcome back, I'm Rick Sanchez. In case you didn't hear this, I shared it just a moment ago. There is a school in Texas where they took some of their students and actually made them fight against each other, reasons unknown. Watch this report, it's by Kyra Phillips and it takes you through it.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): It's hard to know what's more revolting, that what we're looking at actually happened, or that somebody would videotape it on their cell phone camera. Apparently for its entertainment value. This is not play acting. It's a fight club organized by employees of a Texas state school for the mentally disabled. The very employees hired to protect these vulnerable adults pitted them against each other. Six former staff members have now been charged with organizing these fights between the disabled residents, encouraging them to beat each other, egging them on. It wasn't a one-shot deal. It happened over and over. At least 16 fight club events during a year and a half. Finally in March, this cell phone video was brought to the attention of Corpus Christi Police and the indictments were set in motion.

LT. ISAAC VALENCIA, CORPUS CHRISTI POLICE: A big disappointment that someone would see some enjoyment out of someone less fortunate, not knowing any better, being placed in these compromising positions. It doesn't seem right.

PHILLIPS: The staff members charged with organizing this fight ring are no longer employed at the residential school. Neither are five others who seem to have encouraged the fights from the sidelines. But until investigators can sort through all of this, admissions are on hold.

CARLOS VALDEZ, NUECES COUNTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY: It's despicable. It is conduct that has no place in an organized society. We should not have anything like this. We should not tolerate it and we will do everything we can to get to the bottom of it and make sure it doesn't happen again.

PHILLIPS: A sickening study in brutality beneath the radar.

(END OF VIDEOTAPE)

SANCHEZ: Is Kyra Phillips right when she uses the world, sickening, to describe this?

BANFIELD: Oh, boy. You know, these employees are in for a world of hurt. Both from the criminal system and the civil system and perhaps even from the federal system. There could be hate crimes that are brought upon them. Kyra's video was grainy, but from what I understand, there are a lot of different accounts on different cell phones and it was prolonged this kind of abuse. So there are going to be a lot of video accounts that will clearly point out who did what and to whom. And it's going to be a problem.

SANCHEZ: Is there any excuse for this? Is there any defense? I'll tell you something. I'll share something with you right now. When I was a rec leader back in Miami as a young man, and I had a bunch of kids, we'd have a ball, I'd give them the giant boxing gloves. Each one weighed about 10 pounds and we played these games where they'd box with each other. Of course they couldn't do any damage, couldn't hurt themselves. But somebody looking at that video and say, wow, what was he doing, those kids might -- The political correctness part, is there any possibility that that kind of defense could be used here?

BANFIELD: One word. No. There's a difference between what you did with fun gloves and the audio that will give all the contours of the situation that you were in and the audio that will give the contours of this situation. This is official misconduct. It's also like child abuse. And let me just couch that a little by saying, this is abuse of someone in your care and custody, which these people clearly were supposed to be looking after those who were profoundly disabled, not just a little disabled, profoundly disabled.

SANCHEZ: And that's what makes the difference.

BANFIELD: And that's what makes it ugly.

SANCHEZ: All right, Ashleigh Banfield as usual, good to see you, good to have you hopefully tomorrow.

BANFIELD: Ok Rick.

SANCHEZ: Take care.

BANFIELD: You too.

SANCHEZ: Did you see this Ashton Kutcher thing, it is him making his point that he beat me and my network at getting to a million people. Not really, but we'll go ahead and call it that, because if we did the math we killed him. I'll take you through it, stay here. I want your comments and I'm going to take you through this, all right? It's interesting, I promise.

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SANCHEZ: All right, I want to show you something now. This is that whole brouhaha with Ashton Kutcher. He wanted to show everybody -- look at him there, feeling very courageous, feeling brazen, feeling like look, I did it.

He actually put his sign, that's his call sign there that he uses on Twitter, and a bunch of people gathered around and it's the whole -- well, look, you know what, take that off here. Take that off. Because you know what that is? I'll tell you what that is. That is, if nothing else, a publicity stunt, which is cool and fun, but really, that's not what's important.

You know what's being lost on this story? You know why this is important? Here's why. What Ashton did -- which is a good and noble thing is -- he said to CNN, I'm going to get to a million before you do, and if you beat me, I'm going to create a way of getting 10,000 malaria nets to save lives around the world.

Since we at CNN lost, you know what we did? We doubled it. We sent 20,000 malaria nets. We paid $100,000. In fact, I got the information right here. How much time have we got, Michael? I want to -- this is important. We at CNN -- 30 seconds -- we got $100,000 in a pledge to protect children from malaria. We have now sent the money to UNICEF, and that means that children's lives will be saved as a result of this gambit between Ashton Kutcher and us here at CNN.

And that is not a publicity stunt. That's a difference between making something that happens and saves lives and helps people. And you know what, I'm glad we pulled out of that video. I'd rather say that to you than show you the video.

And now let's go over to -- to the other guy over here who's famous. That's Wolf Blitzer. He's got "Situation Room." He's coming up next. Wolf, take it away.