know him a bit better. herman cain, up close and personal. >> my mother's probably in heaven going, my, my, my, my. my dad is probably in heaven going, that's my boy. >> this is "piers morgan tonight." good evening. i'm in las vegas tonight at the palazzo, the sister resort to the venetian, where last night's republican debate was, to put it mildly, pretty lively. and one of the lively protagonists is with me tonight. and that's herman cain. that was some punch-up last night. >> well, let's just say it got energetic. and a little bit of fireworks between some of them. >> did you worry that rick perry was about to fling one at mitt romney, maybe catch you -- >> i was getting ready to referee and break them up. at one point i'm going, man, have they really gotten into it. but, no, they -- i think that they both came in with the intention of going after each other. they did it the last time. you can just tell that their staff said, look, you can go after him on this, on this, on this. i don't spend time doing that. you know what i spend my time on? preparing to talk about solutions. and that's why i just leaned back and let the fireworks go back and forth. >> here's the thing about you that's fascinating. you've come not out of nowhere, but certainly you've been the surprise of the last month. >> yes. >> i think you'd concede that. and what people are saying is, who is herman cain? who's he really, away from the slick performer? because you're good with the talk and you're good with the walk. you know. you know where i'm going. >> the walk and the talk, huh? >> yeah. you've got the gift of the gab, as my grandmother would say. but what is the real herman cain like? how would you like people to understand the real you? >> the real you starts with me being a man of faith, a man that believes in family and believes in the future of this country, which is one of the reasons i'm running for president. my faith has been a big part of me all my life. i joined the church when i was 10 years old. my parents took us to church. they didn't send us to church. so my faith has been a very big part. and that being said, that simply means that i'm driven by not only goals and objectives and dreams, but i'm also driven by what i feel that my calling is supposed to be. i've always done that. whenever i've had to make a very serious decision careerwise, i've always relied upon my faith, along with my wife, in order to make that decision. >> what is your calling right now? why do you feel this burning desire to be president? a job that many people view as one of the most thankless jobs in the world. >> right. my calling is to make a difference. and i have done this all my life. i never dreamed that i would have a calling to make a difference at this level. but it really goes back to 1999 when my first grandchild was born, and i looked in her face. and the first thought that went through my mind, the first thought that went through my mind was, what do i do to make this a better nation and a better world? i didn't know the answer then. and it took 12 years for this journey to unfold. a lot of things have happened since then. i ran for the united states senate in 2004, came in an impressive second. in 2006 diagnosed with stage 4 cancer. >> did you say "impressive second"? >> impressive second. >> is there ever an impressive second? >> well, yes, because -- >> you're a winner, aren't you? >> yeah, i'm a winner. >> well, in business there's never an impressive second. >> in that case -- >> see, you're not really a politician. that's what i like about you. when you start saying things like i came in an impressive second. >> right, right. >> if you're a footballer, you don't come in an impressive second. >> i agree. >> why don't we do that again? some would say a disastrous second because you didn't win. >> i came in an impressive second. >> an unimpressive second. >> because i almost pulled it out. i came within two percentage points. >> but you won't be happy if you almost become the republican candidate? >> no. absolutely not. >> so it's not impressive to come second. >> not in this case. >> america right now can't afford to have a leader who thinks that coming second is good enough. >> absolutely. >> it needs a winner. >> and that's why i'm running. i respect all of the other candidates up there. some more than others, who i think would be better than others. >> who do you respect the most? >> well, i would say that speaker gingrich and governor romney are the two that i have the greatest amount of respect for, that i would feel comfortable if i did not get it. but i'm, you know, looking pretty good right now. but i have a lot of confidence in the type of job that they would do. >> and who do you have the least respect for? >> let's just stick with the one that i have the most respect for. >> no, no, no, no, no, no. come on. come on, herman. >> i don't believe representative ron paul would be a good president. >> why? >> because most of his ideas and positions are eliminate, end, rather than fix. we need to fix a lot of things in this country. i don't believe in throwing the baby out with the bath water. we have more things that we can fix than things that we need to totally eliminate. >> ideologically, you know, michele bachmann, rick perry, other tea party candidates, you would imagine would be more down the political route that you would be. >> right. >> you haven't named them in either category, respected or disrespected. why not? >> because most of my career, in addition to running organizations, turning around businesses, i have studied, written, and spoken a lot on the topic of leadership. and so after six debates and after listening to them do interviews, i have formulated my opinions about them relative to their leadership ability. because that's the biggest thing that you need to bring to that job. >> what are your conclusions about rick perry and michele bachmann? >> when i listen to their answers to questions, most of the time they get off track because they don't -- either don't answer the question or they're not working on the right problem. and so they have a tendency when they start talking, they're giving a mini stump speech. >> how worried are you -- it's interesting you say that. because watching you, if you don't mind me say, get yourself into a bit of a hole yesterday over the whole issue of whether you negotiate with terrorists. i watched your interview with wolf blitzer, my colleague, and you quite clearly answer in the moment as if you would. you would have released guantanamo bay inmates, al qaeda and otherwise, in return for an american soldier. >> yeah. >> and then later you decided that you wouldn't. and you made a mistake? >> i misspoke. i misspoke. >> did you misspeak or did you make a mistake? >> i misspoke. >> did you go away and think -- >> no. >> did you know what you just said? >> no. i misspoke. here's why i misspoke. we were talking about the situation in israel. okay. and the point that i was making was quite simply if i were prime minister benjamin netanyahu, i'm sure he had a lot of information and a lot of things to consider -- >> here's what i want to say. because you're a straight talker. >> yeah. >> the reason people like you and the reason you're gathering momentum is that people say to me, herman cain, he'll give you a straight answer. >> yes. >> what worries me is as you get more and more popular you're starting to think, whoa, i've got a chance here, and so you unfortunately have to become a bit more political. >> well, i'm -- >> do you sense that's a risk here? >> that is a risk, but i'm not going to do that. let me finish -- >> well, let me ask you a straight question. >> yes. >> was benjamin netanyahu right to swap one of his people for over 1,000 palestinians? it's not really a question of you haven't seen all the facts or you don't know what he had to study. it's a basic transfer. one for 1,000. >> i disagree. i can't tell you -- >> but could you be american president and just sit back all the time on these hot issues and say, i don't know? >> piers, for me to say whether benjamin netanyahu was right or wrong based only on the optics of it is not good judgment. this is why i was very comfortable saying that i misspoke about the gitmo thing because when he threw that in there i didn't think terrorists because my philosophy is we can't negotiate with terrorists. >> ron paul made quite a good point, didn't he? it's a pretty fine line. ronald reagan straddled it. >> right. >> others have straddled it. it's like in a way there's a lot of negotiating with terrorists that goes on. >> yes. >> would you be happy if you were president in afghanistan for american military leaders there to continue negotiating and paying taliban leaders if they felt that it was for the greater good of not necessarily winning the war in afghanistan, but winning the battle against terrorism? >> if the commanders on the ground told me that that was a tactic that they saw was beneficial, i would approve of it. because -- >> are the taliban terrorists, do you think? >> yes, the taliban are terrorists. according to some things. >> if you negotiate with them in any capacity, aren't you negotiating with terrorists? >> well, but you see, some of the people that they are doing some of these things, there are citizens that they are converting to basically be on our side. it's not always negotiating with the terrorists. it's negotiating with someone who may be sympathetic to the taliban, but then they say these americans aren't as bad as we thought. then they come over to our side to be supportive of what we're doing. so it's not a clear black or white situation unless you know more specifics. >> do you think being the president, now you're getting nearer to this and you have to consider the genuine possibility that you might be. >> right. >> other people are looking at you considering what kind of a leader might you be. is it more of a mine field morally, ethically, than perhaps you'd thought before as you get closer and you start to have to wrestle with all these dilemmas? >> no. and it's because of my approach to leadership and my approach to organization. if you surround yourself with the right people and you have a solid organizational structure, which i've always done, and you have what i call guiding principles, for every organization that i have headed up, that will help me not to have to micromanage -- you can't micromanage being president of the united states of america. you've got to have people that understand your philosophy and who are able to execute some of the strategies and things that you want to do. >> talking of your philosophy, i want to take a short break and come back to you and take you right back to where it all started for you, herman cain. the kind of background and upbringing you had, i think in many ways drives you today. >> yes. at bayer, we've been relieving pain for over 100 years. and today, we're re-inventing aspirin for pain relief. with new extra-strength bayer advanced aspirin. it has microparticles so it enters the bloodstream faster and rushes relief right to the site of your tough pain. in fact, it's clinically proven to relieve pain twice as fast. new bayer advanced aspirin. extra strength pain relief, twice as fast. 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>> i was taken aback by the reaction. when i made the statement that -- i was answering wolf blitzer's question. why do so many black americans vote democrat? and i made the statement because a lot of them are brainwashed into not even considering a conservative or republican point of view or not even considering a conservative or republican candidate. but i also said, but the good news is a lot of black americans are thinking for themselves and they're getting away from that. i have seen that. i have experienced that. and so the fact that i chose that word, "brainwashed," i'm a little bit surprised by the reaction to it, but i don't back down from that word. because when you have some people who won't even consider an alternative idea or consider someone who might not exactly agree with them ideological, yeah, i call that brainwashing. >> i've had a lot of guests on recently getting very hot under the collar about the tea party. morgan freeman and others, top black american. i know you don't like the phrase african-american. i'm going to ask you why in a moment. but black americans, leading black americans, who say the tea party is racist. and i know that your fairly humorous response is to say, i looked in the mirror and i appear to be a black man and i'm in the tea party. which i get. and you're perfectly entitled to say that. but you well know there are other elements of the tea party who are racist. i don't think it's a trade secret. how do you deal with that as a black man, who is now leading the tea party charge? how do you deal with that element in the tea party that is overtly racist? >> let me say that my experience has been there is no more a racist element in the tea party than there is in the general population at large. it isn't. it is not -- if there is -- it's not. this is the biggest misperception. i spoke at the first tea party event that i ever spoke at april 15th, 2009. i have spoken at hundreds of tea parties. it's not a racist organization. >> what do you say to morgan freeman, to harry belafonte, to others who've been quite vocal about this? >> i say, go to a tea party. i doubt if they've ever been. >> i don't think they want to go. >> i'll go with them and provide some ground cover for them if they think it's a racist organization. >> let me take you back to your early days. very, very -- you said it wasn't even poverty that you came up in. it was po, which is even worse than poverty. >> you did really good with that word. >> thank you. >> being british. >> did i say it right? >> you got it good. >> so tell me about po. how po was it? >> well, when your dad was working very, very hard, and we could only get lunch money one day a week to go to grade school, and the other four days our lunch consisted of whatever my mother could scrape together from the dinner the night before. we would have sandwiches with no meet. we might have sandwiches with jelly or -- i mean, it was fine. it was filling. but they couldn't afford to give us a 25-cent coin for lunch money five days a week, and it was just my brother and i. >> what do you remember about that, the fact that you had so little? >> what i remember most about having so little is we appreciated what little we had. we were thrilled when we could buy lunch on fridays with the rest of the kids. it wasn't that it was that big a deal. and friday's lunch was usually a hot dog, apple, and a carton of milk. but on that day we could go to the cafeteria and eat with the other kids. >> is this why you're so tough on the poor of today? do you feel that by comparison most of the people calling themselves poor have no idea of the kind of poverty that so many millions of americans had to endure, that you did? >> i would say that that is true, but i don't want to overgeneralize. there are a lot of people who are stuck in whatever their economic situation is, but i also happen to believe that there are some people who don't take advantage of some of the opportunities that they could go after and get. those are the ones that i have the least amount of patience for. >> is modern american society, like many societies around the world, is it spoiled? has it been spoiled? >> some of the population has been spoiled. i happen to think that those demonstrating on wall street are spoiled. they are spoiled and manipulated because i happen to believe that there was a coordinated effort to create all of this chaos and all of this distraction to cover for the failed policies of the obama administration. >> i thought it was fascinating yesterday in the debate. you got the biggest cheer of the night when you directly attacked the occupy wall street protesters. i was amazed by that. >> yeah. >> they were a very wealthy audience. we were in vegas. maybe they had a good night. but a surprising moment, i thought, to see you get a real ovation for that attack. and you kind of steered it away from not necessarily the people themselves. go outside the white house, you said. go and protest against barack obama, against his administration. >> right. >> and i was like, come off it, herman. you don't honestly -- i don't believe that you believe that the banking community of america is as blameless as you're pretending them to be. >> i didn't say that. i never said that. >> you were kind of -- >> no, no, no. >> talk about manipulation. you were kind of steering everyone to think -- >> no, no, no, no, no. >> -- it's not these guys, it's these guys. >> no. first of all, i wouldn't defend the banks because i happen to think that the banks are part of the problem. wall streeters, they manage money. they helped to make sure the businesses run. no, i was not trying to defend the banks or wall street. what i was saying was they have their frustration directed at the wrong place. >> but why? >> why? >> i agree with ron paul. this whole subprime mortgage scandal was a bunch of wealthy bankers effectively preying on the most vulnerable elements of american society. here you are saying to these people, i know you lost your home, i know you probably lost your job, i know you've got no money, it's probably mainly your fault, and if it's not your fault, it's barack obama's. >> no. >> herman. what about these guys? >> those are not the people that were protesting on wall street. >> some of them are. >> no. >> why? >> i know some o