>> i was hoping it was a nightmare and ifgs going to wake up and kept pinching myself hoping it wasn't real. roxana and john green. this is piers morgan tonight. >> good evening. i probably wouldn't be doing this job tonight if it wasn't for this man. he did an astounding 6,000 shows over a quarter of a century and pretty much invented the daytime talk show. he's talked to everybody and tonight i'm delighted to say i have the great honor of being the latest person that phil donahue talks to. when i said i was interviewing you, extraordinary reaction. i put it on twitter this morning. you've done one tweet. is that right? there's a phil donahue twitter site. >> that's my secretary's creation. i'm afraid i don't twitter. i do text. i don't when i'm driving. i've already been stopped for being on the phone. >> i got this amazing reaction. the general themes were mr. america, icon, tv legend. the outpouring of affection for you and respect, real respect, was extraordinary, probably more than almost any other guest i've had. how does that make you feel -- >> very good. >> when you look back on this career you've had. >> i've had people come up to me in airports. thank you, mr. donahue. i'm mr. donahue now. because of you i got out of an abusive marriage. because of your show i came out to my parents. because of your show i learned to speak english. i've heard a lot -- that's more often now. and it's wonderful. i mean, to have had that kind of influence on people's lives. >> do you miss it? do you miss the daily connection? >> i don't miss the daily of it, you know, new tie and -- um, you know, it's -- you are don't get to 6,000 shows unless you do it every day and we did. and we were very proud of the fact that we seldom repeated a guest. we always wanted them to wonder what was tomorrow. >> really? so you didn't repeat very often? >> not at all. not at all. very few. madeline marie o'hare was a repeat guest, ralph nader. and we would do, you know, we would do a lot of what you saw later on. we did my husband doesn't kiss me anymore and kaboom, the phones just smoked. couldn't get to them fast enough. shows like that were -- obgyns were great for us. women could audit their own doctor, call. this was when the pill was new and women were complaining about side effects and bloated vision and all -- >> what do you think about the way that television has evolved since your daily show stopped? >> well, you know, it's hard for me to -- i don't want to criticize them because i took a lot of heat. you know, we did -- we brought male strippers to daytime television. >> would you like that to be your epitaph, phil? >> well, it wasn't my idea. i said where are we going to put the microphone? and these guys came out all pumped, you know? and they started throwing things and the women in the audience were screaming. i have never seen such unbridaled elation and excitement and fun that you -- and all the women were there, your baby sister, your grandmother. they were all there and they just had -- and this was in boston. and they had the time of their lives. and, boy, oh, boy, didn't they. that was a real good one. >> do you feel given that you were so cutting edge with what you were doing, do you feel like television, like life, it kind of evolves naturally and to be too critical of the next generation's way of doing things almost misses point in the sense that it goes that way is it. >> it supposed to be different. yeah. >> that it would be strange if you did approve of it all in a sense, wouldn't it? >> yeah. and we were always -- i mean, we were always different. i mean, we better be because we were visually dull. you know, we had no spinning wheel. and there was a guy on the other station, monty hall was giving $5,000 to a woman dressed like a chicken salad sandwich. come on down! here i was with two talking heads, you know. and no one in new york or l.a. could understand this. we had folding chairs, two cameras, no desk, no couch, no band. >> amazing. >> and what got us here were issues. we knew because we were visually dull and against all those spinning wheels it would be -- the only chance we had would be to book issues that were seldom seen on television. and our first show was madeline marie o'hare, the atheist. we put a gay guy on in 1968 before stonewall. >> amazing. what was the reaction to that? >> everybody thought their kids would catch it if they watched it. it's really amazing where we've come with that particular revolution. it's been warp speed. >> what your particular favorite show if if could i let you do one tomorrow, what would it be? >> we had a very good program with mohamed ali. this guy was -- >> the greatest. >> nobody is more charismatic. >> well, we fought and he fell down. i got my hands in air, vest, gloves and he's on the floor on the stage. and really, i wanted it to look real. the tape's out there. i think oprah used it. and, man, we're going at it and, you know, i took my life in my hands doing it on one little pop and i'd still be asleep. but he played the game. he knew how to sell ticket. >> what was extraordinary about ali is he managed to combine this incredible talent. he was one of the great boxers in history but he also had this phenomenal brain and humor and self-marketing side, which you just don't get that package, do you, very often? >> mario did a book titled "the right book at the right time." it asked celebrities to share that moment when somebody said something to them that changed their lives. "the right word at the right time." and you could write your piece for the book or could have it written and then would you have final cut of whatever somebody else wrote. ditwo. i did ted turner and i did mohamed ali. he would go to the armory in louisville and he went one day and he saw gorgeous george and he's sitting there and this guy walks out with the velvet thing and the mink trim, the big cape and the hair, yellow hair going up and he would say -- ali is sitting there. he would say don't you make fun of this pretty face. i got the prettiest face out there. and people would boo, boo! and ali is sitting there and he's telling me about this and he said i looked around and there were no empty seats. so he learned how to -- he got lucky and he found howard cosell as the perfect foil. each also brought pride and boldness to young black males, you know. be proud and, you know, don't be quiet like the white people want you to be, be yourself. he made his parents nervous. he was a loud mouth kid. and that was so unusual for the time. black people were supposed to behave. >> he was, he was one of the great trail blazers, wasn't he? fearless. a fearless trail blazer. >> i think he's the athlete of the 20th century and i also think he should have won the peace prize. i mean, they stripped him of his -- i ain't got nothing against no cong. that took a lot of courage. and i just thought -- and i went to see him to write the piece. he has a ranch in northern indiana just like 25 minutes from my alma mater, notre dame, which is in south bend, indiana and it's just a straight shot to the ranch. so i drove in. i was expected. i had my -- and i parked -- sign said goat, goat, greatest of all time. and you look around and it was lovely. and the door opens over here and out he comes. and he's coming for me and he gets about there far and he goes -- i haven't been that flattered in a long time. >> when we come back, i want to talk to you about politics. i know that you have a very live view on politics. i want to know what you think about the gop race, about president obama. who's going to win in november. let's talk after [ female announcer ] splenda® no calorie sweetener is sweet... and more. if you replace 3 tablespoons of sugar a day with splenda®, you'll save 100 calories a day. that could help you lose up to 10 pounds in a year. and now get even more with splenda® essentials, the only line of sweeteners with a small boost of fiber, or antioxidants, or b vitamins in every packet. just another reason why you get more... when you sweeten with splenda®. ♪ the progresso chicken noodle you made is so good. it's got tender white meat chicken. the way i always made it for you. one more thing.... those pj's you like, i bought you five new pairs. love you. did you see the hockey game last night? [ male announcer ] progresso. you gotta taste this soup. i don't want to make black people's lives better by giving them money. i want them to go out and make their lives better. >> what do you have make of the rick santorum surge? >> and one of many. he's -- i saw him commenting on the straits of hormuz. you can hear the drums in the background and the heart beat accelerates. he wants to go after iran. i mean, how many wars do you want to have in your lifetime? how many bombs are you going to drop? i just think it looks like we've become a warrior nation. we bombed grenada. grenada. we are dropping bombs on crowded cities at night where old people and children are sleeping, and we're watching it on cnn. and the only voice that's spoken up at all in this campaign about this is ron paul. why are we so interventionist he wants to know. what are we doing with all these wars? how are we safer? these are very common sense observations and no other candidate can possibly speak those words. it would be, they believe, politically fatal. now think about that. you can't -- you can't use an anti-war platform to get elected. so maybe that explains why it's so easy for us to go to war. norma solman has written a book "war made easy." essentially he says if the president of the united states wants a war, he can have one. i believe that totally. it's very, very hard to dissent. think about what's against the person who wants to say, wait a minute, wait a minute, are you sure? these are -- newt gingrich said ron paul's positions are dangerous. so it's fear. we have to be tough. and we're killing our young adult children because of this. >> what i've noticed about americans and america when it comes to this kind of thing is that anybody that dares speak up against a war instantly gets labeled, bracketed, a passivist, a coward, weak. it's not really like that in many other countries. it mystifies me. you don't have to be a passivist to disagree with the iraq war. it's pass vich if you say no watch is acceptable. if you say winston churchill had no right to have a war, that is passivist at its weakest. but when it comes to a war like iraq, the worlds's number one political power, economic power has a proper debate going into these things without people being labeled a passivist. >> i'm not brave enough to be a passivist. i am like millions of other americans very, very concerned about our foreign policy behavior over the past several years. and the way that our -- the bedrock of this nation has been chipped away by the people who -- democracy, democracy, and they're turning their back on the bill of rights. we have people in cages with no habeas, no phone calls, no red cross. >> guantanamo you mean. >> yeah. this is not the country that my parents raised me to pledge my allegiance to. you know. you can't say you're a proud american and then waterboard somebody. you can't say you're a proud american and assassinate an american citizen in another country. those are mutually exclusive ideas. >> ron paul, i interviewed him yesterday. it's interesting you say this because his big thing and it's an impressive thing to say is he supports the constitution. and for that people are calling him crazy. i don't have a horse in the race, i'm british. here's a guy who repeatedly says i support the constitution and he's the one everyone calls cranky. >> yes, everything is turned upside down here. so ron paul's concern about our adventurism is in newt gingrich's word dangerous. you know, peace is dangerous. that's -- and the people who call for it are marginalized. we don't get it, we don't understand. liberals are always scolding. i've had more than one person say if a liberal complains about something, they will respond by saying that's the trouble with you liberals, you don't like anything about america. that's how they just push back. >> playing devil's advocate, though, phil, isn't it also true that the right wing, the republicans who espouse traditional social conservatism, they also get the same kind of caricaturing by the left? it does work both ways. >> yes, it does. i agree. and i think about myself, you know, about being the only thing separating us from canada is an imaginary line and our health care costs twice as their. the only thing preventing us is a dogma, a social-ism. they're so hateful of socialism they're willing to continue a health care system in this nation that is a security risk. >> i find it extraordinary coming from a country where you have a national health system where it's free. if you are young, old, poor, race doesn't matter. it's not perfect but the ideology is pretty good. it's like we will look after you whatever your means. here barack obama comes in, carries out an election pledge that got him elected, one of the things that got him elected to expand free health care, cheap health care to people who couldn't afford it and he gets absolutely hammered. th is now being seen as an abject failure by him and his administration. and i'm sitting there going let me get this straight, a president says when i get into power, i'm going to make it more available for poor people to have better health care than they're getting already and this is is an be a jukt, miserable failure that he should be lambasted for? >> he's calling for a nanny government. he's a liberal -- by the way, we're not liberals anymore. >> what have you become? >> nobody runs around saying i'm a liberal, i'm a liberal. we've been so marginalized, we're almost ashamed of the name. we're not liberals anymore, we're progressives. excuse you for breathing. >> hold that thought. we'll come back and talk about the american dream and how it can be repaired. there's no doubt it's been damaged in recent years. >> well, it's been damaged -- >> hold on. does any mother ever feel like their kids are adults? i have twins, 21 years old. each kid has their own path. they grow up, and they're out having their life. i really started to talk to them about the things that are important that they have to take ownership over. my name's colleen stiles, and my kids and i did our wills on legalzoom. 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