>> legendary funny man, steve carell and david steinberg and a tribute to a real all american hero on piers morgan tonight. good evening. our big story tonight, whitney houston, fallen diva laid to rest, buried by side her father in a new jersey cemetery and about the extraordinary performance at the funeral and the song the family asked him to sing and pat o'brien and talking about whitney and his own struggle with addiction and david carell and steinberg. >> are you a funny person by nature? >> as evidenced by this interview, no. clearly not. i don't light up a room. i wasn't the person who can hold court and not a stand-up. i'm not proficient at that at all. >> that's coming up. we begin with whitney houston's final farewell. joining me now, donnie clerk con on, whitney's friend and a preacher on long island. one of the most extraordinary performances i have seen by any singer. i was watching it live co-anchoring. it blew me away your singing in the church. what was it like for you? was that one of the most extraordinary experiences in your life? >> i wouldn't say extraordinary. i thank you for your kindness, piers, i really do. it was more bittersweet than anything else. it was the passing of one of the greatest vocal lists in the world but family and friends. and to sing the song and portray some of the things whitney may have felt in her career and in her personal life. >> how would you describe the atmosphere throughout the day? it was a long day, full of a lot of celebration as well as grief, how would you describe it? >> it was really not just a long day but a day full of family, full of friends, full of people from the industry, from the government, governor christie, mayer booker, you had oprah winfrey and gayle and mariah carey and bassett and the gospel community and everybody in one room celebrating the life of this woman in a way most people probably wouldn't expect, such a lu minnous figure being brought back home into the church. we did not skimp. we did everything we do in church, because that's the life whitney lived. >> it really did feel like a homecoming, a home going. to me, i watched it -- i've never seen a baptist service in such depth before, i found it uplifting, i have to say, for a funeral service, as a catholic, we don't do it that way, it's a much more serious affair. i found it very touching. >> it was the quintessential way that we did. whitney was the type of person no matter what city she went into, she would find a church and go to. two months ago, she was in detroit, the you eulogist, pastor winans, she was used to that. sing in the aisle and egg the preacher on, this was the quintessential whitney houston. the home going was reflective of how she worshiped and the way we worshiped together. >> there was a report at a recent awards show, b.e.t., whitney took you aside and asked you to join her in prayer. >> it was an awards show some year ago and i had sung with patti labelle. i had sung a song with her. as we were finishing, we were going through the hallway and they beckoned me to come into whitney's dressing room. she was sitting in her bathrobe with her hair done and face made up and saying, donnie, just pray with me because everybody is expecting so much of me and my voice is messed up and hoarse and they will think it's because of this and that. i can't make everybody happy. just, she was so nervous. what i had to do was grab her by the hand and pray with her and remind her the few critics you have don't compare to the whole world full of people that love you. we pray ed ed like we usually do. she calmed down and her confidence came back and she went out and wowed them. her presence was absolutely wonderful. that was the way it was. whitney was somebody who no matter how iconic she was, she was very full of faith and she loved god and she wanted to pray. >> how big a blow do you think it was to her she lost the power of her voice and couldn't hit the great notes she used to hit? >> to any singer, that would be devastating. to any singer, especially someone who has such high expectations put upon you, it was really heartbreaking in a way. she always knew that it would come back. that's what she was working on even before this happened, she was working on coming back to snuff and coming back up to get those high notes again. she would av have done it and it would have been wonderful. even in her struggle with her voice, she still had the ability to control it and know what notes to hit and where to go. she worked what range she had like only whitney houston could. >> i was surprised aretha franklin didn't perform in the end or even go to the funeral. were you surprised? because she performed her own show the night before and indeed the night of the funeral. >> she's been suffering with some ailments and cramping in the legs. she wanted to come and she was supposed to be there. at the last minute she couldn't come. i think that probably affected miss franklin much more than it did anybody else because she loved whitney and that was her godchild. it was really only because of physical ailments aretha couldn't make it but surely would have been there. >> donnie, you played a huge part there and you set the scene in spectacular fashion. i congratulate you on that and a very special afternoon. >> i want to thank you for your sensitivity. the way you covered the story was really heart warming and it was a pleasure, it was a pleasure. hearing everybody's comments about how you did so, it was really good. thank you so much, piers. >> the pleasure was certainly mine, donnie. thank you very much indeed for joining me. >> god bless you, man. >> we don't know yet what caused whitney houston's untimely death but know she struggled it for years. pat o'brien knows about that, a former anchor for "entertainment weekly" and joins me now. >> nice to see you. >> what do you make of the whitney houston story, woman blessed with incredible voice, early addiction, shockingly early death. what do you think? >> i think with all these cases, it's matter of she paid the price for what she thought she used to want. here she was -- i knew witness from the beginning, i interviewed her from the beginning. i watched her go into this diva world and loved her and part of hollywood. let's point out this isn't just about celebrities. there are 100,000 people who die of drugs and alcohol during a year. 20 will die while we're sitting here. it's not just about her. that does give us a schematic how these things happen. >> whitney did change over the years. i think that much is known. i've heard conflicting reports about her upbringing and background. some people said to me, look, don't misconstrue the bobby brown corruption element to this because she was already up to no good before she met bobby brown. she was party girl before she met him. do you know anything about that? >> it's not illegal to be a party girl. depends what the party is. no, not really. i don't judge her and i don't know what she did. but i saw her from the beginning and i saw her in the middle and that picture we're seeing now, i saw her during that period. she used to always say to me, pat, i love you because i always have your back. but i didn't. if i had her back, i would have grabbed her and said, you know what, you got to slow down. that's what somebody didn't do. >> what kind of woman was she and what did she become? how did she change from the woman you saw? >> physically, she changed. that was an as a result of whatever she was doing. personality-wise, when she was away from the camera, look, we didn't hang out, when she was away from the camera, she was always a lot sweeter than you thought. i would see her at the clive davis events. that sort of thing. she was a wonderful woman, big loss. >> cnn is devote ing a show on addiction. and talking about addictive and problematic to people, fame, as any other kind of drug. would you go along with that? >> but addiction is not as dr. drew, who treated me, by the way, successfully, it's not a character defect, not a moral problem, something wrong with your brain, to put it simply. until you decide that the party's over, i can say piers, stop drinking, by the way, he doesn't have a problem i know of, i can say, stop drinking, you're not going to stop until you want to stop. you have to surrender. >> that is the theme i hear all the time. everyone i talk to last week who had their own problems all said the same thing, in the end, you can blame everybody else but you have to look in this mirror and make that decision for yourself. >> who won world war ii? you'd think the allied forces, right? no, japan. you know why? because they surrendered. life in japan got better after world war ii because people took care of them. you have to say the party is over, i'm stopping and nobody can do that for you. sad to say, it's tough to do. i speak to thousands of addicts, piers, i don't know one who did it because someone told them to, because they finally said, it's over. >> whitney never seemed to have the desire to rehabilitate herself to get proper treatment for this, did she? >> no. or the people, that i know of. or the people. i'm old enough to have been around when elvis died. they would say, what killed elvis? i said, no, who, because nobody said no to him. at some point, you've got to say, whitney, enough, you can't do this. >> when you saw -- if you did see, in the run-up before she died, a few day, pictures emerging of her falling out and looking dishev velled evelled, and so on, did you fare something would happen? >> no. every picture from a nightclub doesn't look good, especially at 1 oe :00 in the morning. >> the fact she was drinking at all as an addict, doesn't that ring alarm bells? >> not really. i don't know what she was doing and still we don't have the toxicology reports yet. looking back at it, is that what you want to do? yeah, it was alarming. to say that's blood on her legs as some of these entertainment shows did, it was red wine on her legs. >> do we know? >> i think they've said now. you can speculate so much about what goes on in a nightclub. >> everyone's working on the same sort of theory now that whitney was mixing prescription drugs -- >> that's a bad deal. >> with a lot of alcohol and not drinking just a little bit of alcohol, a lot. up at 10:00 a.m., seen on two consecutive mornings at the hotel pool drinking. >> i'm not here to defend her on that. if that all happened, as dr. drew points out many times, to run doctor r. drew's comment s s, once you put prescription pills into the mix, it's a whole other story. the rolling stones and beatles, all these guys went through life doing every drug i did, every drug imaginable and none of them died. the people that go on to prescription pills end up dying. >> what lessons can we learn from whitney houston's tragic story? >> oh, gosh, how long do you have? if you have a problem, try to admit it. if you see somebody -- people at home, normal people, say don't bother daddy because he's drinking. bother daddy because he's drinking. you have to get these people, like me, into some sort of recovery program, into a step program. get them to church. but you have to -- you can't force them, especially a celebrity. >> again, the theme i was hearing from a lot of people was, when i saw the church, 1500 people who clearly loved her and cared for her and were mourning for her -- >> two weeks ago? >> where were they when she was on this chaotic spiral down hill? >> that's the thing. i was fortunate to have people that finally said to me, pat, you've had enough, that's it. >> pat o'brien, interesting insight. thanks. >> nice to meet you. when we come back, a top democrat who has taken the president to task for accepting big bucks from super pacs. 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[ male announcer ] good choice business pro. good choice. go national. go like a pro. at meineke i have options... like oil changes starting at $19.95. my money. my choice. my meineke. top democrat, russ feingold says president obama is dancing with the devil by accepting super pac money and says america is ignoring the lessons of 9/11. joining me, senator from wisconsin, russ fine gold eingold feingold, thanks for joining me. >> it's a pleasure. >> what is happening while america sleeps? >> we were surprised on 9/11 and made a resolution we wouldn't be surprised again. what seems to be happening, we have become diverted away from looking at what's happening in the rest of the world and going back into that slumber and not really thinking about those challenges. part of it makes sense because of the terrible economic problems we've had. also some of it is cynical and a bit manipulative, purposely ignore ignoring issues around the world, issues related to al qaeda and china and africa because those that are opponents of the president want the opportunity to basically try to blame the economy on him and not talk about anything else. as a result, we're not really focusing on the rest of the world in the way i think we need to do to be successful and, frankly, do be safe. >> this whole issue of super pacs is fascinating to me. you would imagine those who have the most money to spend on these things would be having the biggest advantage. it seemed that way with mitt romney for quite a while. you could argue now rick santorum is on this constant surge precisely because he hasn't got the money to attack his opponents all the time, in fact, he's got another way. >> he has his own super pac. he's going to a fund-raiser for his super pac. >> it's nowhere near in terms of financial firepower anything like manufacturer's, kind of reminds me of the campaign meg whitman fought in california, money in the end can't overcome personal deficiency, can it, as a candidate? >> usually not. these candidates on the other side have so many deficiencies, it is a free-for-all but the point is not so much who wins or loses because somebody has more-or-less money. the point is is the corrupting our system, not who wins but the kinds of conversations held when somebody calls up and say, hey, can you give me 10 or $20 million? we don't have the disclose what it is? that's the problem with it. destroying our system, any a question of who's up or down in the polls. >> i was concerned about it and as i've seen the way the republican race has unfolded, you do start to think how much of a difference is it really making? i think back to what mitt romney's been spending, vastly out-spending his competitors, attack attack and in the polls, rick santorum 8 points ahead and clearing. >> you're just talking about who's winning the republican primary. what does this do to the average citizen's involvement in the political process? what about the idea of one person one vote. when these kind of individuals can have 5 or $10 million worth of influence, how do you think it makes everybody else feel? they feel cut out of the process. that's corrupting to the process and also leads to corrupt results an scandals. i guarantee you this system will fall on its own weight because of the elicit conversations being held. what will happen in the primaries, i don't know? i think president obama will defeat whoever they put forward. i don't think president obama or the republicans should be involved in hidden contributions that have never been allowed in this country for 100 years. >> one thing for sure, president obama has played a pretty tricksy game on this because he was very very against these super pac, very publicly against them and done a huge u-turn and about to do it himself. very hypocritical, isn't it? >> i was very disappointed. i'm a strong supporter of the president and play an official role to get him re-elected because i think his role international matters is successful, the key to make sure america does not stay sleeping, as i talk about in my book. with regard to being involved in super pac, i don't think barack obama should be involved or his cabinet members or anybody else because it completely cuts out the average person from the political process, people with that kind of fortune can dominate our system. it's wrong and we need to put the genie back in the bottle. >> you've been pretty critical of president obama in this book. where do you think he's going wrong or where would you give him due credit? >> if you look at the book carefully, i'm far more favorable than critical. agree with him over 95% of the time. i think he's doing a very good job and will be by the end of his second term one of our greatest presidents. our areas of disagreement have to do with surging in afghanistan, needs to be more focused on protecting civil liberties. as you already pointed out i had a significant concern on money and politics issue. on the positive side, he had the courage to get us health care for all americans, something we waited for for 70 years. his stimulus package people made fun of, is working. we actually now have almost two years worth of positive job growth in this country. on the international side, i don't know any president in modern times who have done more to improve our relationship with the rest of the world, whether africa or europe or southeast asia, people have a much better feeling about the united states than they did under george bush because barack obama is a superb ambassador for us internationally and going to make some of the greatest moves in terms of our international position in his second term. i disagree with him on some issues and open about that. i think the president knows i strongly believe he is in fin infinitely superior to the crew you were talking about earlier on the republican side and should be re-elected. >> there's no question you're right about him improving the standing of america abroad. the problem given only 25% of americans have passports, most don't realize that and doesn't get any credit for it. >> this is exactly what my book "while america sleeps" is about. we need to have all americans engaged in some sort of citizen diplomacy. we need to encourage americans to go overseas and help connect overseas, whether dairy farmer or violinist or construction worker. we are a large country that could have a great influence improving our relationships abroad. the president has set the stage. my book is mostly about the need for us to learn foreign language, have members of congress get credit instead of being criticized to understand other countries and every american to be deeply engaged trying to connect with other countries in the world and have these conversations not just as government or cia or military but as a people because we can never again just be an island as we seemed to be prior to 9/11. that should have been the lesson of 9/11. we need to understand we will never be safe if we do not connect in a serious way to the country ies around the world. we can't just close our eyes and come back and focus on issues within the country. >> senator feingold, thank you very much. >> thank you tomorrow night my exclusive and provocative interview with new jersey governor, chris christi. >> santorum is exciting. >> but that doesn't mean i ha