>> plus, will zimmerman make bail or stay behind bars? >> he may spend the rest of his time in jail. >> what's changed and what hasn't since the l.a. riots 20 years ago. >> we became a better society through what rodney king went through. >> plus, a big announcement of what's next for or seen ya. plus, the family feud to end all fields. th this is "piers morgan tonight." good evening. our big story tonight. president obama is at the g-20 summit in mexico. we also learned -- this is not the story the president told in his best-seller. david marannis' book differs from that account. he writes about his friends, his classmates, and he found himself face-to-face with the president in the oval office to talk about what he's written. welcome. it's a fascinating book. it ends in 1998 as obama's driving to harvard. obama doesn't even appear in the first seven chapters. the confrontation isn't quite the right word. a fascinating book to read next to the dreams book. because there are at least someone counted 38 significant parts of barack obama's version of events you take issue with. the republicans have jumped all over this. saying this is evidence he's made up half of his story. what is the reality about your findings in totality? in terms of the veracity of beco barack obama's story? >> there are several true of almost anyone you would study. in this case, there's the pathology that obama himself portrayed in his memoir. as an historian, my goal is not to fact check all of that but to tell the truth. and let the chips fall where they may. in the case of barack and his memoir, the mythologies range from early on, for instance in high school, in his memoir, he says that he wasn't a starter on his basketball team because he played black and the coach coached white. of course i discovered in fact barack obama was about the eighth or ninth best player on that team. that he was one of the few players who couldn't dunk the ball. so it had nothing to do with race. everything in his book is seen through the lens of race and that sometimes distorts things. like the girlfriend that he writes about in his memoir in new york city he defines her through the lens of race. as a white woman who doesn't understand the anger of black people. then a completely different perspective on race. the other mythology of the right wing birtherings. the fact he was born in honolulu on august 4, 1961, is indisputable. >> you have a lot of detail on that. you've spoken to people who were in the hospital. >> in the hospital who said the remarkable thing was stanley had a baby. that's the name his mother. the fact that someone named stanley would have a little baby is what people remember from that. there's one other document that's been ignored. which is the immigration and naturalization service was watching barack obama sr. during that whole period. he was on visa from kenya. he was trouble for the i.n.s. there's no way he could have left hawaii and had a baby somewhere else and come back. it doesn't fit with the documentings. >> when he wrote his huge selling book, he did have a piece of -- saying, look, this is not 100% accurate book. i have morphed various parts together. various characters. it's very much a memoir done in that way. not historical record. how much should we factor that in to perhaps some of the things you've unearthed that aren't quite right? >> he did say that in his introduction to his book. >> does that give you license, though, to rechange the narrative? >> he says he only changed the narrative -- used characters and compressed chronology in order to make the story smoothly but in fact he did it for other reasons. when he would use -- exaggerate or enhance the role of a black figure in his life just to advance the story when, in fact that person wasn't much of a figure in his life, that sort of thing. >> how significant is it he has done that? opponents will say, come on, this is actually quite interesting. because barack obama certainly portrayed himself as coming through quite a struggle when he was young. your book makes it clear actually it wasn't a struggle at all. >> piers, we live in a really sick modern political culture. what happens is the opponents will dismiss my book and then pick every single thing in it that's negative about barack obama. i can't control it. i'm just trying to write the truth about it. i gave him the introduction of my book to read. it talks about sort of those issues. and he said, david, it's an interesting introduction you called my book fiction. i said no, mr. president, i complimented you, i called itly the rate ur. there's a big difference between accurate rigorous historical biography and memoir. that's all i'm doing. >> what is the barack obama like from what you discovered from 350 separate interviews with people who knew him very well? >> he's introspective, he's cautious, he's what i call an observer in his own life. his mother was an anthropologist. he has some of that characteristic. where you're both participating in life but you're both observing it from above or at the same time. it makes life seem sort of surreal in some instances. he's even president and observing. he also has a writer's sensibility which is much the same thing. you're participating in life but also observing it. that makes him cautious. it makes him a little bit -- seem a little bit cool at times, all of which comes across in his presidency. >> did you find him basically an honest man? >> i did. i found that with the caveat of his memoir he took license. he dealt with the questions honestly. he was not afraid of the truth. if i presented him with something, he didn't try to say no, that's not the way it was, he said, you're probably right. >> he talked about his drug abuse which he admitted to himself. you think he has a free pass on that to some degree. >> well, it's a different generation it the bill clinton generation had it a little bit tougher with that. clinton said he didn't inhale. which actually from my reporting of that book he didn't inhale. >> because you wrote a -- >> barack obama's response, you know, a generation later is that was the point, wasn't it, so i think that the country has moved on that. although interestingly when the details of obama's marijuana use came out, people who support legalization were sort of upset with him that he's done so much dope smoking. >> how did you find the comparison between president obama and president clinton, having now immersed yourself in their lives? there are parallels. largely dysfunctional families without fathers. clinton, though, from a much younger age than obama. >> completely. clinton ran for every possible office in high school to the point where his principal had to tell him you can't run for any more offices. at georgetown, he ran for class president so often his classmates got sick of him. obama never ran for anything till he got to harvard law school. you didn't see any political involvement at all. finally, he's president of harvard law school. so it came much later. what i found most fascinating in contrasting them, as you said, they both came out of dysfunctional situations. bill clinton dealt with that by just plowing forward. forgiving himself every day and the world around him. not dealing with the contradictions of his own life. that ability to survive and go on got him to the white house, got him in trouble in the white house, as we all know. then he had the survival mechanism to get out of it. obama by con tracht spent ten years of his young life, from the time he got to college, through chicago, going to harvard law school, those ten years intensively introspectively trying to resolve his own contradictions. he was pretty good at it. he worked it out. >> what is the single biggest negative you think you unearthed in this book? what is the one thing you thought, you know what, that isn't good? >> well, i didn't see anything venal. so it's all relative. but what i did see was in extraordinary caution, and -- well, a little bit -- it's interesting because he always dismissed his mother as being naive but he came into the presidency with a bit of being naive. in my book, in my interview, he said he couldn't find a reason to exist if not for that universality. >> -- identified, you see that now in the presidency -- >> with an occasional bold action. >> like bin laden. >> like bin laden. health care. he sort of holds back quite a bit and then takes action. that frustrates his supporters. >> conversely, what are the big positives you found are consistent? >> what i've found that's positive largely is he is a human being who's growing and learning. i'm run across a lot of politicians who just become more so of whatever they are. i've seen obama has the capacity to react and learn and grow. it's a slower process with him but i've seen it take place. >> mitt romney is accused of being very secretive with his life. interesting thing about obama is you could level the same charge. he is actually not quite the open book you may assume from somebody who's written -- >> that's kind of an interesting paradox with him. he's written this long memoir, revealing so much about himself. and yet in some ways not really. he's a very cool character. and his white house has been fairly closed. it's not an easy operation to get in and see what's really going on in there. and in so many ways that creates, you know, sort of frustrations for journalists. >> how normal is barack obama would you say? i mean, people sort of pick out all the headline grab -- the basketball pot smoking group and so on. actually these are all the little bombshells which leap out of the page. but in terms of his overall persona, he's already struck me as a fairly regular kind of guy. >> you know, i wouldn't put those in the outrageous category either. growing up, playing basketball -- >> pretty normal. >> so his opponents are the people who hate him. there's a significant group that do for various reasons, try to portray him as sort of abnormal, un-american. there couldn't be a more american life in so many ways. it is an immigrant country. he has -- he does represent all of the different strands of american life. and of the globe. and, you know, i think that his family -- you know, his life is an arc for a home. he started with a dysfunctional family. without knowing his father. with his mother off and gone. you can see in this book the gradual arc toward finding his home, which is chicago, personally, michelle. she's sort of not even in this book and yet she's the magnet of this whole life. you can see him leading in that direction. >> the obvious question when you get to the end is, is there going to be volume 2? >> there will be but i don't do quickie books and i want to wait till the documents are out and i can do it right. >> well, it's one to do research. it's an amazing piece of work. it takes you to harvard. the fact you've managed to find so much fascinating material about him is extraordinary given all the attention he's had. i congratulate you. it's a great read. barack obama. the story by david marannis. come back for the next one in four years time. coming up next, george zimmerman's jailhouse phone calls revealed. our cloud is not soft and fluffy. our cloud is made of bedrock. concrete. and steel. our cloud is the smartest brains combating the latest security threats. it spans oceans, stretches continents. and is scalable as far as the mind can see. our cloud is the cloud other clouds look up to. welcome to the uppernet. verizon. cuban cajun raw seafood pizza parlor french fondue tex-mex fro-yo tapas puck chinese takeout taco truck free range chicken pancake stack baked alaska 5% cashback. signup for 5% cashback at restaurants through june. it pays to discover. ♪ [ male announcer ] with 50 horsepower, dual overhead cams and fierce acceleration, the gator xuv 825i will shatter your expectations. ♪ and so no one gets left behind, check out our affordable xuv 550s at johndeere.com/gator. ♪ the sleep number bed offers couples the ability to have unique support for their individual bodies. we have a left and a right 'cause you can each control your individual side. i can adjust mine to my liking and she can do the same. oh yeah. you can have comfort and you can be in the same bed. you can have it your way and i'll have it mine. and right now, during our summer sleep sale, save $500 on our exceptional p6 bed set. only at the sleep number store, where queen mattresses start at just $699. trayvon martin case transcript and jailhouse phone calls and accused shooter george zimmerman and his wife were released. instructing his wife to transfer money between bank accounts. this is george zimmerman's defense attorney. it's his first national tv interview since zimmerman's wife was arrested. welcome back to the show. obviously, a pretty significant -- >> piers, how are you? >> it's good to talk to you again. a significant day in this case because the transcripts are either very significant or they're not. you're maybe the man who can clear this up. the prosecution clearly think they are. that is why zimmerman is back in jail. that's why his wife is in hot water. what is your reaction to these stance scri transcripts? >> they're certainly significant to the one minor issue, if you will, of whether or not shelly new about the amount of money that was in the accounts. clearly they show she did. and we acknowledge that literally four days after the bond hearing so by the 27th of may we had acknowledged that. >> the prosecution say when they talk, as they do, let's play a bit of -- we may as well hear this and i'll talk to you. >> i thought you said there was something like 300 total. >> huh-uh, ken inflated. >> okay, so total everything, how much are we looking at? >> like $155. >> clearly, when they talk about $300 or $155, the prosecutions say you can add three odughtoug here. is the reality they do have hundreds of thousands of dollars? >> there's no question they were talking in this sort of simplistic kind of code where they were talking about $155 when, without question, they were talking about $155,000. >> right. so would you -- >> we've never contested that. >> are they deliberately talking in code to hide the truth? as the prosecution clearly believe? >> if you really want to look into it, i would ask the question, who are they hiding the truth from? maybe shelly had her own reason. in those 30 hours of tapes, there's not one phone call that evidences their intent to deceive the judge. now, granted, they do not tell the judge the absolute truth. if you listen to the tapes, there's not one tape there that suggests anything. there's not one tape that we're going to bring out that shows george said before you testify, pray first and tell the truth. obviously, it didn't come out that day. it came out four days later. but it truly has so little to do with what counts in this case, which is what happened the night that tray van mavon martin pass. >> it does matter if the sense it's about their integrity as witnesses, as people telling the truth or otherwise. there's no doubt, i watched the live hearings, they were asked about the earnings and the amount of money they had. clearly, you were not given the inpression they had much money at all. which may have factored into the judge's behavior that day. if you were putting a prosecutorial hat on, you can see why the prosecution would be pretty agitated. >> no question, they did not tell a complete truth to the judge. and that attacks their credibility. and credibility is always an issue in a case like this. grant you, credibility only deals with those subjective issues and the objective issue, the witness statements, the injuries, are more objective. they're not as susceptible to interpretation. there is no doubt, as you say, they did a great blow to their credibility in this case by being as frightened as they were and not trusting the judge and not trusting the system. >> it doesn't help you, to be brutally frank, that they appear to have lied in this, because when it comes to george zimmerman defending himself and saying x, y, z, about what happened with martin, there will be critics now, understandably, saying, why should we believe you. >> absolutely true. i only hope those critics give it a more global perspective which is what he was going through and what his family was going through, as to why they may not have been completely honest about the money, one, and sort of what they were facing. the state was attempting to keep zimmerman in jail for the entire year before the trial. he thrown out of his job. so, again, sounds like i'm cusing his behavior. maybe an explanation and literally four days later, the first time i spoke to him about the money, he owned up to it right away and transferred the money without question. so i think that sort of lends rehabilitation as to why he did what he did. >> how confident do you feel, mark, that he clearly -- they lied to you as well? for a period of time. they didn't tell you the truth. how confident are you you can believe now what george zimmerman has told you about, as you say, the more serious issue of what happened that night with trayvon martin? >> i would tell you that as we know the conversation between client and lawyer are so privileged, but i will tell you this, i had never asked him a question about that fund because i was never aware of it. four days later, when we were closing down his internet presence, he was immediately straight forward with it. he told me about it and transferred the money. so, do i think he's being straight forward with me? all the evidence and statements i've had support that. >> do you fear, now that he will not be let out on bail? that he could just be, now, in jail for possibly up to two years before this s to trial. >> judge lefter put his neck out for george zimmerman. there's no question about that. he allowed him to stay basically in secrecy. he allowed him some freedoms upon his release. george and shelly maybe didn't realize that favor was coming. might have believed their mistakes more. we now know the earliest he may be released is the 29th. spent a month in jail. you're right, he may spend the rest of his time in jail if george lester decides he can no longer trust him. >> want to talk to you about other parts of the transcript. particularly the revelation that george zimmerman suggests to his wife have you got the bulletproof vest. want to get your reaction to that. [ male announcer ] now you can swipe... scroll... tap... pinch... and zoom... in your car. introducing the all-new cadillac xts with cue. ♪ don't worry. we haven't forgotten, you still like things to push. [ engine revs ] the all-new cadillac xts has arrived, and it's bringing the future forward. what ? customers didn't like it. so why do banks do it ? hello ? hello ?! if your bank doesn't let you talk to a real person 24/7, you need an ally. hello ? ally bank. no nonsense. just people sense. so how much do we owe you? that'll be $973.42. ya know, your rates and fees aren't exactly competitive. who do you think i am, quicken loans? [ spokesman ] when you refinance your mortgage with quicken loans, you'll find that our rates and fees are extremely competitive. because the last thing you want is to spend too much on your mortgage. one more way quicken loans is engineered to amaze. ♪ get on it asap 'cause you know the, first of all, i want you wearing one. >> okay. >> as uncomfortable as it is, i want you wearing one. second of all, i want o'meara having one. >> okay. >> and third, i would like to have one at least here. >> absolutely. >> so, mark, obviously pretty concerning, that george zimmerman believes he needed to have bulletproof vest for his wife and for you. what was your reaction when you saw the transcript? >> well, piers, they truly take thi