In the crucial battle for ohio, look at this new cnn poll released today. President obama a four point advantage over governor romney. In the fight for women voters, obama has a commanding lead in ohio but a lot can change of course between now and november 6th. The surprise is what john sununu told me last night is not going to go away. It could become a big problem for romney. Sununu, a key romney surrogate, has put race and frankly, charges of racism front and center in the final days of the campaign when romney would have least wanted him to. Lets get right to it. I asked him last night about former secretary of state Colin Powells endorsement of president obama. This is what sununu said and why its creating a political firestorm. Final question. Colin powell has decided to opt for president obama again despite apparently still being a republican. Is it time he left the party, do you think . Well, im not sure how important that is. I do like the fact that Colin Powells boss, George Herbert walker bush, has endorsed mitt romney all along, and frankly, when you take a look at colin powell, you have to wonder whether thats an endorsement based on issues or whether hes got a slightly different reason for preferring president obama. What reason would that be . Well, i think when you have somebody of your own race that youre proud of being president of the United States, i applaud colin for standing with him. With me now is newark mayor and obama supporter, cory booker. I watched you this morning. You seemed to be slightly biting your lip about this, but a lot of people have been getting very angry because they say whichever way john sununu tries to wriggle off the hook on this, i asked him the question, he gave a blunt answer. I asked him to clarify it, he gave a sort of blunter second answer. Leaving no real wriggle room at all. The guy was saying, without any doubt, that the reason that colin powell, a fourstar retired general, one of the great statesmen of modern america, the reason he has voted for barack obama is because of the color of his skin, that theyre both black men. Right. Look, theres no wriggle room whatsoever. Its extremely offensive and this is the kind of just patent disrespect the president s had to endure a lot, to think that somebody with Colin Powells depth of experience, with his wisdom and with his intellect is going to support Somebody Just because of the color of their skin is ridiculous, its offensive and is in many ways just despicable but the reality is, what i feel very strongly about, is i would much rather look at just 11 days left in this election, and as much as i think mitt romney should distance himself from him, he should be very clear what should he do, mitt romney . People are saying you got to get after this guy, got to close this down, because otherwise you could have the last two weeks of the Election Campaign dominated by a race card, last thing they all want. Right. Again, i think mitt romney should be stepping up on this issue and frankly, what im even more shocked on is you have a United States Senate Candidate coming out and talking about women and the issues of rape as if it was somehow gods will. To me, thats even more glaring. Its an act of violence, an act of unimaginable savagery to Say Something like that, and then dont pull your endorsements from such a candidate. So i think mitt romney needs to begin to continue to clarify where he stands and get back to the issues. Look, for me, i dont care if hes black or whathave you. The reality is he stands for certain things that i believe will be detrimental to the country and thats where i wish we would be focusing on because at the end of the day, sununu has no wriggle room. What he did to me was unacceptable and very revealing about what he thinks. To dismiss somebody like colin powell for all his service to this nation, to reduce him in such a way that his thinking primarily is just about the color of our skin, something he spent his whole entire career demonstrating his ability to overcome racism the reason its devastating is he gave a very clear set of reasons outlining why he didnt want to vote for mitt romney, about his Foreign Policy and so on. Thats what john sununu didnt want people debating, in my view. I think he quite deliberately played that race card to change the thinking of people who may be in two minds about who to vote for, you know what, this is actually about a black man voting for a black man. If it was an intentional dismissal, using race in that way, it just heightens the level of sinisterness of such a comment and it belies in many ways the truth of who colin powell is. Lets play a clip from president obama today. This is what he said about it. Any suggestion that general powell would make such a profound statement in such an important election based on anything other than what he thought was whats going to be best for america i think doesnt make much sense. Sununu issued a statement afterwards which i found fairly laughable. Colin powells a friend, i respect the endorsement decision he made. I do not doubt it was based on anything but his support of the president s policies. Piers morgans question was whether colin powell should leave the party and i dont think he should. It doesnt allude to what he said at all, trying to sort of reframe it as if somehow, what he was saying was he doesnt doubt it was based on anything but support for the policies. Of course he doubted it. He was making it very clear to my viewers that this was about the color of his skin. Look, thats not even approaching an apology for what he said. Frankly, this is the problem with the Republican Party, when you have people in your party who come out and say things, bigoted things, things against women, things against gay, it begins to undermine the Republican Party ability to reach out to these demographic groups, to reach out to women, to reach out to gays and lesbians. When you continue to have surrogates like this that represent or even elected officials, frankly, or people running for senate, it really undermines the Republican Partys ability to reach out and so romney, this is his chance to stand up and say you know what, the comments that were made by mourdock were despicable, unacceptable and im pulling my ads back. This is a real opportunity for him to stand up on issues of race, on issues of and to praise colin powell for crying out loud, for the kind of person that he is. But he missed those opportunities. Would you agree with the New York Times columnist who said today at what point will mitt romneys campaign gently escort john sununu away from the television cameras, tuck him no a cozy room, make sure he has adequate provisions and lock the room tight so he cant get out until november 7th . Again, the fact that they have not come out harder against this is disappointing. The fact that this is the kind of stuff i believe the president has had to endure. George bush never had somebody saying that the only reason why x, y or person supports you because youre both white. Thats the extreme ridiculousness of these comments. Lets talk about the Hurricane Sandy situation. Obviously this is going to come crashing through the east coast, including potentially newark. What is your view now about where we are with the information . This is the time people should be putting plans together. They should be securing things in their lawn, they should be preparing to live without power if Power Outages happen. This is a very, very serious storm. We have seen the last two years what a hurricane and ice storm last october can do to our communities and everybody should take it seriously. Its also an interesting political situation in the sense its so close to an election. If the federal government is deemed not to have prepared people properly for this and it becomes another mini katrina situation, it could be literally an election wrecker for the president. Conversely, if he handles this very well and it is a huge storm, that can win him the election. It can be politically very important. Lets be clear. The record is obvious to me, the president has we saw what happened in the past in katrina. The president has been very aggressive putting his own boots on the ground. He came through the state of new jersey when we had flooding and the like. So this president to me, hes already proven that point and i know, i know from my work in preparing today, that the federal government is ready for this challenge and they will meet it headon and deal with the crisis and the aftermath. And i know its a political issue but i really want to reaffirm to people because the biggest mistakes ive seen often in these storms, especially in the obama administration, has not necessarily been the federal response, its been from individuals not taking the necessary steps to be ready. And then in the crisis, doing things that they shouldnt be doing. Well said. Mr. Mayor, good to see you. Thank you. Always good to see you. Now to breaking news on Hurricane Sandy. Its a huge storm system taking dead aim on the east coast. Moving slowly and bringing the threat of a possible catastrophe. Its already impacting the president ial campaign with governor romney, Vice President biden and First Lady Michelle Obama canceling events. Meteorologist chad myers is tracking the event. I read your tweet, after 26 years in tv weather, two years with nraa, sandy may pose the greatest risk to human life i have seen. That was last night. Dire warning. Is it as dire today as it seemed last night . I dont think so. Because the storm today, and thats the twitter universe, that was exactly what i was thinking at that moment in time. We had, on computer models, three cat 3s, almost cat 4s, going into new york harbor. My mindset was about that, 26 years, i have never seen and nobody had ever seen anything like that. Today it looks more like a cat 1 storm making landfall somewhere either new jersey or down to the delmarva. So still a very bad storm. Right now we have estimates at 3. 2 billion in wind damage only. Heres the next thing. Heres the next rub. Because you know, irene didnt do too much to new york city. But it certainly did a lot to vermont. And will this storm do something similar as its stalling. Here all the models bringing it up from the city down to about washington, d. C. But the big thing is it stops, it stops moving for 48 hours and it could rain for two days and make flooding. If it rains a half an inch an hour for 48 hours, thats two feet of rain in any one spot. That is going to cause significant flash flooding and the potential for big loss of life. Chad, thanks for the update. We may well come back to you before the end of the show. Appreciate it. Lets get back to politics and the subject of race. Outspoken conservative ann coulter has a lot to say about just about everything, in fact. The new subject of her new book is mugged, racial demagoguery dedicated to quote, the freest black man in america. Well discover who that is. Ann coulter, welcome back. Thank you. Good to be here. I know you have been struggling with a bit of a cold. You have an unfair advantage about it tonight. You have been whining about it incessantly for the last hour, saying you think you may die during this interview which is going to be a huge ratings booster for me. So thank you. I would only not cancel on you. All day i was lying in bed thinking i cant cancel this because of a scheduling mishap a year ago. I gave you a bad turn. As we say in britain, you bottled it last time. You just didnt fancy your chances. Lets turn to race. Very timely, this book, for the discussion today about john sununu. There you have john sununu, 11 days to go until the election, up he pops on my show last night and for reasons that still baffle me, when i asked him a straightforward question, political question, do you think colin powell should stay in the Republican Party if hes going to keep voting for the democrat. It would seem to me as a brit, a fairly logical question. Off he went on this rant about well, you know, its another reason for all this, nod nod, wink wink, and its basically because hes black and so is barack obama. Put your dispassionate hat on if you may for a moment. What did you make of that . Was he just being stupid . I think its probably not true. There are a lot of republicans who often vote for the democrats. In fact, i secretly suspect that john mccain voted for obama in the last election. But i dont think its such a terrible thing. A lot of Irish Catholics voted for jfk because he was the first Irish Catholic president. I dont think its a slander upon colin powell to say this, though i dont particularly think its true. The insult isnt that voted for barack obama. Its why. Its because hes black. I dont think thats such a terrible thing to say. Like i say, lots of Irish Catholics voted for jfk just because he was Irish Catholic. John sununu has assumed that was the motivation behind what colin powell has done. Colin powell has never used that as the reason for why hes voted for obama. Hes probably wrong. I just dont think its such a terrible thing to speculate about. If you play the race card in putting into Colin Powells mouth words he hasnt actually used for his reasoning, thats just playing a race game, a rather unpleasant race game. Maybe. But i bet there are a lot of black people who are very proud of having the first black president. I dont hold that against them. Thats totally irrelevant to what i just said. Its not about black people voting for a black president. Its about the motivation of colin powell, a four star retired general, great statesman, making a decision based as he put it very clearly on politics, on Foreign Policy, on issues. To then have that condensed by john sununu to actually its just because hes black and so is barack obama but thats what your question was. You didnt answer it. You did a sununu on me. You went off on some weird tangent. I dont think its that weird tangent. I dont think its that slanderous. I also dont think its true. What isnt true . That its only because hes black. Colin powell is liberal. So was john mccain. You actually agree with me . I agree with the bottom line. I just think its a tempest in a teapot. If it were the case, if colin powell said im voting for him because hes the first black president , i wouldnt think thats outrageous. Is america a more or less racist country since barack obama became president . I think its not a racist country. As i say in the book, i think there are more child molesters than genuine racists in america. You actually believe that . I can save you a lot of time. Anything i say, i actually believe. Yes. And i think i marshal a fair amount of evidence to demonstrate that. I think more the problem is the accusations of racism and that does drive the races apart because you have white people walking on egg shells, terrified they are going to say some word thats going to be deemed, you know, an incipient klan sentiment and thats why the crux of my book is the turning point of the o. J. Verdict when i think White America saw black people cheering the acquittal of an obviously guilty black celebrity and said thats it, the white guilt bank is shut down. Not only did that help race relations, it specifically helped black people as republican policies that had been pushed for years but demagogued as racist, law and order, welfare reform, were actually able to be implemented helping black people most of all. I mean, helping everyone but helping giulianis policies in new york saved tens of thousands of black lives and i dont know if he would have been able to continue with his very tough on crime policies which were in fact demagogued as racist while he was implementing them, if you didnt have this change in feeling in america where people were just sick of hearing of being accused of racism. Lets take a little break now weve warmed you up, because you called the president a retard this week. Youre laughing. Most people arent. Lets discuss it after the break. I struggled with it myself i struggled with it myself for a long time but i came to realize life is a gift from god and i think even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something that god intended to happen. Theres the rape comments from Richard Mourdock. Its sparked a firestorm in this election. Im sure ann coulter has a view on that. What is your view . I think all republican candidates apparently need to go through some sort of cattle prodding to learn to just say exceptions for rape, incest, life of the mother. Is that so hard to get out of your mouth . That is your belief . For the law, yeah. If youre talking these guys start to get philosophical as im sure Richard Mourdock was doing there. Look, its one thing if a woman decides to bring a child to term after shes been raped. There are a lot of cases where an abortion would be indicated, or you would be sympathetic toward the woman. Tim tebow, jack nicholson, thank god their mothers didnt abort them. Yet and still we are talking about someone running for a position to make laws. Should the state require a woman to carry a child to term, no. Can we keep our eye on the ball . We live in a country where you can abort a baby up until its been born alive. When barack obama was in the illinois legislature, he required hospitals to if in a botched abortion if the baby is inadvertently born alive, the doctors have to go chasing the baby with a fire extinguisher and kill it. Thats the world we live in. Can we deal with the two million who arent a result of rape and incest and just have that exception there . Is that such a big problem . And when youre running for office, stop talking philosophically. The latest poll, usa today gallup says abortion at 39 is the number one issue for women in 12 swing states. You surprised by that . Im suspicious of that. I understand from pollsters that a very dangerous way to take a poll is to give people a multiple choice answer because respondents feel like theyre taking an iq test and will check off the one they think is the correct answer. There is no correct answer. The way they should really ask polls like that is to have a fill in the blank question which is why insane things Like Campaign finance reform would show up very high on polls. Would you like romney if he wins to overturn roe versus wade as he has threatened to in the past . Well, i dont think its much of a threat. It seems to me from much of the public dialogue, people seem not to realize that even if roe is overturned, abortion up until the last minute and even the doctors and nurses chasing the fetus through the hallways will always be legal in new york, chicago, california. When you started your position, i actually think this guy mourdock is wrong because he should have how hard is it to say exception of rape, incest, so on. Youre perfectly normal when you speak like that. I get it. You can have that position and it seems reasonable. Then you start going on about babies being carried through corridors youre taking it to such a ridiculous extreme. It was president obama taking it to a ridiculous extent. He supports partial birth abortion, that is when the baby is entirely delivered except for the head. The head is punctured and the brain suctioned out. That is a brutal, sick, savage procedure. I think we can agree on that. I think we can agree on parental notification in a lot of cases. Or husband, the husband being notified. States would be allowed to finally pass their own laws, overturning roe v wade is not dday for pro lifers. It just means it goes back to the states and i promise you in the state of new york, the state of california, abortion is going to be legal until after the baby is born. Why did you call president obama a retard . Let me preface it with youre a very intelligent woman. Very controversial but very intelligent. You would have known absolutely the furor that would have come up from this. Heres the tweet you tweeted. It was during one of the debates. At the end of the third debate. Right. But when you read that back, you know what you did there. You know it was a deliberately incendiary thing to say. You knew you were using a word that would be latched on by everyone who has a disability in america as their equivalent of the n word to black people. Why did you do it . I think you are doing what you are so testy with sununu doing to colin powell. You are just interpreting and announcing to the world what my motives were. I didnt announce your motives. Yes, you did. You did it because you knew it would be incendiary. I sent out a tweet that i thought was relevant at the moment and it was because at the end of the third debate, all the chitchat was why was romney so gentle, why didnt he go after obama on benghazi, why didnt he go after obama on the benghazi coverup. Why call the president of the United States a retard . Because its a synonym for loser. We were spending ten seconds on this or its going to be another two years before i come on. Now youre threatening me. Im angry at the word police. I need an encyclopedia to see which words are appropriate and which arent. No, you dont. Explain to me why retard is inappropriate. What if i said imbecile, creton or moron. Any of those words, as you know, has not become in the last decade or so a word that is synonymously offensive to people with disability. And is used in an offensive way about them by people. That is a difference. Do you call people with mental disabilities retards, because i dont. I think thats a nasty thing to do. A lot of people do, to be offensive. Yes. No, they dont. They absolutely do not. No one would call a down syndrome child a retard. It is synonymous with loser. You know perfectly well thats complete nonsense. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Thats complete nonsense. Thats the whole point. The whole point. If you talked to people who worked with down syndrome children or whatever, they would all tell you you keep saying this is offensive and youre just wasting time because we only have ten more seconds on this. Says who . Okay, its offensive and youre going to come up with 20 different ways to tell me its offensive. According to who . Moron, idiot, cretin, imbecile. These were just like retard, once technical term to describe people with disabilities. Changing the word doesnt change the condition. I wasnt referring to someon with down syndrome. I was referring to the president of the United States. I didnt make a joke about Special Olympics the way the president did. I didnt make a joke about extra chromosome right wingers the way al gore did. Those are specific conditions. I didnt call the president a down syndrome child. I used the word retard the same way people use idiot, cretin, moron and the rest of them which were all once technical terms and i had it with the language police. You were wrong that no one else is laughing. Everyone is fed up with the language police. You wouldnt use the n word, would you . Not the n word argument. Now we are back to my book mugged. No. Of course not. For one thing, its like a curse word. Why would you allow the word police as you put it to make any exceptions . I should have called my book three books back about guilty liberal victims and their assault on america. Everybody wants to be black. No. Unless you went through slavery and went through jim crow, i do not want to hear victims bullying the rest of america. This is what has happened. Whether its the jersey girls or the spokesman for the disabled, its not the disabled, its the selfappointed spokesman word police, the feminists on this word or that word, the gays on oh, you cant say thats so gay now. You know that it would get you into serious trouble no, i would never use it. You know its deeply offensive. You are doing, youre so upset what sununu did to colin powell. Youre trying to read my mind. No, youre wrong. I wouldnt use the n word because its a curse word. Will you continue using the retard word . Yes. Of course. Ive done it since that tweet. Disabled people im sure they were following my twitter feed. This has nothing to do with disabled people. It was about the president. They have injected themselves into a tweet they have nothing to do with. I would think maybe biden should be upset by me calling the president a retard but not an actually disabled person. Lets take another break. Let you calm down a bit. Oh, yeah. I think you could move on to a better subject. Its an interesting subject. No, it isnt. p p the first time shouldnt be with just anybody. You want to do it with a great guy. It should be with a guy with beautiful someone who really cares about and understands women. A guy who cares when you get Health Insurance and specifically whether you get birth control. The consequences are huge. My first time voting was amazing. It was this line in the sand. Before i was a girl. Now i was a woman. I went to the polling station and pulled back the curtain. I voted for barack obama. A new lena dunham ad for president obama. Ann coulter is back. Im sure you loved that, didnt you . Yes, its going to be my exhibit henceforth for both of the groups i want to take the vote away from. Young people and women. All in one combo platter. You would take away the female vote, would you . Yes. I have become quite famous for making that point. What is the point . That it was a rash experiment and we should reconsider the 19th amendment. You called me in break a sexist mysogenist pig. Yes. Can you explain why . What have i said thats been remotely sexist. Calm down. Oh, it is the conservative you were hyperventilating. Im not hyperventilating. Im disagreeing with you which apparently is insulting your teeny tiny male ego. It is the most insulting condescending sexist thing to say to a female, generally conservative, who disagrees with you, no, its my obligation to back down and accept your point and if i dont, youre not being calm. I never heard you back down or apologize for anything. I think when you call the president of the United States a retard we have moved on from that. Final point on it. A little part in your brain cell should go off and say you know what, ann, i just overstepped the mark. Okay. Explain to me what why that is different, again, from cretin, moron, idiot. For the same reason that the n word has become completely unacceptable. Because of the offense it causes to the black community. Let me finish my sentence. You cant just say let me finish my sentence. Oh, calm down. Calm down. I would argue the word retard has become equally, has become equally unacceptable to people with disabilities in america because it is the one word of all those words and i got them all out from the dictionary, its the one word that has been used for the last decade or so yes, it has. Youre so wrong. No, it isnt. You cant just go around, it isnt a better argument to say oh, thats like using the n word, illegal immigrant, thats like using the n word. All youre doing is making a different argument for the same argument. I have used the argument once. We will tell you which words you can and cant use. Making a joke about Special Olympics is making a joke about something that actually exists. That is what president obama did. I would not have done that. I would not make a joke about a down syndrome child. Retard is the same as idiot, cretin, moron. It means loser. Thats what its meant for 30 years and word police come in five minutes ago and say no, were going to be bossy and tell you what to do. Theyre the biggest bullies of all, the selfappointed victims. My god. You are calling other people bossy. Ive heard it all. Lets turn back to mugged your book. Excellent. Give me a parallel between the book and the current election and whats going to happen. Whos going to win the election . I think its going to be romney. Ive thought that since he was the nominee. You didnt want him as nominee, though. There was a brief period where as i say i ran off with a biker but i came back to the responsible choice and i think, i mean, the reason i said two years out when people were still thinking sarah palin might be the nominee or ron paul, it was a long time out when i said if we dont run christie it will be romney and hell lose. I took that back six months later because obamas made such a mess of the economy. I travel a lot out in america and people are really, really hurting. There are a lot of people who are unemployed, underemployed, they know theyre not doing what they should be doing. Obama care is coming down the track like a bullet train and a lot of people are going to have to go out of business or have already gone out of business. Where do you give obama credit . Most powerful arguments i hear are where a republican can give the democratic president some credit and vice versa, where a democrat can give mitt romney some credit. Where do you credit the president . I like the drone attacks. I dont know why liberals like the drone attacks. If youre going to compare waterboarding a couple of terrorists at guantanamo three times to attacks on civilian populations to get one or two terrorists, i would say that the waterboarding is way better than that. But i think i think its worth getting the terrorists. The only thing you can say positive about barack obama is i didnt say it was the only thing. But thats one pretty big thing. You think it was right to end the war in iraq . I know he didnt start that but he certainly finished it. To announce a timetable for withdrawing troops from afghanistan. You in favor of that . I cant say im in favor of the withdrawal since i was against the escalation. I dont know what the point of sending more troops to afghanistan was other than fulfilling a talking point on the campaign trail, in order to bash iraq, obama and all democrats took the position that iraq was the bad war, the war of convenience. Afghanistan, good war, war of necessity. No, it wasnt. All we needed to do was take out the taliban, leave a few troops behind. Bush had managed the Afghanistan War beautifully. Sending more troops was utterly pointless, other than to fulfill a talking point. Iraq is a place where you have a real shot for genuine regime change and a genuine democracy in that godforsaken area of the world. We need an arab israel over there. That was iraq. I do think we pulled troops out too fast from iraq and should never have sent more troops to afghanistan. Lets take a little break. I decided to award you one more segment because youve been kind of blissfully annoying. So im giving you an extra segment. Okay. Now were down to 12 months. A special bonus segment with ann coulter. Lots of tweets pouring in. A lot deeply offensive to both of us. One from Robert Gillian says piers morgan, opposites attract. Do i see love in the air with ann coulter . I think i speak for both of us when i say no, you dont. Your book is dedicated to the freest black man in america. Who is that . Its supposed to be a little crackerjack surprise that you have to read the book for but since this smash bestseller has been out there for four weeks, probably a lot of people already know the answer. And if you followed me on twitter you would know because i came across that it was what shelby steel said about clarence thomas. It was such a beautiful quote and such a beautiful interview, i tweeted out a big section of it when i was doing research for this book. At the end i thought thats it, hes the one who according to shelby steel doesnt play the game, doesnt play it on either side. Hes been such a brave man and such a Great Supreme Court justice and the other great thing about it is a lot of people who read the book and know what a huge fan i am of thomas sole have guessed that its thomas sole. That would be a very good second choice for a dedication. When i hear you speak like that, you seem perfectly normal. I cant equate that kind of normality with these outrageous things you come out with. Theres nothing outrageous. There is, though. No, there is liberals reaction because liberals love being selfrighteous. Im not a liberal. Just a normal guy doing a tv show. Basically not normal. No, but why did you do it . Is it just for commercial gain . Is it a brand thing . Why do you press those little buttons . Im not pressing buttons. I speak the way i speak when i am with my friends or anyone else and i make my points in a way that i think will be interesting and amuses me. When you write a book, for example, you have to read it through a dozen times, more than that, just reading it through to edit and cut things out. If its not entertaining, its going to be a long, tough haul. Do you like being offensive . Please. I am not offensive. Ill tell you, liberals like being offended is the issue. A lot of people find you deeply offensive. They do not. They love getting on their high horse. You have a lot of fans, too. Obviously you sell millions of books but a lot of people find you deeply offensive. Do you mind that . Manifestly not. Kind of a gift. A gift to be offensive . Well, no, to annoy liberals which isnt very hard, by the way. Would you ever date a liberal . No. Really. We are not discussing dating. This interview was going so well. You had gotten it down to only 12 months before i come back. We are not going into dating. My criteria is you are banned for 13 months. See you next year. Thank you. See you next year. The book is called mugged. I have a cold. Dont shake hands. Love her or hate her, i cant quite work out where i am on that one. Its certainly a compelling read. Ann coulter. See you in 13 months. Next, the other side of the rword debate. After i saw your tweet, i after i saw your tweet, i realized that you wanted to belittle the president by linking him to people like me. You assumed that people would understand and accept that being linked to someone like me is an insult. Ann coulter called the president a retard, an astonishing open letter from John Franklin stevens. He has down syndrome and is a global messenger for the Special Olympics. Im pleased to have him live with me tonight along with the ceo of Special Olympics. Welcome to you both. Frank, let me start with you. I found your speech this morning that you wrote was extremely moving. You heard ann coulter there trying to insist that the word retard is not offensive. What was your reaction to that . Well, the word retard is offensive and should not be should not be a symbol for someone who is dumb and shallow. If they wanted to use me as a symbol, use it as a symbol for someone who fights adversity. And, tim, when you heard her getting very agitated about it, and insisted she would carry on using the word, no worse than moron, imbecile, creton, whatever. I think retard, in particular, has been adopted by people who want to be offensive to people with disability, more than any of the other words, therefore, has a special significance that people are aware of. I think the question isnt which word is worse. I think the reason so many people like frank have tried to raise their voice about the word is there is a long, long history of discrimination and humiliation of people who have intellectual differences. It goes back centuries in this country and other countries and continues today. People are denied health care, denied education, denied employment, made fun of, ridiculed, humiliated, and most people dont realize its going on in word in particular has carried the sting of that humiliation, and for many people, frank is a wonderful and articulate spokesman for millions of people, when they hear that word they are reminded of those they need to struggle against every day. They made a simple request, let people know that we could be aware, its not an attempt to police folks, but an attempt to let people see the world with a joyful and accepting way, and part of the future thats more harmonious and accepting to everybody. I think its a facile argument. Have you ever met the president of the United States . Have you ever met him . I have, i recently was at the white house, the signing of rosas law. What i was going to say to you was putting aside the word, retard, that she used, i just thought being that offensive about the president of this country, in itself is offensive. I couldnt imagine that you would ever say anything offensive about your president. Do you think theres a wider argument that putting aside the disability, the word retard, the offense it causes to people like yourself, that actually you should just use more respect to the president . Of course. I mean, people should respect the president because i dont know that the president has ever been bullied as a child before, but but i know that people when people get bullied and when people use the r word, its just offensive. Tim, what i you know, you come from obviously a big family with president ial history to it. There is sort of a sense of washington getting so poisonous, the punditry and commentary, the language being deployed and casually deployed about the president , about great politicians in this country is getting so ridiculous, that it just diminishes everybody. I think this is why people like the athletes of Special Olympics, frank is an extraordinary representative of them, they have such a powerful message, it almost is like a nation of bullies. We bully people in sports, kids in school, right bullies left, left bullies right. Frank and his fellow athletes, there is not a partisan issue. This movement supported by republicans fabulously and no attempt to make political points. What were trying to do with ms. Coulter and everybody, not just her. Not personal to her. As frank has said in his letter, he sees her as a friend he just hasnt met yet. Were trying to say a culture of bullying, of using words that are painful, and words do matter and writers know this especially, words matter and the way in which we use words matter and we might want to take a step back from where weve found ourselves as a culture and try to open ourselves to a kind of dialog that promotes a much more harmonious and communal vision of the future. Frank, ill give you the last word. You signed the letter to ann coulter as i friend that you hadnt met yet. What would you like to say . I would like to say thank you. You helped me make 3. 2 million new friends and i hope it would be one more. Ill see if i can make it happen. Congratulations on being such an inspiration and thanks to you, tim shriver. I enjoyed having both of you on. Thank you. So what do you think . Basic. At meineke i have options. Like oil changes starting at 19. 95. My money. My choice. My meineke. There is no electricity. People are living in shacks. Growing up here makes you feel like you dont have control over your life. Many children drop out of school, because they dont have School Uniforms and textbooks. I realized that the only way that this area could change is through education. Im tulani montondo. Im helping children so we can change the community together. We help the children by paying for school books, School Uniforms. Our main focus is a tutoring program we run four days a week. As young people who were born and raised here, we know the challenges of the community. We come together for fun and come together for academics. It gives me a chance to go to the university. They are trying to pay for my fees. I also come back and help out here. A little can go a long way. Math and science and english. Exactly. I did not go to university, but i would like to help them. I feel excited. Im going to be an accountant. Im going to be a lawyer. Im going to be a nurse. The work you are doing here is bringing change
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