Bill Bradley on Keeping America Great
PIERS MORGAN, CNN HOST: Tonight breaking news on a foiled terror plot against this country. Plus what Joe Bide said about gay marriage and why it may be a big problem for the president. I'll ask Team Obama's top man, David Axelrod, was this a political misstep. Plus with the candidates neck and neck in a dozen swing states, can Mitt Romney grab the momentum? I'll as his senior adviser, Ed Gillespie. And a lot has changed since Bill Bradley ran for president.</s>BILL BRADLEY, FORMER DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: And my kind words to the Republican Party tonight is forget it, we're on our way to victory.</s>MORGAN: Tonight he's here to talk about one of my favorite topics, keeping America great. And the last time Suzanne Sommers is here, things got a little interesting. Suzanne Sommers: Feel my lips.</s>MORGAN: They are quite full.</s>SOMMERS: Feel my lips.</s>MORGAN: They feel real. God knows what will happen tonight but I'm looking forward to it. Suzanne Sommers is back with what she says is the secret to the fountain of youth. Plus "Only in America," why American Airlines grounded two very, very frequent flyers. This is PIERS MORGAN TONIGHT. Good evening. Breaking news tonight. A foiled terror plot to bomb an American airliner. A senior U.S. official says al Qaeda is responsible and the device was intended for us by a suicide bomber. Also that the would-be bomber is, quote, "not a threat anymore." The bomber was uncovered before any Americans were at risk. Listen to secretary of Defense, Leon Panetta.</s>LEON PANETTA, SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: What this incident makes clear is that this country has to continue to remain vigilante against those that would seek to attack this country. And we will do everything necessary to keep America safe.</s>MORGAN: We begin our big story tonight, the campaigns react to the foiled plot and to hot-button issues from gay marriage to the economy. So with six months to go until election day, the president's campaign is in full swing. And joining me now is Obama Campaign senior strategist, David Axelrod. David, welcome.</s>DAVID AXELROD, OBAMA CAMPAIGN SENIOR STRATEGIST: Piers, thank you. Good to be with you.</s>MORGAN: A big story brewing since the weekend over Joe Biden's comments. I think the best way to tee this up is to replay them and then come to you for your reaction.</s>DAVID GREGORY, HOST: And you're comfortable with same-sex marriage now?</s>JOSEPH BIDEN, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I -- look, I am vice president of the United States of America. The president sets the policy. I am absolutely comfortable with the fact that men marrying men, women marrying women and heterosexual men and women marrying men, are entitled to the same exact rights, all the civil rights, all the civil liberties. And, quite frankly, I don't see much of a distinction beyond that.</s>MORGAN: I suppose the obvious question, David, to you, because you Tweeted almost immediately, and I was actually -- I saw this in real time. You said, "What the vice president said, that all married couples should have exactly the same legal rights, it's precisely POTUS' position." I mean given the benefit of what -- of hindsight over the last 24 hours, do you still think that everything Joe Biden said is consistent with the president's position?</s>AXELROD: I feel, Piers, that on the policy that the vice president was describing there, that they are in complete accord. That is the president's policy. He believes that couples, heterosexual couples, gay couples should -- should have -- have the same legal rights. And, of course, that's why we've stopped appealing the DOMA case, because he believes it's unconstitutional for states not to recognize, the government not to recognize marriages that are legally recognized by the states. So what the vice president was stating there was very much in keeping with that policy.</s>MORGAN: Right. But, I mean I suppose what people are saying in the gay community is, look, we know the president has been very supportive of us, you know, from "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" to the issue you just mentioned and on various other issues. He's been very proactive and very supportive of gay rights. But there is an inconsistency between saying, I am supportive of all gay rights and gay equality whilst not saying that you believe in gay marriage, particularly when America now has eight states that have legalized gay marriage. So really, you know, given where we were five years ago, is a fast moving issue, where the tide is now with, increasingly, people who support it.</s>AXELROD: Well, in fact, the president supported the rights of those states to take that action. He's opposed -- he's opposed ballot measures and other devices to try and roll back those rights when they've cropped up. By the way, this is a big distinction between him and Governor Romney, who supported the effort financially in California to roll back their law and who wants a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. So the president is very much in accord with the rights of those states and the people in those states to do it. And he wants to make sure that if people are legally married in those states, that those marriages are recognized just as marriages between men and women are recognized. So the whole country is going through -- has gone through an evolution. The president has gone through that as well. I'll let him speak to this himself, but you know, I think where he lies in terms of the rights and liberties is very clear by the actions that he's taken.</s>MORGAN: I mean I was struck by the fact that Joe Biden is a Roman Catholic, which I think gave his comments even more weight, because a lot of the Catholics feel very -- I'm a Catholic myself. I happen to support gay marriage. But it does fly in the face of a lot of Catholic teaching. And it takes a brave Catholic, in Joe Biden's case, to go public like this against many of his own religion's teachings. I suppose what people are really saying is the president has been very audacious in many areas, but there are other areas where he hasn't been as audacious as people would like him to be. And this is a classic case where everybody kind of presumes he's going to do this. So why doesn't he just do it now?</s>AXELROD: Well, again, I'm not going to make news for the president here. The president speaks very well for himself, Piers. But again, I think actions speak louder than words. He's taken historic steps over the last 3 1/2 years to stand up for the rights of gay and lesbian Americans. And to allow them to serve openly and honestly in the military, to -- to grant them those partnership rights in government, to fight this -- to repeal this -- turn back this DOMA law that would have states be able not -- to not recognize legally sanctioned marriages among gay Americans. So he's -- I think his actions are -- speak more loudly than any words. And, you know, we all -- I -- I'm proud of him for taking those steps. I think they were, you know, some would say, audacious steps in and of themselves. He painstakingly led us on that path. And, you know, I think there isn't a whole lot of confusion about that.</s>MORGAN: Let's move on to the breaking news today, also, about a CIA uncovering a plot to have a more sophisticated form of suicide bomber device, it was foiled successfully, very successful the CIA. What does it tell you about the on-going battle with al Qaeda, particularly in relation to the president and his speech last week, his trip to Afghanistan, saying, look, we're coming out of here. Al Qaeda is pretty much dismantled and so on. How big a danger does al Qaeda remain if we're still uncovering plots like this?</s>AXELROD: Well, Piers, I don't know the -- I know what you know about the details of this particular case. But it underscores what the president has said, which is that we have to remain vigilant. We have -- we have scored tremendous blows against the central leadership of al Qaeda located in Pakistan. There are offshoots, and Yemen is a main one, where there is still al Qaeda activity. We just saw that a -- one of the high ranking members of al Qaeda's leadership was killed in Yemen just the other day. So this is an ongoing fight, both here at home. We have to be vigilant on homeland security and on threats in other parts of the world. And we've been -- thank God, we've been successful in doing that. But every day you have to wake up and -- with that same level of vigilance and recognize that the threat still exists.</s>MORGAN: The Republicans accuse the president of spiking the football with both the trip to Afghanistan on the anniversary and the ad that starred Bill Clinton.</s>AXELROD: Well, first of all, I hardly think he was spiking the football. And the trip to Afghanistan was necessary. We've got a NATO meeting coming up here in Chicago in a couple of weeks at which Afghanistan is going to be the major issue. So, you know, I think that's nonsense. And one of the things that strikes me about it is, Piers, knowing politics as I do, had the mission gone badly a year ago, had that mission gone badly, you know, the folks on the other side would have been the first to be raising this early and often. I think Mitt Romney would have been one of the first ones out of the gate.</s>MORGAN: Let's move on to the campaign. It launched officially, really, this weekend. And you've got a whole ad campaign rolling out. And they said you just spent $25 million on ads this month alone. Let's take a little look at the "Go" campaign, a little clip from this, and I'll come to you after this.</s>AXELROD: OK.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Instead of losing jobs, we're creating them, over 4.2 million so far. We're not there yet. It's still too hard for too many. But we're coming back, because America's greatness comes from a strong middle class, because you don't quit and neither does he.</s>MORGAN: I mean it's an interesting premise, I guess, which is, look, we haven't solved anything, but we are -- we're beginning to get there. Is that the kind of theme that you'll be looking to press for the campaign?</s>AXELROD: Well, the -- look, there's no question that we are coming back from the most -- the most vicious, the deepest recession since the Great Depression. In the six months before the president took office, we lost four million jobs. We lost 800,000 the month that he took office. Now we've had 26 months of private sector job growth, 4.2 million new jobs. But the whole was quite deep, that was dug. And we have to keep being vigilant. There are a lot of headwinds yet. We see what's going on in Europe. There are steps that Congress can take that the president wants them to take, to put teachers back in the classroom, to get our service transportation bill passed so we can unleash that activity all over the country, to help people refinance their loans at lower interest rates, even if their homes are underwater. There are lots of things we can do to get this economy moving even faster, with a little bit of cooperation.</s>MORGAN: Well, David, unfortunately, I have to move forward, as well, to speak to your --</s>AXELROD: OK.</s>MORGAN: Your rival. Ed Gillespie who's now come in to help run the Mitt Romney campaign. But thank you for now, David Axelrod. When we come back, more on our big story, I want to get to the Romney take on gay marriage and on charges that President Obama has been spiking the football on Osama bin Laden. I'll talk to his adviser, Ed Gillespie.