was by leveraging up assets and flipping things. >> and the burning question i just had to ask about her father. >> be honest, have you ever had a word with him about his hair? also, only in america, could a 6'3" asian american kid from harvard come off a bench and save a nba team. why everyone in new york has lynn sanity. this is "piers morgan tonight." >> good evening. a crisis y country in crisis. police a cinderella story to only happen in america. we begin with presidential politics. rick santorum blasting barack obama on middle eastern policy. >> imagine a president obama with four years and no one to be accountable to. imagine what he can do. imagine what damage and destruction he can do internationally. to our friend israel. who stands and pleads with us to help. >> here now to talk about the republican race and the humanitarian crisis in syria, a man that's reported from all over the world. dan rather. welcome back. >> glad to be back. >> you have covered many presidential races. put it in some perspective for me. everyone's saying this is incredible, never happened before. people surging here, dropping out before and so on and so on. that really true, or is this like every other presidential race? >> no, this is not not like every other presidential race. this is the fiercest fight for the republican nomination that i can recall, certainly tough fights for as fierce. secondly, this is by far the most expensive campaign already. when we finish this presidential campaign, when all's totalled up, this will be close to a $3 billion presidential campaign and what's different about this campaign is the superpac money that's say money that can be given from individuals, from corporations that is not traceable. much of it is secret and pouring in to races. santorum, with a comeback the other night with three wins in missouri, minnesota and colorado, is beginning to get real money. this translates in to a republican race for the nomination, that's likely to go at least until the middle of may, perhaps middle of june and the possibility of these nominees, these candidates going to the republican convention in august and still none of them have enough votes to get over the 1,144 delegates needed to win. >> now, there are two schools of thought about this, dan. one is that the longer it goes on the better for barack obama. looks like the party can't decide who are the opponent should be against him and the other school of thought based on what happened to brack obama is a battle in your own party hardens up the eventual candidate. which side do you sit on? >> this is true that barack obama is much more cautious, much more willing to compromise and cut what seemed to be his principles. and this is hurt him, hurt him within his own party. you can say, well, those in his own party won't vote republican but they won't go to the polls. he's been making efforts to do that. example would be the state of the union address. but so far he's still got a tough time within his own party. now, he expected and those at the white house expected that mitt romney would be the nominee. i suspect that they still believe romney is likely to be the eventual nominee. but this has been such a topsy-turvy nomination process on the republican side that who knows how it's going to turn out? >> and i think there's something about rick santorum's demeanor at the moment that makes me think he believes he's got a chance and i suspect he suspects that the party isn't as in love with mitt romney has it should be and that they're looking really for a more traditional conservative and the religious aspect is significant, too. he was straight in to a church yesterday. having a group prayer session for the cameras clearly signaling i'm a more traditional religious kind of guy. >> exactly right. number one, let me clearly state if you have to bet the rent money, you have to bet that mitt romney is likely to be the republican nominee. santorum in my mind is basically running to be the vice presidential nominee. and he's helped himself tremendously in recent days but what you say is true. santorum has the smell of triumph, smell of victory in the nostrils. he believes that as time goes along, newt gingrich will be knocked out or made irrelevant, head to head with romney and the party will turn to him as a quote true conservative and the plus that he can take some of the roman catholic votes from the industrial northeast with him. and be pal pa latible in the south. you can marg that's a pipe dream for santorum, being the vice presidential nominee on the ticket is probably the best he can realistically hope for. we have seen so many surprises in this nominating process, again, who can say? who knows? i say that romney is still likely to be the republican nominee. but santorum is now making his fingernails sweat. >> let's turn to syria, dan. obviously, a hell of a mess there. media coverage is sporadic because of the nature of so few journalists on the ground. what do you think america should be doing right now about this? >> well, it's a real rubik's cube that what i think america should be doing, not that anybody should care, is, one, increasing the pressure all ways and anyways possible for diplomatic pressure, for sanctions, for the freezing of assets, the banning of travel, and making it so far as possible syria an international pariah. it is not easy to do and true, piers, as you well know with your contacts in washington in some quarters the war drums are beating. a school of thought saying, listen. it's win or lose. either assad is going to stay in power or he isn't and either the russian-iran-hezbollah support will prevail or we the united states and the other allies prevail. however -- this is one reason ron paul continues to do reasonably well in the republican race, he says in essence this is madness. we don't need another war. we don't want another war. we can't afford another war. and if you went to war in syria, if you went with a military option, there's no telling where it would lead. about that, my own personal opinion is he's probably right. american public opinion is not going to be behind any big military intervention in syria. i come back to what can be done. strangle, maybe slowly, strangle the assad regime and two questions about the assad regime are as follows. one, can a face-saving exit be arranged for assad? will russia give him wheel status? maybe iran. if assad goes, who and what will come in to his place? that's an unanswerable question. this is a real tough one. likely to be an issue insofar as anything referring foreign policy in the campaign deeper in the year because the problem is not going to get easier. it is going to get a lot tougher. >> what should the american administration be doing about russia and china who have acted with pure self interest? they're concerned about similar uprisings i would imagine in their own backyards and refusing to go along with what's otherwise a pretty you fan mouse from the international coalition. what should america do in relation to those two countries and the position they have taken? >> two different countries, russia and china. china has been a little more hesitant, reluctant to get involved in this but they have. they have sided basically with the assad regime. with russia, what needs to be done is needed to be done for a very long time. is the united states needs to reboot its relationship with russia. u.s.-russian relations as my friend steve cohen continued to point out, our relations with russia are very poor and trying to do business with them we get pretty much a blank wall. no mistake. russia and iran particularly, china, somewhat on the side, are clearly trying to keep assad in power. the two most important countries and governments for the u.s. to listen to in my personal opinion is just a personal opinion are turkey and surprise qatar. it's a minuscule country but it fights well above the weight class in international terms. and whatever the united states is going to do, vis-a-vis assad and syria needs to be done with the turks and the qatars. >> dan rather, as always, fantastic clarity on a complex situation. i appreciate you coming back. come back again soon. >> thank you very much, piers. >> thanks, dan. as the assad regime's crackdown pushes syria in crisis, the british-born first lady has disappeared from the comment eye. the only comment this week saying and quote, the president is the president of syria, not a faction of syrians and the first lady supports him in that role. one of the last western writers to speak to her is joan juliet bach. she profiled her last year and joins me now. thank you very much for joining me, joan. what do you make of what's happening in relation to the first lady popping up now and offering her support in this way? >> it seems incongress, piers, and off the mark and the statement doesn't make much sense. >> when you interviewed her, when you interviewed her, what sense did you get about her as a woman and her place in the syrian hierarchy? >> what was most interesting is that she was born -- went to queens college, kings college. i grew up in england. she was a very familiar figure. my best friend in school was a daughter of a syrian stockbroker in london. she was a englin english woman. an english woman i was talked to married to the president of syria. and so to -- you know, for us westerners to look at somebody who's syrian, she is western, english. the regime trying to downplay the englishness. there was a -- they didn't want me to give her english name which was emma. that's what she was called in school. and i found her very, very dedicated to these youth centers which she had started. and she said that they were to teach -- to empower young people to create a civil society themselves in syria. and she took me to one of the youth centers. yeah? >> you have found her genuinely caring when you went with her on these trips, so there's clearly a huge conflict between what you saw then with her and what is now happening and many people say it's a kind of slaughterhouse from her husband to many of the same children. >> it seems a crazy disconnect. he took me to one of these centers. there were simply teenagers, you know, wearing sweaters. it was a cold december night. crawling all over her, asking her questions, asking me questions. she was very at ease with them. she really took them on. got in to real conversations with them. and she -- 'schenn said, this is what i care about the most. and because she's a banker, she talks about the antiquity of syria being its hardware and the people being its software and she said what's important here is the software. and these kids are the software. so to go from seeing her with these children, to seeing photos of this hamsa -- who was tortured and mutilated and killed and whose body given back to his parents in may, you wonder, this is the first lady of a country where this happened? where this is happening to teenagers. where kids are being slaughtered. where mourners at funerals are being slaughtered. and where the president goes on television and says this isn't really happening. it's profoundly disturbing to have even been near people who are so disconnected. >> you met the president during your interview. what was your take on him personally? >> what was kind of an inadvertent. i didn't want to do the piece in the first place because i didn't really want to meet the assads or go to syria but when i went she said that she was going to cook lunch for me. and it was at their apartment. and there was assad. it was friday which is the muslim sunday. and he was wearing a sweater and he kept showing me his cameras and following me around and i got the feeling he wanted to be interviewed, as well. i wasn't going to ask him any of the questions. i could have asked him because i was in his home and i wanted to get out of there in one piece. i asked him why he became an eye doctor. and he said that the reason he became an eye doctor was that it was very precise. it was never an emergency. and there was very little blood. and that's the quote that i used in the article. and nothing that he's done since then has proved that he's an eye doctor. >> what do you think is likely to happen? do you think the assads can just bat this will out or do you believe that international pressure in the end will lead to them being overthrown? >> you know, i'm not a political journalist. i told "vogue" they should send a political journal itself. they said they wanted a cultural piece. i was trained as an anthropologist. i don't draw a big international conclusions about things. i leave that to people far more qualified than i am. i don't know what's going to happen. i cannot believe the bravery of the syrian people who started rising up in march and who have been consistently being heroic and brave and getting slaughtered at funerals and slaughtered in their homes as the regime claims that none of this is happening. and that it's foreign infiltration and armed terrorists from other country that is are causing this. i think the fortitude of -- sorry. >> it's completely outrageous. we have run out of time. that's a fascinating insight. thank you very much, indeed. >> thank you, piers. when we come back, an american hero and might just win gabriel giffords' seat in congress. 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>> well, the decision really started when congresswoman giffords looked right at me and said, ron, will you run? i told her it was a decision i have to think a lot about, a lot of considerations. my family. my own well being in terms of doing this and whether it was right for the district. very hard to say know to krn giffords. i've never said no to her in my life working together five years. but i went away from the conversation and gave it considerable thought, finally i was able to say to her, congresswoman, i will do that. and i'll be proud to run for the seat that you have vacated. >> tell me about the injuries that you suffered on that awful day. >> well, i was shot twice, once in the face and that bullet went through my cheek, down my cheek inside of it and within a millimeter of the carotid artery. the other injury was in my leg, my left leg, a bullet went through the thigh and receivered the femoral vein and lost quite a bit of blood there on the ground outside of the safe-way. i was very fortunate as many of us were as citizens heroes came to our rescue and mine was anna ballis. she staunched the bleeding. so that's what happened and i've been recovering ever since over the last year and two months, been getting stronger and really ready now to tackle an adventure i never thought i'd be on, quite frankly. i've never been interested in running for office. i dedicated my life to public service in various ways over the years and in the last five years working for the congresswoman. but i have decided that to honor her and her legacy and to try to do something for the people of southern arizona is a right thing to do right now. i feel ready to do it and announced my candidacy today. >> what is the spirit of america that you will be pushing to try? i suppose endure is the right word. you know, to keep alive. what is it that you want to bring to the political system that maybe isn't there at the moment in enough quantity? >> well i really feel very strongly that the tone of our political discourse has gotten way out of control. certainly, we saw that in the 2010 election. and after i was shot and in the icu with my family, the first thing that came to me was, we have to do something if we can to change the tone. and so we established the fund for civility, respect and understanding. and we're launching several projects, they're under way. an anti-bullying program and a mental health program to bring civility and respect to the political process so if the campaign is about anything it is about civility and respect. but also, there's some really serious issue that is we need to tackle in our district and in our country and i want to dedicate myself to working across the aisle with republicans to do whatever i can to make sure we solve problems. there's been way too much bickering, way too much division and way too much yelling and divisive conduct. we need to come together and congresswoman giffords is a great inspiration to that. casting the vote on the debt ceiling in august, we saw how people came together. albeit for a short time but the inspiration over the last year is america, we can come together and she said it in her resignation video, together we can solve problems. that's the spirit i want to take forward and she's a great model for me and many other americans. i hope i can serve in that way. >> well, she's been an astonishing woman in many ways i think and her heroism, fortitude and the inspiration she brings is touching to everyone i think in america. i'm sure a lot of this will follow with you because it's such an extraordinary story. what advice is gabrielle giffords given you about the challenge facing you in a potential election? >> i have just lost my microphone or earpiece. i think it's here somewhere. find it. okay. i'm sorry. i lost the last part of your question. >> i was just asking you what advice gabrielle giffords may or may not have given you so far about the election challenge you're facing. >> well, you know, the advice that she's given me is advice that i have gotten from her over the last five years. we always should take the high road. we should always try to find a way to come together and solve problems. she's run and been successful on a very straightforward approach. let's find common sense solutions to the problems that face america. let's stop talking about it. let's stop bickering about it. let's get gown to solutions. my entire life in public service is about that, solving problems when i worked with people with developmental disabilities, before that and head start and other programs and the pattern i have tried to follow. never get in to the gutter. never try to demonize your opponent. stick to the issues. and look for issues to come together and solve