Transcripts For CNNW Reliable Sources 20140622

Senate majority leader harry reid posted this picture on twitter of all the talking heads. The only thing i want to hear from iraq war architect is an apology. Harry reid voted in favor of it. He says he needs to redress it. Rachel maddow called it maddening. I think her colleague Jeff Scarborough was implicitly responding to her with this. Do we have paul bremer on to have him talk about it . Are we afraid to let him talk . No. We allow people to talk. We have a free marketplace of ideas and even people with whom we disagree, we allow them to talk. So there was a backlash to the backlash. I want to ask two people about this who have unique points of view. Let me bring in Jonathan Landa from mcclatche and peter ryan heart. Thank you both for being here. Good morning. Good morning. I went back, jonathan, and reread this book about what went wrong in 2003 by greg mitchell. So wrong for so long. It points out you were one of the few to ask the right questions before the invasion. The book points out in early 2005 you wrote that the u. S. Wont win the war. You came to that conclusion very early on. What has it been right in the last week or two to be watching and reading the coverage . Has it been deja vu for you . Its been i think the word maddening is a good one. Ive run out of adjectives to describe the way these people who were the architects of this disaster, unmitigated disaster which is still unfolding, how theyve resurfaced. They have been treated with as credible experts on whats going on in iraq when everything they said about iraq, everything theyve prophesized was absolutely wrong. Paul bremer was here in the greenroom as we were getting ready for the segment. Do you think he should be on shows like this speaking about iraq right now . We have the first amendment. We have freedom of speech, but you cant put people on to discuss an issue as important as iraq authoritatively if they are going to spout inaccuracies, errors. One of the biggest errors, one of the most glaring errors weve been hearing is this historical revisionism that iraq was calm when the Bush Administration left office. It most certainly was not by their own reports from their own pentagon and their own state department. So should these people be treated as credible sources on whats going on in iraq right now . I would think only if theyre prepared to say, you know what, i was wrong about what happened. We shouldnt have did what we did but we did what we did and now we need to move beyond we need to deal with the situation that now exists. Thats the perfect turn to peter. You wrote a column titled even iraq sinners deserve to be heard. You said you were one of those sinners. Tell me what you believed then and what you believe now. I supported the war in iraq, the magazine i edited reported it. It was the greatest mistake i have made as a journalist in my career. One of the greatest mistakes i wrote in my life. I wrote essentially two books trying to grapple with how i could have been so wrong. My view about i think its definitely true that the medias Foreign Policy conversation has an instinct towards beltway insiders who share basic assumptions. Some of the people who had the intellectual foresight that let us to iraq still dont get on the air which is a big problem. I dont have a problem putting on people who were architects of the iraq war on to talk today as long as they have to reckon with what happened in the past. We shouldnt treat the past as if its irrelevant. Its not irrelevant. Its highly relevant. Put them on as long as youre also going to ask them tough questions about exactly this, why their view should be considered credible given the past. I mentioned at the top of this conversation what you and your colleagues did in 2003. What is the single take away for journalists about where you all went when so many others were looking in the other direction . Well, first of all, we were at Knight Ridder back then because mrkclatche 45d nt bought it then. Dont forget i did this with warren stroebl. We were joint by joe galloway who was a columnist for us at the time. The single take away is john would say, is what theyre saying true . Thats our obligation as journalists. Is it true . He felt we had a special obligation because knight riter, now olympic clatchy onwnnewnnew mcclatchy owns newspapers in towns where soldiers families were coming from. We owed it to them to explain what was going on, what the dangers of invasion was and what was wrong with the case that was being made for the invasion. Is it true . Peter you mentioned you feel some voices dont go on the air to call that a big problem. Who are some of the voices that you think should be on air more often . One person comes to mind is andrew basovich. Remarkable historian of Foreign Policy. Also someone who serves himself as a career military officer and whose son tragically was killed in iraq. There is a bias in terms of people who are put on air in particular i think towards people who are close to power in washington. People who work at think tanks. Someone like basovich is close to power. He will never be consulting. He has much more fundamentally damning and critically important information. Hes deeply knowledgeable about american Foreign Policy and iraq in particular. He will be a valuable balance to some of the people we see on a lot. There seems to be this historical habit of the American Media to rehabilitate people who have actually either broken the law or have done questionably questionable things in government and to rehabilitation them, as i said. Start with watergate. Some of those guys, convicted felons, end up as commentators on the media. Look at irancontra, which is where you had a whole bunch of senior people who were convicted of felonies, and yet they many of them have also been rehabilitated. The iraq invasion, you have people on cnn who were mouth pieces for the Bush Administration and were handing out misleading and inaccurate information to the American Public and the world who are treated as legitimate, credible political commentators. I think that is a very serious problem. I think part of what happens here is oftentimes in the media the notion of balance is someone whos associated with the Democratic Party and someone whos associated with the Republican Party. When you have an environment as what did happen in the run up to the iraq war where both the leaderships of the democratic and Republican Party basically have a similar point of view because oftentimes, remember, the democratic and republicans may agree on more than they disagree on. Thats when they dont get offered. Thank you both for joining me here. Thank you. Thank you. Up next, a sensitive topic that too often gets glossed over. How media portrayals of muslims leads to islamophobia. Weekdays are for rising to the challenge. Theyre the days to take care of business. When possibilities become reality. With centurylink as your trusted partner, our visionary Cloud Infrastructure and Global Broadband network free you to focus on what matters. With Custom Communications solutions and responsive, dedicated support, we constantly evolve to meet your needs. Every day of the week. Centurylink® your link to whats next. Hooking up the country whelping business run build were investing big to keep our country in the lead. Load we keep moving to deliver what you need. And that means growth, lots of cargo going all around the globe. Cars and parts, fuel and steel, peas and rice, hey thats nice Norfolk Southern whats your function . Helping this big country move ahead as one Norfolk Southern hows that function . We have digested hours and hours and hours of tv to bring you this weeks red news blue news. Our look at how partisan industries bend the stories to the right and left. Well hone in on a topic here, islamophobia. Think of it as aint muslim prejudice. Exaggerated fear perpetuated by negative stereotypes. Now lets go to the tape, tuesday, fox news, hannity. We are aware of seeing muslims on the march to iraq, chaos abounds. Here with analysis to the jihad thats raging worldwide. Fox hands over its megaphone transformed by radical islam. This isnt about christians. Tom, let me ask you about moderates. If there is a moderate voice out there, do you think now would be the time for them to speak up . Weve been waiting for them to speak up. Tom is a professional comedian. He was filling in for greg gutfeld, i think hes funny, hes the least qualified to comment. Why not bring on an actual moderate muslim voice and ask them. Washington post columnist Dana Millbank said it teamed with antiislamist rhetoric. A young Muslim Student who spoke up was taunted by the crowd. There was debate about whether he overstated that, but the debate distracted from the very important point the student was trying to make. Watch. We portray islam and all muslims as bad but theres 1. 8 million followers of muslim. We have 8 million plus muslims in this country and i dont see them represented here. Yes, representation is the issue. Whether the news is red or blue. Speaking of blue, heres Msnbcs Chris Hayes said about this a day later. The fact of the matter is we dont cover peaceful muslims hanging outgoing about their day performing surgery being accountants. We cover isis marching through with black flags looking super terrified. We have the red, we have the blue. Now i want to pursue whats actually true with one of chris heys guests. We saw her there. Linda sarsour. Shes with the National Network of arab communities. Here in d. C. , one of shawn hannitys guests. Shes the founder of act for america. Let me ask you about this. The radicals are estimated to be between 15 and 25 according to all Intelligence Services around the world. That leaves 75 of them peaceful people. Where does that statistic come from . That comes from the combined intelligence of the australians, gore danians, the United States. Countries are monitoring whats happening in the world. 180 million to 300 million muslims are radical . Youre talking about that faction out of 1. 2 billion people. Now the majority of 1. 2 billion people are peaceful people. They are not strapping bombs on their bodies. They are not going out blowing up people. They dont want to kill people. Nor are the 15 to 25 . 15 to 25 are radicalized. Not every single one of them wants to blow himself up but they supporter or lists who want to blow themselves up, provide them with financing, money, logistic call support. Brian, miss gabriel speaks out of two sides of her mouth. In one breath shell say the west must support moderate muslims and the moderate muslims must speak out against terrorism and in the same breath shell say peaceful muslims are irrelevant. Miss gabriel needs to make up her mind when it comes to what is radical islam. When asked by Australian News she said a radical muslim is someone who prays five times a day, someone who believes in the world of the koran, someone who believes the prophet may peace be on him is a perfect man. Thats basically every muslim. So i have no idea what she meanings. Where is the room for moderate its lamb . We need to support moderate muslims and we work with them. We have keynote speakers at our National Conference who are moderate muslims. I had a tv show where we invited them to be on our tv show. We want to expose their message but thats completely different than dealing with terrorism, what i deal with as a terrorism analyst. Thats what we need to discuss. The moderate muslims, they can organize. Where are their collective voices . Where are the voices of the moderate muslims speaking when girls disappear . Linda, we hear that quite a bit on fox news. Whats the answer to that question . There are people out there that stood up on boko haram, on terrorism, on 911. There are National Organizations that continued day in and day out to put in statements. Is the media covering it . I dont have control over the media covering these stories. I dont have to prove to anyone i am an american born and raised in brooklyn, new york, and my parents chose to come to the United States. And you talk about going into a Grocery Store in arlington, virginia, because you speak arabic and you understand the culture and thats where you get your credibility from . I understand the culture and i speak the language, too, and ive never, ever walked into a Grocery Store or community center, mosque in this country where people were saying they wanted to destroy ma. Dewayne destroy america. Research after research, these are Factual Research that have are you a terrorism analyst on terrorism in general . What about the los angeles shooting . Oak creek shooting where white sprem ma tises walked in and killed six people. Terrorists are terrorists. I immigrated to the United States and i continue to have the middle east as my focus. Thats what i talk about. We are dealing, linda, with the radical islamic element that wants to wreak havoc on the United States. There are cars driving in new york right now for biological or chemical agents in the air to make sure that nothing has been detonated 24 hours a day in new york city. In chicago. In major cities in the United States. That is something we need to discuss. Will we not look back at this era as a grows over reaction to a terrorist threat that is not there in the way youre describing it to be . The terrorist threat has been there, brian, for years. America has been attacked under different administrations sips 1979 by radical islamists. And by people who have twisted christianity into their own beliefs as well. I agree with you. There are extremists on both sides. When you look at radical islam, the country is safe all these years since september 11th because our great protectors and First Responders and fbi have put programs in place to protect us. They are watching over the country. Thats why we are safe. Linda, do you feel there are too many examples of times where the media has fanned the flames of misunderstanding about islam . Absolutely. Lets look at the boston bombing. The first front page story came out on the New York Post of two young algerian boys with book bags calling them the bag men. Immediately when something happens from someone from an arab country of origin we immediately Start Talking about terrorism and domestic terrorism. The same cases, similar cases, shootings almost every week in this country where dozens of people are being killed at the hands of guns and lax gun control. Im more worried about being sho shot by a gun versus a terrorist attack, and fox does shows on people like me for standing up and speaking my mind and practicing my american patriotism. The media gives the platform for people who are pseudo experts. Just because you grew up in the middle east and supposedly lived under the war doesnt make you a terrorism analyst. People have had training and can talk about fringe issues. The Fastest Growing religion. What they dont say is many of the foiled plots have been foiled by information that came directly from the community, in some cases even the immediate family members of those who were alleged to be organizing a terrorist attack or traveling to places like pakistan and others. Were talking about two americans, how we can protect our country. We are both faced with an enemy wishing both our destruction. When those people attack the World Trade Center they wanted to kill americans, muslims, christians, everybody. When gaz zi or sha zad wanted to blow up times square or the new york subway system, they were planning on killing americans, teenagers, people taking the subway back home. They wanted to kill all of us. When youre talking about plots of mass scale, somebody parking a car about to explode in times square or want to blow up the suck way system in new york or want to blow up the sears tower in chicago, were talking about the mass killings of thousands of americans if not millions. Thats what we need to be discussing. Isnt that fearmongering . You use the words thousands and millions, isnt that fearmongering . The idea is you want to talk about terrorism, lets talk about it and lets be prepared. Lets not prepare the American People that all terrorism that happens around the world comes from the muslim community. Thats what i want to debate with you. Its a serious issue. Terrorism does not equal islam, it does not equal muslims. I am from new york. I live in new york. I was here in new york on 9 11, miss gabriel. I understand the impact that 9 11 had in communities. I could be here in the World Trade Center. 75 muslims died in 9 11 including a first responder. I want you to understand that if you want to combat terrorism you need to work within the muslim community. You need to make sure that we are part of that and the quote moderate muslims which are almost every muslim living here in this country need to be part of this discussion. To alienate the muslim community, create them as the other and to start making over exaggerations about these potential attacks that havent happened is not the way that you combat terrorism in any country and especially not here in the United States in a country where i can live here and speak freely, you can stand there and speak freely and thats the kind of country that i want to live in and i want to be part of the discourse. We want to make sure we protect this country and we work with a lot of moderate muslims who speak at our National Conference. What were talking about now, islamic come munition. When youre watching the news and youre hearing about terrorists in syria, in jordan, lebanon, boko haram, sudan, nigeria, in chad, in libya, i can go down the list. Every single instance when youre watching the news, its not buddhist terrorists or christian terrorists, right now the terrorism on that scale, the bodies piled up, the people being beheaded, even muslims shooting other muslims. As long as you clarify and you stand up and say that the fringe extremist of any faith are only a tiny minority in a larger faith, this is what we want you to talk about. When you talk about islam and you talk about the koran, 1. 4 billion people across the world follow the word of the koran. You have to make sure that youre being specific when you talk about terrorism of any faith but more specifically islamic terrorism. Theyre not waiting to hear your opinion or my opinion, they want to kill us both and this is why we must discuss how we can defeat the radicals who want to kill us, who are using the koran as their source and justification for their murders. Why are we having this discussion if you and i are irrelevant . Why the discourse . Why the debate . Why the analysis. Exactly. What we need to be talking about is how we can defeat the radicals. Im going to wrap it there. We could go on and on. Linda and bridgette, thank you both for joining me. Thank you. Thanks for having me. This is definitely not the last time well be talking about this topic. I have to squeeze in a break here. While people inside the beltway cheering for or against Hillary Clinton, people outside the beltway were interested in a different discourse. Whats the link between clinton and the world cup . The answer av this. After this. [ female announcer ] we love our smartphones. And now telcos using hp Big Data Solutions are feeling the love, too. By offering things like onthespot data upgrades an idea that reduced overcharge complaints by 98 . No matter how fast your Business Needs to adapt, if hp Big Data Solutions can keep wireless customers smiling, imagine what they can do for yours. Make it matter. I got more advice than i knew what to do with. What i needed was information i could trust on how to take care of me and my baby. Luckily, unitedhealthcare has a Simple Program that helps moms stay on track with their doctors and get the right care and guidancebefore and after the baby is born. Simple is good right now. anncr vo innovations that work for you. Thats health in numbers. Unitedhealthcare. Cmon, you want heartburn . When your favorite food starts a fight, fight back fast, with tums. Heartburn relief that neutralizes acid on contact. And goes to work in seconds. Tum, tum tum tum. Tums politics is port. When its played on a grand scale is politics. Lets compare two of the biggest news stories of the week. The first is Hillary Clintons book launch. The book hard choices came out on tuesday. Hillary clintons ratings under whem on cnn fox. The daily beast, hillarys book sales are weak by clintons standards. Washington post, america isnt sure if its ready for hillary quite yet. Well get to those in a moment. Whether its all a bid for a president ial run. Amid all of that, i think its fair to say a lot of countrys selective attention has been elsewhere. It comes around every four years. The world cup. The world cup set the internet video streaming record as well. The best athletes out there and the, well, smallness of our domestic and Foreign Policy debate. Who better to discuss this with than l. Z. Granderson. Hes a contributor here at cnn and he joins me from chicago. Thanks for having me, brian. Is there a commonality between these two giant news stories this week . No. Unfor two fatally for hillary, no. She isnt as compelling as the world cup for a variety of reasons, but i think the number one reason is the payout for the world cup we have a definitive date and its relatively soon. The payout for what shes doing, a presumed president ial run is for another two years. Shes fighting time and herself whereas the world cup is rushing towards something that everyone has circled as relatively soon. Theres something about the scale of the world cup that is so striking to me. On the other hand, you have Hillary Clinton doing interviews with every network and although cnn made it into a big event by having a town hall, the ratings were only slightly higher than they ordinarily would be at this time of day. Same thing on fox news. They have this joint interview with brett baron and greta van suskern. Hillary weve known for close to three decades now and so i think theres just really difficult to try to generate excitement, new excitement over anything she has to say because weve been listening to her for 30 years. Do you think its reflective of the fact that the country wants a distraction from politics and International Crises like whats unfolding in iraq . Is that one of the reasons why the world cup is resonating so much this time around . Well, i think when youre talking specifically with the u. S. Numbers, us watching the match against ghana, what youve seen is about embracing soccer as a sport. We obviously always want to stay clear of politics, liefl politics. Lets look back. The most popular show of all times right now on hbo is game of thrones which is essentially a political show. One of the most popular sitcoms is veep which is essentially a political show. Scandal. Netflix, house of cards political show. Its not like we hate politics altogether, we dont want them in our lives every single day. We want them when we want them and how we want them. Very interesting. One of our colleagues, sally caan was joking with me saying soccer might seem boring. Might be 90 minutes, barely any points scored but they still score more points than congress does . L. Z. Granderson, thank you for joining me. Thank you for having me. One more world about world cup momentum. Espns numbers are even sur p e surpassing the olympics. More on cnn. Com money later this week. Taking a stand against a famous columnist, even apologizing for one of his columns. Ill tell you what thats all about and talking to the editor who made the decision next. Welcome back. This next story has infuriated a lot of people. It involves george will. Hes been writing for the Washington Post for four decades. His conservative take on politics and Foreign Affairs appears in newspapers across the country. Hes regular on tv. Hes left abc news to join Fox News Channel as a commentator. Hes a provocative writer but some people thought this column will put it up on screen went too far. It was a column about government influence on college campuses. Will asserted that victimhood is becoming a, quote, coveted status that confers privileges for victims of Sexual Assault. He used a graphic example of an alleged campus rape to i illustrate what he describes as a contradictory statistic from the Obama Administration on what actually constitutes Sexual Assault. There was instant criticism by the liberal Media Monitoring Group Media Matters and by u. S. Senators who accuse him of trivializing the skurge of Sexual Assault and treating this as a socially acceptable phenomenon. One of the many papers that subscribes to his column seems to agree. Thats the st. Louis post dispatch. This week the Editorial Page Editor told readers that the paper would no longer be running wills column. Did the paper do the right thing . Lets bring in the editorial editor, tony messenger. Thanks for joining us. This week you told readers you were thinking about pulling the plug for several months but wills column about Sexual Assault made the decision easier. Why is that . Well, the reaction we had from readers, particularly from women, so many of them were so deeply offended that they could be called that george will told them that they were trying to somehow seek a special status, that they were trying to seek some privileged status because of their alleged Sexual Assault. It just we had a lot of readers very angry and very hurt. It caused us to go back and take a look at it and it reinforced our previous decision that he had lost a little bit of speed off his fastball and it caused us to make the decision a little bit more quickly than we would have otherwise. You apologized for running the column in the first place. That must have been pretty rare. I dont know that its ever happened before. It might have. It hasnt happened in my tenure. The reason for that was we did run it and so our reaction to it going back and taking a look and realizing that there was a lot of offensive imagery in that that victimized women, we had to take responsibility for that. We published it. We wish we wouldnt have. Let me read what the op ed editor wrote in response to some of the criticisms. He said george wills columns was well within the bounds of legitimate debate. He went on to say rather than urge me to silence a viewpoint i disagree with, i would urge others to join the debate and not mischaraterize the column. Is that what youre doing . Well, if we were dropping the column, theres one particular offensive element. Thats a critical element. The element of that column that caused us to drop it was that we found it very offensive to many of our readers and thats well within our rights on an editorial page. Thats well within our rights to decide what sort of debate, what level of civility, what level of treatment of women who are Sexual Assault victims were going to allow on our page. Can you understand why some people are saying its intolerant to drop the column . Absolutely. Thats unfortunately the nature of the debate. A lot of the responses that were negative to our decision accused of of doing so for political correctness. Thats not the case. We believe that the column trif vallizes Sexual Assault victims. We believe it trif vallizes very serious attempts on campuses to deal with the scurge of Sexual Assault. Weve written about the topic on our editorial page a lot and im comfortable with our interpretation of what mr. Will wrote. Would you ever bring george will back by the way . I wouldnt close my door to anything related to that. I mean, like i said, we make op ed decisions for a variety of reasons. We lost some New York Times columnists a few years ago for financial reasons. Were constantly switching out columnists for business reasons and for matter of content. I wouldnt close the door, no. Tony messenger, thanks for joining me. Thanks for having me. Here on reliable sources, a story you have to know about, about reporters jailed in egypt for doing their job. The parents of one of the rofrters are thousands of miles away waiting for some kind of justice and to be reunited with their son. Ill talk with them right after the break. Youll experience reliable uptime for the network and services you depend on. Multilayered security Solutions Keep your information safe, and secure. And responsive dedicated support meets your needs, and eases your mind. Centurylink. Your link to whats next. Thats why i always choose the fastest intern. R slow. The fastest printer. The fastest lunch. Turkey club. The fastest pencil sharpener. The fastest elevator. The fastest speed dial. The Fastest Office plant. So why wouldnt i choose the fastest wifi . I would. Switch to comcast Business Internet and get the fastest wifi included. Comcast business. Built for business. Welcome back to reliable sources. There are 100,000 dangerous environments each and every day much as we were reminded on friday when cnns ben wedeman and his cameraman were roughed up by palestinian forces during a hamas demonstration. Watch this. Go, go, go, go. They were okay but its a pretty stark demonstration of what journalists are up against. Egypt has been especially perilous. This week there was a bit of good news when an al gentleman zero reporter was freed. You can see him speaking with reporters outside of a cairo police station. In a statement al gentleman zir called the decision a relief rather than a cause for celebration. Three other journalists are still behind bars. A verdict is expected tomorrow. Youve heard me talk about them on this program before. Peter gres can i, bear muhammad theyve been jailed since december falsely charged with aiding a terrorist organization. Fami used to work with us at cnn. Earlier i had a chance to speak with peters family. They talked to us about how peter is doing and how important it is to keep this case in the media spotlight. Take a listen. Joining me from brisbon. Thank you for being here. Our pleasure, brian. What is the very latest information that you have about your son, about his condition, and about his legal status . The latest information, and we cant almost refer to it as informatio information, it is bits of news we get about peter by his brother michael whose over there now, but clearly the situation is that peter is showing symptoms of the pressure and anxiety of the very long wait. Prosecutors recently said they would seek the maximum sentence in his case which, of i think its mindboggling to believe that they are seeking a maximum sentence of 15 years. I mean, peter has actually not done anything wrong. Hes just done his job. And he has always been a balanced journalist, a journalist who has looked at stories in a very balanced way and reported on all sides of the issue. And he has not broken any law or anything like this. And we just cannot understand why in the first place hes in jail and why on earth would be going for a 15year jail sentence. What is the most Important Message youd like to convey about your son and the other al jezeera journalists being held . Well, the main message is that i wish their case should be the absolutely last one of its kind. Whatever the message the authorities want to convey through the worlds media, dare i say that message surely has been sent loudly and clearly. And we just hope that the authorities reach the only obvious conclusion. And that is to acquit peter and his colleagues and free them as absolutely soon as possible. Because that is the only only reasonable and logical outcome. Thank you for updating us on his situation. And speaking about freedom of the press more broadly. Thanks for joining me. Our pleasure. Our pleasure. Lets hope peters parents can see him soon. Cnn will be covering tomorrow and well have an update on reliable sources next week. A man who helped me learn how to read, may have helped you, too. Stay tuned. Cmon, you want heartburn . When your favorite food starts a fight, fight back fast, with tums. Heartburn relief that neutralizes acid on contact. And goes to work in seconds. Tum, tum tum tum. Tums means keeping seven billion ctransactions flowing. G, and when weather hits, its data mayhem. But airlines running hp endtoend solutions are always calm during a storm. So if your business deals with the unexpected, hp big data and Cloud Solutions make sure you always know whats coming and are ready for it. Make it matter. With the top speedou compare of comcast the top speed of business dsl from the internet. Phone company well, theres really no comparison. Why pay more for less . Call today for a low price on speeds up to 150mbps. And find out more about our twoyear price guarantee. Comcast business. Built for business. Finally this morning, as you know, we tackle all media great and small here on reliable sources, and this next story is great news about small media. For small people on a small screen. If youre of a certain age, you probably remember this. Butterfly in the sky i can go twice as high take a look its in a book reading rainbow reading rainbow got kids excited about reading. It ran for more than 20 years on pbs, and now lavar is planning to relaunch thanks to a kickstarter campaign. The original goal was to raise 1 million. That took less than 24 hours. Now hes extended the campaign and with just a week to go, hes up to nearly 4 million. So i spoke with him about what he wants to do with this. Why he wants to bring back reading rainbow and why we should all care about how kids use media. I think theres a lot of content for children now that is not positive, that is not educational in a positive way . Oh, absolutely. You can find content that is really not conscious of the way content impacts children. And just what sponges they are in terms of absorbing and modelling the things that they learn through the media. I do feel like were learning more all the time about how Television Images and apps affect kids. I remember the first time i saw a child walk up to a Television Set and try to swipe it on like it was an ipad. Blew me away. Yeah. They are so proficient with the technology, which is a huge opportunity if its the right technology and the right content in front of them. Thats the key. Its utilizing the technology in a way that will deliver the appropriate content to kids. And if we do that consistently, we can revolutionize the way we educate children in america. Were out of time here on the televised edition of reliable sources, were going to share the rest of our interview with lavar burton. Check out my stories involving chelseahand ler, you can find all that and more and find us back here next week, next sunday at 11 00 a. M. Eastern time. Set your dvr if you wont be home, and stay tuned for a news update and stay tuned for state of the union with Candy Crowley. Good morning, here are the big stories were following this hour. At the world cup, theres a huge game for team usa coming up in a few hours. They go up against portugal. And if they win, the u. S. Is guaranteed a spot in the next round after beating ghana in the first game. But the u. S. Will have to do it without one of the star players who is injured. Portugals team has its own worries. Rinaldo is expected to play with a knee injury. A florida couple lucky to be alive after treading water 14 hours. They fell off their boat friday night. A group of offduty Police Officers who had gone fishing found them seven miles from shore. The couple has mild hypothermia and jelly fish stings, but theyre expected to be okay. We could see a big milestone on wall street this week. The dow is just 50 points away from 17,000. And if it can make its way up there, itll be the first time in history to cross that level. The dow has been on a roll for the past year. Analysts say it shows investors are optimistic of the global economy. Im erin mcpike, state of the union with Candy Crowley starts right now. 300 u. S. Special forces, too few . Too many . Too late . Iraq, redone. Too few . Too many, too late . Iraq redone. Today, senators rand paul and Dianne Feinstein on iraq the risks of returning, the price of staying home. The issue that i keep front and center is what is in the National Security interests of the United States of america . And 40 years later, watergate summer. This principle of confidentiality of president ial conversations is at stake in the question of these tapes. Bob woodward and Carl Bernstein join us to talk then, and now. Plus i just i dont believe you. Thats your problem. Nobody believes you