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Prudential Insurance Company of America, New York, New Jersey. Good morning. I'm Jane Pauley and this is Sunday Morning. We have many questions this morning for Kathy Griffin, the comedian who you may recall posted an anti-President Donald Trump photo that millions thought was anything but funny.

She'll be answering this morning to Luke Burbank. After releasing a notorious photo in 2017, comedian Kathy Griffin thought her TV career might be over. I don't have a single day of paid work on television ahead of me for the rest of my life. If you could take the drama out of your life, would you? No, not one bit.

It definitely has made me stronger. The unsinkable Kathy Griffin. It turns out there is such a thing as bad publicity.

Ahead on Sunday Morning. I think the partisan conflicts in our country are bitter and harsh. In Britain, the battle over Brexit has turned so nasty that people don't know whether to laugh or cry, which helps explain this story from our Mark Phillips. Division is what it's all about in Britain these days. Nobody seems to be able to unlock the stalemate over Brexit. Maybe the only thing left to do is laugh about it. And now we go live to the House of Commons for another edition of John Burko Makes the Funniest Noises. Brexit, the comedy. Division!

Later on Sunday Morning. Steve Hartman has a tale that's just ducky and contributor Josh Seftel tells all about the transformation in one man's secret life and more all coming up when our Sunday Morning podcast continues. Filmmaker and contributor Josh Seftel has spent the past two years at work on an Emmy-nominated online series called The Secret Life of Muslims. The remarkable way just one of those lives turned around is the story he has for us this morning. Given the recent attacks in New Zealand, we think it's timely and provocative. As a filmmaker who happens to be Jewish, I've always wanted to understand why people hate, whether it's Christians, Jews, or Muslims.

I hope this story will help you understand a bit more about the origins of hate and maybe offer a touch of hope even in the wake of tragedy. I get a knock at the door and hear two guys in a suit. I'm from the FBI.

The first thing I have to say is what took you guys so long? I told them the truth. I was going to make my own IED and I was going to set across the Islamic Center over in a bank's parking lot and I was going to dial it in and just watch the show. Growing up, I saw a movie and it was Rambo. Rambo was tough, respected.

He had intestinal fortitude. I said, that's what I want to do. I went off and joined the Marine Corps. I wanted the action. The first time I got shot at, I remember looking at my watch and I says, man, this time last year I was in English class. I fought several times in the Middle East, Desert Shield, Desert Storm, South America, Philippines, Somalia.

I think the worst things that I have seen is dead children. I had to suck it up. I had to be there for my guys. Each one of those teardrops stands for a confirmed kill. I stopped adding after 26.

Where I was taught, Marine Corps just owned it and then let it go. But there comes a time when there's too much of that and you can't turn it off anymore. I want you to give me a window into your state of mind at that time. One time my wife and I went to a DSW and I saw in the distance these two women in black burkas in my store. I cried as I prayed for enough strength to go over there and break both their necks. I was angry. I was just full of hate and it just fed off itself.

At that point, I was drinking a half gallon of vodka every two days. I had devised a plan, create my own IED, homemade bomb, and I was going to set it off right outside the Muncie Islamic Center. 200 plus killed or injured, that was the plan. I saw an opportunity to do one last thing for my country.

This was my rationale. I knew I would end up in a federal prison with a needle in my arm. I didn't care.

My hatred of Islam, it was the only thing that was keeping me alive. So one day my daughter comes home, second grade maybe, she was telling me about this little boy who sat across from her. His mom came to get him. She said she had scarves on her and she had a dress all the way down to her feet and you couldn't see her on nothing but her eyeballs. At that point, I snapped, started spewing things out of my mouth that should never be said in front of children or anything.

She didn't say anything. It was the look on her face. I remember my daughter looking at me like I was absolutely the craziest person on the face of the earth. She was my little buddy. She used to say we were road dogs. I know, I saw it in her eyes. I made her question that love. And that's when the light bulb came on.

I decided to give the people of this community one more chance. So I went to the Islamic Center, see a gentleman in the shoe room taking off his shoes. He looks at me and he smiles. He said, can I help you? And I said, yeah, I want you to teach me about Islam. So he went and he gave me a Quran.

Read this, come back when you have questions. So I did. And I would see things in the book. I'd be like, there it is. I got them right there. Explain that to me.

And they would. This was a kind of awakening. Long story short, eight weeks after that first day I stepped into the Islamic Center, I became a Muslim. I'm a Muslim, a veteran, and a proud American.

I had learned that I was completely wrong about everything that I felt. You know, Judaism had a message. Christianity had a message. Islam had a message.

Funny thing is, though, it was the same message. It was about peace and it was about love. Please join me in welcoming Mr. McKinney. My big thing is now to stop the hate. Nothing good has ever come out of hatred. I've done too many things. I've hurt a lot of people. I have to live with that.

But if I can stop somebody else on the path of non-forgiveness, I won. Now Steve Hartman with an update of a story that's just ducky. A lot of kids go to the park to see ducks, but eight-year-old Kylie Brown of Freeport, Maine takes her duck to see the park. As we first reported a few years ago, Snowflake goes into the pond and then returns when called because Snowflake truly believes that Kylie is his mother and the duck is not alone in this delusion. I'm his mom. But you're not really his mom.

Yep, I'm his mom. How did you first find out? That he was a duck? No, that... Kylie is unbearably cute. And since I never did recover to ask that question again, let me just tell you that Kylie first noticed Snowflake's attachment the day the Browns brought him home. For whatever reason, the duck imprinted on Kylie and just had to be by her side no matter what the hour. When Snowflake refused to stay in the backyard, Kylie's parents, Ashley and Mike, say they had no choice but to give him a diaper and make him a house duck. He goes everywhere the ducks are allowed and almost everywhere they're not allowed. I don't know if you've ever had a two-year-old or a four-year-old that wouldn't leave home without its blankie.

Anxiety. Yeah, she would not leave home without her duck and at that point nothing's negotiable. Snowflake goes to the beach in summer and sledding in winter. He's been to soccer practice, gone on sleepovers. He even went trick-or-treating as Olaf, the snowman from Frozen. And over time, because they both sincerely believe they belong together, Snowflake and Kylie have formed a bond like most of us will never know. It's special that I know that that's the type of person that she's going to be. Since we first told this story in 2016, Kylie has gotten even more motherly. She taught Snowflake how to read, or at least not eat the words. She also taught him the value of community service, signing him up to be a therapy duck. And of course, she knows just what to do whenever her little one needs help falling asleep. Kylie really is going to make a great mom someday, mostly because she always has been.

You know, someday he's going to grow up and go to college. What? No one has ever, ever once met my husband and said anything like, hey, how'd you get so lucky?

Ever. It's Sunday morning on CBS, and here again is Jane Pauley. Not surprisingly, Kathy Griffin is no longer married.

And that's not the only thing that's changed. There's the notorious photograph that changed everything. This morning, she answers questions from Luke Burbank. And be warned, many will find the photo we just mentioned disturbing and offensive. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Kathy Griffin. If you heard the name Kathy Griffin and were considering skipping this part of the show, Kathy Griffin, of all people, says she'd understand. And I'm very aware that there may be some people that don't want to watch the story. They want to fast forward through it, and they feel like they've had enough of me. And that's the beauty of America. That's OK with me, too.

We're, of course, hoping you choose to keep watching. But for her part, Griffin has gotten pretty used to rejection from a certain segment of the U.S. population. I'm Hanoi Jane. You know, I get it. This photo is going to be with me forever, no matter what I do. The photo, now infamous, was taken in 2017 and featured Griffin holding a mask of President Donald Trump dripping with what appeared to be fake blood.

Comics have a real role in social expression. I started thinking about that Megyn Kelly thing. Blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her everywhere. This is fake blood, just so you know. The fake blood was actually ketchup. Why did you guys go with ketchup? Well, I didn't have any fake blood.

I usually don't stock it. Griffin says the photo was meant as political satire, but that didn't stop all hell from breaking loose. This is vile and wrong. Disgusting, but not surprising. It's done to provoke.

Creating a backlash. She's now seeing the reaction. The president reacted, tweeting, Kathy Griffin should be ashamed of herself. My children, especially my 11-year-old son, Barron, are having a hard time with this.

Sick. Even Griffin's 98-year-old mother was upset with her. And so she called me up and she said, I thought I heard that you were in Al-Qaeda, and why wouldn't you join another club? Griffin was used to controversy, but this was on a whole other level. I never in my lifetime thought anything like this could happen. Caught off guard by the visceral response, she went into crisis management mode. I sincerely apologize.

I am just now seeing the reaction of these images. I'm a comic. I cross the line.

I move the line, then I cross it. I went way too far. But the damage was done. Her comedy tour was canceled. She lost her endorsement deal with something called Squatty Potty. It puts us in the squat, on kicking our colons, making it easier to go.

So get yourself a Squatty Potty and stop being so full of shit. And on a more serious note, she found herself, she says, under investigation for conspiracy to assassinate the President of the United States, a charge that potentially carries a life sentence. My little story is historic, whether you like it or not. It's the first time a sitting United States President has, you know, used the full power of the Oval Office, the First Family, the right-wing media, and more importantly, two departments within the Department of Justice to open an investigation on a private citizen who did nothing wrong, didn't violate the First Amendment, didn't break the law. I'm going to be honest, he broke me. He broke me. He broke me. And then I was like, no, this isn't right.

It's just not right. I was interrogated under oath by two federal agencies. So, you know, a lot of people think I got a call from the Secret Service or I was obstinate and didn't answer questions. No, I got a call the day after the photo from one of my attorneys saying, the DOJ has opened an open-ended investigation. And so, you know, I went, we were able to negotiate the interrogation in his office ultimately, but I was interrogated under oath. And they wanted to take you down for a perp walk originally, right? Yeah, they wanted me to go to downtown LA jail in a jumpsuit and cuffs. And they wanted the video of a perp walk. How much did it cost you to not have that happen?

Hundreds of thousands of dollars, because I would lose this house before I would do that. Really? Griffin says her name ended up temporarily on a no-fly list. And CNN fired her from her long-running gig co-hosting their New Year's Eve special with Anderson Cooper. Kathy Griffin and me for the next three...

I'm not talking to you. I really did love Anderson and I really loved doing that gig and it was a lot of fun. And, you know, they just couldn't get over it. What would you be without your comedy? I thought about that a lot and I thought about it immediately. So one of the first things I did was I wrote a couple of scripts that I'm not even in.

I thought, I can do that, you know? And I thought, well, maybe somebody will buy a script for me if it doesn't say Kathy Griffin. But even without her name attached, Griffin says there was little interest. And this is the part of the story where a lot of people, as rich as she is, would have just gone into early retirement. But not Kathy Griffin. But I thought, well, I know how to be funny and I know how to get people to buy tickets.

I'm pretty sure there's a whole bunch of countries overseas that really don't like Trump. And that's how it all started. So she hit the road again, but only after taking control of her business, learning how to book every element of it herself, from renting the theaters to marketing the shows to hiring the ushers.

So I started with the overseas portion first and I believe it was, gosh, I forgot now, but I think it was 13 countries and 26 cities. And then I thought, okay, I'm onto something. And you made like over $4 million off of that? Yeah, the world tour grossed $4.4 million. And yet I don't have a single day of paid work on television ahead of me for the rest of my life. But she'll always have the stage. Her world tour became the basis for her new comedy special called Kathy Griffin, A Hell of a Story. Here's what I've learned from this experience. It turns out there is such a thing as bad publicity.

Griffin has won all kinds of awards for her TV work and comedy specials. They should be more prominent. I don't even like that they're backed up that much.

But she's still looking for a distributor for this new film, which may serve as a reminder that her life might never go back to how it used to be. The most horrifying thing was thinking, you know, what if I was forced to retire? Because I'm just not wired like that. I know so many people that want to retire at 40 or 45. And that just has never, it's never been me.

So I, you know, I'm afraid to say this, but I want to die on stage. Wait, that's not an edict or an order. I would say no joke about a third of the death threats that came in the old timey mail to my house had actual real return addresses.

The Trumpers are not like academics. I'm just, are you still getting death threats to this day? Yes. Online and in person. I was in London a month ago and I had a driver and he recognized me from the photo. And he said that he was from Morocco and that if we were in Morocco, he would cut my tongue off. So that was a long drive.

What kind of rating did you give that driver? I called the president of the company and had him fired. Wow. If a person who doesn't like you, probably because of that whole photo thing, if they call your lawyers, that's level one of a threat? No, the FBI calls my lawyers. So people don't usually call my lawyers.

Right. They call, they have a way of messaging that they want to assassinate me. So that catches the FBI's attention sometimes when they can. Then they call my lawyer and say, we want to make you aware of this.

There's another category, which is if they deem it to be a threat that is so credible that they need to know that I personally heard it from them, then they call me directly and they, you know, they make sure that they make contact with me personally. So then how, I mean, what's your emotional state when you go on stage a few hours later and you're trying to be funny and tell this story, but in the back of your mind, you're being vigilant? You know, I, I, I like kind of flick the switch, you know? I mean, I think a lot of comedians are a little compartmentalized in that way, but believe it or not, I really put that stuff to the side because I'm there ready to go on.

I'm actually not really thinking of that part during that. I also have a very detailed security apparatus that I didn't used to have to have. And so, um, they also are pretty good at setting an environment so I can just try to focus on being funny. How long have you lived here? Um, I've lived here two and a half years. Can we just take a look at this pool?

Despite what she's been through or what some might argue she put herself through, Griffin says she doesn't want anyone feeling sorry for her. It's heaven. I'm not going to lie. It's heaven.

After all, she does live in a 10 and a half million dollar mansion in Bel Air, California that she paid for in cash. And she's comforted by her two rescue dogs who didn't miss their chance to be on national television. This is Olivia Benson. That's Elliot Stabler.

They are detectives for the NYPD special victims unit. And honestly, they have been game changers. Like I know I sound really corny, but I do everything wrong. I let them sleep in bed with me. I cuddle with them and I feel their little heartbeats against me. And they've really gotten me through, honestly. What about therapy? Oh yeah, I go to therapy as much as I can.

I've been doing that since I was 18. I mean, the therapy sessions were like how to just put one foot in front of the other. And she says it was fellow comedian Jim Carrey who called her out of the blue with some much needed advice. And this phrase just always stuck with me. He goes, you're going to take as long as time as you need to process it. And then you're going to put it through your Kathy Griffin comedy prism, and you're going to make the story funny and relatable.

And you're going to go tell it. So thank you, Jim Carrey. Now that there's some light at the end of the tunnel, Kathy Griffin at 58 says she's done apologizing. If you could click your heels together and go back and just like have at the end of the photo shoot before the mask came out, could have just been like, let's call it a day.

Yeah. Would you? No, because I've learned so much. I think a lot of people would love it if I said, oh, I wish I'd never taken that picture. I wish I'd never cursed. I wish I had never made this comment or that comment. But the most important thing that I hope people see is that long after I kick the bucket, they see the crazy red haired lady didn't go down.

One of the things I want you to take away from tonight is I'm Kathy Griffin and I never learned my lesson. Thousands marched in London yesterday to protest Brexit, ostensibly a very serious issue. The debate over leaving the European Union is taking on the look of a very dark comedy. Watching it all is our Mark Phillips.

Order! There's a time honored tradition in Britain. When things are looking really bad, take refuge in humor. Now we go live to the House of Commons for another edition of John Burko Makes the Funniest Noises. They do a satirical radio comedy show at the BBC. Hello, I'm C Punt. And I'm Hugh Dennis.

And lately they're finding it's hard to be funnier than the real thing. Unlock! Unlock! Leave my wife out of this! What's funny about Brexit? Well, as we get closer to it, less and less. You know, the general consensus, it seems to me, whether you are leave or remain, is just please, please make it stop. Theresa May has tried to make it stop, at least for a while, because the divorce settlement she negotiated with the European Union has been rejected twice by her own parliament. She had to ask that Brexit, which was supposed to happen at the end of this coming week, be delayed. She wanted three months. The EU gave her three weeks. But defeat delayed is not defeat avoided.

I'm defending democracy. Two and a half years after the referendum, the country is still split more or less down the middle by those who want to leave. And those who voted to stay and say leaving would be even more damaging than they feared. Any suggestion the standoff could be resolved by holding another referendum, still a political long shot, is dismissed by this man, John Curtis, Britain's pre-eminent public opinion pollster.

Opinions, he says, have hardened on both sides. Because we are so polarised and because we have so many people who either feel very strongly remain or very strongly leave, any fact, any development in the last two and a half years has been interpreted differently. So if you are a remainer, yes, you will say, just look at how difficult it is for us to get out of this institution.

It's therefore a bad idea. But if you're a leaverer, you say, look how difficult it is to get out of this institution. That just goes to show you why we should get out, because it has far too much influence and involvement in this country's affairs. Funny, huh? Donald Trump got involved. I'm surprised at how badly Brexit negotiations have gone.

I could have done it much better. Shortly after the referendum, we went up to a pub in the northern English town of Sunderland. It's a town where the only major employer is a car plant, where most of the production is exported to Europe.

A plant whose future is now in doubt. Yet Sunderland voted 62% to leave the EU. We wanted out of it.

And the boys in the pub were happy to explain why. The economy's in the toilet, really. Is that part of the feeling that here people thought, well, you know, there's nothing to lose? That's why people have done what they've done. We went back to Sunderland this past week to see if they'd changed their minds.

Some had, but not in the way you might think. I'm really hacked off about it, yeah. Annette had voted to stay in the EU, but is so hacked off, she's switched sides and now wants to leave.

I don't want to be in a relationship with people who can behave the way they have behaved, because I don't, yeah, they're bullies. Or Gary. If the vote was held again, right now, even more people in Sunderland would probably vote to leave, which astonishes me. And it's almost wilful to me.

It's almost, well, suicidal, but I may be wrong. Anger in the country, anger in parliament, anger confronting a government minister on the airwaves. Nobody in the country knows what's going on. Nobody in there knows what's going on, and you know nothing about what's going on even inside the cabinet. The cabinet's at sea, the country's at sea. We are a laughing stock. Is that a question or just your position?

I'm putting it to you. So much for British civility. Maybe it is time for a vacation from Brexit. Doesn't have to be abroad, don't want to annoy the Brexiteers.

We could just head for the West Country, you know. Jacob Rees-Mogg could lend us one of his counties. Jacob Rees-Mogg. This is not Brexit. This is a failure of government policy.

It needs to be rejected. Mogg leads a group of the hardest line Conservative MPs who want to leave the EU now, the so-called cliff edge Brexit, no matter what the consequences. And he's straight from central casting. He has been described as looking like a haunted lamppost.

And what's good about him from a comic point of view is that he exactly matches everyone's caricature of a cartoon Englishman. Jacob Rees-Mogg said, this even more vexing news is exceedingly tiresome. Clear though it seems in your mind of the benefits of Brexit and a hard cliff edge Brexit, is this a process that nobody is controlling right now? The cliff edge term is not the right one to use. There's no cliff edge. Steep slope, very steep slope.

It's not a steep slope. A no-deal Brexit would be such an economic shock. Almost everyone else agrees that the government has been practicing using highways as truck parking lots while goods wait for post-Brexit customs clearance.

Imports of foods and medicines would be at risk. To Rees-Mogg though, the problem isn't Brexit. It's that the prime minister doesn't really believe in it. But it was sold as a very simple proposition. In or out, easiest deal in history, all those things we've heard. It hasn't turned out that way.

Which is not what happens. The government's been utterly supine, just rolled over to have its tummy tickled and then licked the hand that had been tickling it. I mean, it was a completely hopeless approach to negotiation.

It had no backbone. The referendum was held in the hope it would resolve an issue that had been festering in Britain and particularly in its Conservative party for decades. Instead, it has stretched the political system and maybe the country's fabled sense of humour to the breaking point. We'll also discuss whether people are longing for the days when politics was dull and the news talked about other things.

And how nobody predicted that nostalgia for the time before the EU would help lead to a referendum which would lead to nostalgia for a time before the referendum on the EU. My brain's gone. Thank you. I'm Jane Pauley. Thank you for listening. And please join us again next Sunday morning. from the newest interior design trend, Barbie Corps, to the right and wrong way to wash your armpits. Also, we're going to get into things that you just kind of won't believe and we're not able to do in daytime television, so watch out. Listen to Drew's News wherever you get your podcasts. It's your good news on the go.