a loss of 139 points. nasdaq down 20. s&p 500 down about 9. you know, i'm looking at numbers in europe. they're mixed too. it looks like it could be another rough day. lots of concerns about banks for investors today. >> i can see why. give us a glimpse of the headlines on "cnn money" right now. >> banks, 30,000 layoffs with bank of america. sources tell cnnmoney.com goldman sachs and credit swees are secretly cutting jobs as well. they're telling people keep your salary and title but you'll have no job on october 1st. it's easier to find a job with a job, then they won't have to report as many layoffs. that's one of the big stories on cnnmoney.com. >> thanks very much. i'm ali velshi live at the site of the tea party gop debate. which candidate will you be talking about this morning? we'll back check the tough talk

and talk about who came out on top. and rick perry called it a ponzi scheme before. a big lie being told to the american people. so we ask you, the voters if you avee. your answer's ahead. and i'm carol costello. president obama steps up for his jobs bill but are republicans willing to compromise and are you willing to give up popular tax deductions to help pay for the plan on this "american morning." good morning, everyone. it is tuesday, september 13th. welcome to "american morning." >> more from ali on last night's debate just ahead, but first, two big breaking stories. it's 6:00 a.m. eastern. >> right. first to afghanistan where the u.s. embassy in kabul is under attack right now. it appears tackers enter a nearby building under construction and are now firing

rocket propelled grenades at the embassy. suzanne malveaux is live at the capital there. what's happening there? >> i don't think we have her. >> reporter: we're about a mile and a half away. can you hear me now? can you hear me? >> yes, suzanne we hear you. >> reporter: can you hear me now? okay. they can hear me. we're about a mile and a half away from what is taking place. heard explosions and gunfire from where we are. essentially we are getting information from the afghan police and eyewitnesses saying it happened about 40, 45 minutes ago. the story is just unfolding. we thought perhaps it was a small situation. it has turned into a much bigger situation. a group of armed men in a vehicle that pulled up close to the u.s. embassy went into an abandoned building close to the embassy. began firing on the u.s. embassy using light weapons and

grenades. rocked propelled grenades. we have spoken to in the u.s. embassy, a spokeswoman who is not able to give us much information but in a duck and cover mode. ordered to essentially take cover inside of the embassy. we nope the police, the afghan police as well as the army are involved in this kind of back and forth that is taking place outside of the embassy that was under attack. we have heard some explosions. we know there were -- there was gunfire and explosions earlier. we know from an eyewitness that he saw this group of men run out of the vehicle and run into that abandoned building across from the embassy. we also know from a cnn producer who that reached a spokesman for the taliban, they have taken responsibility for this attack. they have released a statement. they have told us in their words, we attacked kabul city. our target, the u.s. embassy, governmental organizations and other organizations.

we are prepared with heavy and light weapons such as grenades and rocket pra pelled grenades. coming directly from the taliban spokesman. what is taking place now is difficult to say, just what is taking place. we do know that there is a private contractor, security contractor, that is responsible for outside protect the u.s. embassy. overseen by the u.s. military. a very heavy international and military presence around the embassy. there just two days ago for the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. is a fortified structure. there is lots of security. it is difficult to get inside, but clearly, this is an insurgent, a taliban attack against the u.s. embassy. if we have more information on casualties, on fay fatalities w will certainly let you know. >> thank you, suzanne malveaux. we'll check in as news warrants. thanks. >> imagine being inside that

embassy, duck and cover. get under tables and chairs and hope for the best. >> a massive structure with lots of security. one hopes they're prepared for this type of thing and it's an attack that will be repelled. iranian president mahmoud ahmadinejad will release two american hikers with two days. shane bauer and josh fattal sentenced back in august to eight years in prison. their attorney says they will be released as soon as $500,000 bail is paid for each of them. >> now to the candidates. the candidates who faced off at last night's debate. ali velshi is live where it all happened in tampa, florida. good morning, ali. >> good morning, carol and christine. a lot of news this morning, that this is the third story in the news, but for a lot of people, a very, very important night last night. we're live at the florida state fairgrounds in tampa. last night the tea party had its

turn at the gop presidential candidates. texas governor rick perry found out what it is like to be the clear front-runner. jim acosta has been following this for us very closely. jim, give us a sense of what happened last night. >> this started as a heavyweight fight between mitt romney and rick perry. then after a while, some of the other contenders found ways to climb in and in the end it was perry taking most of the punches. >> how will we convince senior citizens that social security and medicare need to be changed and get their vote? >> reporter: the first question may have been on social security but it was really about rick perry who once called the program is ponzi scheme. >> it has been called a ponzi scheme by many people long before me, but no one's had the courage to stand up and say, here is how we're going to reform it -- >> reporter: but as perry tried to turn down the heat, mitt romney cranked it up. >> the question is, do you still believe social security should be ended as a federal program as

you did six months ago when your book came out or return to the states? do you want to retreat -- >> we'll need to have a conversation. >> let's finish it right now. >> the one-liner of the night. >> i'm not particularly worried about governor perry and governor romney scares the american people when president obama scares them every day. >> reporter: that wasn't the only flashpoint. take the economy. as to whether the lone star governor was responsible for jobbed created in the lone star state, romney said texas deserved the credit, not perry. >> tell him how much credit he deserves. >> look, you know, i think governor perry would agree with me if you are dealt four aces that doesn't make it necessarily a great poker player. >> i was going to say, mitt, doing pretty good until you started talking about poker. >> reporter: and michele

bachmann a winning hand. schoolgirls receive manneder to vaccinations. >> little girls who have a n negative reaction to this potentially dangerous drug don't get a mulligan. they don't get a do-over. >> reporter: then suggested perry was interested in doing more than saving lives. >> i just wanted to add that we cannot forget that in the midst of this executive order there was a big drug company that made millions of dollars because of this mandate. we can't deny that. >> you've got to respond to that. >> yes, sir. the company was merck, and it was a $5,000 contribution that i had received from them. i raise about $30 million. and if you're saying that i can be bought for $5,000, i'm offended. >> reporter: and perry found himself on the wrong side of the tea party when he defended support for in-state tuition for

the children of illegal immigrants. >> a policy that got boos from the crowd. >> that is not the american way. >> reporter: well, in the end, perry was hit hard but stayed on his feet, which is why he will continue on. as the front-runner in the race, tomorrow he heads to virginia, not a very important state to republican primary voters, but the trick for the rest of the field, convince governor perry this race is not over yet. >> they're all experienced in some fashion. have all been on the public stage before and all in good fighting form last night. in the moment you're talking about when everybody piled on rick perry, it started to show a little bit. he looked a little frustrated. a little like, what's going on here. they were all jumping on him at the same time. >> reporter: absolutely. some getting under his skin. you could see his body language. when mitt romney was talking, tensed up, smiling, looking away, saying, what's with this guy over here?

the question is, did anything change last night, because rick perry lives to fight another day. >> we'll be talking about that. 7:30 eastern, congresswoman michele bachmann will join us with her standing in the polls slipping. did she regain some of the spotlight last night? did she start to claw back? much more debate coverage from tampa ahead when "american morning" continues. ♪ ♪ ♪ when the things that you need ♪ ♪ come at just the right speed, that's logistics. ♪ ♪ medicine that can't wait legal briefs there by eight, ♪ ♪ that's logistics. ♪ ♪ freight for you, box for me box that keeps you healthy, ♪ ♪ that's logistics. ♪ ♪ saving time, cutting stress, when you use ups ♪ ♪ that's logistics. ♪

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welcome back to a special "american morning," live in tampa. breaking down last night's big cnn tea party debate. the candidates putting front-runner rick perry on defense, especially on an issue they watch closely in florida. social security. so who came up on top? joining me now, cnn contributor dana lash, the founder of the st. louis tea party, and cnn political contributor alex castionos. ut there like so many watching closely. dana, started with you.

any knockout moments, anything maybe be great strides last night and anybody really falter? >> i think bachmann came back strong and did exactly what she needed to do. i had reservations especially about an hour through the debate. seemed hesitant to go after perry or romney. had a couple golden opportunities. finally, when the gardasil question came up, relentless and continued to stay after perry the rest of the debate. that was important. >> a key moment. this is rick perry talking about a decision he had made, sort of an executive order that was going to see young girls in texas inoculated with merck's gardasil, preventing the transition of hpv and thought to prevent cancer in young girls. >> at the end of the day, this was about trying to stop a cancer and giving the parental option to opt out of that, and at the end of the day, you may criticize me about the way that

i went about it, but at the end of the day, i am always going o err on the side of life. >> thousands of donations to the governor. this is flat out wrong. the question is, was it about life or about millions of dollars? >> the company was merck, and it was a $5,000 contribution that i had received from them. i raise about $30 million, and if you're saying that i can be bought for $5,000, i'm offended. >> i'm offended for all the little girls and the parents that didn't have a choice. that's what i'm offended for. >> really, she got the applause on that one, alex. a very interesting debate, because, you know, rick santorum on the side said parents should have been given the option to opt in, not opt out. this debate was about executive orders, about not going through the legislature and michele

bachmann made it about a political donation. dp she score points or was this punching in the dark? >> oh i think she gained set match there to michele bachmann. one of her better moments in the debate and in the whole campaign so far. because it is about big government authority taking parents' rights away and making them fight to get it back. it's not about the gardasil vaccine. a lot of parents think it's a great idea, but forcing -- or the government forcing parents to be in a position where they'd have to act to protect their family if they didn't really want that, that's not a conservative position. you know, rick perry is still the heavyweight champ here, still number one, but what happened last night is the champ got cut and now you're going to see all the other fighters punch perry. we're going see over the next few weeks whether he holds up. debates are so important, not only in themselves, in the next few week, the coverage of the

debates, these moments you're seeing now more people will see them than actually saw the debate. his is a moment that will help michele bachmann over the next few weeks and hurt perry. >> we talked about perry ganged up on, michele bachmann ducomin out flying. where did romney fare in this thing? >> took some hits. off his game, he seemed, last night. i enjoyed watching that but it took away from the opportunities how they would do something instead of taking jabs back and forth. you did this, you did that. they didn't get into the specifics how they would help the economy, how they would do this or that. that hurt both of them. answering the questions, having a good solid debate, bachmann walked away with it, but pet rer is the perceived front-runner and it's on how everyone ganged up on him. ied up on him last night.

>> and bachmann's success is a gain for romney. if she gains a couple of points, it probably comes out of perry. >> talk about gingrich, cain, santorum? anybody there make big strides? and ron paul. i don't know where to put ron paul. he polls higher and stays relatively consistent. >> cain had good answers on jobs. i appreciate wab herman cain. he knows how to get the sound fwhit will get the headline for the next day. he's great at that and very good ef time he gave an answer he brought it back to his specific plan. brought it back to jobs -- >> his 999 as he called it. >> terrific. something romney and perry didn't do. he thinks on his feet. quit witted in that way. ron paul i thought, we head paul rudman's column nor 9/11 and i don't know how you can come back after justifying 9/11. everyone in, around me, watching this was shocked when he said that. >> interesting.

>> alex, your take on the other candidates? >> on the other candidates? i don't know that anything changed last night, except that perhaps perry came down a little bit. bachmann came back up. romney came i think left, the way he came in. that means the field's still open. somebody else could still from the bottom tier could make an impact in this race. i doubt it will be ron paul, because i think last night he did himself mortal harm. >> yeah. okay. good to talk to you guys. alex and dana. send it back to new york. carol? >> interesting stuff. thank you, ali velshi. now it's your turn to talk back on one of the big stories of the day. today's question -- should president obama's jobs plan be funded by limiting tax deductions? you know, the jobs plan the president wants congress to pass, like, right now? like it doesn't look good. yes, republicans like parts of the plan, but they don't like how the president wants to tax the rich to pay for it. yes, mr. obama wants to end tax loopholes for oil and gas

companies, hedge fund managers and he wants to let the bush tax cuts expire. but the biggest chunk, $400 billion, will come from limiting tax deductions on americans making more than $ 200,000 a year. >> we've got to decide what our priorities are. do we keep tax loopholes for all companies or put teachers back to work? keep tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires, or invest in education and technology and infrastructure? all the things that are going to help us out innovate, out educate and out build other countries. >> all over again, as is the republican response. this from senator jon kyl. >> who is it, mr. president, that are the first to hire coming out of a recession? it's small business. so the very people that we are asking to hire more americans, to put them back to work, are the people who would be impacted by the taxes that the president talked about the other night.

>> so the "talk back" question for you this morning, should obama's jobs plan be funded by limited tax deductions? fa facebook.com/american morning. i'll read your answers later on in the hour. talking about tax deductions and how the president wants to limit them more throughout the afternoon. >> making $200,000 a year, every $100, capped at $28 off your tax bill instead of $39, the highest end. it would really change. for charitable donations, for also how much you're deducting from -- >> i don't think they'll be much argument for people at the way, way high-end of the scale. maybe more than $1 million. for those people making $200,000, that will hurt. >> yeah. and those people, you tell them they're really rich, especially in high tax days, they're not rich, but they are in the top 1%. >> depends where you live.

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so lily and i are back on the road again. with zyrtec® i can love the air®. were back. "minding your business." u.s. stock futures trading slightly lower on concerns about the exposure of french banks to a worsening debt crisis in the region. today president obama here starts his swing state tour pushing the american jobs act in ohio. the white house has an uphill battle to get this plan passed through congress in its entirety. details delivered to congress yesterday especially how to pay for it with tax increases on the rich. republicans on capitol hill immediately opposed it. analysts say we could see more layoffs this fall from other big banks. this after bank of america announced yesterday it plans to cut 30,000 jobs over the next few years. so far this year, the big banks announced more than 60,000 job

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it's just about 30 minutes past the hour. good morning to you. time for this morning's top stories, and we are following breaking news out of afghanistan where militants attacked the u.s. embassy in central kabul. eyewitnesses say a group of gunmen went into a nearby building under construction and started firing rocket pro pepped g propelled grenades into the building. people were told to take cover. the taliban taking responsibility for the attack. so far, no word on injuries. two u.s. hikers behind bars in iran more than two years could be freed this week. cnn confirms iran's president agreed to release josh fattal and shane bauer with two days. according to their lawyer, what will -- that will happen, rather, after their families pay $500,000 bail each. tough talk at the tea party gop debate in tampa last night. the candidates ganging up on front-runner rick perry at times. perry and mitt romney accusing

each other of scaring seniors over social security. >> millions of americans depend on social security. millions more plan to. that's why social security's becoming such a hot topic among the republican candidates for president. especially with texas governor rick perry who has labeled the program a big lie. >> it has been called a ponzi scheme by many people long before me. but no one's had the courage to stand up and say, here is how we're going to reform it, we're going to transform it for those in those mid-career ages. >> the term ponzi scheme, i think, is over the top, and unnecessary, and frightful to many people, but the real issue is, in writing his book, senator perry pointed out in his view social security is uns constitutional. >> all right. let's bring in our senior little editor mark preston, who has not

had much sleep. when you are at your best pap new cnn poll about this particular topic. what does it say? >> in the last week or so social security has risen to the forefront of the most important issue in the republican nomination. rick perry says it was a lie, a failure, but do the american people beav believe that? not necessarily. 72% of americans say that's not the case. one would seem to run counter to what rick perry was saying, but rick perry did certainly hit upon something. there is problems with social security. look at this number right here. are there problems with social security? and here, major changes, are they needed? 55% say, yes. that is the case. of course, this is all tied in to one thing. the economy, ali. >> and this is -- this is interesting, because rick perry kind of made this an issue. social security's sort of a back burner concern to a lot of people. it's tied to our debt and deficit concerns but he's put this in the forefront. does this help him ultimately or not that these polls show not

everybody believes his characterization of it? >> could be potentially a devastating issue in the general election. republican versus democrat. right now in the primary, it's not hurting him. in fact at the debate, that wasn't the big issue. we saw social security, up to last night, for rick perry now it's about mandates he has to deal with and illegal immigration. >> we'll be talking a lot more about it. thank, mark preston. back to christine. >> great work, you guys. appreciate that. last night's debate, too, texas governor rick perry was as much a target and president obama criticized for his stance or social security, record in creating jobs and requiring schoolgirls to get the hpv vaccine. how did he do last night? welcome to the program. >> how are you? thanks. >> lively debate. how do you think governor perry did? >> i think he did great. i heard mark mention earlier, look, when you're the front-runner everybody picks on

you. i think governor perry did a good job of defending his record, standing his ground and showing the kind of strength folks want to see in their next president. >> you're there in florida where a third of florida's registered voters are people over the age of 60. i want to ask you about the social security debate. this just goes on. governor perry said social security is a ponzi scheme a failure. listen to what mitt romney said. >> governor, the term ponzi scheme is what scared seniors, number one. number two, suggesting that social security should no longer be a federal program and return to the states and unconstitutional is likewise frightening. >> does governor perry want to return this to the states and would your constituents be okay with that? >> what governor perry said is he spoke the truth. right now social security is unsustainable. people my age in the workforce and younger, it's not going to be there if they don't reform

it. everything said the same thing, used their own metaphor. governor perry's of a ponzi scheme is accurate in that its unstainable. what we're paying the current retirees won't be there for the new investors. it was clear for everybody those on social security getting those benefits or even near retirement, those benefits have to be there and must be protected. governor perry had the courage to say, i think most boldly, we've got to change it, or it really won't be there for the next generation of retirees. >> we don't know how he wants to change it. he keeps talking about, we want to start a conversation. there's been a conversation in this country about this actually for years and been through a couple reform levels. critically acclaimed movie that cnn ran, "io. usa" and the path of our debt and deficits. the conversation has been going on a long, long time. governor perry saying let's start the conversation. i'm asking you, we're well into

the conversation. how do you fix it? >> well, i think, number one, you get the economy going again, which is what governor perry has the best track record which is actually creating jobs. 40% of all the net new jobs in the nation since june of 2009 have been created in texas. where as president obama lost almost 2.5 million jobs. the first step is get the economy going again. the second step is, you have that conversation about entitlement reform and you recognize that whether it's social security or medicaid or other federal programs, or programs flowing as far back as the new deal, if we -- we can't function under that system or we'll end up like greece or one of those western european democracies near bankruptcy. >> when you talk about how governor perry is responsible for 40% of all the job creation, a lot of people, say, no. 40% of the job creation happened in a state perry was the governor are, but he didn't invent the oil. a lot of those jobs are teaching

jobs. that always brings up a whole big debate who's responsible for job creation and do governors and presidenting get too much claim for job creation and job destruction. i want to ask this as whole -- go ahead, respond. >> governor perry made it clear he didn't create the jobs, the private sector did and unambiguous about that. >> i think a lot of those were teaching jobs which would be the public sector. wouldn't it? >> actually, no. health care and high-tech and manufacturing has accounted for a greater percentage of the gdp in texas. i think mining is like 2% of the gdp. a red herring, to say that it's from oil or teaching jobs. it's high-tech, high-wage jobs fleeing california, fleeing massachusetts. >> it shows how all is about jobs, and about job creation, and that's what people want to see, and we just haven't been able to unlock that quite yet, which is why it is such a, to use a terrible cliche, a hot

button issue. thank you so much. speaker of the florida house of representatives. nice to see you this morning. thanks for getting up for us. >> you, too. talk weather with rob marciano. >> warming up again in spots, but there's a little glimpse's fall on the way. take a look at the map. thunderstorms possible across parts of the upper, the northeast. and the heat builds across parts of texas. dallas, by the way, hit, well, 69 days of 100-degree-plus temperatures. one yesterday. that ties a record and they'll get to overall 100 today. breaking a record. 70 days. 7-0 days this year, 100-degrees-plus in dallas. my goodness. 17 degrees in chicago. a taste of fall there, and 90 degrees in atlanta. traveling to detroit, cleveland, san francisco and vegas are your problem spots. thunderstorms out there in the desert area. we'll highlight those in a second. a strong cold front dropping from canada dropping temperatures into the 50s and 60s, probably snow in the

mountains and squoosh some of the 90s and 100s out of the way by the time we get to the end of the week and it gets into the eastern part of the country as well. speaking of rain, check it out, to the mojave desert, still shots, cool, taken the last couple of nights. unfortunately some of these lightning bolts just to the west, sparked fires. evacuating some folks. none the less, cool shots when taken from afar. and they don't harm anybody. guys, back up to you. >> yeah. ta taken from very far away. just ahead on "american morning," they are tea party supporters but have not picked a candidate yet to support. did last night's debate do anything to sway them? we'll talk with three of the undecided. it's 38 minutes past the hour.

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the republican presidential race, but texas governor rick perry may have felt a bit like a pinata coming under attack not just from mitt romney but from the whole field of fellow candidates during the gop tea party debate. our next guest was there. they are two undecided voters, and we want to find out if anything changed their minds. joining us now, pam sillayman and mark grossenbach. you are both small business owners and very concerned on a number of fronts about many of the issues discussed last night. pam, start with you. what's your takeaway. who did you really like and who do you think really didn't do as well? >> that's a hard one. been thinking about that for a couple of hours. i like bits and pieces of all of them a lot. >> right. >> i think i went there last night really trying to get to know more about rick perry. >> yep. >> because he's such a, you know, outstanding poll leader right now. >> right, right. a force in this thing. >> so i wanted to get to know a personal feeling from him a little bit. so i got a little bit of a feeling there.

to me -- he wouldn't be my favorite right now, and i'm still going to investigate a lot about all of them. if i had to pick one overall right now, it would be michelle. michelle stood out to me really strong last night. >> important for her to have to do that, to both her own base and people like you looking at the team, because she slipped back a little in the polls. mark, what's your take? both went in undecided. are you anymore decided after last night's debate? >> what last night did was kind of weed out a couple of the candidates. >> tell me who? >> huntsman's out. >> is that right? >> yeah. i don't think he did himself any favors last night. at least not with the tea party. >> right. >> and, you know -- ron palm ul far as foreign policy issues, i don't think he resonate with the tea party. i don't want to speak for the tea party. i speak for myself. >> tell me what you didn't like ron paul said?

>> to boil it down, i don't want to speak for him either it seems like, let's get out of the world. and i don't think in 2011 and 2012 in the future you can do that. >> not all that practical. what about jon huntsman? did he resonate with you at all? >> no. he came off to me arrogant and not like one of the people. i don't like being talked down to, and i felt he was talking down to us. >> you did tell me at the commercial break you like herman cain? >> i love herman cain. >> people seem to like listening to him. >> who wouldn't like herman cain. he's awesome. i mean, as a president, i'm not sure he's there, you know, to be president, but i'd love to see him somehow involved in our government, and maybe, you know, some day be president. but i love -- his common sense and humor and just his -- well, i love him. >> so you actually weren't involved in politics before the tea party, and then you became the founder of -- >> yes. >> how do you feel about this?

are you a political activist or just an american who wants to have a role in making decisions? >> i'm just a mom. i'm an interior designer. >> right. >> and the bailout junk, when bush started all of that bailout stuff made me crazy. his little stimulus checks they sent out, was the first little thing that clicked in my mind and from then on it was like, ooh -- >> you're not just about it being all the obama administration? you think government's been spending money. >> it's a long time, yeah. >> mark, you're a small time business owner as well. >> right. >> what would cause you to expand your small business? all the talk about regulation and restriction or just use more demand? you could use more people using your services? >> exactly it. if there's more people that want my service, then i hire. >> you employ about four people, correct? >> correct. >> you're in the landscaping business. >> correct. >> what do you think would make more people hire you? what's the thing that government can do right now that can improve your business? >> just jobs, employment. >> right.

>> you know. our business, our industry was devastated when the economy went south. you know, people had to decide what they could afford, and a lot of them, you know, lawn maintenance was a luxury. >> sure. do it themselves if they didn't have money for it. >> exactly. >> pam, let me ask you this. one of the things interesting about last night, is there are certainly out there, some blame the media, there are stereotypes about the tea party. >> oh, yes. >> one watching that last night wouldn't have come across a lot of those. >> good, good. >> it didn't seem particularly -- we didn't seem to see extreme positions staked out. is that the tea party you're most familiar with? >> absolutely. yes. i face this all the time. and, you know -- >> here with the tea party and -- thought we were just normal. >> thought we were wacky. it's all about birth certificates and being from mars and all that. no. it's about the money. we're not about social stuft. like i said, i don't care who you sleep with or who you marry. personally, we've got to fix our country.

our economy is messed up. we're a wrecking ball right now. and that's what's important. >> all right. >> thinking about debt. >> you both went in undecided, both emerge undecided you've narrowed the field a little bit. do you have some sense -- i'll ask you each this question -- do you have some sense after watching last night who is likely to emerge as the candidate, regardless whether they're your choice? do you think it's romney, perry, michele bachmann or someone else? >> well, perry has that leadership quality i think a lot of people are attracted to. you know, i like him. i think i went in wanting to like him. i didn't come off liking him any better. i did come off -- newt continues to impress me a lot. he's brilliant. >> a lot of people say that that man could be president and i think he'd do a good job. i just wish i could take bits and pieces of others and give him that core tea party person thing, and michelle, and, you know, santorum had it. >> mark? >> the question as a prediction? >> prediction, yeah.

>> who do i think -- i'm sure it will probably be romney or perry, but i'm kind of with pam. i'll support bachmann. >> and maybe you'd like an amalgam of a few of them. thanks for talking with us this morning. we're going to have this morning's top stories right after the break. it is 47 minutes after the hour. i'm ra known ma singer, i'm from "the real housewives are new york city" and i'm an entrepreneur and always on the road traveling. it's good to see your customer, meet and greet. it's exciting. i'm packing and unpacking and packing. i live out of my suitcase. i am not afraid to check a bag. in fact, i always check a bag. i like to overpack a little. i needed two dresses. one for tonight and one for tomorrow. guess what? i packed four. did i need five pairs of shoes?

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a strike that shut down the largest school district in tacoma. and manny ramirez arrested and charged with battery after 0 domestic dispute in florida. ramirez retired from baseball at the start of the season taking a 100-game suspension for his second violation of the league's drug policy. novak djokovic is your men's u.s. open champion. the number one seed beat number two rafael nadal in four sets yesterday. his first u.s. open title. won three of the four grand slam events this year. that's the news you need to know to start your day. "american morning" is back right after this.

six minutes until the top of the hour. good morning. we asked you to "talk back" on one of the big stories of the day. the question -- should president obama's jobs plan be funded by limiting tax deductions? this from heidi. it is time to tax the job creators again. while they were paying lower taxes during the past decade the jobs have been disappearing. itrepublicans want to paint the pick color it lays at the feet of the extremely wealthy calling them job creators time to hold them accountable for what happens the past ten years. funded by wealthy, they'll have earned their job creator affectation. and from drew, we should cut all federal regulations going back

to at least 1993. the result, less business, less jobs. this isn't rocket science. and also, yes, the wealthy corporations had ten years of tax cuts and loopholes. it's time they pay their fair share. congress needs to cut their own salaries and decrease benefits, too. everyone needs to share in the sacrifice. congress needs to practice what they preach. keep the comments coming. facebook/"american morning." i'll read more throughout the show. ahead next hour, last night's debate a must-win for michele bachmann. did she do it? we'll speak to congresswoman michele bachmann coming up in a few minutes. don't go away, coming up live. ♪ [ upbeat ] [ announcer ] who could resist the call... of america's number-one puppy food brand? with dha and essential nutrients also found in mother's milk.

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breaking news this morning. under attack. the taliban claiming responsibility for attacking the u.s. embassy in afghanistan. workers there taking cover. after more than two years and countless pleas it get out, two american hikers are expected to be released from jail in iran. but there's a huge price to pay for their freedom. taking on perry. facing off in front of the tea party. gop candidates gang up on

front-runner texas governor rick perry. is that going to help them or hurt them and him on this "american morning." -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com good morning, everyone. it's tuesday, september 13th. i'm christine romans. >> and i'm carol costello. >> and i'm ali velshi. more on the gop debate just ahead. first, breaking news in afghanistan this morning. the u.s. embassy in kabul is under attack. people there are being told to take cover. suzanne malveaux is in kabul just about a mile away from the embassy right now. suzanne what can you tell us about this attack right now? >> reporter: well, we know that it's still ongoing, this has not yet been resolved. this happened, started about two hours ago. about a mile or so, we are, away from where this is. kabul city, this is really at the heart, the capital of afghanistan. what happened, about two hours,

from eyewitnesses and both afghan police a group of guys in a vehicle ypulled up in a car across from the embassy. had small arms. started shooting at the embassy. we talked to a producer several times who cannot give a lot of information because they are in duck and cover mode. they are essentially taking cover. hunkering down at the embassy as they are being fired upon. there are choppers in the area. there have been afghan police. the army. the international security assistance force, all of them involved in trying to protect the embassy. we know that the taliban has called a cnn producer and confirmed that they're responsible, releasing the statement saying we attacked kabul city. our target, the u.s. embassy. governmental organizations and other foreign organizations. we are prepared with heavy and light weapons, such as grenade and rocket prropelled grenades s well. what we sundays that they are

trying to figure out how many there are that are involved here. it's about a one-mile square area that is on lockdown. from where we are, we have heard small arms fire. we've heard a grenade, grenade explosions pap guy in a vehicle who essentially was telling people, get back in your homes. people have tried to kind of move on, and take their lives as normally as they can this afternoon, but clearly, there is a lot of uncertainty, and this is really part of a larger strategy from the taliban. this is hardly a soft target. this is one of the most secure areas. if you can imagine here. the u.s. embassy. i was just there a couple days ago for the 9/11 anniversary, and there are all kinds of international security forces, afghan security around that building that are responsible for securing it. this is to show that they can strike. they can strike at the heart of some of the most important institutions. so right now we are still kind of in a wait and see mode

whether or not these guys, these insurgents who have taken responsibility are going to be captured. whether or not they're going to be killed. we do have information that there are two injuries, two people injured that have been taken to a local hospital, but right now there is still a significant area that is on lockdown as they try to figure out what is going on right outside the embassy. >> all right. still an ongoing event. suzanne, we'll let you back to the phones and work this. thank you. also breaking, two american hikers jailed in iran more than two years will be released this week. cnn now confirming iranian president mahmoud ahmadinejad is prepared to free josh fattal and shane bauer with two days, if each of their families is able to post $500,000 bail. ali? all right, carol. live at florida state fairgrounds right now. last night the tea party had its turn at the gop presidential candidates. texas governor rick perry found

out what it is like to be the clear front-runner. jim acosta was watching it very closely for us and joins us now. it really looked like, that the fire power was all focused on him, and it looked at times like he was feeling it. >> it looked like he was feeling it. in the end, showing he can take a punch. this thing started as sort of a heavyweight fight between rick perry and mitt romney, but after some time passed, some of the other contenders in the debate were able to climb into the ring, and it was rick perry who was taking all the abuse. >> ho will you convince senior citizens that social xirsecurit and medicare need to be changed and get their vote? >> reporter: the first question may have been on social security but it was really about rick perry who once called the program is ponzi scheme. >> it has been called a ponzi scheme by many people long before me, but no one's had the courage to stand up and say, here is how we're going to

reform it -- >> reporter: but as perry tried to turn down the heat, mitt romney cranked it up. >> the question is, do you still believe social security should be ended as a federal program as you did six months ago when your book came out and return to the states? or do you want to retreat -- >> we'll need to have a conversation. >> let's finish it right now. >> reporter: this may have been the one-liner of the night. >> i'm not particularly worried about governor perry and governor romney scaring the american people, when president obama scares them every day. >> reporter: that wasn't the only flashpoint. take the economy. as to whether the lone star governor was responsible for jobbed created in the lone star state, romney said texas deserved the credit, not perry. >> tell him how much credit he deserves. >> well, look -- you know, i think governor perry would agree with me that if you're dealt four aces that doesn't necessarily

make you a good poker player. >> i was going to say, mitt, you were doing pretty good until you started talking about poker. >> reporter: and michele bachmann with a winning hand. about schoolgirls receiving mandatory vaccinations. >> little girls who have a negative reaction to this potentially dangerous drug don't get a mulligan. they don't get a do-over. >> reporter: then she suggested perry was interested in doing more than saving lives. >> i just wanted to add that we cannot forget that in the midst of this executive order there was a big drug company that made millions of dollars because of this mandate. we can't -- we can't deny that. >> you've got to respond to that. >> yes, sir. the company was merck, and it was a $5,000 contribution that i had received from them. i raised about $30 million. and if you're saying that i can be bought for $5,000, i'm offended.

>> reporter: and perry found himself on the wrong side of the tea party when he defended his support for in-state college tuition for the children of illegal immigrants. a policy that got boos from the crowd. >> that is not the american way. >> reporter: when the debate is all about you, which is very much what this debate was last night about rick perry, you tend to be winning, which is why rick perry in the next coming days will be continuing to run as the front runner in this race. tomorrow he goes to virginia. it's not a terribly important state. as republican primary. it is a battleground state in the general election, ali. the trick for the rest of this field out there right now is to convince governor perry it's not over yet, and one interesting thing happened after the debate last night. sarah palin did an interview in which she said she may still get into this race, which could change all of this all over again. also raises the question, is she the queen of the tea party or the tease party? >> talking to michele bachmann later on to see how that move might affect her.

in the poll, sarah palin continues to poll very, very strongly. >> very well. >> for somebody not in the race. interesting you pointed out newt gingrich's comment about president obama. when watching this debate, a lot of the focus on president obama, was absent. that the broader republican party concentrates on wasn't there last night. >> something very smart, rick perry, every time a candidate's going after him -- jon huntsman would try to land a punch. rick perry would take that and pivied and turn to the president and go after the president. a smart move. it is what front-runners do. at this point, after this debate, he's still the front-runner. >> jim, good to see you. >> good to see you. and many people here in florida care about this passionately. social security. 's in a new cnn orc poll out just this morning, 55% of americans say major changes are needed to fix the social security system. just 4% say there are no serious

problems with it. we also asked whether social security should be replaced, and it does depend on your age. 21% of people under 35 said, yes. only 2% of people over 65 said yes, because they're getting their money right now. carol? >> wow. what a shocker. huh? that's funny. thank you, ali. president obama will spend the next two days in two key states trying to sell his jobs plan. today's stop, columbus, ohio. then he heads to north carolina tomorrow. the president's proposal includes raising taxes on wet wealthy americans, individuals earning more than $200,000 and the president calling on congress to pass his jobs plan immediately. he did deliver it to congress yesterday. so now it's your time to "talk back" on this story. today's question, should obama's jobs plan be funded by limiting tax deductions? you know, the jobs plan the president wants congress to pass, like, right now? like that doesn't look good. he asked republican that like

parts of the plan but don't like how the president wants to pay for the tax. he wants to raise taxing on the rich to pay for it. yes, mr. obama wants to end tax loopholes for oil and gas companies, hedge fund managers and let the bush tax cuts expire. the biggest chunk, $400 billion, will come from limiting tax deductions on americans making more than $200,000 a year. >> we've got to decide what our priorities are. will we keep tax loopholes for all companies or put teachers back to work? keep tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires, or invest in education and technology and infrastructure? all the things that are going to help us outinnovate, outeducate and outbuild other countries in the future. >> deja vu all over gern, as ags the republican response. >> who is it, mr. president, that are the first to hire coming out of a recession? it's small business. so the very people that we are

asking to hire more americans, to put them back to work, are the people who would be impacted by the taxes that the president talked about the other night. >> so the "talk back" question for you today -- should obama's jobs plan be funded by limiting tax deductions? facebook.com/americanmorning. facebook coin com/"american morning." i'll read your responses coming up. no school in tacoma, washington, also this morning. the teachers decided to go on strike after months of negotiation, about class sizes, pay and whether seniority should have to do with jobs. they'll try to force teachers back to work. and former baseball allstore manny ramirez, arrested and charged with battery after a domestic dispute in florida. he retired at the start of the season instead of taking a 100-game suspension for his second violation of the league's drug policy. >> his reputation's just about

shot. huh? a really sad story. ahead to atlanta and check in with rob marciano. how's the weather? >> start to feel like fall. the fall classic is upcoming in october. the world series, the football season is starting. come on. days are getting shorter. nights are getting longer. the harvest moon last night. what else do you need? a chance of thunderstorms across upstate new york. parts of pennsylvania. obviously, flood ravaged areas could cut later today in advance of the cold front. heat continues across texas where they don't need it. today will be the 70th day of 100-degree-plus temperatures in dallas. an all-time record. 107 expected. 101 in houston. 86 in d.c. thunderstorms continuing to develop across parts of the inner mountain southwest as well. the bigger story that affects a wide swath of the u.s., this cold front diving down from canada. snow in the mountains. the gold and yellow, even freeze

and frost warnings across parts of the northern plains. 20 to 30 drip 30-degrees cooler what they are now. and some will sink down to texas by the end of the weekend and maybe squeeze out a little moisture. maybe. the 60s and 70s into the northeast. it will do something else. take maria and scoot it out to sea, bermuda will get a little taste of that. as far as what maria has been doing, our friends in puerto rico have been enduring a lot of rain with this and some flash flooding, and that continues today as maria slowly pulls away. further down south, not further in puerto rico but from new york, tampa, steamy again. i see the sun rising up behind you, ali. take care of yourself. >> cooled off a little. i like the way you snuck in the, blaming canada for this cold front that's coming down. but if it gets all the way down to the south, does that mean dallas is finally going to see weather under 100 degrees in the

next few days? >> yeah, they will. close are towards the weekend, but they will get into the 60 -- not the 60s or 70s. a little closer to normal. >> i think they'll take 95. >> they will. >> cool things substantially. rob good to see you. nice morning out in tampa. rein gotten too hot yet. still to come this morning, battle lines drawn at last night's tea party debate. social security, immigration, mandatory vaccination. issues that kept front-runner rick perry on his toes. does he come out of this thing with the lead he wept into it with? we'll debate the winners and losers just ahead, and in less than 20 minutes, we'll talk live to tea party favorite michele bachmann and find out how she thought the debate went last night. it is several minutes after the hour. [ cherie ] i always had a job, ever since i was fourteen.

i could not make working and going to school work. it was not until the university of phoenix that i was able to work full-time, be a mom, and go to school. the opportunits that i had at the university of phoenix, dealing wh profesonals teaching things that they were doing every day, got me to where i am today. i'm mayor cherie wood, i'm responsible for the largest urban renewal project in utah, and i am a phoenix. [ male announcer ] find your program at phoenix.edu. exclusive to the military. and commitment is not limited to one's military oath.

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welcome back. breaking down last night's big cnn tea party debate. eight gop hopeful facing off on everything from jobs to immigration to health care and it got contentious early on. the two perceived front-runners, mitt romney and rick perry, accusing each other of scaring seniors about social security. joining me now, senior political analysts and good morning to both of you. you had just a few hours to digest this and to think about it. i guess my question, we've been talking to a number of people this morning. were there any knockout punches as far as you could see last night? >> no. i think perry seemed really rattled on the vaccination question when michele bachmann essentially accused him of crony capitalism, which is the phrase

du jour today. he was rattled by that. i think he was really rattled about the attacks on immigration and the dream act. here you had rick perry being attacked from the right which was kind of interesting, and i think mitt romney, again, went after rick perry on social security. rick perry did not fully explain whether he believes it is in fact unconstitutional, but that he handled a little better than i think he did the other attacks. >> ron, it was very clear everybody was focused on this man. rick perry. they ganged up on him, as gloria said. his body expression, expression looked a little rattled. does he come out of being ganged up upon as clearly the front n front-runner or was some damage done last night? >> no. what you saw the emergence last night, an ideological cross fire on rick perry. noticeable mitt romney, conservative credential problems

step back and allowed michele bachmann and rick santorum to press the attacks on him from the right, as gloria noted, on in-state tuition 20 illegal immigrants and the mandatory vaccination and then romney came in in effect from the left criticizing him over social security. so there is the emergence of this cross fire that can chip away from both sides and equally important for perry, i think, the re-emergence of michele bachmann, losing ground steadily. a strong performance. generally speaking, if she does better, more votes will come from the perry side of the party than the romney side of the party. in both those ways, last night signaled new challenges for perry, they didn't immediately dethrone him from his role as front-runner. >> i think rick perry really didn't anticipate all of this, ali. i think it came out of the blue. the hpv criticism came out of the blue. he said he was offended. michele bachmann said, i'm offended for all of those young women, and the split in the

party is so evident. i mean -- >> the applause for her on that was substantially greater. rick perry is in a position where he called for mandatory vaccination, which parents could opt out of, of gardasil, made by merck. hailed as medical breakthrough for saving young girls from getting serget cervical cancer. >> it's the mandate thing. too many mandates and government, and particularly in that room last night, tea partiers don't like mandates because it goes to the question of barack obama's health care plan, which, of course, has mandates in it. it's a nasty word. >> and of course, why mitt romney can't press the attack. we saw from governor perry what we saw in the first debate. he is much stronger on the offense than the defense. whenever he could get to a point to unfurl a ringing affirmation of conservative principles he was very strong. reminded me of a tennis play

here could deliver a booming winner when he would run around to forehand. when he had to move his feet on the defensive, he was much less on firm footing. the other thing to keep in mind, the internal dynamic of this republican debate is moving each of the candidates more steadily to the right, and there are questions about, you have to keep in mind they're not only running in a primary but positioning themselves for the general election pup could see dynamics emerging. for example, on illegal immigration, might put them in positions causing them problems in the general election for the eventual winner. >> this is a problem, particularly for perry. if he gets pushed one way or the other. right now he's straddling the line appealing to conservatives, fiscal and social. >> right. >> and could have this broader independent appeal, but if these guys keep pushing him to the right. >> right. and he's trying to appeal to primary voters. the other interesting thing, though, was that he was attacked on how well he did as governor and the economy of the state of texas. >> and whether or not he a lot

to do with that. whether it wasn't just oil and other things. >> when you talk to people in this campaign they say, he came out to talk about jobs, jobs, jobs last night. well, that's not exactly what he talked about, and mitt romney said, if you have four aces, are awe great poker player? remember the dukakis miracle in massachusetts that didn't go off so well? same thing. romney was trying to turn the economy saying, look, it's easy to create jobs in texas. >> ron, rick perry's come back and were you doing fine, until talking about poker. >> right. >> the other thing is, newt gingrich, he took on president obama. he said i don't really care about mitt romney and rick perry scaring seniors. president obama scares them all the time. largely, there weren't a lot of attacks on president obama last night, except when rick perry was taking the incoming attacks and trying to deflect them? >> trying to assume the role of defender of the republican faith against president obama, the

media and so forth. right. a more inward looking debate among republicans. it got a little chippy, to be expected as the debates become more concentrated and are held closer together. we have a national connection poll, we looked at the job creation ideas president obama and republicans put out. by and large, the ideas obama put out last week scored better than many of the key republican ideas. like romney's idea to limit regulation or extending bush tax cuts which all of them want to do. a reminder, it's happening on two dimensions. a debate inside the republican party and a question about the positions thr e being locked into that may affect the general election. i have to think most democrats are comfortable with a republican debate in which the two front-runners are debating which is more committed to eradicating social security as it now exists. they have to be careful the way this kind of discussion is evolving. takes a lot to get seniors to vote democratic again, but between medicare and social security, they're giving president obama an opening he

might not otherwise have had. >> but here's the thing that perry's people will say to you nep want him to the truth teller in it. you may disagree with him. >> but he says that's what he'sing to. >> but i'm going to tell you the truth about social security. >> they're all lying. i'll tell you what's happening. >> i'mal one to tell you the truth and republicans want somebody who can win and somebody who will actual lly fit for what he believes. our polls showed rick perry does very well as somebody who can fight for what he believes. three in ten said rick perry will fight for what he believes. only one in ten said mitt romney would fight for what he believes. >> great to talk to you both. the editor of the national journal, where you got the polling and stats from. thanks to both of you. >> thanks, ali. still could come this morning, how are american airlines faring with customers? in short -- not so good. details ahead. and today's roman numeral

$53 billion. a hint, might be doing it right now. 25 after the hour.

were back. "minding your business "this morning. u.s. stock future, trading sharply lower worried about french banks and their exposure to the deepening debt crisis in europe and what that means for europe and the financial sector overall. wall street, meanwhile, bracing for more job cuts. banks for years got bigger and bigger. now they're shedding workers and shedding divisions to the smaller, more nimble, trying to make more money. bank of america announced yesterday it plans to cut 30,000 job. so far this year the big banks announced more than 60,000 job

cuts. complaints against airlines up 17% in july. up 17% from this same time a year ago. despite improvements in flight delays. according to new data from the department of transportation. this morning's roman's numeral, the number 53 billion. what is that? it's how many minutes americans spent on facebook this past may. just one month. that's according to a new nielsen research. that number is equal to about 836 million days when you consider there be 150 million facebook user in the u.s. each person spending just ten minutes a day looking at facebook. not so bad, right? check out the all-new cnnmoney.com. "american morning" will be right back after this quick break. ♪

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big cnn tea party debate here in tampa. eight gop hopefuls facing off on job, immigration and health care, around mong thnd among th bachmann. the republican presidential candidate joins me now. good to see you again. >> good morning. good to see you, ali. >> a lot of people talked about you needing to sort of get back in the race in a big way. there was concern maybe you had lost a little momentum going into this after rick perry came into the race. the evaluations this morning are that you came in. you were in there swinging. how do you feel about last night? >> very good. we were very happy with how the debate went. we had wonderful, positive feedback. so we're delighted. >> talk about what you got into with rick perry. two issues. one, rick perry came in with a mandate, he didn't do it the way you would have liked, through the legislature which compelled young girls to get this gardasil

inoculation against hvpv. here's what he said and then what you said. let's listen in. >> at the end of the day this was about trying to stop a cancer and giving the parental option to opt out of that, and at the end of the day, you may criticize me about the way that i went about it, but at the end of the day, i am always going to err on the side of life. >> the drug company gave thousands of dollars in political donations to the governor, and this is just flat out wrong. the question is, is it about life or was it about millions of dollars, potentially billions. >> the company was merck, and it was a $5,000 contribution that i had received from them. i raised about $30 million. if you're saying i can be bought for $5,000, i'm offended. >> well, i'm offended for all the little girls and the parents that didn't have a choice. that's what i'm offended for.

>> strong reaction from that, but in 60 seconds or so, three very distinct issues. number one, whether or not this breakthrough drug is a good thing for girls to be getting. number two is, how rick perry went about that and how that reflects your view of government. number three, was this last comment you made about this donation from merck to rick perry. tell me about these things. >> well, crony capitalism is something that people are really upset with and are fed up with. it doesn't matter if it's at the state or federal level. if someone uses their political office to benefit themselves outside of the system, people are upset about that, and rightly so. and last evening there's a woman who came up to me after the debate. i didn't know her. and she was crying. and she told me that her daughter had taken this drug, this injection, and her daughter had suffered very serious consequences, and she was devastated by it, and she wanted to talk to me more about it.

so it isn't without peril. it's wrong for the government to mandate that a child has to take an injection that has such dangerous consequences. >> you could opt out? >> you could, but let's face it, when the government tells parents you must have a vaccination for your child, you have to go to an extraordinary length in order to not do that for your child. for innocent little 12 and 11-year-old girls think, could have devastating consequences. i'm a mother of three daughters that would be impacted by this. >> don't you think, though -- i mean, i know you're making the point about what government should or should not be doing and what role she should have in your lives, but do you really think the inoculation is a bad thing if it prevents girls from getting hpv and cervical cancer? >> it was an abuse of power for the governor, through executive

order force every little girl in the state unilaterally subject to a government injection? as a mother of three girls, that's absolutely wrong. we took in 23 foster children into our home. all girls. i would not want to subject them to this kind of a dangerous drug. >> let's talk a little about jobs. this has been a big issue. we just heard a national journal poll come out saying that americans are responding particularly well to brpresiden obama suggestion to congress set up the other day. obviously, this will become the biggest part of the campaign t. is. >> it is. what's your take what we need to do now? we're at a crossroads. we have a proposal by the president. what should happen? >> what should happen is we have to change the framework. i understand as a tax lawyer and a job creator myself that you have the federal government -- government-directed solutions with temporary gimmicks and fixes doesn't work. we've seen that. what does work are private

solutions that are permanent. we need to permanently change the tax code so that people want to be able to create jobs and invest. >> that has a great deal of appeal. it has appeal to independents, to democrats, to republicans, to members of the tea party. this concept of comprehensive tax reform. we haven't even started. i mean, what kind of an exercise would that be? and why don't we just put out a proposal that we actually do it? but it would be a big effort. this isn't one presidential candidate's job. this is going to have to be something we're all very committed to? >> it will. we need comprehensive reform. i have a postdoctoral degree. we have to change the tax code. overert night we could brings 1 $1.2 trillion into the american economy. a zero percent tax rate, bring all of that money in and bring the jobs in. bring the companies back in, and we can do that, bring them into the united states, if we lower the corporate tax burden.

this is really not that tough to do, and, ali, we know without a shadow of a doubt the federal government has already told us that obamacare is going to cost the economy over 800,000 jobs. 800,000 jobs. why would we have the government take over health care knowing it's going to kill jobs? also with bank of america. we saw that story. the dodd-frank bill is killing jobs by the tens of thousands. >> yet you know -- you have watched through the financial crisis how absence of regulation did cause a lot of that to happen. how do you square the glad we need financial regulation? >> i sat on the financial services committee, on the front seat of the financial meltdown. the real problem is the fact that the federal government was forcing homeownership through subprime mortgages that people could not afford. and the federal government was pushing these mortgages on people that they couldn't afford and they were subsidizing. it goes back many administrations. it's republican and democrat,

but the government's fault. the government's solution is not going to get us out of our economic doldrums. we need solutions that are permanent. >> a permanencpermanency. >> a remarkable job creator, we need plans. what do you think we need to invest in? >> all of the above energy policy so that we favor all energy. from whatever source derived, and if we open ourselves up to that, ali, we will create 1.4 million jobs. high-paying jobs, almost immediately, that will bring almost $800 billion into the u.s. treasury. even better it will increase america's domestic energy supplies by 50%. that's all good news. all we have to do is legalize american energy production. we can be our own answer to our

problem, rather than scarcity. >> you're very much in the game. sarah palin last night saying she might still get into the game. what's your sense of that? what's your relationship with her and how will that affect you? >> i like governor palin. she's a friend of mine, and the race is wide open if more candidates want to get in, they're certainly welcome to, but i am delighted about taking my message across the united states. one thing people know about me that sets me apart from all the candidates, when i've gone to washington, from day one, i have been a champion for the voice of the people. the people that i've been fighting for. now i want to take their voice into the white house, where it hasn't been heard for a long time. >> good to see you. >> thanks to having me on. we'll take a break. when we come back our senior medical correspondent elizabeth cohen will join us to speak about the hvp and the vaccine rick perrp ord rick perry odored his young

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welcome back. i'm in tampa. eight republican candidates shared the stage for last

night's tea party debate here in tampa, but only one needed a flak jacket. the front-runner. texas governor rick perry came under attack from his gop rival it's. chief among them, mitt romney. joining us now, eric ferdstrum a senior adviser to the romney campaign. welcome. you get any sleep? >> i did. a little bit. >> all right. this was an interesting debate last night. it was very clear that much of the focus was on rick perry. he was get attacked from all sides, including from mitt romney. it did look, though, that mitt romney wasn't the front-runner in this one. something that the polls are also indicating. amongst the larger republican crowd, our polling is showing mitt romney's close to rick perry. amongst this crowd last night, the tea party crowd, there seemed to be a big distance between them. how are you feeling about where mitt romney is and what his performance was like last night? >> we think mitt did a prifk job last night. he think he demonstrated that he is the person with the skills

and capabilities not only to create jobs in this economic mess that we have, but also to lead a turnaround in the economy. the turnaround has to happen first before we create the jobs. >> he specifically used that term talking to rick perry about the success that rick perry's team would like to take some credit for. he was saying, you guys got some things handed to you that had nothing to do with rick perry. >> the differences between rick perry and mitt romney as governors. rick perry is essentially a caretaker governor as was pointed out last night. texas has great natural advantages. it's a no-income tax state. a right to work state. they have a republican legislature. a lot of oil and gas in the ground creating revenues for their state budget, and when rick perry came in after george bush left he was handed a pretty good deal. mitt romney face add different set of circumstances as the governor of the commonwealth. massachusetts is a great state, too, but they were in recession when mitt game governor. they had a broken budget.

they were losing thousands of jobs every month, and mitt romney turned that situation around. he balanced the budget four years in a row. cut taxes 19 times and when he left office he left behind a fund with $ billion 2 billion in it which he brittuilt up over h four years in office. >> last night it appeared rick perry is the front-runner and everybody was ganging up on him. mostly, as jim acosta said, a fight between rick perry and mitt romney. when everybody else got jobs in, they were all focusing on rick perry. >> someone said he went in with a associate security problem and left with a conservative problem. that's a true statement. >> tell me what that means. >> trying to get rick perry to clarify where he stood on social security. i do think candidates for president should speak with clarity. and when he was asked specifically by mitt romney whether he still believes that social security is a federal

program, should be dismantled, that it's unconstitutional that we should give this responsibility to the states, all views he expressed in his book and on his media tour to promote his book, he did not give a direct answer. instead said we should have a national conversation about this. and then the debate moved into other areas where mitt romney had to defend his reco-- rick p had to defend his record of higher taxes and record on illegal aliens. >> i noticed mitt romney didn't jump in on the hpv discussion? >> i think everybody had something to say about it. >> right. what happens now? mitt romney is definitely one of those guys, until rick perry came in, was seen as the front-runner. run for president before, got a national profile, yet there's still talk -- sarah palin's still talking about getting into the race. michele bachmann, we just spoke to her. a number of people saying she got her in last night. and rick perry, not sure whether he comes at an advantage or disadvantage.

mitt romney is status quo. still kind of where he is. >> we can't control external factors in the race. who gets in -- >> but the polls to be clearly the front-runner? >> we can control what mitt romney says answers does. it's become clear and will become clearer going forward over the next four months before the first voting takes place that mitt romney is a unique candidate. >> right. >> that he possesses skills and opportunities no one else does. he's in the state of massachusetts and as president of the olympics. >> if michele bachmann is back in the race if this hers her a little bit it helps you more than rick perry, right? >> we think michele bachmann is a terrific candidate and mitt romney expressed the view any one of the republicans running would be a better president than barack obama. and that's certainly the case with michele bachmann. >> good to see you. thanks for being with us. appreciate it.

>> all right. >> christine? ali, still to come, the hpv virus, front and center in the republican presidential debate. rick perry ordering young girls in texas to get vaccinated for it. our senior medical correspondent weighs in when "american morning" continues. (rambling phone conversation)

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if you watched the cnn tea party debate last night, you saw michele bachmann and rick santorum gaining up on frontrunner rick perry. >> they were slamming him for his texas order to require 12-year-old girls to get vaccinated against hpv, the virus that causes cervical cancer. >> elizabeth cohen is here. i remember back in 2007 when this was a very big story and rick perry was really out front on this issue. how common is hpv? it's back in the news, again, and his decisions from several years ago back in the news, again. how common is hpv. >> keeps coming back at us in so many different ways, christine. it is quite common about 20

million americans have it, the human papilloma virus. now, most people can fight it off, however, we have about 12 million american women who get cervical cancer, 12,000 women get cervical cancer and 4,000 die from it. it is not a leading cancer killer of women, but 4,000 women die of it and cervical cancer is caused by hpv. >> we heard michele bachmann say just a short time ago that this vaccination is not safe. it has not been proved. is she right? >> let me sort of tell you the two different versions of the answer to that question. the centers for disease control and every vaccine expert will tell you this is a safe vaccine. m no major side effects. however, there are parents who say, oh, my gosh, my daughter got the vaccine and she became paralyzed or something else terrible happened and they

report this reaction to the government. now, the experts will tell you, wait a second, terrible things happen to children or young women and just because this happened the day after she got the shot or shortly after she got the shot doesn't mean the shot caused it. no study that tells you, yes, you give a kid this shot and something terrible is going is to happen. and the cdc will tell you that if anything terrible does happen after the shot, it was a coincidence and not a cause and effect kind of relationship. >> just to be clear about this. no scientific evidence that says this vaccination is dangerous? >> correct. there is no scientific evidence that says terrible things happen after this vaccination. bu but, there have been reports of terrible things happening and experts will tell you that is coincidental. >> this is the culture war part of it. you have to vaccinate girls before they're sexually active it. that's why 12 years old is when

they suggest they get it. >> it doesn't have to be well before. it can be shortly before. here's what some mothers have gone. they have gone to their pediatrician and said, look, this is a relatively new vaccine and the long-term risks of this are unknown because we haven't been vaccinating girls on a grand scale for all that long. some mothers have said, look, even if it's a tiny risk y don't want to take a risk. my 11-year-old is not having sex and i'm going to wait until she's, let's say, 15. 15 to vaccinate her and many pediatricians say that's a very reasonable way to go about it. you don't have to vaccinate at 11. as long as you're vaccinated before you have sex, the vaccine will work. >> what christine is going with on this, some thing that by giving a young girl this vaccinations encourages her to have premarital sex. >> that's a subjective opinion. i have four daughters and if i said to my daughter, look,

you're going to get a shot. this is going to prevent you from getting sick for when you're sexually active. i don't think she'll take that as me saying, sweetie, go ahead and have sex. personally as a mother of four daughters, that argument doesn't fly with me. >> the kids are vaccinated against so many different things, in some cases you're not explaining to them what they all are. >> if you're scared that giving her this shot is like giving her a permission note to have sex, just say, here, you're getting three shots today and be done with it. you don't have to explain it. >> elizabeth cohen, many thanks to you. team work, strength, bravery. how a team of strangers saved a man under a burning car. you don't want to miss the heart pounding rescue scene, that's ahead. and tastes simply delicious. for those of us with lactose intolerance... lactaid® milk. the original 100% lactose-free milk.

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breaking news. militants open fire on the u.s. embassy in afghanistan. i'm carol costello. workers in the building told to take cover and now the taliban is claiming responsibility. i'm christine romans. after more than two years in an

iran yan jail, two american hikers may soon be free. iran's president saying he's prepared to release josh fattel and shane bauer in the next couple days for a very big price. i'm ali velshi. fireworks at last night's debate. did rick perry get burned? which candidate will you be talking about on this "american morning"? good morning to you, it is tuesday, september 13th, welcome to "american morning." >> welcome here as we round out a very busy news day and ali had a very busy night in tampa, florida. hi, ali. >> good morning to both of you. welcome to a split edition of "american morning." who won and who lost in america's tea party? we'll have more on that. it's a busy morning, carol, back to you. >> breaking news out of afghanistan to tell you about where the u.s. embassy in kabul

is under attack. the militants started firing on the embassy a few hours ago after taking over another building a few blocks away. people inside the u.s. embassy have been told to take cover. a statement from the embassy said no casualties, no injuries at this time but an afghan official says a police officer and two attackers were killed outside of the embassy. the taliban now taking responsibility for that attack. breaking news out of iran. mahmoud ahmadinejad will release two jailed american hikers within two days, if they're able to post $500,000 bail each. shane bauer and josh fattel held in iran for two years on espionage charges. >> let's head back to tampa and ali velshi. >> a great discussion this morning. live at the florida state fairgrounds with last night

texas governor rick perry found out what it's like to be the clear frontrunner. he was a bit of a pinata last night. here are some of the highlights. >> it was called a ponzi scheme by many people before me, but no one had the courage to stand up and say, here's how we're going to reform it. >> the term ponzi scheme is over the top and unnecessary and frightful to many people. the question is, do you still believe social security should be ended as a program as you said six months ago when your book came out? >> i think we ought to have a conversation -- >> we're having that right now, governor. we're running for president. >> you said if people did it in the private sector, it would be called criminal. that's in your book. >> what i said was -- >> i'm not particularly worried about governor romney and perry frig frightening the american people when president obama scares them every day. >> i was told by some people,

you can't get that done. i say, why? because you don't know how washington works. yes, i do. it doesn't. >> it's easy to turn around this economy, just have the back bone to do it. >> congressman paul, you're from texas, does your governor deserve all that credit? >> not quite. i don't want to offend the governor because he might raise my taxes or something. >> many analysts said this was a must-win for congresswoman michele bachmann. she's fading in the polls, but last night she was in front of her people. the tea party. she seemed to regain a bit of the spotlight. she blasted governor perry for mandating hpv vaccinations. gardasil for young girls and accused him of handing out favers to the drugmaker who makes the drug, merck. i spoke to her a short time ago. >> i'm not a scientist or a doctor, but i will tell you that there is enough controversy surrounding this that certainly it was an abuse of power for the governor through executive order

unilaterally force every little girl in the state to be subject to a government injection. i just think as a mother of three girls, that's absolutely wrong. >> governor perry pushed back on that comment saying he will always err on the side of life that he did this because it was a methitude prevent this hpv developing into cervical cancer, as it does in some women. who came out on top in this discussion? joining me now, senior political analyst david gergen and editor-in-chief, eric ericsson. gentlemen, you have had a couple hours of sleep and some chance to digest what happened last night. david, let's start with you. winners, losers and who came out unscathed? >> i thought there was a lot of excitement in that hall last night. clearly, a crowd loved it. they loved what they heard, they loved what occurred. i must tell you, ali, if you

went on the web, i think you saw an awful lot of people who were not in that hall who was horrified by what they saw. in terms of who won and who lost, i think governor perry went in as a frontrunner, even though he was under heavy attack and he felt a lot of sizzle. i still thought he emerged as a frontrunner. i don't think they knocked him off his perch. you know, after last week, after he talked about social security as a ponzi scheme and failure program, there are a lot of eastern elites who said he's toast, he's finished, we'll never hear from him again. his numbers got better. he widened his lead. we ought to be very careful about our assessments. it's hard to rid the country of these things sometimes. perry has clearly fired up a lot of the republican base. he's the new central historian in this campaign. >> eric, your thoughts? >> i would agree with that. i think rick perry held his own

and i think michele bachmann got the better of him in the hpv issue and that troubles me because i could have told you six months ago those were the two issues he would have been attacked on. one of the best things for him, he had the nfl and the u.s. open and i suspect a lot of people were watching those events. they didn't see those flubs. in the first 1:15 it was his deba debate. everyone piled on him. the attack on social and fiscal issues helped him and hurt mitt romney. >> i also felt a number of critics. a number who said mitt romney won the debate. no question in my mind. he went in as better prepared and he knows the facts, and he's more paolished debater and he dd very well last night. you have to give him credit for it. there is something about perry, it's almost an animalistic kind of thing. his command presence as they say about leadership and he commends

that stage and i think that continues. but if there's also a real question whether rick perry will last. will he flame out for one reason or another? sometimes -- >> but his record indicates that he's not likely, he's not likely to implode. >> he's not likely -- you can do two things. say things that get you in trouble or your opponents can find things in your background to cause you trouble. there's a posse on his trail now. everyone has to take a frisk at the beginning of these things and we'll see where he goes. my own sense is, i think, if he were to fade, romney, he would have done romney a favor. i think he's made romney seem more main stream to a lot of independent voters because he's out fighting and, second, i think romney has become a better debater. he was on cruise control before perry got in the race. >> erierierick, sarah palin sair the debate implied that there still might be room for her to

get into this race. >> there might be. the cnn poll, the gallup poll and fox poll showing that if she gets in, she will not shake up the race. she will get a bump out of this and a lot of people who will say, they won't support sarah palin, they will support her. doesn't look like she would have a major impact right now, other than to hurt michele bachmann. what void does sarah palin fill? yes, she has a lot of core supporters, but so does ron paul. it doesn't seem like her supporters can transcend. >> when you talk about the things michele bachmann went after perry on last night, hpv, the immigration issue, these are not going to resonate with independents in a general election. >> the attacks on perry, for example, from romney on social security from the left helped rick perry tremendously with the base. the attacks on rick perry on hpv and immigration hurt him with the core element of the base he needs, but they help him in the general election. this is a guy who is rather

george bush like when it comes to immigration in texas and that doesn't hurt him with hispanic voters. i really do think that this debate right now comes down to perry hang on? it helps mitt romney if he implodes, but at this point, the polls all show, people just don't want to rally around mitt romney. the most interesting poll statistic from yesterday is that 30% of people say rick perry fights for what he believes in and only 11% say that about mitt romney. >> interesting about the topics discussed last night. not a lot of things that have preoccupied the tea party discourse over the last little while. it didn't skew all the way into the most important issues that are out there today, including jobs. we didn't go far enough down that road for some fiscal conservatives. >> i thought so. i thought that was right, ali. i was particularly surprised that late yesterday we were learning that president obama's job report is he intends to pay

for it through higher taxes. that was a surprise. sort of waving a red flag in front of the bull. you know the republicans are going to reject that. it's sort of a nonstarter and you sort of think, i wonder why they would do that. must have been a clever strategy i don't understand very well. i thought the republican players would jump on that. i thought they would say, here he goes again. they want to spend 450 and they want to tax $450 billion. so, i thought there was an opening there. i'm sure we'll hear more about that. this jobs plan is more controversial. >> i was surprised perry touched on that and no one else did. >> newt gingrich took a shot at the president. but, largely, president obama was absent from that debate last night. >> i appreciate it as a tea party activist last night myself because they focused on the tea party questions they're interested in. what is your plan to create

jobs. mitt romney had 59 points and had to get through them in ten seconds. >> guys, good to talk to you. let's send it back to new york. carol and christine. >> something david gergen said, relying on taxes to pay for this plan. any new ideas how to create jobs and also pay for job creation. yeah, exactly. so, there we go. up next, amazing video you must see this morning. a group of bystanders left a burning car, we can't get enough of this video, you guys. a man trapped underneath here. it's all caught on tape. we'll show you this whole incredible thing. the dallas cowboy's fan busts out an illegal stun gun and tases several fans during the game.

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it is 16 minutes past the hour. welcome back. police trying to figure out how a man got into the jets game on 9/11 with a stun gun. the incident in the stands caught on tape. take a look. this video first posted on deadspin.com. you can hear the stun gun buzzing when it goes off. police in new jersey arrested a 53-year-old south carolina man. he was charged with three counts of aggravated assault and two weapons charges. no one was seriously hurt in this scuffle. but, how does that happen?

i guess, well, it would actually be easy to sneak something like that in, unless they searched you. >> i think they go through all the bags. >> what if you didn't have it in a bag? police in utah looking for the heroes who lifted a burning car off a motorcyclist and saves his life. a bmw was pulling out of a parking lot yesterday near utah state university when it collided with a motorcyclist. the car and the bike ignited. the biker somehow stuck, lodged beneath the vehicle. you can see people getting down to see him. bystanders were able to lift the car off, look at that, pull 21-year-old brandon wright to safety. he is in stable condition now. police want to find the men and women who saved him so they could be honored at a city council meeting. came together and pulled him out. >> we went from the worst of humanity to the best of humanity. >> a woman in sandals, construction workers, guys in

suits. everybody came and pulled him out. glad he's okay. let's head to atlanta to check in with rob marciano in the extreme weather center where we hope there is no extreme weather to talk about. >> that video is amazing how everybody came together and everybody kind of scattered. >> they were late for work, you know. you do your good samaritan and you see he's okay. >> someone did call 911, though. >> get somebody in there that knows what they're doing. yeah, guys. temperatures in texas today. we were saying this all season long. 107 in dallas. that wouldn't be so remarkable if this was the middle of july, but we're in the middle of september. it wouldn't be so remarkable, it is remarkable because today is the 70th day this summer that they reached the 100 degree mark and that's a record. yesterday they tied it at 69. most of the larger fires are contained, the winds are light. these warm temperatures certainly adding insult to injury. some cooler temperatures up to

the north. 90 in atlanta and we also have some fire issues across parts of california, lightning there in through vegas and that threat will continue, as well. heat here and some thunderstorms across parts of the eastern great lakes today and through upstate new york and these two cold fronts are the main weather story going forward. steep cool down. temperatures 20 to 30 degrees cooler tomorrow than they were today. some of this cooler air is going to bleed into texas and we might even squeeze out a shower or two, but i wouldn't bet the bank on that. temperatures will get cooler. 60s and 70s, isn't that going to feel nice across the eastern third of the country? you bet you. it will also help in pushing maria out to sea, which has been causing some flash flooding across parts of puerto rico might affect bermuda, as well. very active hurricane season, we're through the ms now and only two direct impacts in the u.s.

consider ourselves lucky. guys, back up to you. >> we do. thank you, rob. president obama will spend the next two days in two key states trying to sell his jobs plan. columbus, ohio. he then heads to north carolina tomorrow. the president's proposal includes raising taxes on wealthy americans, individuals earning more than $200,000, cup ldz making more than $250,000 would face caps on itemized deductions and some exemptions. now, your turn to talk back on that big story of the day. today's question, should obama's jobs plan be funded by limiting tax deductions? you know, the jobs plan the president wants congress to pass right now that doesn't look good. republicans like parts of the plan, but they don't like how they want to tax the rich to pay for it. end tax loopholes for oil and gas companies and the biggest

chunk, $400 billion will come from limiting tax deductions on americans making more than $200,000 a year. >> we've got to decide what our priorities are. if we keep tax loopholes for all companies or put teachers back to work. do we keep tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires or should we invest in education and technology and inf infrastructure? all the things that will help us innovate and outeducate the countries in the future? >> it's deja vu all over again. as is the republican response. this from senator jon kyl. >> who is it, mr. president, that are the first to hire coming out of recession? it's small business. so, the very people that we are asking to hire more americans to put them back to work, are the people who would be impacted by the taxes that the president talked about the other night. >> so, the talk back question today. should obama's jobs plan be

funded by limiting tax deductions? facebook.com/americanmorning. wall street bracing for more layoffs and if you're thinking about applying to business school why now might be a very good time. 22 minutes after the hour. [ male announcer ] look down.

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welcome back. 25 minutes past the hour. minding your business this morning. right now u.s. stock futures are trading sharply lower. more worries about french banks and their exposure to a deepening debt crisis in europe. meanwhile, wall street bracing for more job cuts. banks for years got bigger and bigger, right? now they're shredding workers and divisions and try to make more money. bank of america announced yesterday it plans to cut 30,000 jobs over the next few years. so far this year, the big banks have announced more than 60,000 job cuts. college graduates are the fastest growing group filing for bankruptcy. that's according to a new study released this week by a financial nonprofit group.

and a high-paying job doesn't seem to help either. people who earn more than $60,000 a year are 66% more likely to file for bankruptcy than they were five years ago. using too much credit, un unexpected expenses and divorce are the top problems. applications for two-year, full-time mba programs are down almost 10% from a year ago. the graduate management admission council says applications for business school are down for the third year in a row. up next, breaking news. the u.s. embassy under attack in afghanistan. we're live in kabul. "american morning" is back right after this break. there's only one bottle left ! i've got to tell susie ! the vending machine on elm is almost empty. i'm on it, boss. new pony ?

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and we do have breaking news to tell you about. joran van der sloot's lawyer said he may be ready to confess to the death of a peruvian woman. he was behind bars since last year when he was accused of robbing and killing stephany flores. a 20-year maximum prison term, which is less than the family wants. he would still fight tougher charges. of course, van der sloot was a long-time suspect in the 2005 disappearance of natalee holloway in ruruaruba. that case remains unsolved. josh fattal and shane bauer are reportedly close to freedom. they are serving eight-year

sentence for espionage and been behind bars in iran for close to two years now. ahmadinejad will release the two americans within the next two days, once they post $500,000 bail each. and we've been talking about this breaking news out of afghanistan, where the u.s. embassy in kabul is under attack. eyewitnesses telling cnn that the militants started firing on the u.s. embassy after taking over another building a few blocks away. >> people inside the embassy have been told to take cover and suzanne malveaux is just about a mile away from the embassy. suzanne, what can you tell us about the situation now? >> we're actually heading in that direction. some of the streets that were blocked off previously were blocked off previously. we'll try to get a closer look. a number of updates, first, from the u.s. embassy. they have confirmed that they are under attack and no casualties at this time. they're on lockdown and we've

also gotten information from the afghan government, essentially, you know, not only the u.s. embassy, but the afghanistan intelligence offices, as well as the headquarters that were all being fired upon. well the international security force provided helicopters that fire under to the building. the u.s. embassy and these other compounds. according to an afghan interior ministry spokesperson two suicide attackers have been killed. so far they believe the three or four other insurgeants are still in the building, perhaps a couple others and a police officer killed in the firefight and five people have been injured and this is far from over, but they have begun to open smfome of the streets to g closer to the aerial. i have to tell you guys, this has been quite an amazing afternoon and morning here in kabul because there have been

two other attacks from the taliban. the taliban claimed responsibility. one that involved a suicide attacker wearing a vest who tried to enter a police compound in western kabul. he was shot by the police. there were two injured in that incident and then a third attack, another suicide bomber at a local high school. we don't have a lot of information about that. we know that two people were injured there. we are just getting out of the car to get closer to the embassy and to the scene, we will have to get back to you in a little bit. >> suzanne, one question. the u.s. embassy. i know people inside the u.s. embassy were told to take cover. was there any return fire from the embassy? >> well, we know that afghan police, army and the international security assistance force that is really very close by and this is all in the vicinity, the presidential palace, all near the same area. they were all involved in this

firefight. but what we understand is that it was that international force involving those helicopters that literally flew over those building and shooting into the building and killed at least two of these insurgents. you know, they're hunkered down at the u.s. embassy and plenty of security around that building and the afghan police force and we learned a lot over the last couple days about their capabilities and the threat. this is something that we spoke with the afghan president, harmid karzai, just yesterday, that it has gotten worse in some areas because of the insurgents trying to hit back and who are threatened by the possibility that the afghans are going to start taking over their own security and nato is going to be pulling out. so, this is a strategy by the taliban not high in the death toll per se, but really very symbolic. when they show they that can hit

at the heart, the very heart of the security apparatus here in the capital. >> suzanne malveaux, stay safe and i'll talk to you again very soon when you have more reporting for us. thanks. now let's head to tampa and ali. all right, still ahead, did the candidates at last night's tea party debate tell the full story about social security, health care and other things? we'll have a fact check for you right after this. that can help lower cholesterol and who ordered the yummy cereal? yummy. that's yours. lower cholesterol. lower cholesterol. i'm yummy. lower cholesterol. i got that wrong didn't i? [ male announcer ] want great taste? honey nut cheerios. want whole grain oats that can help lower cholesterol? honey nut cheerios. it's a win win. good? [ crunching, sipping ] be happy. be healthy. can i try yours?

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check it out. we are in tampa for last night's tea party cnn republican debate. candidates for office can sometimes stretch the truth or say something that is flat out wrong. we want to fact check some of the statements that were made last. bill is joining me, editor of politifact. let's get right to it. let's start with rick perry. all the focus on him last night.

he came under attack for an executive order he signed in 2007 requiring all girls in texes to be vaccinated or inoculated against hpv, human papilloma virus. governor perry said parents could actually opt out. let's listen to what the governor said last night. >> cervical cancer is a horrible way to die and i happen to think that what we were trying to do was to clearly send the message that we're going to give moms and dads the opportunity to make that decision with parental opt out. >> okay. so, he says there was a parental opt out. what did you find? >> well, we rated that barely true on our truthometer. a rating that we now call mostly false. specifically we were looking at the question of whether it was not mandatory. perry had been claiming it was

not mandatory. when you look at the order, it really was mandatory. he was right that there was an opt-out but it was cumbersome and didn't apply to all the private schools. mostly false on that one. >> perry also took a lot of heat for calling social security a ponzi scheme and a lie. last night mitt romney accused him of calling it unconstitutional, as well. listen. >> the term ponzi scheme, i think, is over the top and unnecessary and frightful to many people. but the real issue in writing this book, governor perry pointed out in his view that social security is unconstitutional. that this is not something the federal government ought to be the volved in. instead, given back to the states. >> okay, so, a lot of people now reading this book, bill. they're reading the book called "fired up." did romney get that right? did rick perry call social security unconstitutional? >> we rated that mostly true on the truthometer.

mostly true because he didn't precisely say it was unconstitutional, but it came pretty close. he said that the people had been forced to accept it at the expense of respect for the constitution. so, that's pretty close, mostly true on that one for romney. >> sort of like what he did with ben bernanke, suggesting. something but not coming out and saying it. another one from rick perry attacking president obama's first stimulus package. take a listen. >> he had $800 billion worth of stimulus in the first round of stimulus. it created zero jobs. >> bill, i am the chief business correspondent for this network and this one makes me pull my hair out. what did you find? >> we rated that pants on fire, that's our lowest rating. it's just ridiculously false to say the stimulus created zero

jobs. now, you can have a legitimate debate about whether the stimulus was a good use of federal money but zero jobs, no. the estimates have ranged somewhere from one to two, upwards of 2 million jobs it created. pants on fire for governor perry on that one. >> yeah, you could definitely have a debate about its effectiveness and return on the investment. we had rick santorum say on our air that it cost jobs. i don't know how you get lower than pants on fire. we have another one for you. this one keeps coming up between romney and perry and huntsman. which governor created the most jobs? here's what jon huntsman said last night? >> the state of utah was number one in job creation. 5.9% in my years as governor. >> what did you find, bill? >> we rated that one half true on our truth-o-meter. depends on which set of data you use. one set of data huntsman's right but another set of data,

actually, the data set that the bureau of labor statistics prefers, utah actually comes in fourth. that one gets a half truth. >> half true because jobs were created on his watch, but as one of the things that are coming up now, particularly as rick perry makes those claims about jobs being created on his watch, then we go deeper and try to find out what created the jobs? was it the governor, political environment or oil in tex sns who knows. bill, good to see you, as always. very helpful to get your evaluation. bill adair is the editor of politifacts. [ male announcer ] you've reached the age where you don't back down from a challenge. this is the age of knowing how to make things happen. so, why would you let something like erectile dysfunction get in your way? isn't it time you talked to ? 20 million men already have.

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here are your morning headlines. the u.s. embassy in kabul now under attack by militants. gunmen entered a nearby building under construction and started firing on the u.s. embassy. people inside the embassy are being told to take cover. two american hikers who have been jailed in iran for more than two years could be released this week. cnn confirming iran's president will free josh fattal and shane bauer in the next two days once they each post $500,000 bail. u.s. markets open in just about 45 minutes. right now stock futures are trading mixed ahead of the opening bell. more concerns this morning about the debt crisis in europe. president obama will be in columbus, ohio, this afternoon to sell his $447 billion job creation plan. today's sales pitch comes one day after the president sent his jobs bill to congress and urged lawmakers to pass it immediately. and that's the news you need to start your day. "american morning" back after a break.

47 minutes past the hour. when it comes to fashion, men's wear is growing at a faster pace than women's wear. >> women are keeping the money in their pocket and men are buying clothes. it seems more men than ever are upping their fashion game. why the sudden spike in popularity? alina cho looks for answers from men's wear mogul, tommy hilfiger. >> reporter: the catwalk, this may be what comes to mind.

but this is what is suddenly hot, not just for the fashion set, but for the every man. men's wear. it's a $53 billion business in the u.s. alone and growing fast. >> they want to distinguish themselves. they want to look better than the other guy. because it's a competition. >> reporter: few know that better than tommy hilfiger who says his menswear business is exploding. >> years ago it was maybe 80% women's and 20% men's for a lot of designers and now we're about 50/50. >> reporter: what's going on? >> i think the modern man is very aware of what's going on in the world around him. with the internet and with media today, men will look at a photo in a magazine or on television and say, i want that. i want to look like that. >> reporter: mad men, gossip girl, images of stylish men are everywhere. >> he sees it all and he wants to be a part of the game.

>> reporter: has it taken the fear out of shopping? >> i think a little bit it has. >> reporter: billy reid is among the hottest menswear designers. >> you take this market that has gone from here, let's say more men care about it. >> reporter: reid has a women's line, but sales of his menswear make up 80% of his business. his approach, bring them along slowly. don't shock them because old habits still apply. >> a guy would come in and say, i want, i need six new shirts and they will pick out six new shirts and it is almost like wardrobe. women are more, i got to have that piece. >> reporter: why tommy hilfiger designs his men's shirts to go with all of his sweaters. making men's dressing dummy proof. you still have to make it a little easefry the guys? >> oh, yeah, you make it a little easy. we call it the no-brainer way of shopping.

>> reporter: then there's this. >> he has to walk in very quickly, make a decision and get to the register and get out. >> reporter: women are a little different. >> women go in the dressing room and men hate fitting rooms and that's why we also standardize all of our sizes. >> reporter: because if they get home and it doesn't fit, they won't come back. men are still at the end of the day, more practical. >> a lot more practical. definitely more practdle. >> reporter: i don't know if i believe that. >> some men. >> reporter: keep in mind that womenswear is still a bigger business. $107 billion in the u.s. alone versus $53 billion for mens wear. sales are picking up. analysts say that's because men are not only replenishing their wardrobe, hey, they're dressing for success. buying those items that will separate them from the competition at work. carol and christine. >> all right. >> i just can't imagine my husband looking in a magazine and saying, oh, i have to have

that. i never heard my husband say that ever. >> i agree with tommy hilfiger. they have to put what you need right there so you can get it quickly. we're giving you an inside look into fashion and design all week. our alina cho sitting down with the most influential stylists. coming up next, our talk back question of the morning, should mr. obama's jobs plan being funded by limiting tax deductions? we have your responses. it's 51 minutes past.

beautiful tampa, florida. cloudless and 72 degrees rights now. fe fee feels beautiful. we're here because of the debate last night, the tea party/cnn

republican debate. it came out with everybody really targeting rick perry last night. relatively unscathed, but he was under attack by most of the candidates, particularly mitt romney as our jim acosta said, it looked like a prize fight between those two. the other six candidates were able to get some barbs in. michele bachmann needed to score some points and by most accounts she did taking rick perry on in what she calls corporate cro cronism. other candidates tried to get some barbs in, as well, ultimately, most analysts we spoke to this morning say that we emerge from last night's debate with a relative status quo. most of the candidates coming out, as well as they went in, with the exception perhaps of michele bachmann who needed a bit of a comeback after slipping in the polls over the last few weeks after ri s as rick perry race. it will remain to be seen how candidates will react.

against tea party leaning republicans but against all republicans the lead is narrower. last night sarah palin saying there still might be time for her to get into this race. it was a spirited debates and you'll see parts of it for most of the day here on cnn as we continue to analyze and break down what we saw here last night. a particularly exciting time to follow this here in tampa. with that, i'll send it back to christine and carol in the newsroom. >> while the republicans are debating, the president has to sell his jobs plan and a jobs plan that will be paid for almost entirely by taxes. so that begins in earnest. >> that was our talk back question this morning. should obama's jobs plan be funded by limiting tax deductions on the wealthiest americans? this from andy. eliminating tax loopholes is a

no brainer. we cannot afford to subsidize corporations who are profiting in record numbers. this from beth, no, limiting tax deductions simply means increasing taxes. the rich are already hoarding their money. this from todd, what creates real economic growth is consumer spending. giving the rich their tax breaks doesn't stimulate the economy. putting money in the pockets of the regular people who are going to spend it will. the job creators don't create job with those tax breaks. they just get richer. cutting middle class taxes will get people spending and the rich will get their money. keep the conversation going. thanks for your comments. >> the president has his work cut out for him. morning opinion pages full of advice how the president should do it. dede myers writes this morning, too often this president comes

across like the world's most rational man. of course, keeping his head when everyone around him is losing theirs is one of his great strengths. if he wants people to buy what he's selling, he has to appeal to hearts as well as heads. he has to make them feel it. a lot on the right aren't feeling the president's proposals. edwa edward says, i reject the idea that most infrastructure and s maintenance should be paid for with federal tax revenue. in almost all cases, infrastructure should be paid for by its users, not with our tax dollars. a pretty interesting "wall street journal" spees what job training teaches. bad work habits. james bovard said similar programs failed in the past. writing, in reality, government training has always been driven by bureaucratic convenience, or politicians' re-election considerations.