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tv   CNN Newsroom  CNN  October 11, 2012 8:00am-9:00am PDT

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hello, everyone. i'm ashleigh banfield. nice to you have with us. it's 11:00 on east coast, 8 oh clock on the west coast. where we begin today. from the day they join the ticket or lose the election, living in the shadows except for one big night. foe joe biden and paul ryan, tonight's the night. the one and only vice presidential debate at the 2012 campaign season. we'll spend much of this hour on the race, the impact such as it is for sond banana's. cnn's john king is counting down to the big event from his post in washington, d.c. dana bash join us. john, you write that the vice president debate "no game changer but could shift
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momentum." how joe. >> reporter: look what happened since the first presidential debate. governor romney has momentum. moved ahead of the president by a smidgen in the national polls. caught up or gained ground in several key battleground states, ohio, virginia, florida, colorado, and a built of a breeze at his back and republicans think they have momentum. in this debate, americans pick presidents, not vice-presidents. not to downplay the stakes, but the presidential debates are more important. if joe biden can turn a strong performance maybe halt the republican momentum. if paul ryan can, republicans keep the momentum going into next week. >> john, playing sound bites leading into a lot of these debates. one that gets played over and over has been the famous sound bite where dan quayle essentially got his clock cleared. i knew jack kennedy and you're not jack kennedy, but that turned well for mr. quayle. >> he became the vice president of the united states. didn't he? a not so strong debate performance.
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overshadowed, out-debated by the elder lloyd benson back in 1988. i remember it well. my first president's campaign. and yet george h.w. bush went on to win the election. not just win the election, but win 40 states. 40 of the 50 states, george h.w. bush won in 1988. if anyone tells you what they know is going to happen on november 6th, i'd roll your eyes. a lot to talk about. two passionate guys representing the two ends of america's political, ideological spectrum. however, romney and obama lead the ticket. that's who people vote for on election day. >> passion and zingers and sound bites aside, in a 24/7 news cycle and only a couple days away from a very important presidential debate. how much sticking power will tonight have? >> a great question. one of the thingses that happens out of debates. what moments get replayed and replayed and replayed, not only on television but bounced around the internet, facebook, twitter.
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one or two of those without a doubt. the vice president's candidates, you'll hear the word middle class a lot tonight. have vice president biden try to bring the zest and energy that the president didn't bring to the first presidential debate. but again these are the number twos. not saying it's not important, but tuesday our candy crowley hosts the next big event. romney/obama presidential debate round two. this debate is on a thursday night. it will play big through the weekend without a doubt, but early next week the guys at the top of the ticket take back the spotlight. >> great piece you wrote on cnn.com. appreciate your perspective today as well. john king thank you. live in d.c. for us. listen, this may be the debate, you know, just the debate between the number two guys, but after president obama's dismal showing in his first debate with mitt romney, you can pretty much bet the obama camp is hoping for really big things fromoe biden at tonight's debate. brianna keilar busy on the trail joining us from the site of the debate, details how the vice president has been preparing. big question, where has he been? in virtual hiding for days if
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not weeks? >> he has been certainly for days, the last four day, in fact, ashleigh. right. in wilmington, delaware in what has essentially been an intensive debate camp. holed up for most, for the better part of the days in a hotel in wilmington working with his aides, working with coaches. he certainly has been over the past months doing some work to prepare for this debate. a lot of review of policies and certainly where paul ryan stands on the issues, where romney stands on the issue, but this camp was all about kind of gearing towards a mock debate. he did one each night the last four nights bringing him a a total of at least half a dozen he's done. 90-minute mock debates very much like we'll see tonight, ashleigh. >> called a gaffe machine, among other things. what has he been doing, or at least what has the campaign been doing or allowing us to know about, anyway, to try to minimize the gaffes that could lead to what john king referred
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to, internet moments that live forever? >> reporter: that's right. when you think of joe biden, he's almost synonymous with gaffes. things we see when he's on the campaign trail. certainly his words sort of trip him up and become these moments. the thing is, and i've asked his folks about this. they sort of say they're not really worried about it. i think certainly when you're dealing with joe biden there's always kind of that in the back of your head, but actually, if you look at his debate performances and he's had many on the national stage, these gaffes don't really tend to come out during debates. so just looking at his track record, this may be a place where he can kind of minimize that, but certainly we're going to watch for that, ashleigh. >> i can hear a cacophony, probably to your left and to your right, of other reporters. i'm assuming you're in a very, very busy place. i won't for a moment ask your cameraman to swing and look around. in tense seconds or less, what kind of a circus is it there right now? >> reporter: well, you know, so far not too bad. pan over here and just get a
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look at some of the other reporters who are doing live shots. you can see, certainly set up and it's going to -- getting busier at the days goes on, ashleigh. you can see this whole area equipped for an entire row of cameras. we're in front of the -- the arena where the debate will be held, and obviously, there's going to be a lot of action inside of that building as well. >> thank you for that. tell your cameraman thank you for being quick for the pan. brianna keilar have fun as we all dak take in the debate. while biden goes into tonight perhaps on damage control, the mission for his republican counterpart, congressman paul ryan, it may just boil down to one word -- momentum. building on the mow meant um from romney the debate last week. it was real good. part of the strategy, debate secrets, take a peek a gander. dana bash tapping on in, the old ratty brown briefcase, chock
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full with about 40 pounds of paperwork. 40 pounds. he hulls that along with him on the campaign trail. dana bash, i am so glad, dana, you did that. that you asked him to point out what was in that bag. what's in the bag is always the question that gets you some of the best detail, and it leads us to one very important point. this is what kind of guy he is. a master preparer. >> reporter: he is a master preparer. talk to anybody, as i did for a series of pieces that i did for this evening, to, who knows him, describes him. they use that word. prepared. he has always been prepared. it's how he got, how far he got at such a young age. running for congress at age 27. pretty young to do that. you see that briefcase there. he was talking about the fact that he has everything in there, and he has it with him at all times and has been using that for briefing meres for this debate to study, really, since
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practically the day he was picked, ashleigh. >> let's talk a little bit about the mock debates, because we all just assume if you're on the campaign trail, you're going from place to place, and you have airplane or bus time in between. when on earth can you find 90 minutes to do, from what i saw from your cnn.com reporting, with six full 90-minute mock debates? >> reporter: at least. that's at least. he has certainly been on the campaign trail a lot. and the way they do it is, they go into hotel rooms, hotel conference rooms. wherever they are on the road. it's been in oregon in florida, in virginia. all over the country. but going back to the issue, and this speaks to it as well, of preparing, before i sat down with paul ryan i talked to some of his friends and people who have known him for years to ask about really what makes him tick and, of course, look i said, the word prepared came up. one story that really spoke to how he gets ready for things. listen to this.
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>> joe biden has been doing this for a long time. i mean, he ran for president twice. he's a sitting vice president. he's been on this big stage many times before. so that's new for me and i'm doing my homework studying issues and i know how he'll come and attack us. the problem he has is, he has barack obama's record he has to run on. >> reporter: are you intimidate the at all based on the background you just described? >> i'm not intimidated. i'm actually excited about it. >> reporter: i should say at the beginning of that exchange, which i thought we had there, i'll tell you, you were see it on cnn.com. one of his friends told me is that here's how he gets ready for hunting. he showers in non-scented detergent. washes his clothes in non-scented detergent. strayed unscented detergent all over him. not unusual for hunters but takes it to another letter. he says that's how she in everything he does. that has driven them to get ready for tonight.
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>> throwing up names that helped him to prepare as well. the cast of characters get you through the mock debates. massachusetts former lieutenant governor kerry healy, the moderator, and teds olsen, opponent playing the role of jb. maybe his biggest secret weapon comes within his family. ten seconds or less, what's the family secret? >> reporter: well, his brother tobin has been with him a lot. he helped him during his first congressional campaign. according to ryan himself it is ted olsen. he is, sort of master litigator. argued before the supreme court, even argued bush v. gore and about the same age add joe biden. a generalerational difference, and ryan told me that's helped to sit across from ted olsen because he sort of embodies and becomes joe biden in these mock debates but he kind of has the same mannerisms and ideas, or, you know, personality, becomes
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the personality of joe biden. not necessarily in real life. >> makes you wonder if joe biden's going to invoke the old reagan line, i'm not going to exploit the youth and inexperience of my opponent for political gain. dana bash, you have a great assignment today pap great piece on dotcom. thanks so much. senior correspondent joining us, live where all the action is. take care. and joe biden versus paul ryan, the vice presidential debate. watch it like right here on cnn. also coverage begins, gets under way with our crack team of reporters, correspondents, analysts and puntd it, 7:00 p.m., live on cnn. tonight our guest, thomas sargent. nobel laureate in economics, and one of the most cited economists in the world. professor sargent, can you tell me what cd rates will be in two years? no. if he can't, no one can.
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well, it may just be the vp debate. the second tier battle for the top ticket in the country, but tonight's debate between joe biden and paul ryan will unubtedly be watched by millions. and while some say a vp debate doesn't hold much sway, you just try telling that to the roughly 70 million people who watched the last vp contest on tv. it was back in 2008. vice presidential candidates joe biden versus sarah palin.
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>> nice to meet you. hey, can i call you joe? >> you can call me joe. >> thank you. thank you, gwen. thank you. thank you, thank you. >> say it ain't so, joe. there you go again pointing backwards again. you plefrsed your whole comment with the bush administration. >> say it ain't so, joe. i love that. as mentioned, 70 million people watched that debate. that's 10 million more than last week's debate between the presidential candidates. one woman who know as thing or two about prepping such, for such a night is jennifer granholm. the one who stood in for palin in helping joe biden prep four years ago. today the current host of the "war room with jennifer granholm" kind enough to join us from new york. hello, governor. nice to see you. >> ashleigh, nice to see you, too. thanks. >> the question, prepping joe biden then versus what he must be prepping for now has to be entirely different. i dare say apples and oranges?
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>> totally different. you have put your finger right on it. i mean, four years ago, he was a presidential candidate. remember? and barack obama invited him to be on the ticket. they had policy differences between the two of them, and so much of his volnerability was in not having, you know, learned or known or had the same positions as barack obama. but this time, there's no daylight between the president and the vice president. that vulnerability is not there for him and, of course, preparing against sarah palin is stoelgtsly different than preparing gelgts paul ryan. totally different. sarah palin was an outsider to washington, d.c. she wasn't as imviewed in the wonk policy, wonk inside the beltway stuff. paul ryan anothers all of that. i was just listening to your reporting with dana bash, and the guy's a machine, paul ryan is. he is -- he is ready to go. so it's going to be a very different debate. >> so, i want to talk a little about the deference. i think you were alluding to the
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derch deference factor. geraldine ferraro said don't patronize me, teach me about foreign history. going up against sarah palin. don't patronize her, make it rude, something where people will be offended. this time around he doesn't have to face that but has a female moderator. they both do. from the female, first female governor of michigan, i might add, do these two candidates need to watch their tone in way that perhaps the presidential debate candidates did not have to when dealing with jim lair? >> well, you know, i don't know they have to watch their tone relative to her. i think she's going to feel the pressure to take more control than jim lehrer apparently -- >> do you think they can walk over her and cut her off the way they did jim lehrer? you think it will be okay? >> i don't think she'll let them. she's going to do that for sure. >> that's your phone. did you not turn your phone off for a live interview on tv.
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>> it's so rude. isn't it? i can't believe it. what's going on? my phone is ringing! >> jennifer, i was going to let it go the first time, but whoever needs to call you, really need you now. >> they need to stop that right now. exactly right. >> i wonder if they're watching. leave her alone. she's busy. last question, quickly, a bold prediction before the presidential debate. i want to listen to that prediction, and then i want to ask you something about it on the other side. here we go. >> because here's why we cannot celebrate. the president is going to lose the first debate next week. he will lose it. mark my words. >> man. either you have a crystal ball in that purse along with that telephone, or you doctor doctor. >> i just know what it's like, ashleigh. >> come on. playing the expectations game and got lucky? >> not really. i mean, you know, having -- doing the "war room" we are looking all the time at what history bears.
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in this particular case, we had six presidential debates befo before -- in the first time that an incumbent president appeared on a debate stage with a challenger, they would lose. five out of six of the time. i knew that that coming in was going to be a problem for him, but also, he's rusty. he hadn't debated on that national stage and, of course, mitt romney is a really good debater. however, i predict that in the second debate, the president's going to win. >> all right. okay. we'll take that one to the bank. meantime, pick unyour phone. could be your boss, al gore. ms. granholm, good to talk to you. >> i got to go answer my phone now, so, i've got to go. >> thanks, jennifer. of course, another look ahead to tonight, catch all the action, the debate live right here on cnn. coverage begins at 7:00 p.m. eastern. back after this. [ male announcer ] research suggests cell health plays a key role
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they're competing to the be guy behind the guy, a/k/a the vice president and the guy who has the job and the guy who twhaunts job will have it out in danville, kentucky. senior political columnist, good
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friend, john avalon to talk about this. the young gun versus the amtrak joe. will we see those guys tonight or guys who really go at it with policy and wonk? >> i think there's going to be a lot of policy and wonk. the funk they'll bring. paul ryan is a legitimate policy wonk also a great communicator. as these debates were announced, i always felt the ryan/biden debate was the republican bes biggest chance at a good contrast, big punch. clearly mitt romney had a great first debate. expectations are higher for joe bid biden. >> an tbout the wonk, you love people in the news love it, stuff to chew on for days. last week president obama did a lot of wonk and it didn't do him well. >> there's a good way to do wonk and a dull way to do wonk. you get stuck in the numbers and budgets you're done.
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the policy, make people understand this is what the whole deal's about. preambled governing. policy matters. paul ryan has a talent for bringing passion to policy. ed by han to start calling it, that doesn't add up and really start playing offense and poking holes in the math. >> all right. listen, the vice president has a big approval rating when people are asked, do you like the guy? just the guy. >> the guy. >> he has a low approval rating talking about him as a politician. does he bring the guy tonight or the precision? or does he somehow try to find a blend? >> as you said, he's got to be himself. he's got to bring the guy. >> without the gaffes? >> without the gaffes. >> joe biden, a practiced debater. out of practice four years. that matters. look at his convention speech. when he knows he has a job to do, he can be pretty focused on the message he delivers. so this guy's a pro. but this is the challenge. got to walk that line. got to bring the fight without going off the rails. that can be a real challenge. >> still in office. what he says matters.
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>> oh, yeah. >> what he says goes overseas. not so much the same for paul ryan. for him, more restrained? >> he does, and yet this is -- got to contrast with president obama. show that there's passion in the democratic ticket a clear contrast on policies and got to push back when the math doesn't add up pap vulnerability for ryan. >> one of our colleague, john king said the job tonight, go out make sure people see you as presidential. don't do anything else. doesn't matter if you nail it, knock it out of the park. dan quayle lost and still was the vp. make sure people know you can be the president. >> the purpose of the vp. to inquire daily about the president's health. paul ryan and joe biden could be president of the united states in some unfortunate unforeseen circumstance. especially paul ryan. haven't elect add member of congress to be president since 1932. so he's got to show he's presidential material. not just a passionate policy wonk who can decide the base but someone who can really act at president if the need should arise. >> that might have been the
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problem for sarah palin. >> one of many for sarah palin. >> jon avalon, always nice seeing you. in the flesh. reminder, as if you didn't need another one. here you go, the big vice presidential debate. joe biden, congressman paul ryan, starts here on cnn live. if you can't be near the tv, got your laptop. cnn.com has it live, too. underway, coverage at 7:00 p.m. eastern. totally original. do it again. that's good. call in the engineers. call in the car guys. call in the nerds. build a prototype. mold it. shape it. love it. give it a starting price under 16 grand. uh-oh. the finance guys. you can't do that. [ male announcer ] kick out the finance guys. take it to the track. tweak. tweak. tweak. stop. take it to the car shows. call the critics. win some awards. making a groundbreaking car -- it's that easy. ♪
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new jobless numbers just released. claims this week dropped to the lowest level since 2008. 339,000 unemployment claims filed for the first time last week. that is a huge drop from the week before. it's a 30,000-person drop. just for perspective, the week before that, just 4,000. a big, significant difference, and christine romans, almost crunching the numbers joins me to put it in even more p perspecti perspective, you have a way of
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drawing graphs. >> data can be volatile. right? especially these numbers one week after another. in this number, one state in particular had a big drop in claims. watch to see if there's statistical noise there. look at the trend. in economics in the markets, the trend is your friend. here is the trend. this is the trend. look at those jobless claims in 2009. in the biting recession. more than 600,000 people a week were lining up for jobless benefits. now we're in the 350-ish thousand range. seen a dramatic improvement. volatile fwhaut has been the trend back to 2007. the very last little blip on there. >> squiggles. the number? >> kweekly squiggles. we draw it back and get more perspective. the bureau of labor stick has a job opening labor turnover survey that came out today showing 3.6 million job openings in this country. far more people are out of work, but 3.6 million is the number of open jobs in america. >> when you throw this graph at me and i try to make sense of it i think about what we did last friday.
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this enormous jobs number that came out that showed promise for the democrats, and immediately there were some business leaders, jack welch among them, saying these numbers are cooked. does this do anything to help or hurt that argument? >> this is why i brought you a trend. a picture of the trend. you're going to especiay getting closer to the election hear people talking about season's noise, whether there was problem with the way the number was calculated. look at the trend. that's why i brought you that, this trend is in this lowering -- >> meg for jack welch? >> he and i aren't speaking right now, but -- teasing. i'm teasing. >> jack, call us. christine, thank you. christine talks about the raw number, wolf blitzer comes up with the effect, the political effect of those numbers in a moment. jack, you're a little boring.
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there is no shortage of numbers in any presidential
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race. most of them come from polls. we just saw eye-popping jobs numbers less than a week after a stunning drop in the jobless rates. christine romans gave us the economics. wolf blitzer joins me with the politics of the economics. no other election issue is as important to people, bar none, than the economy and jobs. the unemployment rate stands where it did back when president obama took office. first-time claims for the jobless benefits, saying i'm out of work and need help, at its lowest in 4 1/2 years. does the president get to spike the football on this or something dangerous in doing that when you still have millions of people out of work? >> very dangerous to spike the football right now. this is by no means mission accomplished yet. a lot of people are suffering. millions and millions of people still unemployed, still millions more under employed. a lot of folks whose home mortgages are still under water. this is not time to gloat by any means. yes, the trend seems to be move income the right direction and
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certainly remember where the country was on the abyss of a possible depression four years ago. obviously the country's in better shape right now, but it's not where it should be. there's so much more work to be done. the president has to walk that delegate tightrope and biden the same thing. tonight he can by no means gloat about these relatively positive numbers. >> that's a tough thing to do. if you're the incumbent, can't spike the football because things are still tricky, you get things like the foreclosure number, filings, five-year low. found out tote from realty track, the party that gauges these things. yet at same time harks to take it on the chin about benghazi and can he somehow mitigate the things he does have to take blame for or at least the perception of taking blame for with the things that he can try to take credit for? >> right. he'll take credit for moving the country in the right direction. he'll insist the country is in better shape than four years ago and have some basis on which to make that point. for example, one indicator, i'm
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surprised the administration doesn't really point to this, though. because millions of people benefit from it. take a look at wall street now. the dow jones industrials, around 7,000, when he took office. it's now 13,500. people in the 401(k)s, iras and investments and millions of americans have been making money in terms of the equity, terms of stocks over the past four years. the country is obviously in better shape as a result of that. so while it's by no means great, there are positive numbers that are going to be able to point to and presumably they will. i assumeed by han been practicing, practicing, learn from the mistakes the president made last week and ge after paul ryan tonight. >> all right. i want to talk about swing states. in a different way. we're going to talk polls with paul steinhauser coming up. a poll that did not escape our team's scrutiny this morning. and it says that 90% of likely
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voters in the swing states of florida, ohio and virginia, there are the numbers there. 91, 92%. they make up their minds. already made up their minds, and it was before last week's debate when we can all remember that the polls were far higher for the president. the question -- the obvious question would be, that means that would vote more in favor of the president, if those same pollsters got the same people, but do people do what they say they do, or do they say they made up their minds and they actually end up changing them? >> there are people who change their minds. and i'm sure that after the last debate some people probably said, maybe i was wrong about president obama. maybe i should take a second look at mitt romney. there's an element of that. i think all of the indicators i've been getting and speaking to a lot of pollsters over these many months, and i think about 90% of the american people have made up their minds if not more. maybe 92% or 93%. they're either voting for sure for president obama or sure for romney. maybe 6%, 7%, 8% legitimately
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undecided orswitchable, if you will. still able to change their minds. it's that group, undecides, switchables in the key battleground states both campaigns are going after right now, and i think in a close race like this, it's going to be very, very close in these battleground states. everything is important, and tonight's debate will be important as well. although the two remaining president's debates will be more important. >> right. those undecideds you said, critically important. wolf, you have a busy night ahead. prepare for your show and for the coverage tonight. a big prop for what you're about to undergo. the big running mate's challenge on the stage. our coverage helmed by mr. wolf blitzer along with anderson cooper and our crack team, panelists and pundits starting at 7:00 p.m. eastern. you can't get to a tv, cnn.com has a live, too, streaming.
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the mother of shaun smith, computer expert, talked with anderson cooper in an exclusive interview. >> i don't -- please, don't give me any baloney that comes through with this political stuff. i don't want political stuff. you can keep your political. just tell me the truth. what happened? and i still don't know. in fact, today i just heard something more that -- that he died of smoke inhalation. i don't even know if that's true or not. i don't know where -- i look at tv, and i see bloody handprints on walls. thinking, my god, is that my son's? i don't know if he was shot. i don't know -- i don't know. they haven't told me anything. they're still studying it, and the things that they are telling me are just outright lies. >> it wasn't just pat smith, either. the sister of glen dori, the
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former navy s.e.a.l. that died that night after trying to help others escape had the same message for politicians. >> the fact of the matter is, is being an american hero can be completely bipartisan. and everybody wants to point fingers and play the blame game, and let's blame the terrorists, because that's who's at fault here and that's where we should be focusing our energy. >> glen dougherty's mother had something to say, sowhething, please stop using a story about her son while on the campaign trail. >> you can imagine how i felt when i found out he was one of the two former navy s.e.a.l.s killed in benghazi on september 11th, and -- it -- it touched me, obviously, as i recognized this young man that i thought was so impressive, had lost his life in the service of his fellow men and women. >> barbara dougherty said enough
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is enough and we should remember that her son was trying to bring freedom to that part of the world. the romney campaign will stop telling that story on the trail. there you have it. grieving family whose want angsangst answers from democrats and republicans. i suppose the first question, elise, did we get anywhere with this hearing? achieve or learn anything? >> well, ashleigh, it's hard to see that with all the grand standing that went on yesterday and a lot of people did think that it was more about pointing fingers and trying to score points on the political trail than it was about getting answers. it kind of seemed a little bit more like "l.a. law" than it did a hearing, an investigation, but i do think there were important things that came out yesterday. namely, eric nordstrom, the top u.s. security official in libya months before the attack had asked the state department for additional security.
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those requests were denied. and the state department official who actually handled those requests, charlene lamb, said that she did. and i think another thing that came out that was kind of interesting is that even as the republicans were charging that there wasn't enough security at the post, democrats did make an interesting point that under the house-controlled congress, there was, under republican controlled congress, sorry, there was a lot of budget cuts in the state department and embassy security. >> why she -- glad you brought that up. yesterday, serious accusations about not having enough assets and resources in place to protect our people. soledad o'brien asked right here on cnn, didn't you vote to cut the funding for embassy security ji he said, yes. absolutely, we have to make choices and priorities. where do we go from here? we have a lot of people overseas, on missions and
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embassies. are they safe and have we made progress in making sure they will be? >> i mean, the state department maintains even if they did have this additional security asked for, it wouldn't have necessarily made a difference in this attack, because they mainta maintain they were outmanned about 40 people and thought they had a specific amount of security foyr the let that was there. clearly they didn't. one thing that's going to happen. i don't really know if this congressional hearing, this oversight committee, is going to lead to anything. i think you'll have an independent restlu was appointed by secretary of state hillary clinton. they're going to make recommendations, and you've seen in previous attacks such as the attack in the '80s on the marine barracks in beirut or those 1998 bombings in the u.s. embassies in kenya and tanzania, specific congressional legislation passed to make sure there was adequate security. i think there are going to be a lot of recommendations that were made. there might be some finger
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pointing but hopefully develop new rules of the road to make sure even as u.s. diplomats have to operate in these dangerous areas they got the adequate security they need. >> i have been to the place where those marines died, in beirut, and i am here to tell you it is now a parking lot and not one mention anywhere of the disaster that befell those men and women there back then. elise, thank you. as if to underscore reporting now, today, just today, a yemeni security official working for the u.s. embassy in yemen, killed on his way to work. yemeni officials suspect it's an al qaeda attack. this is the yemeni national, not an american, but working for the americans. in choosing the right plan for your needs. so don't wait. call now. whatever your health coverage needs, unitedhealthcare can help you find the right plan. open enrollment to choose your medicare coverage begins october 15th and ends december 7th. so now is the best time to review your options and enroll in a plan.
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>> hey, jason evans, and i'm going to be taking a full day tour of the del paine national park in chile. the drive has been amazing with -- i saw an eagle and sheep
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and i just can't imagine just what awaits me inside. memorandum yonz of years ago magma came from the bottom of the earth. that's kind of where this mountain range comes from. i'm here with juan pablo. he is our tour guide. juan pablo, this is the largest behind us here. actually, it's the largest glacier in the park, correct? >> yes. this is the largest glacier inside this park from the five glaciers we have inside the park, it's the largest one here. these are all pieces of the gray glacier, right? >> i thought that drinking water from a glacier would be good, like it would be pretty pure, but it was just explained to me that the water here comes from up there. when it comes down and runs into the river it contains all sorts of stuff that's not great for your human system. >> a little tip for you.
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if you go in september and october, the weather is still pretty good, and it's not going to be as crowded. well, reporting from outside torres del paine. i'm jason evans.
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raymond rutherford was one. >> this all goes back to the day you were born? >> yes. >> now is the problem that dr. williams saw wasn't medical. but political. south carolina's recent law requiring voters to have photo identification, it's been blocked by the u.s. attorney general. opponents fear that may be only temporary. the law requires a deposit issue picture id in order to vote. to get that you need something. >> a certified birth certificate with a raised seal. >> reporter: for a number of african-americans born in the pre-civil rights rural south, that's a problem since many were delivered at home by midwives and recordkeeping was weak. the midwife who delivered raymond listed his first name as ramon and got his last name completely wrong, but his voter registration card has his correct name. >> do you vote? >> yes, i do. >> has this ever been a problem? >> voting? no, it hasn't been. >> reporter: but it could be now. rutherford says he can't get a photo id until he corrects his
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birth certificate, which requires an attorney he cannot afford. it is really difficult to get any kind of specific numbers as to how many voters could be impacted by the new south carolina law. according to the election commission, it could be anywhere from a high of 202,000 to a low of 51,000. >> i started looking at the numbers. i said, he is black, she's black, she's black, he -- i thought, god, this isracial. >> supporters of the new law says race has nothing to do with it. it's simply meant to protect against voter fraud, and there is a provision to allow voters like rutherford to cast a provisional ballot simply by signing an affidavit, but rutherford and others are skeptical. the state at one time had a history of skrim naturing against voters and must get laws affecting voting approved by the federal government. >> do you see this as an effort to prevent you from voting? >> not only me, but a lot of people, yes.