number symbol wising freedom and a proud day for many new yorkers, anderson? >> indeed. isha thanks very much. that's it for us here in tacloban. "outfront" next, president versus president. even if it takes a change in the law the president should honor the commitment. >> bill clinton's strong words for president obama. plus should you be on anti-cholesterol pills? >> some of these side effects are pretty significant. >> researchers say millions who aren't on the drugs should be. but are they really safe? >> and from bad to worse. >> we don't have homes, we lost our homes. and we have nothing to eat. we really need help now. >> the latest from the phillipines. let's go "outfront."

good evening, everyone. i'm erin burnett. out front tonight, one president stands up to another. former president bill clinton taking on president obama's misleading promise about americans keeping their health care plans under obama care. here's what the president said. >> i personally believe even if it takes a change in the law the president should honor the commitment the federal government made to those people and let them keep what they've got. >> let them keep what they got. president obama has said i'm sorry for the promise, but is he going to do anything about it? anything rectify the problem? john king is in washington. we begin our coverage there. john last week the administration said they were working to help the people who lost their plans. jay carney said there are a range of options being looked at around washington. they no this matters. the president's poll numbers have dropped dramatically. 54% disapprove of the job he's doing right now as president, only 39% approve. bill clinton coming out so directly, so clearly, so

confidently. he knew what he was doing. does that make the situation worse for president obama? >> he did know what he was doing. that's an important point. it makes the situation worse politically for the president. from a policy perspective, president clinton was speaking a self-evident truth in the sense that president obama had already gone on record as you know, erin, saying we need to fix this and i want to fix it but what's happening here? president clinton saying he needs to keep that promise. dick durbin a close friend of the president of the united states, a leader in the senate. not in a tough race on the ballot last year, doesn't need to have panic. now you have senior democrats who have no reason to worry a tough re-election ahead of them being more open in their criticism of the president. the president is trying to fix this administratively through some administrative executive action. but he has now a former president, a member of the senate leadership and 10 or 12 senate democrats on the ballot next year saying that congress needs to do something. once you open the door to changing the law, we don't know where that's going to take us.

>> now john, jay carney also said today, sorry, i got a frog in my throat. he said the white house is going to release the obama care enrollment numbers by the end of the week. and the numbers are going to be pretty grim. 50,000 people the wall street journal reports have signed up as of last week out of 500,000 that the administration was hoping for. those numbers are grim no matter how you look at them. they could change dramatically over time. but how big of a problem is this right now? 50 when you wanted 500,000? >> politically it's a big problem. from the policy perspective the points you make what do they look like in march when we get to the deadline, six months or nine months after that, the administration is hoping they get better news. these more bad news, more bad numbers is actually masking some progress. they say the web site is working better. they say the medicaid expansion part of the health care law is going quite well. however, the enrollment numbers being so low, number one the democrats who are beginning to panic and get nervous in those key states need something to convince them to stop. low enrollment numbers won't do it.

republicans are going to say it's not just the web site, this proof it's unpopular, people don't want to do this. what does the president need most of all? to have some good policy news to change the political dynamic. until he gets that you're going to have people piling on and panic among the democrats here. that's the state of play the president is in, there always seems to be a bit of bad news that on secures any good news. and when this is happening is very important. the decline on his poll numbers at this point of a second term presidency is very dangerous and it gets hard to stop. >> hard to stop. and of course you don't want to be a lame duck one year in. john king, thank you very much. joining me now former u.s. treasury secretary lawrence summers. great to have you with us, larry. appreciate it. you wrote in the financial times this week the rollout i'll quote you represents an inexcusable error talking about the obama care exchanges. a report long time ago said the government wasn't up to the task of rolling out obama care. they should hire an expert. they say you pushed hard for an

outside health care boss to come in and run this so it could be done right but president had quote already made up his mind. why was that? >> look, i'm not going to get into the different parts of our internal debates. i think the president's gotten it right. >> even if you were on the right side of those debates? >> even if i'm on the right side or the wrong side of the debates. i don't think it's helpful when ex-officials try to reargue the case years afterwards. the president has said that this should have been managed differently and that he is angry. he is right to be angry. he was not well-served by his colleagues in the administration. the american people were not well-served by the way in which this played out. there are lessons about the management of information technology you need experts. you need to trust but even more you need to verify.

you can't go rushing the schedule when you get behind or you end up making more errors. there are lessons and those lessons need to be heeded in the future. the president has made this clear. >> you know this president well. when i think about health care, this is his signature piece of legislation, obviously very intimately involved. perhaps it's part of the reason he's received from the criticism he's received even from his own side of the aisle about what he knew and when he knew it. for example not knowing about the health care web site's not working. nobody seems to have told him that right before the launch. it's not just that. said he didn't know about the ns arc monitoring angela merkel's cell phone. he's been criticized on that. when it's his administration at risk, his legacy, do you think he should have known these things? is it an excues to say i didn't know or is that not acceptable frankly? >> i'll tell you. i met with the president just about every day for two years. the first two years of his administration. and i found him to be remarkably attentive and aggressive.

>> on health care or -- >> with respect to what was going on on all policy issues that he faced. certainly in the interactions that i had with him he might have made judgements that were judgements that people would agree with, he might have made judgements that the people would disagree with. but he was someone who had a clear recognition of what his responsibility was as president. i saw the very thick book he would receive every evening. in my experience he always calm back the next morning having fully mastered the content of that briefing. >> do you think having people like you leave, daly leave, rahm emanuel leave affected that? you were the kinds of people who might have said we have a problem. too many yes people around now afraid to tell him something he would have been angry about?

>> the president made it clear to me in the first phone call in which we discussed my taking the position that he wanted there to be good news, but when there was bad news he wanted to hear it. and if it was my view that he was in a different direction than would be ideal, it was his decision to decide, but he wanted to hear what i thought even if it wasn't -- he was very clear about that with me. and i believe he was very clear about that with others. as to the circumstances after i left, that's not something that i'm your best source on, erin. >> let me ask you. a lot of people wanted you to be the fed chair. a lot of people i talked to on wall street, they thought you might be a little tough on the markets but they did. janet yell of course got the nod. she's qualified, respected, all of that. but people say you got

sidelineded because you speak your mind too loudly and you frankly because she's a woman. and the president needed to check that box. this is just the truth. we all know it's out there. is there a part of you deep down that feels you took a hit for the wrong reasons? >> no, erin, i'm a person who's been in public life for a long time. and i know that things work out how they work out. there's a lot of circumstances that go into every decision. and i was glad to have been considered. i am really very much focused forward. i think janet yellin is going to do a fine job. i look forward to following her progress at the fed. >> a diplomatic answer there from larry summers. go to our web site, cnn.com/outfront. you can hear more of our interview including what he this about bill clinton's comments about the president, elizabeth warren in 2016 and too big to fail. still to come the latest in the devastation in the phillipines. we have a series of special reports for you tonight as horror turns to tragedy with millions begging for food.

then a terror suspect living in america in custody tonight. a man in north carolina police say attempting to join al qaeda. and sarah palin discusses chris christie's appearance. she actually sympathized with hillary clinton but called christie extreme. you'll hear it.

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our second story outfront, a terror suspect busted in north carolina. tonight that 29-year-old man behind bars accused of trying to join al qaeda. now, a group linked to al qaeda specifically that has claimed responsibility for hundreds of terrorist attacks, chris lawrence is outfront. and chris, what have you learned about this guy? >> reporter: well, erin this, criminal complaint just unsealed today reveals the man is called basit sheik. a 29-year-old north carolina permanent resident of the united states. and it alleges that he was trying to provide material support to the al nusra front. the radical islamic group fighting in syria to overthrow bashar al assad. the criminal complaint says he was arrested at a raleigh airport just a few weeks ago. he was planning to go to lebanon and from there go to syria. now, prosecutors say basically that what happened was he had

tried to before this 2012. he went to turkey trying to cross the border. he got discouraged by some of the more moderate rebel groups that he found. and his plans escalated this summer. he was on one of those jihadi sites. he got in touch with what turned out to be a fbi informant. that fbi informant put him in touch with a so-called trusted brother who actually turned out to be an undercover fbi agent. that undercover agent busted him and basically he is now charged with providing support to a noted al qaeda affiliated group, erin. >> what kinds of charges. say he's convicted of the charges. what kind of punishment does someone look at, i know others in the u.s. have gone through this. how long would he go to jail. >> reporter: basically 15 years and pay about a quarter of a million dollar fine. but he's the third person to basically be arrested and charged with trying to aid al nusra already this year.

one man in chicago, another man right here in suburban washington. one of those men was a former u.s. army veteran. he plea bargained down. i'm told by some -- a legal officials that that is the likely case here, that that 15 years is basically used to sort of pressure these men into a plea deal, especially when you consider that sheikh doesn't have a criminal record. he will likely plea down to just a few years at that. >> wow, all right. must shock a lot of people. thanks very much to you, chris lawrence. our third story outfront, airlines bigger. the justice department has reached an agreement to allow american airlines and u.s. airways to merge. they have struggled to get this done for a really long time. this is significant. the deal makes the airlines take steps to help lower cost competitors and reduce their hold in certain big cities. american airlines shares surged on today's news. but what does this merger mean for the rest of us?

that's all we care about. that's tonight's money and power richard quest host of quest means business here. here's what we care about. big airline gets bigger. do airfares go up? >> yes, but not as much as you would expect. this is not really about fares going up. this is about service, it's about delivery. and the justice department was very keen that american airlines kept its promises to fly to certain destinations in certain states. arizona, texas, for example. tennessee. it also wanted to ensure hubs would remain open and american airlines has agreed to keep all its existing hubs open for the next few years. and crucially, give up slots at some major airports. dc 8, washington reagan national, laguardia, boston, miami, chicago o'hare, dallas love field. >> making it impossible for an airline to ever make money. >> no, no, come on. >> why so negative? >> consolidation is here. delta bought northwest. continental-united merged.

american and u.s. airways had to do something. now, the doj came in at the last minute and tried to scuffer it. but what's come out of it is probably a slight rebalancing. i've spoken to people very familiar with this deal. what they tell me is that the airlines rather would not have gone through it but they can live with it. now it's all about execution. >> all right. so you've spun me now. you're saying your fares are going up not as much as you would think. here's what i always think when i talk about u.s. air or american. people complain about the planes. >> two engines and wings. >> they fly. but they're not the newest things on the planet. and you tell me that here again, there is another side of the story. >> now look, i'm not going to sit here and do american airlines or u.s. air's p.r. job for you. but american airlines has put in the largest order for narrow-bodied planes, a 737s, new generations, a 320s neo s. that is going to take its time

over the next five or six years. this is an airline that's been in bankruptcy for the last few years. it's still managing to turn itself around. what i'm hearing from passengers, particularly on long haul international destinations. >> oh, sell me on that. go ahead. >> is that there's a huge improvement in quality. >> okay. >> over the last years. the investment. as it has been with delta. delta is eating everybody's lunch at the moment. delta is on a roll absolutely. united is also improving its quality. what i'm saying is, american is shifting itself around. now don't get me wrong. they have got one massive as okay do. >> oh, yes. >> and that is to merge. and by gingo if you look at the way delta-northwest had problems, continental-united had problems. it's only just beginning for american-u.s. airways. >> all right. thank you very much, richard quest. our fourth story outfront, a fight for seaworld's survival.

the amusement park is taking on the federal government today, trying to get its killer whale trainers back in the water. now, i don't know if you know this. maybe you've been to seaworld. but trainers have been banned from the pools ever since a veteran trainer was killed by a whale named tilikum. the government says the rules are needed to keep trainers safe. but seaworld says the ban is hurting business big time. martin savidge is out front. >> reporter: the stakes are as big as the star performers at the heart of the matter. seaworld appealing to a three-judge federal appellate panel asking them to overturn an osha rule restricting trainers in the water with killer whales. no cameras were allowed but there was such high interest, the hearing was held at a law school auditorium. the 2010 death of veteran seaworld trainer dawn brancheau brought an end to breath-taking performances like these. brancheau was mauled by by the killer whale she was working with us and was the third death connected to the same killer whale.

>> all of a sudden the whale just latched onto her and took her under. >> reporter: osha fined seaworld $12,000. but more important, it banned close contact between humans and killer whales during performances. seaworld argued that interaction is the crucial part of its business. >> is that a legitimate argument? >> i think it is a legitimate argument. again, they are taking the position that this isn't just the way that we do work, it's what we're -- it's our product. >> reporter: benjamin briggs has argued corporate appeals to osha rulings. says what the government agency has on its side is history. >> there's a long and well-documented track record of these types of animals behaving aggressively towards humans to the point that they've caused a number of fatalities. not only at seaworld but at other places. >> reporter: eugene scalia, son of supreme court justice antonin scalia argued osha has no more rights to impose restrictions on seaworld as tackling for the nfl or speeds in race cars.

>> when you think about that, martin, what you're saying they don't have authority on things like nascar, kind of surprising. was there anything else that seemed to resonate with the judges in terms of the arguments made? >> reporter: actually, the judges, erin, did pick up on that theme of talking about football and nascar. they said, okay, maybe osha wouldn't consider saying making contact football into flag football or putting a speed limit up for nascar. but they do regulate things like say seat belts or helmets which are designed to make both of those sports safer. in other words, there are ways to advance the idea of safety protocol without putting somebody out of business. erin? >> amazing. when you think about how important those trainers are to what seaworld stands for, whether you like it or not. martin savidge, thank you very much. you've been covering the story of "black fish".

still to come the latest from the phillipines. we're going to go there live. millions of people tonight desperate for food crying out for help. we're going to go live to the scene. we have a series of special reports for you. plus the 19-year-old accused of hacking into miss teen usa's computer and attempting to extort her. and what made sarah palin say this about chris christie? >> it's hard for some people not to comment on it. [ male er ] th . and his new boss told him two things -- cook what you love, and sar money. joe doesn't know it yet, but he'll work his way up from busser to waiter to chef before opening a restaurant specializing in fish and game from the great northwest. he'll start investing early, he'll find some good people to help guide him, and he'll set money aside from his first day of work to his last, which isn't rocket science. it's just common sense. from td ameritrade.

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welcome back to the second half of" outfront". sarah palin goes rogue again. in an interview with jake tapper she takes on the appearances of hillary clinton and chris christie. she says any woman running for the presidency can expect there will be sexism but can overcome it with thick skin. >> yeah. hillary clinton was mistreated when it came to appearances, when it came to wardrobe. petty, superficial things that the men don't ever seem to hear much about. but a woman candidate will. >> governor christie hears about his appearance. >> that's because it's been extreme, okay? so it's hard to -- it's hard for some people not to comment on it. >> christie's appearance is

quote unquote extreme. you heard her. but she did defend hillary clinton. interesting. well now for an update on the sextortion scheme targeting miss usa cassidy wolf. jared abraham was arrested for blackmailing cassidy and others with nude photos has pleaded guilty to four violations including extortion. according to court documents he hack into her computer and used her webcam to take pictures of her during her most previous moments. wolf appeared on this show in september just a day after discovering she actually knew the young man. >> in my head i had created this monster. somebody who was attacking me and now putting a face to it, a kid they went to school with, it's kind of a mixed emotion. >> abrahams will remain on bond until he is sentenced in march. and now the robby bobby. embattled toronto mayor rob ford was at toronto this morning doing the whole running the city thing that he does, autographing limited edition rob ford bobble

heads. >> thank you, sir. how you doing? you can hit it on the desk every time. >> all right. but he was doing this for a good cause. proceeds from the 1,000 bobble heads sold for $20 each. they went to the united way. the bobble heads were in hot demand because ford is, i don't know, what's the right word, everyone? going to settle for household name. he of course has admitted to smoking crack cocaine, making him an internationally known mayor. signing bobble head shows he is fearless, funny and charitable. but will any p.r. move cause people to forgive and forget his indiscretions or addictions. your views send them in. it's been four days since supertyphoon haiyan levelled the phillipines. tonight the situation is dire. two americans are among the dead. the death toll has scaled back to about 2,000 people. the crisis is growing urgent. that could rise because of the situation now. the u.s. said 2 million people are desperate for food, water and shelter.

more than 585,000 people have been displaced. an american general on the ground says immediate help is needed and that one week from now could be too late. so many lives could be lost. relief efforts have struggled to get aid on the ground. the threat of a deadly outbreak of disease continues to grow because as you may remember our report last night, there are bodies littering the streets. and some of them lying in the very water that the people who are surviving are forced to drink because there's no other choice. out front tonight, anna kwaun in sebu where relief efforts are being staged. anna i know you've been ground zero of this storm. people might look and say it's a miracle if perhaps only 2,000 people died in the storm. but those numbers obviously could surge given the horror you've been seeing now. how dire is it? >> reporter: erin, the situation is desperate on the ground. the problem is that aid is trickling in very slowly.

logistician and resources. that is the challenge facing the military here in this disaster relief operation. they don't have enough planes to get the basic necessities to these places. then once they get there it's the roads and air fields that are damaged. so a lot of these places that have been hard hit haven't been accessed as yet. which as you say is frightening. because when they enter those places, that's when we'll get a real idea as to the full extent of the massive typhoon. as you say we travel with the military to one of the hardest hit places and this i what we saw. as the disaster relief operation shift noose overdrive, the roar of engines from c 130 hercules fills the air. we've been given permission to board this military cargo plane, carrying vital aid and dozens of soldiers and police to one of of worst-hit areas in the phillipines. as we fly over the township of guyan in samar province, all we can see is utter devastation

this. community was the first to be hit by supertyphoon haiyan. since then there has been no communication. well, the plan is to conduct a search and rescue mission, these men know all too well they're likely facing a recovery operation. the police and military on this flight have e nommous job ahead. we have just landed at the air field. and as you can see, all around us tees enormous palm trees have been snapped like twigs. everything has been flattened. you can see the local people over here standing under a shelter that is -- its roof has been completely ripped off. they have been without supplies now for days. this typhoon hit this point first. this was the first town really that was devastated. and these soldiers, they have no idea what they're about to face.

as the troops unload bags of rice and boxes of bottled water, the locals desperately watch on. >> food to eat. there's a shortage of food, tents, everything. everything's gone. so we need help. >> reporter: of the 50,000 people in this town, almost everyone is homeless. dozens of people have lost their lives, and many more are still missing. >> i don't know where to start. if you will take a look about the municipality total damage, 100% damage. >> reporter: with the aid off, the sick and injured are carried onboard, some suffering spinal cord injuries. in less than 20 minutes, the engines start up again. ferrying these traumatized survivors to safety. >> anna, just hearing those people begging for food and saying they need food it's really hard to watch. i can't imagine how it feels from your perspective as a

journalist being there. but as we try to figure out how much worse this could get, you've seen a lot of people, right, who still don't know where their family members are. >> reporter: yes, absolutely. the people who evacuate out of those hard-hit areas, many of them are congregating here at the sabu air field waiting for news. you have to remember that communications are completely down in so many of these islands. so these people just have not heard from their loved ones since that supertyphoon hit. these c 130 hercules that are picking up aid and delivering it and then bringing back people who have evacuated from these hard-hit towns, they are really the lifeline between these islands and the outside world. but definitely, a lot of the missing and there are thousands of them, many of them are presumed dead. and that is the frightening reality, erin. >> anna kwan, thank you very much reporting as we said from

sabu. as anna has been saying, the big challenge aid can't get in in time. that's where you have this potentially incredible loss of life. the united states has 250 troops on the ground now. 107,000 pounds of supplies have been delivered. and they're trying get navy ships into the region to try to help with the rescue, some with amphibious capability of coming up on the shore and crossing some of the destroyed areas that you've seen because the roads are impassable. out front tonight, nick payton walsh is in the center of the destruction in tacloban. nick, i know the survivors are running out of time. there have been horrific reports of bodies on the streets and the horrible things people are seeing. what have you seen? >> reporter: certainly when we arrived here late last night we went through a town, frankly a ghost town now, very few people still living inside. trying to eek out a life in the skeletons of buildings, fires simply to keep warm but corpses lining the streets of the roads that we went down.

one man trying to locate his family. a dog helping him and rescuers find the body of his son, but also then as we came across him, the body of his daughter. and the search continued. in the darkness there with their bare hands in many ways looking for his ex-wife there. a terrible scene for him. we went further down the road, came across a church. the catholic faith is so central to life in the phillipines. a church where people weren't looking to find spiritual solace, physical shelter. about 1,000 women and children hiding out there. their main complaint, where is our government, erin. they're not seeing the aid they expected and they're feeling left to fend for themselves. >> nick, what's your assessment we hear anna talking about the people asking for food and begging for food. obviously aid organizations, united states government, they're all trying to get supplies in. but how hungry are people. we have reported one general from the u.s. army said if the food doesn't get in in the next week it's going to be too late for a lot of people.

>> reporter: we didn't see people on the edge of starvation. there's no real lethality here. but there are the very young at risk here. we're talking mothers already telling us they're having to feed their children dirty water, their children suffering from fevers. that's going to get worse as days go by. erin, there's a capacity problem here. and air strips simply trying to get planes in fast enough, the phillipine air force don't have enough to bring in enough aid and assistance. u.s. military trying to help them out too. but until we see convoys coming in by road, until we see that industrial scale of assistance, people are going to be counting the hours here to see exactly what the decay and the destruction is doing to health and the possibility of more loss of life, erin. >> nick payton walsh, thank you very much. of course to our anna kwan who is nearby as we said one of the first hit cities in sabu. still to come, a man spent a decade in a maximum security prison. a month ago on this program he said he was innocent. well, tonight he's free and he's about to speak and you're going

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we're back with tonight's outer circle. tonight we go to italy where costa concordia captain is on trial facing charges of manslaughter and abandoning ship. the big question is whether he fell into a life boat or jumped into one. and obviously you can tell why that is so central. i asked our reporter who's covering the trial what witnesses said they saw. >> reporter: erin, we heard more damning evidence against the captain and his manslaughter and abandoning ship trial today. a crew member who was following the captain that night, he testified how the captain did not fall into a life boat as he's maintained but in fact he jumped onto the top of a life boat to make his way off the ship before all the rest of the passengers made their way to safety. we also heard from a technician who was in the engine room when the captain hit the rock that ultimately sank the ship. he said that he was hit by a 10 meter jet of water that

literally pushed him out of his position as the ship's engine room filled with water. we're expecting to hear more testimony from crew members who were on the ship and eventually hear from passengers who will talk about their trauma trying to get off the ship. the captain is expected to take the stand in his defense sometime before the end of the year. >> thank you. our sixth story outfront jailed for a decade but tonight a free man. after ten years in prison for murder, a murder he says he never committed, 29-year-old ryan ferguson was released just moments ago. because last week an appeals court threw out his 2005 murder conviction. he was going to have to spend the rest of his life in jail. they say the prosecution withheld evidence. ferguson's been serving in a maximum security prison for the murder of a local sports journalist. i want to bring in david mattingly outfront. he's been following the story, been to the jail, met with ryan. david, i know as he's clearing through getting out of jail we'll be hearing from ryan in any moment directly live here. what are you hearing?

i know you've spoken to him. >> reporter: well, i spoke to him before all of this happened today. he was trying to be very guarded in his anticipation of this, trying to look forward to that day where he might be free but knowing that so many things could happen along that way where he might actually have to stay in prison. well, today all those doubts dissipated late this afternoon when the state attorney general surprised everyone. they had 15 days to make their intentions known if they were going to retry ryan ferguson. but it took them only seven for them to release a very simple statement today. and basically said the state will not retry or pursue further action against ryan ferguson. that was his get out of jail free card he's been waiting for for almost a decade. the wheels of justice then which have been turning very slowly so far in his case picked up the pace a little bit, and now just within the last hour he walked out of the courtroom a free man. >> walked out a free man. as we could see that podium looked like some hotel setup,

right? that's a live picture you're looking at there where ryan is going to be speaking in just a few moments. now david, because you've spoken to him, you've had a sense of what kind of a man he is. you've spoken to his family. what's their reaction to this? >> reporter: well, to put anytime perspective, you have to look at what the family for ryan ferguson has been doing. the extraordinary amount of support they've given him for the last decade. they have been going across the country pleading his case. his father has acted as part attorney and part investigator trying to come up with information and ways to free his son over the years. they have been relentless in trying to reach that day. so you can imagine that this day both for ryan who's been behind bars and denied his freedom and for his parents who have been denied their son for so long, this is truly a joyous moment. and the first thing he's going to do in public is give his press conference.

that's what you sought setup there in that hotel room. he will probably have a lot of things to say about where he wants to go from here. i've been talking to the family. they say they were looking forward to having him home for thanksgiving. but the way the courts were, they really didn't know that was going to happen until today. so they know that that wish has finally come true. and the father saying that he can't wait to play his son in a game of basketball. >> all right. thank you very much, david mattingly. our seventh storiout front, a new prescription for your heart. just hours agoing, new guidelines from the american heart association were released. it could mean millions of americans including you could have to start taking a statin. lipitor lowering cholesterol. 32 million americans are on statins. dr. sanjay gupta is outfront. sanjay, let me start off with, people have already sort of characterized statins a statin aday keeps the doctor away. sort of a tuck everlasting of drugs. but what is the significance of the new recommendation when it comes to the heart?

>> first of all this is a tectonic shift as some doctors have put anytime terms of the way doctors will approach heart disease, the number of people likely to be taking the statistic inmedications. i think the big difference is there was some general guidelines in terms of cholesterol numbers. if it was over a certain amount you could be more likely to be prescribed a statin drug. but now they have very specific guidelines. sometimes it's just one risk factor that sort of triggers a potential recommendation. if you're a diabetic, for example, you could be recommended a taint drug. if you have any evidence of heart disease you could be recommended a statin drug. bad cholesterol over there at the bottom because of congenital causes, statin drug. if your ten-year risk is over 7.5%, statin drug. to your point, erin, right now about 32 million people taking this medication. if you do the math there it could double that number. it could be closer to 64, 65 million people. >> that is a stunning statistic. and obviously if this really does help the heart, a wonderful thing for so many people.

but let me ask you this. all of a sudden you double the numbers. i'm just looking at last year the fda added to the side effects of statins. concerns about memory loss, right? and there's been conflicting studies. i pulled them up today, right? there's one here, statin may prevent dementia. that sounds great. common statin can impair memory. but dementia and what that means to society when we think what it could mean to our own lives, there's nothing more significant than that. if there's still a risk these drugs could cause memory loss, is it worth having the number of people taking them double? >> it's a very important question. these are important questions. and i tend to ask a lot of questions about when guidelines like this get released. i mean, look. some of these side effects are pretty significant. even muscle aches can make it so

a person can't exercise or be active, the very thing their doctor's telling them to do. memory loss as you point out, liver problems as well. these are all pretty significant problems. let me throw another point into that, erin. that is that despite the fact that there is good evidence it could reduce the number of heart attacks, if the question is is this going to make us live longer, if now doctor you're prescribing this medication. am i going to live longer as a result. the action isn't that compelling in that regard. it's not one of these things we say we're going to dramatically reduce the number of people dying of heart disease. we may reduce the number of heart attacks and cholesterol numbers. but we don't know how long people will live as a result of that. >> when are we going to know all these questions? to your point saying it doesn't make people live longer, i guess my met for with tuck everlasting was a little bit off. but the perception that statins could be a panacea is a little bit out there, i think, in a lot of people's minds. went are we going to know? >> well, it could take some time. and let me say something. there are a lot of doctors for some time who have said, look,

we should put this type of medication like drinking water it's that good. luckily we've backed off that an common sense has prevailed. but it takes some time to get the data back on this and say okay we suspected that lowering cholesterol's dramatically was going to increase survival. now we have prove proven it. we're not there yet. but some of the guidelines information that's leading to these guidelines has been out there for a long time. but just now after american heart association, other organizations put it all together, they arrive at these conclusions. >> thanks very much to you, sanjay. next the rivalry between new york and chicago. this one. this is a great story.

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nthat's why they deserve... aer anbrake dance. get 50% off new brake pads and shoes. time for the outfront out take. there's been a rivalry between new york and chicago since the cities were founded. the current fight is whether the new world trade center in new york is taller than chicago's willis tower. and today an answer. at press conferences in both cities, the height committee of the council on tall buildings and urban habitat announced that a 25-member team has demmed the new world trade center is in fact 1,776 feet tall. more than 300 feet taller than

the willis tower. the only good thing about it taking 25 people to figure this out and two conferences to announce it, it makes the obama web site look efficient. but i digress. the top line is that new york wins the billing contest. the decision was not without controversy. it seems the 25 whizes couldn't define what counts as a building. antennas that can be removed do not count but spires do. no joke a stick on the top isn't just a stick on the top. just listen to chicago mayor rahm emanuel. >> if it looks like antenna, acts like an antenna then guess what it is an antenna. not that i'm competitive. >> antenna can be part of the integral look. any way the council after much deliberation decided the world trade center spire is necessary for the building, as a chairman of the council told reporters, they had made a little part of history in this decision. he's right, picking new york over chicago was a little part

of history. a very little part. because while the new world trade center is now officially america's tallest building it's a shrimp on the world stage all these are much bigger than america has. there's a slew of new towers that will outrank them. billions of dollars to beat another u.s. city, 25 judges and two press conferences all to decide which american building is number four for now. piers morgan is next. [ male announcer ] this is joe woods' first day of work.

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this is piers morgan live. welcome to our viewers in the united states and around the world. time is running out to save millions of victims in the philippines. also, a man who knows all about out of control behavior. and the films tell the story of america. now live from tacloban. anderson, thank you. incredibly powerful reporting there. you've obviously covered some of the worst natural disasters from haiti to katrina and others.