>> announcer: this is "new day," with chris cuomo, kate boldaun and michaela pereira. >> good morning, welcome to "new day," it is tuesday, september 30th, 6:00 in the east -- up first, the armed intrude another scaled the white house fence earlier this month and sprinted straight into the executive mansion definitely did not get stopped at the door. >> turns out he got a whole lot furtherer than the front door. he made it all the way into the east room of the white house. this shocking security breach has the embattled secret service squarely on the hot seat. his director facing a grilling before a house committee this morning. we want to turn to our white house correspondent, michelle kosinski. oh, to be a fly on the wall. >> when this happened, hours later, the secret service made a big deal about the fence jumper not being armed, which turned out not to be true. they said he was tackled just inside the white house front

doors, now, again, not true. more details are coming out. some from whistle-blowers making a story that was bad enough look even worse. >> right now, go back. >> it was the 70-yard dash seen around the world. and now we know omar gonzales, an arc war veteran with ptsd and armed with a knife didn't just make it over the white house fence all the way across the north lawn, up the stairs, and through the front doors -- but according to sources familiar with the incident, gonzales overpowered the guard inside those doors, ran past the fairway leading up to the first family's residence, they weren't at home. through the first floor and east room, being tackled by an officer at the doors to the green room. none of this being revealed by the secret service, but a whist whistle-blower. >> i got deep concerns that the president is not as safe as we

want and need him to be. i've got questions about leadership, protocol and training at the secret service. >> no one was able to tackle omar gonzales, no dog was released, and the alarm at the front door to signal a breach, never sounded. so the guard may not have even known immediately there was a breach over the fence. the secret service has said its officers showed restraint in dealing with gonzales. it was found to have more than 800 rounds of ammo in his car and he was arrested in july in virginia with 11 guns in the car. >> these incidents seem to be getting worse, not better. but to have an epic failure from top to bottom begs the question, why did they decrease the number of trainings going on, at the same time the house was appropriating more money. why did they tout the idea there was tremendous restraint by these officers, i want to see

overwhelming force repel anybody trying to get into the white house. >> the director of the secret service will face tough questions from the house oversight committee. only a day after it emerged in 2011 it took the secret service four days to realize and investigate that shots fired here had hit the white house. back then the secret service staunchly defended its actions. now while this one is under investigation, they're not commenting. chris? >> all right, michelle koskinski, it's getting worse, not better, thank you for the reporting. let's do analysis and bring in tom fuentes, cnn analyst. and let's deal with the news, the issue, the potential solution. so they're chasing this guy through the house, the door sun locked, the alarm is on mute. he knock throughs one of the guys, they need basically a whole team to take him on. the explanation is -- well the rings of security broke down.

>> it sounds like something that you would have as a worst-case scenario when teaching. what is your take on how this could have happened? >> i don't know, chris. you're right this is a terrible occurrence, for the secret service, and do you have so many things break down. and you start right at the beginning, all these years, we have people jumping over the fence on a monthly basis, that hasn't been fixed. they can fix it so it meets the specifications of the pennsylvania avenue beautification committee. or whoever controls that. he does the 100-yard dash across the lawn. and whoever supposed to release the dog, doesn't, we don't know where the dog is we don't know how many dogs they have on duty. that's a whole, and they rely on the dog, they don't want the officers running out on the lawn. because if the dog gets released as it should have, it will attack the officers, too. so that's a reliance on an animal, that may or may not get released. in this case, wasn't.

then this dwi gets through the front door, overpowers a secret service agent. with a three-inch knife. how does that happen? how does a secret service agent get overpowered? so that has to be explained. then enters the residence, in this case, he runs around in circles on the main floor, around the east room. had the first family been home, he could have run up the stairs and been in the residence, for all we know. this is a tremendous failure. i don't know how the director will be able to explain all this. >> and also you have to remembr who we're dealing with here, obviously somebody who is believed to be mentally disturbed, they had handled him before, but not o.j. simpson, somebody should have been able to catch him. he was a 42-year-old guy. imagine this, if fbi field agents had done the same thing, what would have happened to them in this scenario. you're supposed to be investigating the scene of a shooting on a house. and it takes you four days to realize that seven shots hit the

house. what would happen to those field agents? >> that's pretty incredible. the discipline would be severe, that's for certain. think that the president expresses that he has complete confidence in the secret service. but probably has even more confidence in housekeeping, who apparently discovered the bullet in the wall. >> the housekeeping staff are the ones who found it, not the secret service. i know it's a big house, but i mean, this is their job, right? >> right. we can't have it. >> we know lawmakers are going to yell at the head of the secret service today we know it usually results in basically nothing, right? so here's my question to you and you tell me if you think it's taken it too far, is this throwing the baby out with the bath water? or is this just looking outside the box? do we need the secret service to protect the president? don't we have enough other military capabilities and paramilitary capabilities like the fbi and the c.i.a.? couldn't they put together a team of higher-trained, more

responsible people to do this? do we need the secret service? >> i believe we need the secret service. and i think as you said, it would be throwing the baby out with the bath water. you know the training that they give those, the protection details and the amount of moving parts that we have. we only see the four or five officers or agents that are around the president when he's moving around. we don't see the hundreds of people doing behind-the-scenes, the advance teams, the coordination. also the secret service is not only responsible for the first family and the vice president, but also any head of state that visits. so when we just had 150 or 190 heads of state at the united nations last week, they're responsible for every single head of state that comes to washington or anywhere else in the united states. so they have a lot of responsibilities on the protection side. then of course you have the uniform detail that protects the white house. what we need to look at here is have they had reductions in resources or reductions in

training or staffing? are they bringing in people, tdy constantly to try to supplement a lack of resources, let's say? we don't know all of that. you know we have to look at the policies, the procedures and the training. that's for sure. and to what extent leadership has been analyzing these things and requesting and managing in the proper manner. >> it will be interesting to find out what they pick the head's brain about when the head of the secret service is put before the lawmakers today. i'm going to be very interested to hear, she's supposedly going to be asked about the process of who they put on the secret service and in what capacity. it will be interesting to hear from what pool they're picking people. tom fuentes, thank you very much. michaela, over to you. >> we turn to the latest in the fight against isis. despite coalition air strikes, isis continues to advance on the syrian border town of cobani. there are reports of isis gains

in iraq with new details of deadly fighting near baghdad over the weekend. these advances have more people asking -- are coalition air strikes enough to stop the terrorists? let's turn to our pentagon correspondent, barbara starr, joining us with the latest. >> good morning, michaela. isis advancing on two key strategic fronts in northern syria the town of cobani, near the turkish border. isis said to be almost ready to take that town. there's been fighting there for days as civilians try and flee. what happens if they take this town? it puts them right up against the turkish border. it puts them right on nato's southern flank, turkey, a member of nato. and it gives them potential access to that route from turkey, the smuggling route foreign fighters crossing from turkey into syria to join up with isis. and fight with them. there have been minimal u.s. and coalition air strikes around there. isis on the advance. baghdad.

isis said to be fighting five miles south of baghdad. that puts them within walking distance of the capital. very concerning, something that everyone is watching. the question may be for the pga, can these air strikes move fast enough? we have seen for months now, isis move very quick on the move, on the battlefield. can air strikes actually catch one them? the u.s., pentagon officials say, those air strikes are working. that they are degrading isis capabilities, but isis still has plenty of movement on the battlefield. the dynamics seem to be changing every day. michaela? >> they are and they're warning of a long, protracted battle. obviously the borders are a grave concern. thank you so much. the peaceful protesters in hong kong are bracing for a big crackdown from authorities. the stiff's chief executive says china will not compromise, urging demonstrators to end the demonstration for the sake of the public good and their own safety. thousands are on the streets

protesting against beijing's heavy presence in upcoming elections. ivan watson is live in hong kong with the latest. there's been a lot of action, ivan, what's going on now? >> well chris, you know i think it sums it up, the sign over my shoulder here, a line from a broadway musical, do you hear the people sing? that's one of the slogans that's been out here as the demonstrators have occupied this highway running through the center of hong kong now for more than 48 hours. it has been peaceful, really for 36 of those hours, and both sides in this dispute, the pro democracy demonstrators and the hong kong authorities seem to be digging in their heels. that does not seem to be room for a compromise at this point. as the crowds are swelling as the sun is setting here in hong kong. defiant protesters ignoring the orders of their chinese-backed

leaders, who are calling the demonstrations illegal, urging organizers to stop for fear the tense crowd will get out of control. this morning, schools forced to suspend classes. the protesters demanding hong kong have free and fair elections in 2017. but hong kong chief executive says china will not compromise. >> all the candidates will be peacefully elected by beijing. >> in 1997, when britain handed hong kong back, beijing promised universal suffrage by 2017. now, protesters say beijing is watering down that promise. requiring all candidates to be chosen by officials loyal to china. since hong kong has a political system separate from china, it allows its people freedom of

press, and the right to protest. on sunday, protesters took to the streets. clashing with police. using umbrellas to protect themselves from teargas and pepper spray. some fear hong kong could face the same fate as tiananmen square 25 years ago, when china brutally cracked down on a pro democracy movement. >> the troops are stationed in hong kong. the hong kong people i think many them will not be scared. i think they will not be scare. if i see a tank from the chinese troops in hong kong, i will get myself a bicycle and stand right in front of it. >> chris, it's important to stress the bulk of the protesters here are young. 18, 19, 20 years old. born after the tiananmen square massacre in beijing. they never saw it firsthand. very idealistic. some of them don't have the

support of their parents to be out here and it's going to be a real challenge for their government in hong kong to find a way to talk to them and there has been no sign yet that the top official here in hong kong has sat down throughout this crisis to meet with any of these student leaders yet. chris? >> you're raising the right issue, you have to balance what appears to be a happening going on with the potential for some real danger there. and violence if the next step happens. so keep us alerted to what goes on on the ground. ivan watson, thank you very much. let's get you to john berman with the top stories. >> five weeks to go before the mid-term elections, by one measure, democrats are gaining a little bit of ground. look at our brand-new cnn/orc poll, when likely voters were asked their choice for congress in november, the generic congressional ballot test, 47% said they would vote for a democrat, 45% said, republican. that's a six-point gain for

democrats since the air campaign against isis in syria began. in a majority of americans have more confidence in president obama than republican lawmakers when it comes to the isis war strategy. 48% to 41%. but the real issue driving voters, they say, is the economy. about two out of every three americans say the economy is more important to them than any military action. the only poll that counts? is the one on election day. in addition to all the other cnn polls. and unidentified patient who may have been exposed to the ebola virus is being treated this morning at a dallas hospital. test results to confirm the presence of ebola are expected back from the center force disease control sometime today. officials at texas health press by tierian hospital would only say the patient was admitted based on symptoms and travel history. a pact allows about 10,000 u.s. troops to remain in

afghanistan to train and advise and assist afghan security forces beyond this year. u.s. and afghan officials had agreed on the terms of this accord more than a year ago, but former afghan president, hamid karzai, refused to sign it. new details in the deadly car accident that seriously injured comedian tracy morgan. walmart says that morgan is responsible for his own injuries, because they say he was not wearing a seat belt. morgan and others are suing walmart after one of its trucks slammed into the comedian's limo bus, killing a passenger causing serious injury to morgan. walmart has denied allegations of recklessness and negligence. >> it seems incensensitive what going on. but you have to remember, it's litigation and in a lot of states they have comparative negligence, which is where both parties blame the other one a little bit just to get the percentage right of it was 90% me, only 10% you.

>> it factors into the dollar figure at the end here. which is where this all may end up. >> man lost his life. tracy morgan has a long recovery ahead of him. it's hard not to let that emotional part of it play into it as well. >> civil lawsuits are about at the end of the day. we want to tell you about a shocking development in the case of the missing university of virginia co-ed hannah graham. police say the suspect in her disappearance may be linked to the death of another young woman in the area, five years ago. what happened to her. we're going to break down the new evidence, explore the possibility. maybe there are more victims out there. stay with us. ♪ yeah, girl ♪ you know, i've been thinking about us ♪

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we have a big break to tell but in case of a missing virginia co-ed, hannah graham. police investigating her disappearance say forensic evidence links the prime suspect, jesse matthew junior to the 2009 murder of virginia tech student morgan harrington. so what does this mean for both investigations? let's bring in athena jones, following the latest developments from charlottesville, what do we know? >> good morning, chris, this forensic link police have discovered appears to confirm

the fears of a lot of folks around here that hannah graham's disappearance was part of a pattern. while it's too soon to know, the new development has people asking if police has a serial killer on their hands. police are calling it a quote significant break -- evidence that could link the suspect at the center of hannah graham's disappearance to another miss field goal mail college student high pressu student-morgan harrington. >> there's a suspect in a link to morgan's murder. and i am so pleased that that has happened. but it doesn't change a lot for us. >> state police say forensic evidence found in the course of three separate searches links jesse matthew, who is facing charges in the graham case, to harrington, found dead in 2010. cops have confirmed that human remains found on a charlottesville, virginia farm are indeed those of the beautiful 20-year-old co-ed.

>> a 20-year-old virginia tech student, harrington vanished after a concert on the university of virginia campus in october 2009. the pair are among several young women who have disappeared in the area in recent years. raising questions about whether the cases are linked. including from harrington's mother. >> i really don't know if it's a cluster phenomena that just is kind of a coincidence, or if it's actually a pattern of a predator. >> but until now, police resisted making the connection. >> it's easy for me to understand why people would ask that question and have their mind go in that direction, i don't have enough facts before me to make that determination. >> now virginia state police are pursuing unspecified forensic evidence linking harrington and matthew. if that holds up, there could be another victim linked to the suspect. the suspect in the harrington case matched the dna profile from a 2005 sexual assault in

fairfax, virginia. now morgan harrington's remains were found on a farm ten miles from where she went missing. authorities are still searching for hannah gram. and they have no idea where she is. ch >> there's a big lead and development, but still waiting for a discovery in the hannah graham case. let's talk about the big lead, we want to bring in cnn commentator and legal analyst, mel rockens. you're vshaking your head, visibly upset. i know you've got theories, go ahead, talk to me. >> as a mother of two daughters, one who is approaching college age, this is just the kind of story that is every parent's worst nightmare, michaela. so i'm shaking my head, because i have a pit in my stomach. knowing that this guy is not only linked now to a 2009 murder, but also to a 2005 rape and there's even allegations that he was accused of raping a

student at liberty university, but those charges were dropped. so i think that we are just at the tip of the iceberg, michaela. >> what's also really interesting, we've been doing a little digging, i know you have and several other people have been as well, that there's an area of virginia, route 29 that has seen its share of disappearances, abductions, even homicides, morgan harrington, 2009 disappeared. another young woman, samantha clark, disappeared in 2010. lauren smith disappeared in 2011, sage smith disappeared in 2012. almost every year, alexis murphy, 17, a senior in high school disappeared in 2013. this looks like there's something going on on highway 29. >> there's something going on. i mean, the second -- when we all heard this you know you've

got the ashad smith, all these young ladies, as you pointed out michaela, same age, same general time period, every single year seemingly vanish off the face of the earth. when you've got now the man last seen with hannah graham before she disappeared, you've got his dna linking him to 2009. let me put it into perspective -- dna evidence is the single best evidence that you can have other than a videotape, it's like a marker, a genetic marker of the people that were there, of what happened and so in my mind, they've got this guy, jesse matthew, on the harrington murder. for sure. there is no way that they're going to be able to refute the dna evidence, there's also some outlets reporting that there's physical evidence that was found in his apartment connecting him to her. >> so they're obviously -- >> they're obviously going to take his dna and look at some of the other cold cases, other outstanding cases, correct?

>> yes. there's a federal database, that the fbi maintains and they're going to try to match his dna against cold cases. the local authorities are going to do the same. this guy isn't going anywhere. he's due in court on thursday, they will remand him while they wait to indict hit on the murder charges in the harrington case. and that will give the fbi and the local authorities a chance to really now, go back and take a hard look at the other disappearances. >> i was watching the heartbreaking interview with mrs. harrington. just heart-breaking to listen to this woman. some of these families still don't know what happened to their child. she mentions the fact they know. and they can have a measure of peace. which i don't even know how you could. but they have a measure of peace knowing that their daughter, where she is she's there with

them. so these families don't have that yet. and these investigations are ongoing. in a way, i was thinking about how you need to have a really good victim advocate to keep these stories alive, do you not? >> yes. because you know one of the interesting things that was also so sad is that you you've got families like alexis murphy's family. she went missing in 2013. she actually had somebody convicted, but they never found her body. so i would imagine they're going to run his dna in this case as well. deshad smith, samantha ann clark, all these families have been in the press, are saying is it because we weren't out there, these cases didn't stay in the limelight. it's all in our hope we're going to find hannah graham alive in this kind of case, without -- i mean -- it's so hard to even talk about it when you have kids at home. when you think about that press conference of the graham family.

and how just heart-breaking it's, it rips your heart out to see what these parents are going through. and what harrington's mother said, at least now they can move to the stage of grieving. the not knowing is so painful. >> is the worst part. mel robbins, we appreciate you helping us shine a light on it and more light will stay on these stories and we can find some peace for those families. over a month until mid-term elections, a new poll shows the democrats may be gaining ground but can they stop republicans from taking control of the senate? and are both parties overlooking the issue that matters most to voters? we're going to take a look at the surprising results, ahead.

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a lot of news going on as you start your "new day," let's take them to john berman, who i would say is in for michaela, except michaela is here. >> my other tv husband. >> very nice. >> that's how we roll here at cnn. >> very good. >> the armed intrude another jumped the white house fence this month and ran straight into the executive mansion made it a lot deeper into the white house than the secret service admitted. it turns out that iraq war vet omar gonzales overpowered a guard and made it into the east room before he was subdued. secret service director, julia

pearson, will be grilled about the breach at a house hearing this morning. this was already going to be a tough hearing, much, much tougher now. an american airlines flight making an emergency landing at dallas-fort worth international airport after circling over northern texas for two hours, flight 1654 bound for maryland on monday, but it had to turn back because of a landing gear issue. the plane landed safely after burning off fuel. passengers put on a later flight. the oklahoma man who beheaded a co-worker is expected to be charged today. alton nolan is facing murder charges. word has emerged of another beheading threat in oklahoma. 30-year-old jacob marithi is being held on terrorism charges. workers say he represented he work ford isis and would cut off her head and post photos to facebook. he told police he was joking.

an interesting endorsement for a little-used but widely effective method of birth control. the nation's leading group of pediatricians, recommends that teen girls, if they're going to use contraceptives use iuds or hormonal implants over any other form of contraceptive. oral contraceptives because most teens fail to use them properly or consistently. the fact this these recommendations are being made at all highly, highly emotional. >> the controversy alert. >> you know the doctors are saying doctors should have these conversations with teenaged girls about if they're going to be sexually active. and if they are, the doctors should recommend -- >> use the right method. >> who says that the doctors should have the conversations? >> the american academy of pediatrics. >> but you have all of these parents out there who feel that if you talk to them about these things, you encourage the behavior. >> you can't bury your head in the sand, that's the problem.

>> that's true, because life is life and it is what it is, but boy, that's going to be controversial. >> a lot of conversations happening around the dinner table. >> around the breakfast table. >> good thing berman said it and not you. we know the democrats appear to be gaining ground before the mid-term elections. we have a new poll revealing a potentially significant swing. is there a more pressing issue for voters that's going to decide the race? and it looks like an al qaeda group and isis are joining up. what does it mean for u.s. toefrts destroy them?

another x on the box of your calendar, marking the mid-term elections are five weeks away. and a new cnn/orc poll shows democrats are gaining some momentum. here's why we say that, the poll shows 47% of likely voters would vote democrat if they had to cast their ballots right now. up 2% from earlier this month.

while republicans fell four percentage points. control of the senate is still very much up for grabs. let's bring in cnn political analyst, jon ofavalon. editor of "the daily beast" and margaret hoover. >> the issue is that a generic ballot poll is really incredibly irrelevant when you're talking about ten specific senate races are toss-ups. great, people are going to vote for democrats, but when you ask people inmify if they're going to vote for terry lynn land -- >> they're going to say no. >> i can't even make the joke i would make at 6:30 in the morning. that's the issue, people say they don't like congress but they like their personal congressman. fine. in their race, joanie ernst is

beating the democrat in iowa. terry lynn land is beating the democrat in michigan. so it's all about what's happening in specific states, not generic ballots. >> so what margaret is say is, she doesn't like the poll because it's against her, she says i don't have to like the poll because the key races are what matters. that's where the problem is for democrats. >> that's the comment i would make if i were a republican. of course the senate race is ultimately about individual races, it does indicate some underlying momentum. it's good news for democrats at a time that state polls have been running away. independents giving an edge to democrats by two points, that's significant. independents have been tough critics of president obama. >> why the shift? >> i think the strongest argument democrats have with independents, is that republican control would institutionalize the gridlock they hate so much. it's the least-productive

congress in recent memory. what a lot of independents hate about washington is the fact that they can't reason together. >> it is the least popular congress since the last one. so you were given a little bit of this stink eye during that dour think there's a momentum shift at all? >> here's the biggest factor going into these races, the president's approval rate something hovering around 42%, it gets down to 40%, that's watershed numbers in terms of him being able to carry the party -- >> you don't see it, if you look at the ballot tracking polls, the president has hovered around 42%, 43% for as long as -- >> that's him. why are the democratic numbers up? >> that set the tone. that's the temperature in the water. that's the direction the country is going in. haven't gotten any bet wer isis. with the things happening with foreign policy, the president's foreign policy approval ratings are less than his -- >> let's get numbers on that. because in the cnn poll, it says

how congress is handling ice ice. approve, 33, disapprove, 60. same question with the president, put up his numbers. there's congress, now put up the president, i'll let you read the numbers. saying we don't have the numbers, his numbers are better. approve, disapprove. better. so could this be the reason for the shift, they believe that the isis plan has come together better. he's getting some kind of coalition. >> look, the president is the commander-in-chief, he's going to do better in foreign policy and ultimately all elections and polls are propositions. >> however unpopular president obama is, the least popular cohort in washington is the republican congress. there's one other significant thing in the poll, when you look at the shift in the economy, that's interesting. moderate voters, centrists are two times as likely to be leaning democrat in this election. 2-1. 60 to 30, that's a significant underlying factor when it comes to the battle for swing voters

who ultimately decide all elections. >> margaret, the biggest thing in the poll is for you, the vote in congress, what is it based on? the economy? 65%, isis, 29%. i was surprised by that. people think of pocketbook issues, how does it work to be in favor of a republican vote? >> obviously we would say people are voting their pocketbooks, the economy heath fully recovered. there's still historic numbs of people who have dropped out of the workforce, aren't even looking for work. the economy hasn't recovered. >> why aren't you guys bashing those issues, instead of playing the isis game? >> you go to iowa and you think, they're going not to care about foreign policy. wrong. you would be shocked how much of the states in the center of the country, you wouldn't think, care so much about what's going on in foreign policy. >> they should. >> you know why? it's because it's their sons and

daughters are going to iraq and afghanistan. >> strong point. >> but let me just add one thing, why aren't they hammering away at the economy? >> neither party are putting forward a plan to help the middle class. this is a seinfeld election so far, an election about nothing. both parties have said there are no national issues here, they want the other guy to lose the election rather than them put forward a positive plan to win. >> isis should be looming large, what's going on in that region of the world has been greatly oversimplified, to the peril of all those getting involved. do you think that congress will come back and vote? or will there be any semblance of a vote on the plan for the war against isis, which is already going on? you say no. do you think there will be one? >> not before the election. >> at all? >> eventually but probably not until you have a new term. unless there's some kind of complete urgency. we don't have a constitutional crisis there is constitutional authority -- >> there's a constitutional crisis. >> it's called the 2002

authorization of military force, which president obama won his election because he never supported. so the great irony here is we actually do have -- >> statutory authority is for military actions, not war. this is a war, i think there's a clear constitutional breach and congress is going -- shhh, because they don't want to take responsibility. >> cowardice in congress, no one want to talk a tough vote before elections. >> one of the things we'll cover today is that pelosi is urging the other side to have a vote. let's see what happens, we have a couple different lawmakers on. we'll see if there's any momentum for that. the people need that action as much as anything else. i like these two, they're good people. there is a troubling development in the war against isis and here's what it is -- the terror organization appears to be joining forces with a dangerous al qaeda group they used to hate. we'll take a look at this certainly unholy alliance and

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use steam to give you both crisp vegetables and juicy chicken... and you pour the sauce. healthy choice café steamers. welcome back to "new day." isis advancing on two key strategic fronts. in northern syria, where the terror group is inching toward the town of cobani, near the turkish border and also near baghdad, isis is said to be fighting this morning a few

miles south of the capital, there are reports after a year of vicious fighting between isis and al qaeda, al nusra, they might perhaps consider joining forces. the question, can the coalition air strikes move fast enough to push back these threats? we're joined by cnn's global affairs analyst, gobobby ghosh. this is the town of cobani in syria, 500 miles away, south of baghdad also where the isis forces are battling now. you have there and here, a two-front war at least. this does not look like isis is being rolled back to me. >> we see where some of the bombings have been taking place. but it's clear that the group, because of its very nature it doesn't function like a regular

army. it's capable of fighting in different places at the same time. and that is something that you can't really stop with air attacks. that's why over and over again, everybody who has looked at this and said, there have to be some boots on the ground. if not ours, other people's, there have to be boots on the ground. it's your classic whack-a-mole, if you bomb them from the air, they can move. they will move quietly in a distributed fashion. it's not one column of tanks or one column of vufs taking soldiers prosecute point a to point b. can scatter and regather wherever they want to and that's not something you can tackle from the air. >> no, they're big and mobile. i want to talk you over to a second area, north of aleppo. this is where on the very first day of attacks in syria, the u.s. alone shot tomahawk missiles at the khorasan group, this al qaeda splinter group affiliated with al nusra. what that may have done is upset the al nusra people enough to

drive them closer perhaps to isis. now there are reports that maybe these groups might be willing to bury the hatchet and work together in creed innocence that? >> this is a relationship that has existed in one fashion or the other for ten years, isis came out of what was originally al qaeda in iraq. and some of those elements are here, these fighters know each other, the commanders know each other. they disagree on their world view and there have been several occasions in the ten-year period wildfire they've split and come back again. what we're seeing now is on the ground, low-level commanders making the decision that in this particular fight, we'll fight together. at a higher level, the commanders, well that's a different story. the commander of al nusra, the al qaeda-affiliate yesterday, released a statement yesterday saying to all the other anti-assad groups, come and join with us, but quite noticeably,

he left isis out. at a sort of leadership level, they're still quite far apart. but as we've seen with iraq and syria, the circumstances on the ground are changing all the time. the battles are take place, in a place like aleppo, street to street, so individual fighters will make decisions based on what guns are pointed at them at any time. >> and al nusra has to consider with the success that isis is having throughout this large region, that perhaps isis might recruit some of al nusra's members. >> it will, if al nusra finally submits to isis that will be a huge propaganda deal. it means that al qaeda essentially is acknowledging that isis is now the biggest game in town and that al baghdadi, the leader, self-appointed caliph. >> there's a new video out of a british hostage, a third one talking about the situation in iraq and syria, a propaganda

video. the man is obviously under a great deal of duress, i don't want to put too much weight on anything he says. what is interesting to me is he's referring almost in real-time to the operations that are going on right now. criticizing the president for the strategy that has been developing over the last several weeks. this is very different than we've seen over the last decade. we're used to seeing osama bin laden in an unmarked cave, ranting, not knowing when the video was taken. this is you know, isis sending out these videos almost in real-time, criticizing the administration. >> a much more sophisticated propaganda operation than al qaeda ever was. it talks to the impunity with which isis is able to operate across this territory it tells us that individual cells or individual groups within isis are aware of what's going on. there's a lot of command and communication between the sort of widely disbursed groups of people. from the point of view of the family of the captive, most important thing is he's still

alive and that leaves some hope. as long as he's alive, there's hope. >> bobby ghosh, great to have you here with us, appreciate it. major development there, we're all thinking about the coalition to fight isis now. is there a coalition building to fight back? one of many stories we're following this morning. so let's get to it. >> omar gonzales made it much farther incite the white house than previously acknowledged by the secret service. >> this is a failure in leadership. >> i've got deep concerns that the president is not ease safe as we want and need him to be. >> residents of one syrian city are terrify as isis closes in. >> they'll surround them. put them under siege. >> evidence that could link the suspect at the center of hannah graham's disappearance to another missing female college student. >> there's a suspect and possibility of a link to more to morgan's murder. good morning, welcome back to "new day," it looks like the

secret service did fail toll us the whole transcript about a stunning breach of security at the white house earlier this month. 42-year-old iraq war vet, omar gonzales, was stopped near the front door of the executive mansion. after he scaled a fence and raced across the front lawn. right? wrong. we're now finding out that was far from the whole story. julia pearson, the director of the secret service, is the person tasked with cleaning up the image of the agency. she's been there for about a year and a half. obviously has a lot of work to do and a lot of explaining to do when she gets before a house committee later this morning. let's go to michelle kosinski for more. what have we learned about how far gonzales got inside the white house and who is to blame? >> there are calm of layers here. there's what actually happened and how on earth that was able to happen. and then there's what the secret service said happened. and how that hasn't exactly been ge gelling with the truth.

early on the secret service made a big deal about the fence-jumping not being armed. and then it turned out he had a knife and then the secret service said he was caught just inside the white house doors. but now new details are coming out from whistle-blowering. it was the 70-yard dash seen around the world. and now we know omar gonzales, an iraq war veteran with ptsdance and armed with a knife didn't just make it over the white house fence all the way across the north lawn, up the stairs and through the front doors -- but according to sources familiar with the incident, gonzales overpowered the guard inside those doors, ran past the stairway leading just up to the first family's residence, they weren't holmqvist. through the first floor and east room, finally tackled at the doors to the green room. none of this revealed publicly by the secret service, but by whistle-blowers, to congressman

jason chafetz. chairman of the house oversight committee. >> i've got questions about leadership, about protocol. and about the training at the secret service. >> no one was able to tackle omar gonzales during his run, no dog was released and chaffetz said the alarm inside the front door to signal a breach never sounded, silenced allegedly at the behest of the white house ushers, who didn't like it making too much noise. so the secret service has said its officers showed restraint in dealing with gonzales, it was found to have more than 800 rounds of ammo in his car and he was arrested in july in virginia, with 11 guns in the car. >> these incidents seem to be getting worse, not better. but to have such an epic failure from top to bottom really begs the question -- why did they decrease the number of trainings going on at the same time the house was actually appropriating even more money. why is it they tout the idea

there's tremendous restraint by these officers? i want to see overwhelming force repel anybody who is trying to get into the white house. >> you know, one day ago, the story was that back in 2011, it took the secret service four days to realize and investigate that some shots fired out here had actually hit the white house. then the secret service defended its actions here, because this case is under investigation, they're not commenting. but we could see a wide range of tough questions for the director of the secret service today. chris and michaela? >> there's no question about that. i mean there's reporting out there that it wasn't the secret service that discovered the bullets that had hit the white house, it was the housekeeping staff. let's get perspective, bring in republican congressman mark meadows, who sits on the house oversight committee which will hold this morning's hearings. and you sit on the foreign affairs committee, congressman. i'm going to ask you questions that are jermaine to both. let's begin with the white house, how big a problem do you think you have with the secret

service? >> well obviously we have a problem with leadership and training. when we have an event like this. it shouldn't be harder to get into a nationals playoff game than the east room of the white house. so we need to address it. >> and is this, in terms of what the fix is, what do you think the solution is here? >> well part of it is is making sure that this security detail is indeed an elite security detail. all of us have believed that the white house should be the most secure place, not only for the president, but for the president's first family. and for this kind of event, to be leaked out by whistle-blowers is very troubling. we need the director to be honest and forthright today, hopefully she will do that. but we need to restore the confidence of the american people and certainly for the first family. >> when you talk about confidence and you talk about insuring that you have the best of the best, the words "special

operations" comes to mind. is this a point in time to consider whether the secret service should be the detachment protecting the president. you have elite military forces, should you be looking elsewhere? >> well the secret service and the capitol police are trained, they're budgeted to do this very act of protecting the president in the first family. it's not a lack of funds, it really is a lack of leadership as i see it. you know in the very press releases, it said they showed great restraint and discipline. those two words combined in a press release that's put forth, sends the wrong message. really i see a lack on both of those areas. and what we need to make sure of is that they make decisions, not once, not twice, but over five times different decisions were made that put the first family and certainly those in the white house in jeopardy. >> let me ask you something -- if you had to protect your life tomorrow, you knew the threat was coming and it was severe,

who would you want to protect you? the secret service or s.e.a.l. team 6? >> s.e.a.l. team 6 is a great fighting force, but they have two different missions. the secret service mission is very clear, they're there to protect it they have a good history. we just need to refocus. >> as you're in the hearing, it's always nice to think about outside the box. you've been complaining about the secret service for a long time. there's been a big history of problems, the change isn't happening. pierce sn there for a year and a half. solutions are going to be at the top of the order. let me ask you about two other big-ticket items this morning. while i have you. the first is there's talk that nancy pelosi may talk to the republican leadership about having a vote, bringing you guys back to d.c. to get debate and you know, consensus on a plan for the war against isis, which by the way is already going on. would you come back and debate and vote? >> well certainly that's not nancy nancy pelosi's call,

that's speaker boehner's call. many of us have expressed a willingness to come back. the security of americans is paramount. we're willing to be here, you know, i'm back for this hearing today. but that's certainly is not out of the realm of reasonableness. >> why hasn't it happened? >> you know, really i think what we're looking at right now is speaker boehner, i don't want to speak for him, but working with the administration to make sure that we're there. i know that republicans are ready to come back. and take a vote and have debate on what is best move forward with regards to syria and isis. and the american people's safety. >> a little hypocritical. do you think on one hand the republicans are suing the president over his executive actions, but you just gave him a pass on going to war without responsibility under the constitution that you have to declare war? >> you know, there was over six hours of debate, there's a number of ways that we look at this. that we were debating before we

left. as we've dealt with isis, you know the current strategy right now is air strikes with arming the syrians. certainly a lot of our generals and military folks want to make sure that we have a comprehensive plan. i'm committed to do that. i think a number of us are. >> before i let you go. let me get a quick take on the porn bill, a bill to ban federal reserve employees from watching porn, didn't know it was allowed, is the porn problem that bad in washington that you wouldn't need a bill? >> what we're find something agency after agency has issues with this. it's something that i'm hopeful that the agencies will take up on their own. but if not, then certainly congress is willing to act and look at that. because like you say, you didn't know that it would be even legal to do that. simply blocking those sites and making sure that the american taxpayer get their money's worth

is what i'm all about. >> well, representative mark meadows, i look very forward to the debate on that bill. it will be very interesting to see if anybody opposes it. thank you very much for joining us this morning, we look forward to what happens in the hearing with the secret service. new details about the surge of isis in iraq. police in baghdad telling cnn the terrorist carried out several attacks saturday on iraqi army patrols and checkpoints south of the capital. several iraqi soldiers were killed. we turn to our pentagon correspondent, barbara starr, here with the latest. >> isis by all accounts now making key advances on two fronts. in iraq, the reports are that isis has now been fighting within five miles south of baghdad. that puts them essentially in walking distance of the iraqi capital in syria, now in northern syria the town of

cobani, on the turkish border, isis on the advance there. if they do take that town, this will be a major issue, it will give isis free rein across northern syria to the turkish border, that puts them up against the southern flank of nato. turkey being a member of nato and it puts them within range of the smuggling route. foreign fighters coming into northern syria from turkey. there have been some minimal u.s. and coalition air strikes in northern syria in that area. one of the key questions is -- why is the coalition not going on the offense against all of these isis positions? why are there not more air strikes? the dynamics on the ground appear to be now, isis can move faster than the u.s. air strikes can catch them. michaela? >> thanks for the latest on that barbara. later we'll get the latest on the air strikes and the fight against isis from pentagon

spokesman rear admiral john kirby. stick around for that right now, john berman has the headlines of the day. >> good morning, a rare glimmer of positive news for democrats, with five weeks to go before the mid-term elections, this is according to our brand new cnn/orc poll. likely voters were asked their choice for congress in november. 47% picked democrats, with 45% choosing republicans. that is a six-point swing for the democrats since the u.s. began its air campaign against isis in syria. in a majority of americans now have more confidence in president obama than republican lawmakers, when it comes to the isis war strategy. that by a margin of 48% to 41%. the issue that matters most to voters is clearly the economy. about two out of every three americans say it is more important to them than any military action. thousands of protesters in hong kong standing their ground, jamming city streets and refusing to back down.

that despite repeated requests to leave. a live look right now. look at the crowds. chief administrator in hong kong says china will not give in to protesters' demands and urged people to clear roadways. they're clearly notally listening, saying they might pose a risk to public safety. terrifying moment in south korea after a sight-seeing ship run ace ground with 109 people aboard. 171-ton ship did not sink. everyone on board was rescued. the accident of course brings back vivid memories of april's ferry disaster with more than 300 people died, most of them you'll remember, school children. the long-awaited security pact between the united states and afghanistan is a done deal. both sides signed the agreement at a ceremony in kabul a few minutes ago. about 10,000 u.s. troops will remain in afghanistan to train, advise and assist afghani security forces beyond this

year. the deal was repeatedly delayed by now former afghan president, hamid karzai. chelsea clinton's newborn baby girl, charlotte is now at home. here they are, leaving the hospital. chelsea and charlotte and her husband, mark. also a couple of people behind them. well-wishers on the new york city sidewalks, people were yelling congratulations to the happy family. looking ahead. the baby's schedule includes sleeping, eating, sleeping, eating and probably more sleeping and eating. >> you forgot something kind of important in there, involving diapers. >> it's implied. >> only gentle cries in the beginning, growing to ear-piercing capacity in no time at all. >> did you get to the point where could you change the diaper with one hand? >> don't forget, i had two at once. i had two at once. so i -- i could change two at once, sort of. >> is that true? >> i can hold one down and -- >> that's not the same. >> with the other hand.

but i cannot change two at once. but i could begin the process. >> in television-friendly version, tell mick, what's the most important thing to do when changing a diaper with a baby boy. >> trust me -- >> coverage. i have ten nieces and nephews, i know that only firsthand. or at least back away. >> that's high on the list of things i never learned the first time well. same mistake repeated thrice. >> parenting, it's all good. just bad for the laundry. startling new details in the disappearance of uva student, hannah graham. the man suspected of abducting the 18-year-old has been linked to a previous murder case, details coming up. and we gave you poll results what about this question -- how do americans feel congress has handled the situation with isis? we'll crunch more of the numbers and take you inside politics.

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in the country. we operate just like a city, and that takes a lot of energy. we use natural gas throughout the airport - for heating the entire terminal, generating electricity on-site, and fueling hundreds of vehicles. we're very focused on reducing our environmental impact. and natural gas is a big part of that commitment. big day? ah, the usual. moved some new cars. hauled a bunch of steel. kept the supermarket shelves stocked. made sure everyone got their latest gadgets. what's up for the next shift? ah, nothing much. just keeping the lights on. (laugh) nice. doing the big things that move an economy. see you tomorrow, mac.

see you tomorrow, sam. just another day at norfolk southern. they've got plenty of time to sort it out and make sure that this is indeed the person who killed morgan harrington and who is responsible for the disappearance of hannah graham. which is really paramount. i mean we know where morgan is. morgan is in a box over there. hannah graham is still missing. and her family needs to know

where she is we need to bring hannah home. >> that was gil harrington, the mother of morgan harrington, the virginia tech student killed in 2009. you hear her there expressing concern about hannah graham, the uva sophomore who went missing more than two weeks ago. now forensic link has been found between harrington's murder and the suspect in graham's disappearance, it really could just be the tip of the iceberg. want to bring in lawrence covalinsk, a forensic scientist. we want to tap into your mind to help us understand this. this is your world, it is not ours, forensic evidence, forensic link. give us an idea of what falls under the scope of forensics here. >> well generally when you have crime, you try to link a suspect to a victim. or a victim to a suspect. or crime scene. that linkage is very critical. you can usually do it through

physical evidence. sometimes -- >> give an example. >> clothing. >> clothing, hair, fibers, trace evidence, soil. it could be anything, now a days we rely a great deal on dna. it's the gold standard. and it's one of those tools that we can use to directly identify a suspect by looking at evidence. >> it sounds as though this case and perhaps even harrington's will hinge largely on forensics. give us an idea of the pressures that crime scene investigators will face when they come to a scene, not knowing what they're encountering. there's a lot of pressure on them to make sure that that is all locked down. >> the evidence collection team now has a search warrant, they go to a vehicle, or a home, as is in this case. and they have to collect evidence. something that will help them solve the crime. what are they looking for? well they're looking for hair brush. because there's hair evidence.

they're looking for a tooth brush. dna evidence. they may be looking at clothing because of trace evidence on clothing. if you find evidence of the victim on the suspect's clothing, that's a linkage. for example, this may be the case here, there may have been air foreign to the victim, miss harrington, found on the body. that hair if you have nothing to compare it to, doesn't lead any place. >> when you do get, when you go to a home and you find a hair brush, now you have hair, you can do a dna comparison. and establish a linkage. and i believe that that may be what happened here. all this takes a great deal of time and patience, we in the media are always looking for answers and the families desperately need answers and are hoping to still find their child alive. but this kind of thing is

meticulous slow work. >> it is slow work. we're getting better at rapid dna 'nal sis. can you do a nuclear dna analysis in about 75 minutes now. but it does take time. it takes patience. but at the very end of the game, you have a linkage between suspect and a victim. >> we look back at the timeline, morgan harrington disappeared in 2009. five years ago now. time is such a factor. talk to us about dna and all of these forensics. do they degrade over time? is there a concern about evidence degrading? >> dna is pretty hardy, but still in all, under the right conditions, it will degrade. now we have a national database, we have the national system, the state system, the local labs have a part of this database. there's even a database for missing individuals. apparently there was no match, no linkage given that this

harrington murder case happened in 2009. so many years have elapsed and there was no linkage to a suspect. so it really had to wait until a suspect turns up in another case, which is the hannah graham case, and here we have the search warrant, evidence and a linkage established, perhaps. >> i'm curious how you look at all of this and some other cases that mel robbins are saying there are missing women cases, these are cold cases, some of them are cold, essentially, these women are still listed as missing, as a forensic scientist what does that bring up in your mind? what do you start thinking about and concerning yourself with? >> people ask, is there such a thing as a perfect crime? sure, any crime that's not solved is the perfect crime. this looks to me like a cruster. that could mean that one 0or a small group of people may have perpetrated these crimes. with whatever motive. >> so if you saw one, you might

have an inroad to solving the others, there's already a linkage between the harrington murder and a sexual assault that took place four years earlier. i know jesse matthews has been accused of rape back in 2002. i think this is an example where the pieces of the puzzle are coming together. it's the physical evidence that's going to do the linkage. >> it's interesting that you choose the word cluster. a lot of people want to use the word "serial" you make a distinction? >> it could be serial, it could be copy cat. it could be individuals who happen to be in the same location. but i think cluster, what that means is things are happening in a geographical location, that could imply that there is one individual that is perpetrating all these crimes. >> bottom line in that area of virginia, along route 29 there are women that are missing, there are women that are being killed. this is a concern. we want to keep our young women

safe. >> lawrence covalinsk, thank you so much. turning to the battle over combatting isis, it's stretching into the political campaign season, candidates are using the issue to try to bring down their opponents, the question is will it work? we'll ask john king on "inside politics." hi dad. she's a dietitian. and back when i wasn't eating right, she got me drinking boost. it's got a great taste, and it helps give me the nutrition i was missing. helping me stay more like me. [ female announcer ] boost complete nutritional drink has 26 essential vitamins and minerals, including calcium and vitamin d to support strong bones and 10 grams of protein to help maintain muscle. all with a delicious taste. grandpa! [ female announcer ] stay strong, stay active with boost.

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26 minutes past the hour. a lot of stories happening in the news today, john berman is taking a look. the white house intruder story changes each day. >> the armed iraq war veteran

who jumped a white house fence earlier this month and broke into the executive mansion made it a lot farther inside than the secret service admitted. it turns out that 42-year-old omar gonzales overpowered a guard and made it all the way into the east room before he was subdued. that is a much different story than we were nimpbly told. secret service director julia pearson will be grilled about the breach and the changing story at a closed house hearing in less than three hours. a fiery warning about ice nis hamas from israeli prime minister benjamin netenyahu. the prime minister said the two organizations are branches of the same poisonous tree. he said they're bent on world domination through terror. much he says, like the nazis. the prime minister went on to tell the united nations that israel's fight against hamas and the u.s. war against isis are part of the same cause. the head of the faa ordering a 30-day review of its emergency plan at agency facilities after the fire that snarled air

traffic in chicago and caused a ripple effect nationwide. the review will be coordinated with two unions representing air traffic employees. the faa hopes to have the chicago area center fully operational by october 13th. that's still two weeks away. junkyard inferno extinguished in the miami area. look at that fire, more than 100 cars torched on monday. a welder working at the junk yard when the fire started. firefighters had to deal with thick black smoke and the danger that the stacked burning cars could just topple over. luckily no one was injured. >> every call they get, a little bit different than the last one. >> big challenges, so many flammable stuff. tight areas to get in and out of. thank you john berman. >> time for politics, let's take you "inside politics" on "new day" with mr. john king. >> chris, good morning, from car segue, five weeks to election

day. let's go "inside politics," important new polling to discuss. with me to share insight, julia pace of the "associated press," ron fournier of the national journal. brand new numbers, democrats will like them, republicans will say it's an outlier. democrats on the generic ballot, you ask american who do you plan to vote for for congress, democrats with a two-point edge. they were down if you look to earlier in the month. democrats were down four. i assume julia pace that the white house still think this is a good sign. they think if anything, the democrats, it's not like folks or democrats, nancy pelosi is probably not going to be speaker. democrats are not going to pick up senate seats, the better numbers five weeks out tells you something about the volatile climate. >> absolutely. i think to have the numbers hit now at a time when most americans are going to just start tuning in to this mid-term election, to be honest, a lot of people have not been paying attention for many months is good for democrats. if they can capitalize on the momentum, think one of the challenges for the president over the next couple of weeks is

going to be what does he talk about? as we get deeper into the poll, there's going to be questions about national security, about the islamic state group. for a lot of americans, it's still the economy and what kind of message can he send on the economic over the next couple of weeks i think could be key to whether the democrats pull this out or not. >> because of the shift, democrats with a slight edge in what we call the generic ballot for congress is all because of men. the gender gap is about the same. women are voting for democrats, if you look at the choice among men, democrats doing better, still losing among men but better than they were a bit ago. how is congress handling ice ice? 33% approve of how congress is handling the ice ice debate. 60% disapprove. and we did ask voters, what's most important to your vote? the economy still trumps, but 29% is moving up as an issue, ice ice. how much is that becoming a

campaign. >> i don't know at the end of the day how much it is. it's an incredible poll you caught at an interesting point. i think it reflects how good of a week or ten days the president had with isis. he gave a clear speech at the united nations. so especially the men who thought the president was at least looking weak and being indecisive and not taking isis seriously, he showed all of those things at least for a short time being were wrong, that he is looking presidential. the question is, does he revert back to form? i think we saw a little bit of it sunday, when he through james clapper under the bus. that's the thing that could make the poll numbers go back down. >> when you look at the congressional numbers, 60% disapprove of how congress is handling isis, there was a big debate and mr. chris cuomo of this program driving it a lot of saying the congress is being a coward, not giving the president

an up or down vote. listen to john mccain, he was on yesterday and said yeah, the congress should have acted dimpl. >> i have said repeatedly, it's an act of cowardice on the part of congress, they didn't want to vote before the elections. >> you do suddenly have john boehner saying to george stephanopoulos this weekend, if the president would put a proposal forward, we'll come back. they rushed out of town to get to recess to campaign for re-election. do you think that the speaker is looking at numbers thinking maybe people think they blew this. >> i don't know what the speaker is doing. the constitution doesn't say the congress has a right to declare war if the president gives them permission. there's no mother may i clause, the congress can do this and the president should be asking for authority. both sides trying to argue who is least wrong. another example of a dysfunctional political system. it's, it's cowardly on congress. it is the right word. >> is there any indication at

the white house that the president before the election, the senate is still run by democrats, not just republicans, nobody, there's some people wanted to vote. but the people who are vulnerable in this election, say can we wait until after? any indication the president is going to say, come on back in and let's vote. >> john boehner can say what he wants to say. nancy pelosi has said we should just have a vote. she knows her members don't want to take a vote before the election. particularly the senate candidates. nobody wants to take this vote before the election. >> the leaders think they're pulling one over on the voters. the voters know what's going on here. >> one of the most interesting senate races in the country is in north carolina. the ultimate swing state. tom tillis is the republican, running against democratic incumbent. kay hagen. the chairman of a subcommittee that could hold hearings on isis. here's his new campaign ad. >> hagen has missed half the committee hearings. the price for their failure is

danger. to change direction we have to change our senator. >> isis, a game-changer? >> it depends, this ad was cut when the president's poll numbers were down, before he went to the u.n. before he had a strong plan. if he starts looking weak again, starts to fast lalook vacillati again, that will be effective. >> here he is campaigning for the senate candidate in colorado. >> for the president to say gee we underestimated isis suggests that he wasn't looking at the kinds of ideas that were being brought to lihim. i know people were saying as early as january, we need to put in place a combat isis. i guess he was busy doing other things, vacations, golf, fundraising. >> mitt romney back on the trail. campaigning as the governor's race and senate race in colorado this is sort of the mock thing that the president, you know he's on vacation, ignoring your

point he through the intelligence director under the bus. i guess the question is a, i romney on the trail. >> it's fascinating. think it's still hard to see scenario in which mitt romney really runs for president, you get fundraising appeal from mitt romney for republicans all the time. he's on the trail in these competitive races, i think in some way says as much about the state of the republican party as it does about mitt romney's i am 2016, there's no clear leader to this party so they're looking to a guy who had been a leader at one point and who is ideas from 2012 are not look sog outlandish. >> i'm holding in my hand, a "new york times" magazine piece about is mitt ready to call it quits? romney can just say no, absolutely not. under no circumstances will i run. no, he doesn't. he says no, probably not going to happen. very unlikely. he said if it happens, if i have to do that -- >> that's a great piece.

what's the old joke about the only cure for the presidential bug? embalming fluid? he's going to get in. he's in now. it's just a matter of -- he desperately wants to run. >> he does want to be in the conversation. let's close with this, there's been a lot of talk about this, egregious, i tp my hat all the time to the men and women in the secret service, but they've got some issues to fix. this suspect got much deep near the white house and conan o'brien finds it funny. >> it was revealed that the white house fence jumper got deeper inside the building than previously reported. unbelievable. yeah, in fact for 20 minutes he was acting secretary of commerce. when asked for comment, joe biden said, he made it much further than i've ever gotten so -- >> mr. cuomo, mr. cuomo, can't help but have a laugh about these things. but i'll tell you again, i covered the building for nine

years and i tip my hat to those guys, so many dicey moments where they acted with bravery. but they've got some i's to dot and t's to cross 0 to figure out what happened. >> change is coming, that's for sure. and i think it's going to go way beyond the handwriting. john king, thank you very much. i'll see you again tomorrow. isis terrorists are on a bloody march through syria, they have their sights set on a key kurdish area. the question is it a key area? and how unstable is the situation? we're going to get answers from the pentagon about what's going on. stay with us. big day? ah, the usual. moved some new cars. hauled a bunch of steel. kept the supermarket shelves stocked.

made sure everyone got their latest gadgets. what's up for the next shift? ah, nothing much. just keeping the lights on. (laugh) nice. doing the big things that move an economy. see you tomorrow, mac. see you tomorrow, sam. just another day at norfolk southern. ♪ want to change the world? create things that help people. design safer cars. faster computers. smarter grids and smarter phones. think up new ways to produce energy. ♪ be an engineer. solve problems the world needs solved. what are you waiting for? changing the world is part of the job description. [ male announcer ] join the scientists and engineers of exxonmobil in inspiring america's future engineers. energy lives here.

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so, the news from the front in the war against isis is that syrian kurds are pleading for help as isis bears down on a town on the border between turkey and syria called khobani. there's fear that isis wants to

make the town its home base. meanwhile, have the air strikes in the rest of the country done enough to slow the march of the terror group? or are we looking at the inevitable? boots on the ground? american or otherwise, being necessary to achieve the goals we have in mind, what we're hearing from the administration and the coalition. let's bring in rear admirable john kirby. white house press secretary. thank you very much for joining us. >> what's the general proposition from you in terms of how goes it on the front? >> we continue to put pressure on isil. we're doing a lot of it from the air. but they're also getting pressure on the ground, from iraqi and kurdish security forces. air strikes alone are not going to be enough. they do put pressure on them, they do force them to change their tactics and communication as little bit. but we're not fooling ourselves, we know that air strikes alone are not going to be enough to eliminate the threat. >> please address the concerns

specific to khobani first of all that you could be bombing more there to help the guys on the ground. they say you're not doing it not only are they not getting the weapons they need, the kurds say, but you're not booming there and you could be, is that true? >> i understand the frustrations they feel and pressure they're under by isil. we continue to put more and more effort from the air in and around khobani. last night there were 19 strikes, the majority of the syrian strikes were around kobani. the majority of the ten strikes we conducted inside syria there is a lot of attention going on. we need to be careful. we need to be discreet. we have to be, we have to discriminate the targets. we don't want to cause any collateral damage or civilian casualties, so hitting these guys from the air is a risky business, it's something we want to take due care and caution as we do it. >> the key to surgical precision

from the air is the coordination from the ground. the obviously thing miss something the full network of coordination on the ground. we're hearing it from ground fighters, there's not good coordination, they're worried about it. how incomplete is that connection of communication? there isn't a lot of coordination and communication with opposition fighters on the ground. that's true, but that's also a function of the fact that opposition groups are not monolithic, they don't have a command and control structure. it's not like a foreign army you can plug into. one of the reasons we want to start this train and women quip program and hopefully get it up and started soon here and in saudi arabia is to get the moderate opposition better organized and better led. help introduce the military skills, basic communication and military skills that they need that will help us coordinate with them a little bit better. it's a very immature process. that and that's another reason why the air strikes that we're conducting inside syria have to

be very carefully vetted and chosen. so that we're hitting what we're aiming at and we're aiming at bad guys, and only bad guys. >> how big a deal is kobani? am i exaggerating when they say they want to make it their home base, if they take that town, it's a big problem. >> it's a town on the border with turkey. and it's a problem we know how they treat innocent civilians. wherever they are we're taking it seriously and preponderance of strikes last night were around that town. i don't know that i have specific information that this is what they want their headquarters to be. they have been feeling pressure in raqqa. recent strikes in raqqa. they know, they know we know that they've been using raqqa as sort of a headquarters element for them. so i think they are trying to move. they're trying to disburse but it's unclear now if co-banni is sort of the next hup that they're going after. >> turkey as a partner, what

does it mean that on john and michaela's show, they spent a lot many time watching a ground fight go on. you had a lot of turk ish force, watching isis advance? >> we know turkey is going to be a partner in this. and president erdogan has said they will join the coalition and contribute. it's up to them to decide how they do that. we understand it. when we were in turkey a couple of weeks ago, every turkish leader that secretary hagel reenforced the belief that they will be in the fight some how, some way. they have to, they share borders. i think they have to decide for themselves. we welcome their participation in any way that they see fit. >> few things were as certain at the beginning of this war as the fact that american boots would not be on the ground. that is becoming less and less certain by any measure.

you have speaker boehner, his latest quote, we have no choice, these are barbarians, they intend to kill us and if we don't destroy them first, we're going to pay the price. that is a response to our friend, george stephanopoulos saying would you recommend putting american boots on the ground if no one else steps up. got the turks watching them fight, not a good sign. do you believe american boots are inevitable? >> no, i do not, chris. the commander-in-chief couldn't have been more clear, that he's not going to reintroduce u.s. combat troops on the ground in a mission in iraq. now we are in combat, obviously, we're flying air strikes, that's certainly combat. there's no question about that. but the guidance has been very clear, we're not going to reintroduce ground troops. now the ground troops that we need, the ground troops that are the most valuable are indigenous ground forces, that's why we're doing what we can to support iraqi security forces, not just from the air, but through an advisory capacity.

and then of course, we need ground forces in syria and that's why we're so eager to get the train and equip program up and running. the ground forces have to be indigenous, they have to be local. those who know the ground, no the terrain, know the culture. know the politics and know the enemy, quite frankly. >> but then you look a little bit to the side and afghanistan, and we see what we believe is the most workable model right now, right? which is 10,000 at least, u.s. troops staying on the ground. so that if anything happens, and is rapidly destabilizing, not only can they help marshall the local forces, but take care of whatever heavy lifting needs to be done. why isn't that happening where it matters most? >> that's not exactly the way the mission is going to evolve inside afghanistan. we're coming to the end of the combat mission at the end of this year. early next year we're going to be down to less than 10,000 or so and those guys are going to

be advising and assisting. there will be a counterterrorism aspect to it, no question about that. but the whole purpose of the support mission, the nato mission going forward in afghanistan is to help enable and continue to sustain the competence and confidence of the nato afghanistan forces, who have done a good job of securing not just one, but two elections. the idea is moving forward in afghanistan it's going to be more of an advise and assist mission. >> a lot of this is as this process goes on, it's hard to know what's going on on the ground. for you as well as for us, in the media, so obviously any opportunities to get on the ground and tell the story of what's going on, we're happy to take them. thank you for joining us on "new day." talking about american troops in harm's way, remember, sergeant andrew tomarisi, marine veteran, jailed in mexico for six months, a lot of talk he's suffering from pts. why is he still there?

there's something going on. tomorrow in congress about it, his mental health already a concern as i told you. so, we're going to hear from his mother joining us live with an appeal to you coming up next.

closer hopefully to a resolution and also interested in knowing about my washington, d.c. plans. >> we know the representative from arizona republican, he's visited with your son in his prison cell. you're going to testify. mon tell williams is going to testify. are you feeling like you're going to be heard? >> yes, legislators on the foreign affairs committee and committed and coming to the hearing as well as other congressman and women who have signed on to house resolution 620. debbie wasserman schultz from florida has signed on to that resolution. so we're hoping to build momentum. . >> i know it's been an agonizing

six months. are you feeling hopeful? >> i'm feeling like there are more dots that have been connected. and completed through the evidence file and the forensic showing there are no signs at the border that night. there are quite a few dots connected. i'm feeling more optimistic. >> i'm glad to hear that. we want you to update us when we can. we hope you get your son home safe and sound soon. >> thank you so much. >> the mother of sergeant andrew tamaris. . new information about the white house intruder. how far did he make it inside the president's home before he was stopped. we'll take you live to the white house. stay with us.

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breaking details, the man who ran into the white house got deeper inside than previously known. how did the intruder overpower a secret service agent before being tackled as the agency's director faces a drilling before

congress. protesters swarming the streets of hong kong refusing to back down. now setting a deadline for the government to meet their demands or reform by wednesday. will china give into demonstrators? gaining ground, a new poll shows at least by one measurement democrats may be getting a boost over republicans since the air strike against isis began. with the midterm elections five weeks away, what does this mean for the balance of power in congress? your "new day" continues right now. good morning, welcome to "new day." it's tuesday, september 30th, 8:00 in the east. we were led to believe that the white house fence jumper only made it to the front door. mow we're hearing the vet led secret service on a chase through most of the first floor of the executive mansion.

so lawmakers now confirm that omar gonzales overpowered a guard at the entrance, then made it all the way into the east room before being subdued. >> you're watching it there. it's a stunning breach of security that will have to be x explained when the secret service director takes the hot seat this morning at a hearing on capitol hill. michelle kosinski is tracking the latest. she was the very person brought in to help the secret service clean up their image. >> the fact this happened at all there were going to be lingering questio questions, but it's been compounded by what the secret service said happened, but it didn't go down that way. the fence jumper was unarmed. he had a three-inch knife. he was caught just inside the white house doors. that was bad enough. new details coming out from whistleblowers, it gets worse. >> reporter: it was the 70-yard dash seen around the world. and now we know omar gonzales

armed with a knife didn't just make it over the white house fence all the way across the north lawn and through the front doors, but according to sources familiar with the incident, gonzales overpowered the guard inside those doors, ran past the stairway leading up to the family res ease dense, through the first floor and east room being tack ed at the green room. none of this revealed publicly by the secret service but by whistleblowers by chairman of the subcommittee. >> i got deep concerns that the president is not as safe as we want and need him to be. i have questions about leadership, about protocol and about the training at the secret service. >> no one was able to tackle gonzales during his run. no dog was released. and the alarm inside the front door there to signal a breach never sounded. silenced allegedly at the behest

of the white house ushers who didn't like it making too much noise. so that guard may not have even known immediately there was a breach over the fence. the secret service said officers showed restraint in dealing with gonzales. he was later found to have 800 rounds of ammo in his car and he was arrested in july in virginia with 11 guns in the car. >> these incidents seem to be getting worse, not better. but to have such an epic failure from top to bottom really begs the question, why did they decrease the number of trainings going on at the same time the house was appropriating even more money? why do they tout the idea there's tremendous restraint by these officers? i want to see overwhelming force, repel anyone trying to get into the white house. >> it was interesting last week. the white house faced all these questions about it, but they said that the president has full confidence in the secret service. yesterday when more of the questions came up again and details, the white house said that the president has

confidence in the secret service. they are not saying full confidence anymore. now it's confidence. >> what happened at the white house with the secret service is now becoming a little bit of a political football in terms of the administration and leadership ability in general. that's more in focus than the wars overseas. isis is fighting on strategic fronts. the group is inching towards a border town between syria and turkey. that's why important and you're having it move towards baghdad and iraq. the fighting south of the dam is supposed to be heating up. what are we going to do about it in the united states? what will happen with this it declaration of war from congress? congress is calling for a debate on the war long after it is already underway. no irony. let's bring in senator bernie sanders, chairman of the veterans affairs committee. good to have you on, as always. . i want to talk to you about what

this situation could mean for your own political aspiration, but let's talk with the specifics. we are at war, the country, the united states, in this area there has been no declaration of war. is that a mistake? >> i believe that we need serious discussion in congress, but i will tell you something else. i voted against that resolution a couple weeks ago because i do not want to see the united states get involved in another quagmire in the middle east. i'm wondering where kuwait is, qatar is. saudi arabia spends more money on defense, they are the fourth largest defense spender in the world. you want to see them get their hands dirty. i want to see them starting to use their air force in a significant way. i think we should be supportive. this war will not be won by the united states alone.

it will be won by people in the the neighborhood, by saudi arabia, by iran and those countries prepared to take on isis. >> why do you think they are so slow to action? why did we see video on friday of isis advancing and turkish military just watching, well within shooting range? >> i think they have full confidence that the people of the united states will do the dirty work for them. i will be damned if kids in vermont have to defend the royal saudi family which is worth hundreds of billions of dollars and has a major and significant air force and army. we should be supportive, but this has to be won by the muslim countries themselves taking on this dangerous and horrendous organization. it will not be won by the united states alone. >> does it mean that the united states and its allies have overstated how much appetite there is in the arab world to take on isis, how much appetite

there is to fight for islam? >> that's the soul of islam is what we're talking about. secretary kerry has done a good job trying to bring together these forces in the middle east. but they are sitting around saying, hey, the american taxpayer will do it for us. not only is that rong wrong wrong, it's not going to win. the other thing that concerns me. while we focus our attention on u.s.ist, the middle class continues to collapse. real unemployment is close to 12%. you know what the people tell me in vermont? let's start paying attention to the crises facing working faemgs in america. >> it's interesting. the recent poll echoes what you're saying now. it should be obvious to anybody watching the show. the economy wins over the isis concern about 65/35. however, everybody cares about

the situation and it's ironic that it not only is congress not coming up with plans on how to help the economy, but they are also not coming up with a plan for declaring war and constitutionally you're supposed to. do you think a vote happens? >> you'll have to ask mr. boehner about that, i don't know. what i do want to vote on is raising the minimum wage. i want to vote on a massive jobs program, because real unemployment is 12%. let's put millions of people back to work. here's my concern, chris. the question is whether the media and whether the congress can chew gum and walk at the same time. and whether we're going to continue to ignore the fact that the middle class is in desperate shape. new income goes to the top 1% massive wealth and e equality. >> you know what my answer is going to be. you guys do something about it and we'll cover it.

listen to speaker boehner about not wanting -- listen to what the speaker had to say. >> if no one else would step up, you'd recommend american boots on the ground? >> we have no choice. these are barbarians. they intend to kill us. if we don't destroy them first, we're going to pay the price. >> george asking the obvious question. you have the speaker of the house giving an answer, yes, he would have to commit troops. he's already making a decision. >> it's not you guys. some of us are prepared to debate this issue. what boehner is saying basically, people should hear carefully, perpetual warfare in the middle east, billions and billions of dollars of american taxpayer money, the loss of lives while the roim kingdom of saudi arabia laughs all the way to the bank with their oil money. so this senator does not agree

with that. before boehner talks about sending american kids into the middle east might want to raise the minimum wage, might want to deal with pay equity, might want to ask his billionaire friends to pay their fair share of taxes. >> if you care so much about the american people, why don't you run for president? are you afraid to take on hillary clinton? >> well, i don't think it's a question of fear. i have said i'm giving thought to doing that. if i do something, i like to do it well and going around the country guessing an assessment as to whether or not there would be support for a campaign that takes on the koch brothers, takes on the billionaire class. i haven't made that decision yet. >> do you think hillary can be beats beaten? >> america is not into anointing anybody u. i have a lot of respect for

hillary clinton. she's a friend of mine. by i-think in this country, we need a a vigorous debate about why the people on top are doing so well while everybody else has seen a decline of standard of li living. so there's a lot to discussion, and i think the american people look forward to that type of debate. >> you're raising the right issues. i look forward to covering that debate. we'll see if you decide to get in and throw some punches. senator sanders, thank you for joining us. >> thank you, chris. let's turn to hong kong where protesters are defying calls to back down and are bracing for the possibility of crackdown by authorities. want to show you live pictures. thousands of people have jammed streets causing widespread discussion in the heart of the financial hub. the chief executive saying china will not give into protester's

demands. ivan watson is in hong kong with the latest. >> defiant protesters ignoring the orders of their chinese-backed leaders who are calling the demonstrations illegal. urging organizers to stop for fear the tense crowd will get out of control. this morning schools forced to suspend classes. the protesters demanding hong kong have free and fair elections in 2017. but hong kong chief executive says china will not compromise. >> in 1997 when britain handed hong kong back, they promised universal suffrage by 2017. now protesters say beijing is watering down that promise requiring all candidates to be chosen by officials loyal to

china. since hong kong has a political system separate from china, it allows its people freedom of press and the right to protest. on sunday protesters took to the streets clashing with police, using umbrellas to protect themselves from tear gas and pepper spray. some fear hong kong could face the same fate as the square 20 years ago when china brutally cracked down on a pro-democracy movement. >> the troops are stationed in hong kong. i think many of them will not be scared. i won't be scared. if i see a tank from a chinese troops in hong kong, i will get myself a bicycle and stand right in front of it. >> ivan watson, cnn, hong kong. >> people remarking about how many people have turned out demanding democracy and reform.

a lot of news to get to today. john burrman is handling that for us. >> according to to our cnn poll, 47% of likely voters saying they support democrats for congress in november. 45% say republicans. that's a 6-point swing for democrats and all started since the air campaign against isis began. it also looks like a majority have more confidence than republican lawmakers when it comes to the war against isis. 48% to 41%. but when it's all said and done most voters say it it's about the economy. 2 out of every 3 americans say their pocketbook is more important than any military action. stunning development appears to link two mysteries in virginia. a recent disappearance of hannah gra. ham say forensic evidence ties the prime suspect to the 2009

murder of virginia tech student morgan heirington. graham's disappearance may unravel more mysteries. at least two other women have disappeared from the same area since 2009. look at this. dramatic video of a coast guard rescue. a team rescued four adults and three children after the boat capsized on saturday. the group was fishing when the 30-foot vessel flipped after the engine stalled. they were standed in the water for half an hour. no one was injured in that incident. >> point to note, not many people fishing in boats. but people too often wander into waters they shouldn't with vessels that can't hand m l. . that's why the coast guard is an amazing group of first responders. the director of the secret service will be on the congressional hot seat this

morning. can she defend the secret service. can she keep the president safe? can she keep her job safe with new information coming out that the white house fence jumper didn't just become this blurb on your screen, didn't just get into the door left open, but he actually made it all the way around the first floor winding up in. the east room avoiding agents. what happened there? we're going to get answers from a former secret service agent, coming up. when folks think about what they get from alaska,

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welcome back to "new day." the secret service director will face tough questioning this morning after new revelations that the white house fence jumper made it it much further into the mansion than previously reported. omar gonzales barrelled through the front door leading agents on a wild chase ending near the east room. this is just the latest incident for the secret service. want to bring in someone who knows the agency well. andrew o'connell is a former special agent with the secret service and president of guide post solutions. thank you for joining me. so many questions for you. you were just watching the video as so many of us have. what troubles you most about the video of the intruder making it after a wild goose chase into the white house? >> it is surprising because if you look at recent history of

fence jumpers, you'd find that the jumper is confronted and apprehended before he or she gets into the white house. in this case shs the fact that the jumper made it into the white house is troubling. where were the failures, if there were any? technical security, human failures, officers that didn't respond properly, i'm not sure. but certainly it's troubling. >> security layers failed. alarms were muted, no dog was released. that makes one question why security failed so entirely. >> i'm not sure about the failures. technical security, there are tremendous measures in place at the white house. did they fail? i suspect they did not fail. i think that if there was any muting of the alarm box, that's troubling. many requests made by white house staff to the secret service as it relates to security, to mute an alarm box would make it all the way to the top and i think it would be

denied. i'm troubled to hear that and i'm not sure it didn't happen, but u it is troubling. >> help us understand the layers. if a secret service or detail within the house sees something they are concerned about, how quickly are the concerns addr s addressed? we know that since this incident, a new layer of fencing has gone in. so is it pretty quickly answered? >> it's immediate. there are layers of security. it starts with technical security. there's technical security there. that's the first line of defense. then you have police officers that are surrounding the white house on the ground. that's your next line of defense. then you have agents inside protecting the president. so there are layers there. where the failures where, i'm not sure, but an investigation will be done. the secret service is as proactive as they can be. they have to balance the needs of the president and congress to keep the president accessible. so they can't just shutdown some

of the white house. so they work with what they are given. it's not easy to do. there's a balance there. >> to that point, what they are given, do you feel they have enough of the tools? we're in an increasingly technical time. given the right technology and tools and surveillance systems? >> you can always be given more. if you wanted to make the white house into a fortress, you could, but that's unreasonable. the american people wouldn't allow it. could you use more money, more dogs, more technical security measures, i'm sure you could, but there's always the balance between what the president wants and his family and security. and the secret service has been doing this for at least protecting presidents for over 100 years. and for the most part, overwhelmingly for those over 100 years, they found that blns.

>> it's important to recognize that history. but given this story and also the incident in 2011 where shots were fired into the white house that took four days for the shots to be noticed, there are questions about wast going on in the secret service. i want to ask you to give me your reaction to what a former director told us on cnn yesterday. a couple things that might be going on in the agency. one of them is perhaps the agency is spread too thin. they are trying to do a lot of things, they want to do cyber crimes, credit card fraud when their core mission is personal protection. is there something to that do you think in your estimation? >> i disagree. i think the protection of the president is number one priority. and man power, men and women of the secret service, are devoted to the protection of the president. i think that they can manage both. they can manage the investigation and the security of the president. think about it.

look at what's been going on for over 100 years. these incidents happen. you can't eliminate the risks to the president. all you can do is minimize ri risks. the secret service takes those steps to minimize those risks. you count up the number of incidents over those 100 years, that's a pretty good track record. there's one thing after another that the american people are seeing. it's cause for concern, but the president is smart enough to see it in the bigger picture. >> do you think the president and his family is safe? >> absolutely. >> given having served within the secret service for so long, thank you for your service. the man accused of going on a grizzlie attack beheading a former colleague, he's going to be formally charged today. we're going to speak with a spokesman about the disturbing case.

we know we're not the center of your life, but we'll do our best to help you connect to what is.

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trying to miead yoab millions ol well here's the uth:s the u: 46 will save lives. it will saveoney too. i'm b pack, and i'm fightingor prop 46 because i losty two children to preventableedical errors and i don't want anyone else to lose theirs.

the threprisions in 46 will reduce medical errors and protect patients. save money and save live yes on 46. into one you'll never forget. earn points for every flight and every hotel. expedia plus rewards. sglmpbls it it's time for the five things you need to know today. the man who broke into the white

house made it all the way nods the east room. that's a lot farther than the secret service ever told us before. thousands of protesters stood in hong kong despite leaders saying they will not give into their demands. they urged protesters to clear the streets saying they pose a risk o to safety. a patient who may have been exposed to ebola has been admitted to a hospital in dallas. test results from the cdc are expected back today. in virginia the arrest of a man expected in the abduction of hannah graham may have a break in the killing of morgan harrington. they found a forensic link between the two cases. afghanistan's new government signing a long, delayed security agreement with the united states at the embassy in californkabul. it allowed about 10,000 u.s. troops to remain in afghanistan after this year.

we are always updating the five things you need to know. go to our website for the latest. john berman, our thanks to you. if you're a "breaking bad" fan, this man needs no introduction. he has cerebral palsy. so now he's paying it forward and impacting your world. >> i'm going to be in the hospital. >> it's been years since shriner's hospital treated r.j. for cerebral palsy, but he still drops in. >> they put me in speech therapy. i owe shriners so much. i wouldn't be able to do what i do today if they weren't there. >> now the actor is paying it forward. >> i talk about setting an example because you are what's going to make a difference. the walk for love is a way to see that they are not alone and that they have a common goal.

a stable future for our children. especially children with disabilities. >> we wanted to get her involved as much as possible, as soon as, as young as possible. >> for other patients, shriners was key to building more than just physical ability. >> it wasn't just the care i received there, but the strength installed in me. >> sometimes people will say you can't do this. you'll never have a normal life. and that is a lie. >> how are you doing today? >> that's what truly matters when it comes to having a disability is not letting people define you. >> don't let people define you. so many great causes, don't get the attention and when someone like r.j. comes back, they helped me, you should help them. >>. we have been talking about this grizzlie attack, the man

accused of beheading his colleague at his former workplace. he's going to be facing charges today. we're going to speak with a police spokesman about this really disturbing case. how much money do you have in your pocket right now?

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trying to mislead you about the effects of proposition 46. well here's the truth: 46 will save lives. it will save money too. i'm bob pack, and i'm fighting for prop 46 because i lost my two children to preventable medical errors and i don't want anyone else to lose theirs. the three provisions in 46 will reduce medical errors and protect patients. save money and save lives. yes on 46.

a brand new cnn poll might raise some eyebrows and some hopes among democrats this morning. with five weeks to the midterms, 47% of likely voters told us they support democrats for congress, a narrow advantage over republicans, but that's a 6-point swing in a month. so what could be behind this shift and is this a key turning point in the battle for control of congress? we're going to ask cnn political commentator and strategist anna navorro and strategist paul begala, also a senior adviser to the super pac. are you ready five weeks out to declare victory for the democrats based on this poll? all of your problems are behind you.

this is a turning point. >> i'm about 42 beers away from doing something that stupid. it's within the margin of error. this thing will go back and forth. it's a little bit of good news as a democrat. what i found really interesting in this poll is this is likely voters, which is the sensible metric to look at. but when you look at registered voters, a far larger pool democrats are leading by 7. that means democrats have to get more people who are registered but unlikely to vote out to the polls. this is about moteivating the democratic base. >> enthusiasm for the election is somewhere about three levels below the basement. that will be difficult for both parties. anna, let me tell you what you're going to say. this is a generic test and doesn't tell us anything about control of the senate.

let me show you a number that's interesting. it's about independents. we talked about the swing. it's a bigger swing to independents where they now lead by 2 points. it's a big swing with democrats making up the big chunk and republicans losing a big chunk. why do you think independents may have been swayed over the last few weeks? >> first of all, you're right, you must have read the notes. here's the thing about this proverbial generic candidate. you can't get john generic on the ballot and you have to run on the political candidates that are on the ballot and all politics is local. october is a month for surprises, anything can happen. it's too early to predict anything. and really we know what the bulk of the races for the house and the senate are going to look like. there are maybe in both houses seven, eight, up to ten in the house races that are a coin toss and could go either way. that could depend on the

weather, on turnout, on who their voters hate more that day whether they hate democrats in congress more or hate republicans in congress more. whether they think obama is more of an, watch for a lot of scandals for congressmen to get caught kissing an assistant or kicking a dog or not paying a tax or something because that's what the month is for. it's full of surprises. let's wait for a few more weeks before we start talking about predictions. >> watch for a month of scandals. i hope john generic phrase is not a swipe at me. there's a phrase that i like to use in politics that i don't know if you have heard. it's called it's the economy stupid. and in this poll, it is interesting because we asked voter what is they care about. do they care about the economy or war against isis. and the overwhelming majority

said it is, in fact, the economy that's driving their vote for congress this time. is this surprising given the last four weeks have been so m dominated by news about foreign policy specifically the battle against isis? >> no, i think that's sensible. this is a congressional election. let me first divert to isis, which was at zero a month ago. i think the republicans have hurt themselves here. i think the president has helped himself. he went from admitting he doesn't have a plan, now he looks strong and decisive. i think the republicans in the eyes of those independents is where they have collapsed, they look like they are playing politics. . they should have rallied around the poresident. when you're seen as playing politics with national security, it cannot help. then you do have the economy where the pig problem for the

democrats is median family income has not moved. while it's true the economy is better, we're creating jobs, stock market up, the median family income has not moved. that's the most important driver. >> it's how things feel and things just don't feel good enough right now to so many americans. i want to shift gears and talk about the last republican nominee for president. he keeps doing interview after interview after interview where he doesn't seem to rule out completely the possibility that he might run for president again. the latest was "new york times" magazine. he's not saying he's running, but he refuses to give that blanket comprehensive statement where he says i'm not running. what's going on here? >> speculation good for everybody. i think he's said it pretty much in several ways that he's not running. i give it to mitt romney because he has completely rehabbed

himself. after the 2012 election, nobody wanted to hear about mitt romney. now he's the most sought after republican surrogate. everybody he's endorsed and everybody he supported has won their primary. he's in a wonderful spot right now where everybody loves him. he's sought after. everybody wants his advice and his donor base and his contacts. and everything he warned about is turning out to be true. so this is the best place mitt romney has been in in the last six years. i think he's going to stay there and i think he should bask in this glory. i doubt he will be running. >> he should retire now. anna, great to have you. >>. he can raise a lot of money still. >> great to have you with us. thanks so much. the suspect in that horrific oklahoma workplace attack who was accused of beheading a co-worker will be formally charged. should this be considered terrorism? stay with us.

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can i get my experian credit report...eport card" thing. like, the one the bank sees. sheesh, i feel like i'm being interrogated over here. she's onto us. dump her. (phone ringing) ...hello? oh, man. that never gets old. no it does not. not all credit report sites are equal. experian.com members get personalized help and an experian credit report. join now at experian.com with enrollment in experian credit tracker sm. accused of beheading a former coworker after trying to get people to convert to islam. prosecutors are expected to charge him today. let's the latest on the case with sergeant jeremy lewis with the oklahoma police department. thank you for joining us. where is he right now? why haven't there been in charges and what do you expect them to be when they come down

today? >> right now, he's currently at a medical center still in the hospital. as soon as he is released from the hospital, we will transport him to the cleveland county detention center. he will be booked in under murder in the first degree. e we presented charges to the district attorney yesterday. we had a meeting with him. he should be also holding a meeting today with the media to let them know what charges he's going to file. >> to be very clear, the delay in charging this man and arraigning him is about his medical issues, not about doubt about the case, is it? >> correct. obviously, he's confined to the hospital. we have officers there. he's not free to leave, but once he is free to leave, we're under a time crunch as to when the charges have to be presented. that's why we met with the district attorney yesterday. we believe he's close to being released so that's what the meeting was about. >> is this an act of terrorism?

will it be charged and treated as such? >> our standpoint on that is we are investigating the homicide portion of this. we found indicators of -- that there could possibly be links to all different -- there's numerous things that led us to contact the fbi. at that point, we turned that portion over to the fbi and are letting them handle that investigation. they have more resources, more expertise, more experience. we don't normally deal with those types of crimes. so that was the reason in bringing them in. that is ongoing. they have not finished up their investigation. so that's for them to determine. >> i want to get your sense of where the department is. you have two competing narratives. you have the suspect's mother, the defendant's mother who says my son was a good kid. i know what they are saying, but that's not my son, which

suggests not just denial but going down the road of maybe some type of derangement or mental illness versus being a lone wolf terrorist type. which one is more likely? >> i will tell you we had a very productive interview with the suspect. he was very forthcoming, very cooperative. as soon as we can release that, which some of that will come out in the affidavit, that will shed a little more light on to -- and hopefully help her also in understanding what went on that day and what her son did that day. >> do you think it's mental illness or driven by extremist islamic views? >> to be honest, i haven't been in on the investigation. there's a lot of information that i haven't even been given so it it wouldn't be fair for me to decide on that. that's something that the investigators are looking at. and again with the help of the fbi, every angle is being looked at.

>> first-degree murder charge is what you say you are looking for. remind people about the state of oklahoma. what's the harshest penalty? >> murder in the first degree does carry the death penalty in oklahoma. >> and do you know if prosecutors are going to ask for the death penalty? >> i do not know. i know that our district attorney will look at that very seriously. he is going over that. he had the information yesterday. he should release that today and e he will let everyone know what exactly he is doing today. >> can you at least tell us in what you understand from the record and the interview, did he know what he was doing? is this part of a plan that he had? was he planning other things like this? was he in communication with people who were helping him plan? >> unfortunately, i can't hurt

the investigation by going over things that were given in the interview. the charges haven't even been placed yet by the district attorney. i don't want to hinder any type of investigation. there's a lot of stuff that's in the interview that i wasn't given. i do know he was very more cooperative than we expected. a lot of things came out that we department expect. so he didn't really hold anything back. >> e we look forward to the disclosure of the charges and supporting affidavit so we can understand this better. . and the information about the fbi doing its own investigation, that would suggest that the department of justice may bring separate charges? that's your understanding as well? >> yes. >> sergeant lewis, thank you for giving us the latest. the best for the community. there's still very much in our thoughts after what you went through with the tornado there.

be well. >> thank you. >> a lot of hard stuff going on in the world, no question. more stuff coming up. a high school football team votes its in newest member and gives us a lesson in spor sportsmanship at the same time. i guarantee it is the good stuff. insurance companies are spending millions of dollars

trying to mislead you about the effects of proposition 46. well here's the truth: 46 will save lives. it will save money too. i'm bob pack, and i'm fighting for prop 46 because i lost my two children to preventable medical errors and i don't want anyone else to lose theirs. the three provisions in 46 will reduce medical errors and protect patients. save money and save lives. yes on 46. ♪ my kids love this song. >> it is time for the good

stuff. i'll stand for that. you u hear about the bad side of football with good reason. here's the good side. all craig ever wanted to do was play on his high school football team but he couldn't because he's autistic. that is until the team stepped up. on their own, they voted him an honorary member. >> i like it. >> he had the biggest smile i have ever seen in my life. so exciting. >> he's a great inspiration to our team. just great to have him around. >> one of the guys even gave craig his number. it was a big moment for craig and his team, but it was an even bigger moment for the rest of us because of the sportsmanship involved. listen to the team's coach. >> when they do things to make you proud and feel good about the big picture of why we do athletics, this is outstanding

stuff. >> john berman agrees. >> these kids aren't going to play in the nfl. they are doing this for the experience, for the comradery. this shows me they are learning the most important lessons of doing something like playing on a football team. it's so impressive. >> and the fact, too, that it wasn't an adult that had to teach them. this was them o on they're own organically. >> they want to be part of the team. >> the kid saying the happiest day of my life because he's giving something to someone. >> it was cool stuff. nice job. >> it was very goodish this good stuff. glad you enjoyed it. a lot of news this morning. time for the newsroom with carol costello. >> thanks so much, you guys have a great day. a great day. "newsroom" starts now. -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com is there a serial killer in virginia? >> i don't know if it's a cluster phenomena or a pattern

of a predator. >> breaking developments in the case of the missing student hannah graham. >> the state police announcing a significant break pursuing a new forensic link. >> we're live in charlottesville with the latest. the president is not as safe as we want and need him to be. >> security scare. >> omar gonzales didn't just make it over the white house fence, gonzales overpowered the guard, ran past the stair way leading up to the first family's residence, through the first floor and east room. >> this morning the head of the secret service gets grilled as new questions surround the agency. >> the agents i talk to says it's a miracle there's not been an assassination so far. >> let's talk, live in the cnn "newsroom." good morning, i'm carol costello, thank you for joining me. we