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tv   Wolf  CNN  October 31, 2014 10:00am-11:01am PDT

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to reapply. there's a group in washington that is called positive strides to help him raise his money for his surgery that he believes he needs. he's are poor, he has no degree. >> he has you and i've high highlighted it. sara ganim, thank you. "wolf" starts right now. plans are under way to send american military advisers into iraq's troubled anbar province. why anbar and why now? we'll delve into that. also, four days from a vital election here in the united states and president obama is in the state of rhode island. we're going to take a closer look at what role the president is playing and not playing in these key races. and back from captivity, the american jeffrey foul says why he took his bible with him to north korea and then left it
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behind in a hotel room. hello, i'm wolf blitzer. it's 1:00 p.m. in washington, 2:00 a.m. saturday in pyongyang, north korea. wherever you are watching from around the recalled would, thank you for joining us. this just coming in. we begin with new information in the battle against isis militants in iraq and we're getting word of a new pentagon plan to potentially send american military advisers into a very, very volatile region, the anbar province. leaders have been pleading for help to stop the relentless march of isis. our chief national security correspondent jim sciutto is with us and he's working his sources. what's going on? >> wolf, this would take them beyond the safe area of baghdad ander bi ander erbil to one of the most fierce fighting, including recently 400 sunni tribesmen challenging isis were killed in
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just two days this week. this would expand the train and assist mission beyond baghdad and and erbil of which isis controls now some 80%. the plan would still require the president's approval. senior u.s. military official tells me, quote, this will better enable iraqi security forces to protect themselves and to take the fight to isis, which is something that iraqi forces have not shown themselves capable of doing on their own. here's how the chairman of the joints chief of staff, general martin dempsey, described the need in anbar province. >> what i can say is that is why we need to expand the train, advise, and assist mission into the anbar province. but the precondition for that is that the government of iraq is willing to arm the tribes. we have positive indications that they are but we haven't begun to do it yet. >> i'm told that the exact
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locations that u.s. advisers would serve in anbar is not determined yet. there are cities and towns still under iraqi military control. this would, as in baghdad and erbil, put them at brigade headquarters. certainly, wolf, when you take them out of baghdad and erbil and put them into anbar which has seen the feareiercest fight >> anbar province, you remember what was happening in 2005, 2004, 2006, the battles were brutal in fallujah. it sounds to me like this is a bit of mission creep, something that the u.s. didn't want to see happen in iraq. what are your sources telling you? >> they are saying that these would not be combat forces. they will not be firing guns on the front line here. the fact is they will be closer to the danger here because of all that is going on in anbar province today. can you call it mission creep?
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listen, from the beginning here we have gone outside the original lines of what this mission was going to be. it started as a humanitarian mission to protect the yeah jid d yazidis and counselor personnel in baghdad and erbil but, of course, now we have a broader campaign, not just in iraq or syria. and certainly it's expanded from the original outlines. >> stand by. i want you to join us in the conversation. i want to bring in two experts who know this situation quite well. joining us from los angeles, cnn national security adviser bob baer. i recommend his book. also joining us, retired colonel james reece, form officer delta force officer. let me start with you, colonel
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reece. you hear that the u.s. is about to send military advisers, potentially, assuming the commander in chief signs off on this recommendation into anbar. what does it say to you? >> well, wolf, here's what it shows me. anbar province really is a huge province but what we're really talking about is the ufrates river valley. one thing that we have missed since we left iraq is the guys on the ground and what we have to do is get that shared reality and a foundational logic back. every commander out there, from a company commander wants to know what is ground truth out there and having our guys sit in baghdad or erbil does not give us ground truth out there. and until we can see what we have to do next, we've got to push guys out. it's advance force operations,
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reconnaissance to really find out what we need to bring to help them. >> what about you, bob baer? where you see what is going on, the u.s. military advisers, as jim pointed out basically in baghdad or erbil, they may be heading to anbar, places like fallujah and ramadi. what does that say to you? >> wolf, the problem is that they are going to be going with iraqi troops, essentially shia troops and it's going to look like we've taken sides with the shia. there's not much we can do about this. the major tribes in anbar around fallujah and ramadi do not trust the government in baghdad. so assigning our forces, our advisers to shia units going into those areas is either at the end of the day going to be counterproductive but there's not much that we can do because
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anbar completely falls to isis and they get to the point where they surround baghdad. we're just really trying to put our finger on the dike at this point. >> they are only 12 miles from the baghdad international airport. jim sciutto, we heard general dempsey saying that they are getting positive signals from the government in iraq but they have not signed off on it either. >> the iraqi security forces are challenging isis and, yes, they won a battle to the south of baghdad and at the same time, we saw what you were talking about yesterday, the sunni tribesmen getting slaughtered and the iraqi forces purely in defensive positions. the other progress that the pentagon is citing now, is they are open to the idea of arming these sunni militias, which would be a first step in creating a national guard. you bring the sunnis into the battle here but clearly to make that happen they think they may need this additional step of
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having advisers on the ground to help marshal it through. >> a lot of us remember it and colonel reese, you may remember it, too. the first sunni awakening when they were working with the u.s. and iraqi government is because they were getting paid lots of money. the cia was dumping millions and millions of dollars in their laps and they like the money. right now, here's the question. is the u.s. ready to start dumping millions and millions of dollars into the hands of the sunni tribesmen because you know isis, they have hundreds of millions of dollars. they are paying off the sunnis big time. >> wolf, i don't know if we're ready to do that but i think it's going to be the reality of what is going to come. i've been in and out of anbar province for the last 11 years. as a matter of fact, just three months ago. every time i went back out there to see the folks that i knew, you'd get, colonel, where did everybody go? where did everybody go?
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and that's mostly because of the economic aspects that we brought into anbar brought everything together, both the shia and sunnis out there came together. the beauty we have now is with the green berets will be heading out there. there are folks that have relationships with the former sunni tribal leaders out there and they'll have to restart those relationships and really start to bring the money back out to get the sunnis involved. >> where is that money going to come from? do you have any idea, bob baer? >> i'd like to say one thing. don't forget, in the awakening, it was the u.s. military that put this together. it was very successful. we turned back to al qaeda. when we left in 2011, we left these people alone with the promises unfulfilled. it became a political failure and the question now is, are the sunni going to trust us that we abandoned them in 2011? i think that's the big question. and in trying to turn this around, it's going to be very difficult for those advisers going out there right now. >> certainly is.
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all right. bob baer, colonel reese, thank you very much. jim sciutto, thanks for the news as well. the syrian regime getting help on the battlefield from afghan mercenaries supported by iran. we're going to show you what is inspiring them to join the fight for bashar al assad. that's coming up. and control of the united states senate here in washington coming down to a few very few races. the midterm elections are only four days away. we're going to highlight some of the high-stake contests. 3rd and 3. 58 seconds on the clock, what am i thinking about? foreign markets. asian debt that recognizes the shift in the global economy. you know, the kind that capitalizes on diversity across the credit spectrum and gets exposure to frontier and emerging markets. if you convert 4-quarter p/e of the s&p 500, its yield is doing a lot better... if you've had to become your own investment expert, maybe it's time for bny mellon, a different kind of wealth manager ...and black swans are unpredictable.
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it's shaping up to be a political cliffhanger with only four days to go before the midterm elections here in the united states. the stakes are high. control of the united states senate and the balance of power in washington. republicans need the majority in the u.s. senate. whether they can get there depends on where the races are too close to call. a key republican strategy is to capitalize on president obama's sagging approval rating. the president is in rhode island today. our chief congressional correspondent dana bash examines the obama factor and other races shaping the midterm races. >> reporter: from kentucky to kansas -- >> a vote for greg oraman is a vote for president obama. >> reporter: to colorado. >> he's voted 99% of the time with president obama. >> reporter: across the country,
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republicans are trying to take control of the senate by tieing democrats to an unpopular president. >> pleasure to meet you. >> reporter: new hampshire new hampshire's candidate barely speaks a sentence without saying that jeanne shaheen votes with the president 99% of the time. >> all of his policies are on the ballot. i agree with him. >> reporter: i bet you do. >> yeah, i absolutely do. >> reporter: shaheen gives the quintessential democratic response. >> this race is not between the president and scott brown. this race is between me and scott brown. >> reporter: still, even democratic strategists admit obama's negatives help make neck in neck, one of nearly a dozen dramatic too-close-to-call contests, north carolina, georgia, kentucky, louisiana, arkansas, kansas, iowa, colorado, alaska. to make sure these races are
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much tighter than president obama, they are about failures in general, washington not doing its job. a big reason incumbents in both parties are getting pummeled, from democratic kay hagan in north carolina to mitch mcconnell. >> he's missed every committee meeting for the last five years. >> reporter: and they say that they are far from sensibilities, like republican joni ernst in iowa. >> i remain tied to my roots in iowa. >> reporter: democrats are trying to turn up voters in all of these critical contests, especially single women. it's why bruce braley paints his gop opponent as too extreme. >> she introduced a constitutional amendment in the iowa senate to ban portions. >> reporter: voters are so disgusted with washington, the ultimate weapon is trashing both
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parties. it helps independent greg orman tie up the race against a republican. >> both mitch mcconnell and harry reid have been partisan for far too long. >> reporter: it's hard for any candidate to break through. and they have turned to song. ♪ orz. >> i don't know if that's going to help him in south dakota. >> probably not. >> dana is with us right now. the money being spent is enormous right now, isn't it? >> that's right. the estimate is 4 billion. let's put this into perspective. the national retail association says that consumers will spend
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7. -- 7 1/2, $7.4 billion on halloween alone. that gives it a perspective. we get costumes, candy, what are voters going to get? and what are these candidates going to get? four days out and still neck in neck with these races. they are not getting a lot of bang for their buck. >> we'll see what happens. you'll be with us throughout the night. thank you for that report, dana. just ahead, we'll look at the very close races that could decide who controls the united states senate. and a third grader, get this, gets fed up with the negative campaign ads. her advice to the candidates. that's when we come back. reat if hiring plumbers, carpenters and even piano tuners were just as simple? thanks to angie's list, now it is. we've made hiring anyone from a handyman to a dog walker as simple as a few clicks. buy their services directly at angieslist.com no more calling around. no more hassles. start shopping from a list of top-rated providers today.
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election day here in the united states only four days away and now the balance of power in the united states senate is clearly at stake. as we mentioned, republicans need just a net gain of six seats to get a majority and three of those seats are considered pretty likely wins. so that would leave three competitive races for the gop to win, take control of the u.s. senate. they already have control of the house of representatives. five of the closest contests are in colorado, georgia, iowa, kansas and north carolina. it looks like the fight for the control of the senate could go down to the wire on tuesday. let's take a closer look at some of those close races right now, races that will determine the ball of power in washington. gloria borger and ron brown stein is joining us. one of the states, georgia, the most recent orc poll shows
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michelle nunn slightly ahead of republican david perdue 47 to 44%. ron, this could clearly end up in a run-off. they would have to end up in a runoff. >> wolf, the way i understand the big picture is that democrats are defending seven seats in states that have voted for mitt romney in 2012. all seven of those are vulnerable to a significant step. democrats have the best chance. and then you have four democratic-held seats that voted for obama. colorado, new hampshire, iowa, michigan. the first three of those are vulnerable. democrats, if they lose anything in that second tier, the only way they hold the senate is by taking some of the currently republican-held seats in red states that voted against obama that he is georgia, kansas and
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to some extent, kentucky. georgia is difficult for democrats. the approval rating for president obama is under 30%. david perdue has some vulnerabilities that has kept michelle nunn in the game. >> because i think you agree, gloria, the democrats are in trouble right now. >> oh, yeah. >> they could easily lose control of the united states senate? >> yeah. and i think you'd have to say the odds are right now that they would lose control of the senate. one of the races that we're talking about that the democrats thought they would have sort of si udall in colorado. colorado is a state that has been trending blue. you can see our poll numbers there. colorado is a state that's been trending blue and it's a state that a democrat would like to
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have as blue in 2016. what mark udall decided to do is use the war on women issue. obviously democrats have a great advantage when it comes to women voters. cory gardener has been running more than half of their ads and women. it has backfired with women. they have actually lost some women supporters and they also have a big question about a mail-in ballot. everybody in the state of colorado can mail in their ballot and we don't know how that's going to work. i was on the campus in boulder and people were saying, where do you get stamps? they are not quite used to mail-in stamps. >> stale mail. >> that's right. and president obama is in the 38%, 39% range. >> ron, some of the campaign ads have gotten pretty dirty.
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an 8-year-old girl in north carolina had some advice for the candidates there. her advice, play nice. listen to this from this third grader. >> i thought about that i couldn't really vote because they were saying bad things about each other. so i can't really vote and you don't know what they are really like. >> she read a letter to the north carolina candidates and said, why aren't you talking about ways that you will help us? all i hear is your ads where you say mean things about each other. hey, she's pretty smart, this little girl. >> from the mouth of babes. look, the reality is that in modern politics, given the negative impression that most people have from the outcome that it produces, negative messages are most likely to be believed than positive ones. there's a larger point here
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about why we're seeing so much negative advertising and that's because the congressional elections are being fundamentalized into kwas see parliamentary. this is not north carolina or jarge yeah. it's about who is the majority in the u.s. senate and the reality is, in modern politics, the name on the back of the jersey, the individual candidate matters less than the color on the front of the jersey. the party they stand for in most cases, there is always exceptions but each party is having a hard time winning senate seats in a state that usually votes for the president. democrats have 43 of their 52 senate seats. 22 states voted against them. after this election, wolf, republicans could have 40 of those 44 senate seats. that's the reality and that's why you're seeing so much money and so much of these negative ads as well. >> i think both parties are nationalizing this election,
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wolf. republicans are saying that president obama is unpopular and let's tie every democrat to that. democrats are nationalizing the election as well as what ron is pointing out, women's issues, trying to expand the gender gap to their advantage, middle-class issues. one thing the democrats are not doing which i argue they could be doing is to talk about the economy but they are not doing that because people are not feeling whatever recovery we're having and they are afraid of a backlash on that. >> the richest people are feeling it. middle class, maybe not so much. >> yep. >> thanks kbloer yeah and ron. we'll have a lot to talk about on tuesday as these elections get going. afghan recruits leaving the taliban ranks to join the war in syria. their motive is money and hatred for america. cnn tracks down the recruits in afghanistan. we have an exclusive report. stay with us. ask me what i'm wearing, i tell them aveeno®.
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past few days. meantime, iraqi kurdish fighters are starting to join the forces in kobani. about a dozen have arrived so far but 150 more are expected soon, we're told. meanwhile, the france president hollande said isis and the syria president bashar al assad is waging his own war against syrian rebels and the isis forces in this country but he's not relying solely on his own military forces. merconaries from afghanistan are coming to his aid and they are getting paid for their work but the money isn't the only motive, we're told. cnn's nick paton walsh has this exclusive report. >> reporter: the regime is fast advancing around aleppo trying to encircle rebels there. this building was blown up in
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that fight. and now rebels dig. legend may be, as this rescue operations different. they know the mouth they can just see belongs to a regime fighter. where are your friends, they ask him? they want hem alive. asking, is he from yemen? no. in fact, this is something they just haven't encountered before. bandaged up, he can't speak their arabic. that's because he's afghan. valuable enough to keep, they feed him and film this footage, which we can't verify. he says the iranians pay people like me to come here and fight. i am from afghanistan and an immigrant in iran.
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the iranians brought us here to fight the shrine. i don't want to fight next. he was paid about $500 a month to fight. it is a long journey between two lands brutalized by war but in eastern afghanistan, we found the other end of this story. in this tiny village, men who used to fight with the taliban are off to fight for the syrian regime. they come home briefly after training in iran to say good-bye to their families and ask their fathers if they can go to war. they think they can fight america in syria. we want to go there for two reasons, he says. one is to fight against those who are being assisted by americans in syria and, secondly, because iran pays us to fight in syria. before this, we used to be part of the taliban in afghanistan but after our disagreements caused tensions among us, we left the taliban and went to iran. they say they were driven to a base, blindfolded for 15 days
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training with infantry weapons and will be paid into these iranian banks. they know little about syria's war. for now, we don't have a lot of information about isis, he says. but if we see them in syria, we'll sit with them, talk to them and if our thoughts are similar, we could become friends. america's olden enemy fighting the war. nick paton walsh, cnn, southern turkey. >> let's thank nick paton walsh for underscoring the very close collaboration between the iranian government and syrian government of bashar al assad. thanks to nick for that report. coming up, he was confined in north korea for nearly six months. now he's speaking to the news media about the decision that led to his arrest.
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a judge in the state of maine today eased restrictions on the nurse who defied the ebola quarantine. the judge ruled that health officials failed to prove the need for an order quarantining the nurse kaci hickox. the judge did order hickox to direct active monitoring to coordinate her travel with public health officials and to notify health officials if she develops any symptoms of ebola. the attorney for hickox calls the decision a victory. we'll have more on the story, obviously, throughout the day on cnn. other news we're following, these are decidedly much better days for jeffrey fowle. he was released after spending six months in a north korean prison for simply leaving a bible at a restaurant in a
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nightclub. he has his life back and he's speaking to our own randi kaye who is joining us. how did the interview go? what did you learn? >> reporter: wolf, it went very well. we sat down with jeffrey fowle for about an hour or so. a lot of people are concerned about kenneth bae and matthew miller, the other two americans who are being held there. he told me he has not seen them and never saw them in the six months he was there. he could not tell us anything about them but prays for them every day. he's a religious man which is why he brought a bible with him to north korea even though it's considered a crime in north korea. during our interview, we talked about that bible and we talked about his arrest. listen to this. >> it was nerve-wracking, to be sure. i went with the guys and they showed me the bible and they said, is this your bible? i said yes.
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they put me in a black four-door said van and we went to pyongyang and that's where i spent the first three weeks of my detention. >> were you interrogated or questioned? >> yes. >> what did they ask you? >> mainly events leading to my decision to bring the bible, how i actually did it, the mechanics of it, who did i talk to before the trip? what motivated me to do this, on and on, about 100 pages worth of writing e. plaining these various things and extensive investigation process. >> what did they tell you exactly as to why you were being arrested? >> actually, they didn't say anything at first. they just wanted to know about the bible. >> reporter: where did you leave the bible, exactly? >> at the end of the outing there, i went to the restroom and i thought that might be a good place to leave the bible as opposed to the hotel because i
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figured there might be fewer security people there. once i saw the restroom, i thought that would be a good place to do it. >> had you brought it with you? >> yes, i had it in my coat. >> why did you leave it behind? >> i heard about the persecution of the christians. it was not a church sponsored thing. it was my only personal mission trip. >> reporter: so you left it behind hoping that somebody would find it? >> right. >> reporter: did you know that this was a crime in north korea? >> i knew it was not welcome. the people that were caught, especially the locals, would be severe persecution and sometimes pay the ultimate price. >> reporter: were you afraid carrying it around? >> i was a little nervous. >> randi, why does he think he was released as opposed to the two other americans, matthew miller and kenneth bae? >> reporter: i asked him that,
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wolf. it turns out his wife tonya is russian and he thinks that has something to do with it, since north korea and russia has close relations. she wrote a letter asking her husband to be released and got a response, not from vladimir putin, saying that there was nothing they could do to help. also, he confessed right away, right off the bat, about 100 pages he wrote while being interrogated and questioned about this. the fact that he came forward and was straight right away might have helped. >> interesting stuff. i know we'll have more on this interview coming up in "the situation room" as well as on "ac 360." randi, thanks for doing it. what democratic candidates are doing to separate themselves from president obama only four days before the u.s. election day. and their strategies to try to keep control of the senate. that's next. [ female announcer ] we love our smartphones. and now telcos using hp big data solutions are feeling the love, too.
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it's crunch time for the u.s. congressional and gubernatorial candidates trying to do everything they can to win over voters before election day, only four days away. some of their strategies are generating lots and lots of talk. let's discuss what's going on. joining us, cnn political commentator, democratic strategist stephanie cutter and political commentator republican strategist kevin madden. thanks for joining us. let me start by playing a little
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clip. this is the president of the united states talking about the several key battleground states because he's got bad approval numbers there. listen to what he said. >> i'm not on the ballot this fall. michelle's pretty happy about that. but make no mistake, these policies are on the ballot. every single one of them. >> all right. stephanie, you know the republicans pounced on that and going after these democratic senators trying to get re-elected, they are trying to say, look, these guys voted with the president 99% of the time, the policies are still on the ballot. >> well, it might not have been the most artful way to say it but he's right in the respect that some of the senate races i'm working on, there's a candidate that opposes the federal minimum wage outright and another candidate favors increasing it. and that's the same policy that the president has been fighting for. so those, in terms of the direction of the country, how to
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grow the economy, how to create jobs, those policies are on >> his policies on the ballot but a lot of republicans say that will help the republicans when they go into these election booths on tuesday. >> that's right. i think in certain respects the president screwed up here and told the truth and republicans couldn't be happier about it. we are trying to nationalize this. we are trying to make this a referendum. we believe and i think what the polls bear out are very unpopular policies in many of these states and also very unpopular president and i think that's really having a very negative effect on so many democratic candidates across the country right now. >> what's so awkward is so many democratic candidates are in trouble and they are trying to distance themselves as much as they can from the president of the united states. >> let's talk about some of the facts here. some of these candidates who are in very tough races would be in tough races regardless of the president. you are talking about alaska and arkansas and louisiana.
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that is just the case. that's republican turf. no matter who is the president. the second thing is i do think it's a problem for these democrats to be running ing nin from the president. i disagree what kevin said that policies are unpopular. these policies raising minimum wage and women earning the same as men and growing the economy from middle out are very popular policies not just for democrats but for many swing voters and republicans too. so because they are trying to distance themselves from the president, they're not able to talk about all of the things that they worked on over the last six years. >> also, so many of these candidates in blue states, blue states that president obama won in 2012, they are also struggling in this campaign. but if you remember, in many of these races, what's been litigated are issues like obamacare which is not popular. i think that's been to the advantage of republicans is making the case that they're going to go and be the party of reform and party of better ideas and also the right track/wrong track is affecting many people and republicans are making the case they have a better
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direction. >> democratic senator mary landrieu is causing a buzz over the last few hours. she's in trouble in louisiana. she has a stiff race and trying to get herself re-elected. she said this. i'll play the clip and then we'll discuss. >> to be very, very honest with you, the south is not always the friendliest place for african-americans. it's been a difficult time for the president to present himself in a very positive light as a leader. >> speaking with chuck todd of nbc news. the republican governor bobby jindal of louisiana said her remarks were remarkably decisive. what do you think of her remarks? >> the clip before that is her talking about the reason the president was unpopular in louisiana and it was based on policy. when he shut down offshore drilling. that was the bulk of her remarks. >> she brought the issue of race in. >> i think that it probably was
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her speaking the truth. african-americans have had it harder in the south. that's the american history. >> this is crunch time in these campaigns and it's a terrible thing to say because it doesn't go to the ideological or party identification argument. she made a remark about people in louisiana saying that people in louisiana were potentially viewing the president's performance through an ethic lens and it's a mistake and she'll pay a price for it. >> we'll have a lot to discuss as we get closer to tuesday and wednesday we'll assess what happened on tuesday. all right. thanks very much. tuesday night is election night here in america. cnn's special coverage will start 5:00 p.m. eastern. you won't want to miss it. still to come, anthony bourdain uncovered many things uniquel l iranian but he learned things about the culture in iran that
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hit much closer to home. stay with us. their schools, their buildings, their offices. we're a leading global insurance company based right here in america. for everything from loss prevention to cybersecurity. we're here to stand behind our commitments that we've made to our clients, our customers. we're aig. we're here to help take on the risk... for people, for companies, and the world. to help you realize a better tomorrow.
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into one you'll never forget. earn triple points when you book with the expedia app. expedia plus rewards. kids hanging out in their muscle cars eating pizza. part of the fabric of america, right? maybe. i'm about to show you that it's also going on some place else, specifically in iran. recently our own anthony bourdain, host of "parts unknown" traveled to iran and found cultural norms that are
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very, very familiar. watch this. ♪ >> reporter: last day in iran. night falls and the kids like kids anywhere get in their rides and head for somewhere they can hang out. a lot of american classics here. where do you get them? >> old people. >> reporter: right. and then fix them up? >> yeah. >> reporter: mustang? camaro. firebird? >> pontiac. >> reporter: that's a perfect l.a. car right there. is this a car club or just people come? >> we hang out this way with our
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friends. >> reporter: one last thing everyone has been telling me i have to try. iranian takeout pizza. it comes with ketchup. >> what do you think about iranian pizza? >> reporter: not bad. we don't put ketchup on pizza though. >> i love ketchup. >> reporter: spent my youth doing this. hanging in a parking lot. >> i love ketchup too but on french fries and not necessarily on pizza. it looked pretty good actually. see what else anthony bourdain uncovered in his look at the people, culture of iran, the food of course. "parts unknown" airs sunday night 9:00 p.m. eastern only
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here on cnn. that's it for me. thanks for watching. i'll be back 5:00 p.m. eastern in "the situation room." we'll have a lot more on what's going on in the war against isis. the state department deputy spokesman is among our guest. for international viewers, a quick check of headlines is next. for viewers in north america, "newsroom" with brooke baldwin starts right now. >> all right, wolf blitzer. thank you so much. i'm brooke baldwin. happy friday to you and my goodness, finally we begin with this wonderful news for the people of pennsylvania. this 48-day nightmare is over for folks in northeast pennsylvania who no longer fear the man described as peer evil is lurking in the woods out of their homes. eric matthew frein, this survivsu survivoralist. he has wounds on his