next with an annual budget of $6 billion, which is what mars estimates will be the cost of sending just four people to mars. thanks for being a part of our program this week. i'll seal you next week. good morning. it's time for reliable sources. first this morning dueling answer toss a very important question. did bill o'reilly embellish his war stories from 1982 falklands war. he's the biggest star on cable news. in the 1980s, a young correspondent for fox news. here he is in el salvador covering the war there. he covered from argentina and said he did not exaggerate anything about his experience there. he is furious anybody is scrutinizing his record. but this weekend we have interviewed six other people who were working for cbs in

argentina at this time. all of them are refuting o'reilly's version of the events. one will join me live in a moment. first let me back up and tell you why this is a big story. here is the headline that started all of it. it came out thursday evening and said bill o'reilly has its own brian williams problem, that's what the left leaning magazine mother jones said. brian williams has been suspended because of misstatements about iraq war mission amid strut any of other past claims. obviously different kinds of television stars. o'reilly's main selling point is his point of view. he calls himself a journalist and correspondent so his journalistic credibility matters. mother jones asserted o'reilly has repeatedly in books, on his show repeatedly exaggerated his war zone experience. this is an example of one episode of his show notice how he links argentina and falklands. >> i was in a situation one time

in a war zone in argentina in the falklands. >> let's pause there. hear what he said there. he said war zone using his time in argentina as credential. the actual battles in the falklands war, everyone agrees were more than 1,000 miles from argentina. o'reilly was in buenos aires. he conflated two places, mainland and falklandides in his book. i reported on the ground from el salvador to falklands. after mother jones pointed this out, o'reilly denied saying he was on the falkland islands. a series of news outlets then friday on his own show. he focused on a co-author of the mother jones report who was a paid contributor to fox news. he's now a paid contributor to msnbc. that leaves some people wondering if this is all about television news rivalries. o'reilly says he's just out to get fox news.

>> this man, 56-year-old david corn works for far left mag "mother jones" smeared me your humble correspondent, yesterday saying i fabricated mother jones considered bottom running of journalism. >> i'm not sure he's talking about when he says bottom running of journalism but corn says he's trying to distract. most has been about whether he misstated where he was in the war. play the clip again, where o'reilly talked about his photographer being injured. >> i was in a situation one time in a war zone in argentina in the falklands where my photographer got rundown and hit his head and was bleeding on the ear from the concrete. i had to make a decision. i dragged him off.

at the same time i'm looking around but at the same time i knew i had to get him out of there. >> he's describing a right lanely after they surrendered to british. here is footage. it was hairy, it was scary. we can find no evidence anyone from cbs was injured. to the contrary six other people who were there working for cbs said they were unaware of any injuries. they also say they are unaware of any civilians being killed in the riot. o'reilly repeatedly claimed during the years people were killed. none of them agreed it was a combat situation or war zone. some said events in ferguson were more serious and more severe. jim forest who worked for o'reilly as a sound engineer on the day of the riot told me quote, there were certainly no dead people. had there been dead people they would have sent more camera crews. unforth namie other staffers are

insisting on anonymity because they work in the industry or they don't want to be criticized by bill o'reilly. eric a correspondent with cbs news 26 years, he and o'reilly both there during the war, he joins me. thank you for being here. >> yes, good morning. >> let me cut right to it is bill o'reilly lying when he describes this combat situation? >> well i think what he's doing is trying to build it up into a more frightening and deadly situation than it was. it wasn't a combat situation by any sense of the word that i know. there were no people killed. he said he called troops fire into the crowd. i never saw that. i don't know anybody who did. i was there on the scene. what's interesting in not only did i not hear any shots, i didn't see any ambulances i didn't see any tanks.

i don't see any armored cars things you would expect to see if someone was shot. >> i tried on thursday to reach bill o'reilly asked him for a an interview. they declined. i asked about these allegations we're describing here from staffers so far they have not responded to those allegations. i also want to mention you said yesterday o'reilly's team reached on the to you, asked you to go on the o'reilly factor you said no. why is that? >> i don't want to turn this into an argument on his turf over what he did that night. i'm simply stating the facts. the facts speak for himself. if he has a sfons what the facts are, that's fine. let him lay it out. i'm not going to argue about it. >> i do want to play -- >> the one thing i am going to argue about -- the one thing i am going to argue about, the thing that got me talking about this in one of those tapes, you

haven't played it. >> actually i think i know what one you're referring to let me play sound bites, the ones you're referring to. this is from the hamptons in 2009. >> when the argentine surrendered to the british, there were riots in the streets of buenos aires, i write about this in my novel "those who trespass." i was out there by myself because other cbs news correspondents were hiding in the hotel. you've got to get out and cover the story, which i did. >> so eric, that was the first time i want to have you react to. he said nobody was out there but you were a cbs correspondent who was out there. >> what he just said was a fabrication, a lie. there were five cbs correspondents including him, assigned to the bureau. they were under the direction of larry doyle, one of our very first field producers. you marines out there will understand what i was saying he was in the marines in vietnam before he went to cbs.

he's a very skilled operator in combat and dangerous situations. he sent all five of the correspondents and all 10 or 12 of the camera crew members out bought street. nobody stayed in their hotel room because they were afraid. we were all working and we saw what looked -- what was a moderate size riot. it was a couple thousand people attacking casa rose ada, waving their arms chanting and singing songs. nobody attacked the soldiers. nobody attacked the police. there was nobody lying on the ground when it was over that i saw. at any rate all cbs people did their jobs covered the demonstration, brought their video back to be used in a story that night. that was when o'reilly bucked at the idea turning his tape shot

by his camera man over to the unit that was putting together the story. when doyle said, bob schieffer will do the story tonight and we'll use the video your crew shot. he said i didn't come down here -- this is according to larry doyle who remembers it well. o'reilly looked at him and said i didn't come down here to shoot video so this old man can use it in his story. larry doyle said what old man are you talking about? o'reilly said schieffer. well they took wrestled the tape from him and used it in the schieffer piece. doyle turned to o'reilly and said i think you better leave. you don't belong here. doyle took steps to send o'reilly out of banefof buenos aires to send him home out of here. o'reilly said you can't send me out of here. he said yes i can. maybe it's the last time

o'reilly has been beaten down in a shouting contest but larry doyle did it. i should also say larry doyle was one of those people who are extremely concerned about the safety of the personnel who are going out on the street during a riot situation. he instructed all the camera crews, do not turn on your lights during the midst of this riot because lights will draw a crowd, cause people to throw rocks at you. they may get somebody hurt. shoot only things that can be shot in the dark. o'reilly ordered the camera man he was working with to turn on his lights in violation of that instruction. when doyle found out about that he was extremely upset. i think the camera man was upset, too, that he had been exposed to danger. now, i'll be more than happy to talk about his claim that there were people killed if you wan to hear my view -- my take on it. >> what i want to get to is the

facts that night. doyle declined to speak on the record today. one of the things amid this controversy from 2011 on stage interview with o'reilly and marvin. take a look. >> got a call from bureau chief to say o'reilly get down there. great. i get down got my two crews. i look around. where are the other cbs correspondents? i don't see anybody. maybe they are busy maybe on the other side of casa rose ada. i don't know where they are. all hell breaks loose. people start and they shoot them down in the streets. it's not rubber bullets or gas. people are dying. i get my crew grab my crew away, down a side street. we're shooting this stuff. it's unbelievable. people falling. bing bing bing. so this runs united states down the street i'm there.

a photographer guess trampled. he's on the ground. i grab him and the camera and drag him into a doorway. the so this comes up and he's standing maybe 10 feet away got the m-16 pointed at my head. i thought it was over. i said -- [ speaking foreign language ] it means please don't shoot, journalist. the guy was 18 19 years old. he didn't shoot. >> we've had no luck corroborating this so far. can you help us with that? >> i didn't see that happen. i didn't see anything like that happen. i don't know of any american foreign correspondent who had a weapon pointed at him. but the important thing is i didn't hear any gunfire. not only did i not hear any gunfire, as i say, i didn't hear any sirens. i came to argentina from years

of experience in washington covering anti-war demonstrations against vietnam war in washington. i saw more violence in anti-war demonstrations in d.c. than i saw in argentina that night. it was over quickly. it was over within two hours. the people did not try to storm the casa rosada. they were they would back by troops standing there. you can see them in the video. they did not tangle with those troops. they did not try to crash into the building. it was really a fairly minor incident. it did result in the downfall of that government but it was ready to go anyway. by the way -- >> let me share with you -- let me share one more detail. what o'reilly is citing this morning, i was e-mailed by fox right before i went on the air, is a "new york times" story from the moment. it says one policeman pulled a pistol fire five shots over the heads of demonstrators.

in that "new york times" story they are describing gunfire happening. >> over the head of -- no i didn't hear that firing but i read that story the next day. you will notice the phrase as you say state over the head. that's not firing at people and having them fall dead to the ground. >> fundamentally what you're saying about o'reilly saying people dying -- i don't want to make this into he said he said. people say you have a vendetta against o'reilly described him as a clown on facebook. is this about personal dispute? >> no. he started personal dispute saying we were all hiding in our hotel rooms. >> that sure doesn't sound like anybody was hiding in hotel rooms that not. >> i have this personal dispute with him. he's not a real reporter. he was not in a combat zone that

night. this was not a combat zone. not even close. >> eric stay with me. i appreciate you being here this morning. let me just reiterate for the audience we have repeatedly asked for interview with o'reilly. i would love to talk with him about this but was turned down on friday. the question now, what does this mean? does it matter for o'reilly and fox? we'll address that in a moment. plus the question dominating tv does obama love american? is he christian? >> after rudy giuliani reporters are asking those questions. should they? is it fair? we'll tackle that coming up.

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at 1,500 hotels. book now at choicehotels.com . welcome back. let's get some more perspective on this o'reilly situation. i'm not sure we can call it a scandal but definitely a controversy. let's talk about whether it is or is not related to brian williams and nbc. one of the best media observers around jeff greenfield former correspondent and analyst for abc, cbs and cnn. jeff thanks for joining me. >> nice to be here. >> was "mother jones" fair to call this brian williams problem for bill o'reilly. >> if brian williams has been piping these stories embellishing increasing his heroism or danger than it is similar. what's different so far is a, brian williams never threw up a defense, nor did nbc. it was striking how quickly it all unraveled.

what i think makes it different this is inherently political in one sense. >> everything with fox is political. >> in terms of fox's view everybody else on the elite liberal media side and we're telling you the truth. to detractors it's a conservative outlet in the guise of a news organization. as long as fox and o'reilly can make this here are cbs people greed eating lefties attacking us red meat conservatives. the danger for him, when kids are playing baseball and they get into a fight and one guy says yeah we were out, if all these people photographers and sound people not correspondents say this guy is making this stuff up he has a credibility problem. does he really have a brian williams problem that his job is threatened given the nature of fox and its combative nature i'm

dubious about that. >> speaking on news hour people like me splitting hairs. people trying to split hairs and take him down the way brian williams was taken down. is there any legitimacy to that argument? >> if all they were arguing about was that he said i covered falklands, in buenos aires, if it expands -- >> whether people were killed. >> and particularly was everybody else in hiding but him? that makes him sound like the one hero among cowards. >> the reason bob schieffer won't return my e-mails about this right? >> if he was, in effect exaggerating i saved the life of this cameraman by dragging hem out of the line of fire that's more like brian williams than hair splitting, falklands, buenos aires. that's where the rule comes in if guys working with him are all

saying this didn't happen then he falls on the position but you're all a bunch of mainstream liberal lefty types. as well as david corn and mother jones and msnbc, he could make that argument much more effectively than his former operatives at cbs. >> a washington examiner pointed on twitter o'reilly bring out a great gift. he's the underdog against the establishment. in some ways that's been his brand two decades on fox news. >> he has done it brilliantly. >> in some ways he can dismiss whatever the truth is and simply say this is all political. on friday he called me a far left zealot. not the first time probably won't be the last time. he called me that. for him it's all political. for me it's journalistic. for him it's political. it's hard for him to believe me because it's all political. >> one of the way the right in america and academic left they think truth is a social construct. power relationships and moss i was. i'm so old school. i actually believe the issue was

where was he? did he save the cameraman's life? was there gunfire? was he in danger or not? >> you're making me feel old school too. >> this is like the king say, please go back. everything constructed and fox news is at the center of because of its unique nature and highly successful nature it becomes a political argument. i'm sorry, it's not a political argument. >> what i would say, let's apply same critical thinking skills we apply to everything else in media and we applied to brian williams and apply it to bill o'reilly as well. no different. >> it's in variable on both sides as soon as somebody mass credible accusation against a figure on one side people say, what about the other guy. what about what happened here? >> that's the most boring game in politics but it happens ought time. >> that's why i'm headed for shady acres. i think the question is was he exaggerating his heroism? was he making stuff up? was he inflating his role?

unfairly denigrate correspondents or not? that's the issue. it will never be in this context. >> we have sound bite from o'reilly from a few minutes ago. are you still with us in sarasota? >> sure ready to go. >> i want to give you a chance to respond because he has been personally attacking you. let me play the sound bite from bill o'reilly here. >> now you have said in describing this episode in buenos aires your photographer was rundown, hit in the head. he was bleeding the army was chasing you guys. he said i never heard of any injury to the photographer? >> i don't think he was there. i don't think he knows what happened. i'll tell you why. i left the hotel, engberg was still in the hotel. i came back with video for the rather broadcast for that night. he was in the hotel. if he was in the plaza dell mayo where was the video. why did i have to run it up and

send it to the feed point in new york. i don't know if he was there. i'd like everybody to ask him, were you there? because his reputation his nickname was room service eric. >> that is the most absurd thing -- >> were you there? >> that is the most absurd thing i've ever heard. you can ask anybody at cbs. not only those there in buenos aires but those who worked with me over the years. i never ordered room service during a riot in my life. now, i didn't have much to do with him while i was in buenos aires because he was the rookie. he had just arrived. but yes, i was on the street. yes, i was filming with a camera crew. there were five camera crews out there. for him to say na why wasn't i out there in the street i was with a camera crew that probably had gotten its job done before

he did because he was busy shooting standups of himself standing in front of the crowd so you couldn't see the riot. i screened that tape. it was ridiculous how he was shooting a standup of himself marking himself as i told the people around me as a real local news guy. >> we haven't seen the tapes but i appreciate you sharing your response. i've got to tell you this eric i spoke to jim forrest, a sound engineer that day. he said when he heard that 2011 tape from o'reilly was describing people dying in the streets, he thought, huh? i don't recall that. he reached out to him and said that didn't happen. there's obviously more to come on this. eric i appreciate you being here and staying with us. thank you. >> okay. >> i should ask you one more question jeff which is is anything going to happen? whether o'reilly has been exaggerating or not, do you see fox news taking action here. >> i love this show and i love you.

how many times have i told you if i could see the future i would buy powerball ticket and buy an island. what you can say is the dimensions are such the only way fox would actually take action was if the errors were so egregious. again, back to my rule if people on fox's side of the political aisle started calling bovine excrement on o'reilly then he'd have a problem. the whole nature of the last 20 years of fox's rise suggests their moto particular when it comes to protecting their own, never apologize and never explain. except for no-go muslim zone i can't remember fox saying we really screwed this up. i think just on the basis of what we think we know it would take an awful lot, incoming friendly fire for o'reilly to really be in trouble. but that's a guess, brian. >> this is insightful. thank you for being here. interesting, one connection between this case facebook driving this. george lewis, veteran

correspondents waik in on facebook saying they support eric engberg's events and other cbs staffers and refuting o'reilly's. that's something we'll be looking at. we'll have a story on cnn.com with more events of the other staffers. when we come back a former nbc anchor she knows what it's like to be lester holt. why you won't be seeing him tonight on "nbc nightly news." more television news drama when we come back. i am totally blind. and sometimes i struggle to sleep at night, and stay awake during the day. this is called non-24, a circadian rhythm disorder that affects up to 70 percent of people who are totally blind. talk to your doctor about your symptoms and learn more by calling 844-824-2424.

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something different about nbc last night. you did not see this man, lester holt on "nbc nightly news." you won't see him tonight either because he's taking a much deserved vacation from his usual weekend jobs now that he's anchoring weekday "nightly news" filling in for suspended brian williams. holt will be back tomorrow night. he's had a lot of pressure on his shoulder.

every since he took over from william two weeks ago and to nbc's delight he's holding his own in the ratings. you'll see his last week here and holt's first week. this is poll including a question stark divide among viewers, 52% saying nbc should allow williams back in the anchor chair, 40% saying they should not. what will it mean for williams' future. i asked debra norvell, host of inside edition. thanks for being here. >> my pleasure. >> plett ask you the question everyone is asking. do you think brian williams will be back on "nbc nightly news"? >> i don't think so. i think lester holt is doing a great job. there will be a thought bubble is it real? did he make it up? is this an exaggeration? i think that's too much for the network news division to have to work to overcome.

they have a very important brand. there's a lot of mope attached to it. and to put that at risk would be a foolish business decision. at the end of the day, this is a business. >> it's a cold hard business calculation. >> yeah. i think nbc made that. i think perhaps. >> with the suspension. >> with the suspension. a lot of people believed that was belaboring the inevitable and at the end of the six months whatever the decision is which will be probably to say it's not going to happen here on the nbc evening news desk has just given them a window of opportunity. it gives them six months to decide how they want to staff that particular decision. in six month's time has lester holt proved himself to be the worthy heir? if the answer is yes, lester will stay exactly where he is. viewers voting every day. putting rates on the screen before lester took over and his first week. nbc was winning the whole week brian williams was there. even as the scandal started

thursday they kept winning. then on thursday the 6th nbc won in the demographic so crucial to advertisers. then lester hohl holt takes over on the 9th. nbc had two days they barely won in the demo. entire week lester tilg in nbc was ahead by viewers 25 to 54-year-old. gap to 23,000 for brian williams last week. the race tightened. it wasn't as close when brian williams was anchoring. lester holt did well. >> crazy things going on. we have really crazy things going on right now. weather impacts viewing habits. let's take a longview of this. let's see where the ratings are three months from now. when i joined inside edition, ratings went up 15%. i would like to say 15% people watch all the time. they were sampling to see what it looked like. >> checking it out. >> checking it out.

a lot of ebb and flow. >> what's significant viewers didn't reject lester holt. they didn't tune in and say brian williams isn't here i disagree with nbc's decision i'm going onwalk away from the show. >> when year over year ratings are compared do not read anything into that. last year nbc had olympics which is a huge ratings magnet for the viewers. >> so you were put through the ringer at nbc days ago, succeeded jane pauley on the "today" show withering scrutiny and pushed out on maternity leave. the story crazy to think about years later. given that what do you think nbc executives are thinking now? what's the thought process in their minds? >> i think they are thinking go slow. i think what everyone in television realized from the way my situation at nbc was handle is that these decisions have repercussions that last a very long time. you know 2020 hindsight they could have left the "today" show alone. we didn't have an tech tiff

producer going on. everything worked out fine. i survived it's all good. what nbc will do is take its time making its decision by giving themselves six months to handle the brian williams situation. they put that on the back burner. the investigation will continue. questions haven't been talked about publicly that i think should. for instance when that story, brian, aired, the one that caused all the trouble for brian, the mistake, it was the first time the falsehood had been aired on "nbc nightly news." but in airing that story, they went back to the original footage from 2003. they either got it from the air check, which was the show that night on "nightly news," or they got it from the field tapes. >> the archive. >> you and i both know they didn't have time to go to the archive. they went to the air check. the air check was accurate. whoever edited that piece, produced that piece in the booth at the time heard the original copy. why didn't they me up or did they speak up and they weren't heard or was the culture such

that if brian said it, even if we're fudging it a little bit, we're not going to say anything. if that's the reason or something along those lines, i think that's the reason you won't see brian back in the anchor chair. >> fact checking investigation still going on. you're touching on the issue of culture at nbc. it's not just about the individual but individuals around brian williams an what was happening there, why there wasn't more of a check and balance on him. >> and who was over brian. brian williams was not the boss of nbc news. there are people who hold those titles. there are people who to whom he reported. i think that's another reason for the six months. >> a little bit of fear in the television industry that everybody's record is going to be scrutinized the way brian williams has and the way bill o'reilly is? >> not if you're telling the truth. anybody shaking a little at the prospects probably has a reason to do so.

if you feel good about what you've done in the past then you think this is a healthy exercise. and it's a really good lesson because we now work in a time when journalists are not just the people you see on the three broadcast news channels or major cable channels. journalists are people with a phone and twitter account. it's important that you be accurate and it's important that you speak the truth. whenever you speak, in whatever forum you speak, the people sweating bullets right now are people who forgot that or perhaps in the case of brian williams when you're sitting on the set with letterman or you're the after dinner raconteur, it's easy to embellish a little bit, then you build on the embellishment, next thing you know -- if you speak the truth every time you open your mouth, you probably have nothing to worry about. >> thanks for being here. >> good to see you.

>> his daughter allison defended him saying i know you can trust my dad. when we come back here started with rudy giuliani questioning the love of this country. now it turned to questions about the president's faith. is this a case of media bias or more? we'll tackle that next. when heartburn comes creeping up on you... fight back with relief so smooth... ...it's fast. tums smoothies starts dissolving the instant it touches your tongue ...and neutralizes stomach acid at the source. ♪ tum, tum tum tum...♪ smoothies! only from tums. people with type 2 diabetes come from all walks of life. if you have high blood sugar, ask your doctor about farxiga. it's a different kind of medicine that works by removing some sugar from your body. along with diet and exercise farxiga helps lower blood sugar in adults with type 2 diabetes. with one pill a day, farxiga helps lower your a1c. and, although it's not a weight-loss or blood-pressure drug,

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in the nation, we know how it feels when you aren't treated like a priority. we do things differently. we'll take care of it. we put members first. join the nation. thank you. ♪ nationwide is on your side ♪ gosh there were a lot of big news stories. there was one story you could not get away from. >> last night while speaking at a private political event in new york former mayor rudy giuliani criticized the president and his love of country. >> rudy giuliani meltdown continues. >> battling radical islamists come under criticism lately some of the harshest words from new york city mayor rudy giuliani. >> boy, what a mess in new york city. >> more fallout from rudy giuliani's claim that the president of the united states does not love the united states. the former new york mayor and

presidential candidate doubled and kind of tripled down on it. >> all of rudy's comments prompted to ask gop candidates how they feel about the issue, even spurred questions like yesterday when washington reporters asked wisconsin governor if obama is christian to which he replied, i don't know. there's a whole kerfluffle about that. joining me speechwriter for giuliani back when now senior editor at the atlantic and january jones, cnn political commentator. welcome to you both. thank you for being here. >> thank you. >> good morning. >> david i don't want to start this out rejecting the premise, is it possible to debate whether someone loves something? it's like trying to hug a cloud. it's not possible? >> has pr gone to heaven? has he quit smoking? wassay good son? there's a lot of questions that ask the candidates to go into

the state of mind of a third person. the question governor walker struck me as especially weird. it used to be considered very bad form to ask a candidate about his own religious faith, to ask about religious faith of third parties and vouch for or question that i think we need to stand back a little bit and say candidates' religious views are between them and their god, if they have religious views. not all candidates do. i think that question was an unanswerable one. no good answer therefore shouldn't be asked. >> when you see these questions asked about the question not to the president but brought up about the president, what do you think is the intention of a person like rudy giuliani to invoke these issues. >> before i talk about the unfortunate comments of rudy giuliani i see it different than david. i think they are valid questions.

i think republicans will have to answer them for a valid reason. there has been a rabid weighing or fringe of really anti-obama hysteria that has infected the republican party. it's a source of disquiet even for moderate republicans when you have people who are birthers saying he's actually a muslim who won't accept his own statement that he is a christian. i do think for independent voters for democrats and even moderate republicans, they want to know. if you are running for office to succeed this man, are you a part of the nut job wing of your party. that is where i think the questions come from. now, scott walker in particular has to make a decision. does he want to be high minded or low minded when these questions come. he can be high minded and say the president says he's a christian, i have no call to question that. his policies are terrible. he's a patriot, terrible ideas. low minded and say i do think there's something to these rumors.

he can't say he doesn't know a raging debate in american politics and i think that's hurting him. he has to be high minded or low minded he can't be muddle minded. >> discussion whether exotic cocooned inside conservative media outlets natural to say the president doesn't love the country. if you're not cocooned a different reaction. let me put one tweet on screen josh barrow agrees with you, these are not pointless questions. they are ways of asking how much will you indulge fever-swamp nonsense. does it seem like liberal bias ask these questions to republicans but not democrats. not same but equivalent questions to democratic. >> it rankles for a different reason. it's out of line to suggest the president isn't a patriot. being a christian is not.

abraham abraham lincoln wasn't a christian and he made a pretty fair president. it was just last week president obama's former campaign adviser david axelrod published a book and revealed by the way, when president obama said in 2008 he opposed same-sex marriage because of his deep religious faith, that's not true. he didn't have the religious convictions he claimed in 2008 he did. with this news story on the table for a journalist to be saying the president's top advisers told us that his religious views are not to be taken seriously, the president's views are not what he said they were. but scott walker cannot say what david axelrod just published. >> what's your reaction to the idea 2015 president since 2009 and yet we're still talking about these issues? >> it is really bizarre and unfortunate. i think especially unfortunate for someone like rudy giuliani who honestly was not just an

american hero american icon was a global and a global icon to now have fallen down the stairs into donald trump status to be saying things that really no global statesman could, would or should say about anybody. and i question now his patriotism. do you think that the american people are so stupid that not just once but twice to elect someone who hates the country. these are the kinds of things that i think are harmful for the republican brand. i think it is embarrassing to have someone of his stature saying these type of things. but it does go to this strategy that now apparently even giuliani has gotten tripped up in of trying to kind of other-ize the president. instead of saying we don't like his policies we'll say there is something about him that is not acceptable. i think that sits poorly in the mouths of a lot of people in this country. i hope that every gop candidate can make a decision on the front end. am i going to be high-minded the way marco rubio was.

of course he is a patriot, i just don't like his ideas. or am i going to start trading in these -- again the guy said fever-swamp. his conspiracy theories. every republican should answer those questions. >> seems to me the press will instigate many of those questions. i'm out of time unfortunately. thank you both for being here. more to come on i am sure. up next taking a turn. 40 million people will tune in tonight for the oscars but nearly nobody can tell you how the winners are actually chosen. each of the people who vote for them say it is not easy. so we have found an oscar voter and he will join us to explain it all next. 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.

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have you seen every movie up for best picture tonight? >> yes. >> not not every voter does. >> it is impossible for them to see every film that's available. that's the basis of the academy, to make a film that's so important that you have to see it. it is all about elevating it to the point where it becomes a must-see. but once nominations are announced you have a finite group of films that you have to see in order to be able to vote. i do think academy members are generally very ken lyly very conyen coverage yen schuss. >> the academy's divided into branches and the branches vote in their individual areas. so when people look at for instance what happened with "selma" and they say why didn't she get a best director nomination when it got a best picture nomination there's no trend to look at there. they are trying to connect dots

in a way that doesn't exist because a different group of people vote for best director than are for best picture. >> so who is going to win tonight for best picture? >> i'm not going to predict. >> oh you're not allowed to. >> no, it is not that. i am not going to pick. i hope conventional wisdom is wrong. >> which is? >> ima he not going to repeat this but the reality is all these online sources are gathering data from all these different areas trying to predict based on some sort of data gathering who is going to win. they all have reached consensus about who the winner is so anybody can look it up if they want to. but the reality is i'm hoping it's just not that predictable. >> i agree with you on that. ira, thanks for being here. back with more "reliable sources" in just a moment. meet the world's newest energy superpower. surprised? in fact, america is now the world's number one natural gas producer... and we could soon become number one in oil. because hydraulic fracturing technology is safely recovering lots more

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that's all for this edition of "reliable sources." but i'll see you online all week at cnn.com. send me a tweet about what you thought of today's show. "state of the union" starts right now. a terror threat against western shopping malls. rudy giuliani becomes a lightning rod for the republican party. this is "state of the union." this is cnn breaking news. good morning from washington. i'm gloria borger. breaking this hour homeland security secretary jeh johnson on the terror threat facing american shopping malls. rudy giuliani under fire for his stunning comments about president obama. former deputy defense secretary paul wolfowitz on the president and terror. and republican governor john kasich on his white house ambitions. but first,