did people get sick? >> people were screaming and throwing up and running away. people were rolling around moaning, crying, wailing. there was a lot of emotional distress. >> the representatives say that depiction is untrue. our series starts tomorrow night 8:00 eastern. that's it for us. "larry king live he" starts right now. >> larry: tonight a bloody las vegas courthouse shoot-out. a man with a shotgun opens fire in the lobby. killing one before he is gunned down. could any amount of security have prevented this horror? and then president obama's back from vacation and demanding answers about how a man with a bomb almost blew up a commercial jet on christmas day. what should the white house do now to keep america safe?

plus, another white house gate crasher? someone who didn't belong at that state dinner got in. and it's not these people. that's next on "larry king live." a deputy u.s. marshal was wounded and a court security killed along with the gunman in the las vegas shoot-out. we go to cnn's senior white house correspondent ed henry who was in vegas today on his way home from covering the president in hawaii. what were you doing in vegas? >> well, i can't give you all the details, larry. it stays in vegas, i guess. in all seriousness, i was coming to get a little rest and relaxation, obviously, and bottom line is that it was anything but. there was such a dramatic scene. i was driving near this federal building right behind me, and all of a sudden i heard a man in plain clothes who i saw had a 9

millimeter gun shouting everybody get down. i didn't know who he was. i stopped the car and i realized he was a plain clothed police officer who had something on his radio saying there was a shooter loose in this federal building, and there was a shoot-out going on. right after he said that, there were helicopters descending and police cruisers and new information we had at this hour how it played out. they have confirmed that the suspect was johnny wicks. he's an older man, and he had a social security claim before the government. he was angry, and they believe this was the motive. he was angry the government wasn't hearing him in this case. we're told by this law enforcement official he burned his residence down today. that suggests he planned this out and knew it was going to end badly. all of a sudden he showed up on the scene wearing all black. he had a concealed shut gun and

fired in the vestibule tonight. he hit directly stanley cooper who was killed, he wounded a deputy u.s. marshal. an estimated 57 shots exchanged. he ran out of the federal building and came across las vegas boulevard here. there's cones out there that you can't see that represent every one of the bullets. they're doing the csi work as we speak. he made it to the building here where there's an old school, and basically was killed in the burks there by all kinds of federal officers who descended upon the scene, larry. >> larry: there was one killed and one wounded. how is the wounded man doing, the u.s. marshal? >> we've been told he's in stable condition but is getting medical care at this hour and has not gotten out of the hospital. they're hopeful he will make it, and they're very concerned. the u.s. attorney general put out a statement about stanley

cooper killed today. i should note in 2009 four las vegas police officers were killed in all kinds of separate incidents. this is a community that has experienced the loss of life among a locality of law enforcement officers just in the last year, larry. >> larry: this shoot-out erupted at the start of the workday and lasted several minutes. here's more of the video you saw ft opening shot today posting on youtube. listen. >> shooting inside the las vegas courthouse. holy [ bleep ]. unbelievable.

hell of a morning for jury duty. [ gunshots ] >> larry: the man that recorded the sound of that gunfire is with us on the phone. nick, when did you know something was wrong? what were you doing? >> it was actually just leaving the court house, larry. >> larry: you had business in the court house and you were leaving. what was the first thing you spotted? >> first thing i had spotted was the eruption of gunfire. that's when i initially realized something was not right. >> larry: were you scared? >> you know, i can't honestly say i was scared, larry. i'm not sure how to describe how

i felt. just interested. >> larry: you heard all the shooting right away, run? don't forget the pun. >> you're absolutely right. it just occurred to me recently we have these devices in our pockets at all times. it's just something, i think, people should take into consideration to pass information along to, you know, the rest of the world as quickly as possible. >> larry: were you standing when you were shooting this? >> yes, i was standing. i was walking back towards the courthouse. >> larry: thanks, nicholas. another witness in las vegas is bobby scotland. bobby, where were you? >> i was in the foley building, which is right across the street, just north of where the individual video was shot. >> larry: what did you see? >> what happened is i walked into the lloyd b. george building, the court building. for some reason i asked am i in

the right courthouse? i don't know why i asked that. they said no, you're across the street. i he left that courthouse and walked down the steps. from the details that i've seen, the gentleman who went into the courthouse, i passed him as i was walking to the foley courthouse. i went through security, was talking to my attorney on a matter, and we heard the gunshots. it sounded like popcorn. it was -- it wasn't as loud as the video shows, because we were in a building, but i walked outside to the foyer of the entrance of the foley building, and i saw five marshals and a cup of parole officers shooting towards where the perpetrator was. talking to the csos in my building, they knew stan cooper very well and were -- it was just a very heartfelt moment for

them. they lost a very good friend. i want to say this. the metro police force in las vegas did a fantastic job today, because it could have been pandemonium with what was going on. within probably 30 seconds of the shooting, they had 10 or 12 patrolmen going into the george building and kor dorned off the area. within two minutes there were 150 cops, fbi agents, ambulance and emergency services and a lot of people were kind of freaked out, including myself. >> larry: you said you think you passed -- you said you think you passed the shooter. what do you remember about him? >> i just remember when i'm looking back at all these reports of a black gentleman in a black jacket, and there weren't too many people on the street. i remember passing -- he didn't look disturbed, from what i saw.

if that is the gentleman. you know, nothing would have given me a second thought that what was about to happen happened. >> larry: thanks, bobby. >> you're welcome, larry. i love your show, too, by the way. >> larry: i hope you're okay with whatever your business was with the lawyer. >> it's personal finance issues, and the gentleman that did this had personal finance issues. you should never take it out on innocent people like he did. i'm going through two years of personal finance issues, and you just have to work it out and talk to somebody. it's truly a shame what happened today. >> larry: thanks, bobby. ed henry, nicholas and bobby scotland on the scene in las vegas. president obama is back from vacation. what's he done right and wrong during the terror crisis? some answers next. (announcer) want to give afrin a try? yeah. it cleared up right away. i can breathe.

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we're back discussing terrorism and the return of the president from vacation. in texas is congressman ron paul, republican of texas. he's a member of the house foreign affairs committee and was a candidate for the party's presidential nomination in 2008. here in l.a. is tanya acker. in d.c. is peter, senior political writer for the daily beast, professor city university of new york and author of the

good fight. and in new york is andrea, conservative columnist and republican strategist. congressman paul, how has the president dealt with this terror thing, do you think? >> i think in about the way i would expect, nothing too special and nothing bad and nothing real good, because i don't think we're getting to the bottom of it because everybody is talking about war on terrorism, and a lot of us have come to the conclusion that terrorism is a tactic and you can't declare war on a tactic. what are we doing? too often what i hear obama saying is that we have to expand the war. we're in a lot of countries over there, and we're using these drones to drop them on people. to me, that's an act of war. we've done that in yemen, and we've done it in pakistan and done it this week. i think that's the real issue. how far do we expand this when the declaration of war against

terrorism and radical islam -- i mean, it's endless. it has to be more narrowed down. we have to have a target and understand what's going on. we have to try to understand why there are people who are incentivized to come here and do us harm. i don't think we're doing that. i don't think they did it in the bush administration. i don't think they're doing it in this administration either. >> larry: the president has talked about accountability at all levels. how is he doing? >> i think congressman paul raised a number of very, very good points. with we're talking about this war on terror, we have to be more precise about what we're doing. yemen is different from iraq, which is a very different place from afghanistan. until we get our handle on some of these internal problems and why these situations are so combustible, we're going to declare war on a tactic without any resolution. i think in terms of what you're seeing on the presidential approach in yemen, we can't

simply drop bombing and launch missile strikes. we have to look at some of the situations on the ground. it's a civil war. we need to give the pressident f yemen some cover. >> do we do enough of cause and effect? >> i want to go back to what ron paul and tanya said. to say we need to take time to get a better understanding and this is a civil war. a man almost blew up 300 people on a airplane. we don't acknowledge in our administration now and we have an opportunity to learn from the mistakes of the bush administration that he made. look, obama bungled the initial response. we know that. especially, you'd think he would have learned from george bush's visual on the golf course, but he didn't. the biggest mistake was trying this guy as not an enemy combat

ant. that was a missed opportunity and now we're in negotiations with him, and he has an opportunity to not send these 40 yemeni men back to yemen. that's the best thing to do to immediately stop the threat. we can't perpetually be on duty. we have to strike them before they can craft these attacks. >> larry: before i get a break, peter, what your thoughts? >> what's it mean to strike them? if we kill a couple terrorists and kill hundreds or thousands of innocent people that become sympathetic to terrorism. war in at least the way the other guest is suggesting, it stent make any sense. this is not primarily a military convict. it's an idea logical and economic conflict and the military should do it sparingly. >> larry: we'll take a break and come back. dick cheney has been on the attack over president obama's handling of terrorism. the white house strikes back in 60 secreta 0 seconds. breathe right, the small strip that gives you...

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>> larry: cheney has been critical of president obama's handles of terrorism. in the aftermath of the christmas day bombing attack he accused the president of trying to pretend the united states is not at war with terrorists. john brennan countered cheney he's comments during a series of sunday talk shows. watch. >> either the vice president is willfully mischaracterizing this president's position in terms of language he uses and actions he's taken or he's ignorant of the facts. in neither case, it doesn't speak well of what the vice president is doing. the clear evidence is this president has been very, very strong. in his inaugural address he said we're at war with this internal group of terrorists. >> congressman paul, he's in your party. what about dick cheney's complaints? >> well, i think he had his

eight years, and he's caused a lot of trouble for our country and perpetuated a war in iraq unnecessary and wrong-headed. i would say it would be best he not be so critical right now. but i'm still not only critical of that policy, i think the policy remains the same, and we've hear it on the show tonight already. they are on attack and declared war against them, and it's always they and them. but who are they? after 9/11, 14 or 15 of the terrorists came from saudi arabia. i mean, we didn't attack saudi arabia. we attacked iraq. so it doesn't make sense. those individuals were trained or at least planned in germany and spain. some of them got trained here in the united states. so you don't declare war against these countries and say that we have to go in and start bombing pakistan and bombing afghanistan and bombing yemen. they happen to be there. that's true. but they're there because we stimulate them. we follow them to the hands of

osama bin laden by us going there and causing people to get some angry, it helps his recruiting efforts. he's written about this. he has said this. he says i want the americans to go over here and bankrupt their country and besides, it will help myr recruiting efforts. >> larry: tomorrow night mike he kel chertoff will be with us. will it shift attention away from health care he reform and other issues? we'll talk about that after the break. than a comparable honda civic. this chevy traverse has better mileage than honda pilot. the all-new chevy equinox has better mileage than honda cr-v. and chevy malibu has better mileage than accord. however, honda does make something that we just can't compete with. it's self propelled. chevy. compare us to anyone and may the best car win. i was short of breath,

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my copd often meant i had to wait to do what i wanted to do. now i take symbicort, and it's significantly improves my lung function, starting within five minutes. symbicort has made a significant difference in my breathing. now more of my want-tos are can-dos. as your doctor about symbicort today. i got my first prescription free. call or go online to learn more. [ male announcer ] if you cannot afford your medication, astrazeneca may be able to help. >> larry: does all this terror talk shift us away from other things? >> we're listening to folks like

he dick cheney level these extremely partisan criticisms, which i think people on both sides suggest may be inappropriate and we should think about new tactics. the interesting thing is when you here folks like cheney, part of the problem with that it suggests that administration wasn't fallible and got the terror fight right, and they didn't. they cut terror funding for new york city. they opposed overseas screening of cargo shipments after they let the dubai company operate u.s. ports. >> larry: andrea if this is a war on terrorism, is it wrong to criticize the commander in chief? >> no, absolutely not. democrats didn't have a problem with it when george bush was in office. we absolutely need to look at strategies going forward, and i hope the administration starts to look at this as priority number one.

given the fact that over the last year that a majority of the american people believed that the economy should be issue number one, yet democrats continued to focus on health care tells me they're still going to pursue other issues like climate change, immigration, when they should be focusing on this as their number one priority back to washington. >> larry: peter, hold up. isn't the economy and health care intertwined in a sense? >> i think, they are. the economy and health care happen to be massive of issues for tens of millions of americans that don't have jobs or health care. of course, terrorism is a significant issue. what you tend to find with dick cheney and other republicans is they make terrorism seem as if it's the only threat that america faces. let's put it in perspective. this was a much smaller attack attempted on 9/11, and it failed. i think what it -- everyone after 9/11 thought that al qaeda would have much bigger attacks

that were 9/11-plus-plus-plus. they can't even execute eight years later a 9/11 minus. yes, terrorism is a threat, but we don't need to be hysterical about it. >> larry: andrea, were you laughing? >> unbelievable that we shouldn't be hysterical about it. when the foreign minister of yemen -- until one of your family members is on a plane. when the foreign minister -- >> ma'am, i have close friends who died tr terrorism. i don't need a lecture about it from you. >> as do i. when the foreign minister of yemen says there are hundreds of more men plotting attacks in yemen on u.s. soil and we've decided to lawyer this guy up that we've captured and not try to get as much information from him about saving lives of americans and preventing future attacks, well, that's just plain stupid. >> that's called having a constitution and believing in due process, which makes us different from them. >> you can still get information with due process. >> the interesting thing is what andrea is doing right now is

what you see happening on the right more generally. they suggest we have to make this false choice between our constitution and values and being safe, and that's not true. we have tried terrorists in the united states soil before. we tried and convicted yusef here and timothy mcveigh and richard reed. you hear these folks suggest if you believe in the constitution you don't believe in safety, that's false. >> i think the majority of americans don't give a fig about the rights of an extremist. >> larry: ron, you want to get in on this? >> how does everybody -- how does everybody able to convict. i mean, in this country it used to be you were suspects and you had a trial. but now the -- she's advocating torture. can you imagine how much harm those tortured pictures did to

us? i'm absolutely positive that there was a great deal of harm done in the muslim world to radicalize thousands because that was the imagine of america. from the little bit of information they might have got by water boarding and undermining america that we're torturers of the world. both parties accept the bush doctrine and prevent wars and you go out and star wt wars and attack countries and torture people. this is not what america is about. we were supposed to have change, but unfortunately we're maintaining the status quo and we have to address the subject of the bush doctrine of preventive war, because if we continue to do that, we will be bankrupt our country. this costs a lot of money, and it is related to health care when you put a trillion dollars overseas, there's a trillion less here to help people at home. >> larry: let me get a break. we'll talk more about the president's return right after this. [ man ] oh, yeah, the accident.

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>> larry: let's get in a call for our panel. st. petersburg, florida. hello. >> i two questions basically. has there been an official declaration by mr. obama in the case of afghanistan? then second of all, what are we going to do when we start trying all these terrorists after two years, three years? the numbers get up to 1,000, 2,000? how many are we going to put into the criminal justice system then? >> larry: we haven't declared any war in afghanistan, have we? >> in fact, obama has said we're at war several times.

>> larry: we haven't declared war through congress? >> no, although some people refer to the september 14th, 2001 declaration of war. it's clear we are at war in afghanistan. >> larry, may i interject? >> larry: go ahead. >> there was no declaration after iraq. there was an authority given. as a matter of fact, i thought it was important. i thought that would restrain us from getting into these unnecessary, unwinnable wars because in the committee i brought up the amendment that says, this amendment is to declare war. if you want to go to war, vote for it. nobody voted for it including myself. if you're serious, declare war, get the people and the congress behind it, and then you're really into it. they don't want that. they don't want the responsibility of that. the congress doesn't even want to do it. they want to give it to the administration, and if it doesn't go well, they can criticize the administration. >> larry: do you think the president should have come back

sooner? >> yes, i do. i think he should have. as i had before, larry, george bush faced so much criticism when he was on the golf course that day we all remember, those images. you'd think obama would have learned from that lesson, but he did not. i think from a pr perspective, on optics perspective, it looked really bad. now he needs to come back and take this issue extremely seriously. i think one of the mistakes he made was almost running a campaign, a pr campaign and messaging through press release and sending out the surrogates on his behalf. when he came out, he bungled his statement by saying this is one isolated extremist and looked ignorant. it's my take because janet napolitano and robert gibbs said that the system works, that this was a collective message strategy on behalf of the white house, that they absolutely got wrong. >> larry: tanya. >> it's interesting that michael chertoff said on sunday along

with the last head of cia, they talked about that response that janet napolitano made. one of the things is that most folks know daib she's recanted it. i find it interesting this need to seize on that, to sort of suggest that the administration doesn't care about the war on terror. most people know that there have been a number of foiled attacks this year. i think this attack certainly -- >> ft. hood. >> there were lapses. there should have been better screening mechanisms. by the same token by and large our system has worked in terms of foiling some of these other attacks. so i just -- i think we have to be careful about trying to use this in order to, you know -- again, i disagree with andrea. i don't think we should get historical. >> janet napolitano said to call it an overseas contingency operation. >> we need to have an important, coordinated, concerted strategy. but that doesn't mean we have to

react disproportion naturely to what happened. >> larry: we have not heard the last of this. the view from inside u.s. security experts. we'll meet secretary william cohen, fran townsend and jack rice next.

>> larry: joining us now are fran townsend who served as homeland security adviser for president george w. burk. william cohen was secretary of defense in the clinton administration. he's chairman and ceo of the

cohen group. it works with security and defense firms and many work with the homeland security and tsa. jack rice, former cia officer and now a journalist and syndicated radio host. we start with secretary cohen. how do you rate the president's handling of all this. >> there were obvious mistakes that were made. he should be up-front about it. say my administration made some mistakes, and i accept full responsibility for that. to go in and look and examine and see where the failures were. i would go back to what howard baker said during the watergate days, in which he said, ask the question, what did we know and when did we know it? a reframing of that, what did we need to know, and what did we do about it or fail to do about it? those are the questions that are really important. not whether wi rate him a success or failure. if he fails, we all fail, and the terrorists do succeed in getting through. we want to focus our attention

on how to make the system better and admit we made mistakes here and we have to fix it. >> larry: jack rice, tom kean was a guest with us last week. he said yesterday that the christmas day terror suspect probably did us a favor. did he have a point? >> well, i think the logic is that the president does have to acknowledge those failures, as the secretary just put it. without question, there were failures in place here, but i think the real question is, what were those failures? the way i see this, one of the biggest problems that we face is we spent more than a he trillion dollars since 9/11. we've invaded multiple countries and killed thousands of people, and in the end the real problems that we have here involve the analysis and the synthesis of the information we actually have right now. it's the inability to connect all those proverbial dots. that's the problem we have right now. >> larry: fran, tomorrow the president meets with the national security team. is this going to be an important

get-together? do you expect some change science. >> i don't know that you'll see changes coming out of that meeting. i can tell you i'm happy to not be in this particular meeting in this situation room in the white house because i expect it to be a pretty unpleasant meeting. it was clear when the president came out and made the second statement in hawaii where he acknowledged sort of systemic and individual failures, he was pretty angry. we hear repeated comments from those in the white house that he's pretty hot about the whole thing and about the failures and he's determined to get to the bottom of it. i expect that while he'll listen to his cabinet secretaries and agency heads about what they knew and didn't know and answering secretary cohen's kwebs, i expect they will hear from him he's not happy and he expects this to get fixed pretty quickly. >> bill cohecohen, is the depart of homeland security working? >> it's got a tough job to do. the department contains many individual agencies. i don't think they've been fully integrated yet. it's obvious that information

wasn't shared across various agencies domestically not to mention mi-5 and britain not sharing information they have. that's what the 9/11 commission was focused on. how do we break down the silos. no matter how good we get, the terrorists are always able to find a weakness at some other point. if it's not in the air, it will be cargo and it will be by train. we're always going to have to awrus and get better to stay one step ahead or at least try not to fall too far behind them. >> larry: jack, passengers flying into the united states with 14 countries with terrorism problems get closer screening. the tsa has announced 13 of those countries are muslim majority nations. a muslim group is saying this is religious profiling. is it going to work? >> no. i think this is a disaster from a perspective. there are 1.5 billion muslims in the world. if we decided to target them

simply because they're muslims isn't good enough. if you look at what chertoff has said and hayden said and what this president and the last president and others have acknowledged, the problem isn't that they're muslims or they're arabs or from a particular country. it has to be based upon what they have done. we have to look at their actions. if we don't do that, we risk the possibility of alienating the good people. look, if we can go after the bad people, so be it, but we have to find a way to convince the rest, the vast majority of people of the middle east and africa and every where else that we're on their side. if we make the wrong decisions, it makes it much, much harder for us. >> larry: american boots on the ground in yemen, is that just a matter of time? back in 60 seconds. or maybe our new savory shrimp jambalaya. seafood lunches starting at just $6.99 at red lobster.

>> larry: we want to get your thoughts on yemen. we start with william cohen, he was secretary of defense. are we getting ready to go in there? >> i hope not. i hope we exercise restraint and

provide logistic support and intelligence and other support activities, a very limited commitment of manpower. i would say the lower the profile and the less footprint we have the better and put it in a support role. i think we shall internationalize this stuff, looking at it as if it's the united states responsibility. everybody has something at stake here, and that is security and everybody should be contributing and not just the united states. >> larry: fran, what do you think? >> i agree with the secretary. i expect you will see we provided some military and intelligence and law enforcement training to the yemeni hes during the prior administration. that has continued and you'll see more of that. we provided training to their coast guard. you find other military and special operations capability on the ground there, but not a large, uniformed military presence. the second point is the greatest regional ally that we have is saudi arabia. they have a real interest. they see the problems across their border with yemen. they see gun trafficking, some guns were brought from yemen into saudi arabia where they

were used to attack our consulate in jetta several years ago. there was a recent assassination attempt, the head of the saudi counterterrorism police. it was the same kind of bomb, by the way, in that assassination attempt as was used on the northwest airlines flight on christmas day. so they have a greater understanding, they're closer to the problem, and they can be a tremendous asset to us in addressing the threat coming from yemen. >> larry: jack, how do you rate this conflict with yemen? >> the problem with yemen is something we could find in afghanistan and somalia and other places around the world, too. this is a failing state. we see two civil wars, one to the north and one to the south. we see an incredibly weak government. they have water, oil issues and funding issues and all of the problems chls what this results is al qaeda uses thz a vacuum to operate. i'm seeing a lot of pressure it now inside the administration to move forward to do more. if they hope up a third front

and the argument is, well, al qaeda is operating there, then we're going to follow that same logic of the failed state argument. are we prepared to go back into somalia, all of the places with weak central authority. are we going to go in and do the same thing there? we can barely handle two wars right now. are we prepared for a third, fourth, or fifth seriously? >> larry: a couple of other things we'll cover with the three of us. bill, former secretary of defense, the president when running for election said he would close guantanamo. would you? >> i think the issue is it is a toxic symbol to much of the rest of the world. the issue is not so much where it was but it's that there was no oversight. he's committed to closing it. i think that he will have to close it, but right now he needs to take a pause to look to see where he puts those individuals, under what circumstances. whether they're going to have trials in civil court, criminal court or whether under military

tribunal type of approach. i think that with all that's going on now he needs to take just a respite and analyze exactly where we are and where we need to go in terms of dealing with the issue. >> larry: fran, in this battle is there an occasion where you would suspend constitutional rights? >> no. i mean, this is an area where i think both the current and prior administration would agree. this is not -- we are a country of laws, and the most sacred document underguarding all of that is our constitution. no one ought to be advocating for the suspension of your constitutional rights. the question is, what can we do within the limits of our constitution? we have to utilize every aspect of national power, whether it's military, law enforcement, intelligence, economic, diplomatic, all of it. i think that the president -- the current president is looking for a way to make that balance where he can both use all of our authorities while also respecting our constitution and the laws of the united states.

>> larry: jack, quickly, could that cia killing have been prevented? >> i think you're always going to have problems like this. it's an incredibly dangerous way to work. the cia has to get close to assets. this is different than the military, because they don't have to get as close. the agency is always a very dangerous place to work, and afghanistan is a very dangerous place to operate regardless. you're close to the pakistani border. it gets very brutal. i'm just back from the region myself and saw it it first hand. >> larry: thank you all very much. we'll call you on again. good to see bill cohen again, too. turns out there was a third party crashers at that state dinner some weeks back, and you've invited into the discussion in 60 seconds. ( laughs, click ) when you hear a click, ( clicking ) you know it's closed and secure. that's why hefty food bags click closed. hefty! hefty! hefty! so you know you've helped lock in freshness and lock out air...

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>> larry: anderson cooper is back. what's up tonight, anderson? >> we have breakinglarry, break. he burned down his own home and possessions except a shotgun. two men are now dead including the shooter. tonight, new details on what led a man to open fire at a federal building. also, the politics of terror. dick cheney claiming president obama is trying to pretend the u.s. is not at war with terrorists. what do the facts show? we're keeping them honest and looking at whether the bush/cheney administration really did anything different. almost unthinken loss. a man losing wife and newborn child on christmas eve. both thought to be dead in an operating room until both came back to life. the couple tells their story and you'll meet their beautiful baby tonight on 360.

>> larry: anderson cooper, "a.c. 360" top of the hour. dan lothian is our white house correspondent. anita mcbride served as an assistant to president george w. bush and chief of staff to laura bush. in washington. dan at the white house. laura schwartz in chicago served as director of events in the white house social office in the clinton administration. want to get us up to date on the new crash story? >> reporter: well, yeah. we got the statement from the secret service this morning. they were pointing out that now a third individual did manage to make the way into the white house here to that state dinner in november. this person according to the secret service went to a local hotel where the indian delegation was meeting and then hopped in a vehicle there and came into the white house. now the secret service says that they did go through -- that individual did go through a security screening and they don't believe at any time that individual got into the receiving line or had a chance to meet the president or the first lady.

it's under investigation and clearly another embarrassing situation for this white house which we're talking about security issues, national security, and now a third individual managed to get in here. an individual not on the list. >> larry: thanks so much. dan lothian. one of the best reporters in the business. our cnn white house correspondent in washington. now let's talk with anita who was an assistant to president george w. bush and laura who served as director of events. how could this happen, anita? >> well, this is just unbelievable. i'm sorry to hear that this has happened, yet, again, that we're talking about this since november. another person that was able to breach the security at the white house. we all need to be concerned about this. about protecting the president, the first family, and protecting the white house. i think -- obviously this was turned up in the investigation that the secret service was doing and identified that someone was able to get on a bus from the willard hotel with the

indian delegation and i think this is a question, too, for the state department and the office of protocol. was there a visits officer there going through the list, matching up the list from the white house with the protocol office to see the people getting on that bus with the official delegation, coming to the white house which, by the way, go to another entrance. not the entrance where all the other guests were coming in. how did they get on that bus and get past everything? >> larry: laura, is the fact he was with a delegation make it seem sort of semilogical he could get through? >> not really, larry, because there's a protocol officer with that delegation all day. that same foreign delegation that comes to the dinner at night goes there also in the morning. some of them participate in the bilateral discussions with the president and his delegation, but these folks sometimes have a -- they sometimes are allowed to bring guests. the foreign delegation. you would have some people

popping up to get on that van, whether it's part of the prime minister's motorcade or they go ahead with the prime minister over to the white house. it's really odd to have somebody on that bus you hadn't seen during the day or that wasn't on the list. there's always secret service at the boarding of that bus because they hand wand them to make sure they aren't carrying anything that could be of danger to the president. the van isn't driven by a pedestrian. it's driven by somebody -- there can't be something planted as far as a device or a bomb of that sense. it really is surprising. the good thing is they have turned up these things. as long as they have no more incidents from that time in the future, i think this memory will start to evaporate. when another story comes up like

this a month later does nothing to help. >> larry: when three secret service members put on administrative leave. we'll ask the ladies if they think someone at the white house should be asked to leave. if you have something to say about this show, go to cnn.com/larry king. we're going on a field trip to china! wow. [ chuckles ] when i was a kid, we -- we would just go to the -- the farm. [ cow moos ] [ laughter ] no, seriously, where are you guys going? ni hao! ni hao! ni hao! ni hao! ni hao! ni hao! ni hao! ni hao! ni hao! ni hao! ni hao! ni hao! [ female announcer ] the new classroom. see it. live it. share it. on the human network. cisco. it would frustrate me. my bayer meter is very important. (announcer) only bayer's contour meter has programmable personal high low settings. it allows me to make sure that my diabetes is controlled as tightly as possible. (announcer) the contour meter, only from bayer.

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>> larry: anita mcbride, should someone at the white house bite the bullet here? >> let's remember the white house is a national treasure for us as americans and access to the complex and particularly public access is an important symbol of our freedom. i think the white house has already acknowledged and we all know it's a shared responsibility between the staff and the secret service to protect the president, protect the occupants and protect the complex.

so i think everybody shares in the responsibility. we understand that. i know the white house understands that as well. again, the investigation isn't complete. i think let's let all the facts come out and the right decision will be made. >> larry: laura, is it a -- you're not a lawyer i don't think -- is it a crime to -- >> right, i have crashed a wedding -- no, i haven't. wait, there was that one time. larry, look at the repercussions. honestly, you know, will other countries still want to visit us? absolutely. they may ask further questions about our screening process and guest list but they're still going to come. those are questions the united states asks as we go other places. you know? as far as the legal battle, of course the salahis were asked to testify coming up in january on the 20th. they're pleading the fifth amendment. you know, lying to a federal agent, perhaps, but, again, larry, going forward i don't think we're going to see these incidents. think the white house and the

secret service have learned their lesson. the ambassador of protocol at state is capable. i don't think we're going to be talking about this under a different situation. >> larry: you agree, anita? >> i sure hope so. i think everybody is feeling very, very concerned about what has happened over all of these months and have there been other breaches of security? i think that's a fair question to ask. and i think that, yes, i would agree. i think everybody is going to make absolutely sure whatever weaknesses exist in this system are going to be fixed. i mean, the white house -- we have -- we all live in a post-9/11 world. i've been in and out of the white house working there since 1984. i've seen dramatic changes and access to the white house. this is the reality of how we have to live. so nobody takes us anything less than very, very serious. >> larry: thank you both very much. anita mcbride, assistant to president george