top of the hour, i'm brooke baldwin. on reporter roulette, winds as strong as a hurricane in southern california. also today's markets struggling to stay in positive territory. and a church bars interracial couples from entering. time to play reporter roulette. we were talking about this yesterday. today it seems to have gotten a little worse in material of the damage that has manifested itself. the santa ana winds, unreal. >> really bad. even into utah. the intermountain west, the great basin from centreville, had a wind gust in utah.

102 miles per hour. they said in some places, almost every house has some type of damage from the wind that occurred yesterday. then the wind went down across into vegas. made a bunch of dust. then right through the l.a. basin. wind gusts now, even 72 miles an hour. >> we started getting those tweets from ryan lovell. look at the tree. >> big trees. 24-inch diameter trees coming down into people's homes today. and i'm listening to this scanner out of landfall. and power lines are still coming down. >> here it is. a twitter picture. >> i asked, hey, are you all in california? and he tweeted me multiple pictures. i'm hoag that isn't ryan's car. he can't watchful. >> 212 customers without power across the l.a. basin. and we know more in the nearby states. 100-mile-per-hour winds is a hurricane. that gust came through knocking those trees down. bringing power lines down.

trees right into houses. >> let's talk also about tennessee. we have some of the pictures from that massive, i think it was three different chain collision, ultimately, what was it? 176 vehicles involved. this is tennessee. at least one person is dead. obviously, the issue, you can see the pictures, it is the fog. >> something called ice fog. temperatures were below 32. it was foggy. so the relative humidity around this area, it is a bridge. you see that there is water, even more moisture down below it. that fog would just -- almost like a frost that hit on the roadway. it went right, the cars are going the wrong direction. >> so they couldn't see. >> people couldn't see it. they couldn't see the black ice because there was fog. the 150 cars were piled up. 50 had to be towed away. they were unusable. >> that's frightening. next on report he roulette, we'll to go allison. we are 58 minutes from the

closing bell. tell me about the markets. how are they? >> brooke, you're at the calm after yesterday's big storm. stocks are as flat as flat can be. investors taking a breath at this point after that eye popping rally from yesterday where the dow shot up almost 500 points. do you know what? today is not necessarily a bad thing. it has been common to see a sell-off after a big run up. what you're seeing happen today means that there could be some confidence that this joint effort by central banks to help money move more freely may actually help things. though it won't be a cure for the euro zone's debt problems. >> also, allison interesting u.s. is on track. this is something, i'm going to have to say this twice because this makes us go what? the u.s. is on track to hit a new milestone. exporting more oil than we take in. exporting more oil than we take in. it is stunning. why the change? >> it does make you do a double take. one analyst puts it this way in the "wall street journal." the u.s. has been known as this country, this giant black hole.

sucking in energy from around the world. for decade after decade. it is the u.s. that has ill ported more gas and oil than it has exported. guess what. in the first nine months of the year, it has shimd out more fuel than it has brought in. this is bought of the anemic recovery we're having. we're using less oil and gas here compared to other countries. before you go out and buy that big gas guzzler, think of this. the u.s. won't suddenly go to being energy independent any time soon. we are still the biggest net in quarter of crude oil. we take in somewhat 9 million barrels of oil a day. this change is significant because the u.s., it is becoming a bigger player in the world oil supply chain. and that could be a good thing as long, of course, agency it lasts. >> thank you. that's your reporter roulette here. let me tell you about this kentucky church. this church has banned interracial couples.

this is from carey klein from our affiliate in pine copy, kentucky. >> it's racist. that's all you can call it. >> reporter: dean is living it firsthand. the church he's attended for more than 30 years and raised his family in. it has taken issue with his daughter susie and her black fiance. he is originally from zimbabwe. >> the couple that met in college recently attended services at this baptist church. the small country church in pike county, kentucky. about 15 miles north of pikeville, is the church susie grew up in. susie played the piano. he sang. >> the pastor came up and told me while i was coming to church often, susie and her boyfriend is not allowed to sing in this church anymore. they said furthermore, susie can take her fella back where she

found him at. >> then came this policy voted on and approved by the congregation. banning interracial couples from joining the church or having any role in their services. >> it is intended to promote greater unity? how are you promoting unity by excluding a group of people? >> it is a travesty. they've crossed the line in revoking our rights to worship. >> reporter: even though the policy specifically states interracial couples, i was curious. would i be welcome here? >> as of right now, no. >> reporter: it's a policy that is not sitting well with the majority of the communicate. >> it shows their ignorance. >> from pike county, kentucky. affiliate wsaz. 13 people are dead. 31 others hurt in this market in iraq. details on this bomb blast coming up. also, we have gotten word of a

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[ male announcer ] shopping for medicare coverage? the annual enrollment period ends december 7th. now is the time to take action. call unitedhealthcare medicare solutions today. rapid fire. beginning with some news just in to us here at cnn. it relates to the case of the 70-year-old american who was kidnapped in pakistan. the leader of al qaeda, ayman al zawahiri, has claimed responsibility for the capture of warren winestein.

according to the website that monitors terrorist activity. perhaps you remember our reporting of the disappearance. he was living in pakistan when these three men entered his home, posed as neighbors delivering food. they pistol whipped him, tied up his guards. that's the news. we'll pass it along. a lawyer for jerry sandusky says the former coach is not considering a plea deal. not considering it. his attorney is there, that is hill on the right side of the screen. he responded to a harrisburg patriot news article quoting him as saying, he might have to talk with sandusky about a plea if more sex abuse allegations are made. amendola says he was responding to a what if question. he said sandusky is maintaining his innocence and there has been no discussion of a plea. near baghdad, at least 13 people were kill by a car bomb at this fruit and vegetable market. 31 others were injured.

and against this violent back drop, the continued withdrawal of u.s. forces from iraq is happening. nearly all american troops will be out of the country by the end of the year. some frightening moments during the time-outs. last night's michigan state basketball game. you see the young woman. she falls. she is an msu cheerleader. her name is taylor young. falls flat on her face there on the hardwood floor. she was carried off there in a stretcher but wait for it. you will see the two thumbs. thumbs up to the crowd. and she is reportedly doing just fine today. and to the pentagon we go. the folks there got a visit from the latest hot young dancing sensation today. fresh off his win on "dancing with the stars." iraq war veteran j.r. martinez was greeted by defense secretary leon panetta as promised. martinez told the secretary, he wants to work on connecting you, the american public, with military veterans, especially wounded warriors. and just ahead, what you

don't get to see on the news when it comes to occupy wall street. poppy harlow takes us inside the nerve center. and is he going to stay in the race? if he does step aside, where will his supporters go? we're talking republican presidential hopeful herman cain. i've had surgery, and yes, i have occasional constipation. that's why i take doctor recommended colace capsules. i have hemorrhoids and yes, i have constipation. that's why i take colace. [ male announcer ] for occasional constipation associated with certain medical conditions there's colace capsules. colace softens the stool and helps eliminate the need to strain.

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the big question a lot of you want answered, sherm cain in? is he out of the presidential

race? the gop presidential race thus far. he says there will be no final decision until he meets with his wife and family who he will be seeing tomorrow. let's talk to gloria borger in washington. can he survive? can he survive the fire storm and stay a candidate? >> i think if he wants to stay in and he has the money to continue in the race and he does have a core group of supporters, he can do whatever he wants. he won't win the republican nomination at this point. his campaign has already been losing altitude even before this recent allegation, as you know, because of problems he's had on substance. on the questions of whether he knows anything about libya policy, for example. whether his 9-9-9 tax plan interesting national sales tax and it is a good idea. what he has been saying over and over again in these interviews, including with wolf blitzer, is that he has got to talk to his wife. he hasn't seen her. he is going to see her tomorrow. and i would think that would probably be just guessing here,

the most important conversation that he can have about this issue. because if the toll is too great on her and on his family, he is consistently said, he is going to get out of the race. so let's see what happens with his family tomorrow. >> yeah, he told jim acosta in ohio interesting next couple days, we'll wait for that. mean time let's talk about your opinion piece, your column because you wrote it. cnn.com/opinion. you talk about the ongoing search for republicans to find the perfect candidate. newt gingrich. we know the numbers. he has a lot of baggage. quote, any historian knows that newt has a long personal history of self-destruction. he became fails as, a tegt of the gop revolution in 1994. that made him house speaker. the infamous as a lead critic of bill clinton's presidential affair while gingrich was involved in one of his own. he is also the man who has

called obama the most successful food stamp president in american history. how polite. >> he is a man of great contrasts. i must say, i don't want to give away age here or anything but i met newt when he was speaker of the house. and during impeachment. and newt gingrich was incredibly controversial. and ended up resigning as speaker because he lost seats in the house for the republicans. and became a huge problem for him. he had ethics issues. when you talk to people in the romney campaign, what is interesting is that they say that when they do their focus groups, the voters really aren't aware of newt gingrich's controversial history. both personally and politically. and so you can be sure that the romney campaign will be reminding the voters about that if this does become a head on

head race. which it looks like it is. >> a two-man race, i remember you saying after the debate. you never know which newt gingrich you're going to get. and speaking of that, at the top of the poll. someone trying to chip away at that, ron paul released this web ad. let's just watch a piece. >> you're an embarrassment to our party. >> he's flipped and flopped based on who is paying him. >> he has painted himself to be the essence of insiders. >> so gloria, as long as newt gingrich is the flavor of the week, is he just facing this kind of scrutiny every day? >> yeah, he will. and i'll tell you what. the romney campaign is probably very happy that ron paul is the one attacking newt gingrich for being a flip-flopper. after all, mitt romney has some problem on the flip-flop issue of his own. so if somebody else is newt for that, that's fine. and also, they kind of like the attack to be leveled from the other candidates. let the other candidates fight

amongst themselves. that's always good for mitt romney. i'm sure he would love herman cain to stay in, for example. because they can then divide up the vote and then his campaign hopes he can rise to the top. so from the romney campaign, keep it coming from ron paul on newt gingrich. but yes, newt can expect a lot more of this. >> read gloria's colonel you will. cnn.com/opinion. thank you. with many occupy encampments now dismantled, we'll talk about the stock market. a huge jump in stocks yesterday. today not so much. let's look at the numbers. down just a smidge. 16 points. quite the opposite from that rally we saw yesterday. what's happening in this is mostly because of the world's central banks stepping in to fix the growing economic problems. but it is having a different effect on your retirement savings. >> what are the world central banks doing? it's complicated.

really complicated. they're doing what politicians can't or won't do. they're making sure that there is money flowing between europe's banks. they're lowering prize on swaps. what's a swap? a swap is when the fed provides dollars to a foreign central bank and then gets foreign currency in return. those swaps and arrangements like them are the life blood of short-term operations for banks. why now? because those swaps between the banks were getting more expensive. and a credit freeze was looking more and more likely. since may the cost for european banks to borrow dollars from other european banks has been skyrocketing. it has been more expensive to get access to dollar funding. now it is at levels not seen since lehman brothers collapsed in 2008. it is causing a lot of concern in global markets. we all remember what happened after lehman brothers collapsed. a credit freeze that closed

factories, killed business, and wiped out millions of jobs around the world. so the federal reserve here in the u.s., the central banks of england, japan, switzerland and canada, they want to keep the money flowing so that households can borrow, company can pay their bills, and you can get paid at work. another player here in a separate move was china. china loosened bank rules there to keep money flowing as well. at about the same time the ecb and the fed and all these other banks around the world announced their move. so some are wondering if all of this is a worldwide coordinated effort to keep europe afloat here. now all this is good news. a very positive action in a still pretty negative and dangerous situation in the credit markets. the underlying problems are still there. make no mistake. those problems are an escalating debt crisis in europe. that threatens to tear apart the euro zone. europe is still on the brink and

there is pretty much very little time to fix it before borrowing costs rise more. the credit markets potentially lock up. you would have stock markets bucking and company couldn't get funning to do anything.

with so many occupy encampments, you might think the movement has pretty much fizzled out but it has not. the protest has simply moved indoors. >> reporter: zuccotti park is nearly all cleared out but occupy has moved to places you probably wouldn't expect. including an office right off wall street. >> you walk in. you get a name tag like this. this is occupy headquarters? >> not at all. this is one of our offices. because we don't have zuccotti park, we are spreading out our resources. so we can have people join us. working groups can continue to work and plan. >> reporter: show us around. >> this is some of our worg spaces. you can see lots of occupiers

working here. they can help people who were staying in the park who are now homeless. >> a copy machine. >> as every office needs. rent in manhattan isn't cheap. how are you paying for this? >> we are not. it is donations. our furniture was donated. our food donated, our water is donated. >> reporter: so this really stands out to me when we walk in here. what print media is saying about the movement today. so they're posting all the stuff that we the media are putting out there. you're keeping an eye on us. >> of course. >> reporter: is it a more professional movement? you have an office. is it different now? >> no. i don't think so. one of the things we're trying to reconcile here is that we're trying to show the world a different way of doing things. and though we may be in an office space, we want to stay true to exactly who we are. >> reporter: so there is no boss on this office floor? >> absolutely not. we are a movement without leadership. people oftentimes say, a bunch

of anarchists can't run anything. they'll do what they want. nothing can be further from the truth in occupy wall street. we have layer upon layer upon layer upon layers of regulations and guidelines. we as a people came up with those. >> reporter: here right next to the new york stock exchange in the trump building is another public meeting area for occupy wall street where a lot of them have gone since zuccotti park got evicted. >> a little bit ironic. this is actually the lobby of a bank. but that actually makes it so much more important to us. >> reporter: is this space as important as your office is that we were in earlier? >> this space is much more important than the office. >> reporter: why? >> because what you're seeing right here is decision making. i can't tell you what we're going to look like in a year. what i can say is what you see around here is what's going to determine what we look like. >> poppy harlow.

speaking of wall street, the champagne has run out. blue chip stocks leveled out today after the huge surge. the biggest surge in two and a half years. that happened wednesday while we were watching. up 490 points. the big surge followed news of the fed intervening in europe, freeing up u.s. dollars to try to blunt a credit crisis caused by excessive government debt. and i know, you hear a lot of this. sometimes it makes your head spin. so follow me if you would. we have katherine man. a professor of economics at brandice down the road from boston. if you would, just help us understand this. we're told the european banks have stopped lending amongst themselves. hence the credit crisis. they've lost trust. it comes down to trust in one another. two things. why is the circular lending among the banks so, so crucial and two, why don't they trust

each other anymore? >> well, the first question is why is it important that banks lend to each other? that's the way banks even out their funding on a daily basis. it is called overnight lending and that's what it is. they're lending overnight. sometimes it is for a longer period than that. but it is basically one bank lending to another. they've got a little extra. they're not helpeding it out. or they're not using it for their own trading activities. they lend it to another bank for an overnight interest rate. a standard interest rate that we use or we look at in order to understand how risky banks think each other is as a lending partner. it is called the libor spread. overnight index spread. and in starting in about mid summer, that rate started to rise. and it has been continuously rising through yesterday. and it was that increase in the riskiness that banks perceived in lending to each other that really caused the central banks

as a group cooperatively to intervene in the overnight lending market. so now, if banks need to borrow from another bank and maybe they can't borrow from another bank. they can go to their own central bank and borrow from that central bank. the rate at which the central bank charged them, that's now cheaper. so it is a measure of trust. the market interest rate between banks is a measure of trust. that indicator has been rising through the summer. and central banks didn't want that indicator to get out of hand. didn't want it to get so expensive for banks to borrow from each other. and so that's why they intervened and arranged for the swap lines between the central banks. >> so given all of that and the lack of trust that you outlined. then you have the president, president obama, meeting with the europeans just this past monday. and i want to play a portion of

how he explained the u.s. interests overseas. >> if europe is having difficulties, then it is much more difficult for us to create good jobs here at home because we send so many of our products and services to europe. it is such an important trading partner for us. >> important trading partner. obviously, we need europe to buy our products, right? if europe goes south, my question is then what american industries would really get hit first? and how far could this spread? how bad could it get? >> europe is our most significant trading partner in capital goods, the heavy stuff that drops on your foot. also in some financial services, education. also very important for pharmaceuticals. the other characteristic about trade with europe is that it is very important for our multinationals. and so profits earned in europe

are very important for profits overall for the multinationals. so europe going south in terms of very slow growth rate would be, would make it more difficult for the u.s. to use, demand for our exports as a platform for supporting u.s. gdp. exports have been very important over the past couple of years in supporting gdp growth where u.s. consumers have been a little bit tight with your pocket book. business investment has been a little bit low. and even the government has started to contract its spending. so exports has been the bright light for gdp growth. and when europe has not really been growing very quickly, that bright light kind of dims a little bit. but i think we ought to separate out the central bank swap line. we have to separate out the central bank swap lines which was an emergency response to ipt

bank lending. bang to bank lending. and overall economic growth in europe. the two are related. but not very tightly. >> with regard to europe, we keep hearing about germany. "wall street journal," paragraph number. two i'm going to tell you a joke. i've never done this on tv. a joke the rounds, a greek and italian and a spaniard walk into a bar. each orders a drink. who pays? the germans. the germans pay. because they're the ones who are bailing you out. is that the crux of the issue in europe? >> well, there are a number different issues in europe. one is, it is true that, from the face of it, you can say, yeah, the germans are bailing out the rest of europe. but if we look below the surface, at a much more complex set of issues, what we see is that the germans do save a lot. they save by putting their money into their local banks. their local banks want to give

their depositors good return on their money. so those banks go look for good, or at least high yielding investments. what were those high yielding investments? well, they were u.s. asset backed securities. number one. and number two, they were high yielding government bonds, issued by other governments in europe. now, they've, the german banks have taken a big hit on their american debt, american obligations, and now they're being threatened with taking a big hit on their sovereign debt from the other governments. but we have to remember that those banks in germany were lending because, to these high risk, relatively high risk obligations because they weren't getting a high return. when germany bails out -- when germany bails out greece, spain

and france, they're bailing out themselves. they're bailing out their own banks. >> thank you very much. we'll see what this intervention does with regard to europe and the rest of us. next question. do you see gary giordano's interview in he had aot to say about his final days with his traveling companion. like what he was doing with an insurance policy taken out on her and why he looked so calm walking door to door looking for her. it was all very curious. sunny hostin is on the case next. calcium and vitamin d. and tastes simply delicious. for those of us with lactose intolerance... lactaid® milk. the original 100% lactose-free milk.

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the man at the center of the missing woman in aruba is back in the states. his first stop, "good morning america." he denies having anything to do with the disappearance of this woman, his traveling companion, robyn gardner. he also explains the massive

life insurance policy he bought for her. >> i can't unselect robyn. when it came down to the accident insurance, you can't unselect her. so when i selected that, i was selecting it for me and she got the same thing. >> let me bring in sunny hostin. she is on the case with this. i want to show a little more of gary giordano from this morning. >> the question on everyone's mind, gary, and you know this. they want to know if you had anything to do -- >> absolutely not. absolutely not. in my mind -- >> do you feel responsible at all? >> it's i feel as if a person that i cared about, a companion. if i was traveling with you or you. has disappeared on my watch. it will weigh heavily on me for a very long time. >> would you have done anything differently? >> absolutely. that's a silly question. that's really -- of course. there is a missing person. i would do something different?

yeah. i wouldn't have come. i wouldn't have left. you can't unring a bell though. >> sunny watched it. how did you think he did, number one, and number work the do you think it was smart for him to give a national interview? >> i actually think he did quite well. let's face it, especially in the wake of other high profile interviews like jerry sandusky where i don't think he did very well. i thought gary giordano did quite well. and he adamantly denied having anything to do with her disappearance. and he also gave viable explanations to the questions that we all had. i think the biggest question for so many people, brooke, why do you take out a $1.5 million travel policy on somebody you just met. someone not your spouse. he said i was going to get the american travel express policy for myself. it is travel insurance. and brooke, we all get that, right? i get that when i'm traveling. >> when you go out of the country. >> he said he couldn't, yes.

and he said he couldn't uncheck it. i thought that was viable. i think he also explained why two days later, he did call that insurance company. a lot of people said, whoa, that doesn't make sense. he said his lawyer told him to do it because he may have had to have paid for the search. he is in a foreign country. so all in all, i think he did quite well. and he also staged it pretty well. he has his attorney next to him. he has his three boys behind him. all in all, this was likely a smart move. >> let's just talk about aruba and the justice system. we saw what happened in the natalee holloway case. joran van der sloot. he was allowed to leave aruba, never went back. now we know he is in prove in jail waiting to see if he'll go to jail for the murder of stephanie flores. so how reliable is the justice system in aruba? >> i don't think we can compare the natalee holloway case with the robyn gardner case. i think the circumstances are so very different. of course, the aruban system is

based on the dutch system. it is very different from our own. you can hold someone without arresting them whereas here you can't arrest someone without this evidence. and you certainly can't hold them. so it is a different system. we don't hear that much about dutch law going bad, brooke. so i don't think, you cannot compare the two cases. >> sunny hostin, thank you very much. on the case for us on this thursday. this next story might turn some stomachs. after all, we are in america. we don't eat meat that comes from horses here. but they do eat horse meat in other countries. and it is part of the reason why it is legal in the u.s., again, slaughter houses. there is a condition. we'll talk with a lawmaker in wyoming who was glad to see the government allow horse slaughter once again. but first -- electric cars driving on roads that produce electricity may sound like a green dream. but it may not be. we'll look at the true story of a possible highway of the future.

a single invention promises to make driving greener, safer, and cheaper. it is not a new car. it is a new road. >> a lot of people, at least initially, thought we were off our rockers. >> he created solar roadways. a company developing glass road panels embedded with solar cells. so where we see asphalt and concrete, bruce sees opportunity. >> if you could replace all the asphalt in the concrete surfaces in the lower 48 states, the road could provide electricity of the nation. surrounding buildings and homes. >> for those wondering if the glass will break, the developers say each 12 by 12 foot panel can support at least 80 tons. a solar roadway can light up to let you know there is an accident ahead or heat up to melt snow in the win. >> that's the fun part of engineering, coming up with more and more ideas and realizing, this is a understand wouldful thing. >> solar roadway is still working on the prototype.

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americans eat all kinds of meat. horse may not be one of them but that could soon change. a five-year ban onslaughtering horses for human consumption was

very quietly lifted last month. we asked the usda about it. they said if any slaughterhouses begin processing horse meat, the government will resume inspections. that means in theory that horse meat could start showing up in restaurants and butcher shops. i want to bring in sue wallace. miss wallace, i presume in wyoming, horses are big, big business for you. what is the appeal of this ban being lifted on processing horse meat? >> thank you very much for having me. you know, i lead a group of people, the united horsemen. horse people from all across the country and the core issue for us here is horse welfare. back in may, june of this year, gao, the government accountability office, produced a report called horse welfare. action needed to address the unintended consequences of domestic cessation. the fact is, that 18-month study

proved that by closing the plants that were offering a humane responsible option for horses that weren't needed or not wanted for other purposes, losing that option actually doomed thousands and thousands of horses to miserable deaths, being abandoned, being turned out on roads and hit by cars, in the west where we have a lot of open country. those horses were turned out. domestic horses used to being cared for, used to being fed turned out in the desert where they don't know where the water is. don't know where the feed is. so they suffered. so that's the reason why we need this back. >> if i may though jump in. we're hearing from just on the flip side, the high school ain't society. i know that they've already published this act. when horse lawsuit isser did exist, the documentation confirm that it was a bloody and terrifying process. bloody and terrifying. does that sound okay to you?

>> no, no, it doesn't. that's absolutely false. the united states has very, very high standards for animal welfare. and all animals that we process, the cattle, the hogs, the sheep that we process and use for food in this country are all processed under the united states humane methods of slaughter laws that have been on the books since at least the 1950s. and probably longer. and those laws absolutely require the humane handling of all animals, including horses in that system. and that was the case with horses. so that statement is simply false. >> with all due respect, the humane society and they're citing usda documentation. i do want to ask you, if your state does open a slaughterhouse, who is eating horse meat? i understand it is a delicacy in parts of the world. would it primarily be an export? >> it is a staple meat in most

of the world of china is the largest consumer followed closely consumer followed by mexico. mexico exports 50% of their production, but use 50% at home. you can find it in canada. i've enjoyed ma eed meals of it vancouver. >> so you've eaten meals of it? >> i have. it's widely used throughout the world. it's considered just an ordinary food source. in some areas, and some cuts just like beef, the hamburger is more affordable, but then you have a high-end cuts that bring a lot more money. that's the same with horse meat. >> sue wallace, she represents wyoming. in tampa, florida right now. thank you so much. next, how many bows and bows do they have at the white house this time of year? christmas at 1600 pennsylvania avenue in today's political pop.

situation room coming up. let's bring in wolf blitzer, who i saw a little wolf blitzer, kermit the frog action happening. he was talking politics with you. >> he's going to be joining me here. a really special guest in "the situation room." kermit the frog. he's a journalist like you and me. >> obviously. >> there's a little picture of kermit. we had a great time together. i got to know him. he's deep. got some serious thoughts on what's going on in the world. kermit the frog and wolf blitzer. did you ever think a frog and a wolf would be on television together? >> a frog and a wolf and the newt. it was good tv. >> a newt. a frog, a wolf, a newt.

it's all happening here in "the situation room." coming up at the top of the hour. you're going to want to see this interview and you know what you're going to do after? you'll tweet about it. >> you know me well, wolf blitzer, my friend. we'll look for that and more serious news coming up in the next hour. thank you very much. meantime, for me, nothing get new yorkers red faced quite like traffic. president obama's campaign coalition with christmas in today's political pop. but first, have you been watching cnn today? who said this line that's in the news today? i just am. three words. i just am. the quoed of the day revealed next. you can't change the way banking works. just accept it, man. free ? doesn't close at five ? try nature. it's a bank. what do you want, a hug ? just accept it. hidden fees, fine print, or they'll stick it to you some other way. stay with the herd, son. accept it. just accept it. accept it. just accept it. accept it. if we miss this movie, you're dead.

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if you were watching earlier, you might have heard our quote of the day. who or what said i just am? the answer, apple iphone 4 personal assistant, siri.

when asked the question, why are you against abortion, siri responds, i just am. they told "the new york times" it's not intentional and the final product will be different in the coming weeks. and now, it was a clash of campaigning in christmas in the big apple last night in a city that has its fair share of traffic jams, a big event like the lighting of the tree in rockefeller center is enough to close the streets, but toss in a presidential motorcade and you've got a mess. living in d.c., that presidential motorcade rolls through and you stop for a while. >> it's crazy. you absolutely stop. have you ever been to new york for this? it can be crazy. >> yeah, for the tree? >> absolutely. there's one thing new yorkers are experts on. it's the traffic and they don't take kindly to out of towners, even the president of the united states, making it hard to get around.

so here comes president obama to new york city for not one, not two, but three fund-raisers in new york city, the same night of the rockefeller center christmas tree lighting. it was supposed to be the traffic jam of the decade except for the record, a reporter from the new york daily news said he made it 34 blocks in 20 minutes in a taxi while the president was in town. no joke. and he was going to the christmas tree lighting, so there. still, it couldn't have been great. >> he was the anomaly. >> i would think so. donald trump of course slammed the president for being inconsiderate and arrogant, words that have been used to describe trump, which is another story. trump has been a harsh critic of the president and even considered running as republican for president. >> and while the rockefeller tree was lit, the 1600 pennsylvania home looking lovely as well for the holidays.

decked to the nines. >> these pictures are just incredible, aren't they? every year at christmas, the white house has a christmas theme. this year's thing is shine, give and share. the center piece of course is the white house christmas tree. it's in the blue room. it has cards written by children of u.s. service members, medals, badges, patches from all the branches of the service and the christmas tree ornaments even honor fallen members of the u.s. military and taking a closer look at some of the pictures we've seen of how the white house is decked out, one of the things that really caught my eye, a white chocolate replica of the white house in the state dining room. yeah, right? you wonder who gets to keep that. could be a pretty tasty treat. they've also got a little statue of bo, the first dog made of buttons. bo appears to be very popular in the decorations this year. we have some pictures of some cookies that are supposed to look like bo, but they look more