we have come to the end. it is time for closing statements. i believe you're first, mr. president. >> thank you very much, bob, governor romney and to lynn university. you've now heard three debates, months of campaigning and way too many tv commercials. and now you've got a choice. you know, over the last four years we've made real progress digging our way out of policies that gave us two prolonged wars, record deficits and the worst economic crisis since the great depression. and governor romney wants to take us back to those policies. foreign policy that's wrong and reckless, economic policies that won't create jobs, won't reduce our deficit, but will make sure that folks at the very top don't have to play by the same rules you do and i've got a different vision for america. i want to build on our strengths. and i put forward a plan to make

sure we're bringing manufacturing jobs back to our shores, by rewarding companies and small businesses that are investing here, not overseas. i want to make sure we got the best education system in the world and we're retaining our workers for the jobs of tomorrow. i want to control our own energy by developing oil and natural gas but also the energy sources of the future. yes, i want to reduce our deficit by cutting spending that we don't need but also by asking the wealthy to do a little bit more. so that we can invest in things like research and technology that are the key to a 21st century economy. as commander in chief, i will maintain the strongest military in the world. keep faith with our troops and go after those who would do us harm, but after a decade of war, i think we all recognize we got to do some nation building at home, rebuilding our roads and bridges and especially caring for our veterans who sacrificed so much for our freedom, and we've been through tough times,

but we always bounce back because of our character. because we pull together and if i had the privilege of being your president for another four years, i promise you i will always listen to your voices, i will fight for your families, and i will work every single day to make sure that america continues to be the greatest nation on earth. thank you. >> governor. >> thank you, bob, mr. president, folks at lynn university, good to be with you. i'm optimistic about the future. i'm excited about our prospects as a nation. i want to see peace. i want to see growing peace in this country. it's our objective. we have an opportunity to have real leadership, america's going to have that kind of leadership and continue to promote principles of peace that will make the world a safer place and make people in this country more confident that their future is secure. i also want to make sure we get this economy going and there are two very different paths the country can take. one is a path represented by the president which at the end of

four years meaning we would have $20 trillion in debt heading towards greece. i'll get us on track to a balanced budget. the president's path will mean continuing declining and take-home pay. i want to make sure our take-home pay starts to grow. the president's path means 20 million people out of work struggling for a good job. i'll get people back to work with 12 million new jobs. i am going to make sure we get people off of food stamps, not by cutting the program but by getting them good jobs. america's going to come back and for that to happen we're going to have to have a president who can work across the aisle. i was in a state where my legislature was 87% democrat. i learned how to get along on the other side of the aisle. we've got to do that in washington. washington is broken. i know what it takes to get this country back and we'll work with good democrats and good republicans to do that. this nation is the hope of the earth. we've been blessed by having a nation that's free and

prosperous thanks to the contributions of the greatest generation. they've held a torch for the world to see, the torch of freedom and hope and opportunity. now it's our turn to take that torch. i'm convinced we'll do it. we need strong leadership. i'd like to be that leader with your support. i'll work with you. i'll lead you in an open and honest way. i ask for your vote, i'd like to be the next president of the united states to support and help this great nation, and to make sure that we all together maintain america as the hope of the earth. thank you so much. >> gentlemen, thank you both so much. that brings an end to this year's debate. we want to thank lynn university and its students for having us. as i always do at the end of these debates, i leave you with the words of my mom, who said, go vote. it makes you feel big and strong." >> that's great. >> good night.

hi, frn everyone, i'm brooke baldwin. two men trying to convince americans he should lead the country over the next four years. you're about to hear who stretched the truth and what president obama and mitt romney are saying on the trail today. first, i want you to hear some instant reaction, instant analysis, moments of the debate ended last night. we'll begin with wolf blitzer. >> much more civilized debate than the second debate. there were a few areas where they got into it, especially domestic economic issues.

especially the future of the u.s. car industry. they fought over that issue. you can see the children up there, the kids, mitt romney's five sons arrives, the grandchildren are all up there as well. they're probably staying up on the stage for a few minutes. this was a debate where on foreign policy they wound up agreeing, even though there were knee audiences of disagreement, they wound up basically in terms of the big picture agreeing on a lot on iran, on israel, afghanistan, libya, syria. even on china basically the thrust was an agreement, even though at times they had a little rhetorical flourishes against each other. candy crowley is on the scene for us over there. candy, what did you think? >> it was interesting, wolf. i thought that they came with very different agendas tonight. i think the president came to rough up mitt romney. he think he acted like a person that had to sort of stop some momentum by romney. he went after him. you know, you're all over the map. that's not what you said before.

almost every single answer from the president had something to do with mitt romney. i feel as though mitt romney approached this like a physician. first, do no harm. i feel like he didn't -- didn't come into necessarily win. and i think he came in, you know, as a man that has had a certain amount of momentum over the past three, four weeks since that first debate. and not wanting to ruin it, but i want to bring in james carville, democratic strategist, you wonder why we don't see you and paul at the same time. ari fleischer still with us. your impressions? >> it is obvious the president came to attack, governor romney came to agree. it seems like somebody gave governor romney the same drug they gave the president before the first debate. he was trying to run the clock out. he agreed with him, i don't know how many times. it was not a -- i didn't think it really -- he didn't have very much to say, to tell you the truth. >> i don't think this debate is

going to change a thing about the trajectory of the race. the first debate set it off. this debate won't stop it. mitt romney has the momentum. almost got the sense that the american people are so focused on the economy this cycle, foreign policy debates like this just aren't going to click, not going to move people. but, candy, i think mitt romney had one goal in mind tonight, to appeal to women voters. he had a tone about him, a way about him, talking about peace, going to the united nations, that -- i think the president will define him as too muscular republican in the george w. bush mold, mitt romney wanted to define himself very differently. >> he was not going to be painted as a warmonger. >> this will be the republican talking point this debate didn't mat, the reason they'll say that, because the truth of the matter is this debate was a route. >> to our analysts and contributors, you certainly saw the advantage of being stating president and getting briefings for the last four years. quick thoughts. >> the president won on points largely for the reasons you said. he's the commander in chief. he does this every day.

he was more comfortable going around the world and talking about the hot spots. no question debate coaches would score this one for the president, i think. however, i do think it is very important to the point ari made, governor romney came in here trying not to be pushed to the right, he came to the middle. he's the peace candidate, negotiation candidate, he does not want to start a war. the president in previous debates, a lot of democrats are mad, the president let governor romney move toward the center, the president challenged him more on that front, but governor romney did have a bit of momentum coming in. the question is, does this impact the race, all this talk about iran, afghanistan, libya and the like, i don't know. >> david gergen. >> i thought both campaigns could come out of this happy tonight n early part of the debate, last part of the debate, i thought mitt romney did fairly well but president obama dominated the middle of the eba debate. on debate points, he won. >> the bayonets and horses. >> i have to tell you, though, i think mitt romney does something extremely important to his campaign tonight and that's he

passed the commander in chief test. i think a lot of people could come out of this feeling fairly comfortable, let's put aside the partisans, could come out of this feeling fairly comfortable with him in the oval office as extremely important. i think it leaves a very, very competitive race. i don't know whether it is going to tip it or not. but as i say, i think president obama clearly had two very good nights. i think mitt romney this was one of his weaker nights, but i think that by doing a very surprising thing, by coming at obama, occasionally from his left, to say, we're not going to kill our way out of this, he avoided that trap of being the warmonger. i think he did that very successfully and i think he came across as a very responsible sounding commander in chief. >> i think david's point is right. where he attacked him, he attacked him from left. he said, you don't have enough of civil society strategy. you don't have enough of an education strategy toward islamic extremist. you're just -- you're the cowboy. what is strange here is this was a version of what mitt romney

did first debate, which is to say, romney surprised obama in first debate by being more centrist. i'm in the going to do anything to raise deficits, whatever you may have heard about my tax plan. but this time, obama was ready. i think david is exactly right. >> let's pick up there. we will in just a moment. the last few words from fareed zakaria, back to his point in a moment. let's talk today. very quickly, on the campaign trail, first, here is the president. he got in a rally before leaving southern florida. he hammered away at what he's come to call romnesia. >> if you can't seem to remember the policies on your website, or the promises that you've been making over the six years that you've been running for president, if you can't even remember what you said last week, don't worry. obama care covers pre-existing

conditions. we can fix you up. we can cure this disease! >> president speaking in southern florida. del rey beach, to be precise. he will be back in ohio before the day is out. mitt romney, where is he today? governor romney boarded his plane this morning for a flight to nevada. and we will hear from mitt romney in a little over an hour. but i want to hear right now from this brand-new ad his team put together overnight, even has clips from last night's debate. roll it. >> the president began with an apology tour of going to various nations and criticizing america. i think they look at that and saw weakness. the reason i call it an apology tour, you went to the middle east, and you flew to egypt and to saudi arabia, to turkey and iraq, and you skipped israel, our closest friend. >> you skipped israel. that's mitt romney, that ad released today. again, we'll hear from mitt romney in just about an hour from now. okay. gloria borger, chief political analyst. let's tear into this thing,

shall we. for those that caught the replay in which we saw you up late last night, appreciate you being with us today. whether he won or not, the president clearly be the aggressor. let's listen to him. >> governor romney, i'm glad that you agree that we have been successful in going after al qaeda. but i have to tell you that, you know, your strategy previously has been one that has been all over the map. you've said that, first, we should not have a timeline in afghanistan, then you said we should. now you say maybe or depends. here's one thing i've learned as commander in chief. you've got to be clear, both to our allies and our enemies about where you stand. and what you mean. >> so, gloria, three points from the president over and over, one, you're wrong, two, you're confused, three, i'm the president, you're not. why did the president come out swinging last night so much so?

>> think back to mitt romney in his first debate, where he said, not true, that's not true, that's not true. that's exactly what we heard from the president in this debate. i think it tells you a little bit about where the campaign feels it is. they felt the president needed to go on the attack because maybe they were saying the trajectory of the polls heading in the wrong direction. a lot of those battleground states. the polls were tightening. so this was a campaign and a candidate who felt they needed to go on the attack, they also understood that foreign policy is clearly the president's strong suit. whenever you can play the commander in chief card, you ought to play it. i think he did that last night. and it is clear that, you know, mitt romney is much more comfortable talking about domestic policy than foreign policy. so for all of the above -- >> let's get to mitt romney, the president was looking for a fight, mitt romney seemed unwilling to give it to him. here was mitt romney. >> attacking me is not talking

about how we're going to deal with the challenges that exist in the middle east and take advantage of the opportunity there, and stem the tide of the violence. we have seen progress over the past several years. the surge has been successful. and the training program is proceeding at pace. it is widely reported that drones are being used in drone strikes and i support that entirely. and feel the president was right to up the usage of that technology and believe we should continue to use it. >> so why this strategy from mitt romney because apparently, he's dialing it back, he was the one, the first one to bring up osama bin laden, congratulated the president on tracking him down, killing him and the surge in afghanistan seems to be going well, endorsing the president's drone strikes. why do all of that? >> and the peacemaker, if you noticed. because women voters are very important in this campaign. he had to walk a fine line. he couldn't -- he had to seem muscular in his foreign policy, but he couldn't seem bellicose. this say very war weary country.

people don't want tomonies on w think get us anywhere. that's what is interesting about the war in afghanistan. in his speech earlier in the month of october, mitt romney had been talking about withdraw from afghanistan caveated by the judgments of the generals on the ground. we didn't hear that last night. this was we are getting out of afghanistan, period. >> you think a lot of his peacemaking ways was because of women? >> yeah. i do. i think it is because women voters and i think it is because the country if you look at the polls about whether this country wants to continue to remain at war, while we have huge deficit problems, and huge economic problems, the answer is no. so the last thing you want to appear to be is a presidential candidate is someone who is open to another war, say, with iran. you didn't hear him rattle the

saber much on iran. he said they're closer, they're four years closer, he said, to nuclear capability. but he didn't take the step beyond. >> right, we talked after the last debate, they seemed combative not great for women voters and now much different stance. gloria borger, thank you. >> thanks. >> can president obama and mitt romney crack down on china? cnn fact check thes both the men on that. plus, here we go, the two-week stretch and suddenly it looks like both campaigns are changing their travel plans. why? because john king says one state is quickly becoming the very key to this election. wait until you see how. jack, you're a little boring.

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there are still challenges to meet. children to educate. a middle class to rebuild. but the last thing we should do is turn back now. president obama: i'm barack obama and... i approve this message.

at meineke i have options... like oil changes starting at $19.95. my money. my choice. my meineke. >> two weeks, folks. that's how long each man has to convince voters he's the guy for the job. suddenly, it seems their travel plans are changing because one state is quickly becoming the key to this election. here's john king at the magic wall. >> this is a game of chess. and the president has an easier path, not an easy path, but an easier path to 270.

look at the tossup states, they have to make calculations. where should we land the plane? whether the president or governor romney, vice president biden or congressman ryan? where do we spend more on tv? where do you spend less on tv? where do we need our friends to go in and help us out? where do we have to gin up the turnout operations? here is what i would say here, if you look at this, the president won the battle tonight to mention ohio more in this debate. why is that state so important? well, no republican has ever won without the state of ohio and increasingly, again, i'll do a hypothetical, democrats think coming into the debate this was starting to get away, the state of florida. the north carolina was starting to get away. you can be certain even though the president might have had the right answer on policy, we'll debate that one, but the answer about navy ships will play in the state of virginia. if this happens, this is what the romney campaign thinks is happening, florida, north carolina and virginia going to republican dna, how does the president block governor romney? this is the key right here. i talked to a top democrat tonight who said we can't win without it, he can't win without it, ohio is the big battleground in the days ahead because if the

president can keep ohio and he can win where he's leading now in iowa, and can win where he's leading out in wisconsin, that's 271, gets the president over the top. >> john king, thank you very much. as the race comes down to several swing states, cnn hitting them all. take a look, ali velshi in florida as he heads northward on this whole battleground bus tour. we're going to talk to ali because as this is happening, the dow is tanking off of some disappointing reports here from big time companies. look at it. down 233 points to go and hour and a half left in the trading day. ali has been warning about this for months. we're going to check in with him live next. we're not in london, are we? no. why? apparently my debit card is. what? i know. don't worry, we have cancelled your old card. great. thank you. in addition to us monitoring your accounts for unusual activity, you could also set up free account alerts. okay. [ female announcer ] at wells fargo we're working around the clock to help protect your money and financial information. here's your temporary card. welcome back.

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all right, today not exactly a day to check your 401(k). at one point, the dow was down 250 points. it is still down 225 here. the culprit, major u.s. companies reporting disappointing earnings and all of this is coming here as our chief business correspondent ali velshi hitting the road part of our cnn election express. ali is on the road talking to you, voters, specifically in the swing states. he's hopping on the phone with me to talk about this tour. but, ali, i have to ask you this

is something you talked about for a number of months here, we're looking at the sell-off, looking at the dow down 226 points, why? >> well, you know, the economic reports out today, this is all about -- four times a year. but the report card for the companies that either you invest in for your 401(k) or i.r.a. or who employ you. these are the major companies, the american based companies. we got reports from dupont, u.p.s., and they all have a similar message and that things do seem to be slowing down a little bit, the outlook is not as bright as it used to be. dupont is seeing lower sales. they make paints, a lot of things, a chemical company, they make paints for cars. they're seeing a lower forecast in the amount of pain they't th going to sell for cars. you don't feel them as a

consumer, you don't feel them slowing down y. that's the problem. there is a sense that europe has had an effect on slowing down growth in asia. it is all coming around. unless we see that, this is what you're going to see, investors will take their money out of stocks as they have been doing, a very good year in the stock market, and find other places for them until they understand what the market is going to do and what the american economy is going to do, which makes this election that much more important. >> so what is the europe effect? it is the fiscal cliff fear effect, i imagine. you're in florida. you're going to be going up the east coast here talking to voters in the swing states. how is this playing for folks in florida today? have you talked to them? >> in florida today, we think of this as a pledge for 29 electoral college votes. i've run nainto a lot of people. everybody who is a conservative, liberal, republican or democrat,

probably made up their mind. the people who haven't made up their mind are those who say i need to know which one of these guys is going to be better for either my future or the country's future and they're not satisfied with all of the answers they're getting. what they're getting from romney and obama are visions of what the future can look like. with respect to the sequester, they don't get a budget deal or the fiscal cliff, which will cause companies to lay people off, put less money in people's pockets, there is a lot of uncertainty. they want to know which one of these guys is going to get it done. the way i look at it is you see some economic talk last night in the debate, but it is not satisfying people that they know how barack obama or mitt romney are going to achieve the goals that they set out. i think the work that these candidates have to do to win over the undecided voters here in florida, and as i move up on this battleground bus tour, north carolina, virginia, and ohio. these voters need to know how

you're going to get to where you say you're going to get, not just that you want a brighter future. we all want a brighter future. >> i look forward to hearing you talk to these voters. it is one thing to hear from politicos, i love hearing from the american people. ali velshi, we'll follow you alo along. you and john avalon on the bus. back to politics here, watched the debate, not really not much of a debate last night considering these two men agreed on so many issue. so we're going to play you a little matchup of exactly how often they did agree. plus, my next guest who wrote a book on how risky these televised debates are, questions whether president obama was too relentless. ♪ everybody well don't you know it's me now? ♪ ♪ yeah who's it, who's it huh? ♪ ♪ willy's back with a brand new beat now, ♪ ♪ yeah doin' it doin' it up! ♪ heyyy yeah, tryin' to bite my style! ♪ ♪ heyyy yeah, h you like me now? ♪ ♪ na na na na na na na na

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here's one take, consider it a poetic take on last night's final debate here. quote, mitt romney came ready to float like a butterfly, while barack obama came ready to sting like a bee. that is a quote from a new cnn.com opinion piece by alan schroeder, a professor who studies these presidential

face-offs. he noted in this piece that romney was much less aggressive, much more agreeable than campaign watchers have ever seen him. look for yourself. >> i congratulate him on taking out osama bin laden, and going after the leadership in al qaeda. they laid out seven steps, crippling sanctions were number one and they do work. you're seeing it right now in the economy. absolutely the right thing to do to have crippling sanctions. i would have put them in place earlier but it is good we have them. the surge has been successful. and the training program is proceeding at pace. you and i agreed, i believe that there should have been a status of forces agreement. it is widely reported drones are being used in drone strikes and i support that entirely. and feel the president was right to up the usage of that technology and believe that we should continue to use it to continue to go after the people who represent a threat to this nation. >> professor alan schroeder, author of "presidential debates:50 years worth of high risk tv." welcome back to you.

why do you think mitt romney was so, what's the word, pleasant, so nice, you know, compared to maybe that debate number one? you write in your piece, his aim was to project, quote, an aura of unflapability. work for him? >> absolutely. here's the thing. i think it was a case of strategic agreeability. he was being agreeable, but there was a bigger thing he was trying to do there, which was come across as a commander in chief. i think he also knew he wasn't going to win the debate on substance. obviously obama has a huge advantage over him on that count. so he was trying to do something else more on the personal level. that was the take i had on it. >> strategic agreeability, wanting to look presidential. here is obama, stinging like a bee. take a look. >> the challenge we have, i know you haven't been in a position to actually execute foreign policy, but every time you've offered an opinion, you've been

wrong. >> since romney was perhaps taking the higher road as his supporters would say, do you think president obama in pointing out he's never executed foreign policy effective or a turnoff? >> well, you know, i think there ware couple of moments where maybe obama crossed the line into being a little too aggressive. and that was one of them. the clip that you just showed there. i think when he said the thing about you know what an aircraft carrier is, it is a boat where airplanes land, there is a way of disagreeing with your opponent or making your points where it doesn't get petty and personal. and those two particular spots in my opinion, i think, obama maybe went a little too far. >> okay. romney to use your word unflappable, really toward the end. i want to set up this exchange. they're talking about the auto bailout. president obama goes after romney for romney's new york times op-ed piece, romney wrote how the government should not have bailed out the auto industry. that's the setup. now take a look. >> you said they could get it in the private marketplace. that wasn't true. they would have gone through a -- >> you're wrong, mr. president.

>> no, aim ni am not wrong. i am not wrong. >> people can look it up. >> people can look it up. >> you're wrong, i'm right. romney was against direct government funding of the auto industry bailout, but when they go back and forth like that, does that work, cry babiyish for both of them? >> you know, i think it ends up being a wash for both of them, but isn't it interesting they're talking about an auto bailout in a foreign policy debate. >> a couple of times they shifted back to the american economy. >> absolutely. i think that, you know, the talking over each other that we saw so much of in the second debate, there wasn't as much of that in this third debate, which is probably a good thing for viewers. but there was definitely a difference in tone. it felt to me like they were sort of at two separate events with two completely different strategies of how to, you know, present themselves in the debate. which made it, i thought, a fairly interesting debate to watch. >> your final line it appears

obama did better for obama than romney did for romney. thank you for joining us. two weeks to go. so exciting, i know. you would like to read alan's piece and other opinion pieces on the presidential campaign go, to cnn.com/opinion. thank you, sir. and if china is stealing american jobs by breaking the rurals, can a president crack down on it. next, the truth about which states china is hurting most as we conduct a reality check on both president obama and mitt romney's claims. or engaging. conversations help us learn and grow. at wells fargo, we believe you can never underestimate the power of a conversation. it's this exchange of ideas that helps you move ahead with confidence. so when the conversation turns to your financial goals... turn to us. if you need anything else, let me know. [ female announcer ] wells fargo. together we'll go far.

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in the 90-minute debate, a lot of claims get tossed out there as facts. when mitt romney and barack obama said they would crack down on china, can we trust what they said? cnn's tom foreman checks the debate claims against the facts. tom, to you. >> hey, brooke. both the candidates came into the debate talking a lot about china and the idea that china is effectively stealing american jobs and they got into it during

their conversation as well. listen. >> we are going to insist that china plays by the same rules as everybody else. >> in part, by holding down artificially the value of their currency, it holds down the prices of their goods, it means our goods aren't as competitive an we lose jobs. that's got to end. >> the pledge from each candidate is cleerar, i will crk down on china, but can they do that and do they have their facts right? are we losing jobs to china? yeah, we are. 2.75 million over the past dozen years, many of them manufacturing jobs. look at the economic policy institute, you can see it is not even all over the country. the places with the darker orange color on a percentage basis have lost more jobs to china. so you have oregon and texas and look at california over here, 3% of their jobs in the past dozen years lost to china. the candidates say this is largely happening because while america allows its value of the dollar to be set by the free

market and that determines the cost of labor, that china manipulates the cost of its currency, the yuan, so it can control the cost of labor because they have a lot of people they need to employ. they would like to keep labor costs low to attract a lot of business. now, it is difficult to do a one to one comparison because productivity is very different between the u.s. and china. let's look at this way. if you had a u.s. factory and you wanted to produce something there, by the time you paid a laborer all the benefits, all the salary and everything else, that's going to come out to about $34 an hour. to do the same thing in china, it is more like $2 an hour. so the chinese government has structured its infrastructure and everything else to support this idea, to bring factories in, to take advantage of that cheap labor and to put inexpensive products out to compete on the world market. and, boy, does it compete. look at this graph, showing what has happened since 1985.

this is how many chinese products we were importing in 1985. and it has gone up and up and up and up so that this is a recession right here, by the way, that little dip there, it now reached levels up here, dropped down a little bit more, but tremendous increase in the number of chinese products coming into the united states since 1985. but now look at what we're sending over there. u.s. products in 1985 were about even with chinese and now not nearly as much. it is far behind. what can a president do about that? they could put some kind of a trade barrier in place to stop the chinese imports. but if they did that, china would probably respond with trade barriers to u.s. products going there. they could say to u.s. companies, you can't go tloefr a over there and take advantage of the cheap labor, but they're at a greater disadvantage on the world market, on top of which, you have to remember china has been buying a lot of u.s. debt. if china stopped doing that, it could make it hard for the government to borrow money to

keep operating. so when the candidates say i will crack down on china, you can take them at their word. certainly the president has taken steps, certainly mitt romney has said he'll take steps. this is true, but the simple truth is china is a strong competitor and it has withstood several efforts to reign it in and will continue doing so. even though they may mean what they say, it is far from the last word on u.s./china relations. >> tom foreman, thank you. we'll get you back to the presidential race in a moment. first, this monster of an energy drink, super charged with caffeine and more, now is being cited in five deaths across the country. elizabeth cohen has new details on where the government investigation now stands.

maybe you know what this stuff is, maybe you drink it, this popular energy drink called monster, super charged with caffeine, drinkmakers, the name

monster, it is everywhere. now the fda is investigating monster after it received five reports of deaths in just this past year that may be linked to the drink. one of the victims, a 14-year-old girl, and her family is suing. here's cnn's elizabeth cohen. >> brooke, here's what the lawsuit said. a 14-year-old girl drank a 24-ounce can of monster energy drink, and then a day later she drank another 24-ounce can and she died. now, it turns out this girl had a condition, a heart problem, and that she and presumably her parents knew she had this condition. we talked to a cardiologist and they said there is a long list of different heart conditions where you really need to be careful with caffeine. we reached out to monster for a response to this lawsuit from the fornier family and they said, monster does not believe its beverages are in any way responsible for the death of

miss fornier. brooke, let's look at how much caffeine is in monster energy drink. if you look at the two cans, the two 24-ounce cans that she drank, one day apart, that's as much caffeine as in 14 cokes or 13 pepsis. this is important to remember. there are other stimulants in these energy drinks as well. so it is not just the caffeine, you have all sorts of other things that would be stimulating and possibly harmful to a heart, especially if that heart is not already working as it should be. according to the food and drug administration, there have been five deaths of people who drank these monster drinks and one person had a heart attack and didn't die. now what is interesting is that the fda never made that information public. it only has come out as part of this lawsuit. we asked the fda why didn't you tell people about this, they said because there is no established link between the drinks and the deaths. it may just be a total coincidence and that's why they didn't reach out to the public.

certainly cardiologists we talked to said if you've got one of these heart conditions, you do need to be careful about how much caffeine you get, and these drinks have a lot of caffeine, likely way more than many people would think. brooke? >> 14 cokes, wow. elizabeth cohen, thank you. back to politics, back to the debate, and the first ten minutes. mitt romney brings up a hot spot in which many american voters were not familiar, but could play a major part of the next president's foreign policy. iste. listen to these happy progressive customers. i plugged in snapshot, and 30 days later, i was saving big on car insurance. with snapshot, i knew what i could save before i switched to progressive. the better i drive, the more i save. i wish our company had something this cool. you're not filming this, are you? aw! camera shy. snapshot from progressive. test-drive snapshot before you switch. visit progressive.com today.

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for all of their disagreements prerksz o s disagreements, president obama and mitt romney had several similar things to say, including one growing hot spot for terror. i want to bring in p.j. crowley. welcome back. we're going get to that hot spot here in a moment. but first, we have to begin with syria. before we get into the verbatim, which, you know, we've read, it sounded like both these men agreed on a heck of a lot. you agree? >> absolutely. when you looked across the arab spring, i think mitt romney disagreed more with george w. bush. than he did with barack obama.

he made clear he wants to see no more afghanistans, no more iraqs, doesn't see a military mission at the present time for u.s. forces in syria. and i think there was significant agreement on at least that military aspect of a strategy in dealing with the arab spring. >> max fisher of the washington post did this great write, pointing out the same exact words both men were using on syria's future. obama said, we're making sure those we help are those who will be friends of ours in the long-term. here is what romney said, we want to make sure we have relationships of friendship with the people who take assad's place, steps in the years to come we see syria as a friend. when talk about aiding the syrian rebels, the president said, we need to make absolutely certain we know who we are helping, that we're not putting arms in the hands of folks who eventually could turn them against us. romney, we do need to make sure that they don't have arms that get into the wrong hands, those arms could hurt us down the

road. does this not, p.j. crowley, underscore the quagmire that is syria today? >> well, i think also both agreed that working with the syrian opposition for the day after assad falls. there are very limited options with respect to u.s. policy in syria and getting a consensus around, you know what their neighbors want to see happen there. we also have seen potential danger, the danger of syria is not only what is happening inside the country, but potential to spill outside. we saw some violence in recent days in lebanon. if syria explodes as opposed to implodes that has major implications for the next president. >> we have seen retaliation between syria and turkey a couple of weeks ago. i want to turn to what romney said, he said this about fighting islamic terrorism. we can't kill our way out of this mess. said there needs to be more of a comprehensive strategy to fight extremism. is he on the right track with

that argument? >> well, sure. and what he outlined in terms of empowerment to women, education, you know, the economy and so forth -- rule of law, those are things the obama administration has already invested in. now, the same token he also near the end of the debate went in the other direction and supported what the president has done in terms of the use of drones, which has been a very effective weapon, but one that has created, you know, increasing international concern about their employment. >> to this theme of agreeing, agreeing, and finally i notice this not just once, but twice, in first ten minutes. mitt romney referenced the northwestern african nation of mali. did that surprise you? and why is mali -- explain to the viewers why mali is a player? >> not at all. if you go back to 2001, before that, what we learned from afghanistan is where there are weak governments and a political vacuum, those are areas where terrorists or international criminals, they receive time, space and oxygen to do what they

do. there is a civil war going on in mali. the government has lost control of the northern part of the country. there are a myriad of extremists operating there including those that are tied to al qaeda. we also see a similar but less threatening for the moment phenomenon in nigeria involving a group called the boca haran. it is a subtle way for romney to suggest that while the president has said that bin laden is dead and we have seen the decimation of the leadership of core al qaeda it a challenge that is morphing and including groups in yemen, which we're familiar with, groups in the islamic maghreb which might be tied to the benghazi attack and spreading to mali and potentially other countries. >> former state department spokesperson p.j. crowley, thank you. john king explains why he thinks this election is suddenly coming down to just one swing state. plus, people, families, lined up to buy bread today when

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what's your policy? it has happened now yet again in aleppo, in syria, we're getting reports that syrian troops shelled a bakery where people were lining up, just trying to buy bread. you can hear the people screaming, clearly chaos, running. the opposition says today's attack left dozens dead. and i said it happened again because human rights watch says government troops drop bombs and fired artillery on ten bakeries in the aleppo region during the month of august. top of the hour. i'm brooke baldwin. thanks for being with me here. two weeks to go. two. the men begging for your vote.

hitting the campaign trail today. and both candidates are speaking live this hour. folks, this is the full court press. the president and vice president together in ohio, which could be the key to this election. also today, mitt romney, paul ryan, together in nevada. we're watching the podiums here for you. we'll bring you the speeches live in just a moment. but, first, we begin with this. mitt romney has just touched down in nevada, although we're looking, we have yet to see him, romney flew from southern florida, the scene of his third and final debate with president obama, boca raton last night, he will be speaking pretty soon. paul ryan is with him as well. we'll watch for that together. also want to let you know, the president will be speaking in ohio this hour with his running mate, the vice president, joe biden. and before leaving florida, the president spoke at a rally in del rey beach, florida, where he jabbed his opponent once again as having -- this is the new

word here, on the campaign trail lexicon, romnesia. let's push this thing ahead and talk about some of the battleground states, where the election, again, two weeks from today will be decided. we have john king in the battleground state of virginia. and, john, let's listen quickly here to something i know has a lot of play, since the debate, and i bet they're chewing on it over and over where you are in virginia. watch this. >> but i think governor romney may be hasn't spent enough time look at how our military works. we've fewer ships than we did in 1916. well, governor, we also have fewer horses and bayonets because the nature of our military has changed. >> john king, a lot of war ships in virginia. i've seen norfolk, specifically. how is that comment going to play in virginia today? >> the romney campaign views this brooke as a huge opening. they say the romney campaign will play that up, whether inned

averifier hav -- in advertisingn events. romney very much needs this state. i'm in the northern virginia part now. this is where the president needs his big cushion in the suburbs, not all that far from washington. and the obama campaign and its surrogates are scoffing at this. i talked to a democratic congressman from this part of the state, the northern part of the state. virginians know the key to the future military is high technology. it is changing. it is being more adaptive. might be leaner but can be meaner and more high tech. he thinks this will not work. privately some other democrats aren't so sure. make no mistake about it, governor romney will try to use it down in the coastal communities, norfolk and the like down there, huge navy installations. >> who about this? i told my team, i said i want to see john king talking about the electoral map. i loved how you were explaining yesterday and riffing on this last night when the debates with over. in case our viewers were not tuned in, here you are talking about ohio. >> this is the key right here. i talked to a top democrat tonight who said we can't win without it, he can't win without

it, ohio is the big battleground in the days ahead because if the president can keep ohio and he can win where he's leading now in iowa, and he can win where he's leading out in wisconsin, if nothing else changed in the map, that's 271. gets the president over the top. >> as we know, magic number 270. john king, we know the president will be in ohio this hour. joe biden, he's there for the next three days. should the folks in iowa, should the folks in wisconsin, which both states you've mentioned, should they be ready for a lot more love from both campaigns in the coming weeks? >> reporter: yes. i think it is impossible now to buy more tv time in ohio. the campaigns will find some way to figure it out, cable time, sports programming, but in time of the noon news or 6:00 news, that time is sold out. i'm in virginia now. this state is 50/50. the romney campaign believes it is trending their way. if you just take a worse case scenario for president obama,

and let's say governor romney wins florida, governor romney gets north carolina, virginia back to its republican dna and romney wins virginia, you say here comes romney, here comes romney. the president can stop him if right now he's ahead in wisconsin, he's ahead in ohio, ahead in the public polls in iowa, the romney campaign says that's a dead heat. if the president can hold ohio it almost impossible, not impossible, but almost impossible for governor romney to get to 270. i suspect we got two weeks to go. vice president biden will be paying income taxes in ohio by election day and the president will be through there several times too. but make no mistake, the republicans will be rolling in right behind them. >> i know you're in virginia. let's not forget florida. 29 electoral votes there. we know that florida has a lot of jewish voters. i want to play this exchange this is from last night's debate concerning the state of israel. it begins with mitt romney explaining why he keeps accusing the president of launching this apology tour early in his presidency. here he was. >> mr. president, the reason i call it an apology tour is because you went to the middle

east and you flew to egypt and to saudi arabia and to turkey and iraq. and by the way, you skipped israel, our closest friend in the region, but you went to the other nations. >> if we're going to talk about trips that we have taken, when i was a candidate for office, first trip i took was to visit our troops. and when i went to israel as a candidate, i didn't take donors, i didn't attend fund-raisers, i went to yaud vashem, the holocaust museum there, to remind myself the nature of evil and why our bond with israel will be unbreakable. >> that whole exchange to some degree or another here, really both candidates appealing to jewish voters. possibly jewish voters in florida. is florida still in play because it appears to be moving toward romney. >> moving toward romney, but still a dead heat.

if you're governor romney, you look back three weeks and where are you today? in all nine of our tossup states, governor romney is in better shape today than three weeks ago. that doesn't mean he has the election won, that does mean he has the more recent momentum. most people think it is flat lined at the moment. everybody stopped moving. romney is in a much stronger position including in the state of florida. he cannot win without it. the math is just impossible after that, you mentioned the 29. the jewish vote there, the president last time got roughly eight in ten jewish votes in the state of florida. this is an election on the marriage margins. if they can bring the president down with the jewish vote, that could put the state of florida in play, make it more open to romney. there is no question governor romney has been trying throughout the campaign to say there is too much space between president obama and prime minister netanyahu. last night on paper they have essentially the same position, tougher sanctions, international pressure on iran. romney says netanyahu relationship is frayed a bit. that's his attempt there to create a little bit of a wedge 20 get a higher percentage in

miami-dade and broward in the like among the jewish vote, one thing we'll watch come election night if florida is as close as florida has a history of sometimes being. >> john king and a beautiful, beautiful setting in virginia. fall full swing there, beautiful. thanks, john. appreciate it. we talk florida. want to talk florida again here. in addition to that, the eyes of the nation, they're fixed on these midwest swing states. iowa, six electoral votes. candidates are spending tens of millions to get them. and every electoral vote counts as he was pointing out here to that magic number of 270. and miguel marquez is in davenport, iowa, the heart of roller derby country. >> reporter: if it's davenport, it's got to be roller derby and the quad city rollers. scott county is just one of several battlegrounds here in america's heart land in this one county alone there are enough votes to turn this state blue or

red. the rollers demonstrated their signature move. >> blocking in front of you. >> reporter: oh, my god. and, by the way -- your booty really did block me -- they're tough. these rough and tumble midwest women, also voters. it is about keeping the other side from moving forward. this is a lot like politics, you realize. >> right. >> right behind you. >> reporter: waitress connie hart stopped at the restaurant for 26 years. her derby name, diamond dust. her specialty, blocking. her biggest issue, the economy. how tough has it been? >> it's been tight, real tight. >> reporter: because less money, higher gas, what -- >> less money, a lot of people don't want to go out to eat as much as they used to. >> let me know. >> reporter: by day carrie is a social worker helping kids with special needs. on some nights, she's lady gotcha, a jammer. that's the one that scores the points. what is important in this election? >> i want to make sure there is going to be budgeting for the people who actually need it,

jobs as well. i want there to be continued job growth. >> reporter: she says she'll likely vote for a third party. republicans say this is like 2004 when a few counties broke their way giving bush a very narrow victory here. democrats argue their advantage, the low unemployment rate, now just 5.2%. among the lowest in the country. this is a single machine. >> this is a single machine and only part of the machine. >> reporter: scott county in iowa rebounded with help from companies like genesis systems group, a manufacturer of industrial robots and increasingly its business is overseas. are you hiring? >> we have done some hiring this year. i think we're up about 10 people overall. but we're still about 10% lower than we were in 2007. >> reporter: scott county, an economic bright spot in the heartland whose voters can be tough to win over. oh, my goodness!

>> miguel marquez, trying to learn how to jam with the roller derby gals. you're talking to battling brooke baldwin. i've been known to throw an elbow in my day, just throwing it out there. but it is a great piece. you're talking to these voters here in iowa, one of these key key states. what did they think of the debate last night? did they get what they were looking for? >> reporter: well, most of them got exactly what they were looking for, their side, one side or the other. i don't think it changed the dynamic here certainly. but certainly the candidates, they're going to hear more from the candidates, president obama coming here to davenport tomorrow, governor romney will be in cedar rapids, this place is hot and heavy. we're talking to people on the street who heard from campaigns at their house, door knockers from some of the campaigns, three and four times. at one house. so that's how intense it is. this is going to be a campaign to get people out to vote. some of these campaigners sound like they're going to grab them out of the house, take them to the poll and make them vote. >> they have to deal with it for two more weeks, two more weeks. miguel marquez for us in

davenport, iowa, thank you, we appreciate it. and just a quick reminder to you, we're waiting for the president, we're waiting for mitt romney, both of them expected to speak live this hour from very important swing states, from ohio, where next we'll go live to check in with this early polling station. plus, we'll get you to look at the big board. the dow, it is down 210 points at this hour due to these weak earnings reports. ali velshi, he's been talking about this for months. he'll join me live from battleground state with more. home of the legendary grand prix circuit. the perfect place to bring the all-new cadillac ats to test the 2.0-liter turbo engine. [ engine revs ] ♪ [ derek ] 272 horsepower. the lightest in its class. the cadillac ats outmatches the bmw 3 series. i cannot believe i have ended the day not scraping some red paint off on these barriers. ♪ [ male announcer ] the all-new cadillac ats.

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so i brought it to mike at meineke. we gave her car a free road handling check. i like free. free is good. my money. my choice. my meineke. when it comes to counting electoral votes, campaign aides for both president obama and mitt romney have come up with lots of different paths to victory. but for both of these candidates, it is tough to find a scenario that does not include winning the state of ohio. take a look at the latest here cnn poll of ohio polls, finds the race in that very state very, very close. 48% for president obama to mitt romney's 45%. president obama and joe biden, they will be holding a rally in dayton, ohio. we'll take that live for you this hour. but let's go to shannon travis. he is standing inside this polling place in toledo, where i

know these early voters already casting their ballots and, shannon, you're talking to them, these are the decideds thus far. what are they saying? >> they're deciding as we speak, so this is an active polling place, brooke. i'm going to keep my voice down just a little bit. but let's set this up. we're here in toledo, toledo is a part of lukas county, a county that president obama won by 30 points in 2008. so how are they performing this time, obviously key for them to keep those kind of margins, so they won't have to run up such a high margin in other parts of o ohio. right now, both campaigns are pushing for their supporters to bank those votes early. essentially, that's what these voters are doing behind me right now. i'll let you look at one of the voting machines here, brooke, pretty simple. put in a voter card, cashed your vote, you walk away, all is good. in terms of what some of the voters might have been -- some of the votes that might have already been banked, i spoke with a few people outside this

polling place, take a listen, one woman who was a pro obama supporter, another couple who were for romney. >> just in case, better safe than sorry, want to go ahead and make sure i get out here today and make sure my vote is counted. >> who are you voting for? >> president obama. >> and why president obama? >> well, because honestly i think he's the best choice for our country. >> i think the push for me on the early voting part is the fact that i believe in ohio, and just like any other place, but in ohio specifically every vote counts and so if you -- the day comes up and you can't vote, you've lost the chance to give your opinion. >> i voted for mitt romney. >> and why is that? ma'am? >> i feel like he can take this country in a different direction and we need to go in a different direction. so i'm hoping he's successful. >> now, brooke, those are some of the opinions from the voters that we have been talking to, but let's go through a few of

the numbers i found out. we're in lucas county, toledo, in lucas county. in terms of numbers, today at this polling place alone, which, by the way, is the only polling place in lucas county where you can cast an early vote, we have 499 votes, as of the latest count for today alone. in terms of this polling place, since early voting began here in ohio, on october 2nd, 8,998, just below 9,000 and you're probably wondering the party breakdown. i have those numbers for you too, brooke. lucas county, 23,155 democrats have cast ballots. 9,442 republicans. again, we don't know whether some democrats only cast for president obama or switched over, same thing for republicans. so this cannot be said that, you know, all of these are democratic votes versus republicans but we do know this is the party breakdown so far in terms of early votes for lucas county. >> okay. shannon travis for us in toledo, ohio, with those 18 electoral

votes up for grabs. shannon travis, we appreciate it. quick reminder as you've been seeing, we had this box on the screen, we're watching, we're waiting, we'll take a live picture, an empty podium for now. romney/ryan, we're waiting for both of them to speak. this is when we'll see romney since the debate last night speaking in henderson, nevada, just about 16 miles away from vegas. as soon as we see them, we'll take you there live next. i'm an expert on softball. and tea parties.

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here we are, morning after, or afternoon after that third and final presidential debate. mitt romney, running mate paul ryan together again on the campaign trial. these are live pictures as we're awaiting them on this stage here. the rally about to get under way. this is henderson, nevada, outside of vegas. it is another one of those all important swing states, but most polls show the president is leading in the state of nevada. jim acosta is always traveling,

covering the romney campaign and, jim, i'm sure you talked to folks within the campaign, how do they feel like mitt romney did last night? >> reporter: well, of course, they feel like they won last night's debate, brooke. they laid out to us some talking points on the campaign plan a few minutes ago when we were coming in for a landing here in nevada. paul ryan and mitt romney will be on this stage behind me in henderson in just a few moments and traveling on to colorado after that. and then the race begins. they're going to be hitting a number of battleground states over the next couple of days. on that campaign plan we had a chance to listen to a couple of romney senior advisers, and one of them was talking about the race ahead and the debate last night. and they feel like what mitt romney accomplished last night was basically to stay away from a lot of the attacks from president obama. and at the same time they feel he passed the commander in chief test, that he appeared presidential on that stage in each of those debates with president obama, so they do feel

like that that was mission accomplished on that front. now, as for what's going on today, brooke, you heard the president earlier this morning in florida lay out his blueprint for a second term agenda that came up on the campaign plane as advisers were briefing reporters. and one adviser called that new blueprint a glossy panic button in his words. so they're ratcheting up the rhetoric as we head into the final stretch. >> talking about that, the 19-page pamphlet that team obama outlining his plans if he's elected for another four years. do me a favor, jim, based upon conversations you had, tell me what we could be hearing from mitt romney as we should be seeing him momentarily and also remind us, when is the last time we saw -- i hear the chanting for romney, remind us of the last time we actually saw mitt romney and paul ryan together on one stage. >> we saw them last friday night in daytona beach, florida. they were out there together. and you know what is interesting

about these post debate events, brooke, is you get to hear from the gop contender in terms of what he thinks went well and what he perhaps did not think went so well. consider after last week's debate that town hall debate in new york. there was a big flare-up over libya and benghazi at the next couple of post debate events, mitt romney did not talk about that. he was shifting back to the economy. so that was perhaps a sense that that moment did not go well for him. so we're going to hear from mitt romney in a few moments and hear perhaps what he feels where his best moments last night. one thing we did hear from the president earlier this morning, he called -- he talked about romnesia, saying that mitt romney suffers from third stage -- stage three romnesia, and kevin madden on the campaign plane accused the president of playing scrabble with mitt romney's name. so maybe we'll hear some of that, the back and forth that we'll be getting into over the next couple of days.

that might be a preview of what's to come. >> malarkey, obamaloney, romnesia. we'll check back. we appreciate it. we're watching the dow tank here, coming up with disappointing reports froed big time companies. ali velshi has been keeping his eye on this from the battleground bus, there he is, on this tour. he's in florida. we'll check in with him next. if we want to improve our schools... ... what should we invest in? maybe new buildings? what about updated equipment? they can help, but recent research shows... ... nothing transforms schools like investing in advanced teacher education.

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the word grim is being used today to describe what is causing the stock market to fall. the dow plunged nearly 250 points here after key companies

reported poor earnings today. the worst numbers from dupont, which reported a startling 98% drop in profits compared to same quarter one year ago. and all of this comes as our chief business correspondent ali velshi hopped aboard this battleground bus on this tour here beginning in florida. he's taking on these four different key swing states, talking to voters. he's in lakeland, florida, now. you've been warning of a sell-off here for months, but a drop in profits of 98% for dupont? they already announced all these layoffs. >> a big one. >> this makes matters worse, 14 days before the election. what's going on? >> yeah, drop in dupont stock now for those people who hold it in their accounts, if you have an 401(k) or i.r.a. well diversified you probably own dupont. it is off 9%. i have to say, it is unusual for me to be happy that the dow is only off about 210, 215 points now, it was down more than 250 earlier today. they announced layoffs of 1500

people. they're selling less stuff around the world including automotive paint. dupont is one of the biggest makers of automotive paint. why would you sell less? they're expectg fewer cars to be sold. this is one more indicator of a slowing global economy. we have this two-sided recovery going on. you've got american consumers who are feeling as you and i talked not so bad about this economy, but you got your quarterly report card from wall street, earnings season, that's why we got this report from dupont, and they are saying, things are actually slowing down around the world and that's what makes us -- brings us back to the election because europe is slowing down, they are buying less stuff, which means asia has slowed down. we're trying to make asia into a more consuming economy. but they don't have the jobs to grow their economies. china slowed down, india slowed down. bottom line is everybody is looking to the united states to say can you improve your economy in the united states? >> so as you mentioned, dupont specifically, who are the other big losers and are there any winners here?

>> well, the one that wasn't too bad was u.p.s. i always look to the shipping companies to give me a real indication of what is going on because they know before we do whether people are shipping, buying, send morgue stubuy i ing, sending more stuff. united technologies did, 3m did, these are the world's big, big companies. these are u.s.-based companies but more than half of their revenues come from other parts of the world. more than 50% of the revenues are not in the united states. so we know the global economy is slowing down. which means we need to make sure the u.s. economy is growing, which brings us to this battleground bus tour, we're going 1800 miles, started in boca this morning. we're going to end up in ohio and we're talking to people about what is going to motivate them to make their decision about who they're voting for, undecided voters in swing states and counties like this one, polk county, lakeland, florida. >> 30 seconds, any highlights so far talking to voters in florida? >> yeah, if you're going to be swayed by soaring rhetoric, it

would have happened by now. the people who are undecide ready looking at both candidates and saying i like what each of them to have to say about what the future is going to look like, show me the money. show me the math. break it down and tell me exactly how you're going to create 12 million jobs in five years, how you're going to cut taxes and in romney's case by 20% across the board, how like obama said he'll create 1 million more manufacturing jobs or 6,000 more jobs in the natural gas sector. they need to get specifics. if they want to win over the independent voters, that's what they need to do in the next two weeks. >> next stop, north carolina. meantime, cnn is profiling the presidential candidates, starting sunday night, 8:00 earn. cnn pre files the republican presidential nominee, calling it romney revealed, family, faith and the road to power. followed at 9:30 by obama revealed, the man, the president. speaking of all this money, is it the best time to put money

in the bank with low interest rates, people aren't making money on interest and we have the help desk to help answer that very question. poppy harlow, to you. >> today on the help desk, we're talking about the interest that you earn from money in the bank. it is not very much. but here to help us break it down, stacy francis and la net falcony fox. >> is it worth keeping money in the bank still now that interest rates are as low as they are? i'm not making any interest in the bank and i don't know where to put my money. >> and interest rates are going to be low for a long, long time. >> the bank is better than your mattress. that is true. so put money in the bank that you're going to use for your emergency fund, 3 to 6 months of living expenses and any other expenses you might have coming up in the next two or three years that you need to fund. other than that, the rest of it goes through the long term and it should be invested in the stock market. >> and we know that rates are going to be low for a long time for savers because the fed said they'll keep rates low until

2015. he might also try look at online savings accounts because those traditionally pay a teeny bit more at least than do traditional brick and mortar banks. websites out there like money rates.com or bank rate.com, they have studies that they do every single year and show historically those online banks will pay you a little more. >> you have to keep an eye on what rate you're getting because they can change that without telling you and you can switch ease through a competitor and get a little bit more. thank you, both. if you've got a question you want our experts to tackle, just upload a 30-second video with your help desk question to ireport.com. >> poppy, thank you. the next big thing for apple, it is actually a mini. ipad mini that is. we have all the bells and the whistles, the scoop today. and what this means for the competition. they are next.

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here we go. a lot of hype over one of apple's latest releases, the new ipad mini. it has a smaller screen than your traditional ipad. and starting price tag of 329 bucks. we have dan simon and katie linendaal standing by outside this spot where this announcement has just taken place in san jose. dan simon, first to you, any big surprises? >> you know what, brooke, thanks to the internet, and all the leaks coming probably from apple suppliers, we didn't really see any surprises. they updated the imac, we saw the new 13 inch mac book pro. i guess what surprised me is the price of this ipad, $329. their competitors are a lot more aggressive when it comes to the price, $199 from google, $159 from amazon. so that was surprising to me. how about you? >> that was a big thing for me. as we head into holiday, tablet

is a hot ticket item. for me, 329 bucks for the ipad mini, we have amazon kindles starting at $159, the nexus 7 at 200 bucks. for a consumer, $200 to $329 is a big difference. so i like to say, let's grab some popcorn and watch this play out because it is going to be interesting what consumers go for. if you want e-mail and the internet, can do that with any tablet. >> i have an ipad, i enjoy the larger screen size. why would someone want an ipad mini? is it the price point? >> well, you know what, it is smaller, so that's actually kind of nice to have. you can put it in your pocket. and guess what, this is what apple has done with all of its products. they offer cheaper, smaller, faster versions of basically everything. in this particular case, the ipad mini isn't faster, but we saw that play out with the ipod for many years, the ipod shuffle, the ipod nano, ipod

touch. this is what apple does. >> a big thing for me is the portability here. they showed it is lighter, thinner, you can hold it with one hand. you think about popping that in your purse or taking it with you it kind of a nice feature in terms of how compact it is. >> so portability. >> but we have to tell you -- >> go ahead, katie. >> portability, lighter, thinner. it is very small. dan and i love to talk about the event because a lot of people are very intrigued by apple events. when you head into the apple event, you get trampled. i would like to let you know. >> i don't want anyone trampling you. >> it is not quite walmart after thanksgiving. >> it is. high level tech journalists pushing each other to get inside, to see what was unveiled today. >> but the other reason why they came out with the ipad mini is they're following their competitors. we see google coming out with a smaller tablet. samsung has one. now amazon.

so they didn't want to be beaten in their own category. they invented the tablet basically and see their competitors coming out with smaller products and figure, you know what, we don't want them to sort of steal our momentum, they came out with their own. >> i think at the end of the day, we have to look at the numbers, apple released 100 million ipads sold it date. nobody is touching the ipad in the marketplace, but with the smaller more inexpensive options, we'll have to see how it goes down around the holiday. >> we appreciate both of you guys taking one for the team and allowing the trampleage to happen to report the important information to the people. >> i'm not hearing anything, are you? >> thank you, dan heimsimon and katie linendaal, appreciate it. we should be seeing president obama and mitt romney, both expected to speak at this hour from two very important swing states, ohio and nevada. for romney this is his first public appearance since last night's debate in boca raton, florida. we'll have that for you live.

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two weeks, this is how long each man has to convince voters he's the guy for the job. suddenly it seems the travel plans are changing because one state is quickly becoming the key to this election. here is john king at the magic wall. >> this is a game of chess. and the president has an easier path. not an easy path, but an easier path to 270. you look at the tossup states, they have to make calculations. where should we land the plane, the president or governor romney, vice president biden or congressman ryan. where do we spend more on tv? why do you spend less on tv? where do we need our friends to help us out? where do we have to gin up the turnout operations. if you look at this, i think the president won the battle tonight to mention ohio more in this debate. why is that state so important? well, no republican has ever won without the state of ohio and increasingly, again, i'll do a hypothetical, democrats think coming into the debate this was starting to get away, the state of florida.

the north carolina was starting to get away. you can be certain even though the president might have had the right answer on policy, we'll debate that one, but the answer of navy ships will play in the state of virginia. if this happens, florida, north carolina and virginia going to republican dna, how does the president block governor romney? this is the key right here. i talked to a top democrat tonight who said we can't win without it, he can't win without it, ohio is the big battleground in the days ahead because if the president can keep ohio and he can win where he's leading now in iowa, and he can win where he's leading out in wisconsin, if nothing else changed in the map, that's 271, gets the president over the top. >> john king, thank you. as you know, the magic number 270. coming up next, both president obama and mitt romney say, no, iran will not get a nuclear weapon. but they disagree slightly on how to be sure. not only are we reality checking both these candidates here, cnn shows you how iran could hide a warhead carrier in a bunker or a ship. don't miss this.

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cnn stepping up our fact checks to both candidates after last fwhinight's final showdown including iran. here is cnn's tom foreman. tom. >> hey, brooke. both of these candidates came into this debate knowing that iran's nuclear program was going to be a very serious issue and that it has been since barack obama took office. >> we then organized the strongest coalition and the strongest sanctions against iran in history. the disagreement i have with governor romney is that during the course of this campaign he's often talked as if we should take premature military action. i think that would be a mistake. >> i think from the very beginning one of the challenges we've had with iran is that they have looked at this administration and felt that the administration was not as strong as it needed to be. i think they saw weakness. and i think that when the president said he was going to create daylight between ourselves and israel that they

noticed that as well. >> they agree on many things. each man says iran will not get a nuke on my watch. each one says economic sanctions are a good way of pushing iran and each one admits ultimately it might reach the point where a military strike is needed to stop iran's nuclear program. but they very much disagree on what should be emphasized in this equation. and in recent months that's led each one to suggest my opponent is being reckless about iran. let's consider the two options here. we'll start with the military one because that's one extreme. and to consider that we brought in a life size digital model of a missile. we've done this just so you can see what size it is, how mobile it is and how easily this could be hidden in se a bunker or perhaps the hold of a ship. we know iran has these and they're reasonably powerful and accurate and they can carry a

nuke in the nose cone. it could easily reach all of the middle east and certainly it could reach the american ally, israel. iran says it has no designs on that, it's not even trying to build a weapon. and yet it's widely believed that israel has a contingency plan to attack iran's nuclear facilities and bomb them if need be to keep that from happening. here's the danger, there's no proof of such an attack would absolutely work. if it did not, iran would still have a nuclear program and the pretext for saying we need nukes because look at how we've been attacked. nonetheless when mitt romney talks about the need for strength, what he means is the u.s. must send a clear message that if israel attacks that way, america will stand behind i real. barack obama says let's not rattle the sword, let's rattle

the piggy bank. he's talking about sanctions. the pressure put on the rial. since october last year trade sanctions from the united states and other countries have really hammered this. look at this. in october of 2011 it took 12,500 rial to equal one u.s. dollar. now it's 35,000. some imported products in iran now have doubled in cost since a year ago. a lot of citizens there very unhappy about it and this is the theory. by creating economic, social and political pressure on iran's leaders through this, it will force them to the bargaining table to talk about giving up their nuclear program in exchange for the sanctions being lifted. so what's the danger here? well, the danger here is what if it doesn't work? what if iran uses this, these negotiations, as a stalling tactic while a nuclear weapon is being built? so let's get back to the basic claim here.

when these people suggest my opponent is being reckless with iran, the truth is we can say they may believe that, but we have to get a rate of incomplete because nobody knows how this story's going to play out, only when iran gives up the nuclear program or announces it has a nuclear bomb will we know who is reckless and who was right. >> tom foreman, thank you. quick reminder, any minute now we're watching both these pictures here, the president, mitt romney, both expected to speak from two key swing states, ohio, nevada. keep in mind for romney today this is his first public appearance since last night's third and final debate in boca raton. we'll bring both of these to you live. [ male announcer ] truth is, nyquil doesn't unstuff your nose. what? [ male announcer ] alka-seltzer plus liquid gels speeds relief to your worst cold symptoms plus has a decongestant for your stuffy nose. thanks. that's the cold truth!

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with about three minutes to go to the closing bell. this could be the biggest one-day loss since june. investors are seeing the rippling effect issues overseas can have here. alison kosik joins me from the new york stock exchange. in terms of today's selloff, alison, why now? >> the writing has been on the wa wall, brooke, that this was the effects of the global slowdown in the companies' bottom lines third quarter results are the reason we're seeing stocks tumble. du pont, 3m, dupont is the biggest loser on the dow. reporting lower than expected sales in the slow demand in asia. it's just not happening for these companies. >> what about facebook? facebook earnings? they're just minutes away. its shares have lost half of their value since the ipo.

any idea what we can expect? >> exactly. wall street is nervous about what facebook is going to say after the closing bell especially after zynga recently cut the full year outlook recently. and zynga makes games like farmville and words with friends makes up a pretty good chunk of facebook revenue. not a good sign that zynga got the red lights flashing. the problem is sales is right about where it was last quarter. if that's actually the number that comes in, it's not a step forward. investors want to hear how facebook plans to make more money off of its billion users but in mobile. of course mobile is the way to go. facebook needs to turn that into money. investors are also wanting to know how these features on facebook promote how they're doing as well. the closing bell about to ring. the dow down 235 points. >> alison kosik, we appreciate you there for us. new york stock exchange watching the dow taking a