clear in 2005, we wrote about it at the time, we would not have the revenue at the end. we did not. we bar at $34 billion from the general trichet we borrowed $34 billion from the general fund to pay for -- we borrowed $34 billion from the general fund to pay for. just friday, a highway bill was released that did not explain how they would pay for it. that's $72 billion over the next 10 years if we do not fix that. in this case, we have to match i hope you will take a look at what we proposed. >> thank you very much, steve.

please share and then we can have a discussion among seawall and the panel. >> thanks, brian. steve, that's a great haircut. i wish i could do that for mine as well. [laughter] i'm happy to be here. what i want to focus on is 12,000 criminals who will not go to jail. 50,000 cases of food poisoning, 225,000 pounds of luggage not screened for bombs. that is what would happen if sequestration order takes effect. sequestration is an abstract idea that only washington can come up with. it means if the super committee fails, then other cuts will take place, primarily the part of our

budget that affects most americans. it is the part of the budget that even the tea party folks would understand when they saw that there gun checks were going slowly. it is the kind of cuts that theicans who don't see benefits of government every day, but would not get active weather reports -- accurate weather report because we cannot afford to replace satellites. those are the kinds of things that i think what motivates most members of congress in washington to get this done. it is doing that. what i want to do in our proposal is really three things. first, describing our plan, why it might work to avoid sequestration and why we think that would be a success.

third way strongly supports having a grand bargain between democrats who would go for entitlement reform and republicans who would agree to increase revenue through tax reform. if we cannot get that done, we need to get something done. that's what third way proposed something we could do dustin case we need to bring class and actually get something done to meet the minimal threshold for preventing sequestration. -- something we could do just in case. 1.6 trillion dollars in spending cuts over 10 years and revenue increases and a loss for the president's jobs package. it is $2 in spending cuts for every dollar in revenue. we don't pick it is just a revenue problem or just a spending problem. it's a combination.

the panel today has done a good job of adding that i did back and forth. we have to look at the whole thing. we pretended to be the super committee and decided to see what we could do to facilitate the discussion. we found that when it was going hard on the defense to continue to cough up more and more money, some folks on the energy team said we can cut a little more here. that kind of give-and-take is what we can hopefully see in the super committee as they get down to brass tacks in the next couple weeks. we proposed some revenue increases. we think there are wasteful tax subsidies that could be cut back. for instance, we could eliminate the deduction for a second home. it does not seem to be necessary for most on the ownership predict for most home ownership in america. why might our plan work?

it is pulled from bipartisan plans we have seen from coal simpson -- from will simpson -- form boles-simpson and items in the president's proposal and other proposals. last week we had a major development where a bipartisan group of members in the house been in both directions. 66 democrats and 40 republicans said we have to do a deal that takes something from each of us. you give and i give. that meant that the people who had pledged to grover norquist that they would not raise taxes or spending a little to accommodate national necessity. as for democrats, they were

going to do some cuts, that would not normally be the first thing they would do if they were the only ones in charge. the question is, why would this be a success, if all we did was the minimum, what would that be a success? it is going to let us of another day to keep our bond rating with an the other two credit ratings who did not downgrade us as a result of the debt ceiling debate. it is going to show that we can actually do something bipartisan in healthcare. some of these things will come from reducing excessive spending on medicare and medicaid. if we can get a bipartisan agreement on healthcare, that's a major step. finally, it shows congress can get something done. when we put out a memo, we predicted a 10 percent approval rating for congress should the super committee fail. we were wrong. first, it did not take a super committee failure to local approval rating for congress.

four days later, "new york times" poll showed support for congress settles into a new historical low. second, we were wrong because the new approval rating was 9% and not an%. avoiding sequestration may not seem like the be all and end all four people in washington, but for people back home looking -- have very low expectations of what congress can do, this would be a tremendous victory. sometimes americans here left when they voted for president obama and sometimes they veered right when they voted for republicans in the house in the last election. mostly what they want to do is move forward. it's our obligation as leaders in washington to help them do that. >> thank you very much, david. by show of hands, and you don't

ask to speak on behalf of your organization, but as six experts, will the super committee reach its gold 1 trillion plus the inducted reduction by november 2030? thank you,. , we have heard a lot about the percentage of federal spending and how its is way above its normal or average level. is that? and is there a spending problem in our government? >> historical average for federal spending has been around 21% of gdp. collect about 20%. >> it has been lower than is now. a question about it. the question is why has it gone up and is it really just a

spending? an average is great, but it suggests that things of always been the same, but it's not true. the last of the balance the budget in 2010 , revenue was almost 20%. we have to get back-to-back. health care used to cost less over the past 40 years. those are fundamental changes to the economy " of the reasons we will spend more over time unless we want to fundamentally change the social contract, which phil would say we should do that, we should transfer of supported to the states and states will decide whether to give poor people and old people will care. fundamentally, i don't think that is what the american people want to do. it is important to recognize the historical average is one thing, but kings obtained a lot in the past four years.

imagine if in 1940 or 1930 somebody texas and we cannot spend more than 3% of gdp, that has been a historical average for revenue and spending. that was true, but the country changed. we are on the cusp of that now as well. yes, spending is higher than it was in 1960, no question about it. but to say that means it is entirely a spending problem ignores the fact the country has changed. >> ? co are you trying to change the social contract? plant is the soul is spending problem or is there a revenue problem maxwell? >> we are trying to stop a dramatic change in historical relationship between the government and the individual. if we say we are going to elevate revenues up to discipline zero, 25% of gdp of the federal level -- >> zagat is proposing a 20% of

gdp. -- no one is the rosenkranz 20% of the dps --no one is proposing 20% of gdp. >> europe is far ahead of us at the moment. it would be a poor choice for us to go down that path. we have to get outside this washington mentality. and just about one year ago the american people made extremely clear, but they rejected the move toward larger more intrusive government. with all of the biggest electoral landslides in history of this country, driven by anti- washington, spending, and cyber village in impulse in the

american people -- anti- spending, anti-impulse in the american people. going togot we're worsen the problem, that is the reason you can look at long-term projections nc revenue will be so much tighter, so we can balance the budget if we allow the tax cuts to expire. it is because of inflation in brackets. it would worsen that. it would be a big tax hike and the same time it would give people would benefit reductions when what we need to is fundamentally change the structure of these programs so that workers are better off and not worse off. sequestration, compared with some other things, would be a huge victory. federal spending cuts would still increase every year. the american people would be disappointed in that, but their

actual real savings compared to the baseline, where i i think these other kinds of deals do not really reduce the trajectory of government spending and the largely disregard the mood of the american people. >> michael, a brief rebuttal, because then i have a question. >> nobody is suggesting that 25% of gdp for revenue. of course spending will go up year to year. we have more people year to year. inflation goes up year to year. the idea that what we need to do is literally to cut spending from what we are spending now in nominal dollars down to something lower than that over the next 10 years is purely fantasy. it's it's not realistic. if we look to this, there are six plants or five plans actually. fundamentally, can everybody from here over simply thinks we

need to have spending cuts and revenue. many of those revenues have been described in terms of spending, which is totally unfair, because spending cuts through the tax code is economically equivalent to direct spending. i totally agree on that. but if you cut the mortgage interest deduction, which we do need to reform, that will result in increased revenue. imbalance in the national debate about revenue versus spending where one side says it has to be all on spending and the other side says we have to do some spending and revenue. that is not a balanced debate. that's part of the reason we have this weird situation where people in middle are being painted as being far left. -make a correction?

>> let me move on to andrew. >> where do not support tax increases. in the plan that we did was any kind of tax increase, the anything that is on the tax side is the ethanol credit, because it is a refundable tax critics. it is the type of credit where we write checks out of the u.s. treasury to people, which is different from other things that are reducing people's taxes. on the tax revenue front, i would make one quarter does statements. first, only three times in our history after the second world war have been collected more than 20% of gdp. the most recent was in 2011 at 20.9% of gdp. maybe 25% is not the right number, but what most of the folks on the left are advocating is a tax system that collects at a minimum public and% more -- 10% more than the historical

record, maybe 22% of gdp. every but it seems to forget battery has a tax trigger that exists as well. we have the expiration of the bush tax cuts that happening at the end of next year. there is a push to have a balanced plan column out of the super committee that includes revenue increases has a way to make everybody happy, which seems to mcmillan happy. but we already have a tax-only trigger that quick enough include spending cuts if we wanted to. we have these two parallel triggers. one that is based on spending and another based on taxes. a real challenge, the first question that you asked on whether the super committee would actually come together and do this, i don't know the answer. but i do know that we have a great fear that if the super committee is not successful,

then we will have some sort of joint effort, the bad part above was an effort to undo the automatic spending reduction that is supposed to happen to undo the second round of deficit-reduction can threaten future downgrades and the sorts of things we were all concerned about in the first place. >> i would like you to address this, because we're running out of time. your organizations have very specific programmatic literally line item in the budget cuts. you guys really drill down to specific levels. how have members of congress and the public responded about your specific cuts? >> i will go first. we've had a positive response. when you show people some of these programs, just about every program or benefits as a constituency. but there is some resonance that if you talk about national

security but then you go into the specifics about some of what we're talking about going from 10 aircraft carriers, 11 carrier air group's to nine or 10, people recognize these are not draconian cuts we are talking about. when you explain to people about crop insurance or other programs, if you're not in agriculture, you recognize these are reasonable issues.] that is part of what we have tried to do is to bring together a lot of different things canada and recognizing that you have to spread the pain. if you try to pick a winner or loser and try to make every but it a little bit of a loser. it's a stamping even on the revenue stuff. they were very specific proposals. these are abnormalities or changes in the code that we are setting to get rid of. we have always said that we supported a flatter, fairer,

simpler tax code. it is not simply about raising revenue, it is about going to a better tax code. the only thing i would add is part of my devastation congress in my hand is i i think they will come up with something. you ask if it was $1 trillion plus or 1.2, the way it is structured, they could come up with $600 billion and the rest would be made up in sequestration. they could have any number and it would be tied to that. also, i think there is going to become a punt. they are going to get this down the road and say maybe we will do tax reform in the future and these are the savings. they will get together and deal with entitlements and taxes. so there are certain ways you can do this and reconciliation manner. i'd think it will be a hybrid along those lines. >> how are the members of your

organization responding to your specific cuts? >> some of the highest response we have ever happen on an issue, our members in sending e-mails and such has been to our common ground report. i think people can critics from my perspective it makes sense. in washington you have one side going there's tons of apples the americans don't want to raise taxes and on the other side americans don't want to cut programs. if in washington we say everybody wants their cake. what we found with our members across the country, last 30 years or 40 years they have been hearing from both sides that washington is broken, but special interest is running the show, there is waste, fraud, and abuse in assistance. use a do you want to cut government, they say that they want to cut the waste, fraud and abuse. we come up with a number programs and people go, that's

not what i was talking about. when you talk about education and health care and environmental protection and food safety or screening of luggage, people say that is what i want my tax dollars to pay for. so they are in favor of programs they see as beneficial and are against programs they think of special-interest giveaways. that is what the value of the report is and why we came together. >> david, i am an optimist. i think everybody watching is probably optimistic as well. why were you the only member of the panel to fully raise your hand? >> i guess we are in a town of cynics. we get paid the big bucks in this town to do that. it is hard to see the optimism. because of the noise, because of the rhetorical back-and- forth. it gets mind-numbingly. i can understand why most people

want to turn sports on television instead. it's the end of the day the members of congress want to do the right thing, but what makes progress. they may not do it in a way that we want them do exactly. that is our democracy. no one gets the final say in everything. but the bottom line is if we don't do this, congress will look like more of a failure that it already does. 9% approval rating, that is lower than pretty much any other industry or profession or any other thing we see in this country. that is really low. they need to do something to improve their public image. that is why i am optimistic. >> i know all you will join me in thanking all of you and your organization, because you done the hard work. on behalf of our members, i want to thank each of you in your organizations and all of you for joining today's debate. you can read more about these reports on each of these groups

web sites or at ending spending.com. thank you and have a good day. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011]

republican 2012 presidential candidate herman cain spoke with reporters in response to sexual harassment accusations made against him made by several women. that is next. and we will get an update on the presidential race on washington journal" and will talk about a drug investigation didn't go mortgage industry and on misconduct, talking with joe biden, vice president. >> this weekend on "book tv on c-span 2, the reactionary mind author and columnist discuss the history of conservatism. condoleezza rice recounts her years in the bush administration as national security adviser and secretary of state. and former president bill clinton's got on the current state of the economy and his

plan for recovery. look for the complete book tv schedule at the bedside and sign up for a lurks, weekend schedules in your inbox. >> gop presidential candidate herman cain response to allegations of sexual-harassment made against him by former employees of the national restaurant association. he spoke with reporters in scottsdale, arizona, closed to phoenix -- close to phoenix. >> good afternoon. my name is lin wood and i'm one of the lawyers for herman cain. i've been practicing law in georgia over 34 years. i've had the opportunity in my practice to represent female victims of sexual harassment. serious legitimate claims of

sexual harassment are not settled for nuisance value. i have also had the opportunity to represent victims of sexual assault. when they came to my law office i did not take them out and parade them in front of cameras in a national press conference and then arrange for them to go on a campaign with the media to give one interview one after another. they resolved their claims in a court of law. i have also had the privilege to represent a number of innocent victims accused by the

media of serious crimes, falsely accusations where those individuals found themselves on trial in the court of public opinion. on trial in the court of public opinion where there are no rules, the rules are made up by the media, there are no procedures designed to safeguard the integrity of the process to ensure that a fair and just result are achieved. herman cain finds himself over the last several days now on trial in the court of public opinion faslsely accused, first

by anonymous sources and now yesterday by sharon biadek, who chose to come forward for whatever reason after 14 years when recollections have faded, witnesses cannot be located to tell her story to a third person for the first time. and now herman cain in the court of public opinion has to respond not to admissible evidence.

he has to respond the hearsay, to rumor and speculation. he is not afforded the opportunity for me to cross- examine his accusers. he is not afforded the safeguards that are part of our system of justice. but he come before you today to defend his reputation, a reputation he has built over 40 years of being a good and decent man and a successful businessperson. i ask that you at least afford him fairness and that you view

his efforts to defend his reputation and his good name by maintaining your common sense and remembering your own life experience to determine whether or not a story that is so inherently improbable on its face should be utilized by others with their own agendas to attack this man's reputation. it's my privilege to represent him. my privilege to step aside from this podium and let you hear from him. herman cain. >> thank you, lin. good afternoon. i am herman cain and i am running for president of the united states of america. i normally don't have notes, but in this case i wanted to

make sure i did not miss any points that i wanted to cover today. secondly, i chose to address these accusations directly rather than through a series of continuous statements or spokespeople, because that's the person herman cain is, is to take my message to the people. with respect to the most recent accusation, i have never acted inappropriately with anyone - period. i saw ms. allred and her client

yesterday in that news conference for the very first time. as i sat in my hotel room with a couple of my staff members, as they got to the microphone and reaction in my mind was i don't even know who this woman is. secondly, i did not recognize the name at all. the time that she referenced was during the time i was the ceo and president of the national restaurant association. it's headquartered in washington, d.c., where about 150 work and we have about 150 people in chicago, where she said worked for our educational foundation. i tried to remember if i recognized her and i didn't.

i tried to remember if i remembered that name and i didn't. the charges and the accusations i absolutely reject. they simply didn't happen. they simply did not happen. you know, for decades, the american people have wanted a businessman in the white house, because all the politicians have been doing is kicking the can down the road, trim a little bit here and there, when america's biggest problems got worse. a businessman by the name of herman cain stepped forward. here i am. but i know from the american

people i have talked with over the last several months, we are not going to allow washington or politics to deny me the opportunity to represent this great nation. as far as these accusation causing me to back off and maybe withdraw from this presidential primary race, ain't gonna happen, because i'm doing this for their children and grandchildren. i will not be deterred by false, anonymous, incorrect accusations. america believes that washington is broken. america believes that our system of getting elected is broken.

in part, it is, but in another part it's not. as long as we have decency and honesty in the electoral process it will work, but when we allow deceit and false accusations to rule the day and distract us, that part is broken. nine days ago the media started to beat me up, covering anonymous accusers, and then yesterday another came forth, identified herself, went on tv, and made some other allegations. was it tough last week? yes. was it tough the last couple days? yes. but that's one thing i think a lot of the american people know

and that is just because it's tough is no reason for me not to do what i feel i have to do. because of what the american people have said to me during these turbulent times, we will get through this. these anonymous allegations are false and now the democrat machine has brought forth a troubled woman to make false allegations, statements, many of which exceed common sense and certainly exceed the standards of decency in america. i have been married 43 years to my wife gloria. forty-three years i've been married to my wife. after watching that press conference i called her and i

said, sweetheart, did you see it? she said yes. i said, what did you think? and my wife said. "i have known you 46 years," - because we were engaged for two years -- "that doesn't even sound like anything you would do to anyone." sexual harassment accusations are serious. and respect for women and all people i have worked with or people that have worked for me over the years has been a top priority with respect to me. my family fully supports my candidacy and they know the man i am. they've been with me all their lives, my kids. they know me, the man i am. however, i ask that the media not drag my family into this.

they are not running for president. some members of your profession have even stalked my family members, calling members of my family and extended family members. i ask you as professionals to direct your questions, your criticisms toward me, not toward my family. my reputation is something i've worked over 40 years to build. i have managed many entities, many companies, organizations with thousands and thousands and thousands of employees, and now that i'm running for the highest office in the land accusations, some anonymous and some not so anonymous, are coming to light.

this is not a surprise; it was expected. i will vigorously defend my reputation, because i will not allow false accusations to compromise or in any way shed badly on my character or my integrity. this is why i've decided to address these issues directly and forthrightly. i repeat, i have never acted inappropriately with anyone - period. these accusations that were revealed yesterday simply did not happen. we are going to take some questions.

j.d. gordon, my communications vice-president. >> when you ask your question, please state your name and your media organization. >> and please use the microphone. >> mr. cain, steve fedderman with cbc news. do you think it is appropriate for a candidate's character to come under a microscope in a campaign second, you are basically it now in a he said she said situation. she says something and you are saying something. they are both diametrically opposing each other. would you be willing to do a lie detector test to prove your honesty in something like this? >> yes, i absolutely would. but i am not going to do that unless i have a good reason to do that. that was one of the first comments i made when watching this with my staff and i've also share that with my attorney. of course i would be willing to

lie-detector test. second, the character and integrity of the candidates running for president should come under the microscope with facts, not accusations. >> thank you. >> reuters news agency, tim. >> a poll this afternoon showed some republican voters to see you less favorably after the allegations made by sharon bialek. how can you convince non supporters to vote for? need 100% don't of the voters. you need 51%. it's normal that some people would be turned off by the mere mention of the accusations. isl you have to look at it i campaigns historically, some of the voting electorate are going

to be influenced by the court of public opinion in formulating their impression. but the good news for me in my campaign is that most of my supporters have not reacted to this in terms of police. -- of belief. many of them have expressed their outpouring of support for the fact that these incidents simply did not happen. so rebuilding the trust on the part of some people, yes, that would be a challenge, but i want to continue to represent those that have chosen to support me and those that are willing to look at the facts and not here say. -- hearsay. >> l.a. times. robin. yesterday you call the charges insignificant. anyone who has ever worked in

restaurants no sexual- harassment can be commonplace. my question is, do you believe sexual harassment is real? have you ever seen is? what did you see and how did you deal with it? >> sexual-harassment is a very serious charge. in no way have i tried to minimize sexual-harassment in the workplace? having led many organizations, yes, i've seen instances where it could be interpreted as sexual harassment. if i saw it and if it were an employee or a direct report of mine, i dealt with immediately, before the other person perceived it as an infringement of their privacy. i might add, it is not just men potentially sexually harassing women. i have also seen situations where women have sexually

portended to sexually harass men. it is very serious. i have made sure that was not something tolerated in any organization that i was responsible for. >> dunnigan carl, abc news. -- jonathan karl. an anonymous woman has come forward, karen, a spokesperson now what the treasury department, she has now come forward. her allegations, someone working in the u.s. government, is she lying? >> to the best of my recollection, since you mentioned that particular name, that is the one that i recall that filed a complaint, but it was found to be baseless. let's separate something. the accusations were made of sexual harassment.

they were found baseless. there was no legal settlement. there was an agreement between that lady and the national restaurant association and it was treated as a personnel matter because there was no basis for her accusations. those are the facts. >> [inaudible] >> when she made her accusations, they were found to be baseless and she could not find anyone to corroborate her story. the restaurant dispositions handled it. they went through a process to get to the point where it ended up being an agreement, not a settlement. let me clarify that. i have been criticized by some members of the media that i obtained my story. when the firestorm started a week ago monday i was presented

with the accusation of some settlement was made. settlement means to be there or is the -- the means to me that there was a legal implication. there had been an agreement. that is what happens with a person leaving a company. settlement implies legal implications. all the potential legal ramifications or accusations were found to be baseless. >> all street journal, andrew morse. a poll of four women have accused you of some form of sexual-harassment. -- wall street journal. are they making this up? where is it coming from? >> i happen to think where it's coming from this some people

don't want to see herman cain get the republican nomination and some people don't want herman cain to become president of the united states of america. as you know, when you run for the highest office in the land, there are going to be some accusations that will come out of the woodwork, they will come from anywhere. i said this before, there will probably be others, not because i am aware of any, but because the machine to keep a businessman out of the white house is going to be relentless. if they continue to come, i will continue to respond. the onesanswer why that i've already made the anonymous accusations and the ones that put their face on tv, started a media campaign to basically try to slander my integrity and my character, if i cannot tell you what their motivation is other than to stop herman cain. i believe that the american

people are saying they are not going to captain < happen. >> 10 news in phoenix -- fox 10 news in phoenix. mitt romney has said that defines the accusations disturbing. can you react to that observation and what you think is behind it? >> sure. sexual harassment is a very serious matter. i find the accusations disturbing, but false. i don't believe governor mitt romney was saying that he thought was guilty of any of these accusations. but they are disturbing, because they distract me from taking my message to the american people. talking about solutions. they distract from the whole republican primary process. so he is right, but i don't think that he was setting i was disturbing because i had been accused. i believe what he was saying because i know mitt romney and

his integrity, that you was referring to the fact that it is disturbing that these accusations that are not factually based are disturbing to this process. fox news, lee ross. you have talked about a conspiracy. who is involved? >> i cannot say it is a conspiracy. we don't have definitive fax where we can prove this. we can only look at some coincidences' to suggest that maybe someone is deliberately behind this. we have not been able to make any determinations who point any fingers, or place any blame on anybody in this point. when we step back and look at the fact that there is no factual evidence to back these

only infer that someone is basically trying to wreck my character. like the other gentleman alluded to, plant doubt in the minds of a lot of people who will go to the pollster vote. >> nbc news, andrew lafferty. what role do you think sharon bialek's past financial troubles play in her allegations against you? >> she claims that her past financial situation, a number of civil lawsuits portia's been involved in, she claims it does not play a role in her coming forward. i cannot respond any further than that. that is her claim. but from a common point standpoint, what woul -- from a common-sense standpoint, one would have to ask if that could be a motivation for her

coming quarters subject me to this. >> tracy -- , cnn. who found it to be baseless and why was the other woman paid tens of thousands of dollars? >> i'm not sure of the figure you are referring to, so i will not get caught in that trap. if it was negotiations between -- i am only referring to the one lady that actually filed charges. that is the only one i can respond to. she got an attorney. she and her attorney negotiated and talked with the attorney for the national restaurant association. i cannot even remember if we got outside counsel in this case. and we probably did. it was as integration where they worked back and forth and came to the conclusion that it should end with some sort of personnel separation agreement. >> [inaudible]

>> she worked at the restaurant association for a period of time. i do recall that before i left the restaurant association she was in the process of leaving the association. i did not have regular interaction although periodically i would see her and since she reported to one of my vice presidents, when we would have a planning meeting, she would attend planning meetings. typically when i would to a planning meeting, i would not only bring in my direct report, i would bring in the next level down. she was the next level down. that was the interaction in terms of my seeing her on a regular basis. during that particular time, because i was the president of the national restaurant association, today it has over 14 million people working in the industry, thousands and thousands and thousands of restaurants, i spent most of my time traveling and giving speeches around the country to

state restaurant associations as other organizations. i was in the field more than i was in the office. >> cbs news. you said it's been so many years and you later recalled a there was a financial agreement that you did not originally remember. now you said you did not remember sharon bialek and yesterday was the first time in your magazine. is it possible that you could recall some details later? >> that is possible, but it is a remote possibility. i am not an expert on how the brain works, but i do know that i sat there and went over and over and over in my mind, do i know this lady? the answer kept coming up, no. i watched her on fox news with her attorney and asking you i nowhere to myself. i did not recognize the name nor the voice.

it is a possibility, but a good possibility. one of the things that people who have worked with me for years is i am pretty good at remembering people, especially people combat have had a positive impact in my life or positive impact on my business, i'm pretty good at remembering people i have met who have made some sort of impression on me. in this particular case i seriously doubt if i am going staff by a moment later and say, oh, yes, i remember. i just don't think that is going tappan. -- going to happen. >> new york times. karen --, can you tell us what she accused you of specifically and what your interactions with her were? this is your press conference where you are going to level with us and tell us what happened. tell us what she accused you of

and tell us what really happened. thank you. >> i can only recall one thing that i was aware of that was called sexual-harassment. the one thing that i remember during the day when all of this broke loose is that one day in my office at the national restaurant association i was standing next to her and iaand i jestersn d standing next to her, you are the same height as my wife, because my wife comes up to my chin. the door was open, my secretary was sitting there. it was nothing behind closed doors. by comparison her height-- i

eight to myr hi wife's. my general counsel said that is the issue that she was most upset about. that's all i recall. >> she did not react to assign? >> absolutely did not react to the time. thank you for your patience. thank you for us having an opportunity to share my perspective on this. this nation faces tremendous crises. i would hope that we could to sharing with the american people solutions to problems that we face. we are not going to allow ourselves to continuously be distracted by these sort of incidents. i will respond to them, but we

cannot slow this campaign down when we need to be dealing with our economic crisis. our spending crisis and our energy crisis and foggy foreign- policy crisis, illegal immigration crisis, and a crisis of leadership in the white house in washington, d.c. that is what i will continue to focus on, on behalf of the american people, not for me, but for their grandchildren. thank you all very much for your attendance. >> thank you.

>> herman cain holding a news conference yesterday. we will continue our coverage of the presidential race today. this afternoon we will join the radio program new hampshire today for simulcast. guests include republican presidential candidates john huntsman and ron paul. that's at 3:00 eastern live on c-span3. >> look at or videos of the candidates at c-span's website for campaign 2012, from recent events to the earliest parts of their campaigns, read the latest comments from candidates and political reporters from social media web sites, and links to c- span media artist in the early primary and caucus states, iowa, new hampshire, and south carolina at our website. >> in a few moments, your phone

calls, e-mails, and today's news, live on washington journal." the u.s. postal service lost $8 billion last year. the senator homeland security committee this morning will work on legislation to restructure the finances of the postal service. live coverage gets underway at 10:00 a.m. eastern. according to a united nations report, more than 3500 people died in eight months of anti- government protests in syria. this afternoon a senate subcommittee will examine u.s. policy with syria. live coverage at 2:30 eastern. coming up this hour, we will get the latest on the republican presidential race, including a recent allegations against herman cain. then, delaware's attorney- general beau biden on his investigation of misconduct in the mortgage industry. then a roundtable on the management of arlington national cemetery. cemetery. we will talk to kathryn condon