washington. having us in. here is bill. >> "the o'reilly factor" is on. tonight day 24 of the wall street protests and now politicians on the left are throwing their weight behind them. >> god bless them. they need help. >> but how smart is it to give aid and comfort to anti-wall street demonstrators? brit hume will analyze. >> the white house has point to do that as the model for obamacare. >> i agree with mitt romney. >> rick perry's campaign puts out a powerful new attack ad on mitt romney and his health care plan. will that help perry's falling poll numbers? karl rove will be here.

>> you're going to subpoena the attorney general to testify again? >> and it may be pane time in the -- subpoena time in the fast and furious scandal as a full blown congressional inquiry looms. >> laura: caution, you are about to enter the no spin zone. "the factor" begins right now. >> hi, everyone. i'm laura ingraham in tonight for bill o'reilly. thanks for watching us. the politics of distraction. that's a subject of this evening's talking points memo. over the weekend, dinosaur media, which are still in the bag for president obama, ran with two stories. one, the tired old fixation with mitt romney's mormonism, the other, the endless reportage on the occupy wall street group and their regional spinoff. let's take the theological distraction first. a pastor named robert jeffers, never heard of him -- introduced

rick perry at a meeting of social conservatives in washington last week. he then gave a quickie interview in which he said mitt romney was not a christian and more mondayism is a -- mormonisms a cult. media types jumped on perry to comment and he rightly dismissed the issue. of course, the media are continuing to fan the flames of this nonissue. why? because this side show helps the obama campaign. so long as republicans are bickering about theology, the president doesn't have to answer for his own abysmal economic record or his disdain for the moral concerns of many voters. as for the media's other favorite obsession, the protesters, presidential candidate herman cain offered the correct response. >> we know that the unions and certain union-related organizations have been behind these protests that are going on on wall street and other parts around the country. it's coordinated to create a distraction so people won't focus on the failed policies this administration.

>> laura: by the way, there are actually ads on craigslist offering a to pay these grassroots organizers up to 600 bucks a week to continue the occupation. nice work if you can get it. even veteran democratic insiders are seeing a potential down side to the growing newsance of these permanent protests. listen to this. this was the former democratic governor of pennsylvania, ed rendell, on my radio show today with a historical perspective. >> antiwar movement in '68 was doing well electorally until the convention in chicago. and everything blew up in the convention in chicago and poor hubert humphrey had zero chance coming out of that because the protests turned ugly. it was violent. it wasn't productive. it wasn't peaceful anymore. and it turned people off dramatically. there is a risk here, you made your point. you've gotten publicity for the things you wanted to say. now let's get out there and organize, go home, clean up,

organize and go. >> laura: go home and clean up. well put. voters made it clear in the last election what matters most to them. and no amount of media generated-religious controversies or union supported mobs are going to distract them from the real centerpiece of the coming campaign. the obama record. and that's the memo. now to the top story, reaction to the occupy wall street protests. joining us from new york is amelia, the official small business voice for the "fox business" network and erica payne, the founder of the agenda project which is a liberal operation. now, erica, i want to start with you because i want you to set me straight on why these protests are smart, a smart way to go. you heard ed rendell. what basically he was saying is, okay. you've made your point. go home. kind of the permanent aspect of this stuff is kind of now hurting local businesses, sanitation efforts in new york, it's costing a lot of money to folks who are on the scene. >> if you look back on how the tea party started, the tea party

started in reaction to the bailout of wall street. and i think oddly enough, as much as it might not look like it on the surface, if you sat down with a group of the occupy wall street protesters and with a group from the tea party, you would see that there is a lot of agreement here. they're occupying wall street for a reason. they're not on wisteria lane. they're not on main street. they're saying wall street and its corrupt relationship with the government on both sides of the political aisle has put our country's economy and our american families at risk. so occupy wall street at its heart has a lot of the same thing at its heart that the tea party had. the tea party said these bailouts are totally unacceptable and i think occupy wall street is also coming forward and saying this relationship does not work for the american people. so i think they should stay until something -- >> laura: until what? >> not guilty something starts to happen. >> laura: i feel what you're saying, but you can chime in amelia. when you ask these protesters

what's your agenda? what's your list of demands? what do you want, unlike the tea party, i think, they could rattle off three or four things quickly, there are a lot of cliches, but not a lot there about what needs to be done next. i think that might have been part of what rendell was getting at. >> exactly. they can't really explain what they're there and what they're looking for. you can't say, can i give you tomorrow? they don't know what it is. they say a job. what kind? there are jobs that are out there. they don't want to start at the bottom. others are protesting obamacare. there is not one consensus of what they're there for. because other people are carrying signs and they don't know what the sign said 'cause they were paid to be there. it's not like the tea party. it was self-generated. a lot of this is a political campaign. what's going to happen is it's going to get ugly and way out of hand very fast. >> i mean, what happens in general whenever protests start, and you saw this with the tea party also, is that people want to take advantage of what real americans are doing when they're

stepping forward and having a protest. so the tea party, for example, got a ton of money from the koch brothers. >> laura: coke brother as soon as. >> they wanted to ride that wave that was a righteous amount of anger. you'll see the same thing happen here, you know. but the question is what's at the heart of it is wall street is a problem. >> it's washington. >> it's corrupt relationships. >> laura: erica, i think you did hit on a point that's an interesting one. i think on some of these issues, you're right. i think the tea party does have a common beef with the protesters who are on wall treat and scattered across the country now. i think on some of those issues, the bailouts, you're right. and people are saying, i can't believe you're saying that. but you're right about that. i think the question becomes oftentimes and amelia, maybe you can chime in. when these things become permanent. when it seems like people who become professional occupiers, while they're complaining they can't get jobs.

i understand you get more publicity, i understand that, but i think when you start hurting local businesses, and that happened -- let me give you an example. in dc, there was a taste of d.c i met the guy who organized it. he's not a political figure. he said, i think i've lost about $250,000. this was on friday night, because of the level of security they had to bring in, tourists didn't want to come downtown. he's a little guy and he's been hurt a lot by this. one of you can chime in. amelia maybe. >> the businesses are going to be hurt by this and it has a bigger effect. meaning this is causing the uncertainty for the small business owner, meaning that with these type of things, why should we put out the risk? why should we dive deeper and continue our hard work when this is what people are saying? they don't even understand that a lot of what is happening is directly from washington. it's not wall street. it's washington. these are the same people who are going to apply for jobs and don't realize that we're going to be able to google you to see this is where you were. >> this is the thing: a boat won't sink unless it's taken on the water.

wall street can have whatever problems it wants to have, washington can, but it's the inclusion of the two that is -- collusion of the two that's the problem. i feel for the man who lost $250,000 wet of business. i certainly do. $13 trillion was taken out of the american economy because of collusion between wall street and washington. a relationship between the tea party and occupy wall street group could do what no one seems to be able to do on their own, which is force these bought and fade for politicians to go in there and put some rules in effect that will make the banks -- >> laura: i thought that's what obama -- >> you need to have solutions. >> i can't even articulate why they're there. the roosevelt institute has an agreement from the intellectual right and left. you talk to free marketers, i talk to the chairman of the board of manhattan institute on the phone for an hour a year and a half ago and he had a surprising amount of overlap

with -- >> laura: i appreciate it, guys. i think that in the end, as rendell said, you got to go home. you got to leave. you got to go home, clean everything up and you got to turn yourself into a political movement, otherwise you're just carrying signs that -- for no reason. i appreciate it. directly ahead, do these mobs on wall street help or hurt in the end, the democratic party? brit hume on that. and then rick perry slams romneycare in a new political ad. ann colter will be here to handicap the gop

>> laura: continuing now with our lead story on the so-called anti-wall street protests popping up around the country. these mobs are now getting support from the biggest names in the democratic party. >> there is stress on people's lives. they, too, need help. not a bailout, but a chance to get the economy moving for them. and that's an understandable sense of frustration on their part. >> i support the message to the establishment, whether it's wall street or the political establishment and the rest that change has to happen. we can not continue in a way that does not -- that is not relevant to their lives. people are angry. >> the protesters are giving voice to a more broad based frustration about how our

financial system works. >> laura: not surprisingly, republicans see a little differently. >> i think this divisive rhetoric is fairly divisive. i think it's troubling. sewing class envy and unrest will be the undoing of america. >> i for one am increasingly concerned about the growing mobs occupying wall street and the other cities across the country. believe it or not, some in this town have actually condoned the pitting of americans against americans. >> laura: who is on the winning side politically of these demonstrations? with us now, political analyst, bright human. so brit, i was thinking, what who i do? i would send them pizzas or something. to get all worked up about oh, the mobs, what's the real deal here politically as far as you can tell? >> i would say it's early to say this is just a bunch of mobs. but it does not seem, to me, to be a very good parallel to the

tea party movement because the tea party movement, like many in -- have several characteristics. so far, this group is proudly unorganized, its focus is this message about wall street, and the discipline is lacking you can see in the skirmishes with police which, even if the police were being rough, almost never earn you public support. so what i would say about the politicians who have sort of tentatively cast their lot with these demonstrators, it's a risky thing to do because you don't know which way this thing will go. it could get very violent and you heard what ed rendell said, i think correctly about what happened to the democrats who had thrown in with the antiwar movement when it went violent at the famous convention in chicago. it really did damage the party. >> laura: an iranian general, i guess it was jazeeri said this is the american spring. he went on to say this is the

end of the western capitalist system. if you're a democrat in office today and -- oh, this is good, broad based concern on the public, and you have like the iranian general making laud tri comments, it is like, why do it? in a free country, we celebrate their right to protest. >> i don't think you want to throw in with the sentiments of the iranian general. i would also say that i think that democrats have been really envious of the tea party because the tea party benefited the republican party. what was the biggest, most important development of the cycle was the mid terms. it was these different tea party organizations throw not guilty with the republicans, instead of going third party, which they could have done. the fact that they -- mostly what you got was a tremendous battery of energy on the republican side and you had this big washout in the election in

favor of the republicans. i just don't know that this movement is likely to do the same for the democrats and i would say based on what we've seen so far, the answer would be no and it's risky to throw in with them. >> laura: it seems on a list of policy prescriptions which we've now established are pretty scant, there is kind of a professional protest class and the "new york post" has written about this today, where people have been in these protests for some time and they really enjoy being part of them and it's a sense of community. there's a life coach, nutritionist, a notary in the new york -- a notary? there is a life coach and i'm thinking of heading there. a life coach sounds like a pretty good idea to me. not a bad deal. >> it's kind of -- there is a woodstock feel to the whole thing. >> laura: yeah, kind of fun. >> interesting to read about trump with a blazer, walking around and he was being friendly, as he is to everybody. and finally says, who are you, man? and he said, i'm the head of the afl-cio, what are you doing here? he said, i want to help you.

he said, we don't want anybody to organize us. he said, i'm not trying to take you over. but the afl-cio is sending an organizer to get this group to come together. >> laura: perhaps politically again, analyzing this, maybe the e-mail addresses are helpful, maybe that way we can get people to show up at the polls because as rendell said, now you have to turn this into some political energy or some political momentum, which is lacking right now. they had a whole thing in dc about how to take off the plastic handcuffs and the people dressed as betsy ross or george washington at the tea party rallies, we're not worried about -- >> the truth of the matter is, the tea party by and large, the protesters were well behaved, well skin palestinianed. they -- disciplined. there are always fringe characters. the sense that i think people may get of this movement that is composed almost entirely of fringe characters. it's early yet. it could change. it's unfair to condemn it at this stage, but boy, if i were a

democratic politician, i'd be wary of associating myself with this. >> laura: but there is a common concern, right? wealth disparity, middle class being shrunk. >> bailouts. that's the thing they have in common with the tea party. i think that's about it. >> laura: brit hume, great to see you. and when we come back, a christian pastor says the mormon religion is a cult. and herman cain had surprising comments on the situation. karl rove will analyze. rick perry see has lot of president obama in a new political ad. will romney's past hurt him with conservatives? ann coulter will explain coming right back.

>> laura: in the impact segment tonight, recently robert jeffers, a baptist minister in

dallas, and a support of rick perry, said that mormonism is a cult and he suggested that mitt romney was not a christian. the pastor talked to bill hemmer earlier today and is standing by his comments. >> mormonisms not historical christianity. it is a theological cult and i stand by those comments. by the way -- >> you don't take back the comments. i just want to be clear. >> i don't take them back at all. >> laura: on saturday, mitt romney addressed the mini firestorm indirectly. >> poisonous language doesn't advance our cause. it's never softened a single heart nor changed a single mind. the blessings of faith carry the responsibility of civil and respectful debate. >> laura: and herman cain was careful not to kick this hornet's nest. >> is mitt romney not a christian? >> he is a mormon. that much i know. i am not going to do an analysis

of mormonism versus christianity for the sake of answering that. >> laura: what's the political fallout from all of this? joining us now from austin, texas, is fox news political analyst, karl rove, a former senior advisor to president george w. bush. i guess we should have known it was only a matter of time before this was raised. i don't know anything about this particular pastor, but tell us how this is playing out. >> well, look, this is not helpful for rick perry who would rather be talk being other things. but i'd like to step back and suggest there was a wonderful piece in commentary in which was pointed out the grave difficulty of a christian minister like the good reverend saying that christians should embrace christians over nonchristians who are candidates for office. first of all, this is at odds with what he himself has said. he said that in a primary he would support a true christian, he called them, like rick perry over a member of a cult, like mitt romney. but on the other hand, he says in a general election, he'd

support a member of a cult, as he described it. mitt romney over a christian, all be it of a liberal variety, barak obama. this is not where a reverend, pastor ought to be going. look, we have -- should christians not vote for jews? what about baptists and catholics? they got different views on the papacy, for example, and the purgatory. what about infant baptism, which is important to baptists? should this be the standard by which we judge whether or not somebody is a true christian. this was a terrible mistake on the part of the pastor. it's the kind of thing that doesn't belong in politics. we want our candidates and leaders to be people of faith, but we don't get into and we haven't gotten into since at least the 1960 presidential election into a determination over whether or not somebody is professed faith is acceptable to the vast majority of americans. >> laura: when you think about perry here, he's had real problems in the past few

debates, obviously we've talked about that. but for him to be sandbagged with the statement of this particular pastor, that seems incredibly unfair to me. and i guess his people should have maybe done better advance work and they should have chosen the clear person who was going to introduce him and vetted his comments. but if you now have to vet the person who is introducing you at a forum that's not your own, i guess we really have got ton a point where it's beyond precarious for people. >> well, look, you have to. that's one of those lessons i learned in 2000. you may remember we had a guy introduce bush in south carolina, took a two by four to john mccain. we even vetted what his comments were supposed to be and he went off script and attacked john mccain in a way that hurt bush. the same thing happened to perry. i wish perry was a little stronger in denouncing this, but my problem is not so much with perry. he's suffering some fallout from this. my problem is with the pastor. the pastor should not have said this.

and look, it's very troubling. look, given a choice, we had an unorthodox christian in abraham lincoln versus a real christian in douglas. should people have gone for douglas over abe happen lincoln? thomas jefferson, the author of the declaration of independence, a proponent of religious freedom was not an orthodox christian. should people have disavowed him for that reason? should we boycott businesses that are not owned by christians? this is not where we ought to go. there's a culprit here. there is a culprit and it's not just the reverend. it is the press. i went back in 2007 and looked at how much coverage was given to the fact that george romney, mitt's father, was a front runner for the republican nomination in 1967 and there was none. yet, we had time magazine and a couple of other major publications basically dissecting the mormon faith and trying to in essence, mock it. i think that a lot of this has

to be laid at the feet of the press. we should not be -- we should care about whether or not someone is of faith and leave it at that. and for the good reverend or for time magazine to engage in mormon bashing is not in keeping with our society. >> laura: you do concede, right, that there is a segment of the republican party that still has great reservations about mitt romney and they relate it to his mormonism. that is true and i think it's incredibly unfair. >> look, i recognize there are evangelical protestants who think catholics are following a false faith. all of that's wrong. its existence doesn't make it right. >> laura: sure. we appreciate it. thanks so much. and plenty more ahead as "the factor" moves along. ann coulter will handicap the new perry hit on romneycare and santorum also on gays in the military. and later, did attorney general eric holder mislead congress in his testimony on the fast and furious mexican gun operation? we're going to tell you what he

knew and when he knew it. we hope you stay tuned for those

>> laura: in "the factor" follow-up segment. texas governor rick perry after stumbling in a few debates has gone from the front runner to third place in a few polls. nevertheless, he is still a huge force. he raised a ton of money about 17 million bucks in the last quarter. now he's slamming mitt romney in a new political ad. >> i'm a conservative business man. >> time and again the white house has pointed to the massachusetts law as the model for obamacare. >> i agree with mitt romney. he's right. >> jimmy carter is throwing his support behind mitt romney. >> i like him. >> in my book i said no such thing. i stand by what i wrote n noting the line about doing the same thing for everyone in the

country has been deleted. >> why if it's good for massachusetts and it's working in massachusetts, would you apply it to the rest of the country? i would. >> romney flip flopped on so many issues. >> i'm running for a different office. >> we'll end up with a nation that's taking a mandate approach. there are a lot of reasons not to elect me. >> he's right. >> laura: could this ad turn conservatives, at least some of them, against mr. romney? joining us now from new york, ann coulter, the author of "demonic, how the liberal mob is endangering america." we've seen a few political ads so far this season. what do you make of that one? >> it's a good ad. it's probably romney's biggest problem and that was a very strong ad, though i must say, there are differences between doing it just in a state and doing it nationally. you can leave a state. you can't leave the country, or at least not quite as easy. and the other thing is, i mean,

the country has spoken. they do not want national health care. romney himself has said, whatever he says about what he did in massachusetts, he said his first day in office, he will offer 50 state waivers to obamacare. we don't have to worry about him making that mistake again. what it reminds republicans, but i think we all knew this, is that he's not a pure free marketeer. the heritage foundation signed off on romneycare and also in a small defense of romneycare, though it is not a free market solution, a governor is limited in the solutions he can come up with because of federal laws requiring that hospitals treat anyone who comes to their door, including strings of illegal immigrants with sniffles or who think they're getting a cold. that was the problem romney was dealing with as a governor. the problem generally with obamacare and romneycare is that they are responding to problems that were created by government intervention in the first place. yet at least in the case of

romneycare, who is responding to government problems created by the federal government and not the state government. >> laura: ann, doesn't, though, that issue, when it comes up, it brings up this question of philosophy, right? >> yeah. >> laura: who is the real conservative in this race and, look, obviously mitt romney knows how to handle a crisis, which i think he's marketing really well. but that is the perry opening here and just to remind people, this is what's happened since in massachusetts, which again, if you're mitt romney and you see the cost of health care going up, still i think it's only 96% of the people insured. before there was 93%. something like that. it was more people insured now. but still. >> very small amount. >> laura: is all that positive? >> it shows the failure of even statewide universal care. but yet, still i think we have to run a governor. so we're basically down to romney or perry. and perry has a much, much bigger problem, as romneycare

indicates, indicates, especially that sort of thing done statewide. and even obamacare. you can repeal a bad policy. you give 30 million illegal amnesty, you can't repeal that. perry's position on illegal immigration is a much bigger problem than romney's problem with romneycare. >> laura: let's move on to this stuff are rick santorum. i assume you saw it. and your reaction to how that went down on fox news sunday? i got a lot of e-mails about it. santorum is very socially conservative, but what was up with that? >> i thought it was an outrageous question. i was just surprised. i don't know if your viewers have seen it, but he gives this quote. the military is very important. we can't engage in social experimentation with the military. do you agree with that, rick santorum? i was sitting back thinking, that's going to be a quote from hitler. it's always unfair to do that. it was some general who said it about blacks in the military. well, first of all, i thought

juan williams should have punched chris wallace for saying that when he came on in the second half of the program. i'm sick of people comparing gays to lacks. what santorum said is through, with sexualization of the military, it's not someone being black. tell me how being black is like being gay. you can see someone is black. you can't see that someone is gay and the precise policy we're arguing about is whether or not they can go around announcing they're gay. it's not just being gay. obviously a guy can be listening to lady gaga while downloading files he's download to go wick pedia in the greatest betrayal and he was gay, pretending to listen to lady gaga. that's not enough. >> laura: ann, before we let you go, the mormonism question, we have 45 seconds. give us your take on how that went down over the weekend. the media exploit metro detroiting it. how does it play out? >> i'm sick of hearing nonchristians talk about it. the issue for christians is not just evangelical.

it's that they see mormonism as a false religion. as soon as romney becomes a candidate, the media will be doing lots of specials, neutral, nonpartisan specials on what the mormons believe. the things like getting your own planet, believing the indians were turned brown because they didn't accept jesus, that satan was the brother of jesus, these are going to be problems. now, i think christians are worried people will be attracted to a false religion, probably don't need to worry about it because there is going to be so much main stream media airing -- >> laura: they're going to bash it. >> that if anything, it will drive people away from mormonism, but toward romney because mormons are always lovely people. >> laura: very interesting. great to see you. in a moment, attorney general eric holder under the microscope. questions linger regarding his conflicting statements about when he learned about that botched gun operation running

operation in mexico. and that development coming up.

>> laura: thanks for staying with us. i'm laura ingraham in for bill o'reilly. in the unresolved problem segment tonight, a brand-new rasmussen poll shows a deep split among voters. 43% think president obama's policies are to blame for the economic mess. 51%, though, still blame president bush. and another rasmussen poll reveals voters are not happy about what either party are doing to fix the mess. 47% say the same of the gop's ageneral did. what do these numbers mean for the 2012 election? lots bring in the pollster himself, scott rasmussen. he joins us from new jersey. okay, scott. let's talk about this extreme

measure here. the american people are watching this whole process play out in washington, waiting for the debt commission, super committee, the jobs bill road blocked in congress. and yet, the republicans are almost seen as extreme as the democrats. >> look, voters are unhappy with both political parties. they know the economy stinks. they think there is plenty of blame to go around. you mentioned 51% say bush got us into the mess. but 50% say the obama policies made things worse. voters right now are just looking at washington as completely out of touch and three out of four people say you know what? we don't think anything will get done on any of the pressing issues before election 2012 has come and gone. >> laura: scott, let's talk about what happened since the president has gone on the, quote, offensive. a lot of democrats are happy he's taking the fight to the republicans. he's no longer no drama obama. he's in the fight. but that's been about five, six weeks now.

have his numbers changed for the better since that going on the aggression? >> no. in fact, if anything, they've gotten a little worse. we show him at a 42% job approval rating right now, which is near the low end of his entire term in office. the strong disapproval compared to the strong approval is a negative 23. when you've got nearly half the nation strongly disapproving of your performance, that's a tough place to be as an incumbent. by the way, his offensive is not firing up the democratic support groups either. >> laura: 59% also in your poll says the democrats in congress are more liberal than the people. and i think 47%, is that right, said the conservative republicans in congress are more conservative. i found that interesting as the who is on the main stream response, right, because it seems that the democrat party, maybe now with the accolades to the protesters are painting themselves as a little bit further to the left than the regular folks out there

responding to your polls. >> yeah. i think these protesters are a real gift to the republican party. but there is one other part of the poll that i think is very important in terms of looking at election 2012. 59% say the average democrat in congress is more liberal than they are. 59%, the same number, say president obama is more liberal than they are. the more that the democratic congressional hopes are tied to the president, the more they're really going to be hoping he finds a way to turn things around. >> laura: i love this one. i don't know how you come up with these questions. 61% say their own economic judgment is better than the president's. and 24% think the president has better economic judgment than they have. that's kind of a healthy confidence in one's own economic ability. but nevertheless, it does point out your point that the people feel like the politicians aren't listening. >> that's right. a little bit of it's like i used to say on the airplanes that you're safer in the air than driving. but when you're driving, you feel more in control.

people want to have the opportunity to make some decisions themselves, to figure out the best path for their own life rather than having somebody in washington try and make those decisions for them. >> laura: scott rasmussen, thank you for joining us. directly ahead, is eric holder telling the whole truth about what he knew about that mexican gun running sting that went bad? one congressman has accused him of being incompetent, negligent or worse. subpoenas could be issued this week. we're going to run down the latest developments, all coming up next.

>> laura: in the back of the book segment tonight, an update on the fast and furious operation. back in may of this year,

attorney general eric holder testified before congress and said he had only learned about the gun running sting a few weeks before his testimony. the problem is, his own justice department released documents last week proving that holder was informed about it at least seven times since july 2010. now, holder says his staff didn't inform him about the memos and all of them were addressed to him. this conflicting information may get mr. holder a subpoena. >> a subpoena the attorney general to testify again? >> the judiciary committee on which i also serve, that's where that question got asked, has invited him to come and clear the record because clearly he knew when he said he didn't know. >> laura: joining us from los angeles is william lajeunesse who has done great reporting on this growing scandal. william, the attorney general came out swinging late friday

afternoon wanting to change the narrative, calling these charges inflammatory, and baseless. what do you know? >> i can tell you that the attorney general is in trouble with congress because they generally don't believe that he didn't know until early this year about a program that basically focused on something that's very key to him. defeating the cartels and stopping the flow of guns from the u.s. to mexico. also, those documents basically show that everyone around holder with the assistant attorneys general did know about it, that there is a paper trail of documents that indicate that these guys were briefed on it, not once, not twice, but several times. and the information that was in those briefings was pretty detailed as to exactly who the suspects were, how many guns they were buying. we'll look at the ring leader of this thing. he bought over 800 guns with these straw buyers over the course of a matter of months and the guy only made $15,000 a year. the wire taps, they had on him told them that he was taking the

guns to mexico. secondly, you have another, lead buyer who bought 313 guns, again, in a matter of months, he was on food stamps. again, the wire taps indicate where these guns are going, that they're getting the money basically out of drug trafficking, and they're going to mexico, and they're finding out a return amount of information that the guns are being recovered in mexico at crime scenes or being seized down in juarez, or naco or tijuana and telling us, so we know about the serial number, this gun was bought at this firearms dealer in phoenix, transport to do mexico, now showing up at a crime scene, yet you let these individuals continue to buy week after week, month after month, putting 15, $20,000 cash on a 50 caliber weapon, that they don't have an income to buy. >> wasn't the information released that the bush administration had done something similar like this? obviously the attorney general

wasn't on the record commenting on it. but hadn't the bush administration not only been involved in these types of operations before, but some of this predated the obama administration? clarify that. >> well, there is operation wide receiver, which started in 06. there is some key similarities and differences between that and fast and furious. for instance, in wide receiver, we told the government of mexico that these guns were coming across. we tried to get their police to intercept them at the borrowedder in many cases. secondly, that they did do aerial surveillance with wide receiver. but these guys would defeat that by driving their cars in circles for four hours until they had to go refuel. so there are similarities and differences. and yes, the idea and very young agents in that tucson case, that there was a director from the u.s. attorney's office that unless you had reasonable suspicion, even though the guys were buying ten, 20, 30 guns at a time, you couldn't go to their house, knock at the door, and arrest them and seize them. so in essence, there was a similarity. >> laura: tell us about what you think is going to come down in

these subpoenas. darryl issa is like a dog with a bone. that letter he fired back after the hold -- holder went on the offensive said you're either incompetent, negligent or worse. i mean, i've never seen a letter like that going to an attorney general. >> right. and you know, the investigation has gone, if you think about where this thing started back with the murder of brian terry and just one whistle blower, issa brought it to where it is today. but i'm told, i'm led to believe that there is a subpoena that will be coming out this week that will look at specifically communication between the justice department and the white house, the justice department, as well as maybe a dozen officials there. also between doj and mexico. remember, we didn't tell our officials in mexico that this was happening. we said we were going to take down the whole organization, but never told our own agents, atf agents in mexico that the guns were coming down there, let alone the government of mexico. we'll also be looking at some

documents related to the murder of agent terry. >> laura: thanks so much for that report. and pinheads and patriots on deck. we'll give you our poll results about a project featuring mike huckabee and george clooney? moments

insofar finally tonight, pinheads and patriots. last week we showed you this public service announcement from a group trying to get attention about the famine in somalia. using some provocative tactics.

>> it's the real obscenity. >> famine. >> famine. >> 30,000 children have died in just three months. >> 30,000 children. >> in three months. >> the worst drought in 60 years. >> drought is an act of nature. >> famine is manmade. >> famine is manmade. >> go to one.org. let's put a (bleep) end to famine. >> laura: we asked to you vote in our billoreilly.com poll and we asked, is this spot featuring mike huckabee and george clooney pinheaded or patriotic? about 15,000 of you voted and 68% say it's pinheaded. 32% of you say it's patriotic. thanks for voting. and before we go tonight, a big congratulations to bill. i told you his book would become number one. i told him. number one on almost every best

seller's list out there "killing lincoln." it's flying off the shelves. remember the holidays are coming up and you can get a signed copy on billoreilly.com. if you become a premium member, you can get a copy of the book totally free. speaking of free, i've been asking bill for some particulars to the bolder fresher show. we'll see if i get them. if you want to see bill and miller live, you can get more information on billoreilly.com. of course, don't forget to check out my radio show every day. you can go to laura ingraham.com for all the details. of course, my best selling book "of thee i zing," and that's it for us tonight. thanks for watching. i'm laura ingraham in for bill o'reilly. please remember the spin stops right here because we are always, always looking out for you. >> top of the morning to you.

it's tuesday, october 11th. i'm gretchen carlson. thanks for sharing part of your tuesday with us. rick perry taking a huge dive losing half of his support in the last month, at least through one poll. can he recover with a clutch performance in tonight's g.o.p. debate? we'll take a look. >> herman cain taking a lot of heat from african-americans on the other side of the aisle telling him to get off the crack pipe. this morning, mr. cain responds. >> all right. occupy wall street getting some competition. taxpayers launching a counterprotest saying "we are the 53% that actually pay our taxes and these protests are costing us millions." all true. "fox & friends" starts right now. >> this is former mayor rudy giuliani. you're watching "fox & friends", one of my favorite shows. >> right. he almost made a commitment and said my favorite show but he would have alienated some other people. >> we have a little bit of an issue. why is this tucked here? >> it's a little long. that's all.