people who kill american citizens. >> but did that keep him as the frontrunner? brian? >> governor rick perry unleashes his inner cowboy. >> if that's not a war on religion, i don't know what it is and this administration is out of control. >> our affection for the election starts right now. >> good morning! >> we've been rehearsing for 45 minutes to start the show. >> i barely made it. i came flying in! too bad i don't have that jet pack thing that you want to invent. >> i'm trying to get you one. that's the human version of the jet pack. i made it here on 3, 2, 1. good morning to eric bolling sitting in for steve. my eyes are very bleary this morning. has nothing to do with the time change i'm still trying to get over. >> i think it has a lot to do with the two hour debate that

started at 9:00 p.m. eastern time and ended at 11:00 p.m. eastern time. >> shall we begin before we discuss that with this fox news alert. live look now at the other major stories still captivating all of us, that capsized italian cruise ship off the island overnight another body has been pulled from the sinking cruise liner in italy bringing the death toll now to seven people. this as new pictures have been released showing divers inside the heavily damaged ship searching for survivors. overnight, they recovered the ship's second black box. no word on the recordings just yet. at this hour, 29 people remain missing. among them, an american couple. minnesota natives jerry and barbara hile. the u.s. embassy in italy working with local authorities to try and track them down. many americans who did make it out alive arrived home last night. pennsylvania newlyweds were three hours into their honeymoon when disaster struck. >> it sounded like a freight train went through the dining room. >> he was actually helping people out of the way so you

could not see any costa crew members. nobody. there was nobody to be found. everybody was running for their own safety. obviously, they wanted to get off the boat. >> the ship's captain expected to be questioned during a closed court hearing today. recordings recovered from the ship show he refused to get back on board to assist in evacuation efforts. u.s. coast guard releasing new video overnight of a much needed fuel delivery under way in alaska. the ice in the town getting 1.3 million gallons of gas. a fuel shipment was canceled last november due to a storm and supplies are starting to run low. it took a coast guard icebreaker two weeks to clear a path for a russian tanker. this is alaska's coldest winter in more than 40 years. a suspected lebanese terrorist busted in thailand. the suspect is believed to be a member of the islamic terror group hezbollah. police raided a warehouse seizing four tons of chemicals

used to make bombs. it believes both israelis and americans in bangkok were being targeted for an attack. they are warning americans in thailand to be on high alert. the city of st. louis gearing up for a welcome home parade to honor iraq war veterans. the u.s. government is refusing to pay for a parade honoring the trooms. that's not stopping volunteers from organizing the celebration in st. louis on january 28th. corporate donations are pouring in. they still need more. for information on how you can help, simply go to the group's facebook page. it's called make january 28th welcome home the heroes from iraq day. and those are your headlines this morning. >> yeah. so they're doing it in st. louis and hopefully they'll do it in new york. i thought the debate was excellent last night over in myrtle beach. i mean, you have five days until the south carolina primary and i thought everybody was on that stage. for the first time, we saw five. i thought that increased the attention between them and the directness between the candidates. jon huntsman said i probably can't win, i'm going to get out. mitt romney answers with a 23

point national lead. last night, i believe, belonged to newt. >> yeah. this is exactly what we've been talking about is that when he went down in the polls, a lot of it had to do with the attack ads in iowa. but also the fact that there were -- there was a lull in debates for a couple of weeks. now, they're back last night and there's another one coming up, i believe, it's thursday night. will this make a difference in how south carolina votes now on saturday night because this was quintessential gingrich last night. >> yep. >> i would agree. i'd say, you know, the four major topics were romney's record. that's where they started out. i think romney did ok on it and newt was very smart to kind of back track on the attacks, who is taking on bain capital. that wasn't doing him any favors. the economy, newt did very well on. he went right after my co-host on "the five" and good friend juan williams. he schooled juan on answering some of juan's questions on not only the economy, on some of the race issues, some of the things that were going on in south carolina. newt had a very good debate. i think ron paul, if he doesn't

get out right after this next -- after saturday, he should. because he's just -- >> we're going to talk a little bit later but he's not going anywhere. in fact, he has strategy if he doesn't get the nomination when he likely won't to be a power player at the convention. but you were referring to the sparring session with juan williams. i thought juan did fine. i thought newt explained his position very well. >> yeah. >> let's take a look. you know you've heard newt gingrich call this president the food stamp president. here's his explanation. >> the five of us, well, we actually think work is good. >> we actually think saying to somebody, i'll help you if you're willing to help yourself is good. unconditional efforts by the best food stamp president in american history to maximize dependency is terrible for the future of this country. > >> it's about a lack of work ethic. and i got to tell you, my e-mail account, my twitter account has

been inundated with people of all races who are asking if your comments are not intended to belittle the poor and raid the minority. we saw your reaction during a visit to a black church in south carolina. you saw some of this during your visit to a black church in south carolina where a woman asked you why you refer to president obama as the food stamp president. it sounds as if you're seeking to belittle people. >> first of all, juan, the fact is that more people have been put on food stamps by barack obama than any president in american history. i know among the politically correct you're not supposed to use facts that are uncomfortable. second, you are the one who earlier raised a key point. there's the area that ought to be i-73 was called by barack obama a corridor of shame because of unemployment. has it improved in three years? no, they haven't built a road. they haven't helped the people.

they haven't done anything. >> wow. i mean, that was a great exchange. reminds me of something you would see on an interview. >> immediately right after, that i was sending e-mails to fren z friends. that was the moment of the 2012 election so far for the g.o.p. newt gingrich stepping up and pointing out the difference between barack obama and every one of those guys on stage, that was the turning point for newt gingrich was fantastic. i got chills listening to that. >> i think this is why people who support newt gingrich like him. because in this day and age, they want somebody who tells it like it is in that fashion. i know there are a lot of people who don't like him being so forthright because they think he's going to make a mistake. they think he's going to blow up at some point and many people argue that he already has. but i think when you see him in this way, you can't argue with the fact that he did a fantastic job. >> that's why i always thought originally before this whole debate, the whole election started, the whole nomination process started, i could see whoever the nominee was that

newt being the dick cheney in that role. if it happens to be mitt romney and he holds on to the lead, the fraction between those two would make it almost impossible. i think the fracture between them at the end of this sparring session, it will be too much. i also thought newt was really strong when asked what do you think about extending the 99 weeks of unemployment benefits knowing that 15%, maybe even more are out of work. he said look, 99 weeks is an associate's degree. we should be using that money to train and getting the private sector involved. great answer. >> can i also point out, i was on -- here, i guess, last week and i asked newt gingrich about why was he attacking bain capital and capitalism, etc. he didn't have a good answer. that was a bad line for newt. last night, he moved away from that and moved back into the things that aren't working for obama. newt being newt saying i'm smarter than him. i can beat him and here's why.

whatever obamanomics is, it's not working. very smart idea to move away from bain capital. just an observation. >> another big topic last night was foreign policy. many of the analysts said that newt gingrich and mitt romney had a good night when it came to that topic. ron paul, of course, this is the area where many people go huh? >> we are in south carolina. south carolina in the revolutionary war had a young 13-year-old named andrew jackson. he was sabered by a british officer and wore a scar his whole life. andrew jackson had a pretty clearcut about america's enemies. kill them. >> we go anywhere they are and we kill them and the right thing for -- the right thing for usama bin laden was the bullet in the head that he received. that's the right course for people who kill american citizens. >> so i would say that maybe we ought to consider a golden rule in foreign policy.

don't do to other nations what we don't want have them to do to us. so we -- we endlessly bomb these countries and then we wonder why they get upset with us? >> few statements irked me more not than that statement. he says it all the time. we endlessly bomb people when my goodness, you know exactly what the deal was. you know what happened to the first iraq war and the second iraq war. you know why we're in afghanistan and why we continue to stay there. he knows the answers to this. he's looking for a soundbite and bumper sticker for those people who say i don't like george bush and i hate all wars. >> and we'll be talking a little bit later on. stay tuned in about 30 minutes for what the strategy for ron paul might be to up end the republican convention coming up in august. in the meantime, the other topic that came up and i want to know from the viewers, do you care about this topic? tax returns. there was a lot of pressure, remember, between barack obama and hillary clinton and i think

it was actually president obama as a candidate who called out hillary clinton and then she had to release her tax returns. well, now, governor perry was doing the same thing to mitt romney last night. >> we've got records, we've got records. my record is one of those that's been open to the public for quite a few years. and as a matter of fact, my income tax have been out every year and newt, i think you're going to get your income tax come out thursday. and mitt, we need for you to release your income tax so the people of this country can see how you made your money. >> i have nothing in them to suggest there's any problem and i'm happy to do so. i sort of feel like we're showing a lot of exposure at this point. and if i become our nominee, i'm -- and what's happened in history is people have released them about april of the coming year. that's probably what i'd do. >> i got to tell you, first of all, it was santorum saying it.

it was newt gingrich saying it. it was rick perry saying it. they want to see mitt romney's tax returns. there's a problem here. that's what obama does. that's what the left does. they villianize the wealthy, the job creators. they play class warfare games all the time. why are we getting class warfare from the right? i'm not in the tank for mitt romney but who cares if he made a lot of money. >> who cares if he made a lot of money. >> ok, you know what they're going to look for, right, eric? they'll look for the percentage of money paid in their income tax and look to be saying what warren buffet said. my secretary pays more than i do on taxes and it bothers me. they want to see if there's an inconsistency is there. >> we already know he's rich. this is the kind of stuff that i -- but i want the viewers to respond to this. e-mail us, twitter me. do you care about this? maybe this is a really hot topic, i don't know. do you care about somebody's tax returns? let us know. >> 12 minutes after the top of

the hour, we're just getting started. great guests coming your way and also last night, governor rick perry fights for the rights of states. >> south carolina is at war with this federal government and with this administration. >> so is the administration too involved in states' rights? the chairman of the democratic governor association, governor from maryland responds next. >> it was like something out of the movie "airplane" passengers told we're going down. but it turns out it was all a big mistake. >> huh? i would have passed out. dinner? candles? i wanted it to be special. oh, what's this? it's progresso's new loaded potato with bacon. mmm, it's good. honey, i love you and... oh my gosh, oh my gosh.. look at these big pieces of potato.

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rick perry claiming that states are under attack by the federal government. >> not only have they taken them to task on voter i.d., they've also taken them to task on their immigration law and then the most egregious thing is this national labor relations board. this is irresponsible and i would suggest it's unconstitutional and when i'm the president of the united states, the states are going to have substantially more rights to take care of their business. >> so our next guest is chairman of the democratic governors association, maryland governor martin o'malley joins me now. good morning to you, governor. >> well, hi, gretchen. good morning to you. >> you're down in south carolina. i imagine that you watch the debates even though you're on the other side and want to see who the competition might be. what was your general reaction? >> well, i was watching because the main issue that we face is, of course, job creation and so all of us down here on behalf of the dnc and watching this debate, it will be very, very hard for mitt romney to escape

from the fact that when he was governor of massachusetts, he drove job creation there in massachusetts down to 47th among 50 states in the nation. and i think some of the other candidates were picking up on that. people want a leader that's going to do the things that work to get people back to work. >> well, obviously, the attacks from some of his other candidates have been coming in the last couple of weeks. they've been sounding a lot more like your side attacking him. let me bring you back to the comments that rick perry said at the top of this segment with regard to states' rights. does he have a good point about the national labor relations board in south carolina and the whole boeing situation? does he have a good point about states being able to have their own immigration laws if the federal government isn't going to abide by the laws already on the books? >> well, part of this is about preaching to the choir. i mean, let's face it. all the people that came to that auditorium last night have already decided they're not going to be voting for president obama. and the south carolina people have a long tradition of fierce independence. you know, fort sumter was not

that long ago. these aren't the things that move our economy guard and the broader audience tuned in last night to see if any of these candidates have any solutions to getting our people back to work. it's very hard. i mean, it's great to hear some of the candidates talk about the need for job training programs. it's great to hear them talk about a strong defense. but it's hard to do those things when you insist on dismantling your government on doing trillions and trillions in cuts and when you're not willing to pay for the sort of defense that we want to have. on immigration, president obama is actually enforced immigration laws better than president bush did and all of this will come out in the general election as we focus on jobs, whatever their nominee is. >> sorry to cut you off, governor. the department of justice is also suing arizona and several other states for their own immigration laws and taking into their own hands. real quickly before i let you go, when you saw newt gingrich last night -- >> as well they should. >> do you think that the dnc will change the philosophy potentially about going after newt gingrich and not just mitt

romney. did you think he had a pretty good performance? >> well, i thought he did have a good performance. i thought gingrich was very sure of himself and i thought former governor romney looked very off balance especially when they talked about the income taxes and revealing his income taxes. look, i've run for governor twice. i've run for mayor twice. anyone who runs for important jobs has to reveal and disclose to the public their income taxes and why he won't do that, i'm not sure but he looked awful unsure of himself last night and that was unusual for mitt romney. >> all right. we're asking our viewers that this morning, do you really care about that? let me know at foxandfriends.com or on twitter. governor o'malley from maryland. thanks for joining us this morning. coming up on "fox & friends", david axelrod offering a sneak peek at the president's re-election strategy. blame europe for our money problems at home? we want to know from stuart varney, is the administration

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>> couple of quick headlines. occupy baltimore protesters kicked out for trespassing when they tried to build a structure on the site for a proposed juvenile detention center. protesters say money should go towards schools instead of jails. and a firelighting up the sky over the los angeles suburb of agora hills. close to 100 firefighters battled flame at this strip mall

overnight. good news here, no one was hurt. brian? >> all right. >> our new economic downgrades in europe setting the stage for the obama administration to use that as an excuse for their poor record on the economy. >> somebody in your campaign told me not that long ago when i said what do you most worry about in terms of campaign strategy? is it romney? is it gingrich? no, it's the economy. is that still true? >> i think external factors, what happens in europe, you know, what happens in other places in the world, and frankly, the other thing that worries me are these big super pacs that we see governor romney and others benefitting from right now. >> what do you think of that little interchange between the talk show host and david axelrod? is he right? >> david axelrod is setting up an excuse for the poor performance of the u.s. economy as we go into the election. he's saying it's outside factors that lead to high unemployment

or weak economy and a housing crash. >> is he wrong? >> he's totally wrong. he's diverting attention from the failure of the president's policies on energy, on stimulus, on government spending, on the housing market. the president has failed in those areas. david axelrod is trying to dress it up and excuse that failure by pointing to so-called outside factors. >> this is the first time they've done it. >> no, it wasn't. last year it was the tsunami and before that, it was the arab spring and now it's europe. it diverts attention from what has been in my opinion a failed economic policy. >> isn't that ironic that they're going to point the finger at europe when many people believe this administration is gearing itself up to be more like europe. >> yes, but that's politics, isn't it? if you're running into an election with an economy that's not firing on all cylinders you look for an excuse and look to divert attention. it doesn't matter we're trying to make america more like

europe. this is an election in november. divert attention. >> there's some problems that made a slight downgrade of european debt. what's going on now? the u.s. stock markets were closed yesterday. where are we now? are we high, low, what's going on? >> we're in the middle of, i don't know we're in the middle of it, but we've seen a big move up for stocks in the year 2012. and it will continue this morning. you're going to open up the market at 9:30 eastern and see 100 point rally for the dow industrials all over again carrying it well above 12,500. we have a rally on our hands. europe, forget about it, they don't care. that actually contradicts axelrod, doesn't it? if our stock market goes up, even as europe slides into recession, that contradicts his point that europe is going to drag us down. it's not. it's putting our market up. >> all right. they just go back into the bag and bring out another thing. >> yeah. >> give us three months, we'll find something else to blame. >> that's politics. >> yes, it is. we'll watch you at 9:20. >> thank you very much indeed.

>> coming up straight ahead, stuart varney exits but not quite yet. he'll cross the camera, he doesn't do that. he's a professional. south carolina is a big tea party state. we'll report, you decide. >> and it was like something out of the movie "airplane" passengers told we're going down! turns out it was all a big mistake. stop calling me shirley. >> first, happy birthday to betty white. and to my sister. the seven time emmy waward winning actress turns 70 today. great guest experience. that makes my day. and during the four course feast, there's so much to choose from. [ male announcer ] the four course seafood feast is backt red lobster. still just $15.

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>> shot of the morning. meet the sand, sculpture greets visitors in myrtle beach, south carolina, site of last night's debate. jon huntsman is still there, for some reason. the sculpture was finished before he called itself quits. a team built the giant sculpture from 520 tons of locally mined sand. they used shovels and pastry knives. >> good job. very impressive. >> the tea party is one of the key voting groups republican

candidates need to win the nominations. so what did tea partiers think of last night's debate? >> joining us right now, the state treasure of south carolina, curtis loftus. overall, some are saying this is the best debate yet. would you say so? >> it was a great debate. i don't know if it was the best debate but it was a great debate. >> all right. first off, let's start with the guy that walked in as the frontrunner in your state and that's mitt romney. he was attacked early and often. how did he do? >> he did very well. you know, it was yet another strong showing. i suppose that's why he's the leader. he comes into these events and at all times, he's the subject of the negative attacks from each other. >> all right. >> sir, my research says you are backed by the tea party. there are a lot of people out there who say the tea party represents smaller government, you know, more fiscally sound

government etc., mr. romney may not have been the tea party favorite going into south carolina. why is he becoming a tea party favorite now? >> well, every day that we move closer to the election, people see mitt romney is the man to send barack obama back to chicago. i'm a tea partyier and i'm an evangelical and i represent all the parties that mitt is supposed to have some problems with. there are folks that don't understand. ever since then, i've gotten e-mails and telephone calls from people who say we get it. he's a good conservative and turn around specialist and he knows how to create jobs and create wealth and we're looking to send mr. obama away from the white house and a good conservative to the white house. >> right now, santorum is second. nine points off the lead in the last poll taken by fox news about three days ago. but let's talk about rick santorum for a second. on being a true conservative. here he is, putting up a strong case. >> i admit, i'm a strong

conservative but i'm not perfect. president bush's signature initiative with no child left behind, i voted for it, i shouldn't have. it was something that i said and i'll say publicly that we should repeal. in fact, we should repeal all of the federal government's role in primary and secondary education. if you give me the opportunity, i'll do that. >> explanation, people of south carolina need? >> well, i think it was a good explanation. you know, rick santorum like so many of the other folks in this race are good people. they're honorable people and so we got some great choices. but it all comes down to who can beat barack obama. we've got to retake the white house and the conservative movement is unified on that. >> but sir, you know, it comes down to who can beat barack obama, that would be the electability issue. is it time to pick the most electable candidate or should conservatives, social tea party, etc., should conservatives look at maybe a newt gingrich before, you know, it -- is it too early to be jumping on a romney bandwagon is my point?

>> no. i don't think so. you know, in a presidential election, second place is last place. and we just got to make the decision. are we going to take the white house or not? you know, they're -- as i said, at one time, we had nine excellent candidates in this race so there's been a lot of opportunity. there's been a lot of volatility. we're moving towards the election. we've got a well financed president who is going to use every tool of the united states government to stay in office. and if we're going to win this race, we've got to get behind one candidate and we've got to support them and we've got to work really, really hard. this nation is split. mitt romney can win these swing states and that's one of the most important things, his el t electability. >> as state treasurer, you have a lot of pull and you're backing mitt romney and someone else they're pulling for is congressman tim scott. where is he leaning? >> i don't know. i worked him last night. tim is an excellent man. we're lucky to have tim scott and the rest of our young congressional delegation. i worked tim some last night

offering him the keys to romney bus and he grinned and grinned. i'm going to call him again this morning. >> all right, he will have a lot of pull and you got to think he'll weigh in before the big primary five days away. curtis loftus, thanks so much. >> yeah. and -- >> thank you, sir. >> ok. >> gretch? >> all right, guys, i'm going to do some headlines over here. brand new details revealed in the case of the missing teacher in montana who is believed to be dead now. sheri arnold never returned home from a jog over a week ago, federal agents now asking that only land owners help in the search saying they know their own land the best and can tell if something has been disturbed. meantime, prison records show both suspects in the case have been in trouble with the law before. one of them serving time in prison for leaving the scene of a crash. he died doing what he loved the most. jack roberts, a veteran ice climber and instructor was scaling the bridal ice falls

when he fell 60 feet. the 58-year-old broke his hip and went into cardiac arrest. emergency crews spent more than 40 minutes trying to resuscitate roberts before he passed away. last week, we told you iran's favorite director in the world, yep, michael moore. their least favorite american, barbie. i bet that's because she's a woman. the country's morality police telling stores to remove the dolls in favor of these government approved ones that wear traditional dress. check out your screen. police say the move is to protect people from evil western influences. girls say they don't want the iranian dolls because they're ugly. their words. remember this scene from the movie "airplane"? >> everybody, get in crash position. >> a similar scene played out on british airways. this was a flight from miami to london. in the middle of the flight, a warning came over the p.a. system. the plane was about to make an emergency landing in the ocean.

passengers started panicking, crying and praying but 30 seconds later, a flight attendant announced the prerecorded message they just heard had been played by mistake. the plane landed safely. the same thing happened on one of its flights in 2010. wow. coming up, fresh off the front lines in afghanistan, general jack keane are here. what do the troops on the ground think about the president's continuing effort to draw down the forces? we'll ask him that question. and then the land of the free, not so free anymore. judge napolitano here to break down the research claiming america might no longer be the greatest country there is. [ male annouer ] juice drink too watery?

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>> quick headlines now. today, opponents of scott walker will submit signatures in the recall election effort. they need over 540,000. walker is under fire from labor unions and public schoolteachers for stripping public employees of their collective bargaining rights. he'll join us live tomorrow here on "fox & friends." and whoppers on wheels. burger king is testing home delivery in the washington, d.c. area. its new thermal packaging keeps the food hot from prevents it from getting soggy. customers have to live within a 10 minute drive of the restaurant. no soggy whoppers up there, right? >> absolutely not. i'll check later on to make sure. president is on track to pull most of our troops out of afghanistan this year. is it too soon? retired four star general and

fox news military analyst jack keane got back from the front lines of afghanistan and joins us. general, what did you see? >> well, first of all, the progress that we made in the south last year, we've solidified those gains in the south and southwest. this is kandahar and helman province. the enemy tried to come back all through this fighting season in 2011 to take back the support zones and safe havens and the influence over the people that they lost to us. they did not get any of that back. that was summarily defeated. we're doing the same thing now for the first time with the right amount of forces east of kabul to the pakistani border. we call that r.c. east and that's where the main effort is taking place and i've spent some time there making sure i understood what i was looking at and we're clearly trying to make the same sort of progress in the east as we've been making in the south for the last 18 months. >> the real problem is the places have been eliminated but

pakistan remains the issue. we know drone strikes continued starting again last week after being off since november. what do we do about this? any progress towards attacking the problem in pakistan? >> i think we're going to make some progress. for the audience to understand, we have been attacking the al-qaida since 9/11 for 10 years largely in pakistan. and this is the al-qaida leadership. the taliban leadership is also -- this is the afghan taliban leadership is in pakistan. there are three locations. we know those locations. we have good target folders on them. we have not been attacking them at all for the last 10 years despite the fact that they attack us from those locations and provide strategic leadership and guidance. as we begin to turn over now to the afghan security forces, we have got to give them a winning hand. and part of that winning hand is we cannot leave that leadership

in place. we got to start taking that leadership down now as we have been doing so with the al-qaida leadership for the last 10 years. >> our supply lines are already shut down because pakistan doesn't like what we're doing. could they get worse if we do something like that or should we not bother and go do it? >> sure, pakistan has issues that they can play with us. make no mistake about it. here's the counters to that. we're helping them with their own insurgency against the pakistan taliban. we are targeting them. we are assisting with operations. we could continue to do that as we work against the afghan taliban in pakistan. the second thing is they close that lines of communication and it is closed right now, the fact of the matter is there is another option to the north that we can exercise. it's more expensive. it's more difficult in terms of its range but it can be done if we have to do it. >> now, let's talk about what general keane, if he was in charge of the afghan war, be in talks with the taliban now and

give them incentives to open up an office without the karzai government cooperating. >> first of all, talking to the taliban in principle, there's nothing wrong with that. as long as you got both feet squarely planted on the ground in doing so. let's face it. the taliban are going to manipulate us in these talks to get us past 2014 so we pull most of our forces out. after that takes place, they will conduct a counteroffensive to try to get back what they lost in kandahar and in helman province. that's where these guys are heading and the fact of the matter is you've got to have the karzai government involved. listen, i mean, the northern alliance which is part of the karzai government took down the taliban in 2001 with our help. we can't make a deal with the taliban without the northern alliance involved in that deal. frankly, you can't make a deal without pakistan involved. so these are players that at some point will have to influence an eventual peace

treaty if there is one. we got to keep in the back of our minds what happened to us in vietnam when we made a deal in 1972 directly with the north vietnamese without the south vietnamese government involved. they manipulated us and it blew up in our face. >> it did. you don't have to tell gerald ford or the ford administration that and finally my question to you is about the rules of engagement. if you talk to the men and women who are fighting the war in the lower ranks, they say the rules of engagement are suffocating. no nighttime raids. women interpreters have to be on every single -- on every single operation and afghan forces have to take the lead. is it suffocating our guys and maybe costing our lives? >> no. no. that's a stretch. the fact of the matter is we're still doing night raids. we do them at the battle space, brigade and battalion commands do it. the fact that we take women with

us, doesn't take the situation and calm the situation. look at it, most of these night raids, 85% of them, no shots are fired. in other words, we get the person we want and we get that person to surrender without doing undue harm to the people who are around that person and also we -- we eliminate the possibility of adverse impact on that entire village and the political situation getting totally out of control which has happened in the past. >> general jack keane, first hand experience, first hand review and thanks for talking about it first here on "fox & friends." have a great day, general. >> ok, brian. good talking to you. >> all right. straight ahead -- out of all the g.o.p. candidates, who do voters trust most to bring less government to their lives? we'll discuss. radio talk show host mark levine here to weigh in and he's got a new book and whatever happens to let freedom ring. a new study claims this isn't the same america you grow up in and judge napolitano says it's right.

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>> for the fourth year in a row, freedom fading in america, well, economic freedom that is. that's according to a study by the heritage foundation. >> the study ranks america 10th in the world behind hong kong and canada and a small island nation of moriches. host of freedom watch judge andrew napolitano joins us. judge -- >> good morning. >> well, economic freedom. what does that mean? >> it means the government recognizing a right to own private property is superior to its right to take that property and it means that the economy is generated by the free choices of

consumers and investors. when we have something like dodd-frank, the economic regulatory legislation enacted by the obama administration and the democratic congress last year which authorizes the appointment of a bureaucrat with no standards, i'm talking about richard cordray, the consumer protection agency, to regulate any economic activity he wants including you deciding to pay the orthodontist over a year, rather than all at once, the federal government has to approve that. that's a loss of freedom. the freedom to negotiate with the orthodontist. when we have an economic entity like this consumer protection agency paid by the federal reserve, congress can't even regulate what it does. we lose freedom. >> you pointed to me when you talk about orthodontist correctly because i had braces twice and every other known contraption that an orthodontist could give out. let me bring you back to those other countries. i'm wondering how do they come up with this list, what do they

-- what are the qualifications or the criteria to determine economic freedom? >> level of taxation. and level of regulation. one of the reasons this presidential campaign is so important is it will be a great debate between those who believe that prosperity can come about by centrally planning the economy. it never does. and those who believe that prosperity can come about by the free choices of consumers and investors. there are countries in the world, you just saw that list where there is less regulation, more freedom of choice by consumers, lower taxes. the tax rate is flat. you don't pay more the more you earn. >> in canada? >> yeah, canada. that's the exact one i was pointing to as well. canada is a bit of a surprise on there at least to me because we know that canada has a form of socialized medicine. the physicians are not employed by the government but they are paid by the government unless you are wealthy enough to go to a private facility of which there are few. >> and higher tax rates and --

>> yes, yes. canada is the odd ball there but there are certain european -- eastern european countries, even former soviet states where the tax rates are lower than ours. and it's actually easier to start business and prosper because there's far less government regulation. this dodd-frank legislation puts so much power in the hands of unelected, unaccountable and as we now know, unconfirmed by the senate bureaucrats to monitor and regulate even the most minor economic activity. that's what stops freedom. >> very interesting. thanks very much for bringing that to our attention. >> pleasure, guys. >> catch the judge on "freedom watch" weeknights 8:00 and 11:00 eastern time on fox business. >> thank, judge. >> the biggest hoax since bigfoot? mitt romney throwing some serious punches at newt gingrich last night during the big debate. the former speaker here to respond next. >> radio talk show host mark

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>> hey, i hope you're going to have a great day. it's tuesday, january 17, 2012. i'm gretchen carlson. thanks for sharing your time. it was a big night for the g.o.p. republican rivals debating down in south carolina and demanding that mitt romney show us the money. >> mitt, we need for you to release your income tax. so the people of this country can see how you made your money. >> but mitt saying not so fast. why he's not releasing his tax records at least not just yet. >> with not much to lose, newt gingrich let her rip and the audience loved it. >> the fact is that more people have been put on food stamps by barack obama than any president in american history.

> >> he also brought up andrew jackson. you'll find out. reaction to the debate. he's got to be happy. >> o.j. being squeezed again. why he's going from the big house to absolutely no house. we'll explain. "fox & friends" starts right now. >> look at this line-up that eric put together. >> especially the first one. >> filling in for steve doocy today. >> i am. i'm sitting in. i called, i said if i come in, i'm only coming in is mark levine is here. >> you got his wish. he'll join us just 14 minutes from now and then newt gingrich will be here. the new miss america 2012 will be here. followed directly by -- >> laura ingraham live and representative james clyburn because all eyes are on south carolina. >> get one more in there. >> i'll put on karl rove today. i'll decide to do that.

>> he'll be here as well. i'll do some headlines for you now. analyze the debate in a few minutes. first the fox news alert. a live look at the capsized italian cruise ship off the island where rescuers are using explosives to blow holes in the ship now as they grow desperate in their search for survivors. overnight, another body pulled from the sinking ship bringing the death toll now to seven. this as new pictures being released showing survivors insi-- divers in the ship looking for survivors. at this hour, 29 people are still missing. among them, an american couple from minnesota jerry and barbara hile. they are working with local authorities trying to track them down. many americans who did make it out alive arrived home last night. a kentucky couple jordan powell and nick hope said they didn't know what hit them until they arrived home. >> kind of a collapse of emotion. it was -- it was bitter because

it had happened but it was sweet to be home and relief. simply relief. >> i think a zombie is a great way to put it when i walked into the gate i just felt -- i didn't know how to feel. >> the ship's captain pictured right here expected to be questioned during a closed court hearing today. recordings recovered from the ship reportedly showed he refused to get back on board to assist all the other passengers in evacuation. meantime, the u.s. coast guard releasing new video overnight of a much needed fuel delivery under way in alaska. the iced in town of noem getting 1.3 million gallons of oil and gas chls a shipment was canceled last november due to another big storm and supplies are starting to run low. it took a coast guard icebreaker two weeks to clear a path for this russian tanker. this is alaska's coldest winter in more than 40 years. the trial begins today in a massive voter fraud case first exposed by fox news in upstate new york. two democratic politicians in troy, new york, are accused of

forging signatures on absentee ballots in september of 2009. reports claim it was an elaborate scheme to get fellow democrats seated on the county legislature. jury selection begins today in that case. eight other democrats were indicted in that investigation. so far, four have entered guilty pleas. and eric alluded to this a little earlier. while o.j. simpson is doing time in the big house in nevada, he's about to lose his house in miami. court papers revealing j.p. morgan choice foreclosing now on simpson's four bedroom, four bathroom house. he bought it back in 2000 for $575,000 but it was recently assessed at 478 grand. simpson is serving 15 years behind bars for kidnapping, armed robbery and other charges for stealing sports memorabilia at gunpoint. >> all right. 4 minutes after the top of the hour. did you see the debate last night? it was really excellent. had a lot to do with the fact that five on the stage.

they're so familiar with each other and it's their 15th debate. all eyes and targets were on mitt romney but it first started with newt gingrich when they asked them flat out to justify his attacks on -- on mitt romney's days at bain capital. did he adequately describe it and explain his way, we'll ask him personally in 10 minutes. they talked about mitt romney's tax returns and his views on gun control and his views on abortion. all were up there on the stage. >> i got to tell you, i'm sorry, gretchen, probably the best debate i've seen. bret did a great job, bret baier moderating the debate but going to "the wall street journal" people, fantastic. they focused in on the economy, the important things that americans really top on their list of importance, jobs, the economy, one and two. and that's really what the debate was about for me last night. i gleaned a lot of opinions from the five remaining candidates. >> not a lot of questions about contraception. >> not many. >> working just fine. >> speak for yourself. >> one of the biggest showdowns

of the night was between rick santorum and mitt romney. no moderators needed there. john roberts was there and joins us now live from myrtle beach, south carolina. good morning to you, john. >> hey, good morning, gretchen. good morning, everybody. we're going to play that showdown in a second. a little perspective on last night's debate. it really was a good night for newt gingrich. he did himself a whole world of good in the time that he really needs to. he's got four days left here and he's trying to make a move against mitt romney and in the overwhelming sense that we got from watching this on twitter and we'll bring you those results in a couple of seconds here was that newt gingrich really did well in terms of answering the questions better than almost anybody except for ron paul. now to that dust up between rick santorum and mitt romney. santorum has been complaining for the last few days about an ad that romney's super pac has been running that accuses santorum of voting to allow convicted felons to vote so the two of them went at it last night. watch what happened. >> i would ask governor romney,

do you believe people who are felons who serve their time, who have extended, exhausted their parole and probation, should they be given the right to vote? >> governor romney? >> first of all, as you know, the pacs that run ads on various candidates as we unfortunately know. >> looking for an answer to the question first. >> we have plenty of time. i'll get there. >> you want 30 seconds to respond? >> yeah, i don't think people who have committed violent crimes should be allowed to vote again. that's my own view. >> after which santorum hit romney with the fact that in massachusetts, convicted felons who are either on probation or parole were allowed to vote while he was governor and asked romney why he didn't seek to tighten up that law. romney went into a convoluted

answer about how he's worked with democrats and everything. it looks like santorum scored a point here. in terms of how the questions were answered. all during the debate, we asked people to twitter about whether they were answering the questions well. let's see how that turned out. take a look at this, ron paul on the right, the green suggests that his followers or people who are watching the debate thought he was answering the questions very well. got to tell you, we always see this when we ask for people to respond on twitter. ron paul's fans are very aroude. they know how to use twitter and use it well. number two is newt gingrich. romney was seen as ducking a lot of these questions. santorum and perry were in the middle. let's break it down, the economy, romney well below zero line on that. on the dodge as we get into foreign policy, romney again below the line. let's switch it to race issues. gingrich did particularly well on this. on romney's record, take a look at this, everybody was below the

line with the exception of ron paul. the net effect was almost every time mitt romney opened his mouth, we were seeing people on twitter saying they thought he was dodging the question. got to tell you, though, this is unscientific. people at home on twitter. it's interesting to look at particularly in real time as the debate is going on, guys. >> very fascinating details and analysis. john roberts, thanks for getting up early. appreciate it. >> one thing about mitt romney, he's rich and most people know it and i guess that's one of the reasons that he does not want to release his tax returns because there seems to be a war on success in this country and maybe mitt romney by saying i'm worth 150 to $350 million will make a lot of people turn off from him although i don't know, many people don't understand that mitt romney has made himself very successful. here is some of the exchange where his fellow republicans are demanding to see the forms. >> we've got records. we've got records. my record is one of those that's been open to the public for quite a few years. and as a matter of fact, my

income tax have been out every year. and newt, i think you're going to let your income tax come out on thursday. and mitt, we need for you to release your income tax so the people of this country can see how you made your money. >> i have nothing in them to suggest there's any problem and i'm happy to do so. i sort of feel like we're showing a lot of exposure at this point. and if i become our nominee, i'm -- and what's happened in history is people have released them about april of the coming year and that's probably what i'd do. >> all right. so we asked you earlier whether or not you as viewers, you as voters, you as americans care about candidates having to release their tax returns. and i think we have a couple of e-mails and a couple of tweets. >> take a look at eric's tax returns at the bottom of the hour. let's take a look. joe in mississippi say i personally care because if you aren't making money, you can't manage a business as large as a country like the u.s. good point. >> and ruth in ormon beach,

florida, probably. i don't care. this is another example of class envy. he's successful, so what? amen to you, ruth. you're 100% right. >> tweet from mark. i could care less. more interested in seeing strong leadership and the return of america to greatness. that's really interesting. it's actually fellow republicans asking for this type of thing. >> maybe this is -- they normally expect the left to play the class warfare game. stop doing it on the right. >> he's a congressman from texas who is easy to dismiss at 76 years old, a lot of people think he's too old to be president and his views are too extreme but the bottom line is the polls say a different story. and congressman ron paul has made a major difference from debates to the actual dialogue in this country. he has a lot of youthful support which is also astounding and he knows he has that power even if he does not get the nomination, gretch. >> yep, so here's the plan. hear it first. apparently, if he's not the nominee, they're going to collect all these delegates from the states anyway. they're going to go to the republican convention which

starts on august 27th. and they're going to use it as a bargaining chip to stick to limited government as part of the republican platform. but here's the other part of it. they also want to wind back several parts of the patriot act including roving wiretaps which paul says were originally written with the intent of expiring. it will be very interesting to see what kind of power ron paul will have on the eventual nominee if it's not him. >> if he says i'm going third party, that would destroy any republicans' chances most likely and they can come back and say you know senator rand paul, he won't have too bright of future with the party. >> he's not going to hold the g.o.p. hostage. it's not going to happen. all right, have to go. calls for help when a high school bus explodes. >> everything is -- >> keep the kids as far away back from the burn as you can, ok? the police are coming now and so is the fire department. >> what went wrong and how they escaped alive. >> then with all the g.o.p. candidates who can be trusted to

bring down? the radio talk show host never shy in sharing his opinion even though he's covering up now. >>'s eye radio guy. >> put on your make-up, mark. i had enough of feeling embarrassed about my skin.

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>> each of the candidates making the case for smaller government in last night's g.o.p. debate. which candidate has the best vision for 2012? >> let's ask the great mark levin, a nationally talk show radio host and author of the new book "the unmaking of america." first of all, let's get your thoughts on the debate last night. what did you see? what were you looking for? did you see what you wanted? >> well, all i know is that nothing really changed. newt is a good debater. santorum is a good debate,

romney is a good debater and ron paul wants to unilaterally disarm so i think i've got all the positions down pretty well. if i voted today, i'd be voted for santorum. i think he's the most consistent conservative and a man of enormous character. all this tax return release stuff they're fighting back, i could care less. when obama releases his college and law school records, then maybe romney can release his tack records. >> how did you feel about the opening question? bret baier actually defined it and said why are you attacking bain capital? isn't that an anti-republican thing to do or do you think newt is doing the best thing possible for a would be republican nominee? >> i think if newt were talking off line honestly about this, he'd think it backfired. we don't have enough capitalism in this country. we don't have enough free market activity in this country. and when he was a great speaker of the house out there sounding like obama, weak conservatives will reject it no matter who is talking about it. that said, i wouldn't exactly

say that mitt romney is mr. capitalist. he supported tarp which is the biggest bailout in american history of business, that's got to stop, too. tarp subsidizing g.m. and chrysler, attacking bain capital, you know what's killing this country? the government is killing this country. not bain capital and not the private sector. >> that's somewhat of your focus in your new book. on its face when you see that title, you think that sounds pretty good. would it be like utopia. >> it wouldn't be like tapioca. >> which i love, by the way. >> no, my premise in this book is that there's this force, what is this, that underlines statism that drives millions of people to it. it atracts millions of people and it ruins them. what is this? we talk superficially about big government and all this. what is this force that does it? what it is is this fantasy driven top down authoritarianism

where people even today and people thousands of years ago used to argue about, you know, how everybody is going to be equal. no, everybody is not going to be equal. let me tell you something, america, there's never been equal incomes and there's never going to be equal incomes. >> i got to ask you, i'm an avid listener. they want to know this. last night, newt gingrich started out on the bain capital issue and he looked ok, a little nervous. once he moved towards the, hey, obama's policies aren't working, that's where he really thrives. >> yeah, as a conservative. you know we're doing to have in this country. we're talking about ronald reagan. we don't have to have ronald reagan. we need to have a consistent, competent, relatively charismatic conservative. he'd wipe up the republican primary and wipe up the election. obama is low hanging fruit. his record is a disaster. his philosophy is a disaster. the american people, you look at the polls, they are not in love with this guy. they are not in love with his policies. >> how do you argue against the

people who say well, it has to be mitt romney because he'll get the independent vote. he's the other one that's electable? >> well, i keep saying this and i'm looking at the returns in these states, did he have a massive victory in iowa? i mean, six, eight votes. did he have a massive victory in new hampshire? he's basically from new hampshire. no. is he having trouble in south carolina? yes. he better lock up the base before he's chasing so-called independents and let me tell you something, a lot of these independents are conservative tea party activists. >> you know what, this book is excellent. you talk about that. and you ended up writing it and you still believe that. it's a deep thinking book. if i read this book, i'll suddenly feel as smart for as long as i can retain it. >> there's no pictures in it. >> that's true. not for me. >> maybe that's not good for brian. i listen to you on the radio. good luck with the book tour and this looks fantastic. >> i love you guys. thank you very much. >> move over, swimming, skiing. make way for a new olympic event. this will come straight from the farm? i got to hear that one. >> and newt gingrich gets a stamp of approval from the

audience last night. listen. >> the fact is that more people have been put on food stamps by barack obama than any president in american history. >> the speaker up next to sharpen his case against the president. wake up!

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>> so everything you need to know between the difference of barack obama and the five of us but we actually think that work is good. we actually -- we actually think saying to somebody i'll help you if you're willing to help yourself is good.

and we think unconditional efforts by the best food stamp president in american history to maximize dependency is terrible for the future of this country. >> that was newt gingrich, the former speaker of the house firing up the crowd with his sharp criticism of president obama's economic policy. >> and the former speaker and presidential candidate joins us now from myrtle beach, south carolina, speaker, thank for joining us. boy, you really fired them up and that was right at the 10:00 hour. got a standing ovation. were you surprised that people were that fired up? >> yes. i stood there and i looked and you could see it start in the very back. and row by row by row, it was frankly -- i've never seen it. we've done 15 debates and never seen anything like it and frank luntz said last night that he thinks the last standing ovation was ronald reagan in 1980 in new hampshire. being luntz, he was there at 18 years of age so he knows.

but it was very impressive to be there and have that happen and i frankly was very pleased but also more than surprised. i think everybody was surprised by it. >> see, the thing is, speaker, everyone knows that you are a great debater. and what i want to ask you today is whether or not you want to admit that some of the things you've done in the last couple of days were a mistake because shouldn't you be relying on your debate performance instead of attacking governor mitt romney for his experience at bain capital? >> well, look, i don't know if it was a mistake or not. i think when somebody runs for president and cite as one of their two major achievements 25 years in a particular area, questioning them about that area is just a part of the process. i served in the house for 20 years. i was speaker for four years. we balanced the budget for four straight years, the only time in your lifetime. we created 11 million new jobs during those four years. i fully expect people to look at my record, to raise questions about it. attack me for some things i've

done that weren't very clever. i've been a little surprised at this idea that asking questions about a presidential candidate's background is somehow off-limits. but the bigger difference came up last night. and we need somebody who can go toe to toe with barack obama and defeat him in the debates this fall. and i think once again last night, people had a sense that i was the guy who could best explain conservativism and could best stand there face to face with obama and win the debate and i think that's going to be a big factor saturday as people look for somebody who can actually defeat obama, not just talk about it. >> well, mr. speaker, you've asked the question in ads and now you've done it shoulder to shoulder in debates. do you think mitt romney has effectively answered the questions about some of the companies that have not gone well and the ones that have gone well with his days as a venture capitalist? >> well, i think there are a lot of things that haven't been fully explained yet. companies that are left with huge levels of debt while governor romney and his friends

walked off with the cash and i think they're going to have to eventually explain that. i think last night it was interesting that romney agreed that he ought to release his income tax. he doesn't want to do it until april. i think the people of south carolina deserve to know now, i mean, if there's nothing there, why hide it until april and if there's something there, don't the people of south carolina deserve to know before saturday? but there's a bigger question here. south carolina has a chance to either nominate a moderate or to nominate a conservative and i'm the only conservative in a position to take on romney and then to ultimately take on obama and my goal for the next four days is to focus on saying the conservatives, let's get together and the one candidate who can stop romney from being the nominee and i need every conservative in south carolina to join me in making sure that we do not nominate somebody who i think is far too moderate to be an effective debater against president obama. >> i have to ask you, the couple, the bain capital issue doesn't sound like a g.o.p.er.

issue you bring up, wanting mitt romney to release his tax records. who cares if he made a lot of money, sir? frankly, we should be thrilled that he made a lot of money. he's a capitalist, don't we want that? >> i don't understand this attitude of protecting a candidate from just telling the truth. we want people to be able to withstand the attack of the obama machine this fall. we better find out before the nomination whether or not our candidates are capable of withstanding that kind of attack. the worst thing for us would be to nominate somebody and have them disintegrate in september because obama found some weakness and went after it relentlessly. look, beating obama is going to be a very hard thing to do. he's going to have a billion dollars. he's going to be relentlessly negative and we better have somebody who can go toe to toe in the debates, stand up to him and defeat him and i think what last night showed is i can do that. >> all right. we'll see more of you on the debate before the voters make up their minds saturday night in south carolina and during the day.

speaker, always great to see you. thanks so much. have a great week. >> thank you, mr. speaker. >> you had a great night last night. good job. coming up straight ahead, karl rove weighs in on newt gingrich's performance last night and thoughts on governor rick perry as well. >> and the three things you do not know about the brand new miss america from wisconsin. -i love this card. -wi the bankamericard cash rewards credit card,

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>> that's exciting. one of the products unveiled at the consumer electronics show is a remote for your television that you control with your mind. can you believe that? yeah, when you think on, it turns on a tv. when you stop thinking completely, it turns on "jersey shore." >> all right! >> talking about jersey shore. sit down. >> someone finally agrees with me. >> you love jersey shore? >> i do. back where they belong in seaside heights. sorry. >> you're from jersey. i guess that's why you feel that way. >> i'm from chicago. >> you live in jersey. >> all right. >> let's do some headlines for you. >> i'm not going to give it up. >> give you headlines now. brand new details revealed in the case of the missing teacher in montana believed to be dead.

she didn't return home from a jog a week ago. federal agents asking the landowners help in the search. they know their own land the best and can tell if something has been disturbed. meanwhile, prison records say both suspects in the case have been in trouble with the law. one of them serving time in prison for leaving the scene of a crash. >> and sit down, this is amazing. a scary scene as a bus full of school band members catches on fire on the highway. the group was on its way to a martin luther king concert in pennsylvania when a tire blew sparking a fire. >> 911, state your emergency. >> luckily, no one was hurt and the band did make it to the performance but the fire damaged some instruments.

brian? >> following reports of a cancer outbreak among tsa workers at boston's logan airport. the tsa is testing the full body scanner operation for radiation exposure at 100 airports as kro the country but the tsa is not testing the actual machines. thousands of air travelers pass through every day. for years, the tsa has rejected medical studies that say the scanners could increase the risk of cancer. >> and more proof that giving you the tough stories. the time has come for sheep sheering to make its way to the olympic stage. according to a new zealand farming group, they think that sheep sheering has the potential to become at least a demonstration sport. don't count on that happening any time soon. baseball and softball was cut from the program this year because they're not played in enough countries. >> they don't even put in golf. >> exactly. it's like sheep sheering won't make the cut either. gretchen, who are you with? >> all right, thanks, guys. out of the 53 miss america contestants it came down to just

two. take a look. >> your miss america 2012 is -- miss wisconsin! laura kaeppeler. >> there it is. 23-year-old laura kaeppeler won the crown from wisconsin and the coveted title of miss america 2012. now her journey has just begun and she joins me now this morning live here on "fox & friends." good morning. >> good morning. thank you for having me. >> the most important thing about the miss america organization that many people don't know about is that it's the only scholarship program out there. the largest scholarship program in the world for women. >> yes. >> so i know one of the biggest things you're going to be talking about this year is education and the $50,000 that you won. what are you going to do with it? >> with the scholarship? >> yes. >> i'm actually looking forward to going to law school after this year to carry out the work of my platform of mentoring and advocating for children who have parents in prison.

thanks to n.y. a million times over. i hope to go to law school to have a legal voice for children who don't have one. >> speaking about your other platform besides education, what's fascinating about your platform. many times people say how can i relate to miss america? while you're sharing your successes this year, you're going to share your personal pain about something that happened in your family with your father. tell us what it is. >> well, it was a time of uncertainty for my family and it was a time that was very difficult and challenging but something that happens in america. something that happens every single day here so it's real and it's relatable. and in turn, i felt like it needs a national voice. and so i've decided to bring mentoring children of incarcerated parents to this national platform. >> so while you were graduating from high school, your father was going to prison. for what? >> for white collar crime. it was very much like the madoff scandal so, you know, it happens every single day and a lot of people ask me how can you relate to other maybe more violent crimes? and the underlying issue is the

emotions that i felt are the same exact that other children feel no matter what the crime. so it's very relatable and it's very current to today's society. >> now, there were -- we teased there are three things you'll learn about miss america that you don't already know. your job was that you know how to everybody is a good meal. right? >> i do, yes. i worked at a diner all through high school and college. >> ok. >> and this one struck me at first. she's a mom? excuse me. wait a minute. what does that mean? >> you have a 1 1/2-year-old dog, he's a maltese named smokey and the love of my life. i'm going to miss him so much this year. >> and your singing chops are always ready. we heard your beautiful classical opera performance. >> thank you. >> what's your hope and dream? you want to do what? sing the national anthem at some point? >> yes, you know, i sang the national anthem at a brewers game and packers game and i'm employing to -- going to the super bowl and help with taste of the nfl and possibly i can sing the national anthem there. >> i knew i liked you when you were a football fan. at the opening of the show, you did what to which player? >> yes, i acknowledged aaron

rodgers which has made a lot of headlines. that's funny. it was my humor showing through to acknowledge the packers. iep proud of them. >> you said call me, quarterback aaron rodgers. he has yet to call. >> he has yet to call. brian's question from the couch was this, did it help wisconsin when the packers lost the next day to know that they still had miss america? >> i think. a lot of people said despite their loss, you know, i was still able to represent them so i was proud of that. >> have a fantastic year, all of your promoting of the education and other platform, lau laura kaeppeler, miss america 2012. cheryl casone will break down the top five companies hiring this week. newt gingrich you saw fired up the crowd during last night's debate. can he really get back into the race? what about rick perry? karl rove up next to analyze. first, though, the pfizer trivia of the day -- [ male announcer ] every day, thousands of people are choosing advil.

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>> 44 minutes after the top of the hour. quick headlines for you now. bit of a scare of the air for the detroit pistons on the way to play the rockets in houston. hydraulic issue on their charter plane. they landed in an emergency fashion. crews were there to greet them. a team spokesperson says everyone is ok. and a 17-year-old wisconsin girl busted for drunk driving. what gave it away? take a look. she was driving the wrong way

down a major highway. she passed a police officer who caught the whole thing on the dash cam. the teen's blood alcohol level was almost twice the legal limit. guys? >> all right, gretchen, after slipping in the polls, newt gingrich was firing up the crowd at the debate last night big time. so was it the needed boost for him to get back into the race? he is a close third in the last poll. >> here to weigh in this morning, this former senior advisor to president george w. bush and fox news contributor, our good friend mr. karl rove. karl, give us your scorecard on newt gingrich. >> let's start first of all with you and sheep sheering and i'm also confused. tie or no tie? should i be taking off my tie? i don't know. >> cheap shot, rove. cheap shot. >> man, sheep sheering. i mean, weird. i can't believe how quiet the sheep was. i mean, sat there like a sheep. >> can we hear your thoughts on newt gingrich in the meantime?

>> great performance last night. solidified his hold on second place in south carolina. i thought it was very clever of him to have planted juan williams as a convenient foil among the questioners. i wonder how that all worked out but, you know, and no, look, outside of the -- a little bit of a misstep at the first. he repeated the bain thing. it was a really good night. this was the kind of performance that kept the gingrich campaign after it imploded in july, kept him alive and put him in the first ring in late november and early december. >> does a close second place to romney in south carolina keep him alive for florida? >> yeah, look, there are two gaps that matter on saturday. first, if you assume not every single poll shows romney in front. question is the real clear politics average is i think 7.77 points so the question is what is the gap between mitt romney and newt gingrich and what's the gap between newt gingrich if he

does win second and the third place finish which i think is likely to be rick santorum. his position as the third place finisher, i think, was help solidified last night by ron paul who came in with a ron paul performance but it's not going to fly well in a state that's nationalistic and patriotic and very bullish in the war on terror. his comments last night were not particularly effective for him. >> karl, a guy who had done very well prior to the beginning of the debate series, rick perry seemed to get his sea legs back last night. is there still time for him? can he stay in the race? >> well, first of all, this performance last night would have been great if it had been last august. it's now january and as you say, he got 1% in new hampshire and he's at 5% in the real politics average in south carolina. it's interesting, he has yet to reproduce his fourth quarter number for last year. it's legally required by, i think, close of business today. but everybody, you know, lots of other candidates have been sort of saying this is what i'm

getting. i think it's going to be very hard for him to carry on unless he's got an ample war chest because in all likelihood on -- on saturday, he's likely to be fifth out of five major contenders in south carolina. >> and it's going to be hard to know if he's going to have more leverage. do you think that he drops out after south carolina if he doesn't do well like the polls indicate, do you think he'd have more leverage now to get out and maybe endorse? >> well, let's be clear. endorsements by candidates now really don't matter that much. i mean, huntsman endorsed romney with all candor, in all due candor, it didn't matter that much. what matters is who is the second choice of the people who are supporting you? we knew with huntsman about, according to nate silvrate on "the new york times" blog, a third of the people who said they were huntsman said their second choice was romney. a quarter of them basically said i'm not going to be voting and 15% of them said they were for ron paul and the balance were

split among the rest of the candidates which means in south carolina if he was at 5%, that means that roughly two points goes to romney which is significant but not determinative and i suspect we'd see the same with rick perry dropping out if he is -- if he does drop out after south carolina. >> karl, we'll have to leave it there. i was expecting you to bring your white board so i brought mine and i don't blame you for not bringing your white board. it's clear, karl, mine's bigger. >> first of all, size doesn't matter and second of all, yours is completely blank. i mean, i hate to tell you this but there's nothing on your white board. if you bring a white board, bring it in order to share something with the american people. and incidentally, i'm still mystified. tie or no tie? >> i don't know! >> when you have a tie -- >> i'm trying to figure it out myself. >> you know, you're stick is no tie. gives you sort of an -- to use a french phrase. >> next time we have you back, all french. good to see you. >> sheep sheering?

baa! >> when we come back, the top five companies looking to hire this week and they've got jobs all across the country. but first on this day in history 1988, the number one song michael jackson's "the way you make me feel." [ male announcer ] what if you have potatoes? but you've got a meat and potatoes guy? pour chunky sirloin burger soup over those mashed potatoes and dinner is served. four minutes, around four bucks. campbell's chunky -- it's amazing what soup can do. but does bringing a floor back to life really make us heroes? [ chuckles ] yes. yes, it does. ♪ call 1-800-steemer [ male announcer ] talking a big game about your engine is one thing.

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>> the winner catherine from san antonio, texas. all right. we know how rough it is out there. that's why each week, "fox & friends" brings you the companies that are helping americans get back to work. cheryl casone is doing the hard work from the fox business network joining us now with the top five companies hiring. welcome back. we start with union pacific.

>> this was put into business 1862, abraham lincoln, the first transcontinental railroad. they transport everything. lumber, food, cars, car parts. you name it. they are hiring. they reached out to "fox & friends" and reached out to me and said look, we're going to be looking for at least the same amount of people that we hired last year. they hired 4500 employees last year. about 25% of the company, military veterans. a lot of the skills that military veterans get overseas, they can use at union pacific. they wanted me to specifically mention that on the air. big skill. >> looking at 4500 employees and should be an opportunity -- >> they're in 23 states. most is towards the western half of the united states but it's all over. >> power home technologies. >> this is security. remember i told you about in the past when you have a down economy, crime rates go up. this is 500 jobs and this is -- i'm sorry, power home technologies, i'm sorry, this is pulse monitors. they will train you -- this is -- actually, i'm so sorry.

i got to go back up. this is power home technologies, this is 500 jobs and this is home security. so when the economy is down, you see crime rates go up and they're looking for technicians, people that can go in and install. they also need sales people because again, they want to expand the business. they're looking to actually double the business this year in size so they want to go out and maybe try to expand a little bit. you can be a dealer with this one. you can work for the company or be a dealer on this. >> top job, sales job pays about $47,000 to $90,000 a year. they're looking for 500 people. medical tech company. >> forbes ranked this one number 19 as the best small business. they've got about 70 jobs. not a lot of jobs but the salary range here, 50,000 up to $300,000 and change. masimo is looking for people that can do engineering and they have at this .2,000 employees. this is the pulse monitor one. it's noninvasive heart monitors and they're very popular and

they're expanding as well. >> home depot is expanding. home improvement has about everything. >> here's the thing about home depot, most retailers in the holidays, that's when they start to hire the seasonal workers. home depot is hiring seasonal workers right now because spring home selling season and fixing up the homes and they need everything. about half the people that they're going to hire for seasonal jobs are actually going to be permanent jobs. they wanted me to make sure to get out to the viewers today. >> medifast, nutritional weight loss company have 115 openings. >> they need biz developers, they need trainers, they need dieticians. this is medically supervised weight loss. remember, everybody wants to lose a few pounds in the new year. they're expanding now. they've got plenty of jobs available. maryland, texas, florida as you mentioned and by the way, benefits. you get medical, dental. >> power to prosper. fox business network and cheryl, your blog casoneexchange.com. >> that's where i'm giving

advice every week for people looking for jobs. >> thanks so much. thanks for your advice for us. straight ahead, we told you that iran is embracing michael moore. now it's declaring war on an american icon. and one of the president's closest advisors takes to the pulpit and rips republicans at church? is that a christian thing to do? laura ingraham here to comment. talking to eric bolling. you're bothering her. clearly. look at her body language. there's no charge for the bag. thanks. i know a quiet little place where we can get some work done. there's a three-prong plug. i have club passes. [ male announcer ] now there's a mileage card that offers special perks on united, like a free checked bag, united club passes, and priority boarding. thanks. ♪ okay. what's your secret? ♪ [ male announcer ] the new united mileageplus explorer card. get it and you're in. ♪ we've got to stand up and you are me. we've got to stand up, if we're going to be free. we've got to stand up... ♪ if we're gonna be free

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>> gretchen: hey. we're having a fantastic morning on this set. it is tuesday, january 17. happy birthday, says. i'm gretchen carlson. they came, they debated and the crowd went wild for newt gingrich. >> only the elites despise earning money. [ cheers and applause ] >> gretchen: so is speaker gingrich poised for a comeback? stick around. >> eric: is the smart money still on governor mitt romney? >> the right thing for osama bin laden was the bullet in the head that he received. that's the right course for people who kill american

citizens. >> eric: laura ingraham will join us for analysis in a couple of minutes. >> brian: he embraced film making, michael moore. now proof that the leader of iran is off his rocker. "fox & friends" starts right now >> eric: eric is in for steve. >> brian: we are playing ourselves today. >> gretchen: we are. and usually the way we kick off the top of the hour is bring you the headlines. this morning we start with a fox news alert. italian cruise ship in italy, the ship's captain expected to be questioned in court today. this as the ship's second block box has been recovered. recordings from the first box revealed the captain tried to abandon ship duress cue efforts. the translation of the transcript shows a coast guard official asked the captain where he was going, saying, quote, what are you doing? are you abandoning the rescue? captain, this is an order, i am

the one in charge now. you have declared abandoning ship. there are already bodies, to which the captain asked, how many? and the official said that, is for you to tell me. what are you doing? do you want to go home? meanwhile, rescue efforts continue. new pictures are being released showing divers inside the heavily damaged ship. seven people so far have been categorized as having died. moments ago, officials released the nationalities of the missing passengers. 14 germans, six italians, four french and two americans. u.s. coast guard releasing video of a much needed fuel delivery underway in alaska. noem finally getting 1.3 million gallons of oil and gas. a file shipment was canceled last november due to a storm and supplies are starting to run low. it took a boat ice breaker two weeks to clear a path for a tanker. it's the coldest winter in 40

years. u.s. border patrol ending the revolving door policy of sending illegal immigrants back to mexico without any punishment n. a few weeks, they will allowance specific punishments for people who illegally cross the border ranging from first time offend force people who have criminal records. border patrol says children and people who need medical help will not be punished. michael moore is iran's favorite movie director. their least favorite american turns out it's barbie. the country's morality police telling stores to remove the dolls in favor of these government approved ones that wear traditional dress. police say the move is to forget people from those evil western influences. but girls say they don't want the iranian dolls because they're, quote, to use their words, ugly. those are your headlines. >> brian: kids who don't want dolls with burqas? that doesn't make sense. what's happened to this country? >> eric: change. >> gretchen: let's go to laura ingraham.

>> brian: wait a second. come back to us for a second. joining us -- >> i'm gone now. >> brian: in a moment, we'll talk to laura ingraham. want to do it right now? welcome to the show? >> i'm a radio person, you know. still learning tv. >> gretchen: actually you're usually in dc so it's nice have you here. >> good to be here. >> gretchen: let's look at the best of newt gingrich. this is kind of like your brian's best with sports. >> brian: right. >> gretchen: here is the best -- the debate montage, the best of newt from last night. >> why the best food stamp president in american history to maximize dependency is terrible as it improved in three years? no. they haven't built a road. they haven't helped the people. they haven't done anything. andrew jackson had a pretty clear cut idea about america's enemies. kill them. >> brian: you were bringing that up because laura you thought he shined last night. >> he rocked it. i'm sorry. people, many in the dinosaur media, have proclaimed newt

gingrich can't win. if he's up against obama, he's going to get destroyed. newt gingrich showed last night why many conservatives believe he's the best person to take on obama. he'll win the entire south. if he puts more northern moderate republican on the ticket with him, i think newt gingrich -- i think he just showed why he's a master of this type of forum. whether it will translate into any great bump in south carolina, it's very late in the game for this. gretchen, you and i talked about this many months ago. we said if conservatives don't coalesce hyped one anti-romney candidate early, it will be hard to play catch-up. imagine if santorum and paul had taken on romney the way they did last night six debates ago. imagine where we would be today. >> gretchen: also what i've been think being this morning after seeing that performance last night was i feel like it hurt newt gingrich, besides the attack ads, not having debates

for a while. we've had so many debates. then for a couple weeks there was this lull. now if people watched last night, will they be back up to sort of shuffling who they like? >> i've never seen him better in a debate and romney had been pretty even and pretty cool in these debates. he got rattled. and i kept thinking -- >> brian: about what? >> rattled on the tax return answer. even simple questions about hunting. i'm not much of a hunter. i hunt add few times. he kind of tried say that, but he seemed to tight. he's holding it all in. i'm like, just let it in. release your tax returns and say, you bet i paid 15% interests on any investment income and i'm going to tell i couldn't that makes sense. you use them to school the country in what you know best. >> eric: i'm as far right as you can possibly be. >> you are not. >> eric: no, no. what happens it, when i come and

i -- i had this interchange with newt gingrich a couple weeks ago here saying newt, why are you going after bain capital? that's capitalism, private equity, it's private money? then release the tax forms. why is he doing had? this is what you would expect from the obama team to be doing to mitt romney. not within the gop. >> i don't think the bain capital is particularly helpful to him at all. however, putting that aside, and i think you have to do because he didn't really get into that last night. i think he is probably agreeing with you and behind closed doors said, it might not have been the right thing to do. unless he's tapping into this income disparity issue, but you have to talk about it the right way. you have to talk about people having the tools make themselves more wealthy, starting businesses. he need to do do that. he didn't do that. however, eric, i have to tell you on the tax return, regular folks watching this out there going, you know something? you're rich. we know you're rich. not a big deal. you made lot of money. i think people say, really lease them. it makes it a bigger issue than

it is. i thinks that mistake for him. i think he should release it and school us why it makes sense for him. >> gretchen: maybe that little part of it. but in general, i think with all the problems facing america -- >> no, no, where was the trade question last night? why weren't we talk being what's going on with our trade policy? there was no questions about that. almost nothing on china. i think the debates were not focusing on china is a huge mistake, or russia, not a single question. >> brian: i want to you hear what newt said when we asked him why the emphasis on tax returns. >> i don't understand this attitude of protecting a candidate from telling the truth. we want people to be able to withstand the attack of the obama machine this fall. we better find out before the nomination whether or not our candidates are capable of withstanding that kind of attack. the worst thing for us would be to nominate somebody and then have them disintegrate in september because obama found some weakness and went after him relentlessly. >> if it's such a bad argument, why did romney have so much

trouble with it? >> it's that judge the conservatives say, why is that copping from newt gingrich? shooen that be coming from some think tank, somewhere elsewhere that question is asked? why is a capped date who should be focused on creating jobs and turning the economy around worried about how much romney makes? >> i think newt gingrich understands that when you're up against a super pac money of mitt romney, you have to do something fairly radical to change the debate and reframe the debate. i get what you're saying and i agree with 95% of it. i do believe on this issue of tax returns, it does not make romney look good to kind of hem and huh and say we're looking at it. we feel like we've been well exposed. i'll look at it again in april of the it makes him look so politician. he could use them to school the american public on appropriate tax policy. >> brian: if he can defend his days at bain capital, he should do a better job. >> and talk about how he's a turn around guy. >> gretchen: we got to move around. valerie jarrett, one of the top

advisors to president obama has been ripping republicans as of yesterday because it was mlk's birthday or the recognition day. because they were at a church. explain this story to me. >> she goes down to atlanta and speaks at this church and she goes into a conversation about people are resting now, that osama bin laden has been killed. then she starts talk being firefighters and police officers and a kind of a glancing blow, but unmistakable one against republicans. now, it's wonderful the obamas did their day of service yesterday and they appeared with their daughter at an event in dc, i believe. that was a nice moment. but what's happening beyond the president and his immediate family is that whether it's eric holder or valerie jarrett or any of the other top officials, they're using the holiday of martin luther king and turning it into a political weapon. i find that to be represencible. that's not, as far as i understand, that's not what dr. king's mental was. valerie jarrett should be ashamed of herself for doing that. >> brian: here is the quote. teachers and firefighters and policemen whose jobs are in jeopardy because of congress,

let me be specific, because the republicans in congress. >> the daily caller has an interesting piece that this might run afall of the tax law. liberals are all about separating church and state except when it works for their political message. was this a violation of irs policy? could have been. >> gretchen: we'll be sure to hear you on the radio. >> excellent. i'll be down stairs. >> gretchen: next on our rundown, he compared mitt romney's time at bain capital to bernie madoff's multi-billion-dollar ponzi scheme. assistant democrat minority leader james cliburn here. >> eric: something straight out of the movie "airplane," passengers told, we're going down. but turns out someone pressed the wrong recording message. >> brian: you can't be serious. wake up!

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>> eric: it was mitt romney who drew the most attacks last night debate. take a listen. in one instance, newt gingrich refocused his attacks on the president, however. drawing a distinction between him and the republican hopefuls. >> the difference between barak obama and the five of us, that we actually think work is good. [ laughter ] we actually think saying to somebody, i'll help you if you're willing to help yourself is good. [ cheers and applause ] we think unconditional efforts by the best food stamp president in american history to maximize dependency is terrible for the future of this country. [ cheering ]

>> eric: joining to us react, assistant democratic leader and south carolina congressman james cliburn. congressman, thank you for joining us. >> thank you for having me. >> eric: do you have a problem with the assessment calling president obama the food stamp president? >> well, i understand what newt is doing. i always have a problem when anybody denigrates another person. and to say those kinds of things about the president of the united states, i think not only tries to lower the office itself, but also denigrates those people who find themselves in need of food stamps. >> eric: representative, what's denigrating about calling him the food stamp president? he is the leader of the largest, wide ex expansion of the food stamp program in american history. >> simply because he is also inherited the biggest economic problem we've had since 1929. if you got 2.1 million people losing their jobs in the last 90

days of a bush administration, they are going to find a way to try to eat while they try to recover from that. >> eric: sir -- can i make a point here? >> yes. >> eric: when mr. obama took office, the duration on unemployment benefits was 19 weeks. the last month, the labor statistics said it's over 40 weeks. it's more than doubled over three years of an obama term that apparently isn't going in the right direction. >> once again, let's talk about how many people needed food stamps at the time franklin roosevelt took office. fact of the matter is, this man inherited an economy that was going into the ditch. you know that. everybody knows that. what he had to do was stabilize a very sick economy before he could initiate any kind of recoveries. it's like anybody going into the emergency room. you don't try to apply any kind of remedy to a sick patient. you first try to stabilize the patient and then you try to --

>> eric: then you hope the -- >> you try to stabilize families and you stabilize these families by, when you can't get them back to work, make sure that there is food on the table. now we're experiencing 22 -- >> eric: sir action using your analogy of the hospital, when the medicine isn't stabilizing the patient, then maybe you try something else. we got to change topics a little bit. you yourself compared romney's work at bain capital to bernie madoff's ponzi scheme. take a listen. >> i have no problem with mitt romney or anybody else making millions or even billions. what my problem is, is that if you question things done in the name of capitalism, then he calls it being envious. i don't think anybody was envious or fearful of being envious when they full fail to questioned what bernie madoff

was doing. did he all that in the name of capitalism. >> eric: how can you compare one man who stole money from innocent investors to mr. romney who was a part of a capitalist legal system that frankly tried to create and fix companies and create jobs? >> look, what i said was, and i stand by that and i'll say it again. the pack of the matter is, just because you do something in the name of capitalism doesn't mean that what you're doing is the ethical thing to do. i grew up in a parsonage. i saw things done in the name of reasonable which was not religious. >> eric: okay. >> so just because you call it capitalism, doesn't make it. >> eric: if you don't agree with what mr. romney did, that's one issue. but comparing him to someone who stole $65 billion who is going to spend the rest of his life in jail is an unfair comparison, no? >> i didn't compare him. i compared his, calling it envious when we question what

he's doing. so much of the question what madoff was doing. maybe they were fearful of being envious or being accused of being envious, so they didn't question him. if they had questioned him, then we may not have had this tremendous loss in people's retirement packages and portfolios. the pack of the matter is, we can question mitt romney and we will. i'm not even thinking about what he did in gaffney. i'm thinking about georgetown. 1750 jobs lost in a community while he and his partners pocketed money. in bankruptcy -- >> eric: we got to go, sir. thank you very much for joining us this morning. >> thank you so much for having me. >> eric: coming up, another stimulus surprise. how the government lost more than a million of your tax dollars in the blink of an eye. then, is your bank account better off than it was this time last year? an exclusive study on what americans are doing with their money and what it might mean for

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>> eric: time for yours news by the numbers. 89,000, that's how many turbo charged mini coopers are being recalled because the car's circuit board could catch fire, even when the engine is off. next, 1.5 million. that's how much federal stimulus money was spent fixing up eight foreclosed homes in modesto, california. the return? nothing. the government lost all the money on the deal. last, 80. that's how many bills congress passed last year, making 2011 the least productive session

since 1947. what a surprise. over to you, brian. >> brian: all right. 2011 was the year of ups and downs. we started with a 9.1% unemployment rate. it ended at 8.5%. so is it safe for consumers, are they more optimistic now about the year ahead? >> gretchen: joining to us reveal the consumer reports index, exclusively to "fox & friends" is "consumer reports" director ed farrell. good morning to you. >> good morning. >> gretchen: so let's take a look at what people are feeling as far as confidence with the economy. good christmas season. but how do we feel moving forward? >> we had a great christmas season. looks like over all holiday spendings up 4%. confidence is up a little bit. but it's nowhere up near where it should be at this point during a recovery. we're still negative territory. and there is a lot of room for improvement. >> brian: what about the purchase of big ticket items? we hear car sales are going up. are we hearing other items are going up? >> big ticket items, major appliance, it's been soft for a

while. past two months have been very soft. folks are very hesitant about making that kind of investment of $1,500, or $2,000 for a new range or refrigerator and they seem to be holding back because there is still a lot of concern about where the economy is going among consumers. >> gretchen: we're looking at the graph as you compare january of 2011 to january of 2012. you can see major appliances, 6.2% back one year ago slipping to 3.9% now. i want to take a look at jobs as well. lost jobs versus started jobs in the past 30 days. explain the red and green to us. >> basically the past 30 days, we've seen job growth being fairly strong with more people starting a new job than losing a job. this is the first month in a inn a while that employment index moved into positive territory. the bad news is it's barely in positive territory. as you know, total unemployment, the unemployed plus underemployed plus those who are discouraged is running at about

16%. at this kind of increase, it's going to take a long, long time. >> brian: the health care debate, but it's very relevant. now in 2012, 15.7% don't have health care. so they can't afford it or the policy hold railroads bailing out? >> 15.7% are having difficulty paying for medical bills or their prescription drugs. it really isn't that they don't have health care. it's that they're having a really difficult time in make the cost of their health care. they don't have the money to pay for the care they need. what you see in these times when things are hard, people will scrimp and surprise league when the first -- one of the first things is health care. they'll put off the routine visit u. get a rash, maybe it will get better. so they'll sort of postpone that because they got other things to spend on. things like food and fuel. as you know inflation has been up for the past few months.

that's where inflation is. that's hitting particularly the middle class very, very hard. >> gretchen: thank you very much. ed farrell with the exclusive results from "consumer reports" survey taken just last week. great to see you. >> thank you. >> brian: good job. the gop candidates talking tough on terror. >> the right thing for osama bin laden was the bullet in the head that he received. that's the right course for people who kill american citizens. >> brian: not all of them on the same page. hear their foreign policy plans next. >> gretchen: it was like something straight out of a movie. "airplane." passengers warned, we're going down. they have over sea waters. turns out it was a big mistake. so much for a relaxing trip my name is jill strange,

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how do i get as close as i can to the game i love? with nhl gamecenter premium on verizon 4g lte. it streams the nbc national game of the week and gives me on demand replays and exclusive camera angles, you can't get on tv. now if you'll excuse me... shoot it! take the ice at the speed of 4g lte with nhl gamecenter premium free. only on verizon. >> gretchen: we're having a huge debate about the football games over the weekend. >> brian: yes. >> eric: whether or not to slide for the quarterback eli manning or try and go for the extra two yards and risk an injury. >> brian: i say if the green bay quarterback can get the first down, then i think it's okay for the giant quarterback to try to get the first down, regardless. >> gretchen: they're different kind of players. >> eric: the crew and i take the slide

the first -- >> brian: we'll see who is right next time. none of you guys come to work tomorrow. you're all fired. >> gretchen: okay. from football to politics, another political football, newt gingrich had one of the most memorable moments during last night's debate. even got a standing ovation from the crowd. john roberts was there and he's live in myrtle beach, south carolina. we had newt gingrich on a little earlier on the show. he seemed to be pretty impressed with that standing ovation. >> he was pretty impressed with himself. no question. i ran into him in the lobby and he seemed to be a happy man. no wonder, he put in a very good debate performance last night in a time when he really needs it. nipping at the heels of mitt romney here in south carolina which is four days now to make the closing arguments. his moment came when he took a potential mind field of a question from juan williams about race and poverty and turned it into that standing ovation. have a look. >> here is my point.

i believe every american of every background has been endowed by their creator with the right to pursue happiness and if that makes liberals unhappy, i'm going to continue to find ways to help poor people learn how to get a job, learn how it get a better job, and learn some day to own the job. [ cheers and applause ] >> newt gingrich really walking on air this morning. it was a tough night for mitt romney. he was under attack literally from the word go over bain capital, his tax returns. this moment where it got into a tussle back and forth between romney and rick santorum over romney's super pacs attack ads against santorum suggests he wanted to give incarcerated felons the right to vote. look at this. >> i would ask governor romney, do you believe people who are felons who served their time, who have exhausted their parole and probation, should they be given the rye to vote? >> governor romney?

>> first of all, as you know, the pacs that run ads on various candidate, as we unfortunately. >> i'm looking for an answer to the question first. [ cheers and applause ] >> we have plenty of time. i'll get there. i'll do it in the order i want to do it. >> 30 seconds to respond. >> i don't think people who committed violent crimes should be allowed to vote again. that's my own view. [ applause ] >> ron paul had a pretty good night with the exception that he was boo'd on a foreign policy question when he suggested the implementation of a golden rule when it comes to america's enemies. rick perry also had a good night. the one thing you have to wonder, though, where was that debate performance back in november when it might have really mattered for him because so many people think time is running out for rick perry in this race. >> gretchen: interesting analysis. thanks so much, john roberts, in south carolina. >> brian: no one is talking about rick perry. he was very strong last night. no one is attacking him anymore. it's easier sitting on the rims.

but there is a big decision after south carolina. >> gretchen: somebody might be attacking ron paul's strategy that's now just being released about what he might plan to do with regard to if he doesn't get the nomination. so what will he do? i'm going to tell new a minute after we first listen to some of the candidate last night on foreign policy. listen to this. >> we're in south carolina. south carolina in the revolutionary war had a young 13-year-old named andrew jackson. he was sakerd by a british officer and wore a scar his whole life. he had a pretty clear cut idea about america's enemies. kill them. [ cheers and applause ] >> we go anywhere they are and we kill them. and the right thing for -- [ cheers and applause ] the right thing for osama bin laden was the bullet in the head that he received. that's the right course for people who kill american citizens. >> so i would say that maybe we ought to consider a golden rule in foreign policy. don't do to other nations what we don't want happening to us.

we endlessly bomb these countries, and then we wonder why they get upset with us? >> brian: and we bomb these countries? what countries are we endlessly bombing? is he talking about the lead you want to persian gulf war, because they were shooting at our planes and that's why we were enforce ago no fly zone. a lot of people are rallying to his stance because of his antiwar stance. that's one. he's to the left of even the president. >> eric: we talk about how mr. obama has been the policyist for america overseas and one of his first speeches was in cairo talk being how american exceptionalism was embarrassing to him. but then you hear ron paul say we need o apply the golden rule to people like ahmadinejab in iran or chavez in venezuela. this is crazy talk. no offense. the guy is very smart on all things the fed, monetary policy. we came back, fox came back from a 10:00 o'clock break last night and went right into foreign

policy and brett went right after him about this exact issue and he's right. this is where the ron paul candidacy breaks down, falls flat on its face. sorry. >> gretchen: so if he does not get the nomination, then what is the quietly strategical plan for ron paul? here it is this morning. this is what we're going. he apparently will use any delegates that he has been able to achieve through this process as a bargaining chip when we get to the republican national convention. that starts august 27 in tampa, florida. >> brian: he says he's going to add in auditing in the federal reserve. look to repeal elements of the patriot act, including wire taps, and keep in mind, he's got $13 million worth of cash and a lot of loyal supporters. if the republican party just pushes him away, the risk is he's going to spin out to a third party. >> eric: that would -- clearly hurt his son, rand paul. senator and any future

aspirations he might have. >> gretchen: he does seem to be courting some independent which is last time went for president obama. so if there would be a way to court these people into the republican party, then whoever is the nominee on that side would be probably happy about that. in the meantime, the rest of your headlines for a tuesday. he died doing what he loved the most, jack roberts, veteran ice climber and instructor, was scaling the ice falls near telluride, colorado. when he fell. he broke his hip and went into cardiac arrest. crews spent more than 40 minutes trying to resuscitate roberts before he passed away. >> eric: this is what happens when you hand your space program over to the russians. now they're blaming us for their failed mars moon probe. russia says they're going to have space experts check into the possibility that a u.s. radar station may have inadvertently interfered with the probe, knocking out its electronic system shortly after it launched. the probe was stuck in orbit for two months before plummeting to

earth this past weekend. >> brian: st. louis gearing up for a welcome home parade to honor iraq war veteranses. the u.s. government is refuse to go pay for a parade honoring troops in new york city. that's not stopping volunteers. corporate donations are pouring in, but still need more for info on how to help, go to the group's facebook page called make january 28 welcome home the heros from iraq day. good luck, st. louis. nice move. >> gretchen: remember this scene from the movie "airplane"? >> everybody, get in crash position! >> gretchen: it was no joke when a similar scene played out on british airways. a flight from miami to london. imagine you're on this flight now. you're over seas in the middle of the flight. a warning comes over the p.a. system. it actually says that the plane is about to make an emergency landing in the ocean.

passengers in real life started crying and praying. but 30 seconds later a flight attendant announced a prerecorded emergency message they had heard was played by mistake. same thing happened on another british airways flight in 2010. guy, it would have been over for me. in 30 seconds, it would have been over. >> eric: why is this the crash position? is that safer? >> gretchen: head between your legs? >> eric: yeah. >> brian: i'm not really sure. cannon ball it seemed safe when it hit the target. you have these seat for floatation device, so you'll be fine. >> eric: maybe that's why they tell to you do this. you can find your floatation device. no? >> gretchen: that's usually with it is. after that italian cruise ship, i'm going to pay attention to all those safety things they give you, whether you're on a ship or plane. we got to move forward. >> brian: did mitt romney manage to turn the bain capital attacks around? did he manage to turn them into a blessing? peter johnson, jr. weighs in.

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>> brian: mitt romney facing criticism on the campaign trail over his time spent in bain capital. at last night, he defend his record. >> first of all, you never want to see an enterprise go bankrupt. and you never want to see anyone lose a job. but ultimately, do i believe that free enterprise works and that private equity and the various features of our economy

work to actually improve our economy, to make america more productive with higher incomes and a brighter future? absolutely. >> mitt romney quiet his critics? peter johnson, jr. watched with a discerning eye. fox news legal analyst. >> good morning. >> brian: expert on communications. >> nice to see you. >> brian: you knew it was coming. brett outlined it in the very beginning. how did mitt romney do to newt gingrich's attack? >> he's been the subject of an unfair movie that basically newt gingrich discredited with regard to bain capital. >> brian: michael moore loves. >> he loves all these attacks on capitalism and private investment. i think did he a good job in the sense that he told the american people, i understand the real economy because i've worked in the real economy. so we know a lot more about his capacity in terms of job creation. now he's saying, okay. i probably created about 120 jobs between bright horizon, staple, yesterday we heard the former ceo of staples on this

show talk about romney's accomplishments in that area. but it's kind of an opportunity now in south carolina for the people to decide. listen, we've heard for 15 or 16 debates the ideologies. we heard on the left from huntsman. we heard on the right from others. is he a massachusetts moderate? is that what the republican party wants? who can win against president obama in the coming election in november? romney is saying, listen, i think it's time to make a decision. you understand my business record. warts and all. jobs created, jobs taken away. but yes, capitalism adescended. >> brian: the "wall street journal" said mitt romney should use this as an opportunity to prove to -- show america what he's on a done in the private sector and what he can do in the country and to go further, the auto bailout. this is the way it was done and the way it should have been done that. bond holders don't get screwed and unions don't get

boost. that's the way to establish yourself through apparently negative situations. >> i think he's beginning to do that and he can do it better this week and he needs to do it better this week. once people get an opportunity to hear his actual experiences, and it should be the good and the bad. yes, i opened steel mills. yes, i closed steel mills. yes, i tried to save a paper company. it worked in part. it didn't work in part. but yes, we created thousands of jobs at staples. people are hungry for jobs. and the newt gingrich ovation last night was about jobs. unfortunately, in the midst of the whole discussion about giving 12-year-olds janitorial jobs in school, i mean, that's not the solution. so romney has got to position himself as the man that can lead america to a new era of job creation. based upon his unique credentials, if he articulate it is properly, he has that opportunity because no one else on that stage has that level of

experience in running and managing and creating jobs. >> brian: closing thought, newt gingrich do enough to separate himself from rick santorum in the latest poll, he's trailing by a couple of points, in your estimation. >> he's great at getting standing ovations. the people of south carolina decides who can beat the president. can you win the argument or do you win the election in november? it's about winning the argument or winning the election. so in that sense, the people of south carolina got to say, have we heard enough? let's make a choice. >> brian: thanks for filling in yesterday. thank you. 11 minutes before the top of the hour. cosmo matches racy cover stories with stories like dakota fanning. we can't show them on tv, should they be allowed on store shelves? let's check out what bill hemmer is talking about on his show. >> where you been? >> i was actually at disney for the open of -- fox is on disney hotels. lives for that event.

>> welcome back. we missed you. we've got breaking news out of italy. the black box being translated. you're going to hear the captain's voice and we'll have that for new moments. mike huckabee barely lost to john mccain in south carolina four years ago. who scored in last night's debate? the governor is here to pass out grades. senator lindsey graham, liz cheney and not so fast on those private rockets going to space. is that a problem? martha and i will see new ten minutes here on "america's newsroom" us credit card. hey, aren't you... shhh. i'm researchg a role. today's special... the capital one venture card. you earn double miles on every purchase. impressive. chalk is a lost medium. if you're not earning double miles... you're settling for half. was that really necessary? [ male announcer ] get the venture card at capitalone.com and earn double miles on every purchase every day. what's in your wallet? cover for me. i have an audition.

>> gretchen: if you're not looking at your screen right now, come to it and check out the cover of this magazine. it's a cosmo magazine and the cover is so racy, we had to blur it for television. if you're at the checkout counter at the supermarket, good luck 'cause you and your kid will have a bird's eye view to

all the racy comments and graphics. the woman you're about to meet is trying to change that and joining me is model and founder of project inspired, nicole weeder. good morning to you. >> good morning, gretchen. i'm so glad to be on the show. >> gretchen: thank you so much for being a guest. why is this important to you? >> you know, this is important because this magazine is a full on pornographic magazine featuring explicit, graphic sexual tips and the problem is, parents and decision makers are unaware of just how damaging and dangerous this magazine really is on young girls and underage teens. and my goal is to get the magazine sold in nontransparent wrapper so make it unavailable for young teens to buy and to bring it at their schools and middle schools. so with everyone's help watching this, we can put it in a bag to protect young girls. >> gretchen: you started an organization called project inspired. what is its goal? >> this goal is to educate and

inform young girls about everything that they're face not guilty the media, from the effects of air brushing, to relationship issues on bullying or sexting, and it's just a sort of a safe haven for young girls to come to and get support from other girls, including myself. my main mission is the anti-cosmo mission. so i've been battling this magazine for a year now and so many people have made fun of me and told me that i can't do it alone and they're right. i cannot do it alone and i need everyone's help that's watching this right now to sign the petition on change.org. it's amazing what happens, how people are critical when you just want to go back to good old-fashioned values. but it happens to every single person who tries to do it. i want to focus on the youngness as well of the people that they're choosing to be on the cover. is the cover there dakota fanning? she's just a young girl, right? >> yes. she's actually underage. she's 17 years old and she's not

going to be 18 until february 23 c. is interesting because that is after the february issue is completely off the news stands. and i notice in the january 2012 issue with scarlet johansson on the cover, the editor in chief mentions she's hiring an outside design firm with the name of luke haman and talks about that she wants the magazine to have a fresh new eye and it's so obvious that this magazine is now targeting young girls and with the fresh -- the terminology, even on this cover, it says, oh, girlie headlines and it's obviously marketed to underage girls. >> gretchen: i got to get in the quote from cosmo, the rep on the dakota fanning cover. we're thrill to do fee her on the cover. dakota is a mature, fearless young woman. we did reach out to cosmo to appear on our show and they did not return our calls. i got to wrap it up. we will link our "fox & friends" web site to your project inspired. thanks for bringing it to our

attention. >> thank you so much, gretchen. >> gretchen: more "fox & friends," two minutes urney acro, i've learned that when you ask someone in texas if they want "big" savings on car insurance, it's a bit like asking if they want a big hat... ...'scuse me... ...or a big steak... ...or big hair... i think we have our answer. geico. fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or more on car insurance. it's got 10 speeds, my friend. ♪ is it fast? it's got a lightning bolt on it, doesn't it? ♪ is it fast? i don't even know if it's street-legal.

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