nice meeting you. i got to go. >> steve: brian, bring back those bottles when you're done. there's a nickel deposit. >> brian: you're not getting it. >> gretchen: log on for our after the show show. have a great tuesday. see you tomorrow bright and early. bill: know what they call this, martha. martha: what do they call this, bill? bill: they call it gameday. it may be up to florida to break the tie on the republican race. that is live from tampa. martha: they're bustling out the door. bill: there is evidence. there is winner-take-all contest. good morning, everybody. welcome to "america's newsroom." we have a lot to cover the next two hours. martha: that makes me martha maccallum if you're bill hemmer. great to have you with us this morning. get this. more than 600,000 voters made their choice through the early voting process which is very popular in the

sunshine state and many are absentee ballots. we just don't know. newt gingrich and mitt romney cruising the sunshine state. they're trying to shake hand and make eye contact for any last minute votes. uping the ante big-time. watch that. >> a massachusetts moderate who offers romney kiar is not in good position to debate barack obama who says romney-care is based on obamacare. hopefully the next couple weeks we'll be able to consolidate the conserve tough vote. in which case governor romney at that point will start losing badly. >> i know the speaker is not happy, speaker gingrich. sew not very excited these days. it is sad. flailing around a bit going after me for one thing or another. you watch it and shake your head. it has been painfully revealing to watch but i think the reason that he isn't doing so well because of those last two dedates --

debates, don't you think? martha: fighting words in florida. rick santorum and ron paul they're kind of already done with the sunshine state race for them. they're moving on. they're focusing on contests coming up shortly out west. bill: what we find florida, martha is whole different ball of wax. we can borrow that pun. florida is so much different than south carolina and clearly different from new hampshire and iowa before that. down here in florida polls close for most of the state at 7:00 eastern time. but the panhandle closes at 8:00 central time zone. all these counties, all 67, will start to fill in with color a little later tonight after 8:00. go back to 2008. we can show you based on the color map here what happened between john mccain and mitt romney. mccain was a winner, 36-31 for romney. it sole lidfied his nomination over romney four

years ago. this is the panhandle area, tends to be conservative. military votes. more southern in many ways than the rest of the state. we'll watch that panhandle area. here in jacksonville a lot of conservative votes in the northern part of the state along the border with georgia and south carolina. romney did very he will this part of the state four years ago. he did decent in the central part around orlando. this is a critical area. this is called the i-4 corridor. this is interstate 4. talked about primarily this year and during the general election and presidential race. the reason voters in the area tend to be independent and swing voters but often times they will tip the balance of power in the state of florida. further in the southwest, romney did well. collier county and lake county, where you find naples. strong conservative vote down here. transplants from the midwest and northeast living on the gulf coast. here in the southeast. this is miami, this is broward, this is palm beach. a lot of democrats living in

miami-dade but still a lot of republican votes to be mined down in miami-dade and north here as i mentioned, broward where you see mccain did so well with many votes four years ago and up here in palm beach county that breaks it down in general terms what vote is up against right now. you see issue number one, martha. unemployment is huge. foreclosure rate is way up and the people are ticked off. we'll see how they express it. >> florida is the forth largest state in the country and micro costism in many ways for the national vote for the reasons bill was talking about. as you look at that it could be reflective what we'll see down the road. meantime two of the four gop candidates already willing to look past florida. they do not feel they will do well there. ron paul, rick santorum starting their days campaigning in colorado before heading to nevada where they host the florida primary viewing parties for that state. it is a little confusing. they're all over the place.

nevada caucuses are this saturday. colorado is next tuesday. and they feel that their strength is out there and they want to stay on the board. that is how they're going about it. bill: we'll not leave the building until this thing is over, are we? martha: no. we have our cots. bill: keep it here on fox news channel. coverage all throughout the morning and this afternoon. special coverage at 6:00 with "special report" with bret baier. we're here with martha and bringing in the exit follows and counting the results. martha: we'll see how different it may be from south carolina which is going to be very interesting to watch as folks leave the polls today. how about this question we talked about quite a bit in "america's newsroom." it is a battle that launched a national debate and the question is over public union employees and their pay packages. it sparked mass protests in wisconsin. big discussions in new jersey and california. the question is this. should public workers get a

better deal than private workers? and remember, those public workers are getting paid by the taxpayers. we have brand new research that shows many government workers fare better than their private sector counterparts. this new report is getting a lot of attention because it comes from the nonpartisan congressional budget office. it find that federal civilian workers with a high school education earn about 21% more than their private sector counterparts. so why would that be? stuart varney joins me right now, anchor of "varney & company" on the fox business network. stuart, as always held basically if you go to work for the government or federal worker you would get paid less but you will have job security, long term job security and benefits. now it seems that is not the mix we're getting anymore. >> no. that's been reversed. these by the way, as you said there, martha, these are official numbers. this is from the top bean counter from the federal government. from the con gaegs al --

congressional budget office. federal workers make total compensation, $52 an hour. private sector? $45 an hour. that means federal workers enjoy a 16% total compensation advantage over their private sector counterparts. the real difference is in the value of the benefits which federal workers earn. 48% better. 48% more valuable than in the private sector. that is how it emerges. you've got a much higher rate of total compensation for federal workers versus the private sector. largely because of the value of those benefits written into their union contracts. one more point, martha. you have a job for life. now you can't put a dollar value on that. in the private sector you do not have a job for life. you can be laid off. you can be fired. in the federal workforce you're very, very rarely fired. almost never laid off. reductions in the workforce take place by attrition, not flat-out layoffs. martha: we heard so many stories how hard it is to

lay off a teacher who isn't doing their job in this country and all of this leads to a lot of taxpayers saying why is a private sector taxpayer supporting a benefit package for public sector employees who make more money and have a much bigger benefit package? it is interesting, because when you look behind the numbers, stuart, it ties to educated. high school educated bears far better in the public sector. once you get past high school education you are better off in the private sector. >> if you have a high school education and work for federal government you earn more than someone with a high school education working in the private sector. if you got same level of education, middle level education, for example, you earn about the same in the federal workforce as the private sector. if you have higher education, you earn less in the workforce than the private sector. that answers out on wages and salaries. but when you kick in the benefits that's where with the difference occurs. martha: that is where you have a lot of angry people looking at this mix.

>> yes. martha: stuart varney, thanks very much. coming up on fox business network. bill: check him out, right? meantime larry sabato has been crunching the numbers. he is center for politics university of virginia. we rely on him. we call this gameday. you look forward to this as well. no one predicted gingrich would take 43 of 46 counties in south carolina, no one. what is your best guess for today? >> a big romney victory and underline guess, you're absolutely right, bill. every day is super bowl sunday in politics in 2012 but romney seems to have gotten on game at long last. he recovered from south carolina. he learned from south carolina. everything has gone his way from the spending to the enormous number of absentee ballots and early voting. a group of voters that probably favors romney substantially. so, i think everybody's going to be surprised if romney does not win this handily with double digits.

frankly i think newt gingrich will claim a moral victory if he keeps romney's victory to a single digit margin. bill: wow, that will be interesting. you're looking for romney more than double digits, 10 points or more obviously. the early voting right now is in. looks to me 20% more votes cast this year than the primary four years ago. florida likes to make early voting and absentee balloting easy for its voters. is this a reflection of the mood and anxiety of voters, the amount of intensity? can we say that? >> for a party when you have this level of participation, assuming the real vote cast today at the polls resembles at all the increase in absentee ballotting in early voting. you look for those sorts of increases and generally there has been an increase. it has been a marginal increase in iowa, new hampshire. there was more substantial increase in south carolina. this could be a very big increase in florida. that's what the republicans want. they want to see excitement

in their base. they want to see engagement with politics. and sooner or later they hope the party will come back together once it actually has a nominee. bill: we'll see which way this goes. i know you mentioned ron paul and newt gingrich. they say they're in it for the long haul. if that is the case we could be at it for months regardless what happens today. thank you, professor, larry sabato. university of virginia. >> thank you, bill. bill: here we go. off and running. >> always good to hear from larry sabato university of virginia. minutes away everybody wanted endorsement of this man but they did not get it. senator marco rubio joins us live in three minutes on what florida means in this race for the white house and my key beyond the ticket. bill: also the tsa under fire for a major security breach. screeners finding two pipe bombs. why did they wait so long to report this? we have details on that. martha: the 911 call that tells the horrific story after 10 people lot of their lives in a massive highway

crash. a chain reaction of death. >> oh, my god. [bleep]. oh, my god. what is going on? >> we are getting help out there, okay? >> oh, my goodness. >> how many vehicles have been involved that you've seen so far? >> we can not see ma'am. we can not see. this is the third one now already. [ male announcer ] for fastidious librarian emily skinner,

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martha: well, florida police are now release egg the 911 calls in that deadly pileup on i-75 that killed 10 people. police say near zero visibility caused by smoke from a brush fire triggered a crash that involved at least a dozen vehicles. listen as people trapped in their cars can do nothing as the vehicles one by one start slamming into them from behind. listen to this. >> oh, my gosh. another one. oh, my goodness. this is bad. you know what it is? because they can't see? >> yeah, that is what it is.

is anyone pinned or trapped in their vehicles? is everyone able to get out? >> ma'am, ma'am, this is the 10th one. we have had five in a row. >> is anyone pinned? >> we can't tell. martha: oh, my gosh. look at that scene. federal investigators looking why that same stretch of highway was reopened 15 minutes before that deadly pile up. >> i actually thought about marco rubio in a slightly more dignified and central role than being in the cabinet but that is another conversation. [applause] bill: he was popular at that debate last night, the senator from florida. the polls officially open across the sunshine state and this the most important contest yet pause winner-take-all. whopping 50 delegates is the prize. the doors are open because we've seen voters go inside. florida senator marco rubio my guest out of washington. how are youing, doing,

senator? welcome to "america's newsroom". >> good to be with you. bill: what is your best guess? what do we learn for the country and florida, based on the results. >> i don't know who will win. you guys see the poll,. no one knows what will happen at end of the day in florida. this is it why i've been a proponent moving florida's highway up t was an idea that came up when i was in florida legislature. you're seeing the candidates have to address issues important all across the country. every major issue that confronts america that will be topical in this election is being confronted by these candidates. that will give us a stronger nominee. so i believe, i don't know from a standpoint from a long term, if you win florida in republican primary chances of winning general election are high. bill: a lot of people would agree with that especially given dynamics in florida because they're much different than any state that voted yet. but you have not endorsed and won't endorse. why not.

>> i have relationships with the candidates. governor romney campaigned for me in nye senate race. newt gingrich i known for several years and working with me on a book when i was becoming speaker of the house. i'll let florida voters decide. when it comes to president you can't tell people how to vote anyway. people make up their own minds, i understand that. but you stood up for mitt romney publicly, is that a hint. >> what i stood up against specific language. the accusation was anti-immigrant. we have to be very careful about those things. all americans think we need to fix our broken legal immigration system. because someone doesn't agree with a certain set of ideas doesn't make them anti-immigrant. we can disagree to how to deal with the immigration many pro. i think it is important to stay away from rhetoric. that is what i was addressing. bill: in 2008, obama beat in cain by to points in florida. now what will he find in

your state? >> he inherited a difficult economy and country headed in a bad direction. they will find he has been president four years and he made everything worse. i think we need to remember for two of the last three years his party controlled the congress. he asked for specific things. give him the stimulus. give him obamacare. if you give him those things the country's economy will turn around. not only did it not turn around it has gotten, would. now he will come to florida and ask for a four-year extension after failing his four years. i don't think he will get it at least not from floridians. >> you said he is good father and husband and but ideology you disagree with it. we'll hash that out in the weeshgs and months to come. >> right. bill: you were featured prominently in the debate. everyone wants your support and endorsement. we're well thought of in the entire state of florida. if you were the undercard, if you were the vice-presidential candidate in state of 2012 could you guarantee that florida would go republican? >> couple things that is not going to happen. that is a hypothetical that isn't going to exist. bill: what is not going to

happen. >> i'm not going to be the vice-presidentialal nominee. but let me say this to you and to answer your question more specifically i don't think anyone can guaranty the state of florida. floridians have been deeply impacted by the bad decisions this administration made. it will be up to the candidate, nominee to provide a compelling alternative. this is my ideas. why it will work in a way the president's ideas will not work. that is what floridians look for at end of the day. republicans, independents, floridians are feeling national pain as much as anybody. unemployment is higher than the national average. homes are upside down in value. people are hurting in a real way. they want a president that understands that has food real, ideas about how to solve it in a way that doesn't divide our country or pit americans. bill: let me follow up quickly. you won't be the vp because you will not accept it or you will not be asked. >> a i will not be asked. b i'm not interested in that job. i'm focused on the job in the spat where i think i can impact issues. i will do whatever to help

the nominee whatever that will been but it won't be as vice president. bill: thank you again, senator marco rubio. >> thank you. martha: a lot of folks shaking their head. they would like to see him in a more high-profile position. we'll see what is in the future for marco rubio in florida. meantime this is a big creepy. something maybe in the water at one hotel in the vegas strip. we'll tell you what was found there and how many people got sick on it. bill: also, it was an epic fail of the tsa or was it? they found what they thought were pipe bombs at a major airport. what they did next has many critics calling for action. when i grow up, i want to fix up old houses. ♪ [ woman ] when i grow up, i want to take him on his first flight. i want to run a marathon. i'm going to own my own restaurant. when i grow up, i'm going to start a band. [ female announcer ] at aarp

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martha: all right. welcome back, everybody. here's one that may not restore your faith in the tsa. a potentially dangerous situation at one of the country's busiest airports.

several tsa agents at new york's laguardia airport are accused of failing to report two possible pipe bombs confiscated from a passenger's luggage. instead they left them lying around the airport for hours? what on earth? rick leventhal has the story for us. what happened, rick? >> reporter: i have the full story for you. this began as a routine screening 11:30 yesterday morning. a man's bags go through the x-ray machines, a taa startled say what is that when he sees two objects that look like pipe bombs. another screener steps in, sees the pipes, one gold, one silver, six inches long and what appear to be springs inside a supervisor is called who questions the passenger says the devices are for home yo path thick medicine. the items are swabbed and come back clean. so the supervisor lets the man board without suspicious pipes. the devices are then set aside in the screening area with other confiscated items and sit there until 3:00 in the afternoon when another

supervisor realizes that someone should have been called. the bomb squad arrives at 5:00. they take the pipes away and confirm they're not a threat. martha: so big questions about procedure here of course. >> right. martha: what is the tas saying about all that, rick? >> reporter: first i spoke with a port authority spokesman who tells me more prudent action should have been taken in your house do you leave it around your kids? tsa official tells me no one was ever in danger. airport operations was never disrupted of the problem it was a shift change. guys leaving didn't tell guys arriving by the pipes. they say they will fix this moving forward, martha. martha: you have to scratch your head and find a backpack somewhere and whole airport shuts down and nobody goes anywhere couple hours. that is weird run. rick leventhal in the newsroom. bill: she had a blunt statement for president obama, nancy pelosi and harry reid. here it is. >> you can take it to europe, take it to the bottom of the sea, take it to the north pole but get the hell out of the united states of america.

bill: that is it allen west. our man bob beckel is demanding an apology. allen west is responding to that. bob is here with his take next. don't miss this. for their clients' futures. never taking a bailout. helping generations achieve dreams. buy homes. put their kids through college. retire how they want to. ameriprise. the strength of america's largest financial planning company. the heart of 10,000 advisors working with you, one-to-one. together, for your future. ♪ toge8% every 10 years.age 40, we can start losing muscle -- wow. wow. but you can help fight muscle loss with exercise and ensure muscle health. i've got revigor. what's revigor? it's the amino acid metabolite, hmb to help rebuild muscle and strength naturally lost over time. [ female announcer ] ensure muscle health has revigor and protein to help protect, preserve,

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blood pressure, selectquote got him a $500,000 policy for under $28 a month. ellen, 47, got a $250,000 policy for under $20 a month. all it takes is a phone call. your personal selectquote agent will answer all your questions ... and impartially shop the highly rated term life companies selectquote represents for your best rates. give your family the security it needs at a price you can afford. call this number or go to selectquote dot com. selectquote. we shop. you save. bill: nine 30 here in new york and what a day it is, huh? time to buy, america. time to buy us. the fox news channel and fox business, celebrating over at nasdaq as we speak here at the fox news channel. we've been number one for 10 years. top that, huh? there is greta and lou dobbs

and lori rothman. melissa francis. she is the new by around here. came from that other joint to join us here at fox business. marking a big day, ringing opening bell at the nasdaq. hats off to the folks oaf there. congratulations to us. >> big achievement. terrific day down there. all right. let's keep up the hard work, right? let's keep it going. congressman allen west known for not mincing words. tea party favorite with a fire rye speech in florida. he was there endorsing herman cain or was with herman cain endorsing newt gingrich. there we go. west slammed the president's state of the union address. iraq war veteran getting very heated over planned defense cuts and raising a lot of eyebrows saying nancy pelosi and other dems should get the h, e, double hockey sticks out of the country. bob beckel calling for an apology. >> in my 30 years of politics i never heard

anything more disgraceful in my life. i think that allen west hose an apology to a lot of people. martha: the congressman appeared on "fox and friends" just a little while ago. he says it is beckel who owes him the apology. watch this. >> well, first of all i think bob beckel owes me an apology for saying that he would not refer to me as a congressional representative, nor as a lieutenant colonel retired. i spent 22 years of my life insuring that bob beckel could live free and safe in this great nation. martha: now to the man himself, former democratic campaign manager bob beckel and daily columnist andrea tantoros, host ever the "the five" here on fox news. bob he says you owe him an poll dpi. >> i hope he has a lot of time on his hand. he will not get it. i stand by what i said yesterday. i think that, it is one thing to say that you disagree with a policy. i think, lord knows i'm pretty blunt about what i think. i have never suggested that people ought to take their

ideology and leave this country and grow to hell or go go to europe or go under the sea. the idea somehow we don't have a right to say what we believe and if he can't accept that, that is too bad. that is america. martha: you know what? let's play the controversial comments so everybody knows what we're speaking about here. let's listen to that. >> take your message of equality of achievement, take your message of economic dependency, take your message of enslaving the entrepreneur will and spirit of the american people somewhere else. you can take it to europe. you can take it to the bottom of the sea. you can take it to the north pole but get the hell out of the united states of america. [cheers and applause] >> i should have stopped at north pole. martha: yeah. that is where you draw the line? >> that's where i cut the mike. if i was his press secretary. pull that mike. i have to say, martha. his message is right on point. i mean i do agree with his message. >> please.

>> bob. bill: i just said he shouldn't have said the other things at the end. but as your very, very dear friend who has been debating you for years, who adores you have told people to go people to go to h, e, double hockey sticks. democrats said incredible things about republicans before. i have note seen that level of outrage. for example, my turn. hold on, bob. james hoffa, called tea party members, sons of [bleep], okay? alan grayson, former democratic member said that republicans were like al qaeda. i won't even go into what democrats said about president bush. this outrage seems a little bit -- >> wait a minute. here's the difference. i no more believe what allen west says reflect all conservatives in america. it is a small slice of conservatives. but when you say, but don't paint me with what michael moore says and says that represents all democrats and all liberals. it's wrong. we don't agree with a lot of

things you're talking about now. i didn't say those things. i would never, by suggesting we take our message, andrea, you agree with, that means we don't have a place to have debate here in this country. >> his message was on point until he used -- >> noll what? >> this isn't a country spreading wealth around. this is more like greece, more like europe. that is the message republicans have been running and should run on. you used these terms before. martha: play what, he tried to clarify his statement a little bit this morning on "fox & friends." let's listen to that. >> the other thing is that i did not refer to any person leaving. if you go back and read the transcript of the message that i gave, it was about equality of achievement. it was about economic dependency. it was enslaving the american entrepreneur will and spirit. that message needs to leave this country. martha: i think if anything, this does demonstrate how hot the debate is in this country right now. that the basic ideology of

what we're all about, who we are, you know, how we think is the best way for people to get a better chance in this country. people are very passionate and their feelings are very deep-seeded about that and that's the debate we're having in this country, bob. >> we can have a debate about a lot of issues but we don't have to suggest you take those ideas and not debate and go someplace else with it. i will have a lot more to say on "the five". he had a lot of time this morning. i'm, i appreciate you giving me time to respond to it but he hasn't begun to hear what i have to say to him yet. he will today. what he said divided this country. you know what else he said? nobody reported this. he said the president of the united states was destroying america. are you kidding me? i have never said that about any republican president or would i ever? >> really? >> i said destroying america? >> a lot of people said george bush was doing that. >> a lot of people may have. i didn't and most liberals didn't. >> bob, you have told certain republicans to go to

h, e, double toothpicks. i will pull the tape. >> i didn't say with different ideology go someplace else. >> you want to line up with allen west. line up. >> i will have -- >> if we want a debate, martha made a good point. we have a lot of debate. debate it in front of each other and in this country and take it and go to hell. >> bobby, we agree on that. i will say this on both sides there has been incendiary language the outrage on your part is suspicious. martha: nothing like a great equal eyes ir. no great equalizer than high school photos. this is what i think. put up your high school photos because -- how cute, bob beckel. you have the big mutton chops going. pull up andrea. that is not fair, and diao. you look too pretty in the high school picture. >> speaking about high school, speaking about high school? let us, andrea and disagree

this morning, congratulate you on your birthday. >> where is your yearbook photo martha. martha: thank you. >> ♪ happy birthday to you, happy birthday dear martha, happy birthday to you. martha: i don't usually have my birthday recognized on tv but i have to say thank you very much. funny my high school photos were burned. i don't know what happened to them. bill: right, they're on micro fish. martha: how old i am they're on micro feesh. i love that. bill: three contests three different winners. steve harrigan at at gingrich rally in orlando. what are some of the key turning points, steve. good morning? >> reporter: we saw the former speaker walk by. he says this fight to continue until june or july or until mitt romney drops out. we've seen several key turning points over 10 days of campaign in florida.

most dramatic mitt romney performance in the debates where he has become more aggressive going on the attack. >> that is inexcusable. the idea i'm anti-immigrant is repulsive and i think you should apologize for it. having different opinions on issues does not justify labeling with highly charged epithets. >> newt gingrich refering to romney no longer as moderate but massachusetts liberal. >> the conservative movement is not going to sit by and let a massachusetts liberal, who is pro-abortion, pro-gun control, pro-tax increase, pro-gay rights, whose romney care in two articles in last 24 hours were described as equivalent of to obamacare and george soros says is just fine --. >> reporter: even on this last day both sides continuing to use terms like dishonest and desperate. bill? bill: steve harrigan, thanks at a polling station there. here is mart with more.

what is is coming up? martha: you you were talking about him with steve harrigan. he wants to become president in this country. newt gingrich is hoping to pull off a big upset in florida. how he is preparing for that big day? we'll talk to his daughter and advisor, jackie gingrich cushman when she joins us live. bill: this mysterious and deadly disease cropping up in the water in a las vegas casino. where it happened and what in the world is it? [ male announcer ] when do you take 5-hour energy?

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♪ . martha: right this. bill: think so. 14 of them made, right? martha: newt gingrich may be rising up to the challenge of his republican presidential rivals. turns out he is not only one fighting right now. the cowriter of that song, "eye of the tiger quote using the song on the

campaign trail without his politician. it is not about politics but about copyrights. not first time sullivan has taken on politician, for his "rocky iii" theme song. it is popular song on the campaign trail. you better check it out with frankie sullivan. bill: newt gingrich looking to build off his impressive showing in south carolina last saturday but he is facing a well-organized romney campaign that has outspent him significantly in florida. >> we've raised money from thousands and thousands, i think well over 100,000 people now have donated to newt 2012. we'll continue as a conservative reaching out to everybody to go to newt.org to donate money. we crossed $5 million. it is not big money for mitt romney but a lot of money for somebody like newt gingrich. bill: that is lot of money for his daughter, jackie gingrich his campaign

advisor. welcome to "america's newsroom". >> thanks for having me on. bill: your father's language about mitt romney changed yesterday. he went from a moderate from massachusetts to a liberal in massachusetts. why the sharpening language? >> well, i think if you look at his record as governor, when you look at the fees and increases in taxes, over $700 million. and i think the point is, in republican nomination, part of what is happening is the winnowing of field and we have to be very clear who the candidate is. in this race narrowing down to your point to a two-man race between governor romney and my father, newt gingrich. we have to decide as a republican party who do we want to nominate. do we want a clear conservative been around and worked on conservatism for decades or someone who was governor the massachusetts that raised taxes and fees. people need to look at record of governing. bill: in addition to that he hit romney hard last 24 hours on the his health care law in massachusetts. saying he is not supporting

religious differences as part of that law. some are taking as shot below the belt here. romney calls this desperate and a distraction. there is, invoking of george soros on the campaign trail. i mean what is the truth as you cut through all this? >> well, i think any candidate that doesn't like attacks calls them desperate. that's what you do when you're a politician. that is what mitt romney is doing. the fact is republican voters need to look at the record, reports of both candidates. my dad's record as speaker of the house one with divided government. he balanced budget. reformed welfare. cut taxes. cut spending. accomplished things, conservative values. accomplished conservative things while working with a democratic president. that is very strong platform. to put up that platform against president barack obama i think would insure a victory for us in the fall. bill: but earlier today he was telling us here on fox he expects more conservatives to vote today in florida. now what is that based on?

>> well, i think we've had a really good response the last few days having herman cain come out for dad this weekend was incredible. i love listening to herman speak. he is so inspiring and tonal qualities is just amazing. we had michael reagan on the trail with us yesterday. i love to have him talk about his father, ronald reagan, and how he passed man tell down to my father and congress in 1994. this is resonating with the american people. along with sarah palin saying if she were in florida she would vote for newt gingrich. bill: the reagan family has responded a little bit to the passing of the torch. they said that whole comment was taken out of context. what would you say to the reagan family? >> well, again i spent many hours yesterday with michael reagan. he is here campaigning with my father. he believes my father is the right candidate at this point in time he does believe, and knows my father stood for conservatism for decades. bill: we'll see what comes of florida today. there are some predictions

that suggest your father could lose by double digits but who knows. as i said repeatedly on this show, no one predicted what happened in south carolina. so we'll keep our powder dry until the voters tell us. there is if you have road ahead regardless when you look at states like nevada and michigan where romney has been strong in 2008. jackie, thank you for your time. good luck today. we'll be watching from new york. okay? >> thank you very much. bill: also mitt romney, likely gingrich's biggest competitor in florida, what is his strategy now in the closing moments and beyond? we'll get reaction from the romney side in 20 minutes to get the other side coming up. martha. martha: a high-speed chase with a crazy ending. this car slamming into a house. look at this. landed on a person's bed. we'll tell you the rest of that story, coming up. bill: holy cow. a huge scare at a popular vegas resort. officials raising alarms about contaminated water after a guest died there. so are you at risk? our medical a-team is here

to check it out. >> two or more cases we'll consider that an outbreak because most of the time the disease is underdiagnosed, underreported. wake up!

that's good morning, veggie style. hmmm. for half the calories plus veggie nutrition. could've had a v8.

martha: big medical scare at a popular las vegas resort. nevada health officials saying bacteria that causes legionnaire's disease was found in water samples at the luxor hotel casino. three guests came down with a rare form of pneumonia. one of the guests passed away earlier this month. dr. marc siegel, professor at langone medical center. good morning, doctor. >> good to see you, martha. martha: we hear about legionnaire's disease that cropsed up over the years.

apparently they have cases at the luxor. how concerned should people that want to visit las vegas. >> it is not contagious. you will not very ped it to me. the problem it gets into the water system. it is a kind of bacteria that is very hardy. lives at many different temperatures, like body temperatures. it has a tail and swims. stays in the water. even though luxor trying to eradicated going through 400 rooms using chlorine to kill it that can hide through the pipes. we have 25,000 cases. the problem it creeps up on you. you feel fatigued headaches, muscle aches and dry you cough. don't know what it is. it becomes pneumonia and 30% of the cases die from this. martha: we saw one out of these three people died. who is most at risk? is there anything you can do to protect yourself? if you do have the signs how do you know they might be this? >> early diagnosis is key. we have antibiotics to treat

this. common antibiotics can treat it. being on the lookout if you're in las vegas. you can get it from whirl pools and drinking water and venlation civil. people stayed in the hotel, take as week, two weeks to get it. that is explains why a couple people went home and got sick. don't think you will get it immediately. watch out for the symptom. it is time of year we see this. look out for a cough. people with cough and fever should see their physician. physician should be on the lookout. we can check this checking sputum and checking phlegm actually. we also can treat it. martha: if you're going to the doctor with those kind of symptoms your doctor should have be asking you have you been anywhere, right? >> yeah, travel history is very, very important. early use of antibiotics. checking a chess x-ray. treat symptoms. treat patient. patients have fever and cough you think this is one of the possibilities. 25,000 case as year is a lot. this can creep up on you.

with such a high death rate and people being hospitalized you have to check this early. i feel bad for the luxor because they may not get rid of it so easy. martha: hope your doctor is as good as dr. seek gel because if he is he will ask the questions to find out where you have been. >> you ask him too. martha: be proactive. bill: siegel is the best though, right? martha: he is the best. >> thank you. bill: we're lucky to have you. a new effort to revive keystone. will this work? fresh information on "fast and furious." democrats releasing a report meant to defend eric holder. does all the evidence add up? check that out first-hand moments away. an old man shared some fish stories... ♪ oooh, my turn. ♪ she was in paris, but we talked for hours... everyone else buzzed about the band. there's a wireless mind inside all of us.

so, where to next? ♪

martha: well, they are out there this morning, folks, the primary voting is now underway in florida. can you believe it? we are really far into this process right now, and the polls opened at 7 a.m. in most places, and the early bird special's going on right now in florida this morning. there are four names on the

ballot today, only two are really fighting for the votes out there, mitt romney and newt gingrich on the ground campaigning hard x that's how we start a revved-up morning in america's "america's newsroom." good morning, everybody, i'm martha maccallum. bill: ron paul and rick santorum are looking ahead, but that leaves gingrich and romney now to battle it out for these voters today in florida. >> he made $1.6 million in his company standing up and talking about freddie mac, the very institution that helped stand behind the huge housing crisis. and here in florida if you're part of the housing crisis, you're probably not going to get elected president. >> we tried running a moderate in 1996, we tried running a moderate in 2008, and we lost. i don't see how a massachusetts liberal is going to do better. bill: well, gingrich changing a

little bit of his language in the closing hours here. carl cameron is checking his notes, and he's aller -- all fired up and ready to go in tampa. romney sounds confident. what's the mood down there? what are you pucking up on? >> reporter: he's very confident, and newt gingrich is aware florida will probably not go his way, rick santorum and ron paul recognized there's a winner take all state, and there's no point in spending money or time here since they're not going to get delegates, since only the winner does. i've got to say, in covering presidential campaigns for more decades than i'd like to admit, i've never seen a candidate actually lead an audience in a song. listen to mitt romney last night at the villages. he drew several thousand people, this is a main, very well-known stop on the campaign trail, huge population. romney singing "america the beautiful" with thousands joining in.

let's listen. ♪ oh beautiful for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain. ♪ for purple mountains majesty, above the fruited plain. >> reporter: all right. we won't subject you to too much more of that, but suffice it to say that mitt romney's been using the actual lyrics in his stump speech for months talking about how it illustrates his love for the country. last night he broke out into song, and it may have been a relief for some of us who have just heard him say the lyrics, but it was really sort of an expression of mitt romney being loose, essentially, getting comfortable with the idea that he is now likely to win in florida. the polls have put a big, big lead in front of him. the gingrich campaign has been down playing the results here saying he'll stay in the results all the way up to the convention. gingrich this morning called out again rick santorum, suggesting that the other candidates have to get out of the race so conservatives can coalesce behind him, and gingrich is mocking the press and analysts

who have counted him out repeatedly in this race. and he's saying very clearly past the sunshine state he'll be in it. listen. >> people said i was dead in june, dead after iowa, those people? >> yeah, exactly. >> they're about as accurate as -- [inaudible] >> how close this to being over? >> thanks, guys. thank you. >> reporter: santorum was campaigning in missouri and minnesota, states that don't vote until the first week of february. today he's in nevada campaigning in a state that'll have its caucus on saturday, ron paul as well. he took a couple of days off and spent a little bit of it in maine, a state that has a weeklong caucus that also begins on saturday. gingrich is trying to portray some level of confidence, but it looks like romney might be the winner by the end of the day. bill: we shall see. let the romney team know simon cow well's waiting for him

outside. martha: for just a little bit of context for you, it is the fourth most populace state in the country, and it covers a very large demographic, florida does. and as carl said, it is a winner take all state meaning that all 50 delegates are going to go to the winner of this primary. here's how it stands right now. mitt romney has 36 delegates and gingrich has 25, but he's the deal. 1,144 are needed to clinch the gop nomination. got a long way to go here, folks. bret baier joins me now, came all the way up to new york to see us today, anchor of "special report" and, of course, anchoring our special coverage tonight with megyn. what do you think about the singing aspect of mitt romney? >> i think he was trying to compete with president obama, but i don't know -- martha: i think he thought everybody was going to chime in, and they did, but they didn't have microphones, unfortunately. >> it was okay. [laughter] martha: no, it was a good moment. so talk to me about florida. what do you expect to see tonight? >> listen, we bounced around the state yesterday and the day

before. i think it really breaks down to turnout, and in the different parts of the state, in the northern part of the state, um, there are really diehard conservatives. they tend to break towards newt gingrich one would think according to the polls going in. if turnout expands, and already in the early voting there are some 600,000 either early voting or absentee, if it's -- and that's 100,000 more than 2008. if it expands, you know, newt gingrich could close the gap for these early polls that suggest the gap is wide. mitt romney looks to be having a good night tonight no matter what. obviously, we'll have to see where the spread is. the other thing to watch is rick santorum. if he gets over 11, 12, 13% and he surges past that, that's a bad thing for newt gingrich. martha: no doubt the romney folks would love to tie this up and put a bow on it and feel really good about having two big races under their belt, but the

language we're hearing from gingrich, he says he's in it until the convention. i guess as long as he continues to get support he could, right? >> yeah. and his campaigning is saying they're getting money from not just the people supporting the super pac like aid edelson, but money on the stump. listen, you pointed out the delegates and the delegate map. it's just so few before in these early contests, and be you have such a long way to go. momentum is a big part of it, but you could conceivably pick up delegates here and there and somehow prevent mitt romney from getting the 50% moving. martha: it's always meant a lot to do well in these early contests. is it any different now, any reason to think it's any different now? >> it's just that there are fewer delegates up front. and while it's momentum and it builds, you could still piece together a win. imagine if they consolidate, the anti-mitt romney candidates. and either gingrich drops out

and supports santorum or santorum drops out and supports gingrich, you have a problem for the romney campaign. martha: thanks a lot. we're going to talk to karl rove about this a little bit later and maybe sarah palin's support. looking forward to it. good to see you. bill: bret, good to see you. going deep into april. >> that's right. i think so. bill: i'll see you tonight. carl just mentioned that newt gingrich is calling for conservatives to rally behind one candidate and hinting that rick santorum should get out now. santorum, for his part, pushed back here. >> my response is i think it'd be weak to take someone into the nomination who is for a government-mandated health care system that would require everybody to buy health insurance at the federal level, someone who was for the wall street bailout, someone who was for cap and trade and believed the hoax of global warming. those are very, very important issues, and by the way, mitt romney and newt gingrich both have those positions. and i would agree that we don't

need someone, as he said, going in to the fall against barack obama, but i don't think we need either one of those guys going in. i don't think either one of them are the right choice, and if you're willing to look at the real conservative, we're the real conservatives that can win. bill: santorum is not in floridaed the, as we mentioned -- today as we mentioned, spent time in colorado and also south dakota before heading to nevada a bit later tonight. martha: you need to watch fox news, basically, throughout the afternoon and evening. we're going to be reporting on the florida primary. as you can see, bret baier is here, and megyn kelly's here, we're going to get updates as well. our special politics coverage gets rolling at 6 p.m. eastern with "special report," bret and megyn will have the polls closing tonight, and i'll be watching the exit polls, what people are saying as they're coming out, which always tells us a lot when you're going to be on the billboard breaking down -- bill: we'll see whether it's an early or late night. had a few of both, right?

new information on the case of gunned-down border patrol agent brian terry. a second suspect just revealed in the december 2010 murder. terry died in a shootout, and the federal court releasing the mug shot of this man, a 41-year-old believed to be the brother of the suspect in custody. a third defendant has yet to be identified and remains missing. martha: and a new report by congressional democrats revealing, quote, operation fast and furious was just one with of several totally, fatally-flawed government probes. william la jeunesse is live in los angeles with more. what does this report mean this morning, william? >> reporter: well, martha, it is meant to provide a defense of the attorney general and the administration for their actions or lack of them in a scandal that sent some 2,000 guns over the mexican border. three main findings are this. number one, fast and furious was not the first operation of this time, that atf did it three times under president bush. secondly, no high-level political apine tees at the department of justice conceived

the operation, and finally, this was not politically motivated to justify stricter gun laws in the u.s. in essence, the report blames fast and furious on about six people at the atf and u.s. attorney's office in phoenix and clears all the major players in washington including lanny breuer, gary grindler, lonnie will wilkinson and jason weinstein, all close aides of eric holder, and ken nelson, billy hoover and bill mcmahon as the top team at atf. according to the report all these guys either didn't know or couldn't recall being told these guns were deliberately going to mexico. martha? martha: so how does that square with the evidence in this case? is that true? >> reporter: well, it is if you believe their version of events, republicans don't. documents show many of these guys received weekly reports that showed hundreds of guns were being bought every week and ending up in mexico. agents tell me it's impossible for a career law enforcement guy not to conclude that this was being done on purpose,

otherwise, of course, they'd be in jail. the report claims that these assistant u.s. attorneys and the atf brass in phoenix unnecessarily prolonged the case, lied or failed to explain exactly what they were doing. back to you. martha: all right. william, thank you. bill: she says she has not endorsed anyone, but sarah palin giving a boost the gingrich saying people should stop lying about him. a reaction from the romney camp on that in moments. martha: and a group of senators make a new effort to get the keystone pipeline opened. they believe institutionally they can do it -- constitutionally, they can do it. bill: also, joe biden making a stunning admission about the moments before president obama approved the raid on osama bin laden's compound. >> it got to me, and he said, joe, what do you think? i said, i didn't know we had so many economists around the table. i said, we owe the man a direct answer. [ male announcer ] juice drink too watery?

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two men seriously injured by a falling shopping cart. the men were entering the store when that cart hit both of them in the head falling from the third floor of a parking garage. here what one of the witnesses saw there. >> my friend, he is bleeding in his face. >> he wasn't mobile. he looked like he was unconscious. i hope he's all right. bill: that incident a terrible reminder of a prank last october, two boys pushing a cart up a walkway in harlem. at that time a woman with permanent brain damage was the result. martha: all right. well, petty, vicious, reckless, those words are being batted around by some supporters of newt gingrich accusing that romney and his campaign of character assassination and running a smear campaign. full of lies, according to them. something that the romney campaign denies. and last night former vice presidential candidate sarah palin talked about this with sean hannity. she said she believes it needs

to stop. here's sarah palin. >> it's gotten vicious, and i'm not whining about the viciousness. and i don't think anybody should. but what i will call people out on is when they choose to lie about a candidate and whether it is a pac that is producing, um, false narratives in ads or whether it is a candidate falsely accusing another candidate themself, they need to be called out. it's not a bad thing to ask for fairness. fairness means just telling the truth and debating relevant ideas, relevant solutions, not all this petty personal stuff. martha: all right. sarah palin last night with sean hannity. a campaign adviser for mitt romney joins me now. good to see you here. >> thanks very much, martha. great to be with you. martha: so what do you think about sarah palin's comment there? >> well, you know, she certainly makes a point, but i don't think she can direct it to any one candidate. there's a whole lot of nasty comments being made out there, nothing that should surprise any

veteran of primaries. i've been there many, many times. these last couple weeks are always nasty. so i think, you know, it's coming down to final days. we're going to hear a little bit more of it, but i think people, republicans will start turning their attention to obama as we see who our nominee is. martha: i guess one of the questions that's been raised is, is it bad for whoever ends up being the eventual gop nominee? is it destructive for both of them and their reputation across the country? >> sure it is. and i feel badly for newt because a lot of the attacks on his own credibility came from his own colleagues when he was in leadership talking about his unstable leadership and unreliable. and so he's reacting, and i think sarah's reacting to that. but when you come into a campaign with the kind of baggage you have, he should have expected to hit the fan. martha: mitt romney's the one who said he was unreliable -- >> no, no -- martha: that's your candidate.

>> he's quoting some of the, you know, congresswomen and congressmen who actually worked with newt, and they came out in any number of people who are not associated with romney made the same accusations because they were worried that the person they knew as a leader, the speaker should never be the nominee. he wasn't, he wasn't stable enough. not a reliable person. not somebody that they knew that would be able to take on obama in a general election. you know, martha, the bottom line is nothing you're hearing now is going to even touch the ugliness we're going to see in the general election, so we'd better have real broad shouldersessing our nominee better. none of this whining or concern. i think mitt has thrown so much junk at romney, it's been going both ways, so i don't want to hear any suggestion that mitt romney has been making these statements. but we will pull this all together, martha, that's the good news in the next couple weeks, and we will be united. martha: i want to play a piece

of sound from mitt romney, your candidate, yesterday and get your thoughts on it because it's brought up a little bit of controversy in and of itself. let's listen. >> i understand a few of you here are on medicare, is that true? [laughter] that being the case, i hope you tell your friends who always fear that republicans somehow might go after medicare, you can tell them a couple of things. one, we will never go after medicare or social security. martha: you know, some folks are saying that mitt romney has supported paul ryan's plan which would cut into medicare and that he's, you know, not being truthful with the folks he's speaking to in florida, either that or he doesn't believe what he said earlier. >> no, i think probably what the clarification is anyone over a certain age, i think it's 55 or whatever -- will not be touched. so it's not going to affect anyone who's on it now or in the next couple years. but clearly, we have to reform both social security and medicare, and mitt has made that case publicly in debates time

and time again. because if we don't reform them, they will not be there for the future generations. so i think it's fairly clear what he was pointing out there. martha: bay buchanan, thank you very much. good to see you again. bill: what is the real state of the u.s. economy? there's plenty of data and a lot of it, frankly, is not good. or is it? bya, because you asked, on that. martha: did you know we just had a close call with an asteroid? be so what happens next time? are we going to miss it again next time? we'll let you know. ♪

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martha: we are just getting some brand new numbers on the economy. the congressional budget office has just come out with its prediction for the 2012 budget, and it is not so great, $1.1 trillion is the projected deficit for this fiscal year which ends in september. the cbo study also predicts modest economic growth of 2% this year and forecasts that the unemployment rate will remain above 8% over the course of 2012, so a very similar picture. bill: we take a lot of snapshots of these numbers, also brand new numbers on the state of the housing market. home prices falling in november in the majority of american cities, that's three months in a row that prices have dropped. prices now down 33% since 2003. whoa. phoenix was the only major city that saw a price increase. there had been some more positive economic signs leading up to today, but we're starting to see some of this and a bit of a drag. that brings us to bya, because you asked. by way of twitter, the economy showing some signs, albeit weak, of recovery. how confident are economists of

such a trend to continue? we put gerri willis on the case, anchor of "the willis report" on the fox business network. good morning to you. >> good morning. bill: here we go. all right, first thing on the gdp, gross domestic product. in the last quarter of 2011, the u.s. economy had the largest quarterly increase, almost 3%. but, and there's like a but in every one of these, a but or a however. however, the u.s. economy has not had a quarterly increase of more than 3% since the second quarter of 2010. >> the economy is not growing like we expect it the grow after recovery. right now the folks that call recessions, the national association of business economics, they say the growth this year will be 2.5%. that is punk. that is below par for after recession. bill: really? did you say punk? can you say -- i didn't know that was an economic term. >> highly technical. bill: listen, some people are missing this story. gas prices are down, right? down to 3.99 since the peak in 2011, but they're still higher

than a year ago at 3.10. >> and we've seen this huge increase at the beginning of january. gas prices are high for consumers right now even though they're down from last year's previous high. bill: existing home sales, they're up 1.7%. >> yeah, but come on. bill: that's measly, and that's compared to, what, 2005 at the peak when everybody was going hog wild of seven million. >> they were four million last year, that's practically just half the market of the peak. so you can see we're still really slow on home sales, and case shiller this morning saying home prices are down dramatically. : unemployment rate, we're down from 9.1 to 8.5, but we've been above 8% for 35 months. how much longer? >> we've been down so long, this looks like up to us, do you know what i mean? our numbers have been so slow, so negative. the jobs numbers, this is really

meaningful to americaning, when you have unemployment over 3%, - 7%, over 6%, this is disastrous to american families. bill: to your point, i had a guy in the elevator tell me, i said, how you doing, he said, doing all right. but we're going from terrible to awful, and i think it feels great. [laughter] i said, all right, i feel that a little bit. here's ott thing -- another thing x you believe this is the true barometer. median earnings over the past 11 years. put all three of them up, guys. that's from 2000, 2008 and 2011. screen left is the dollar amount increase, went from 29.9 up to 39.3. screen right is when you adjusted for inflation, and those numbers, gerri, are on a flat line. >> there is no growth here. at median income, and this is the number you'd want to look at, not average, but median, 39,000 for 11 years. it's a lost decade for american

families. there is no growth here. this is why it feels so bad to us. we don't have increased earnings. bill: do you think we're bumping along in the right direction or -- >> i think we're going to be bumping along all year because this presidential election's going to put everything on hold. people don't make big business decisions during an election year, they want to see what's going to happen, they want to wait and find out, and for american families, for some of them, it'll be too late. bill: we'll check you out at 5:00 today on the willis report on the fox business network. hemmer at foxnews.com is the e-mail, also on twitter, send me a tweet at bill hemmer. thank you, gerri. >> thank you. martha: well, it's gotten into a slug fest and a pretty ugly one. mitt romney and newt gingrich's torching each other's records. we're going to talk to karl rove, we'll get his outlook for florida. he is here live to break it down for us. bill: also, the president said no to an extension of keystone from canada to mexico.

republicans in the house and senate say it's critical to creating jobs. now they've got a plan to go around the white house. we'll talk to utah republican mike lee about what's happening now.

martha: all right, a fox news alert right now. our nation's top intelligence

chiefs are testifying right now before congress on the threats that the country faces around the world. chief intelligence correspondent catherine herridge is live on capitol hill with this for us. what are we learning about the status of al-qaeda? >> reporter: good morning, martha. we're about a half hour into the hearing, and what we've heard from the chair of the committee and now the director of national intelligence and nation's top intelligence officer is al-qaeda no longer like a fortune 500 company, and in many respects the threat of the future is coming from these affiliates in yemen, somalia and also north africa. here's the senator, dianne feinstein. >> we are all familiar with the continuing threats posed by al-qaeda affiliates in yemen and somalia. aqap and al-shabab as well as that from al-qaeda in iraq, aqi and all three of which aspire to conduct attacks outside of their borders. the threats to our nation remain serious, and in many ways more

difficult to understand and even address than in years past. >> reporter: and the senator said the group to watch is this group in north africa because she said it's well positioned to take advantage of the instability in libya and also nigeria, martha. martha: so what are we expecting in terms of fireworks today? is what are the hot topics that they may be asked about? >> reporter: well, there are two i was focused on based on the prepared testimony, the first has to do with iran. there's going to be a warning that the plots we saw last year against the saudi envoy in the u.s. really may be the flavor of the future. in the prepared testimony, dni clapper sates the 2011 plot to assassinate the ambassador to the united states shows some iranian officials have changed their calculus and are more willing to conduct an attack in the united states in response to real or perceived actions that threaten that regime, and we can also anticipate hard questioning on the administration's proposed

transfer of these taliban prisoners at guantanamo to afghanistan as part of the confidence-building measures, martha. martha: yeah. very hot topics, indeed. thank you so much for your reporting on this. a little l bit later in the day as well. bill: there's a group of senators trying to go around the administration on the keystone pipeline project. 44 senators are introducing a bill that would allow it to proceed anyway. so will this change the game for keystone? is it now back in play? senator mike lee's a utah republican, he signed on to this legislation, and he's with me now. senator, good morning. >> morning, bill. bill: what's different this time? >> with well, what's different this time is that we're changing the law. existing law requires us to go through the u.s. state department and, ultimately, the president of the united states. he's tried to shut down or at least delay this project now twice, and each time public support for the pipeline has only increased. so what we're saying is we're going to the change the law, and we're just going to introduce legislation that actually approves it, and this would finally move forward.

these 20,000 -- bill: let me just stop you there. does it still need the president's signature in the end? >> like any piece of legislation, it has to be presented to the president for signature or veto. bill: so why would he change his mind this time? >> because each time he's blocked this project, there's been an outpouring of opposition from the american people asking, why, why would you want to kill this many jobs, stop this much oil that we need that we're otherwise going to have to buy from other parts of the world and enrich our enemies when this oil is available right here in north america? and each time he does that, it becomes more difficult to stop it. it would, moreover, bill, be different this time because in the past he's been able to say i'm just delaying it. of course, that's its own kind of obstruction, but this time he'd have to say, no, i don't want this approved. bill: okay. you've had one democrat that's signed on already, that's joe

manchin out of west virginia. can you and will you get more democrats? >> i think we can, and i think we will. and i commend joe manchin for being the first on his side of the aisle to step over and work with us on this. this is an issue that is not either democrat or republican. this is something we know we need. we spend about $500 billion a year on oil imported from foreign countries, and most of that oil comes from parts of the world some of which are not very friendly to the united states. and we need this project, we need the jobs it'll bring, and we need the energy. bill: ted poe on the house side near the houston area, his idea is to go ahead and construct the pipeline with the one exception of that sensitive area that's been argued about in nebraska, the aquifer protected by environmentalists at the moment, also this administration. is your legislation lined up the same way? >> you know, i don't believe so. i believe ours would just approve it as is. i'd have to look at the bills to

make sure. bill: all right. we will see whether or not you're successful. i know you're making another big push, and you're going the need democrats, as you well know, to get this through and ultimately whether or not the white house would sign on or be forested to veto. -- forced to veto. mike lee, thank you for your time. republican out of utah. martha: newt gingrich is now saying he is in this campaign for the long haul regardless of what happens in florida. he's going to take it all the way to the convention, all but guaranteeing a long and drawn-out battle, folks, between these two men most likely. but could the party in-fighting be a bad thing for republicans along the way? karl rove is here moments away, we'll talk to him about that and florida. bill: sorry, martha. a 10-year-old boy being called a hero after his quick thinking and a lesson he learned in health class. he saved his best friend. martha: good job. >> kind of scary to see people turn purple because kind of confused and scared at the same time. p, i want to fix up old houses.

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bill: so a 10-year-old boy in utah is now being called a hero for saving his best friend's life. carter rushed to the rescue when his class mate, gary anderson, started choking on a piece of candy. only two weeks ago, carter learned about the heimlich maneuver, and he performed that to perfection. >> kind of scary to see someone turn purple. >> i was going to die. grabbed the book, and i started hanging on to stuff like that, and then i was pointing to carter like this. >> and when it came out, i felt like i was resurrected. bill: rise again. purple is not the color you want to be. the school recognized carter for his heroic efforts during a special school assembly. martha: [inaudible] ♪ cutest thing ever. good job on that little boy's part. what we're learning now, folks, is it could be a long, hot summer with the party in-fighting only getting worse, it seems. the candidates are resorting to jabs like these --

>> the idea of the moon as the 51st state is not what would have come to my mind as a campaign basis for here in florida. >> governor romney be cut off corner meals for jewish -- korber meals for senior citizens in medicaid to save $5 a day. no, you can't follow your religious prescription. martha: oh, boy, oh, boy. karl rove joins me now, former senior adviser and deputy chief of staff to president bush. karl, does it always get like this, or do we just not remember it when it comes around again? >> this is sort of the silly stage. i do think candidates need to be aware that every time they make an attack, every argument generates a counterargument. and so sometimes when you go too far, it hurts you more than it hurts the guy you're trying to get at. and i think that was the case yesterday when the speaker called governor romney a pro-abortion liberal. i mean, that, i think, was not particularly useful to speaker gingrich's campaign to do that. martha: gingrich said that mitt

romney was extraordinarily insensitive to religious free come in america and just keeps going back and forth. you know, after south carolina it seemed like mitt romney really turned his focus very squarely against newt gingrich because, obviously, gingrich had a big surprise win in south carolina. so how destructive is this process, you know? and at what point do they turn their attention back to president obama, do you think? >> yeah. well, i hope they turn it back to president obama after tonight, but you're absolutely right. let's go to the white board here. take a look at this. we had mitt romney spend $4 million on tv in over a three-week period in florida, and his super pac, the outside group, spent 6.8, so nearly 11 million dollars spent on television by the romney campaign. gingrich spent 145,000 out of his campaign coffers, and the super pac which had received $10 million -- some of it to be spent in south carolina and $5 million received after south

carolina -- about six and a half, $7 million available in the super pac, but for some reason they only spent a million eight, almost a million nine on it's. outspent five to one on media. now, that matters because, you know, look, at some point a candidate begins to persistently win. and south carolina was a big victory for newt gingrich. you would have thought he would have tried, his outside group would have tried to use that $10 million, the six and a half million they had left after south carolina to make florida competitive. but it hasn't happened. martha: yeah. you know, he's saying, newt gingrich is saying if he loses tonight -- and who knows what's going to happen, but we see some pretty strong polls for mitt romney -- he's going to take it all the way to the convention. do you think he has the ability to do that? >> you know, i don't think so. at the end of the day and, first of all, let's wait and let the voters speak, but speaker gingrich thinks he's going to win, he was saying he's going to pull off an upset, but at some

point somebody begins to persistently win. this was the turning point, like, in 2000 for bush it was south carolina. sure, he lost a couple of primaries after that, lost michigan, but he tended to persistently win these, and my suspicion is by mid march we're going to find somebody persistently winning. there are 11 contests, for example, on the 6th of march, and of those, eight of them are in states that are likely to benefit romney, two of them are in states that are likely to benefit gingrich, and the others are in states that are probably up for grabs. for example, one of those states, tennessee, newt gingrich doesn't have a full slate of cel gates -- delegates, and in virginia, romney's going to win in part because newt is not on the ballot. 49 delegates in the state, and they're represented by 12% of the delegates of that day. martha: you know, when you look at how tough it gets, your mind goes back to hillary clinton and barack obama, and their campaign turned very negative around march when you look back at it. but it didn't seem to hurt

president obama in the long run, and then he turned around and made hillary clinton his secretary of state, so, i mean, you know, that's a good argument, is it not, for this being okay at this stage in the game? >> yeah. and not only that but, look, democrat enthusiasm was up, rolls of democrat donors were up, donations were up, and they dominated the news cycles. how much attention are we paying to president obama right now? we aren't. most of our political attention is being paid to the contest on the republican side which could be good and bad. so far it hasn't hurt the republicans, but there's a little bit of evidence that both men are starting to do damage to each other standing among independents. martha: why do you think jeb bush did not pick a candidate, didn't back romney as his father did? >> well, you know, i think his father, frankly, picked a candidate inadvertently. he was having lunch with a houston chronicle reporter. i'd had lunch with him a couple weeks before that, and he had no intention of endorsing a candidate, but he sort of let

out that he liked mitt romney and then said let's order the soup. [laughter] i think jeb bush's attitude was, look, these endorsements are overstated, i intend to sit on the sidelineslines and do what , and that is help bring the party together once the voters have been heard from and somebody is our nominee. martha: that's what happens when you saying? nice and then -- say something nice and then open the soup. >> and i always say something nice about you, martha maccallum. martha: thank you, sir. we'll see you soon. bill: jenna lee's coming up in about 12 short minutes, what you working on? jenna: good morning, bill. voting underway in florida's primary, we're going to talk with governor rick scott about the race. also a new report from house dems say high officials at the department of justice did not know specifics about fast and furious. did not know anything specifically about that operation. congressman darrell issa responds here first, top of the hour. and, bill, the man who has

surfed the tallest wave in the world joins us to tell us about his new invention, a survival suit. he'll tell us why he needs it, and we'll find out if they sell one for news anchors as well. i have a feeling they don't. bill: seen one of those waves though. i think you could use it. thank you, jenna. it is the shot of the war room right before usama bin laden left this planet. but now vice president joe biden says what went down that day and whether he told the president to go for it or not or back off even. martha: very interesting. stay tuned for that. and we just dodged a major collision with an asteroid, bill, and you act like it's no big deal. i can't believe it. calls for an astroshield, good idea, don't you think? mitch cho is here to tell us about it next. -i love this card. -wi the bankamericard cash rewards credit card,

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martha: vice president joe biden, very interesting, was apparently against the raid that killed usama bin laden. during a speech this week, he described the scene. who can forget that photograph from the situation room, of course, before the mission? he and his team of advisers gave their opinions about whether or not to pull the trigger. >> mr. president, my suggestion is don't go. we have to do two more things to see if he's there. he walked out and said i'll give you my decision. martha: obviously, we know what the president's decision was. biden says that former cia director, now secretary of defense leon panetta was the only one in the room who said absolutely yes to that question. [inaudible conversations] ♪ bill: you don't want that happening here, do you, folks? an asteroid giving earth a close shave last week which has put

the focus on a way to protect earth. it's called the global neoshield project. there it is in animation. mitch cho kaku's author of "science of the future." that's a ways in the future. >> that's right. 100 years. bill: i can't wait to see what you look like then. [laughter] how are you? nice to see you. you say we're sitting ducks here on planet earth. >> that's right. if you're a buck rogers fan, you're going to love this idea. get this, a shield, a shield around the world financed by the european union to the tune of four million euros and a concrete proposal that within ten years may make an operational shield. bill: you buying this? >> well, it's a long shot but, hey, look, we have the problem of near-earth objects. thousands of killer asteroids that just drift right past the earth, and we're clueless. and also we're defenseless.

we're sitting ducks. t sitting ducks -- bill: clueless and defenseless, and we're just at the mercy of whatever space throws our way. >> that's right. bill: knee mines near either object. and the europeans are leading the way. what is their idea? >> they've narrowed it down to three proposals, okay? one is a kinetic impacter that is simply bumping the asteroid with a rocket. second is a tractor beam straight out of star trek, and third, get this, third is a nuclear deflector using hydrogen warheads to simply blow the asteroid out of the way. bill: am i right to say that the russians are pushing that idea? >> you guessed it. be elle belle the russians -- bill: the russians want the nuke the asteroid. if you have, you believe, an asteroid that's a mile across, that could wipe out the entire planet? >> that's right. that's called a planet buster, something a mile or more across could literally change the atmosphere of the earth, an

object six miles across wiped out the dinosaurs, and that's why we're talking about it. bill: yes, we are. how long do you believe it would take before something like this could be a reality? >> ten years before, for example, the gravity tractor beam device is operational. and, remember, the dinosaurs didn't have a shield, and that's why they're not here. they didn't have a chance -- bill: well, the shield might be the first step. the space shuttle program's been retired, there is the international space station's going to come down a little bit in the orbit -- >> they're going to deorbit at some point. bill: does that make us less capable? >> deft. ifif -- definitely. the space shuttle can't even reach deep space. we would have to have a rocket capable of taking us into deep space with a tractor beam device or a nuclear deflector shield. that's why they're doing this four million euro preliminary study so that the groundwork could be laid. bill: and we'll see in a couple

of years whether or not the groundwork is there for us to save us. >> uh-huh. bill: from sitting ducks. micchio, it's terrific to see you. martha, what's next? martha: well, he holds the world record for riding the biggest wave on the planet. i love this stuff. look at this. look at that. pro surfer now aiming to shatter his former record. he's got a new life-saving wet suit, and he's here live. when bp made a commitment to the gulf, we were determined to see it through. here's an update on the progress. we're paying for all spill related clean-up costs. bp findings supports independent scientists studying the gulf's environment. thousas of environmental samples have been tested and all beaches and waters are open. anthe tourists are back. i was born here, i'm still here and so is bp.

martha: got a story for you for martha maccallum on this day. even the smartest on the planet can't understand the folks in scotland. siri, the iphone voice activated assistant is baffled by the scottish broeg. who isn't to be honest. sawn connery, annie lennox may have the problem. siri thinks the scottish accent doesn't sound a