museum 219 years ago today. maybe that's why she's smiling. and that is a fox report for friday, august 10, 2012. i'm john scott in for shepard smith. shep is back on monday and "the factor" is up next. >> laura: "the o'reilly factor" is on tonight. >> romney pay 10% in taxes, 5%, 0? we don't know. >> laura: another vicious ad from the obama campaign. this time accusing mitt romney of not paying taxes. but are these attacks bound to backfire? we'll debate it. >> the other side will be spending more money than we've ever seen. you guy got these guys writing $10 million checks, you got these super pacs that are just going crazy. >> laura: after so many unfair and vicious attack ads against mitt romney, the president now says it's the conservative super pacs that are going crazy.

we'll examine the outrageous hypocrisy. >> i work six days a week every day for four years for a 12-second race. the fact that they just tore me apart, it was just heart breaking. >> laura: olympic track star lolo jones gets emotional after the "new york times" accuses her of caring more about her image than her athletic performance. >> i don't think i should be ripped apart by media. >> laura: caution. you are about to enter the no spin zone and "the factor" begins right now. >> laura: hello, everyone. i'm laura ingraham in for bill o'reilly. thanks for watching us tonight. what mitt romney has to do to turn his campaign around. that's a summing of this evening's talking points memo. i realize that some of you won't like hearing this, but if the election were held today, romney would probably lose.

two surveys released within hours of each other by cnn and fox reported obama up by 7 and 9 points respectively. the swing state story is not a good one either. the real clear politics average has obama up 7 in pennsylvania, five in ohio, and three in virginia. obama leads by slim margins in florida and colorado. so is unemployment still above 8% and two-thirds of the country thinking we're going in the wrong direction, how on earth is obama still ahead? is every poll other than rasmussen flawed or biased? first reason, negative ads and romney brand management. just about every week this summer, democrats have launched a new attack against romney. and by august, they stereotyped him as a tax dodge, cancer causing, outsourcing, 1950s acristocrat. he spent a lot of time raising money and that's important.

but he has not launched the type of aggressive messaging and counter offensive that is necessary to beat the campaign. the obama team throws a knife and romney he's family tosses a pillow. an effective response team would have nailed obama on a cancer ad. i would have said a he a you will getting sick, sick of this poisonous style of campaigning and sick of politicians like obama who blame others for their failed policies and broken promises. instead, romney spokeswoman responded by lauding universal healthcare in massachusetts. terrible! when obama scored with that romneyhood line, the best romney's communication team could come up with is obamaloney. really? conservatives are worried for a reason. they've seen this movie before and they know how it ends. in defeat. romney's team should be going into the republican national convention seven points up. not down. he must regain this lost ground

over the next few weeks and he shouldn't rely on his vp pick to help much. this is his to win or lose. point by point, he must give the voters a sober, brutally exacting description of how dire the situation is for america. then he needs to hit the trail with a road show to explain how his policies will begin to turn things around. this is what he did so well at bain. it was great. both the country and his own campaign need the stellar crisis management skills that saved the 2002 olympics that romney demonstrated. we as americans don't have to lower our expectations and romney's team must expose the obama record. and it must elevate the campaign away from the obama distractions. engage the public in a serious conversation about saving this country we love so much. this will make team obama, with all of its parties and celebrity endorsements seem petty and unserious by comparison.

and that's a memo. now to our top story tonight's, reaction. joining us now from manchester, new hampshire, the former governor of that state and current romney supporter and surrogate, john sununu. okay, governor, you heard the talking points memo. >> you feel better. >> laura: why should we as republicans, as conservatives be confident today that what the romney campaign is doing so far is working? >> let's take it a piece at a time. first of all, the polls. rasmussen has them up four. gallup has them even. rasmussen's likely voters. gallup is registered voters. you know how polls at this time of the year are rather erratic. but those two polls take daily counting. so with all due respect to the other polls that everybody is referencing, these in my opinion, are the two gold standards historically and this year. secondly, i do disagree with you that the romney campaign did not jump on the obama ad. the governor himself attacked it

quite aggressively, and the romney campaign today has put out an ad using the obama ad as the base against which they're questioning his character. i actually do think that the long-term effect of the obama attacks is going to hurt obama more than romney. but having said that, let me explain where we are in the campaign. we're about it two or three weeks in front of the convention. we're still in the primary season. governor romney's campaign spent all their primary money on the primaries that he had to fight. they knew obama would be saving his, quote, primary money, unquote, until july and august and they knew they were going to get clobbered with negative ads in july and august. but they just didn't have the resources to match the 125 million that obama has spent. they're going into this convention quite even. the day he is the nominee, they are equal in terms of money.

i guarantee you, this crowd which proved to be ruthless in the primaries is going to be equally ruthless with president obama. it's been a tough time for them and they acknowledge it. >> laura: when do you expect to take the lead? >> the important time to have the lead is election day. and i actually -- >> laura: you're going to wait until the fall to take the lead? that's a smart strategy, really? going into the convention, tied or down is winning? that's the spin i heard in 2006 and 2008 from republican spin meisters who were saying, oh, we have other polls and the polls are inaccurate. >> laura, if you ask me, you got to give me a chance to answer. >> laura: you just spoke for quite a long time, governor. i love you, but come on. >> allall right. look, going into conventions, it is traditionally not a challenger that goes in leading. it really doesn't happen that way. mike dukakis was 15 points ahead

of george herbert walker bush going into the 1988 convention. this myth that we have to be leading -- we're doing -- >> laura: i'm just trying to get this. you prefer that the romney campaign, when obama has 43% approval today in gallup, you prefer that the romney campaign be behind in most of these polls? >> no. >> laura: you're right, rasmussen has something different. >> not behind. but i don't want to accept the fact that just because they're where they are today, that everybody is entitled to be carping about this campaign. >> laura: you think andrea's response to the cancer ad citing romney care was smart? i can't believe you said that. >> the right answer to that question is that obama and his team are lying. it is dishonest. >> laura: thank you. >> it is unethical. but i've said this for the last week. >> laura: did you. but the campaign spokesman did not. and again, it's not all on her.

she's just one person. but i think it is evidence of some sense that this strategy in police or the rapid response team in place is not really up to the dirty politics that obama is playing. you're going like you're playing crow kay and you're up against people with every weapon at their disposal. i'm sorry, but i think conservatives have been really successful in radio and television and really good at messaging. they're not upset because they want romney to lose. they're upset because they want romney to be ahead. >> what they ought to be understanding is that there is a timing to politics that is important. with all due respect to the folks that are writing in magazines and the book writers and the tv commentators, you wouldn't hire me to write your magazines or your books and to be honest with you, i wouldn't hire to you run my campaign. >> laura: so governor, you're going to be right about this. we'll only find out in november.

i'm not going to make a david suiter joke here, because you're assuring us that david souter was a conservative. that didn't turn out so well. i like to tease you about that. thank you for joining us. >> have faith. it will work. >> laura: all right. we'll have faith. i trust, but verify. next on the rundown, new obama ad doubles counsel on harry reid's wild charge that mitt romney doesn't pay taxes. we're going to debate it. later on, gas prices are on the rise all across the country. could the pain at the pump doom president obama's reelection chances? coming up

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>> laura: earlier this week, "the factor" debunked president obama's theory that mitt romney's plan would raise taxes on the middle class. and since that argument fizzled out, the obama campaign turned its attention back to mitt romney's personal tax returns. >> was there ever any year when

you paid lower than the 13.9%? >> i haven't calculated that. i'm happy to go back and look. >> did romney pay 10%, 5%? 0? we don't know. but we know personally approved over $70 million in fictional losses to the irs as part of the notorious summit boss tax scandal, one of the largest tax avoidance schemes in history. isn't it time for romney to come clean? >> laura: governor romney has already released two years of tax returns. and just days after president obama's super pac implied mitt romney was a cold hearted killer, mr. obama said this. >> over the next three months, 89 days to be precise, the other side will be spending more money than we've ever seen. you got these guys writing $10 million checks. you've got these super pacs that are just going crazy.

>> laura: don't look at me about super pacs. really, mr. president? today the romney campaign hit back. >> what does it say about a president's character when his campaign tries to use the tragedy of a woman's death for political gain? what does it say about a president's character when he had his campaign raise money for the ad, then stood by as his top aides were caught lying about it? doesn't america deserve better than a president who will say or do anything to stay in power? i'm mitt romney and i approved this message. >> laura: joining us now from new york, kathy, a contribute be editor for the "washington post" magazine and christopher, professor at georgetown university. okay. i'm going to start with you, kathy, because we seem to have moved off, far off into the distance from president hope and change, where we were going to change the tone in washington.

we were going to part the ocean. we were going to bring the races together. it seems to me that this campaign has started off very cynically and nasty. >> i think that he wanted to have the hope and change and i think that's the message he wanted to give. but because the other side has been so nasty and has gotten so dirty, they've had to fight back. it's fire with fire. and they are simply stating facts. i don't think the obama campaign has done anything wrong. i think they're doing exactly -- >> laura: you like that super pac ad -- oh, no, he doesn't control the super pac. they didn't know anything about it. >> he had nothing to too that ad. but it is factual. >> laura: so first of all, i think kathy, what happens and christopher, you can jump in here, what happens is this all becomes white noise to some extent to the voters because they see this and goes mitt romney caused this guy's wife to die and then turns out the guy was on a conference call with the obama campaign, right, they knew his story pretty much and are denying it. it just all smacks of an

unserious approach to these really serious problems facing america. >> yeah, it does. and i think this campaign on the behalf of the president can be described as lies, lies, and damn lies. from the perspective of these ads, there are a couple of things we're seeing here. mr. hope and change realizes that, in fact, he has changed nothing. he has a dismal economic record, unemployment is high. he's blaming a bush is not work. what does he resort to? he resorts to being led by harry reid? i'm sorry. boss style politics. oh, what, as in chicago boss style politics? yeah. they should know quite a bit about that. and in this particular case, he is hypocrite in chief rather than commander in chief. these ads are absolutely ridiculous. they're lies, they're based in nothing but conjecture and using harry reid's approach here, it's up to them to prove otherwise. >> laura: well, i think what happens is when you have someone like reid on the senate floor

and he's best -- his best argument for this president is, well, word is out that mitt romney hasn't paid taxes. i mean, kathy, you're a good person, i think. >> thank you. >> laura: you probably in your life don't do that to other people. well, word's out that he beats his wife. or word's out that -- word's out? that's something do you when you're in 7th grade. it seems so unserious. immature and cynical. >> but it is possible. it is possible that harry reid is right. that romney did not pay taxes. we don't know. >> laura: kathy. >> he did not pay taxes. you're repeating something on national television -- >> it's possible. >> laura: you just say it is true, romney did not pay tax. >> i'm sorry. >> laura: you're doing the same dirty work that harry reid was. i'm going to have to withdraw my comment what a great person you are. come on, you're better than that. >> come on. it is true. it is possible he did not pay -- >> laura: okay. >> we don't know. >> laura: by that argument, it is possible that mitt romney --

i'm going to make -- barak obama applied to colombia university as a foreign exchange student. it is possible. it's possible. we don't have the records. it is possible he failed eci 101, it's possible. he didn't release his grades. it's ridiculous. >> we have a man here who is trying to say he is going to be of the people, he understands the people. but this is a guy who may not have paid taxes while the majority of us taxpayers would hate to know that. that you're going to elect someone who will not release their taxes. >> laura: kathy, tonight on the o'reilley, you'll urge the president to release his college records, travel records, will you call for that? >> sure. i'm sure he has nothing to hide. >> laura: okay. why won't he release his records? you see how this game goes when you start playing that game? chris, you're getting short tripped here. you can close it out. >> yeah. so in this particular case, what's going on is, yeah, all of these things are possible. the fact of the matter is, i don't care whether mitt romney

releases his tax records or not. what i care about is how am i going to feed my family? i care about the fact that this election is all of the issues that we're supposed to talk about, we're not talking about them because we're talk being silly distraction, lies, lies, and damn lies. >> laura: i want to say, kathy and christopher, it's possible that america won't survive another obama term. it's possible. i'm going to do my entire show. it's possible. kathy, great to see you and chris great to see you. ahead, charges of unseemly voter registration efforts in massachusetts involving welfare recipients and elizabeth warren's campaign. and prices at the pump are rising. how is this going to affect the presidential race? stay with us okay, here's the plan. you have a plan? first we're gonna check our bags for free, thanks to our explorer card. then, the united club. my mother was so wrong about you.

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>> laura: in the unresolved

problem segment, accusations that massachusetts taxpayer dollars are being used to prop up elizabeth warren's senate campaign? warren's rival senator scott brown says a new voter registration drive targeting welfare recipients is really designed to help warren. it turns out warren's daughter, stay with me -- amelia, is the co-chairman of the group that sued for this registration push. and demos declined our invitation to appear on the program tonight. they usually join us, so that was a bit surprising. with us now is emily, executive director of young democrats of america. all right, emily. let's explain this to the listeners, to the viewers now. this was a lawsuit brought against massachusetts to try to open up voter registration, which sounds noble. i think the question here is the typing of this because military recruitment station, you get voter registration forms. but this is direct mailings to welfare recipients.

not from the voting bureau in massachusetts, but coming from the same bureau that sends them their edt cards, those food stamp cards basically. i have a little bit of an issue with that? doesn't that seem to be a little too convenient? >> first of all, thank you for having me on. i think that we should look at the context for this and how it came about. this is the national voter registration act from 1993. almost 20 years old. so this was the -- the lawsuit was enforcing that law. so the most common piece of it, motor voter law, really saying that people should be able to feel they have more access to voter registration. the other piece is that people who are not as likely to go to the dmv will have access to it if they have -- if they're recipients of state aid. massachusetts was not properly enforcing that. so demos went into the field and started calling around in february of 2001 and they we want into the field looking into it in may -- sorry, of 2011, and they started going into the

fields in may of 2011. so i don't know the timing is all that suspicious. >> laura: it is a critical senate seat. scott brown won this in a surprise victory. it almost toppled the obamacare deal for obama because no one thought they were going to lose that senate seat. he wins it and then we have the added angle of elizabeth warren's daughter chairing the group that is representing the plaintiffs in this case. >> demos is in 18 states since 2004. if we're talking about they're only going into targeted places, one of the states they were in mississippi. >> laura: another little connection, though -- again, this is interesting, is that the governor of massachusetts' wife is a partner at the very law firm, ropes and gray, which is representing the plaintiff. so there is no reason for people to think, gosh, this is all a little convenient? aside from that, this is a state that has 1 point -- i believe the budget deficit -- is $1.3 billion this year. and the outstanding debt of the

state is $16.7 billion. this is going to cost a couple hundred thousands for this thing to be carried out. why should the taxpayers foot the bill here? >> i think is definitely a lesson in the fact that states should be following the law. this was the deal that was worked out between demos and a number of other groups in the lawsuit and the state. so they didn't have to go to a full federal trial. i think that the state, if they had been following the law from the beginning, then they wouldn't have this problem. >> laura: why do you think most of the folks on welfare vote democrat? >> i think -- >> laura: overwhelming majority, why do you think? >> i think the breakdown in the country, when we look at -- >> laura: they get free stuff, right? come on. it's like vote for me, i'll give you stuff for free. obama, biden 2012. you get free stuff, you vote for the democrats 'cause they're always going to outdo the democrats. >> i represent young people. i know young people are look for college tuition deals and they want to be able to stay on their

parents' health care. >> we do want young people to be able to -- >> laura: frisbees to everyone. you think that birth control pill thing is a real winner for young people and that's going to really -- >> i really do. i think young people are very much looking for birth control. they want. >> laura: they are? how many of these people want the free birth control, go to starbucks on a regular basis? you add the $4 latees up, that pretty much eclipses the 8 bucks for the birth control fills. they got their cell phone contracts, but i can't pay for my birth control pills. it seems silly. >> by preventing unwanted pregnancies. >> laura: i have three of them. dollars and cents, it's not about life. great to see you. thanks for being with us. plenty more ahead. gas prices going up again. will the pain at the pump hurt president obama? we'll talk about it. and later, the prosecutors in the george zimmerman trial made a huge mistake and geraldo is

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[ doctor ] enbrel, the number one biolog medicine prescribed by rheumatologists. >> laura: in "the factor" follow-up segment, more pain at the pump. the nationwide average for gas is now 3.67 a gallon. that's up 30 cents from last month. since hitting a 2012 low in late june, prices are now up 20%. we can't get a break here. and it could get even worse on the west coast where analysts predict prices will soar past 4 bucks a gallon.

so what is behind this latest jump and could these high gas prices end up hurting president obama's reelection chances? joining us now from new york, co-host of "the five," eric bolling, and democratic strategist, bernard whitman, author of "the 52 reasons to vote for obama." okay, bernard, okay, eric, let's talk about what this means today. gas prices are an added tax to awful us. boling, is this going to hurt obama? are people getting used to high gas prices? >> president obama is in a quandary right now because he really needs unemployment to go down. he needs to get it below 8%. unemployment goes below 8%, gas prices are going to soar. look what happened last month when we saw 163,000 jobs created, even though the unemployment rate went up, gasoline took offment oil was up $3 a barrel, almost $4 that day. here is what's going on, look what's going on in the swing states. in virginia, 30 cents a gallon

in a month. wisconsin and michigan, all kind of swing states, 45 to 50 cents a gallon in one month. he's in a lot of trouble. these are bad numbers for the american consumer. these are literally hundreds of billions of dollars of taxes coming out of their spending power. >> laura: how is it obama's fault? >> are you kidding me? we can't have a pipeline to bring oil down from canada here. we have to jump through hoops. everything he's done has been anti-drill. he's only starting now to embrace fracking because he knows he has to because he's in so desperate need of jobs and he realizes it creates hundreds of if not millions of jobs in america. he's done everything in his power not to get the prices down. they're up 100% on his term. he needs to do more. people don't look at him as the drilling president, not now, not then, not ever. >> laura: not 52 reasons why this is bad for obama. just one reason. one reason why the voters won't hold him accountable for this added cost to doing business

and -- >> what's driving up the price of gas? in the last few weeks, we've had a number of mishaps, mechanical fires, leaks. those things are driving the spike in fuel prices over the last month. in fact, this is the first time since april that gas prices are higher than they were a year ago and they're only higher by a penny. what is missing from this conversation, what's missing from eric's analysis is the fact that this president actually has an extraordinary energy policy. domestic oil production -- >> he has no energy policy. we don't have one. >> domestic oil production has been up every year he's been in office. natural gas production at an all time high. renewable energy production is up 27%. we have more oil rigs in any country in the world. >> laura: he moves them off to other countries. >> how many of those is president obama responsible for? in fact, the day he came into office, he said, even if we put a drill bit into the ground right now, it will take three to five years to get oil out. so

if that's true, all the oil that's coming out now, bernie, is because president bush decided to drill. not because president obama did! >> laura: don't we still are a lot of exploration that's been done on private land and a lot of rigs have moved off of their normal position, companies moving away from ex torsion down to south america where apparently we're helping them do their office and off to saudi arabia. >> you know what bothers me about the republicans? they refuse to deal with facts, such as the fact that we are importing less oil than we have imported in 13 years, less than half -- >> that's because our productivity is down also. >> in fact, fuel standards will be doubled over the next decade or so, saving consumers $8,200 a year in gas costs. this president has done more for energy than any president in recent memory. >> laura: eric, i have one question, with all these numbers where they are -- >> i would like to hear not a made up number for once.

$8,200? >> it's all true. >> reason number 14. >> come on. let's use fact instead of these fictitious numbers. >> laura: before we let go, one more question. given all these facts, why do you think romney is not up in these key states, these swing states and the average of all these polls? it's disturbing numbers out there. >> i think he needs a really light to fire. i really he really needs to pick a vp that's going to light the fire. he's got to get the conservative right on board and right now they're not. they need to see the man. they need to see some fire out of the guy. >> maybe he should release some tax returns. >> laura: that's going to help employ a single person. that's the mott idiotic thing i ever heard. >> can i say something? >> laura: distraction and deem bize. that's all the left's got. >> president obama's schedule for today? 14 million people out of work. gas is 100% higher. here is his schedule. blank until ramadan dinner at

8:25. >> laura: he's managing our decline. we got to go. coming up, the "new york times" says olympic track star lolo jones pays more attention to her own sex appeal than her sport. we're going to talk to her former teammate. next, geraldo explains why the prosecution may have made a tremendous mistake in the george zimmerman case. moments away people like options. when you take geico, you can call them anytime you feel like saving money. it don't matter, day or night. use your computer, your smartphone, your tablet, whatever.

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>> laura: thanks for staying with us. i'm laura ingraham in for bill o'reilly. in the friday's with geraldo segment tonight, the prosecution makes a glaring error in its case against george zimmerman. as you know, he's charged with murdering 17-year-old trayvon martin last february in sanford, florida. he says did he it out of self-defense. yesterday special prosecutor angela cory's office inadvertently released confidential case materials to the media. including a photo of trayvon's body. joining me to react from this -- this is stunning -- geraldo rivera. you can catch his show on fnc this saturday at 10 p.m when i read the facts here, i mean, as a former defense attorney, i almost fell over. wait a second. the prosecution inadvertently released his academic records and a photo of the 17-year-old's body? it's kind of grainy, but none the less. it's wild. >> you know, first of all, i

thought of you when i saw the women boxers in the olympics yesterday. >> laura: i'm good at that. i have three older brothers. >> if the photo of the deceased, trayvon martin, was going to inflame the public and taint the jury pool, i guess that would be if you were going to have a conspiracy theory, you say sure, they released the photo of the dead youngster by accident, but really it was intentional because they wanted to taint the jury pool, poison the minds of focus jurors in the upcoming murder trial of george zimmerman. it wasn't a very good picture. it's widely available on the web now. i don't think it was premeditated. i really don't. there has been so much inflammatory material released in this case. the prosecutor has bent over backwards to politicize this case already. i really do think this was just a dopey assistant in angela cory's office who leased the death photo which really is a

xerox of a photo and his school records. but i don't think -- i think this is more a competence, overeagerness. remember, florida is the sunshine state. they release as many of these public documents as they possibly can without prejudicing the case. it's absolutely unlawful to release the body of a deceased in a situation like this. it's imcompetence more than anything. >> laura: the thing is, if you're the defendant, right, it's hard to have a innocent view of this. even if it was innocent, as a defendant and lot of people are against you already, they have a preconceived notion of what happened and if you are innocent, that's not good to have -- you got a d in intro to criminal justice, i don't know what that much has to do with whether he killed this individual or not. but the problem then arises that he actually told something to

the investigators and then the court understood this, that was untrue about his own background, which you say goes against his credibility and hurts him at this hearing he's going to have to be at, the stand your ground hearing. tell us about that. >> even that, he claimed to have graduated from the seminole county college with an associate degree. in fact, he flunked an astronomy course. so technically, he did not graduate. again i think in the overall -- overarching story here is so serious that the fact that he lied about graduating from seminole county college, i don't think it is really that telling. i think that what is far more profoundly significant here is the fact that george zimmerman lied or his wife lied and he condoned her lying during their bail hearing. thereby tarnishing his credibility because i think,

laura, and i think the audience should know this, he has an excellent chance or had an excellent chance of winning on this stand your ground law. this is a classic case of self-defense. he was where he was supposed to be legally. he wasn't breaking the law, george zimmerman. he feared that he was being attacked reasonably, i think given the evidence, he was screaming, here you see him recreating the incident. and he responded with deadly force. i think this is a classic case of self-defense. however, he has to prove it in the stand your ground hearing. he's his own best and only witness. he's the only eyewitness to what happened. george zimmerman's credibility is everything in this case. by condoning the lies about his financial worth during the initial bail hearing, making this judge so angry at him, he has diminished his own credibility. that's why the judge will not grant the stand your ground

motion. that's why this is going to trial, but i still believe he has an excellent chance of beating the case despite his own stupidity. despite he failed at strong hee. >> laura: you and -- astronomy. thanks so much. in a moment, a scathing "new york times" piece says olympic track star lolo jones cares more about her own image than her own performance. wow. why the cheap shot? right back

>> laura: in the back of the book segment tonight, the "new york times" published a poison pen piece this week attacking olympic track star lolo jones for focusing more on her own brand than her performance.

writing, quote, jones has decided she will be whatever anyone wants her to be. sixen, virgin, victim, to draw attention to herself and the many products she endorses. she has played into the persistent demeaning notion that women are worthy as athletes only if they have sex appeal. after seeing that, jones hit back at the "new york times." >> i work six days a week, every day for four years for a 12-secretary race. the fact that they tore me apart, which is heart breaking, i'm not, like, you know -- do your research calling me the anna kournikova. i am the american record holder. i hold two timeses and just because i don't boast about these things, i don't think i should be ripped apart. >> laura: it doesn't appear her teammates have her back. >> i just felt as if i worked really hard to represent my country in the best way possible. to come away with the gold

medal. to seem their favor didn't win, all of a sudden it was like push your story aside and want to push this one, it hurts. it hurt my feelings. >> on the podium, the three girls that earned their spot and got their medals and worked hard and did what they need to do do prevailed. that's all that really needs to be said. >> wow. cut the tension with a knife. >> laura: jones finished fourth in the competition. joining us now from new york, fox business reporter and former college teammate of lolo jones, sandra smith. okay. this is interesting. so sandra, i had no idea that you were also a track star, not just a media star. but i'm late to this story, i must say. i missed this whole thing somehow. but lolo jones is an amazing athlete. i mean, she has that hit of the hurdle back in 2008 where she was expected to win. she didn't win. now she was back and i mean, is it really news that some of the

appeal a little bitshowing off and she just so happens to talk also about her virginity? why is that news? >> i feel i should remind everyone that track and field is not a subjective sport. there is no judge. there is a start line and there is a finish line. and as a professional athlete, as an olympic athlete, her job was to try to run the fastest she could from the start line to the finish line and that's what she did every single race. that's what she did in the olympics. for the "new york times" to say that she hasn't gotten where she has based on her own merits is just false. she's an 11-time all american. she's run in two olympics and she holds the world record in her event indoors! in my opinion, when i read the article, laura, i interpreted it as someone who didn't know what he was talking about. >> laura: well, it was also -- the quote, it reminds me of anna kournikova. the tennis player who was known and is known for she's very beaybe not one of the better players. but as you said, not an outdoor

record, but two major indoor records. her athleticism speaks for itself. she didn't win. who knows if this article and all the media attention, negative media attention affected her and the flip side of this, right? because you put yourself out there. you pose in a provocative ribbon, tying up your body, then at the same time you talk about the fact that you're a virgin. it sends maybe mixed signals to people. but i have a feeling if she were out there perhaps saying, well, i'm in a sexually transitioning period or maybe she's a lesbian or something, i don't know. people would have said, oh, that's cool. look at her. she's talking about her life and that's neat. and instead, maybe the virginity thing played into it. i don't know. >> maybe she was just too christian, too conservative, too moral for the main stream media. i don't know what their reasoning for tearing her dawn were. i think it's very unfortunate, though, that an american athlete

was representing our country at the olympics and a newspaper right here at home in our own country decided to tear her down prior to that. >> laura: and her teammates had some nasty words for her. who knows what happened there? great to get your perspective. thank you so much. >> thank you. >> laura: up next, some of the strangest moments in factor factor history. you won't want to miss this. 60 seconds away it's something you're born with. and inspires the things you choose to do. you do what you do... because it matters. at hp we don't just believe in the power of technology. we believe in the power of people when technology works for you. to dream. to create. to work. if you're going to do something. make it matter.

a look back at a few of the strangest most outrageous things that have happened here on the factor. >> we begin with our old pal michael moore whom we talked with at the democratic convention way back in 2004 when the iraq war was raging. >> what did they die for? >> they died to remove a brutal dictator who killed hundreds of thousands of people. that is what they died for. >> not the reason they were

given. >> weapons of mass destruction was a mistake. it was not a lie. >> there there are brutal dictators in this world. would you sacrifice your child to remove one of the other 30 brutal dictators on this planet. >> depends what the circumstances were. >> you were sacrifice your own. >> i would sacrifice myself i'm not talking about any children to remove the taliban. would you? that is my next question? would you sacrifice yourself to move the tal glance i would sacrifice my life to track down the person that killed 3,000 people on our soil. >> re. >> we didn't go after them. taliban.oved the tal wan and >> they are are still killing our soldiers there. >> you can't kill everybody, come on. >> continuing on the theme of the usa defendingity isself. in 2005 we talked with phil donahue about cindy sheehan.

>> her positions are radical and they are radical. >> what is radical is to send more are americans to die in this war which is a monumental blunder by a president who swagerred us into it. there is a lot of sin to go around here. >> you want to send more people to this war? is that your position? >> if we cut and run out of there like you want to do we would be putting every american in a thousand times more are jeopardy than they are now. >> we are going to cut and run anyway, bill. >> you are cut and run guy and i don't want my family in dangler you want to stay the course, don't you? >> here is what i want to do. i want to give the iraqis a chance to train their army so they can defeat these people who are trying to turn it into a terrorist state. >> you wouldn't is send your to this war, bill.g scenion >> my nephew just enlisted.

he is a patriot so don't denigrate his service or i will boot you off the set! >> my nephew is stationed in kentucky. he is a patriot. >> one final moment. my interview with an attorney who was defending one of the 9/11 terrorists. >> is there any justification on this earth to murder thousands ofment people? >> as i said the trial is to determine whether they were murdered or not and the jury will decide that. >> bill: are you sitting here as a human being telling me the people of 9/11 were not murdered? >> the jury will decide that. >> bill: i want to know what you think. >> i'm hot going to be a juror in that case. >> bill: you are not going to say whether you feel those people were murder. >> i'm not a juror. >> bill: don't you think people watching you and millions are right now, counselor, i don't meaney disrespect think you are a weasel. >> they meet. that's fine. >> bill: you seem like a nice guy but this guy sitting in on