>> brian: if you have to run from the tv, run to the radio, first guest on, not only steve doocy on, but mitt romney. >> steve: wow! >> brian: not in that order. >> gretchen: tune in to the after the show show. have a great day, everyone. folks. in a fox news alert, shake-up for the race for the republican nomination. this has been a roller coaster for mitt romney. according to rasmussen reports is back on top in florida. he has gained seven points in four days. how does that happen? good morning. we're going to figure that out. i'm bill hemmer, welcome to "america's newsroom". martha: morning, bill. bill: onward we go. martha: we think it is crazy. imagine how they feel. this is unbelievable florida story. good morning, everybody, i'm martha maccallum with you this morning. a total reversal of the numbers we had on monday. hear is the breakdown, if the primary were held today, mitt romney would win with 39% of the vote with newt

gingrich's 31%. santorum and paul at 12% and 9% respectively. bill: the big story as we go through the numbers, how much the story has changed since monday, only four days ago. in words of the man who did the polling this is just nuts. scott rasmussen is the man. live with us from rasmussen reports. what is going on here, scott? >> bill, you have to remember a week ago we were having mirror image of this discussion. newt gingrich had gone down 14 to up two. a 16-point swing in matter of days. now gingrich down 10, romney up 17-point swing. part of it the surge is the surge and doesn't last. newt gingrich had a good week but it hasn't lasted. part of it those somewhat conservative voters now are swinging behind mitt romney. he leads among that group 50% to 29%. gingrich still does well with the very conservative voters. bill: remind our viewers, these are likely republican voters in florida you're

surveying. >> that's right. bill: this is going to the heart of it. you asked this question, regardless who wins, who do you think will win the nomination regardless who wins florida you mean next tuesday. you find romney at 55%. that's commanding. >> that is up a little bit from where it was earlier in the week but again putting in context two or three weeks ago, seven out of 10 were saying this is romney. he is commands favorite but not perceived as inevitable the way it was a few weeks back. with the roller-coaster we've been on, nothing seems a lock. bill: that is true. this next question, scott, seems a bit obvious but i want you to explain this because you wanted to find out among republican voters if your candidate does not win the nomination, who would you likely vote for? now, well over 3/4 say republican candidate. 10% say barack obama. what does this say? >> you have to break it down by the different candidates. ron paul supporters are not

terribly likely to vote for the republican. gingrich, santorum, romney supporters, pretty much say they will vote for the republican. some of romney supporters a little more likely to opt for a third party but in general what we see is, with the exception of the ron paul voters, republicans are likely to unite behind whoever their candidate is. bill: we found this in south carolina a bit in ham haflt. you ask whether or not you will change your mind. about a quarter, 24% say they might change their mind. is this a surprise, scott? >> not a surprise. that number is moving down a little bit. difference between florida and earlier states, there is early voting allowed. so one out of four voters already cast their ballot. among that group, mitt romney leads by a dozen points. bill: scott, hot off the press. breaking news here in "america's newsroom." bug kel up. -- buckle up. this could change with the debate tonight. scott rasmussen. thank you, scott.

>> thank you. martha: we have another poll for you which candidate has the best chance to beat president obama. in a matchup between mitt romney and the president, look at this, this is a tie. each with 45% in head-to-head. put newt gingrich into the mix as well. if he were the candidate against president obama, big difference. half of the people surveyed said they would vote for president obama in that case. 39% say that they would choose newt gingrich. we'll talk to newt gingrich's daughter a little later. jackie cushman is with us. she is one of his main spokespeople and advisors. we'll get her response to the latest numbers next hour in "america's newsroom". bill: newt gingrich trying to turn the tables on romney, blasting the positive for former ties to fannie mae and freddie mac. gingrich telling sean hannity that romney is running dishonest campaign. >> the absolute gal of mitt romney surrounding himself with all the lobbyists owning stocks in the company and fabricating

a charge which is factually false i think demeans the entire process running for president. bill: gingrich continues to campaign in florida as expected today. he will face off in yet another debate in florida, romney, gingrich, paul and santorum. martha: just as scott was saying some floridians already cast their vote for the republican nominee. the state has early voting even though the primary isn't until tuesday. nearly 495,000 early absentee ballots were requested for the florida vote. as of wednesday nearly 350,000 votes were already in. all the back and forth in florida, not amounting much for those folks who cast their votes. we won't know who everybody votes for until the tally is made public. that will help when the polls closed on tuesday night. bill: we have you covered on tuesday, florida's primary. special coverage kicks off at 6:00 eastern with bret and megyn. martha and i will be here taking care of exit polling and results as they come in

truth the state. martha: will be a big night. these are the numbers i mentioned earlier. very interesting, the jobs numbers come into the newsroom this morning. the labor department reporting that unemployment claims jump to 377,000 last week. so that is a disappointing number, moving in the opposite direction. that came right on the heels of fed chair ben bernanke's bleak outlook on the economy and on unemployment numbers. there is a look at the year as you go back. stuart varney joins me now, fox business network. stuart, let's start with the unemployment numbers what do you think of that one? >> i agree with your characterization, they are indeed disappointing. this is big jump over 20,000. it is a very big number and indicates a weak economy at best. that's where we stand with that. if you want move on to ben bernanke, got to talk about him, he is the world's number one money man and he has a bleak outlook for the u.s. economy. he says we're going to have high unemployment for

another couple of years, north of 8% for the rest of this year. doesn't touch 7% until the year 2014. overall, the economy will continue weak for longer than he expected. another two or three years, maybe 2% growth. that's a very weak economic recovery coming three years after the end of the recession. not good. martha: yeah, well, those numbers can not be well-received at the white house where they like to continue to get good economic news. they had some pretty nice trends, stuart, in the unemployment numbers and there's been a general feeling things are beginning to turn around. we've seen that reflected in the president's approval numbers. >> yeah. martha: it is possible those numbers will not help him out the way down the road. >> the trend is mildly positive. unemployment rate is heading down but oh so slowly. so you've got a weak recovery, which doesn't do well for the president's re-election chances. martha: stuart, thank you so much, stuart varney, fox business network, coming up a few minutes away.

bill: get ready for our nation's debt to go even higher. the senate set to vote on house bill that would deny the president's request to raise the debt ceiling. it is not expected to pass. in effect the vote will allow government to borrow $1.2 trillion, raising the debt ceiling to 16.4 trillion when it is over. senator john thune joins us in a few moments on his take whether or not we should borrow more money that we do not have today. that is coming up in a matter of moments here. martha: not so much of a warm welcome for the president in arizona as a heated one of the gets hot in arizona and apparently on the tarmac. the president obama was greeted on the airport by governor jan brewer, which is nice too but i am meet -- immediately got into it. at one point she pointed her finger at the president and the two apparently were talking over each other, the president reportedly walked away rather abruptly. according to governor brewer, she describe what happened

when she spoke to greta last night. watch. >> i will say a picture is what it is, i must say that i was not hostile. i was trying to be very, very gracious. i respect the office of the president and i would never be disrespectful in that manner. bottom line is, is that he generally wants to talk about amnesty and i want to talk about securing our border and we're just not ever going to probably agree on that. but bottom line is, that i wanted to be there to welcome him, to come and see first-hand what arizona has done in regards to our economic recovery. he wanted to talk about the book and i thought that he was thin-skinned. martha: very interesting, from governor brewer there. ed henry live in las vegas where the president is this morning with some more on all of this. good morning, ed. >> reporter: good morning, martha. you're right, the president

is here in vegas because he wants to talk about alternative energy, one of the subjects he had in the state of the union address couple nights ago where he talked about a new tone, republicans and democrats working together, so much for that, within 24 hours we had confrontation on the tarmac yesterday in arizona. the governor basically had handed the president a letter suggesting they have a meeting down the road to talk about immigration. you see from the pictures they were talking over each other. she was pointing her finger at him at one point. the president upset way she characterize ad previous meeting they had when she wrote her book. listen to what the governor had to say when she went on the record last night with greta van susteren. >> i had written a handwritten note to him welcoming him to arizona and to thank him for being here and gave him the letter and he immediately took umbrage, if you will with my book that i wrote, scorpions for

breakfast and was somewhat disgruntled if you will about the way he was portrayed in the book. >> reporter: a white house official basically, their version is that the president had heard what was in that book. it described at one point a meeting the two of them had in the oval office some months ago on immigration. the president thought it was cordial. instead the government made it sound like the president was miffed and it was a nasty confrontation. that is why the white house was mad. the president here to talk about alternative energy. maybe this overshadowing all of that, martha. martha: thank you, so much, ed, in las vegas for us. bill: you and i talk that way to each other all the time. martha: what are you talking about? i can't believe you said that to me again!. bill: i'm the gentleman i say, you're right martha. martha: you walk away in the middle of me talking!. bill: coming up here this morning. a stunning new report that american taxpayers are still owed more than $100 billion from the financial bailout of 2008. what's worse, that money might be gone forever.

martha: i would like it back, thank you very much. republicans making it very clear they are screaming this from the rooftops. they want that keystone pipeline to move forward with or without the president's approval. this is a very, very hot topic out there. we'll talk about that coming up. bill: also erin brock vism is getting involved in a bizarre case outside of new york. a group of teenage girls suddenly fell ill with a mystery illness. details on that in moments. >> these girls are getting sick like crazy up there. we have four new cases over the weekend.ve 20 years? call imperial structured settlements. the experts at imperial can convert your long-term payout into a lump sum of cash today. ♪ [ gong ] strawberry banana! [ male announcer ] for a smoothie with real fruit

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british settlers in their opinion. they're still pretty angry. the prime minister leaves as security guards rush to the safety. they celebrated another celebration today. that was dangerous situation. bill: it was. we are about to borrow more money than we ever have. the senate about to vote down a house resolution raising debt ceiling. they will raise the debt ceiling paving the way for the feds to borrow even more money. south dakota senator john thune is chairman of the senate republican conference and on the senate budget committee. good morning to you. >> good morning, bill. bill: this debt ceiling vote is the last vote, on this matter before americans vote next november. will be pushed to december possibly on that. giving americans a lot of angst about the futures, where they are as a country, where they are as a people. how do you give them reassurance, senator? >> it should give them a lot of angst, bill. every american's share of

the debt is $48,000. that has gone up $14,000 since this president took office. every american household now owes $126,000 as a result of the debt. we've seen the three largest deficits literally in history since the president took office in 2009. this vote today in the senate will follow a vote that occurred as you mentioned in the house of representatives to disapprove a $1.2 trillion increase in the debt limit. we have got to get runaway spending and debt under control. we have a reckless amount of borrowing which will put us very soon in the same situation that we're seeing spain, italy greece, other countries in europe. bill: it makes your head spin, senator. what can you do about it? what will you do about it? >> we have to start taking the steps necessary that will get spending under control and that means taking on big challenges. saving medicare and social security, for example, means reforming the programs making them sustainable over time. the president demonstrated no interest and no leadership in taking on

these big challenges. frankly the thing i think concerns most americans right now is jobs and economy. there is a direct correlation between the amount of borrowing and amount of debt we have. history has proven this and economic growth and jobs. we have to get spending under control to get the economy growing again. bill: one of the big points republicans are making this week it has been 1,000 days since a senate put forward a budget or even passed a budget. i know you're big on that too. who do you think this reflects worse on, congress, the administration or both? >> i think the american people hold everybody here in washington responsible for that but it is congress's job to pass a budget. the democrat-led senate has not passed a budget for nearly three years. it has been over 1,000 days. the american people don't have luxury of having a budget. we spent $3.6 trillion of the taxpayer's money every single year but we have not had a budget that tells us how to spend the money for three years. that has got to stop. it requires leadership in

the white house. the president's budget put on the floor of the senate last year was defeated by vote 97-0. they don't get it. they're not clear about solving problem. the senate democrats not moving a budget 1,000 days are not serious taking this on. we'll push as hard as we can to get a focus on spending and debt, jobs and economy and reforming programs so that we can make them sustainable. bill: a lot of people relying on washington to figure this out. they're losing faith you guys can figure it out. senator, thank you for your time. john thune on the hill. here's what we've done for our viewers at home. this is your money and it is all about your money. it shows the amount of money the government takes in every year. our bills are higher than that. we're spending $3.6 trillion a year. you add it onto the national debt at $15.2 trillion. in september of this year,

that number will go even higher. almost $16 trillion. these numbers are extraordinary. they blow your mind and make your head spin. how do you understand this? we've taken the eight zeroes away on this map to simplify it for a family at homemaking say $26,000 every year. what does it mean to that family? well, if you were to take the government's argument for how they're going about paying their bills based on revenues and debt they owe, that family making $26,000 a year, would spend $10,000 more every year, up to $36,000, a difference here of $12,000 every year that you would need to increase your credit limit, your credit line, just to pay your own bills. and that's if you had a starting point, like the u.s. government has today, of $152,000 a household. that is the outstanding debt balance that you would start with for a family making

$26,000 a year. then you start to see how this adds up to real money. national debt at $15.2 trillion and going higher by the day. that vote will happen at noon. we have a lot more on this on our website at foxnews.com. so when you can, log on and check it out. in the end it is your money, america. 21 mips past the hour, martha. martha: certainly is. meantime iran's president suddenly ready to talk with the west what he is up to with his nuclear plans. is this a breakthrough or ahmadinejad being ahmadinejad? a live report on that coming up. bill: also potentially deadly tornados and flooding hammering a state yet again. a grandmother tells her story of survival. >> it was going through my mind, god is in control, god is in control but then, still in the back of my head, i thought what am i going to do? i knew without that cell phone, you know i was a goner. i'm in a tricky situation here.

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bill: 24 minutes past the hour. brand new numbers on the struggling housing market. foreclosure sales dropping a bit last year but still accounting about 20% of all home sales. american aid worker reuniting with her father and husband in italy. seal team six in a daring raid on the ground in somalia rescued jessica buchanan from kidnappers, tuesday night. it is not not just for late night binge anymore. taco bell, making a play for morning crowd. say hello to the breakfast menu starting at 800 locations. tacos for breakfast. martha: very good. we have brand new video from the storm victims in the south. a tornado tearing apart a industrial park. people on the ground say the sound alone was terrifying. >> we just stood there.

we didn't know what was going on. we seen all this stuff flying everywhere. first we thought it was the roof. everybody ducked. >> did anybody get under a table? >> nobody got under a table. everything happened so fast. martha: at least two other confirmed tornados touched down across the state. the national weather service looking into at least half a dozen more. what a weird kind of year for this to be going on. ford atkinson with kriv live outside houston, so how big was this suspected tornado? >> reporter: martha, we had been begging for rain showers here in texas for about a year. we've been under drought conditions. we like the rain. we just don't like the wind and tornados to go along with it. we'll show you what the twister did to the chevron station in the pearland near houston. the good news here is.

i talked to a contract are to. the pow we they think will be on in couple hours and might get this gas station going again in about 24 hours or so. this is kind of typical what you see out here and some of the other places hit by tornados. the damage is very random. the across the street there are several businesses with absolutely no damage. chevron station is one of the unlucky ones. they hope to get things repaired in another 24 hours or so. back to you. martha: boy, a rough thing to wake up to. thank you so much. good to have you with us, ford. bill: more extreme weather. one texas woman stuck in surging waters sweeping away her suv that is not a place you want to find yourself in houston. she frantically called 911 as water rushed into her car and filling up to her neck. >> i told her my car is being swept away as i speak. the water is above my chest, above my waist and getting

up close to my neck. saved my life. miracles do. bill: wow! how about that. police got there in time. she is 71 years old. she is a grandmother. she has a great spirit. martha: scary story. thank goodness for my phone, right? glad she's okay. how about this. we have bombshell developments in the controversial gun-running operation known as "fast and furious." the feds and the state are in a standoff over this. who will blink first? bill: this will be a major headline. budget cuts coming to the u.s. military. we'll ask a four-star general what that will mean for the u.s. fighting force around the world. [ both ] people loved our wedding slide show. that is the end... of carousel one. ...of carousel one. there's carousel two! all right!

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>> developing this morning out of iran, the president saying it is time to talk. tehran now claiming it is opening negotiations over its nuclear program as world powers threaten even more sane shuns against the regime. leland vittert live in jerusalem. why would these sanctions work, leland? >> reporter: they're coming from the european union. they have real teeth. members of the european union can't buy oil from iran which would really cripple the iranian economy. already interest rates are 20% to stablize the currency.

the current projections have it the iranians could have a nuclear bomb within 12 months and pass the point of no return in six months the idea behind the sanctions to get the iranians to give up their nuclear program without a war. the question now is, is there enough sanctions for ahmadinejad to actually sit down at the negotiating table? is this a good faith offer to talk? or is this simply north delaying tactic to iranian scientists can keep working and by the time these things break down as we've been down this road before, all of sudden we're three or six month further down the road to the iranians having a bomb, talks break down and the iranians have bought all that time, bill. bill: you're in jerusalem. what influence does jerusalem have in all this, leland? >> reporter: consistently, bill, israel said they will not allow the iranians to get a bomb. there have been a lot of coincidences as iranian nuclear scientists get

broken up as a in car bomb explosion. a few nuclear facilities themselves have gotten blown up. the key here is now time, with only couple months left when the israelis could launch a airstrike because they don't have the bunker-buster weapons needed in order to reach the iranian facilities. they're often buried a couple hundred feet into the sides of mountain, bill. bill: in the past he said he wanted to talk then too. we saw how that went. leland vittert in jerusalem. martha: all right. we've got big developments this morning on the future of the u.s. military. defense secretary leon panetta set to release the first details on controversial cuts to pentagon spending. critics say the budget cuts will make our military weaker. the pentagon will slash $450 billion over the next 10 years and the plan will rebalance our forces towards the asia-pacific region. it will shrink our army to expand our unmanned drone operations. this is a big focus of all of this. jack keane, retired

four-star general. he is former vice chief of staff at the army and fox news military analyst. general, good morning. always great to see you. >> good morning, martha. great to see you. martha: my mind goes back to the state. union address and the president walking in an congratulating leon panetta at that moment, said great work on the navy seal team raid that freed those two hostages. clearly that is fresh in everybody's minds as we look at ramping up of that kind of activity as part of that plan. >> that is certainly a good thing. certainly our special operations forces clearly as the name implies, special purpose forces designed to deal very quickly in rapid operations but they're not suitable to be used against conventional forces in any sizable way that a heavily armed and have large organizations. for that you need conventional forces. >> but i do think in everybody's mind they look what we've been dealing with lately and they call these lilly pad bases which are sort of a small, tactical force that can go a lot of

different places in the world to target militants and people who are in these kind of situations, somali pirates that kidnapped these two people. isn't that the way the world is sort of changing right now? that's what we need to meet? >> i think, decentralizing our special operations forces so our combatant commanders, those are the commanders that have regional responsibility around the world and have more access to special operations capabilities and that's what the admiral commander of the special operations command in tampa is recommending to the secretary. i think that is a great way to go dealing with the future. but in of itself doesn't deal with the rising china and military capabilities. certainly all the challenges we have in the middle east where we fought four wars in the last 20 years. martha: what is the worst-case scenario in this plan as you see it? >> i think the weakness of the strategy clearly deals with the risk for the ground forces. and, we're doing the same

thing that planners have done in the past. that is, after world war ii. after the korean war. after vietnam war and also after the collapse of the soviet union the planners then and planners now are making assumption that we will not fight another ground war of any consequence. history has proven that assumption dead wrong. and is weakness in the strategy that we're putting forward. but in terms of the focus areas, asia-pacific, the middle east, we absolutely have that right. the pentagon don't want to take these cuts. secretary gates has already taken significant cuts before leon panetta came in. 200 billion in efficiencies and a major program from each service. martha: i know that you would like to see some of those cuts. you suggested if the military, the defense is going to take it, entitlements should also bear some of this burden? >> well i think, if you tap the shoulder of any leader in the pentagon and ask them what is your frustration here, i think the immediate

response you would get from them is simply this. listen, they're not immune or insensitive to what is happening economically to the united states in terms of growing debt and deficits but the pentagon is being asked to share disproportionately. entitlements are off the table and they're the largest part of the federal budget. the. martha: general keane, always good to see you, sir. thanks very much for weighing in this morning. see you soon. >> okay, martha. bill: do you ever google yourself? ever find something you don't like what is being said about you online? there is a lawsuit from a guy who says he is being slander didded on the internet. he wants all the posts taken down. if he wins, his case could have a major impact what you can say and not say on the internet. douglas kennedy is on this story live with more now. good morning. >> reporter: bill, the internet is a great place to promote yourself. it is a great place to exact revenge. this manhattan attorney recently disever coulded the

hard way. he was the youngest prosecutor in norwalk, connecticut. he worked for the nfl. and "court tv". but if you google matt kal u.k., the first thing that comes up, liars and cheaters are us,.com. on this site the ex-girlfriend says no one should trust you. this is now available to anyone with a computer. >> it is unfortunate. anybody can go on line to do that. >> reporter: one of the posts is from miranda. she said matt lied when he said he would marry her and cheated on her with his current wife during their three year-relationship. he says the effects on his life have been devastating. you lost clients. hard to get a mortgage. >> people even when we went to buy a house, my wife and i, have problems with homeowners selling us our house. >> reporter: he suing two of his ex-girlfriend he says posted on the site. he says neither has the right to ruin his reputation

on the internet, not to mention the world. both women hired bodyguard of the broken-hearted, celebrity attorney, gloria allred. all three seen here at a press conference, shot by "tmz". >> it seems ironic that men can lie and cheat and then look to the courts for legal protection. >> reporter: gloria allred says you lied, and cheated and hurt these women and they should have a right to say so. >> you don't have the right to defame people on the internet. that is wrong. >> reporter: he says he is bringing the lawsuit on behalf of anyone wronged on the web. back to you. bill: keep us posted. wow, the implications here. >> reporter: free speech, baby. >> never google yourself. that is the first lesson. bill: let it go. martha: don't even look. it's not good. how about this for you? a little girl got the surprise of her life at school. >> what took you so long?

we've been waiting here forever. martha: who is behind that voice and why it made her day. she is --. bill: hurry up, now, will you? republican lawmakers ready to attempt to go around the white house and make the keystone oil pipeline a reality. how do they plan to do that? the man who introduced the idea. he is here live to explain, next. >> in nebraska, in particular we have very, very strong views about, about the environmental issues, about the routing, et cetera. it was on the basis of that that we decided that more work needed to be done. >> president said he will do anything he can to create jobs. that promise was broken. ♪ you and me and the big old tree ♪ ♪ side by side, e, two, three ♪ ♪ counthe birds in the big o tree ♪ ♪ la la la [ male announcer ] the inspiring story of how shipping giant can befriend a forest may seem like the stuff of fairy tales.

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martha: we just love stories like this. and who wouldn't, right? national guard reservist sergeant loren schroeder on leave from iraq surprised his daughter at school. watch. >> what took you so long? i've been waiting here forever?

martha: so sweet. isn't that so sweet? that is when the tears started pouring. his daughter was taken completely by surprise. >> i just came in school, --, i came back in and i saw him and i started crying. martha: aw, daddy. such a nice moment. the sergeant will be home for good when his deployment ends in october. wish him well. bill: absolutely. supporters of keystone pipeline are not giving up. the administration blocking project saying they need more time to study the idea. republicans say they will find a way to move forward with their plan even if it means going around the white house. texas congressman ted poe introduced the new legislation. he is leading the charge back home in houston, texas. sir, good morning to you. >> good morning, bill. bill: how do you plan to get this done? could be tricky here. >> the legislation i filed

will allow congress to approve the keystone pipeline in its entirety except for the small section in nebraska where the route is being renegotiated in northeastern nebraska. congress has the authority to, first of all to approve pipelines. back in '73 environmental obstructionists were preventing alaska pipeline for years. finally congress just approved the alaska pipeline. congress also has the legal authority to engage in foreign commerce the only reason the administration engages in total foreign commerce because the president in '68 gave an executive order giving that authority to the state department. so we're on a constitutionally sound ground. this is just one of several proposals. lee terry from nebraska has a similar proposal and the way we want to do it --. bill: just so i understand it, viewers understand it, you would pass legislation that would approve all the construction, except for that aquifer in nebraska, so that you get things up and running and then when it is time to get final approval,

you can just fill in the final piece. is that your logic? >> that is exactly correct, bill. bill: okay. now if you get that done, can you do that separately or would you have to attach this to another piece of legislation as it moves through the house? >> well, it is a stand-alone bill but probably will be added to either an energy bill or the transportation bill, bigger bill that covers other issues. that will give it more of a likelihood to pass the house and the senate if we did that. bill: the reason i ask that, others say you have to attach it as payroll tax vote that will come up in a matter of weeks. that was a rough go toward the end of the year last year. republicans took a hit on that. what you're saying you could put it outside of that, correct? >> that's correct. it wouldn't necessarily be on the payroll tax bill. it would be on energy bill or transportation bill, a bill relevant to the issue. and those pieces of legislation will come up this spring probably and

congress, house and senate need to pass an energy bill and transportation bill. that's the way that we're going to proceed on this. bill: let me tell our viewers what this would amount to, the keystone pipeline. here are the specs on it. about $13 million price tag there, stretching throughout the center part of the country. crude oil 1600 miles move through it ending up no the home district of houston creating 20,000 jobs in the u.s. according to many estimates we've gotten. what do you think the difference in our energy policy if the keystone pipeline were enacted? >> first we're dealing with a stable country, canada. would bring in almost as much crude oil as we get from saudi arabia. we can move in a direction to make middle eastern politics and their oil irrelevant by dealing with the canadians. then as the president said, all the above approach which includes a drilling in the united states and off our coast. so move to, a safer, secure,

and an interest, our national interest can be better fulfilled if we deal with the canadians rather than with some of these rogue dictators. thousands and thousands of jobs. bill: we'll see in the end if you're successful. ted poe, thank you. keep us updated okay? >> thank you, bill. bill: thank you for your time. martha? martha: this is unnerving story. son of a white house cabinet member has been barred from leaving the country of egypt. why the new leadership there is a whole new reality. bill: also, parents saying their daughters just suddenly went crazy. now new cases of a mystery illness appearing in one new york town. why erin brockovich is now getting involved. >> this is about getting the girls the proper help, finding the problem, correcting the problem so that no other kids get sick and they get the proper treatment. that's what it's all about. [ male announcer ] drinking a smoothie with no vegetable nutrition?

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bill: goat some breaking political news now. sources telling fox news the north carolina governor, beverly perdue will not seek re-election. she is democrat. she won election back in 2009. so only one term for her but north carolina has been wracked by unemployment. still 10% at the moment. barack obama took north carolina in the election of 2008 by the slimmest of margins, a couple hundred or,000 votes here or there but less than one percent of the vote difference between barack obama and john mccain in north carolina. that will be a battleground come november. keep an eye on that. beverly perdue will not seek re-election. martha. martha: an environmentallal activist made famous about a movie about her life is now investigating this mysterious illness we've been telling you about in upstate new york. you have more young students reporting symptoms associated with trouette syndrome. involuntary movement, those

sorts of things. erin brockovich is sending a team of scientists to their school to do investigating. dr. marc siegel, professor of medicine at nyu langone medical center and a member of our great fox news medical a-team. good to see you this morning. >> good morning, martha. martha: these girls, for folks to catch up on, these teenage girls have involuntary movements. some of them have speech issues going on. very strange things. >> you can't stop yourself from speaking. that is tourette's syndrome. you you had an excellent interview with a physician drofled this case he says he thinks it is mass hysteria. i understand why he said that. there are distorted symptoms he can't put together. i had a little trouble. i think mass his tire yaw is diagnosis of exclusion. you rule everything out before you come to the conclusion. martha: that is how they determined that. there is mental connection between people in some environments where they all pick up a similar kind of thing called mass hysteria.

it feeds on itself and spreads. nih is involved in this now. obviously there is legitimate concerns that diagnosis is not correct. >> they are right. there are historical examples of that. that can happen. there is something called pandis which i called on fox news. pediatric autoimmune psychiatric disorder not hard to rule out. martha: what causes it? >> caused by chronic strep infections which can spread. they're looking at lyme disease. that is much less likely because lyme is not contagious but strep is. you have to do a culture and blood test. very hard to say it isn't pandis. martha: strep can linger in the system. >> exactly. martha: you think it is gone. some kids have strep and the pediatric autoimmune system, the child's system is trying to fight it off and sometimes manifests itself in this way, correct? >> right. with tourette's, with obsessive-compulsive symptoms, depression.

everything they're saying could be there. could be issue of environmental toxins that have to be ruled out. there was apparently swamp in the area. martha: we checked all the environmental stuff. it is not environmental. it looked at that time awfully quick time to figure that out. clearly that is what erin brockovich became famous finding these kind of things is looking for. >> martha, i want to add, i agree with you. they have to look much deeper. i'm glad nih is involved as well as erin brockovich. i want to mention vaccines to be totally fair. there is outcry, here what about additives for gardasil vaccine, aluminum that isn't totally ruled out. i worry about outcry and hysteria that attach to vaccines that save lives. martha: gardasil is relatively new vaccine given to young girls. i've seen on twitter elsewhere people concerned about that. that is the in mix. >> absolutely. great to see you. martha: crazy for these parents. they really need to figure this out. >> absolutely. martha: bill? bill: there is new report

shows more than $100 billion is owed to u.s. taxpayers. get this. some of that may be gone forever. dinner? candles?

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whee! it's flo time. now, that's progressive. call or click today. martha: heads up american taxpayers, the government still owes you nearly $133 billion according to a new report that just came out today from the woman who oversaw the 700 billion-dollar bail out. she says $132.9 billion went out to companies to help them out back in 2008. they still haven't paid that money back. and that isn't even the worst of the news. good morning, everybody, we have a brand-new hour of "america's newsroom," that is the good part of the news. i'm martha maccallum. bill: i'm bill hemmer. special inspector general saying most of the money is likely gone forever. how does that feel, huh? martha: where did it go you may ask? eric bolling the anchor of follow the money on the fox business network. money doesn't just disappear into thin air, somebody has got

it. >> reporter: no, not only the $133 billion, that is bad but there is some 458 institutions that received money that may or may not be able to pay it back. we still, as the u.s. treasury, taxpayer still has a huge stake in big financial institutions. aig, general motors and allied bank. some of that money may never come back. maybe we'll get the aig money back. the other two maybe not so much. general motors, we the taxpayers own general motors stock, to break even the stock would have to be 54, $55 a share. right now it's trading $25 a share. aig getting close to the breaking point trading $25 a share, 28, 29 is the breaking point. allied bank used to be called gmac, general motors acceptance corporation, it's a financing wing of general motors. we gave them $12.5 billion. they turned themselves into

another financial institution kaud allie called allied bank. you know the guy that tricks the little kid about banking. they are now a financial institution. that -- martha: general motors is doing just great in the state of the union, so i assume that that stock will start moving up and we'll get paid back, right? >> reporter: i don't know, martha, the ipo of the stock, the government bailed them out, they brought that company public at around $31 a share a year ago or so and it's done nothing but go down since, full disclosure. i hone some general motors stock, i'm going to have a firsthand experience telling you it's not doing well. when i see the numbers of the volts, 6,000, 7,000 volts when they extented 10,000 and 60,000 next year, i'm going, really? should i really be owning this stock? i buy for the long term. i'm going to hold onto my gm stock. martha: eric bolling we'll watch

for you on the 5? bill: in the interest of full disclosure as they say. thank you, eb. cuba is taking center stage in the race for the presidency in florida. candidates on the trail in that state. and cuban americans make up a large voting block in florida. it remains a tight race as we showed you last hour, when scott rasmussen broke the news on this bowl. it shows a neck-and-neck place for first place. chief political correspondent carl cameron is on the move in jacksonville, florida. early voting already becoming a big story there, is it not? >> reporter: that's right, bill. we've already got about a fifth of the vote in in florida, perhaps a 6th. about ten to 15% or more at this point. look at some of the numbers in florida based on the sis them thesystem they use. early voting began last saturday, 117,000 votes already

cast. absentee balloting is a very big deal in this state, already 495,000 ballots have gone out. now the date for requests ended yesterday, no more can be requested. already 200 32,000 ballots have been returned. it's believed that a great deal of those are likely to be romney supporters since many of them came back before the south carolina given r-r blowout victory. newt gingrich victory. the expectation is approximately 2 million will vote in the republican primary. newt gingrich is trying to rally conservatives at a tea party rally hitting mitt romney pretty hard. there is a new video outdated back to 1985 including nancy reagan talking about how the torch was passed from romney to newt that came in on the big

revolution that gingrich led. he says it's ridiculous for romney to be questioning his conservatism as a reaganite. the last debate is tonight. we are five days and counting, and all the polls suggest this is going to be a late-night when we do the final counting on primary day itself. bill: thank you, carl. lesrest the voice, we're going to need you especially come tuesday. martha. martha: you can follow the candidates live all day long if you have nothing else to do. you can just sit there on foxnews.com and watch the live stream of the candidates. oh, you can say ron paul at a hot dog stand and mitt romney at a diner, et cetera, et cetera. you can find the president's row marks later today in las vegas where he is talking to folks in nevada. bill: we know where we'll be on tuesday too. full coverage of the primary on tuesday starts at 6:00 eastern, fox news, your america's election headquarters. martha: that's right.

bill: if you're not there you go online and take us with you. martha: bad news to report now, innocent civilians have been killed in a homicide bombing in southern afghanistan. the target was a convoy of aid workers sponsored by nato. take a look at results of this. civilians were killed in this attack including a child. 31 others were hurt in this blast. we hear that three of the injured are part of that aid team. according to the reports that we're getting their injuries are not life threatening. helmand continues to be a province that is extremely violence. bill: ten people killed, the attack hitting the home of two police officers, two babies among the victims. authorities believe terrorists planted the bombs overnight, detonated the explosives early in the morning. it's the latest attack by militants targeting security forces in iraq j iraq.

martha: we are now returning that ray lahood's son, sam, is on a no exit list in egypt. he's been barred from leaving the country. the younger lahood is tkrerbgt of an advocacy group that was raided by the egyptian government just last month. to help us figure out of this we have a fox news middle easter reus image lis and author of the comi revolution. no doubt the lahood family is very concerned about their soon. >> absolutely. this is troubling as you said, mart that. for the first time we see post hosni mubarak military authorities going african-american an international ngo's. mr. lahood is the head of the cairo-based branch of the national institute. they shut down and raided the national democratic institute. this is troubling coming from a government from authorities that receives billions of dollars in

aid from washington. martha: you know, during the whole arab spring period there was so much discussion about what it would mean when these dictators, many of whom people really wanted to see out of power, but what that vacuum would leave behind. what does it tell us about what is going on in the ground in egypt now. >> reporter: that is precisely the measurement with which we should look at egypt in particular. we see a surging coalition between the military council which is very concerned about its own future, about its own power, but also future allies they may have, those who have now a majority in the parliament, the muslim brotherhood. it seems that both have an interest in not seeing any more in cairo or inee keupt in egypt, ngo's training egyptians for the next elections. that could be one of the reasons the raids took place. martha: before i let you go, why do you think they are holding him? what would you guess is their

reasoning? and what do you think will happen? is he going to be released? >> eventually he will be released. obviously what we're going to see, almost likely is that the authorities are going to try to evidence that the u.s. is medling, quote unquote inee kweupginee tkpweupgs politics, look at laptops, his father is a prominent information and the head of transportation. they are going to use all that pressure for the situation. bill: breaking news ins housing market. why 2011 is a year best forgotten. she could be the most talked about secretary in the world at the moment. >> right now because of loopholes and shelters in the tax codes a quarter of all millionaires pay lower tax rates than millions of middle class households. right now warren buffett pays a lower tax rate than his

secretary. bill: she might pay a higher tax percentage in the end. is all this talk giving you the whole story? we'll do a fact check on that. martha: very interesting. passengers aboard the doomed ocean liner were not told that the ship was sinking for more than an hour. but guest who knew almost instantly. bill: one guess, right? president obama met by governor jan brewer at the airport on the tarmac in arizona. look at this picture here, apparently not so warm and fuzzy, huh? >> he wants amnesty and we are never going to agree on that, and we agree to disagree on that subject. i don't know why he was surprised by my book, but he evidently is and he's very thin-skinned in regards to it. or even 20 years? call imperial structured settlements. the experts at imperial can convert your long-term payout into a lump sum of cash today.

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sales down about 6%. this after we got the report that the foreclosure market has dropped slightly. but still for every home that is sold today, whether new or not, about 20% of all home sales is in the foreclosure range. so if the numbers come down, the percentage has come down a little bit but it's rough down in the real estate market. and say goodbye to 2011. a rough, rough, year. martha: bye-bye. brand-new polls this morning that show that americans are growing more optimistic about the state of our economy according to an nbc news "wall street journal" poll 37% say they believe the economy is going to get better next year. 17% say no, and 44% say it will stay about the same. so how does this affect president obama's re-election campaign? christopher hahn is a former aid to senator chuck schumer and a fox news contributor. and angela mccowan is a fox news

analyst. wilwelcome to you both. republicans look at the economy as the strongest reason to put a republican in the white house come 2012. does this eat into that argument? >> well, the only great thing, martha, that i see from this poll, it is a red flag that the american people are kin tired of seeing mitt romney and newt gingrich fight and they want solutions. the poll in october was 32%, now it's 27%. it gives obama a 7-point bump. the economy and jobs will be the main factors in this owe hrebgs thithis election this year. martha: there will be a lot of ups and down in the economy, chris hahn. we got unemployment numbers that were not good this morning, moving in the wrong direction. ben bernanke came out and said he doesn't expect that the economy is going to get markedly better any time soon. is the optimism a little bit over blown, perhaps? >> reporter: it's good that people associated with the president and administration are

managing expectation. let's understand one thing about this economy. optimism bee gets optimism. the more people become optimistic, the more they spend money the more the economy improves and that is only good news for the president. let's face it the referendum will probably be about the president, and if people feel the economy is getting better, they will vote for him. listen, even mitch daniels said the president didn't cause these problems, they are kreu criticizing his khraougss. if i solutions. if it looks like this october or november his solutions are working they won't be able to unseat him. >> people are going to go to the ballot box and vote their pocketbooks. having hope and great feelings doesn't pay the bills. martha: they'll look at the alternative and say, do i think that person can do a better job in my life than that person? that is what it will come down to when you get the head-to-head match up. i want to ask you guys about the whole warren buffett, secretary

issue. was that a positive, christopher hahn for the president to go down that road. you don't work for warren buffet and not do really well if you're sitting right outside his office. i assume he's going to take pretty good care you. she is in the top tax bracket range, the estimate is 2 to $500,000 a year. >> there are people who work for our money by wages, and people who move their money by moving money around. martha: but they made that money first by making their money, christopher. this is what people don't understand. >> martha, a lot of it is on low interest loans they get from the fed. let's be honest on this. they are making money on money and some of that money is borrowed from the american people. >> why don't you admit that was a poor example. now we are finding out how much she gets paid. the president is supposed to be a warrior for the middle class? hum. >> i did think her pearls were a little bit too nice.

martha: and good for her. i don't know if she's got even pwerbg sheu berkshire hathaway stocks on her deal. she would be paying 15% cap gains, she would be at the same tax rate. the thing of punishing people because they are investing in the economy, they should have to pay double, is that a good political way to go for the administration? >> we are rewarding these people all too much. they are making their money on the backs of the american people and not paying their fair share of taxes. >> the people who pay taxes that romney made create jobs. how are they making money on the backs of the american people by investing in the economy. >> they are not creating jobs, they are not investing in the economy. they are making money by moving money around. the choice right now for republicans is between a guy who owns freddie mac and fannie mae and a guy who was their

lobbyist. >> it's not going to work. martha: thank you, guys. to be continued. great to see you both. bill: it has been a recurring question for republicans so far in the ballot for the white house. who can best beat president obama? some new polling numbers just out give a clearer picture about that. is it romney or gingrich? we'll talk to the daughter of newt gingrich. she is a campaign adviser as well. all that coming up. martha: president obama pushing his plans for more domestic oil and gas production as u.s. oil experts reach an all time high? why do oil prices keep on going up? bya, because you asked, and this man has your answer right after this break. ♪ well the first thing you know old jed's a millionaire, the kin folk said, yesterday move away from there. california is the place you ought to be, so they loaded up the truck and moved to

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martha: a stunning admission from the owners of the wrecked cruise ship off the coast of italy. the operator of the cruise ship is now admitting that they knew that the ship was flooding and that it would most likely sink more than an hour before the passengers were told that they needed to get off the ship. there were also reports that the coast guard got complaints from worried passengers, they thought something was very wrong, and they were told that it's just a black out, nothing to worry about. 16 confirmed deaths now in this case, and more than a dozen people are still missing in that tragedy. bill: that story is not over, is it? president obama hitting the road tk a pitch for his energy plan today, you heard about it on tuesday night, set to call for expanding oil and natural gas production here on american soil. why gas prices right now at $3.38 a gallon for regular on average across the country according to aaa, a year ago screen right it was $3.11 per

gallon. that bring us to bya, because you asked the following questions on gas prices. chuck wright out of pennsylvania for the first time in history the u.s. is exporting record amounts of oil, so why are gas prices going up? charles payne from the fox business network here to break this down. good morning. what would you take it? >> ironically chuck kind of answered it himself. we are exporting refined crude oil. we are exporting gasoline. there is still demand, but it's not domestic demand. as long as there are people out there buying it it's a tkapbd kind odemand thing. bill: we are doing 3.1 million barrels a day, a record as you point out, but the overseas demand is still high and they are buying our stuff even though u.s. demand has dropped off, correct. >> u.s. demand has dropped off as a reflection of the economy.

we are exporting crude oil, we turn it into jet fuel. this will be huge for this country. bill: how are they going to mess it up. >> fracking has become environmentally interest number one. if you can block the keystone pipeline next online would be fracking. $88billion in exports of fuel, first time ever that was our number one export you think about that, it's so odd and amazing to chuck's point you think maybe prices would be going down. another thing to look into bill, taxes. gasoline, fossil fuels are the new sin just like beer and cigarettes, this administration thinks they are a sin they are taxed heavily on the federal and local level, especially places like california. bill: what is our hunch on taxes when it comes to goods lean. >> i think they will go higher. bill: why? >> i think a it's a sin. the higher gasoline tax go maybe you might be convinced to buy a

volt. we get to 4 or $5 a gallon people may start to look at the alternatives. bill: on the whole keystone pipeline this is a risk that the white house takes here. if you go into the summer months and gas is up to 4, 5 bucks a gallon we all pay for it. there is a political risk that either romney or gingrich can hammer back at the white house. the other idea about fracking, you know where fracking happened in pennsylvania. they went for obama four years ago. nebraska went republican. there is little risk to saying no to the keystone pipeline for the vote in nebraska. if you were to tell pennsylvania, a state that has so many jobs because of this new technique i would say they are not going to change their decision. >> they've got some important decision toss make in new york as well. but listen it's been an economic miracle. you look at states like north dakota with unemployment at 3.8%. bill: it's remarkable isn't it. martha: it is sad from a

consumer point of view that gasoline this year, some time in the next couple of months, probably we hit the highs level ever in this country over a sustained period. we've had spikes before but last year the average price of $3.52, that was a record, and this year we'll break that record. bill: you're saying if it goes to that market it stays there over time it could be considerable. we will walk that. charles payne in the house today. hemmer at fox news.com is the email. also on twitter at bill hemmer. terrific questions. keep them rolling in online right now. martha: tensions between the president and arizona governor tkpwa*pb brewer. she claim jan brewer. she claims her book got him who the under the collar. >> i said you read my book. he said i red excerpts from it. the bottom line is that the book is factual, the book is true. martha: governor jan brewer joins us here in "america's newsroom." she'll be here to talk to us about what happened after that. bill: that's like picture of the

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bill: it is not ever day that an airplane arrival makes headlines like this. but that tarmac meeting between the president and arizona governor jan brewer certainly has, those two known to disagree

over immigration issues. this somewhat tense exchange reportedly took place after he brought up her book. what was in the book? arizona governor jan brewer to me by telephone. governor, good morning to you. >> good morning, bill. bill: let's talk about the book in a moment. what happened on the tarmac. >> i was there to welcome him to arizona, and was happy to see firsthand the arizona comeback. i had a had written note i wanted to give him to tell him all about it, and i gave it to him, and he turned it around, and started talking about how offended he was how my book portrayed him. bill: you gave him a note? did he read the note. >> no he did not read the note. i explained to him how we changed things in arizona as far as business and how well we were doing. bill: did that message relate to

the issue of immigration. >> owe. bill: or the economy or? no, no, the note was, i wanted to tell them what we had done to get arizona turned around in this upside down economy, and it was about jobs and talking about our conference of tax reform and a moratorium and rules on regulations, and moving from 47th to the top 10. it was good news. it was good news. bill: and then so he wanted to ask you about your book, it's called scorpians for breakfast. what did he ask you, governor. >> he was offended about how i portrayed him in my book. and i was taken aback. i wasn't going to back down, obviously, i mean i stand by what i wrote. it was the truth, and we just have to agree to disagree on immigration. i want my boards secured, borders secured i want the

federal government to do something about it and he wants to talk about amnesty. that's not what i'm interested in. i want my borders secured. bill: in a book you talk about a meeting you had with him at the white house. >> right. bill: did you fairly represent the meeting you had with him in your book, do you believe? >> absolutely. absolutely. why wouldn't i? you know, i'm talking to the most powerful man in the world, and i have respect for him, i have respect for the office. you know, i wouldn't go out and misconstrue what our conversation was. bill: you wrote, it was as though president obama thought he could lecture me and i would learn at his knee. >> right, right and that's not how i felt, and that's exactly the way that it was presented to me. i sat there and i listened to him, and listened to him, quietly, and then i had my opportunity, i took my opportunity to share with him what was going on in arizona and invited h-pl t him to come down

firsthand. and by the way he has never been to the border in arizona, and we are the gateway, the gateway for drug cartels and the violence spilling over from mexico. bill: how did your conversation with him end? >> at the airport? bill: yes. >> he walked away. i was in the middle of a sentence and he walked away. bill: mccain beat obama 53-45 percentagewise in 2008. what you're saying is that the economy in arizona is getting better or is it back to where it needs to be? >> no it's not back to where it should be. it should be a lot better, but we have donnie nor done denorm must things here and made tough decisions. we have a balanced budget for the first time in years, we have a revenue surplus going forward. we wanted him to see what we had done with our tax return, and big companies where we had

employed a lot of employees. we have done everything we could possibly do. we had been successful. i was hyannis port eyei was happy. i wanted to share with him what we have done, hoping he could do something like that on the federal level. bill: governor brewer thank you for your time. it was a picture that -- it's getting a lot of attention, frankly. thank you for explaining your position there. governor brewer in phoenix, martha with more. martha: joining us former congressman john shaddig, also a fox news contributor. what do you make of all that? >> it's really rather stunning. i've been standing on the tarmac when a president comes down, and you expect a very cordial, nonsubstantive conversation, and governor brewer is pleasant, she rose through the ranks in arizona, she is cordial, she will defend herself but i'm sure she was completely shocked that he would attack her over what was in her book when there are

home other things they could have been discussing. martha: we haven't heard the president's side of what happened, and maybe we will get some indication from the white house about what his take on it was. perhaps he was just kind of ribbing here about the book a little bit. but that moment, you know, she used the word patronizing, when they met earlier. that may be what set off the tension in that discussion. >> i don't think we can explain this away. we haven't heard his version, we've seen the pictures and heard the reports from the reporters, and the reporters confirmed that he appeared to walk away from her hi her mid sentence. the thing about the book is she writes about her own feelings. she felt he was talking down to her. there is no way on an issue of immigration where the federal government has attacked the state of arizona and attacked the state of arizona that they are going to share the same feelings in that meeting. if she wrote she felt she was

being talked down to i think those were the genuine feelings at the moment. i don't think this presidential strong point is listening to people. i don't think he particularly takes kreu criticism well and i think her sum reef the conversation was a genuine synopsis of how she felt during that meeting. for him to react to it is surprising at all, but that he would then jump her about it when they greet on the tarmac i think is twicing. martha: it' surprising. martha: it's an interesting moment to take a look eight. joining us on this today and political issues as we head into the campaign. we look forward to seeing more of you. bill: we will see the president today in las vegas i do believe. we'll see if there is more reaction to this then. in the meantime newt gingrich repeatedly toutin touting his work with an iconic president. >> on the economy i worked with reagan in the 80s, 16 million jobs. the economy stagnated i became

speaker, i worked with bill clinton, we created 11 million jobs by following the reagan play book. bill: newt gingrich daughter will respond to the accusations that tkpweupblg shinmoedak newt gingrich is not a true reaganite. martha: what played out on this ice rink. managing my diabetes is part of my life, between taking insulin, testing my blood sugar.

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bill: have you seen this close call for a group of skaters? the roof of an ice rink caves in, it's on camera. watch this. you see it start to buckle, right, and everything just gives way. that is in slovakia.

the former washington capital player had a group of players on the ice before it happened. they got out. the heavy ice on the roof causing that collapse. you can see as the roof starts to buckle under the weight of the snow before it all comes tumbling down. they are getting the snow that we are not in europe, aren't they? martha: right. going back to politics now, folks. brand-new polls show presidential candidate mitt romney has the best chance of beating press in 2012 according to the quinnipiac poll. a dead heat 45-45. president obama beats newt gingrich in that same poll by 11% in a potential match up. jackie gingrich is his daughter and one of his top campaign advisers. welcome. >> good morning, i'm thrilled to be with you, thank you. martha: great to have you as always. those numbers not so great, what is your reaction? >> oh, i think we've seen over

the course of this race the poll numbers go up, they go down, they go back up again, they go down again, they go back up again. and what really matters in the end is how the voters vote. we saw that very clearly in south carolina where dad garnered over 40% of the vote and beat mitt romney by 12%. so now we're in florida, he's drawing these incredibly huge crowds, a lot of momentum and we'll see what happens early next week. martha: so much of the conversation it feels like over the past calm of days has been sort of ma tpho monopalized about how reagan your father is, or not reagan enough, and your father kreu criticizing reagan in the 1990s. and a video surfacing from nancy

reagan drawing a link between reagan and your dad. >> the dramatic movement of 1985 is an outgrowth of a much earlier crusade that goes back after a century. barry tkpwoerld water handed the torch to ronnie, and in turn ronnie turned that torch over to newt, and the republican members of congress to keep that dream alive. martha: i bet the campaign was pretty happy when they found that, right? >> it is a great clip. some of the things that dad represents like reagan did is a connection with the american people. one of the things he's able to do is he can articulate what the american people are thinking, what they are feeling, their belief in an optimistic future for america, a belief that we can all work together and get somewhere better and a belief that we need limited government, less taxes, less regulations. as you know dad is the only tkapbdad is the only candidate including president obama who at the national level has cut

taxes, cut spending, balanced the national budget for four years and reformed rel wear. he has the trac welfare. he has the track record to prove that he can do it. martha: the thing interesting in florida, there will be a debate tonight is the electorate. it represents a lot of different sections of society, it's almost like a microcosm, in florida. the numbers seem to be trending back towards mitt romney's direction in florida. i know polls are polls and we'll see what happens when people go to vote. how are you sort of handling florida differently given that? >> there are a couple of things, you're exactly right. it's a very big state with a very diverse population. the good news is he's been drawing enormous crowds, i think 6,000 recently he through at a place. there are a lot of people that are being involved. we are looking at a variety of different groups. we are doing a lot of hispanic outreach, which we've been doing for years, and talking to them

about what does immigration reform mean and how would you do it. i think florida is going to be very, very volatile until the end. tonight's debate will clearly be watched by many people. most people probably won't make up their minds until the last two days before the election. martha: how much did it hurt that marco rubio came out and smacked down something your dad said in an ad. and it was polled by the campaign that ad. rubio support clearly would be a great thing for either one of these candidates. >> i think either one would love to have his support. in the end what the voters are looking for is the person that can go toe-to-toe with president obama on the debate stage and win and that person is clearly my father. martha: jackie gingrich-kcus hman, no surprise you're a big supporter of your dad. thank you. bill: five days. what are you working on there, jen a. jenna: we'll be talking more about florida, bill. we have new polls and new analysis of the florida race.

we'll talk a little bit about rick santorum and ron paul. we don't want to procedure get this pwepl. more about iran today, mahmoud ahmadinejad is sudden lie interested in talking. what do we make of that? we'll dig a little deeper. and larry sabato is here with his crystal ball. people say they feel like things are crawling on them, they see fibers on their skin. is this a new disease or is it just in their heeds? bill: thank you, jenna. will the democratic-led senate raise our nation's debt limit? martha: a kick-thinking child saves the day when her dad has trouble breathing. her remarkable 911 call for help. >> my dad, it's hard for him to breathe. >> okay, your dad is having trouble breathing? >> uh-huh. my mom should be here pretty soon. >> your mom should be there. did you call your mom? >> yeah.

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martha: a seven-year-old missouri girl being called a hero today after calling 911 when her dad was having trouble breathing, authorities saying that they were very impress wed this little girl's ability to keep her composure. listen to part of this 911 call. >> my dad, it's hard for him to breathe. >> okay, your dad is having trouble breathing? >> uh-huh. my mom should be here pretty soon. >> your mom should be there? did you call your mom? >> yeah. >> you did? >> uh-huh. >> okay. >> the last time i talked to her she said she'd be here 15 minutes or less, because i just talked to her five minutes ago. >> i just want to ask you, do you know how old your dad is? >> how old are you? >> he's 53. >> 53? okay. so he is awake.

>> yes he is. >> and he is breathing. >> yeah, but it's very hard for him to try to. martha: she is wonderful. she relayed everything exactly as she needed to. tom was working on a project at home when his lungs filled with sawdust and it made him very hard for him to breathe. an ambulance group honored little abby last night what a lovely young girl she is. what a fantastic job she did taking care of her dad. how old are you, i love it? when mike asks me that, i go, none of your business. bill: go do something else, skrapl. adorable child there. a stalemate in the investigation of fast and furious that is the federal gun running sting that may have led to the death of border agent brian terry. attorney general eric holder and the justice department blaming u.s. attorneys in arizona for giving congress bad information. the prosecutors are refusing to

testify. william la jeunesse back on the story live in l.a. william, what is the issue? >> reporter: well, bill that testimony could determine if this investigation ends with a bang or a whimmer. she's attorneys know if fast and furious was as the attorney general contends, a rogue operation by a few bad apples in phoenix, or a top-down washington approved scandal. patrick cunningham was the lead attorney for this case. he was subpoenaed before congress and is now taking the fifth, refusing to answer questions. oversight chairman darrell issa calls this a major escalation of justice department culpability and without his testimony the committee can't gauge the virginia ras satisfactory steve the department's claims that washington knew nothing about this operation. so yesterday the committee requested to talk to cunningham's number two, attorney mike morrissey. they claim he is not allowed to talk to the committee. >> of course we are worried about people taking the fifth for two reasons, first of all,

it thwarts the investigation and second of all it is an indication that somebody has something which they believe if they tell us the truth could lead to their indictment. >> reporter: no comment from the justice department. bill. bill: what happens now, william? >> reporter: well, here is the dilemma. so far the committee has no smoking gun and they are running out of bullets. critics say congress hasn't played hardball no, prosecutions, no contempt proceedings. all that is left may be putting cunningham and more is see in fronmorrissey in front of the cameras to turn up the heat on holder. >> how they react to senior law officials are taking the fifth and the justice department cannot produce somebody who can tell the truth. >> reporter: the attorney general appears before the committee a week before today. bill: we'll stay on top of it. william la jeunesse in l.a. with that update, martha. martha: did you see this brilliant light show in the sky? look at these incredibly

beautiful pictures. northern lights, what caused this spectacular scene in places around the world? we'll tell you when we come back. ♪ there's always something that's going to have to be done by a certain date. you always have homework, okay? i don't have homework today. it's what's right here is what is most important to me. it's beautiful. ♪ ♪

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