gwen: anatomy of a scandal. why the herman cain story wont go away and what it means for the g.o.p. plus, economic uproar here and abroad. we take you behind the scenes tonight on "washington week." >> i told you this bulls eye on my back has gotten bigger. we have no idea the source of this witch hunt. gwen: before the week was over, cain was blaming the press, other candidates, and even his accusers as a sexual harassment scandal grew. >> excuse me! excuse me! gwen: and other candidates kept their distance. >> this race is really about the mess that washington is in. >> it took 43 presidents over

200 years to accumulate $6.3 trillion in debt. president obama's on track to do that in just one term. gwen: meanwhile, new jobless numbers out today show the economy at home remains in a stall, while world leaders try to head off a full-fledged global crisis. >> the most important aspect of our task is to resolve financial crisis in europe. gwen: everywhere you look, flash points. covering the week, john harris of "politico," charles babington of the "associated press," jim tankersley of "national journal," and alexis simendinger of "real clear politics." >> award-winning reporting and analysis covering history as it happens. live from our nations capitol, this is "washington week with gwen ifill," produced in association with "national journal." corporate funding for

"washington week" is provided by -- >> we know why we're here. to give our war fighters every advantage. >> to deliver technologies that anticipate the future today. >> and help protect america everywhere, from the battle space to cyberspace. >> around the globe the people of boeing are working together to give our best for america's best. >> that's why we're here! >> additional funding for "washington week" is provided by prudential financial, norfolk southern. the anenberg foundation, the corporation for public broadcasting and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. once again, live from washington, moderator gwen ifill.

gwen: good evening. last week we told you about why herman cains star was on the rise. this week we tell you about the worst week of his campaign. it all started with a story broken by "politico," which reported that two former employees accused him of sexual harassment in the late 1990's. his responses to the charges have been -- to put it charitably -- all over the place. >> was there any behavior on your part that you think may have been inappropriate? >> in my opinion, no. but as you would imagine, it's in the eye of the person who thinks that maybe i crossed the line. i was aware that an agreement was reached. the word "settlement" versus the word "agreement," you know, i'm not sure what they called it. >> the first phase is they ignore you. the second phase, they ridicule you. the third phase, they try to

destroy you. well, got a little of that this week. >> now we're getting the high-tech lynching of a beautiful man, herman cain. >> what is known as the mainstream media goes for the ugliest racial stereotypes they can to attack a black conservative. >> people inside the beltway, they're ready to criticize and say, well, you can't do that. what do you mean i can't do that? i'm going to be president. we can do that. gwen: we can start by asking whether he's actually going to be president, so i'll ask, john harris, how this story unfolded, particularly at "politico." >> this story started with a tip two or three weeks ago. we reported it for several days. acquired enough information that we felt we had hedge it mat

cause to go to the campaign, the cain campaign, and ask them about it. we did that on october 20. we first had no response. then we had a series of somewhat confusing responses. just as we were set to publish, i made the decision that we needed to do more than just rely on cain acetaminophen and advisors. we needed -- cain supposemen and advisors, we needed to talk to the candidate himself. so we talked to him as he was leaving the cbs studio and asked him about this, got his response and published the story. it was thoroughly reported by about a group of four to five reporters and then went through an extensive editing process and we made judgments, is this fair, is it accurate, is it relevant? we decided that it was and we published. we've seen the rest of the events play out in a very tumultuous fashion over the last

week. gwen: but we don't know who these accusers are. we tonight know who these women are. we have had people speaking on their behalf saying things happened, but we don't know precisely what happened. at what point or how vigorously, i guess, did the campaign ever try to push back on the details of this? >> they really didn't. i think that was what was surprising. if somebody asks you about two specific cases, typically i would expect from a person running for president, they'd have a response to that. we never really did get a satisfying response. even about 10 days preparation, it did not seem to me that they were fully prepared. we've seen that and it's reflected in the kind of multiple serial explanations, each one adding and modifying the other. i would say importantly, even though there's been criticism from her man cain of the press, he's been the main person

confirming "the politico" story, "associated press" reporting and other reporting. the sent tal facts alleged were that there were two women who made sexual harassment claims. he's acknowledged there were sexual harassment complaints, although i thinkths only one that he's acknowledged, and that there were financial payouts. he's acknowledged that. so he is now the main confirmer of these stories. gwen: except he says that at the heart of it there was no sexual harassment, which there's no way to vet that without somebody else giving us more information. usually when this sort of thing happens, there's a pile-on. they say everybody in the pool, let's take him out. there's been an ear resilence on the part of the other -- eerie silence on the part of the other candidates. >> this has not played out yet. and for those opponents of herman cain, there's a sense that we don't need to pile on. let's see how he fares. he was never seen by the

establishment as someone who is a probable nominee. his rise to the polls was very surprising. i think the vast majority or almost all the republican insiders that i talked to believe both before and i think now that he will come down, as did michele bachmann and rick perry, and so they're still waiting for that to happen. i think they'll be shocked. gwen: there's a new poll out today that says 70% say this makes no difference to me. >> maybe we shouldn't be too surprised by this. these are polls of conservative, many of whom for whatever reason like to be opposed to what they see as a liberal press, so they have sort of a natural reaction to that. also, we're still in the early phase of this primary election. and republican voters are still sort of shopping around and flirting, and i think that's why you see michele bachmann go up and down and rick perry go up and down. i'm not saying they're not

giving serious answers, but they probably have not locked in yet to, yes, when i do into the voting booth, this is the person i will vote for. >> one of the things we heard right away from candidate cain himself was to point the fingers elsewhere. so he had some unkind things to say about the culpability of the perry campaign or the romney campaign or the media. so what is that about? why did he decide to go that direction? how did he handle this? >> he did seem to be flailing about, actually, because, alexis, rather quickly they backed away from that allegation about rick perry. and rick perry, of course, said we had nothing to do with it. >> that's what's interesting about this. it's been all over the place. one day they say it's the perry guy. he used to work for me. the next day they say another thing. it just -- i don't even know how you guys have been keeping up with this, john. it seems like every single day there's a whole new front in this story. >> penguin, it's been hard to keep -- gwen, it's been hard to

keep our wits about us, but we've been focusing on what's important. the question of motives of sources -- and i think it was transparently obvious that in the cain campaign statements about this, that they had no idea who the sources were. they didn't present any evidence. they made charges, with drew them, back and forth. that's not the central question. the central questions are the facts in this case. some of those facts have now been confirmed. others are still unknown. we still do not have a complete picture of precisely what was alleged. sexual harassment is bad. i think people would say it's on a spectrum. so there is between something that would be inappropriate and something that would be just blatantly disqualifying. we don't yet have the full answers to those questions. certainly not reported in such a way that we could put them in the public domain. but more and more information is coming out.

just today the lawyer for one of the accusers made available a statement from her. gwen, there's not much that's funny in the story, although there was one, just a little side note that i found kind of amusing. that indicate was settled on september 9, 1999, 9999. but the restaurant association did reach a financial settlement, a sizable one, close to $50,000 with one of the women. so i don't think a case that's seen as a complete nuisance you would probably have a settlement that large. this was a serious matter. it was widely discussed within the n.r.a. -- excuse me, not widely discussed, many people didn't know. but it was discussed intensely at high levels. >> chuck, can we talk about what t means for the republican field? they're still in a flirting position, but we're two months out now from the first primary. is this a good thing for mitt romney, for newt gingrich? who benefits here? >> that question is going around a lot. it seems to have kind of frozen

the campaign in place for one week. that's not a terribly long time, but as you said, we are getting choser. one sense is that's a good thing for romney, because most of the supporters say perry has the money and the experience to mount possibly a serious run against romney. the feel is it would be hard for herman cain to do that. on the other hand, some people feel that if cain were to fall fast -- and maybe that's not going to happen -- that wouldn't be a good thing for romney. romney went to a big event with a conservative event in washington today. laid out a very rather complex plan about spending and medicare. got rather tepid applause. herman cain comes out there, mocks the teleprompter that romney use. just a tremendous ovation. so it's hard to know what to make of all this. probably mitt romney wishes he got more attention for his plan. >> there's a phenomenon we've seen in some of these previous instances of scandal that

reminds me of the old roadrunner cartoons, where wily coyote will go off the cliff and stay stationary, but then drop. i'd be surprised, frankly, if something like that didn't happen in herman cain's case. there's sympathy, especially among conservatives who are skeptical of the press in the first place. but republicans are looking for competence in this election. even if they don't get to the bottom of what happened in the sexual harassment cases, what we saw, there's no reason to mince words. what we saw in the response to this crisis was incompetence. gwen: there's something also interesting in what's going on. we saw some of that in the clims. the outside group that said this was a high-tech lynching and used rush limbaugh's voice to say this is how we go after black kempts. there's a racial overlay. i'm not quite certain how -- i

don't think there is any evidence to support that, but it's being imposed on us by people who normally say race doesn't matter. >> look, there's a ritualistic element to many of these controversies. everybody assumes their assigned role and conservatives are going to say, well bs they're still living events of 20 years ago. here we go with another clarence thomas, almost a knee-jerk reaction. i don't think race had anything to do with this story. and the people saying that simply don't know the facts. it's premature to say that it did. we don't know anything about the motives of the people who originally made these claims. but i've seen no evidence from the reporting to date that it had any racial component to it in terms of the motivation, and i don't -- i just reject the idea that the press interest in this is -- has a racial dimension. a president candidate's got

these kind of accusations against them, that's a story. >> let me throw out names to you. bill clinton, john edwards, anthony weiner. there's been plenty of sex scandals all of different types and not necessarily involve sexual harassment. these all involved white men. there's been -- just recently we had two congressmen from new york state, one a democrat, one republican, forced out of office because of sexual improprieties. i think there is some selective accusations. gwen: just a little bit of cynicism. thank you all. we're going to whoof on, because while we remain consumed with the twists and turns of the cain controversy, the president is abroad on a much larger stage, coping with a much more consequential problem. speaking at the g-20 meeting in cannes today, president obama linked the global crisis that threatens to topple the greek government to the one he is grappling with here at home. >> i know it isn't easy, but what is absolutely critical and what the world looks for in moments such as this is action.

that's how we confronted our financial crisis in the united states. we did what was necessary to address the crisis, put ourselves on a stronger footing, and to help rescue the global economy. gwen: but has it worked? new unemployment numbers out today seem to show we still dont know. isn't that right, alexis? >> there was a economist today who said that this is the recovery of turtles. this is kind of a holding pattern that we're dealing with on unemployment. the october numbers came out today. instead of 9.1% unemployment, we've got 9% unemployment. gwen: but it wasn't 9.2%. >> absolutely. that is exactly what 80,000 new jobs -- the president today decided today that he would seize the tiny pinpoint of light and talk about how the voters need to talk about the trend lines, that the trend lines are positive. he's got 20 months of growth behind him. and he stood in france today and talked about how when he came to office, contraction was at 9%.

a year later growth was at 4%, and that the trend was positive. so he was in this awkward position of standing in europe as almost like a side show to what was happening in the -- among the group of nations that share the euro together. the eurozone is what it's called. and the united states and his leadership is considered weak enough on the world stage that today's report did no good to bolster him or his leadership. but he's trying to argue to the voters with the best possible data that he can come up with, which is very slight, that the trend is improving, and he can't point to unemployment necessarily, but growth is what he's trying to say is getting better. gwen: i'm not sure what else there is for him to say at this point. jim, is in a connection that the president standing on this global stage, is there a connection between what we see happening, this continuing, never-end being uproar in europe and in greece especially, with what we are seeing happening here at home? >> absolutely.

the president and economists have talked a long time about headwinds to the u.s. recovery which we've seen for a long time. to be very frank, the president's advisors underestimated it for a long time when they thought the economy was self-sustaining this spring. we've seen supply disruppings in japan which are going away. higher oil prices, which are going away and the third thing, which is not going away, the headwind for the u.s. recovery is the european economy. it all starts in greece, which has more debt than it can bear and is not going to be able to pay its lenders pack very soon when the payments are due. so the europeans are trying to help bail out greece, get some of its bills retuesdayed by its creditors. gwen: they thought they had a deal. >> and if they can't do that bs they're trying to what's called firewall greece off. even if it goes completely up in flames economically, the eurozone won't be affected. otherwise it could spread. bad debt spread through european

banks imperils spain, italy, it spreads through the entire german and the french banking systems and they could very easily hop the pond and hit american banks, and that could take the little bit of steam that we have in the american recovery entirely out. >> it's hard, really, for americans to -- we know freese is a fairly small country. it's not a big economy. it seems court intuitive that economic problems in greece could threaten this country, our big country. but, you know, it does. i think you've helped explain the sort of domino effect that might happen. if it does hop the pond, as you say, what tools do we have to deal with it? >> well, it's funny, because the president has been telling the europeans, learn from us, learn from us, learn from us. what he wants them to learn is what we did in the 2008 financial crisis. here's what we did -- we bailed out the banks and we did it an enormous systematic stimulus package in congress. hardly anyone thinks that either of those things would happen again should we get a crisis.

so the tools we're faced with deploying are, around, not what we're telling the europeans to do, and, b, probably very limited. so congress is not even making contingency plans right now for what could happen if europe goes pad and we are left essentially with the federal reserve lendinging money to keep banks solvent and trying to pump up the monetary system, easing even further to try to boost growth. >> are the markers that we should be watching? when are we going to know? are there deadlines coming up when we learn whether this headwind becomes more than a head wink, but an actual tidal wave? >> well, in greece there was a confidence vote that went through this evening, so that means that there will be elections later. but that means that they're embracing the european bailout plan, which was what they were walking away from with this discussion of a referendum. so their need now is they will get an infusion of loans and

cash. so there's time. they've bought some time. but in this case, too bs they're talking about this idea that europe has to be ready to support europe and that was the message that the president was trying to bring. international monetary fund will be ready and willing to do that. so there's some time here, but there's also great concern, as jim was mentioning, about italy. italy has asked, voluntarily asked, for the i.m.f. to supervisor its recovery from its debt burdens, hoping to try to keep some confidence building in europe. also, we heard this week the european central bank said that atlantis a very good chance of a mild recession appearing in europe by the end of this year. the united states looks like it's averted a double dip, but that's not good news, since europe is our largest trading partner. gwen: since the debate is all about austerity on both sides of the popped, we're tacking about cutting back -- pond, we're talking about cutting back and

growth. is there a middle ground here through this, or is this argument also -- this political argument we're having about austerity, is it also slowing us down? >> certainly in the united states it's very polarizing. it's hard to see any middle ground. the president has fut forth this jobs bill, which is the anti-austerity, which we are in a lot of debt, but we're going to keep borrowing to prop up demand. the flagging demand is a huge drain on our recovery right now. that got blocked in the senate again. even this infrastructure component which the president's advisors had thought at first maybe they could get republican support on, totally blocked in the senate this week. it's hard to see how republicans would call for anything but more budget cuts in the event of a european meltdown. >> ironically, the president is in france lecturing about look at our lessons, and sawster tee is very much needed and growth policies. but he's about to head into his own version of the buzz saw with

congress over austerity, right? which is the super committee discussion about what to do about deficit reduction. so the idea of him standing there trying to encourage the europeans to listen to our lessons fell a little flat among the europeans. >> do they roll their eyes at this? do they resent it? do they think there's a valuable lesson? >> president sarzoky in france was very solicitous of president obama, but there is a rolling of the eyes in terms of the united states is the largest economy and is trying to come and give them tips on how to do this. at one point the president even said today that they had kidded him that he had in fact been the student learning a little bit about european politics. and yet -- gwen: and yet this axis of angela merkel and sarzoky and president obama keems to be the key to any kind of success. >> he's been talking to them a lot. >> more than congress. >> exactly. he's probably talking to merkel and sarzoky more than boehner,

mcconnell and reid and he might get more response from them. >> exactly. laugh plaff >> but the difficult thing for the president is he and his advisors believe the europeans need to do this themselves. that the united states is not going to bail out europe. china is not going to step in and bail out europe. the europeans have the means. there are richer countries in europe that can afford to bail out the poorer ones and the white house is being insistent and they're getting pushback on this. you must fund your own bailout. gwen: are we going to be patient or push for change? that's the tee bait. >> absolutely, yeah. unresolved. gwen: unresolved. gee, thanks. >> maybe we need to come back next friday. gwen: we stick around for your webcast in which we try to resolve it. thank you, everyone. we have to go now, but our conversation continues online in the "washington week" webcast extra. check it out later tonight at pbs.org as we wait for the rest of the shoes to drop here in washington, you can keep up with daily developments online and on

the air on the pbs "newshour," and then well wrap it all up for you again next week on "washington week." good night. >> "washington week" was produced by weta, which is solely responsible for its content. captioned by the national captioning institute --www.ncicap.org-- s >> funding for "washington week" is provided by -- >> this rock has never stood still. since 1875 we've been there for our clients through good times and bad. when their needs changed, we were there to meet them. through the years, from insurance to investment management, from real estate to retirement solutions, we've developed new ideas for the financial challenges ahead. this rock has never stood still. and that's one thing that will never change. prudential.

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