on the computer. and my other guess was maybe she went to ron's house. i didn't know. >> reporter: the police interviewed the other man, of course, ron holthaus. >> i just wanna ask straight up again, not accusing you, do you know where stephanie is right now? >> i absolutely have no idea. >> reporter: ron admitted he and stephanie had a romantic relationship but he denied they ever slept together. >> but we nener ended up having sex. >> reporter: and t tn ron told them something very interesting -- that he had ended the affair. it was that night she moved into the condo, he told them. he said to stephanie that it was over. >> i said, "i'm gonna move to florida with my wife. we're going to try and go back to naples and make this work." >> do you have any reason n believevthat anything bad has happenededo her? >> that would be my worst fear. >> reporter: but thanksgiving day came and went.

force called in the colorado bureau of investigations. which is why agent greg sadar was standing beside the shallolo blue river staring at what looked like a lump of snow on some rocks. >> there was several inches of snow on top of her. you could see the body underneath the snow. >> reporter: it was stephanie, all right. but how did she get here? >> coming up. the autopsy finding that surprised everyone. had stephanie been murdered? >> it's a whodunit. i had at least three viable suspects. >> any one of whom had a potential motive.

>> w wn "dateline" continunu. >> reporter: it was perplexing, almost, that a thing so awful could happen in the midst of such beauty. here in the frigig rushing water of the blue river, three and half days after she disappeared, they found sphanie roller bruner, nude but for a tie dyed shirt that still clung to her body, came to rest against a tumble of snow covered rocks. >> it was just a little bit farther beyond that where the e ter gets calmer, we located hehe-- her remains. >> reporter: just over by that second bend there? >> yes, sir. >> reporter: she hadn't gone

far. agent greg sadar, of the colorado bureau of investigation. how far from her house? >> a rough guess off the top of my head, 300, 350 yards. >> reporter: the news spread fast. >> today, investigators say they have found a body. day. >> your heart drops. let's find out what happened to her along with humongous sadness. >> reporter: the county coroner >> they said, "dale, we need to tell you something." and i'm like, "what?" and -- i just went into convulsions. >> reporter: but how did she get here? was it suicide? accident? or murder? there is a bridge just upstream from the place they found stephanie's body. dale told police she often liked to walk here. >> she could been attacked on this bridge and shoved over. >> that was one of our early fears. >> or, that she had just simply committed suicide. jumped in the water, hit her head and that was that. >> that was also another

legitimate consideration. >> it is. >> reporter: until four days after thanksgiving, when the autopsy revealed a curious detail. one that seemed to rule out suicide. to the soles of her feet. >> what did that mean? >> well, that certainly means that she didn't walk to where we had found her without shoes. >> reporter: and just in case there was any lingering doubt, the autopsy also reveaead that she'd taken n blow to the head. she'd been strangled, but was still alive when she was thrown into the freezing water. the ultimate cause of death -- hypothermia and drowning. >> well, we knew at that point she had been murdered. >> reporter: first murder in silverthorne in decades. but who would do such a thing and why? it was just hours before stephanie took her walk in this virtually crime-free community when somebody robbed that nearby bank. so did the robber later

assault and kill her? >> this is where a predator could haha been hiding out you know, there's any number of opportunities at that point. >> reporter: still, it was so cold. perhaps too cold for a lurking predator? >> this is one of those very few cases where it's -- a whodunit, if you will. and where you've got -- i had at least three viable suspects. >> any o o of whom had potential motive. >> absolutely. >> reporter: there was ron holthaus the other man, who had just suddenly dumped stephanie. there was also ron's wife cindy who, if she had discovered the affair, could have wanted revenge. and then of course there was le bruner. the husband. and any one of them, thought the detectives, was physically capable of committing the crime. >> her husband was 6 foot 200 pound, very athletic guy. mr. holthaus, again a big strong guy.

physically fit woman. >> so she'd be outgunned by any one of them. >> i would believe so, yes sir. >> reporter: they took ron in for questioning several times. and again and again he insisted that it wasn't him. >> i screwed up my marriage, i've made a mess of my life. >> reporter: he admitted that in the last hours of stephanie's life, he met her here in this clothing store parking lot, around dinnertime, and it wasn't a happy meeting. >> i was actually trying to tell her that it was over. >> reporter: he'd earlier sent her a breakup e-mail, he said. she insisted on seeing him in person. she wasn't taking it well at all. >> and then she asked me again one more time like, "but we can make it work?" i said, "no, we cannot make this work." >> she was still interested in having a relationship with him. >> and didn't want to let him go. >> correct. and i'm sure that he was motivated to not let his wife find out about that.

question -- where was ron holthaus later that monday evening, when stephanie went for her walk? >> you're saying to me you were at home. you never went out on monday night? >> correct. >> reporter: the detectives called in ron's wife cindy. >> it would not be unheard of for a woman to be very upset that her -- to find that her husband has been seeing another woman and want to go significant lengths by eliminating the temptation. >> reporter: her alibi -- she was home sleeping right next to o ron. >> okay, d d you know -- do you u know for sure, if ron was in the house? did he leave at any time? >> i can't say i was sitting up and looking at him all night. >> if he got up to leave, would you have awoken? >> i think i would've, yeah. >> reporter: so their alalis were each other. detectives kept prodding. >> how much do you love your husband?

him? >> within reason. would i lie for him? no. because you know what? if he made his bed, he's gotta lay in it. >> reporter: for almost a montnt detectiviv went back and forth between ron and cindy, and stephanie's husband, dale, who by that time had been advised by a friend, better get a lawyer. >> so i called, and my attorney said, "you don't know the onslaught -- the tidal wave that's coming toward you, do youou you haveveo idea. i said, "no, apparently not." >> reporter: oh yes. and what a tidal wave it was. suspects: the husband dale. the boyfriend ron. and ron's wife cindy. when we return, police narrow their focus to just one. after a very strtrge discovery. >> every trace of her had been

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>> it's horrible. i mean it's -- i -- i -- i don't even know how it -- how to explain -- having a microscope go into your world. it' s surreal. >> reporter: there are few secrets in a person's life that can escape the attention of a determined homicide detective. >> everything comes out. absolutely everything. >> reporter: and dale and stephanie, it turned out, had their share of secrets. like the weird thing one chilly morning six weeks before stephanie was murdered. as stephanie told her friend jennifer. >> she heard spanking. and -- she -- she told me she counted at least eight spanks before she got up the stairs and down the hall to the kitchen. >> well, my boy was acting out far beyond, you know, the norm. i said, "come on." >> reporter: that was a wednesday morning. stephanie was furious about the spanking and stormed off to work. and that very day she was laid

off from her county job. and then still upset with dale, stephanie went to see a judge and filed a restraining order against dale. sought a aice from her friend >> honestly, i was -- i was a little bit surprised. i had never detected any major problems in their relationship. >> reporter: but, and this was distinctly odd, she asked the court to delay implementing the order until the following monday. dale, suggested that familil >> we had a wonderful weekend at the -- at the hotel colorado, and the hot springs, swimming with the kids. >> reporter: but then, back in town, is when stephanie revealed that one, she was in love with another man, and two, her restraining order was about to be served. >> she told d that, you know, the sheriff's department was going to come to the house, and i'm gonna have to leave. >> reporter: so he did. after which, said dale, they calmed down and, 10 days later

rescind his order. the court recorded the session. >> i'm never gonna spank again. this potentially could crush my entire world. and i am so sorry to you and will make it up in any and every way i possibly can. >> she wanted to leave. but she felt like the restraining order was -- was too much, that dale didn't deserve that. maybe she had overreacted. >> repororr: and so they talked about ititike adults, and eventually they signed divorce papers. dale even helped stephanie move into her own condo. where, as you know, the very night she moved in, her new love ron told her they weren't going to be together, not then and not ever. he was staying with his wife. two days later, she was dead. and ron, his wife, and dale were under suspicion. >> they said i was a person of interest, and i -- i didn't think i had any worries. >> reporter: but agent sadar wasn't so sure. as his investigation continued,

he became convinced that ron holthouse and his wife cindy had been telling him the truth. >> i feel awful, i feel really awful. >> reporter: but he kept encountering suspicious things about dale. why had he waited until morning to report his wife missing? and why, while dale's friends and family scoured the town looking for stephanie -- why didn't he take part at all? >> it was kinda this mounting series of things that we started to be concerned about. >> reporter: and it was dale, said sadar, who had motive and opportunity. for one thing, the place they found her body, dale could certainly have carried her that far. >> we were stuck by how close it is to ththhouse and how accessible it was even under those snowy conditions. >> reporter: and when dale was still talking, before he lawyered up, his demeanor seemed odd to the detective. one of their meeeengs, at a local restaurantntwas recorded. >> well, what happened to her

you abt. >> very -- very probative. he wanted to know what we had learned from the autopsy. where we were going with the investigation. >> i'm a little wigged out when you said there's no other clothes on her. >> o i -- i have some concerns. i'm being very open and honest with you. >> what the hell happened to her? i mean -- >> hell, that's what i'd like to find out. >> he was nervous, but not outwardly sad. >> reporter: and then, two weeks after the murder, when detective sadar got a search warrant, a house that had beeeecluttered at the time of f e murder was now spotless. what did you find this time? >> nothing. there was nothing to find. >> reporter: there were no signs of blood, no evidence of any struggle. nor, in fact, was there any sisi that stephanie had ever lived there. >> there wasn't a single photograph of her. every trace of her had been scrubbed from the house. >> reporter: it also seemed suspicious, saidithe detective, that dale changed his story a bit. first time he called the police,

he said they'd had an argument before she left to go out walking. later he said there was no argument. >> was there an argument? >> we never had an argument. there was no argument. it was just the -- the facts were on the table. >> what -- what were you guys talking about that she needed to clear her head? >> we were just talking about us. >> reporter: within a few weeks of stephanie's murder, the state ramped up the pressure on dale. social services sent the bruner children to live with stephanie's brother in lifornia. >> i'm in a fight with mike tyson with no gloves. and then they're going to take my kids away, too? >> reporter: dale wasn't completely alone, mind you. some family stayed around and reported back to stephanie's sister, ramona, that dale was truly grieving. >> we kept asking, "what is dale acting like? what is he saying?" unless he is some kind of actor that deserves some kind of oscar performance, this guy really seems distraught. >> reporter: and stephanie's friend, bill, even moved in for two months to help out and console dale. >> reporter: we were just trying

he was having a difficult time. >> did you -- did you ever either confront him or say, >> come on, tell us what happened"? >> looked every one of us in the eye and said, "i had nothing to to do -- to do with this. i'm innocent." >> dale, can you talk at all about investigators only focusing on you? >> i hope they're investigating someone else. >> reporter: didn't look like e it. it was summer, 2011, nine months after stephanie's murder, when it happened. >> i was coming back from one of my photo shoots, and a little unmarked car with a light on it flashed and a siren went and they have guns drawn on me. >> reporter: dale bruner was charged with second-degree murder in the deatof his wife. he pleaded not guilty, posted bond, and was offered a plea deal by the da's office. what did you turn it down? >> because innocent people don't plea. >> reporter: besides, now, said dale, it was time to fight back. coming up.

probing questions and provocative answs. >> it was a very intimate crime. it's the sort of crime that husbands commit. >> or should i say boyfriends? >> when "dateline" continues.i absolutely love my new york apartment, but the rent is outrageous. good thing geico offers affordable renters insurance. with great coverage it protects my personal belongings should they get damaged, stolen or destroyed. [doorbell] uh, excuse me. delivery. hey. lo mein, szechwan chicken, chopsticks, sososauce and you got some fortune cookies. have a good one. ah, these small new york apartments... protect your belongings. let geico help you with renters insurance. karl, don't you have friends coming over? yeah, so? it stinks in here. you've got to wash this whole room are you kidding? wash it? let's wash it with febreze. for all the things you can't wash, use... ...febreze fabric refresher whoa hey mrs. webber inhales hey, it smells nice in here and try pluggable febreze...

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husband, dale. and he fumed in silence about the allegations against him. >> the lies are really tough that take. you're like, you can't believe it. you know, like really. >> reporter: waiting for trial, he continued to live here, all alone now in the family house by the blue river. working with his attorney in the effort to clear his name. robert bernhardt is the attorney. a man not at all impressed, he told us, with the police investigation. >> their position was, i think, "dale's the easy guy." you know? the worst pieces of investigating that i've ever seen in my career. >> reporter: dale and his attorney told us, that despite a show of interviewing other suspects, the police quite clearly had made up their minds the very day she disappeared. >> the police came to my house and i don't know what the exact first thing he said was, but he goes, "did you kill your wife?" and i was just stutued. >> reporter: the police didn't seem to want to believe what he told them about how happy he was

that last evening, discussing new possibilities. a fresh start, when, around 9pm, their daughter came into the bedroom to ask for help with her homework. >> when she came into our room we were laying on top of our bed cuddling. >> repororr: nor, he said, didid the cops seem to want to believe his explanation for not reporting stephanie missing until morning. more than nine hours after she walked out into that frigid night. >> why would he? if he was aware of the fact that she was having an affair, he probably assumed that she went to her boyfriend's. >> the last t ing i was gonna do was make waves. just do what you go to do. >> reporter: they made a such big deal of the fact that dale didn't join the search for stephanie even though -- >> i called the police. and they told me, "stay home in case she comes home." >> reporter: so by the time dale's trial began in the summer of 2012, he and his attorney were ready for evidence that they knew was only circumstantial. questions like this -- beaten

the way she was beaten on her head and strangled the way she was strangled. it was a very intimate crime. it's the sort of crime that husbands commit when their wives are about to leave them. >> or should i say boyfriends? >> reporter: or boyfriends, yeah. >> well, there you go. >> reporter: that was the point his lawyers wanted to make in court, that police and prosecutors had unfairly brushed off the possibility that stephanie's new soulmate or his wife had anything to do with it. that would be ron holthaus. >> when everybody found out stephanie was missing, did any police officers come and visit you at work or at your home that day? >> no, they did not. >> reporter: and didn't ron's wife cindy have a motive? >> i said something like, um, "i don't know where she is, but i hope she rots in hell." and i'm very sorry i said that. >> reporter: of course, dale and his attorney knew the prosecution would make a big deal of that restraining order stephanie took out after dale e

spanked their son but her decision to ask for thth order, said dale, sprang fromer own confusion, the affair, the chaos in her life. >> she built a fake little world where i was the bad guy. >> reporter: but was stephanie ever worried that dale might get violent? hardly, said the defense. why else would she ask the judge to delay the order until after their little f fily holiday? >> the judge had said he had never seen someone have a restraining order but then have them say, well, don't enact it yet. not until next week. >> reporter: and why would she go away on a yoga retreat, and decline this friend's offer to baby sit? >> "can i take care of the kids?" and she said, "no, they're fine with dale." >> and that's because she knew that dale wasn't a threat to her, he wasn't a threat to those children. >> reporter: and remember how the detective found the house unusually spotless two weeks after the murder? it was, turned out, family and friends who cleaned up.

paralyzed by grief. closet, and half of the stuff is and he comes out, he's just crying, and he says, like, i >> reporter: so it was clearly a rush to judgment, a sloppy investigation, said the defense. by detectives who bought the holthaus's alibis too easily. who failed to consider that the murder might have been committed by whoever robbed the nearby bank just before stephanie disappeared. attorney bernhardt confronted cbi agent, greg sadar. >> you had no directctvidence of mr. bruner assaulting his wife. >> correct. no direct evidence of mr. bruner murdering her. >> reporter: of course, had dale taken the stand, he'd have had to answer to some stubbornly uncomfortable facts. and this question that hung over the defense table like a cloud. >> you loved your wife, you loved her a lot. but in that moment of extreme rage when she was leaving you you killed her, you strangled her and then threw her body in

the river. >> that's so not true. >> the theme of the prosecution was that you were an abuser and that you -- it was a -- >> it's beyond -- so not true. it's just not true. they painted quite a picture though. >> reporter: oh, yes. they certainly did. certainly did. with the help of a woman whose message, in a way, came back from the grave. coming up, stephanie speaks -- >> i'm asking for help! >> reporter: and so does another voice from the past. >> he had a look on his face

recognized before. i'm sitting across from a man who may bebeelling me a true story, who may also quite possibly be living with the knowledge that he hit his wife on the head and strangled her and put her in the river, and that's where she died. and d u have to live with that secrcr -- >> w wl fortunately.

>> -- for rest of your life. >> fortunately, i don't have to live with that. that i don't have to live with. >> reporter: what dale bruner would have to live with would depend on the outcome of his trial of course and whether or not the prosecutor mark hurlbert could persuade the jury without the benefit of physical evidence that dale killed the love of his life in a fit of blind rage. >> i thinknkale bruner strangleses her, believes that she is dead. takes her to the river and dumps her in the river. >> reporter: so what did happen on the night of the murder? the prosecutor called a child to start the story: dale and stephanie's eldest daughter, the girl who walked into her parents' bedroom around 9:00 p.m. >> and at 10 years old, she could say what happened with specifics. >> reporter: out of the view of the media, she told the court she heard her parents arguing. not cuddling, as dale claimed. after which, remember, dale claimed stephanie went for a walk to clear her head. at temperatures well below freezing? you've gotta be kidding, said

>> it's a cold november night, his wife goes for a walk, and he wouldn't call anybody until eight or nine hours later -- ten hours later? that just doesn't make any sense. >> reporter: which, by itself, didn't m mn dale was guilty, but this was where some of those secrets began to spill out. the terrifying secrets of a fatally troubled marriage. like the one stephanie told this friend after that spanking incident when she applied for a restraining order. >> did she exprere fear at that time? >> yes, she did. >> she looked at m mand said, "he just sees red. he gets so mad that he goes into a red zone, and he doesn't even know what he does." >> reporter: and so, said this friend -- >> she was afraid to get a restraining order against dale because he had already threatened to harm or kill her. >> reporter: that threat from dale was years earlier but stephanie had never forgotten how terrfied she was. she told the story to her friend

jennifer just before the murder. >> he strong-armed her into a corner, choking her, threatening to hit her. he stopped short of hitting g r, but he did. >> yeah -- >> and there was another time he threw her on the bed and put his knee on her pregnant belly. >> reporter: how often would this happen? >> you know, there are maybe three of those incidents that she talked about. >> reporter: then there was leah achen, a lifelong friend o o dale's, , o told the court abobo dale's reaction when steteanie told him she was in love with another man. >> he just wanted her deadyou know? maybe she would have a heart attack or get hit by a car, and i kept telling him just stop talking like that. but did dale really mean that? could he be truly violent? consider this woman, said the prosecutor. an ex-girlfriend from dale's past, a woman named jodi. who told the jury, and us, the strange story of what happened one night when she lived with dale 20 years earlier.

>> he hadn't come home for dinner one night and had said he would be home. >> and you called him on it? >> he came home, we argued about t, and he became very angry, yelling at me. he pushed me down to the floor and put his hands on my neck said, "i"iyou ever say or do that againini'll kill you." had a look on his face that i've never seen or recognized before. it was the most scared as i have ever been in my life. >> reporter: and even though that was a long time ago, said the prosecutor, it told a terrible tale which, sadly, is as old as time. dale, heheaid, was a man sometimes overcome by rage and his m.o. was to go for the throat. >> she was strangled so hard and with such force that it broke a bone in her neck. >> reporter: and then the prosecutor introduced his bombshell -- stephanie herself on tape. six weeks before the murder, stephanie begged a judge for that restraining order.

plea was a voice from the grave. >> he has threatened my life years ago, but you know with a hand on my throat didn't squeeze it, screaming in my face, "i will kill you if you leave." i have never forgotten. >> reporter: her sister was sitting in the courtroom listening and was overcome. >> and that was when we lost it. cause it was feelings of, oh, my god, and she's crying. >> r rorter: it was as if f stephanie e s testifying in her own murder trial. >> i would so love to talk to him about it and say, can you leave or can you get help. and i just think that would go really bad. so i'm here asking for help. and i'm going to end up getting a divorce because there's no way i can go back. >> reporter: only she did.

finally, this domestic violence expert weighed in. >> when a victim is attempting to leave a relationship or has left a relationship, it is by far the most dangerous time for a victim. >> reporter: but what was the trigger that, according to the prosecution, set dale off? the answer he said, may lie in an unfinished emaiaistephanie was writing to the other man, n, just before she was murdered. and though dale denied he knew what she was doing -- >> i honestly didn't know. i had no idea. >> reporter: the prosecutor said dale must have seen her writing it -- an e-mail begging ron for another meeting because she couldn't accept the idea that her new love was leaving her. >> i think dale bruner got angry at that and hit her with something. then he strangles her, believes that she is dead. she's probably unconscious at that point. but she is not dead. and he takes her to the river and dumps her in the river. >> reporter: the jury stayed out

four hours. >> the court has reviewed the verdicts. >> it was kind of early, which is also worrying. >> reporter: dale bruner stood and awaited his fate. >> you're just trying to maintain and not just melt on the -- you know -- so, you prepare yourself to just breathe, just breathe. >> reporter: a a then, there it was. >> we the jury find the defendant, dale bruner, guilty of murder in the second degree. >> reporter: dale bruner was taken away in handcuffs, and later was sentenced to 112 years in prison. he's appealing. >> it is a perfect storm. and i'm going down with the ship. >> reporter: stephanie's friend jennifer was driving when the verdict came in. >> i was in my car parked on the side of the road crying like a baby. >> reporter: and like others who knew stephanie, she wishes now she'd taken her friend's secrets more seriously.

>> i beat myself up over it done this or suld have done that. >> reporter: an almost good marriage with one deadly flaw. >> a lot of stephanie's close know what was going on. over the years. let's say it was only two. well, it only took three and she is dead. friends, take some advice. heed the warning. don't hide the secret. >> that's why i am talking about it now. and hopefully, just one woman would have the courage to stand up and say, "i'm being abused. i'm living in fear. i'm living with secrets, and i that's the university of california irvine has given a talk on memory. memory is different than facts. you cannot fact check memory.

>> you can't crawl inside his head. >> but you can fact check events. the events he's talking about did not happen other than the reporter whose work he cites says they were unconfirmed reports. gee, i don't remember anything -- >> and by the way, three weeks later the newark "star ledger" rereported the rumors and said it was a vicious rumor. >> and the then-attorney general of new jersey says, no, we checked it out, it was a false report. it did not happen. >> it's's not only thatat that didn'n' happen. 200,000 syrian refugees are coming. it's not only tt the facts are wrong, it's that what he is saying is so emotionally and politically powerful. he is lighting fires. he is turning people against people. he is mimitating the facts of what's happening domestically, what's happening with islammuslims. the kinds of facts he is misstating are so much -- >> incendiary. >> here's the political genius of donald trump.

what he is doing is different. all politicians say things that are technically true but a litt bit misleading or a lot misleading. that i say whatever they can get away with and if they're called on it they'll walk it back a little bit, they'll trim their sails. >> truth is conditional, as we found out. half true. >> reasoning, they'll talk about the definition of "is." donald trump doesn't do that, he creates an entire alternate reality and he does not back down. >> he pays no price for it. >> it's seductive to people because it's the world they want to live with. >> are we living in a post-truth world in what's interesting here, what do voters want? do they want honesty or mething else? let m put up two different poll comparisons that we did in our last poll about the honest and trustworthy question between trump and hillary clinton and the temperament question between trump and hillary clinton. look at this. trump is seen as more honest and straightforward among all voters than hillary clinton is. that would be quite alarming if you're hillala clinton. now look at t t t tperament

and this number is reverse. it's hillary clinton that is seen as viewed as having the better temperament versus donald trump. peter hart contends, hugh, it's better to be seen as having the right temperament than being the most honest and straightforward. >> i think both of those will be safety. after paris, the axis of the race shifted and people are safe. we mentioned in the green room, there's a "new york times" piece today on libya by david kirkpatrick and eric schmidt about the fact that libya has become isis 2.0 and there will be another terrorist attack and if there is one in the united statesikeparis, whoever promises safety, regardless of their trustworthiness, regardless of anything else and can deliver wins. >> well, ifact, two weeks ago here right after paris i posited that trump was going to benefit more than anyone else because he is big and strong and it was unterintuitive and i was nervous about saying it but look at the numbers. and the way carson has slid, which we n talk about. but the fact is that trump is

positing that he can take care of people and raising people's fears as you said is incendiary and i think that the fact of truthfulness doesn't matter, especially when people likikus are the people doing the fact checking. >> it's funny you talk about this. politifact put this up and i have to show you this. on the candidates that have had the mostly false or false ratings, three have had a majority of the facts that have been fact check bid politifact have been traded as false or mostly false and the top three candidates on the republican side. carson, trump and cruz. the fact checkers are viewed as having an agenda so the more they say "you're wrong" the more the supporters say "they're right." >> and the fact checkers did fact check hillary clinton on her under fire claims, they fact checked -- it's not as if they haven't done. >> it just intensity, eugene, just intensity of coverake. >> we, there's a republican campaign going on now so who are you going to fact check? >> good point. good point. >> i think you are right that

safety and strength are the scene for this phase of the campaign. i am not sure that one can say right now that they are the -- they are indeed the main themes of the entire campaign. >> hillary clinton -- when hillary clinton says the reset button worked because medvedev was in power, that's palpably false. even time she tries to explain away the reset buttononthat's why republicans don't trust fact checkers because they allow her to slide with something like "the reset button worked." >> but we're selectively -- but the whole point of -- it's about the fact, period, right? and i think that's ultimately what i think we're wondering why vovoers aren'temanding that. >> > d it's because the media are less credible and fact checkers. >> all right, we'll pause here. i'd like to think we have some credibility left. back in a moment with the man who until recently was leading in most iowa polls. it's ben carson and he's joining

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for over two centuries we've supported dreams like these, and the people and companies behind them. so why should that matter to you? because, today, we are still helping progress makers turn their ideas into reality. and the next great idea could be yours. welcome back. it's fair to say no candidate has been hurt more by the focus on foreign policy after paris than ben carson. he's already slipped from first place in two iowa lls. but to bolster his foreign policy credentials he'sz sing syrian refugee camps in jordan and his campaign eased this online video.

>> president obama attack med for not wanting syrian refugees to enter our country. we need leaders who stop whining and start winning. i'm pleased totosay dr. carson joins me nowrom the jordanian capital of amman. dr. carson, let me just start with the basic question, what did you learn on this trip? >> well, you know, it was always wonderful to see things firsthand and to have an opportunity to actually go to the refugee camps and to some of the medical facicities. and i actually talked to the people, not only to the jordanians who are incredibly generous in terms of their support of refugees, and that's been the case for decades now, but also to the syrian refugees themselves to find out what they think about the whole situation, whether their wants and desires. the syrians want to be in syria. they want to be repatriated in their own country. and they are looking for a mechanism to get there. but in the meantime, the

facilities that have been offered to them here in jordan are very satisfactory and when i asked them what americans could do they said "if americans could support those facilities to a greater degree because they have much more capacity here in jordan and i suspect in some of the other countries as well. >> let me just play something here. here's how you described the syrian refugee crisis, some might say in an inartful way a couple weeks ago. here it is. >> if there's a rabid dog running around your neighborhood, you're probably not going assume something good about that dog and you're probably going to put your children out of the way. it doesn't mean you hate all dogs. >> given -- after meeting these syrian refugees, do you regreat language? >> well, you know here's the interesting thing, chuck. the syrians and the people here completely u uerstood what i ww sayayg.

it's'snly the news media and our country that thinks you're calling syrians dogs. they understand here that we're talking about the jihadists, the islamic terrorists. and it's very obvious to most of them. the reception is quite warm. so maybe they can teach us a a little bit about how to interpret lauage. >> you said something else in your facebook post. you said "we must find a political end to this conflict." meaning you don't think there is a military solution to the syria situation? >> well, i think the military solution, obviously, is to try to exterminate isis. and the other radical jihadists who will not allow peace to occur under any circumstances until they achieve their goals. but in terms of a place like syria, you have to recognize that the likelihood of an assad regime maintaining peaceful control is extremely small and

the likelihood of al nusra or any of the anti-assad factions maintaining control is also very small. so you need to be working on some type of mechanism m keep it fromeing a perpetual turmoil. >> so it sounds like you think this strategy is the right one, you would keep pursuing it. does it mean you'd speed it up? intensify it? help me out here. >> i think the most compassionate thing when you're fighting a war is to do it quickly. the longer you drag it out, the more people are hurt. and i think we need to work in close conjunction with our department of defense, with our experts. ask them what do you need in order to accomplish this? and let's m mke a decision. are we going to give that to them? or are we going to keep giving them things piecemeal. >> and let me ask you a quick domestic issue. i know you've been traveling. there was a shooting in colorado

been reports the shooter was yellingngbout baby parts, planned parenthood put out this statement "we've seen an alarming increase in hateful rhetoric and smear campaigns against abortion providers and patients over the last few months. that environment breeds acts of violence, americans reject the hatred and vitriol that fuellll this tragedy." that was from a planned parenthood spokesperson. are you concerned that the rhetoric may have motivated a mentally disturbed individual? >> i think any hateful rhetoric directed at anyone from any source is too much. it's mething that we need toto gg away from. we have to stop allowing ourselves to be pushed into different corners and then throwing hateful barbs at each other. you know, all you have to do is go to the internet and read any article and you go to the comments section, you don't get five comments down before people are calling eaeah other idiots and all kinds of names.

when did we become so immature? we must somehow manage to regain the high ground and understand that we're not each other's enemies even though we may have some differences of opinions about things. let's stop trying to destroy constructively. let's have a conversation about the rationale for our approaches. >> that's a good way to end things. dr. carson, appreciate you coming on "meet the press" and travel home safely, sir. >> thank you. >> you got it. coming up, more on whether it was hateful rhetoricc that lele to that attack in colorado. as i told you, planned parenthood indicates yes. but first, there are 63 countries in the coalition taking on isis. why does it seem as if no one is actually helping the united states? we'll ask the former secretary of defense robert gates right ter this. surprise!!!!! we heard you got a job as a developer! its official, i work for ge!!

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welcome back. the isis paris terror attacks have increased the urgency of efforts to build a meaningful coalition to defeat this terror group. there was some encouraging news on thursday when russian's

he was open to cooperating with a u.s.-led coalition. however, this came two days after a russian jet had been shot down by an american ally, turkey, for allegedly violating turkish airspace, which complicates efforts by the u.s. and others. to coordinate a common international approach to taking on isis, i caught up with robert gates who served under both presidents bush and obama and i asked him for his reaction to the downing of the russian jet. >> i think the biggest concern really is the overall relationship between russia and turkey and what this says about the prospects for a broader coalition in the region. i think the russians were embarrassed, frankly, by their planes getting shot down. it's been a long time since a russian fighter, combat aircraft, was shot down by hostile fire. and especially by a different country and so i think it is

in syria, maybe it lwill accelerate it, who knows? but i worry the overall relationship between russia and turkey has turned so sour and neither of these strongmen, putin or erdogan, are willing to become down. >> we've heard a lot about this coalition and if you ask them they tell you there's 63 members of the coalition. we've been able to come up with 14 countries that have in some form or another contributed to air strikes and it's a loose definition of contributed. it doesn't seem as if this coalition is anything more than name only. am i being too cynical? >> i think to a little degree. it's better to have dozens and dozens of countries supporting what you're trying to do even if it's only diplomatic support. we had 38, i think, countries in the coalition for the first gulf