hi, everyone. i'm tamron hall. the "news nation" is following breaking news right now. governor romney has announced he'll release his 2011 tax returns in one hour. in the meantime president obama ripping into mitt romney's latest line of attack in an afternoon campaign stop speaking at a rally in virginia. the president said this of romney's accusations that he's given up on changing washington. >> i made this same point in a town hall in florida. i said one thing i've learned is that you can't change washington just from the inside. for some reason my opponent got really excited. he rewrote his speech real quick. he stood up at a rally, proudly declared, i'll get the job done from the inside.

what kind of inside job is he talking about? >> this started when governor romney's team tried to get traction by going after the president 'remarks he made at the univision forum regarding bringing change to washington. >> i learned lesson over the last four years, and the most important lessons i've learned is you can't change washington from the inside. >> the president today threw in the white flag of surrender again. >> here's one of the problems. four years ago governor romney said this while running for the republican nomination against senator john mccain. >> i believe that at this time to change washington it would be helpful to have somebody who comes with more private sector skill, experience outside washington. i don't think you change washington from the inside. i think you change it from the outside. >> so all of this coming as romney's campaign shows signs of frustration with his own wife, ann, firing back within critics within their party.

we'll get to those in a moment. let's bring in a political panel, keith boykin, ann cornbluth and danny vargas, nbc latino contributor and republican strategist. pamela, let's start off with peter alexander. ear in las vegas. tell us what you know regarding the romney campaign releasing within the hour his 2011 tax returns. obviously, friday, late in the evening. this all brings suspicion as to the timing. >> reporter: tamron, mitt romney just arrived here touching down with us on the back of plane a few minutes ago, and he will be doing in las vegas what a lot of americans do, which is lay his cards on the table. we already are getting early indications of exactly what we will learn from these returns. of course, this is happening at the end of what has frankly been perhaps the worst week of mitt romney's entire campaign season that began with the release of that secretly recorded video, which led to the remarks about

47% of americans that he referred to as victims being government depend entsdependent. what we will see in the newly filed 2011 tax return, the romneys paid $1.9 million in taxes on roughly $13.7 million in what was mostly investment income. their effective tax rate for 2011 was 14.1%. the romneys, the campaign notes donated more than $4 million to charity in the year 2011. that's $4 million to charity, which they say amounts to about 30% of their income. you'll remember a while back the romney campaign insisted mitt romney himself insisted that he never paid less than 13% in taxes. in fact, over the entire 20-year period the campaign is telling us know as we see for ourselves that the average annual effective tax rate, what he paid as an average over 20 years was

roughly 20%. they say the lowest annual federal tax rate he never paid was 13.6%. of course, tamron, as he comes here to las vegas, this is his first trip to nevada, which is viewed as a key battle ground state in seven weeks. a trip last weekend was canceled because of some problems -- excuse me. it's his first trip in seven weeks to colorado, which is taking place on monday. he took other trips here in nevada. we will hear from him shortly when he comes to the unlv campus with the folks here. >> thank you. let me bring in mark murray from our team before we get to the panel. mark, romney's effective tax rate 2011, 14%. that's about what he said, but that's obviously lower than many americans who make far less. back to the timing here. is this an attempt to change this subject? does this help us understand? usually as you well know people don't sound out a blast e-mail on a friday at 3:00 p.m. if they want something to be highly

talked about that they see as beneficial to them. >> that's right. i mean, you always have fridays the times to have a news dump that people aren't paying as much attention. you want to put bad news out there. tamron, the big context as peter was talking about, this is perhaps the roughest three-week stretch in mitt romney's presidential campaign. and certainly topped off by that controversial 47% video that came out earlier this week. you end up seeing them trying to get out as much tax returns as possible to completely change the page. if the romney campaign wants to start changing the conversation, they want to get everything behind them. that includes these tax records. i will say, however, it is really interesting they provided this 20-year summation on mitt romney's tax returns from 1990 to 2009. really, when you see the effective tax rates, they say there was an average tax rate of 20%, the lowest ever 13%, which

is similar to this 2011 tax return. if it was just that, you would think they would have released this a long time ago so they wouldn't have the problems, the political problems that they have now. what we don't have only because we get this summary, we don't get the individual things in these tax returns. some in some ways with the romney campaign aren't necessarily the tax rates but what's in the tax returns over the last 20 years. >> which means they aren't revealing a full transparency when it comes to his tax returns? >> that's right. mitt romney was only about a month ago where he said i think the tax rate i paid was about 13%. this could actually be correct, but it's what is in those tax returns that they seem very hesitant and reluctant to give up. >> let me bring in danny vargas. let me get your reaction. you heard mark say that the cam faine or blind trust will

release a summary from 1990 to 2009. still not a clear picture of the governor's tax returns in that period. does that benefit the campaign at all when you have kind this half-open door even still? >> i do think that at the end of the day we're really not talking about anything that's newsworthy here. everybody knows he's a wealthy man. everybody knows that most of the money he'd made is through investment activities, which means risk capital. everybody knows he's a generous man in terms of charities. he gives a lot of money to charity. there's not much newsworthy here. it's good to get some information out there from the last 20 years it to show he has paid taxes and has made a lot of money. >> danny, the way you put it, very lackadaisical, there's no big deal there, which makes this all the mother curious that governor romney would not have released this information prior to today. why hold onto it if what you say is true? there's nothing there. what's the big deal?

it brings back to the question his critics have offered up. what are you hiding, if it was not or is not a big deal? >> well, if you recall, tamron, i was one of the people that said he should have released more earlier on to get it behind us. there's nothing newsworthy there. i think their concern in the campaign was that you would have folks from the opposition going through every possible detail with a fine-toothed comb to find anything to use against the governor. but i think it -- had it been released sooner, we would have put this behind us and moved on to the more important issues at hand. >> let me bring you into what danny said. anything ushg use. they're talking about the romney campaign seemingly following the news cycle of the day. perusing anything from the obama campaign looking for that opening in the last several weeks here, including this line about the president saying you can't change washington from the inside out. the same line or very similar line was uttered by mitt romney

when he ran for president the last time. what you do you think of this noex that they're looking for anything. you have a tape? i've got a tape. darn, my tape doesn't get traction. i'll look at a comment you made about the change in washington. >> it's curious you would criticize obama for wanting to play the outsider role, when that's what mitt romney wanted to play. so your larger question about the message of the day is an interesting one. i mean, they really -- every campaign has to balance between responding, between pivoting very quickly when there's a newsworthy event and sticking to the larger strategy. what we've seen with the romney campaign is uncertainty about whether they want to be the larger message, as they did for so many weeks and months. even when other things seemed important to where we are today, which is it seems almost a different message every couple days. we haven't heard -- either you

didn't build that since the convention when, of course, we thought that was the message going forward. we've had a couple different messages in the last few weeks. it seems they're attempting to be more nimble, but it raises the question of whether they're losing sight of the bigger picture. they, obviously, think this is working and they're doing it for a reason. >> this is how they put it. referring to the romney campaign. they're stuck chasing news cycles. it's tough to get out of especially late in the campaign. we're late in the campaign, and there's a move by the romney group to release his tax returns. as danny pointed out as highlighted by the romney folks in the note they sent out. they want to let people know that the governor gave an incredible amount of money, $4 million, 30% of their income to charity, donations and charitable contributions are amazing and perhaps we should hope that we have enough cash to donate. the bottom line, he had a 14.1% effective tax rate.

does the releasing of the information take some of the steam out of senator harry reid and other republicans who said he didn't pay any taxes at all? >> absolutely not. this doesn't answer any questions, tamron. first of all, we haven't seen it. they're drip, dripping it out because they want you to tell the story about the 4 million, but they don't tell you the rest of the story that comes at 3:00. we don't know a lot of information about the 20 years. they give us a summary of 20 years. why not release the tax returns if they're that noxious? they're not willing to show the american people what they have a right to see. we don't know anything about the $101 million he has in his i.r.a., which it's impossible to accumulate that much money with the annual contribution limit or about his swiss bank account or the contributions in the cayman islands or the offshore accounts in the bermuda shell company. we don't know any information because romney is selective about the information he's releasing, and it will raise more questions than it answers. >> let me bring you back in,

danny, regarding this comment made by ann romney. i want to read what peggy noonan wrote in the "wall street journal." she said the romney campaign has to get turned around. this week i called it incompetent, but only because i was being polite. i really meant rolling calamity. let me play what ann romney said in the radio interview where she took it to some of the conservatives in the party. >> stop it. this is hard. you want to try it? get in the ring. this is hard, and, you know, it's an important thing that we're doing right now, and it's an important election. it is time for all americans to realize how significant this election is and how lucky we are to have someone with mitt's qualifications and experience and know-how to be able to have the opportunity to run this country. >> so, danny, you mentioned that you were one of the ones that criticized the governor for not releasing those tax returns. ann romney says stop it to you. is that harsh, or is she right

on the money here? not to you personally, but to obviously all the republicans out there? she was very strong. stop it. you could tell she raised boys for sure. >> that's true. that's a good point. all of us on the republican side that really want to see mitt romney in the white house, our message to the campaign frankly and my message is, the main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing. we have to focus on jobs and the economy. i care much less about mitt romney's tax returns over the last 20 years than president obama's record over the last three and a half americans. we have 1 in 6 americans living in poverty right now. 40 million americans receive food stamps right now. we have 43 straight months of unemployment of over 8%. obama's record is one of disappointment at the best and failure at worst. we have to focus on being able to turn around the economy. there's one person running for president right now who has a record of working on both sides of aisle to get things done and move the process forward. working whether it's inside washington or outside

washington, because you have to do both to change washington. only one person has been able to achieve that, and that's mitt romney. >> he doesn't talk about his own state. he was a governor in the state that ranked 45th for job creation. he doesn't talk about all the issues about his own state, because he's aafraid of his record. he's afraid of romney care. he's afraid of the connection to health care. he doesn't want to talk about it. >> he's no longer afraid of romney care, because he says that's a compliment that he's considered the grandfather of quote-unquote obama care. at least that is undecided. nevertheless, i want to talk about real quick with you ann romney's tone and stop it she said it in a very scolding way. she also said that people should be lucky that someone with governor romney's experience, her husband's experience, would be on the forefront of this race for his party. what are we seeing in her reaction and even in her tone in

that interview? >> look, it's no surprise that a spouse would at this juncture, given the week mitt romney has had, be very frustrated with the coverage and critics and want to lash out a little bit. asking critics to stop it, i don't know if that's a effective strategy. i think it opens you up to criticism about not being able to take the heat. certainly given the performance, the very sunny, cheerful, optimistic performance she had at the republican convention, i would have to assume that that would be the image that they would prefer to be the lasting one. it's no surprise. she's only human, and quite frankly she's showing who she really is. i think that's part of her appeal, too. >> she's seeing the toll it's taking on her husband as the nominee. no nonetheless if you can't take the heat, urn the saying. thank you all of you. have a great weekend. new evidence the past month has taken a toll on the romney campaign. president obama taking 50% of

the vote in several battleground states. the battle is certainly not over and done. >> a native-american, a person of color. as you can see, she's not. that being said, she checked the box. >> that was a snippet from the big debate last night. elizabeth warren today about to get a high profile endorsement after the massachusetts senate race got personal, as you heard last night. we'll tell you whob about to endorse elizabeth warren. you can join our conversation. that's my twitter pag page @tamronhall and my te team @newsnation. give us a shout-out on this friday. ♪ ♪ [ sneezes ] [ male announcer ] if you have yet to master the quiet sneeze... ♪ [ sneezes ] [ male announcer ] you may be an allergy muddler. try zyrtec®. it gives you powerful allergy relief. and zyrtec® is different than claritin® because zyrtec® starts working at hour 1 on the first day you take it. claritin® doesn't start working until hour 3.

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mr. president and at least

right now in some states mr. 50%. a new polling shows him hitting that psychologically important 50 mark and leading governor romney in three key swing states. that's from the latest nbc news "wall street journal" positive gives the president five-point lead in congress, colorado and an eight-point lead in iowa. erin, thank you your time. our team highlights iowa when you look at the amount of time the president has spent in that state. the early concerns regarding the state, and also when you look at how much time governor romney has not spent there. for example, it says here that president obama has done for physical campaigning in ohio and it appears to be paying off. since april he made 7 visits and held 15 different events ♪ state compared to governor romney's 7 visits with 7 events. >> it tells you that these events certainly pay off. the reason for that, tamron, is these polls were tight in iowa a

couple of months ago. republicans were feeling stre good about iowa, especially after the primary -- excuse me. the caucuses. president obama took a three-day bus trip around the state back in june, i believe, and that has helped his numbers go up. mitt romney has not campaigned that aggressively. that's a big reason the poll in iowa is the way it is with that eight-point gap. >> congressman paul ryan was trying to rally the troops on capitol hill telling them we're going to win this. what do we see as the strategy for governor romney? we know the bus tour, getting in the ground and more ads and maybe this -- the release of his 2011 tax returns in about 30 minutes from now perhaps could be a part of that strategy. what do you see? >> they are certainly getting more aggressive. as you were mentioning earlier this hour, they are responding to everything. they're trying to get reporters to be more aggressive in the questions that they're asking

the white house now about several things. libya, for instance, but they're getting more aggressive with every little thing that the president says these days because they need to score political points because they haven't scored many at all lately. >> is that an effective strategy? with the attacks in libya, even within the party, within his own party it was seen as a cheap way to score points. to your point about wanting the media to push the president harder, people are still waiting for governor romney to say what loopholes he would focus on if he's president. we're looking for a more specific budget from him. i mean, it took this long to get the tax returns. so wanting the other guy to be pushed by the media while you're still not answering questions regarding major policy issues from foreign to domestic, is that a smart strategy with so little time in reality left here? >> it's not effective on its own, but they do have to get more aggressive. one of the other things they'll

do is put out mitt romney and paul ryan in more events in swing states. as you mentioned, he has a big bus tour next week in ohio. he'll do three events in one day on wednesday which is far more than he's doing. he's holding a couple of rallies a week but just one a day. in terms of swing states, what i think is interesting in some of the polls you mepgsed, you didn't have one in north carolina but we saw tight polling there. the romney campaign has tried to take north carolina off the table, but just this week paul ryan was campaigning there and michelle obama was campaigning there. that tells you that north carolina is still very much in play, as are many states. another pollster purple strategy is a combination. it's a bipartisan firm. they show that mitt romney's only up three percentage points in arizona. we see an expansion of the map potentially. >> it's a tight race. 243 electoral votes in obama's column and 191 in governor romney's with with 104 in the

toss-up category. this is not a done deal for anyone that thinks it is. thank you for your time. these are new images over the anti-islam film that insulting the prophet mow haw mad. today more protests and people this time killed. plus -- >> you're going to see it swing back, and you watch. if mitt romney can take one punch after another from his own fist, because he keeps hurting himself, and this thing ties back up, you're going to have a lot of clenched people in the obama campaign. >> all right. you heard a little bit of what joe had to say. will that all come true? we'll get the latest on the political postscript looking back at the week, and, of course, pointing you ahead. who of these people on the screen was the most watched speaker during the republican and democratic conventions?

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oh, hey alex. just picking up some, brochures, posters copies of my acceptance speech. great! it's always good to have a backup plan, in case i get hit by a meteor. wow, your hair looks great. didn't realize they did photoshop here. hey, good call on those mugs. can't let 'em see what you're drinking. you know, i'm glad we're both running a nice, clean race. no need to get nasty. here's your "honk if you had an affair with taylor" yard sign. looks good. [ male announcer ] fedex office. now save 50% on banners. [ male announcer ] fedex office. i i had pain in my abdomen...g. it just wouldn't go away. i was spotting, but i had already gone through menopause. these symptoms may be nothing...

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and from the state department. at least 15 people are dead in pakistan as a new wave of protests over the anti-islam film "innocence of muslim" turned violent. thousands of muslims protested in at least half a dozen countries. nbc is live in kabul, afghanistan. many thought we would see protests over the french cartoon released, but these are still again over this movie or film made in the united states. >> reporter: hi there, tamron. the protests were actually about both. the majority was pointed at that film. not enough information has gone out to many countries about those cartoons published in france. across in the border in pakistan we saw violent protests. 15 people were killed as tens of thousands went out to the streets. for the most part throughout the muslim world we didn't see that rage we expected after friday prayers. here in afghanistan we went out to the protests.

there were several hundred out there, but they were peacefully protesting. theg they said they didn't want to resort to violence, but they're calling on government to cut all ties to america and france because they say the government allowed these films to be published and these cartoons to be published as well. they're mad at the american and french governments, and they said in afghanistan and other muslim countries they would not resort to violence because of that. tamron. >> the secretary of state hillary clinton is meeting with the pakistan foreign prime minister. up next, elizabeth warren and scott brown. did you see this? a pretty intense debate. one of the most watched in the country. you know why. >> senator brown voted against a pro-choice woman. >> and we've got more on breaking news. governor romney is set to release his 2011 tax returns and a summary of tax returns from the past 20 years. it's breaking news, and we'll

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better eggs. it's eb. in week was dominated to governor romney's remarks to voters. 20% of the people support president obama. his secretly recorded video surfaced on days one of what was supposed to be a reboot, reset for the republican campaign. >> 47% are with him who are dependent upon government who believe they're victims and government has a responsibility to care for them. who believe they're entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you name it. >> who dismisses 47% of the american population as victims? >> he wasn't expressing any disdain for people poor or on entitlement programs at this

point. >> absolutely not. >> i'm talking about a perspective of individuals who i'm not likely to get to support me. >> the problem is not they're not working hard enough or they don't want to work or they're being taxed too little. >> well, you know, it's not elegantly stated. >> when you express an attitude that half the country up considers itself victims. that somehow they want to be dependent on government. >> romney probably could have better explained himself. >> my thinking is maybe you haven't gotten around a lot. >> what mitt romney said is he didn't state in the most elegant way. >> he's a very eloquent speaker, so i'm sure in the debates he'll be eloquent in describing his vision. >> my expectation is if you want to be president, you have to work for everybody, not just for some. >> of course, this brings us to the breaking news of the hour. mark murray back with you. mark, the breaking news is governor romney releasing 2011 tax returns and a summary of

several years passed. it's interesting we start talking about the governor's remarks on other people in income tax, and here we are still with a half-empty view of what he paid in taxes. is that a fair description? >> that is a fair description, tamron. we're been wanting to know for a long time now that the president obama campaign has been asking for, what did mitt romney pay in taxes over the past ten years. what the campaign decided to do today is release a summary of the last 20 years. it paid an average -- mitt romney paid an average personal tax rate of 20%. the lowest he ever paid for was around 13%, which was similar to the returns we've already seen from 2010. in the one he's going to post today from 2011 at 14%. what we don't know is what's in the particular returns. any type of tax shelters. any type of swiss bank accounts, and that's what the romney campaign is hesitant about releasing.

>> will this be equal to the information he provided to senator john mccain when he was being vetted? >> probably not. again, we still don't know. sometimes i would imagine what i've heard from these strp's vettings is you turn over the actual returns, just not a summary from your accountant as mitt romney has done. so it is probably less information, and, of course, tamr tamron, one of the interesting questions is mitt romney is dogged by this for several months. what would it have been like if he released this summary the last 20 years. what if he did it in june or july. >> thank you very much. to ha hotly contested massachusetts senate race that could tip the balance of power in washington. challenger elizabeth warren expected to get a big boost in the next hour with a much sought after endorsement of boston's mayor. it's one day after her tense and personal first debate with republican senator scott brown.

>> professor warren claimed that she was a native-american, a person of color. as you can see, she's not. that being said, she checked the box. >> i believed my mother and my father and my aunts and my uncles and i never asked anybody for any documentation. i don't know any kid who did. this really may be a race for control of the senate and the supreme court may very well hang in the balance. >> listen, i'm the second most bipartisan on the united states senate. i was recently named as the least par zan senator. >> he voted against a pro-choice woman. >> we're both pro-choice and support roe v. wade. >> it's not just about senator brown's vote. this is about the votes of all of the republicans? >> let's bring in noah beryn. boston's mayor is about to give that endorsement. how is that debate scored? was there a clear winner or loser there? >> certainly both sides and people on both sides have said

one won or one lost. it's basic aally evened out to who might have won or lost. now we're more interested in looking at the specific things they were trying to do. scott brown seemed to clearly have a strategy of looking for a lot of the blue collar democrats or independents that supported him in the last election mentioned. labor unions a few times and a few things to appeal to him. warren solidified the case that brown will put republicans in power and go against the dominant strain of massachusetts politics. those are the individual things they're trying to do. in that case it can be argued they both succeeded, although we have one winner in november. >> absolutely. there was a new poll out just late yesterday after you and i spoke that brown, 40%, warren 45% and undecided 12% in that race. it is interesting and to your point we should be certainly talking about the specifics of both of their campaigns.

but i have to tell you, one of the most googled, if you will, things was that remark regarding elizabeth warren saying she was native-american. >> yeah. that is something that he came right out of the gate and brought it up right away. he was goaded by the moderator to bring that up right away. he did not hold back at all. that's definitely something he feels is very damaging to her. he challenged her to release her personnel files from harvard. she did not answer that challenge. she said that people who are part of hiring committees have all said that that was not a factor in her hiring. >> was she able to get any traction with the tieing into romney's 47% comment? there was word that senator brown maybe did not want to even attend this debate for fear or worry about how this would all play? >> she didn't mention romney once. she mentioned all the republicans, and clearly she will be mentioning romney as the campaign progresses.

she didn't mention him last night. there was lath-minute drama and excitement about whether brown would make it to the debate on time. by the time he got there, he didn't seem like someone reluctant to debate. he was ready to debate. >> thank you very much, noah. we appreciate you coming on. a labor dispute between american airlines and its pilots union, have you heard about this? if you're not flying or planning to fly, listen up. hundreds of delays and canceled flights as a result. american has canceled 300 flights this weeks with more planned through october. delays are way up. the "wall street journal" travel writer, scott mccartney, is telling travelers to take their business elsewhere saying, quote, if you're making travel plans for this fall, avoid american airlines. it's become too unreliable. nbc's come costello covers the aviation industry. i know you covered this all week. i first saw you on "nightly

news." i was stunned by the delays. this is not weather-related here. >> no, it's been a beautiful week. the trouble is that the airline is locked in this contentious battle with pilots. the pilots have not signed off on a new the contract. the airline is in bankruptcy proceedings and it's trying to put new conditions on the pilots. the pilots deny there's any organized effort here, but you cannot deny the fact that the on-time arrival numbers for american have sunk this week. let me show you a couple of numbers. last year, last september american airlines had on-time arrival rate of 82%. this september so far they're at 61%. let me show you what happened so far this week. on sunday they had an on-time arrival number of only 45%. you have monday, tuesday, wednesday and more delays yesterday. just a minute ago i got a new number if we can come off the graphics. flight stats just told me this. for the week american airlines has an on-time average the rate

of 48% compared to southwest, 87%. so what is apparently happening is that the pilots are taking any opportunity they can to complain about the mechanical or technical issue, even if it's minor like a coffeepot that's broken or reading light that's broken. as a result those write-ups delay flights. as a result this could be in the making for some time. >> what does that mean "some time"? half the flights delayed? that's awful. >> it means misconnections. you mitt a bar mitzvah. it means american airlines is saying through october it is going to proactively cancel more and more flights and hope to try to get it all worked out with the union. >> tom costello, thank you very much. home sales are higher than they've been in two years. that information may have been lost in so many other stories we

discussed. the latest jump surprised even some on wall street who thought the housing recovery might be faltering for much longer. what it means next, but first, there's a lot going on today. here's symptom things we thought you should know. maxine waters has been cleared of ethics allegations. it follows a three-year investigation of her waters actions. former presidential candidate herman cain says if he were the republican nominee, he would have, quote, a substantial lead over president obama. cain also says that he won't seek a cabinet position if romney wins, he won't. he just won't do it. don't twist his arm. while millions tuned in to watch the republican and democratic national conventions, it is most watched speaker was -- you can hear the applause. joe biden. roughly 43.6 million people tuned in to see the vice

president's speech. president obama came in second followed by mitt romney, bill clinton and marco rubio. the first episode of "snl's" thursday night weekend update aired late last night. did you see here? here's an highlight. >> featuring the best audience shot at the convention like woman sobbing before everyone speak and guy dancing to new music whatsoever. relive the ma jimagine sti of w just walking around and guy that bought props that only make sense to him. see the seam? more processed flakes look nothing like natural grains. i'm eating what i know is better nutrition. mmmm. great grains. search great grains and see for yourself. throughout our lives. one a day men's 50+ is a complete multi-vitamin designed for men's health concerns as we age.

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stop taking chantix and call your doctor right away. tell your doctor about any history of depression or other mental health problems, which could get worse while taking chantix. don't take chantix if you've had a serious allergic or skin reaction to it. if you develop these stop taking chantix and see your doctor right away as some can be life-threatening. if you have a history of heart or blood vessel problems, tell your doctor if you have new or worse symptoms. get medical help right away if you have symptoms of a heart attack. use caution when driving or operating machinery. common side effects include nausea, trouble sleeping and unusual dreams. it helps to have people around you... they say, you're much bigger than this. and you are. [ male announcer ] ask your doctor if chantix is right for you. welcome back. good news for the economy this it week. existing home sales jumped by nearly 8% in august. a much higher number than even the experts expected. it's the latest sign that real estate is certainly trying to have a bit of a comeback after struggling from 2007.

diana olig joins us live from outside of washington, d.c. we talk so often, and these things they headline good news have a caveat. in this case this seems like truly good news for a change. >> there's always a caveat when you talk about these housing numbers in this particular housing market, because it's like no other one we've seen. we got great, positive numbers this week. we saw home builder confidence surge and we saw new home construction surge. it gave everybody the question, is this just a blip on the radar or is this a sign of real demand coming back. there's a lot of talk about mortgage rates because in the past week they hit a new low. but mortgage rates were hovering near record lows throughout this summer, so you have to ask how much more is that going to do? when we look at the august sales numbers, interesting to note one third of the buyers in august paid all cash. despite those really low rates

we know that a lot of folks cannot get those low rates because they don't have the credit or down payment. a lot of them are paying all cash. the good news is it's not all investors as we've seen over the past year. it's generic, regular home buyers coming back in the market. the investor share of sales dropped in august. the share of homes below $100,000 dropped dramatically in august as well and keeps going down. less foreclosures on the market means the upper end, the mid-250 to $500,000 range in homes is coming back. that's what we needed to see. when we talk about confidence, it's about home prices, which has been coming up slightly. that's adding to everybody's wealth effect, making them feel better. 1.3 million borrowers came out of a negative equity position thanks to rising home prices. tamron. an end to the surge of u.s.

troops in afghanistan. that tops our look at stories around the "news nation" today. two years after president obama ordered an additional 30,000 troops in the country, the last of those added troops are coming home. that leaves about 68,000 american troops inside afghanistan. a slow withdrawal is expected to continue over the next two years. the space shuttle "endeavour" taking its final flight over california. it flew through san francisco and l.a., thrilling people in the west coast, flying over disneyland, the hollywood sign. the final destination is the science museum in l.a. swooevwe've seen it before. the long lines as the iphone5 went on sale in stores worldwide this morning. the phones were met with record demand, and like always, there's criticism. the last time i think it was the glass or something. this time the maps. according to some the maps are not as accurate, and a new connector is also a problem for

some people. expect apple to sell 8 million of those new smartphones over the weekend. not shabby. coming up, do you think ann romney was right to take on critics in the republican party telling them, quote, stop it? it's our "news nation" gut check, and nbc news education nation kicks off this weekend engaging the country in an unprecedented discussion about improving education. i will be there with brian williams on sunday for the big teacher town hall. the third time around for it. you can check out educati educationnation.com. rd for a be. since ameriprise financial was founded back in 1894, they've been committed to putting clients first. helping generations through tough times. good times. never taking a bailout. there when you need them. helping millions of americans over the centuries. the strength of a global financial leader. the heart of a one-to-one relationship. together for your future.

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you can join the "news nation" on our twitter page. it's time for the "news nation" gut check. we told you earlier about ann romney's response to republicans criticizing her husband's campaign. here's what she said in that big interview with a radio host. >> stop it.

this is hard. you want to try it? get in the ring. this is hard. and, you know, it's an important thing that we're doing right now, and it's an important election. and it is time for all americans to realize how significant this election is, and how lucky we are to have someone with mitt's qualifications and experience and know-how to be able to have the opportunity to run this country. >> as pointed out ann romney is not the first spouse to take on drik critics of their husband's campaign. what does your gut tell you? was she right to speak to critics within the republican party. go to facebook to cast that vote. look what the "news nation" is saying about yesterday's gut check. will mitt romney hurt republicans down ticket begin that 47% remark? 97% said yes and 3% said no. that does it for this edition of "news nation." thank you for joining us. i'm tamron hall.

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