. >> i'm chris lawrence in the persian gulf and tonight, we're going to take you out on the high seasat's being done to -- to mine this. want to try to crack it? yeah, that's the way to do it! now we need a little bit more... a little bit more vanilla? this is great! [ male announcer ] at humana, we believe there's never been a better time to share your passions... because the results... are you having fun doing this? yeah. that's a very nice cake! [ male announcer ] well, you can't beat them. [ giggles ] ohh! you got something huh? whoa... [ male announcer ] humana understands the value of spending time together that's a lot of work getting that one in! let's go see the birdies. [ male announcer ] one on one, sharing what you know. let's do it grandpa. that's why humana agents will sit down with you, to listen and understand what's important to you. it's how we help you choose the right humana medicare plan for you. because when your medicare is taken care of, you can spend more time sharing your passions. wow. [ giggles ] [ male announcer ] with the people who matter most. i love yo

. >> i'm chris lawrence in the persian gulf and tonight, we're going to take you out on the high seassee what's being done to -- to mine this. ♪ [ multiple sounds making melodic tune ] ♪ [ male announcer ] at northrop grumman, every innovation, every solution, comes together for a single purpose -- to make the world a safer place. that's the value of performance. northrop grumman. [ male announcer ] how do you turn an entrepreneur's dream... ♪ into a scooter that talks to the cloud? ♪ or make 70,000 trades a second... ♪ reach one customer at a time? ♪ how do you help doctors turn billions of bytes of shared information... ♪ into a fifth anniversary of remission? ♪ or turn 30-million artifacts... ♪ into a high-tech masterpiece? ♪ whatever your business challenge, dell has the technology and services to help you solve it. >>> our third story "outfront," iran refuses to budge despite some talk about possibly suspended some parts of its nuclear program. officials tell cnn tonight, the iranian don't appear to be conceding any real gunshot wo d wound. sent the iranian currency plunging, as

. >> i'm chris lawrence in the persian gulf and tonight, we're going to take you out on the high seas to see what's being done to -- to mine this. the strait of hormuz. reach one customer at a time? ♪ or help doctors turn billions of bytes of shared information... ♪ into a fifth anniversary of remission? ♪ whatever your business challenge, dell has the technology and services to help you solve it. ♪ [ man ] excuse me miss. [ gasps ] this fiber one 90 calorie brownie has all the moist, chewy, deliciousness you desire. mmmm. thanks. [ man ] at 90 calories, the brownie of your dreams is now deliciously real. [ female announcer ] and now, try our new chocolate chip cookie 90 calorie brownie. try our new chocolate chip cookie when you take a closer look... ...at the best schools in the world... ...you see they all have something very interesting in common. they have teachers... ...with a deeper knowledge of their subjects. as a result, their students achieve at a higher level. let's develop more stars in education. let's invest in our teachers... ...so they can inspire our students. let's

chris lawrence is "outfront." >> imminent surface threat. >> reporter: if fighting breaks out with iran will look a lot like this drill. u.s navy sailor lors making splt second decisions on whether to fight. >> i ask, would you shoot? knowing you're responsible for the lives of everybody on board? that's a tough one. if you get it right, congr congratlaces. >> reporter: but the biggest battles could be fought under water. >> no one goes out unless someone has put mines in the water. >> reporter: a $10,000 mine could cripple a $10 million cargo ship. to understand how to defeat these explosives, you've got to go to the disputed waters, where the latest technology is being depl deployed. we lead on a special chopper that can destroy mines. one of several to keep power in the area. it drops an acoustic line into the gulf, which mimics the sound of a real ship to trick the mine into detonating. these are the open seas, but the iranian territorial waters are less than 70 miles away. mining the entire strait of hormuz would take thousands of sets of mines and weeks they probably don't have. d

growth and what are we looking at in terms of life after ludicrous speed well joining me now is chris lawrence and with his answer to that question he is author of the crash course and he joins us now thank you so much dr martens and for being on the show today lauren it's my pleasure it's our pleasure to have you let's start with consumer credit because it was up for august more than forecast more than expected do you take this as a sign that consumers are really going to lever up again and the fed may be successful in reflating. you know a lot of that is being driven by the student at this point i don't think the september and october or unusual months to see those student borrowing but i don't know if it is doing everything they can get us back to the ludicrous speed i just don't think that we are the fuel airport that we really need to go to spec you know it's nice that we maybe go to fewer stronger loans going and we're borrowing more for schools but but this isn't really the broad based credit expansion i think the food is looking for so they don't have the fuel to keep it going is what

. >> let's go to the pentagon now and talk to chris lawrence because, chris, there are all these newy come in as far as what the cia might have known. what are you hearing? >> well, we're hearing some new reports from the ap, brooke, but stuff that cnn has already reported weeks ago. basically that in were indications shortly after this attack that it may not have been spontaneous, that it may have been planned. in fact, a u.s. official is basically saying no one right now is ruling out the idea that some of the attackers may have aspired to attack the consulate, but right now that official is also saying and also telling us there isn't any indication, any intelligence that suggests this attack was preplanned for days or much less weeks before hand. all this comes back to what the obama administration was saying in the days and weeks following the attack, specifically what u.n. ambassador susan rice said on the sunday talk shows when she called this attack spontaneous. apparently she was speaking from sort of a talking points memo that was generated, supposedly just for congress, but

chris lawrence has been following the story. he's at the pentagon this morning. ris, take us throughhese hearings. what will happen? >> this is all basically, carol, setting up what will be allowed when these men eventually do go to trial. one of the things to concentrate on today and as this goes on is what the defendants and their lawyers will be allowed to talk about and say. specifically in regards to torture. the lawyers, the defense lawyers want to be able to talk about their clients and have their clients talk about publicly some of the things they were subjected to while they were being held. the government does not want that information released publicly because they say it compromises some cia interrogation practices and would jeopardyize national security. expect that to be a very big focus. even the aclu is going to weigh in on this today. again, remember, all of this originally was scheded for years ago. but president obama stopped that trial short when he was trying to move all of this to a federal court in new york as part of his plan to close guant

. >> chris lawrence is at the pentagon. >> that's basically what they're saying publicly is this doesn't have anything to do with iran. the fact that we are working together and we are doing this exercise is a message in and of itself. in other words, there is obviously the context of iran. this exercise was supposed to go on earlier this spring, it was postponed by israel and here it is, you know, literally just a couple weeks before the u.s. presidential election in which governor mitt romney has accused president obama of sort of fracturing the relationship with israeli. well, here you have now just two weeks out the largest exercise of its kind, three weeks, going to cost the u.s. about $30 million, spread out over different sites in israel, europe and the mediterranean. >> i know that many, many viewers probably don't know the united states does this with other countries. how many people are we talking about? >> so far, carol, already about a thousand troops have arrived in israel to start for when these exercises kick

chris lawrence at the pentagon. thanks very much. let's dig deeper into this. david sanger is here.the author of the book "confront and conceal." an excellent book indeed. >> thanks for having me. >> what do you make of the timing, a thousand u.s. troops in israel for these exercises. >> well, this was supposed to happen back in the spring. it did get put off but the timing is a happy consequence dense for both president obama and for prime minute ter netanyahu. romney is likely to repeat his line that the president is willing to have die light between himself and israel. >> he has also said he threw israel under the bus. >> he has said that. i think these exercises underscore the point. while there is great distance between obama and netanyahu, the u.s. and israel on the security issues have worked together quite closely, as you have heard. not only this, but also the missile defense systems that have been put up. and of course olympic games. the cyber program against iran, which was a joint u.s.-israeli program. you have the oddity of two leaders who have been going each other and

chris lawrence for us at the pentagon. chris, thank you. >>> now look at this.miles up, and do this? yeah, not so much on my part. but felix baumgartner did exactly that. amazingly, successfully he fell more than 800 miles per hour. so what is his next adventure? we'll find out next. to tell ret our new 15 under $15 menu. oh my goodness! oh my gosh, this looks amazing! at's a good deal! [ man ] wow! it is so good! [ male announcer ] our new maine stays! 15 entrees under $15, seafood, chicken and more! oo! the tilapia with roasted vegetables! i'm actually looking at the wood grilled chicken with portobello wine sauce. you so fascinated by the prices, you keep rambling on! i know! -that pork chop was great! -no more fast food friday's! so we gotta go! we're going to go to red lobster. yep. [ male announcer ] try our 15 under $15 menu and sea food differently! ♪ [ male announcer ] the first look...is only the beginning. ♪ ♪ introducing a stunning work of technology. ♪ introducing the entirely new lexus es. and the first ever es hybrid. this is the pursuit of perfec

not just in libya. >> chris lawrence, thank you, chris. >>> top the of the hour.as president obama is ready to cast a rote in chicago, mitt romney is expected to speak live in a minute. both men hitting swing states at a fever pitch. and picking up some key endorsements along the way. we have to talk about a hurricane here. hurricane katrina sandy. take a look at the pictures. thanks to you our ireporters. this is -- wait for it. dominican republic taken earlier today. more than 100 people had to be evacuated. just look at the water level there. tops the tires. sandy blamed on two deaths, one in jamaica and one in haiti. and then there's cuba. sandy slammed in to southeastern cuba today. a category 2 hurricane. the question now is when and where will sandy hit the u.s. coast? ask chad myers. when will it head toward us? >> i wish i could tell you. we're still four days out from that. >> wow. okay. >> four days if we're talking washington, d.c., delmarva. obviously, takes longer to get to nova scotia. it turns to the left. and this is what we have been dealing with

let me bring in lawrence o'donnell, chris. lawrence is in the spin room tonight, which i think has yet to begin to spin. lawrence, what do you think the expectations are on both sides tonight? >> reporter: well, rachel, in this room, there are a lot of $10,000 bets going on behind me about what the president is going to say tonight and what mitt romney is going to say tonight. i think the rules actually favor president obama because there are almost no rules. they are going to do two-minute statements, they're each going to get two minutes at the beginning of the subjects that jim leherer will introduce. and discussing not policing 30-second rebuttals and 60-second statements. none of that red light stuff with the clocks and all of that stuff. and when you're in mitt romney's position, where he's actually trying to hide some things, trying to hide the details of the deduction side of his tax plan, he's still hiding his tax returns. when you're that candidate who has things that you don't want to talk about, those very narrow rules are

let's go straight to our pentagon correspondent chris lawrence. chris, what are you learning?.s. has been carefully vetting some of the syrian rebel groups to find these moderates, these so-called moderates are already busy finding partners of their own in the jihadists. an official who has knowledge of the intelligence says that the moderate rebel groups are so desperate for weapons that they're partnering up with the jihadists who are better armed and well-funded. moderate syrian rebels are not getting the weapons they want from the united states. so they're turning more and more to extremists and al qaeda-like groups for help. that's the newest assessment from the chair of the house intelligence committee who told cnn "even rebels we've identified as somebody we could work with have partnered with jihadists because they have their own sources of money and weapons." but the obama administration has stuck to its policy of only arming the rebels with radios and computers. its u.s. allies are giving the real fire power. u.s. officials say they have a good idea which rebel group

i want to bring in chris lawrence also standing by and watching what we're about to hear very carefullyviously afghanistan is a massive issue. the president's policy is to withdraw soldiers by 2014. mitt romney has made comments about how he would view the withdrawal of soldiers and it is somewhat more nuanced, suggesting that he would work more with the generals and the boots on the ground now to assess the situation before making a final decision but we just had a report in the "new york times" within the last week that looked really dire about the situation there, almost as though it is just a failure. it is done. we can't get peace with the taliban and may end up having to lead just like the soviets did in '89. that cannot bode well for the folks that work in your building and listen to what we're hearing from mitt romney today. >> you're talking about the negotiations with the taliban seeming to collapse at least in the short-term, ashley. that depends, the reaction depends on who you talked to in the pentagon and some people were never all that bullish on the talks to begin with a

let's bring in chris lawrence, what are you learning? >> we're learning from a u.s.e may have been memos or other documents that indicated that it was possible that this was conducted by militants, but that some of the argument reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of how the process works. what i mean by that is this intelligence official is saying it's rare that one stream of intelligence will influence and direct an entire report. they're pooling multiple streams together, and while this theme may have existed, there are other things they were looking at as well. they put out a talking points memo to congress and to administration officials to give them some basis from which to talk about this incident. now the chair of the senate intelligence committee, senator diane feinstein said putting out those talking points may have been a mistake at that time. we're told that at the time when susan rice came out and said this was a spontaneous attack, that the intelligence was shifting underneath her at that time, but not to the point where they would revise a report to

our pentagon correspondent chris lawrence is joining us now with the latest. chris, why do u.s.ials suggest this video may have been staged? >> reporter: well, wolf, our sources tell us there are several reasons, not the least of which is the fact these so-called syrian rebels appear to be wearing afghan style clothing, not the kind we normally see in syria. now, u.s. officials say they cannot say with 100% certainty but they say it's somewhat likely that the american in this video is austin tykes. he's a former marine and had been working overseas as a journalist when he disappeared about six weeks ago. in fact, some of our sources say this video someone looked at clips of jihadists and sort of made up this video. they say normally you would think a group would want to take credit for capturing an american. but in here there's no flag. also it wasn't posted on typical jihadist forums, but facebook and youtube. they don't even make any demands in the video. our sources say jihadists typically make videos like this in a controlled environment, like a studio. not the chaotic shots

chris lawrence is along the city's main point of defense for the waters of the potomac river, talking chris, what's going on over there? >> reporter: we're starting to see the winds starting to pick up a lot here. you can definitely see the waves starting to lap here in the tidal basin. if you take a look, an iconic view of washington, d.c., that's the jefferson memorial, with the waters really starting to pick up here. one of the things we've followed throughout the day is the power outages. to give you an idea how quickly things have changed since we've been out here, in just a matter of a couple of hours, it's gone from maybe 9,000 people without power to probably over 60,000 people without power. and even though this is a storm that is affecting mostly the east coast, as this storm pushes up the coast, the people responding are coming from all over the country. some of the area companies here have been polling workers from texas, alabama, mississippi, louisiana, areas that have had their own problems with hurricanes over the years. this time, they're in the opposite situation. the

chris lawrence at the pentagon has the latest. what's going on here?ently a commander warned no matter which country attacked iran, it would retaliate against the u.s. and israel. these exercises are designed to prove that the u.s. and israel working together could repel an attack like that. but accompanied just a couple weeks before the united states presidential election they really carry a political message as well. military commanders won't even say the word iran when it comes to these exercises. they don't have to. the israeli general in charge of planning said the fact we're practicing together is a strong message by itself. iran will see how well u.s. ships and troops can work with israeli rocket shields as they defend israel from simulated attacks from rockets, missiles and drones. the pentagon and also test new technology it helped pay for, like israel's iron dome short range missile defense system. in all the exercise will involve 3,500 u.s. troops at a cost of $30 million. they'll be training over three weeks in parts of israel, europe and t

. >> let's bring in chris lawrence on this. he offered more information on why the u.s.re you hearing? >> secretary panetta said they did consider sending troops into the situation, but bottom line, they did not have enough information. in some of his most expansive comments yet on benghazi in the situation, they had ships off the coast of libya, but, ultimately, that this attack only lasted a few hours and by the time u.s. officials had figured out exactly what was happening, it was over. >> basic principle is that you don't supply horses into man's way without knowing what's going on. without having real-time information about what is taking place. as a result of not having that kind of information, the commander who was on the ground or in that area, general dempsey and i felt very strongly that we could not put forces at risk in that situation. >> i also spoke with the defense official who put this in somewhat context. he said he couldn't get into the specific response times of those response teams because it's qualified. but accounting for the transportation aspect

in san francisco a memorial was held for chris stevens. edward lawrence reports. >> reporter: round of people filled san francisco's city hall to honor ambassador chris stevens, one of four americans killed last month. friends, family, dignitaries and members of the public came to remember their home town hero. stevens grew up in the bay area and went to college in nearby berkeley. >> he had a lot of friend. >> reporter: the life long bachelor served as a diplomat in the middle east. he worked with rebels who would overthrow moammar gadhafi. george schultz says stevens lost his life serving his country. >> we gather to celebrate the immense accomplishments that this man has made for us. >> reporter: stevens family said they received an outpouring of support from around the world including letters from the libyan people. >> my name is chris ste veps and i'm the new u.s. ambassador to libya. >> reporter: stevens made this video to introduce himself to libyans just four months earlier. his death is at the center of an international investigation. at the memo

chris lawrence is with us right now in falls church, virginia. chris, what is the situation there?well, we still have got a couple of hundred thousand people without power and this is primarily the reason why. take a look. i'm standing in the middle of the street. as you can tell, there is a huge tree blocking this entire street. as we swing around, you can tell it knocked down some of the telephone wires here, on the other side the power lines are down. we do -- are getting some good news, though. when you look at the big picture, some of the power companies like pepco say they expect to have power restored to 90% of their customers by tomorrow morning. other companies are reporting by thursday. now, this tree obviously came down on the roadside, not the house side. we talked to a man just a few miles away from here, who wasn't so lucky. 8:00 last night he's sitting with his son, watching tv, trying to ride out the storm, the tree outside his house literally is uprooted, splits his entire roof in half, caves in part of his house, crushes his car. today, he's very lucky to have his

bring in our chris lawrence, not far from d.c., in falls church, virginia. that's welcome news.the metro service back to folks. how are people doing today? >> reporter: well, that's a big help, suzanne, you lived in this area, you know how dependent they rely on public transportation but there's still a lot of problems. nothing probably says that better than this. standing in the middle of the road and this tree shows you what it's like on some roads and trying to get by. take a look here. we swing around, you can see it's knocked down some telephone poles in the area on the other side, power lines are down. a lot of folks in this area coming up to us, telling us, over the last hour, we don't have power. overall big picture in this area, still 140,000 people without power. some tens of thousands people have had their power restored. but here's the good news. magic number of 35, 35 miles per hour, the wind has to get below that for the crews to get up on some of the ladders to start fixing the power lean. we're almost at no wind at this point. that will happen fairly quickly. whe

pentagon correspondent chris lawrence joins us. how credible really is this claim?e've heard claims from north korea before. is this something that the u.s. should really be concerned about? >> bottom line, no, not right now. although north korea is working on the technology. everyone i've spoken to the pentagon say they're not close to perfecting it. alaska is about 3500 miles away from north korea, california between 5,000 and 6,000 miles. they haven't come close to testing a rocket that's gone nearly that far. they've tested this type of technology about three times. in 2006, the rocket flew about 40 seconds and exploded. in 2009, they tried to put a sat white into orbit, but that broke up over the sea well short of what they had sbeintended. and then six months ago, they tested similar technology again. it flew but again broke up over the sea. so they've had three failures it took the united states about 24 launches to perfect this technology, a third of which failed. so it's not easy to do. and north korea, although they seam to be improving, they're not close

>> chris lawrence with that explanation. thanks for that report.asting time hitting back. kate baldwin is monitoring, that other top stories. when's going on wolf, the president is on a fund raising swing through california. which is white house correspondent dan lothian traveling with the president and has more on this. dan, when's the latest? >> reporter: the campaign came out swinging pretty hard. the president not weighed in, reacting to romney's speech, but last night during a big fund-raiser in los angeles, the president flexing the foreign policy muscles talking about how he's winding down the war in afghanistan, gone after terrorists, how he got osama bin laden and evidence the campaign says of the president's strong leadership. as president obama honored civil rights icons chavez with a new national monument -- >> the movement he helped to lead was you stained by a generation of organizers who stood up and spoke out and urged others to do the same. >> reporter: his campaign worked to shred gop nominee mitt romney's foreign policy chops rol

i'm joined by ed schultz, reverend al sharpton, chris hayes, steve schmidt. lawrence o'donnell is our man in the spin room tonight. the one and only chris matthews is at centre college in danville, kentucky, the site of tonight's debate. chris, is this unusually high stakes for a vice presidential debate? >> well, it's great being with you, again, rachel, and everyone else tonight at msnbc. look, it's great. it's great in its importance because of what happened last week. the frustration from the democratic base, i expressed it a acceleratisimilar version of the frustration of the failure of the president to bring out all this issues that his paid advertising, speeches have made all year but for some reason he didn't bring up. the most powerful issues. i'm going to one through four or five. by one word. you know the one word. vouchers. the way paul ryan wants to deal with health care which won't work for medicare. personhood. the way he wants to basically in effect criminalize, turn it into murder abortion decisions. the emergency room. where this presidential candida

vice president, board of trustees, trustee natalie burke, trustee chris jackson, trustee steve no, trustee rodrigo santos, trustee lawrenceong, student trustee william walker, we'd also like to introduce former trustees rodel rodis, allen wong, and i think peter finnican was also going to join us this evening. introduce our interim chancellor, dr. pamela fisher, our former chancellor, dr. don griffin, former chancellor dr. phillip day, and mr. mendehem, president of the citizen's bond foundation committee. >> (inaudible) mr. walker newman, and miss jacqueline liu and city of san francisco would like to recognize the honorable mayor of san francisco, the honorable david chiu, chairman of the board of supervisors. >> he's also our district 3 supervisor. >> the honorable menea cohen, the honorable ciel ping, commissioner cecilia chung, may woo, eileen lee riley and mr. carezza, san francisco unified school district. >> we'd like to recognize our guest from the consulate, education councilor from the people's republic of china, mr. bernhard able, consulate of germany, the honorable nagesh naharabi, india, the honorable dennis

chris stevens. the state department announced topin -- top diplomat lawrence pope will take the position, a 31 year foreign officer, speaks arabic and retired in 2,000. he will stay in the position until a permanent position is found. three other americans and stevens died in that ambush. >>> u.s. officials are condemning the shooting of a 49- year-old pakistani -- 14-year- old pakistani girl shot twit by taliban militants this week. they're outraged over the attack. it happened on tuesday as act have visto activists milala usee was on the way home from school. the unknown gunman asked for her by name and shot her in the head and neck. an advocate for girls education, writes a blog for the bbc under the life, the tale ban. >>> all eyes are on the nationals. not literally, but we're watching as they get closer to the world series. and here's more from outside of baltimore park. >> and this is's must win to stay alive k. they force it tonight? this is underway going into the bottom of the 7th and tied at one. the fans here have gotten up plenty of times and the stolo run off of the bat of adam laroch

chris hayes. we'll be joined by our friend, lawrence mcdonnell, who's reporting from the very overcrowded spin room at hofstra. both campaigns putting literally dozens of surrogates out tonight to spin each candidate's performance. we'll be joined by chuck todd for poll analysis tonight. we'll be joined by ezra klein for policy analysis. and from hempstead, long island, at the site of the debate, it is right now the one and only chris matthews. chris, has another incumbent president had stakes this high in a second debate? >> rachel, no. and the reason is so deep into the soul of president obama himself. what's missing in the obama campaign right now is not a couple of points on the scoreboard or the polling or even a couple of states that are getting tricky right now, it's a spiritual loss. this campaign, the obama camp needs a spiritual revival, and only one man can bring it. it needs to see the leader out front. it needs to see the man they're fighting for, and what does he win? out there bringing the fight to the enemy? they need him playing strong defense tonight, saying my record is good. i s

lawrence reports from san francisco. >> reporter: hundreds of people filled san francisco's city hall to honor u.s. ambassador chris stevens, one of four americans killed last month when terrorists attack the u.s. consulate in benghazi. friends, family, dignitaries and members of the public came to remember their hometown hero. he grew up in the bay area and went to college at nearby berkley. >> he had a very challenging job, always came home. >> reporter: the lifelong bachelor served as a diplomat in the middle east and first went to libya in 2007. he returned last year and worked with rebels who would overthrow mao mar qaddafi. former secretary of state george schultz said he lost his life serving his country. >> we're here to celebrate the immense accomplishments this man has made for us. >> reporter: stevens' family said they received an outpouring of support from around the world including letters from the libyan people. >> he built the bridge between libya and the united states. >> my name is chris stevens and i'm the new u.s. ambassador to libya. >> reporter: stevens made this video to introduce himself to l

lawrence o'donnell." have a great night. >>> new jersey's republican governor chris christie has a new best friend. president obama. >> hurricane sandy bearing down on the entire eastern seaboard. bearing down on 60 million people across at least a dozen states. from delaware to north carolina. new york and new jersey. >> this was a devastating storm. >> in atlantic city part of the famous boardwalk washed away. >> ground zero, flood water is rushing into the construction site. >> many homes completely covered. >> massive six-alarm fire in new york's borough of queens. >> 3 feet of snow in parts of west virginia. >> 7.8 million people without power. >> flights are canceled. subways are shutdown. >> the federal government is closed. the new york stock exchange is closed. >> we're a week from election day. >> just seven days to go. >> i don't give a damn about election day. >> this storm is not yet over. >> the president has been all over this. he deserves great credit. >> the election will take care of itself. >> i will tell you, this administration could give a damn less about election day. >> they