daily beast writer, eli lake, joins us. governor romney campaigning today in virginia and florida riding high off the debate performance renewing enthusiasm in the republican party. new posts debate poll numbers show m the governor closing the gap with the president. fox news, chief political cor responsibility carl cameron with our report. ♪ >> a month before election day, and unemployment below 8% for the first time in the obama era, obama called it too little, too late because so many stoppedded looking for work. >> the truth is, if the same number of people were participating in the work force today as when the president was elected, unemployment would be 11%. >> romney says his plan creates long term jobs rather than part time work to get the unemployment under 8%, 32 days before the election. >> i will help create 12 million new jobs and rising take home pay. romney's debate performance is rising in polls inches ahead in ohio and virginia be it within the poll's margin of era. the tracking poll has the president up fi

. >> eli lake with the daily beast has been out front on the libya story from the beginning with what the u.s. knew, when the u.s. knew it. he joins us once again with increasing information on this. so, i want you to clear up something. you've been reporting today about the militia and some leaders of that militia in benghazi, who were allied with our mission there, but then said we're done with you because you don't like who we support for our new leadership. was that accurate? were they threatening to pull that work away and leave us less protected? >> that's based on the notes of september 11, 2012 cable that was approved by ambassador chris stevens on sort of the benghazi situation overall. it was one of the most interesting bullet points in the three page cable back to washington and i think it shows that in libya right now, there is an effort to try to build serious national security institutions, but those are very early, the early stages of that right now and that means that the libyan government and also the united states government for the security of its own diplomatic mis

and eli lake, with information about what the u.s. knew. eli, you have been investigating whether susan rice, the u.n. ambassador, was, in addition to receiving the talking points, obviously now everyone knows what those included, right, including that it was not a preplanned attack, also had perhaps been briefed on classified information, which could have included different pieces of information, obviously. what have you found? >> well, the main thing to understand is that the key piece of intelligence that informed the unclassified assessment that this was a spontaneous reaction to a video protest was an intercept between a member of ansar al sharia, and al qaeda in north africa. so that fact that it comes from that conversation, there are lots of reasons as to why the intelligence community would not want that information to be out there. one would compromise sources. the other is this there is a risk if you name groups like that, you could be creating a situation where you're getting false confirmation. someone may have seen a report to

lou: eli lake at the daily beast, outstanding.ell, joining us now to discuss this unfolding story and how it will affect the presidential race, former specialist assistant to george w. bush, ron christine joining us, and freedom watch president, bush staffer, brad blakeman. brad, good to have you with us. brad, starting, if i may, with you. this is becoming an unwieldy weight for the administration. surely, they understand how urgent it is that the record be set straight and soon. >> well, here's where the cover up begins. they are trying to cover tracks by saying initially the intelligent services told them it was a spoon tape yows attack, but the key questions, lou, is what did the president know? when did he know it? when did the narrative change? did the president ask questions? was he briefed in person? or rely on paper reports? one thing is for sure, lou, and that's this. if this happened in new york, if one of the ambassadors picked off the streets in new york and the consulate in new york to the u.n. was damaged like in li

we had eli lake writing that within 24 hours there were indications from more than one intelligence sourcead been a preplanned attack involving al-qaeda or some elements thereof. clearly there is a conflicting view of the facts here and we do need to get to the bottom of it. >> jon: thank god we have cnn and "washington post" to scour that site. >> jim if you recall when you and i and went to iraq in 2003, jim walked into what was then there c.i.a. and picked up documents that our government had just left behind. >> whole building full to be honest. it was quite something. however, look some of this is just the fog of war and fog of life. it is kind of astonishing they would put it on site. >> if they were interested to get to the bottom of this. >> jon: is the administration concerned that one month out to an election they don't want to read a bunch of headlines about how this nation may have known or should have known about terrorists planning an attack on our facility? >> the narrative that the obama administration is pushing is that osama bin laden is dead and we are fine. al-qaeda has

fox news reported, eli lake reported in 24 hours people knew it was linked to al-qaeda.uch time do they need? the argument does not hold water. >> bret: charles, i want your thoughts on this again on the other side of the break. we'll preview tonight's debate. keep it here on "special report." ♪ one, two, three, four ♪ ♪ you say ♪ flip it over and replay ♪ we'll make everything okay ♪ walk together the right way ♪ do, do, do, do till you finish your vegetables. [ clock ticking ] [ male announcer ] there's a better way... v8 v-fusion. vegetable nutrition they need, fruit taste they love. could've had a v8. or...try kids boxes! >> bret: we're back with the panel. charles in washington with a wrap-up of the libya conversation. charles? >> two quick points. number one, the president may be insulated by what hillary has done but it doesn't enhance his position as a leader to let someone else take the fall. the buck stops also with the media. hillary action takes the heat off only one aspect of this. the media had to be shamed by fox in to looking in to this in the first place

>> i'm going to plug eli lake, all over this libya story. >> yes, he has. >> another one today on information that e-mails come paining about the security of the embassy there. he's a must read every day. >> security situation and all fingers point to the state department. >> i'm going to be original and plug dean progress at 150,000 -- 160,000 followers and hoping for to 0,000. >> twitter? >> yes. i'm on twitter. on twitter. >> help you with the plug. >> issues week of "the washington post" every day we're doing a big take-out two pages on the differences between the candidates on the issues. >> today is? >> economy. >> thank you very much. that's it for this edition of "the daily rundown. "tomorrow, four weeks until election day and another way to show off bells and whistles but we have something new. the new decision act. bye-bye. >>> this is your business travel forecast. chilly air will continue to sit there and with sunshine in the afternoon. still only in the 50s today in the great lakes. better kansas city to minneapolis. the east coast, clouds will be moving your way in the day. we'l

eli lake is a senior report are for the daily beast. have been at the forefront of the reporting on this case. and we have been relying on your reporting a lot. we thank you for the good work you have been doing. it's been interesting to read. you and our own catherine herridge. you know, i think no one is demanding that the administration get everybody immediately and we know right off the bat. but why is the "new york times" able to find the guy having a strawberry frappe in a cafe and the guy is saying nobody has come to talk to him. no officials, just press people? >> i think there are a couple things. the cia presence in eastern libya is now pretty much no longer there. that an ex-was evacuated on the night of september 11 or the morning of september 12. second of all, the white house itself has not decided whether this is going to be a law enforcement action so you have the fbi investigate. you work with libyan authorities. whatever they are at this point. and you ask them to either extradite these people top u.s. ports or try the

we know from reporting from ely lake at the daily beast that there were surveillance cameras on sitehat shows it was an organized attack. we know there was drone surveillance in the final hours of the attack that shows it was an organized attack. we know that within 24 hours of the attack not only did we know it was a terrorist attack, but we knew al qaeda was involved and the name of the some of the gentlemen -- not gentlemen, some of the men involved. then why did the administration, u.n. ambassador susan rice, continue to go out on network after network and say this was response to a video and a spontaneous attack? that is completely befudling and it reflects national security concerns going up to the highest levels of this government. it reflects the commander in chief, there are legitimate, very, very legitimate and important questions to ask. have not yet been answered. >> there are legitimate questions. l.z., republicans are throwing out the word "cover-up." has it gone too far? >> no. i fully agree with will. somebody needs to be fired. we need to get to the bottom of this. t

and, bill, eli lake just posted an article on "daily beast" which shows how they cherry picked some information or alludes to their cherry picking' information. bill: you believe she should resign. >> yes, i do. she should resign. whether she was the messenger or chose to change what they knew to be the truth, we need to get to the bottom of this. it's why congress needs to begin some investigation. and look at the communiques that came from ambassador stevens. look what wa -- what was transpiring in libya. we have to realize this is a terrorist attack. this an act of war. this is not something that was carried out by some video watching benghazi-based community organizer that said let's bow flash mob the consulate in benghazi. this was a terrorist attack. bill: do you think it stops with susan rice? or does it go to the secretary of state hillary clinton or beyond that? >> this is why we need an independent council and we need the investigations to begin immediately. i think this is an issue -- benghazi-gate is the right term for this. this is very, very serious. probably more serious than wat

eli lake at "newsweek", who has been all over this story, i suggest you read him, from first day saidk, they had, within 24 hours information that this was a terrorist attack. we look at the hearings that biden says we never knew they wanted more security. eric nordstrom, head of libya security for the u.s. during the summer, i'll quote, all of us at post were in sync we wanted resources. in conversations with deputy assistant secretary of state charlene lamb. said you can not request a security detention. i determined i was told we wouldn't have one would be too much a political cost. we went ahead and requested it anyway. these are problems the american people are keenly interested in for a reason and we should be addressing them while the administration is misleading. >> thank you, mary katherine. now the issue is on the table. stephanie cutter is may have added to it. that is the no time she only mentioned because we because of romney campaign. marjorie, listen to this. >> what are you suggesting here? are you suggesting we're playing politics? >> i'm not suggesting anything you s

time line, michael's been doing some amazing stuff on this, as has been my colleague and friend eli lakeut there at the very beginning showing that, you know, within as michael says, within a day, then we have people debriefing the state department in person coming back from libya. and they're still going out there after this and saying that it's because of the video. this time line here is not good for them. >> hold on one second. i want to hear more about that from you, goldie. i want to talk about this funding question and then this really broad, this really important question which is the deep thing here is that there are tradeoffs between security for diplomatic staff and their ability to do effective diplomacy. when we boil this down to its essence as a policy choice, that's where i think we end up. we'll talk to someone who served in the foreign service and has some views on this right after we take this break. [ female announcer ] what's a powerful way to cut through everyday greasy messes? [ male announcer ] sponges take your mark. ♪ [ female announcer ] one drop of ultra dawn h

. >> eli lake, newsweek magazine. >> it has been recorded george w.pped you or once you -- wanted you to be the fema director when you were in florida after mike brown. is that true, and to you write your own -- do you write your own tweets? >> yes, that is why there is this piping's. -- that is why there are misspellings in there. as far as the rest of this that goes, i work for the present right now, and that is my focus. -- i work for the president right now, and that is my focus. what happened previously, we can talk about that later offline. >> thank you. >> next question. wall street journal, your line is open. >> i wanted to ask whether there is a consolidated effort on how many people are being told to evacuate or have evaporated, and -- evaluated -- that have evaluated, and -- evacuated, and a number of states that would involve. the second question on the coastal storm surges. if you could share more perspective on how long this could last, and a bit of time we have those kinds of a large swath of coast line? >> i do not have that in front o

and if you listen to people like eli lake, anderson cooper, and james rosen of fox news, all of them a terrorist attack. and they were defending. the state department lifers were defending ambassador rice yesterday. who gave them the talking points? what was going on? i know there was a secretary of state meeting with the president, hillary clinton and the president. the president p did not campaign yesterday, just interviews. was everyone getting on the same page? was patrick kennedy falling on his sword for his -- >> gretchen: it sounded like it. >> brian: -- appointed bosses? >> steve: what did the president know and when weather did he know? he was pushing the story, the president was, that it was all about the video, weeks after it was positively known. >> brian: he did say terror on september 12. >> steve: that's the way they're finessing it. but if you listen to some of the testimony yesterday, it's clear that the people have been deceived. listen. >> when i was in libya, good part of the day, never once did a person ever mention a video. never. and i am fascinated to know and

lakes to the southern plains. in sports this morning another classic show down between the giants and eagles turns into a thriller in philadelphia. fourth quarter giants elis pass incomplete. on the drive there's three interference calls. eagles hold on to beat the giants 19-17. freak accident during a pre-game warm up. both are out of the game against the bucs. robert griffith pushed the skins up by ten. the bucs will come back, a minute-and-a-half in the game. the third field goal is nailed. puts tampa bay up by one. griffin scrambles 15 yards down the 26 yard line. skins come back against the bucs 24-22. in baseball just three games left in the season and detroit is one game closer to making the playoffs. all the offense the tigers needed. launches a homer. 2-1 tigers. clinches the american league central tomorrow over a win on kansas city. madness in medinah, illinois. the americans were 10-4 and were supposed to win. in the 17th with u.s. and europe tied, this is a putt for par. europe now gets a one point lead. europe stuns the u.s. 13 1/2-13 to win the ryder cup again. an extreme skateboarder has a surprise, high-speed run in with some local wildli

lakes to the southern plains. in sports this morning another classic show down between the giants and eagles turns into a thriller in philadelphia. fourth quarter giants elis pass incomplete. on the drive there's three pass interference calls. 16 seconds on the clock, 55-yard throw. eagles hold on to beat the giants 19-17. freak accident during a pre-game warm up. redskins collide with each other. both are out of the game against the bucs. robert griffith pushed the skins up by ten. the bucs will come back, a minute-and-a-half in the game. the third field goal is nailed. puts tampa bay up by one. not to be denied, griffin scrambles 15 yards down to the 26-yard line. skins come back against the bucs 24-22. in baseball just three games left in the season and detroit is one game closer to making the playoffs. all the offense the tigers needed. launches a homer. 2-1 tigers. clinches the american league central tomorrow over a win on kansas city. madness in medinah, illinois. at the ryder cup golf tournament. the americans were 10-4 and were supposed to win. in the 17th with u.s. and europe tied, this is a putt for par. europe now gets a one point lead. on the