he he has leveled off and we're seeing that in the polls. >> mark preston, thank you. the national security debate moderated by wolf blitzer tonight at 8:00. >>> the dow is down for the second day in a row after the supercommittee failed to reach a deal. alison kosik, the dow was down triple digits. how are the numbers? what is the difference? >> the loss is not as steep as yesterday but investors don't know what to do at this point. today it fell 100 points and briefly turned positive. the way the markets see it, the economy, it's an epic fail. it opens up a whole new layer of uncertainty. still, the good news is, the credit agencies are going to hold their u.s. debt ratings right where they are for the time being. but you know what? worries of what happens in the long term, that's why you are seeing the selling today, brooke. >> and what does this say about the outlook for the economy and the u.s. credit ratings? >> yeah. analysts say that all of the uncertainty about what congress might or might not do over the next few months, it can wind up slowing the economy dow

let's go to mark preston who joine joins us now from washington. cain ducked the topic during a speech last noit. do we expect him to say anything today? >> we do. this is something that will dog him along the campaign trail, don. something he has been battling for several weeks. several women come out and allege that he sexually harassed them during his tenure at the national restaurant association and now we have this new woman, ginger white coming out saying that she had an inappropriate relationship with mr. cain for 13 years. she spoke out about it on a local atlanta television station, as we all know, a couple days ago.addressed it th morning, again, on "good morning america." >> do you believe that mr. cain is fit to be president or should he end his campaign? >> in my opinion, no, i do not. i honestly do not think that he is, in my opinion, would make a good president as far as i'm concerned. my views are different than his views, but at the end of the day, this is not political. >> and there you have ginger white just a few hours ago on "g

>> he made it happen, absolutely. >> that's our mark preston. great job, gloria, thanks so much. >>> meanwhile, as early as today we could hear from one of herman cain's accusers. joe johns, we may actually hear more about one of the woman at some time today, right? what do you know? >> well, maybe. look, joel bennett is the lawyer for one of the women at the center of this controversy. and there had been some hope and speculation, kyra, that she might go public to clear the air, tell us specifically what behavior herman cain did that she was complaining about that apparently led to a settlement something like a dozen years ago. mr. bennett, the lawyer, had a long talk with his client last night and now he's saying she doesn't want to go public and she doesn't want to become an anita hill-type figure and won't be doing any interviews. bennett, the attorney now, says he will ask the national restaurant association to approve some type of statement being drafted in his client's words, i think that's the most important thing, to be released to the

mark preston, there's a differt

let's go to the sport card, and mark preston. good morning. >> good morning. >> talk about newt gingrich first. he took the immigration issue head-on and it was kind of surprising. listen to what he said first. >> he did. >> the party of the family is going to adopt an immigration policy which destroys families that have been here a quarter century and i'm prepared to take the heat for saying, let's be humane in enforcing the law without giving them citizenship but by finding a way to create legality so they are not separated from their families. >> governor perry -- >> some republicans might say he's talking amnesty. something the conservative base is totally against. how do you think this played with that conservative part of the republican party? >> carol, he certainly ran into the wall with that answer. newt gingrich was very strong throughout this whole debate, and this might have been his big gaffe of the night. especially when looking at the republican presidential primary. the answer he gave last night is the answer you w

mark preston is in washington. mark, what do you think? how did cain actually happened the topic last night? >> he did pretty well. the fact of the matter is we knew the question was going to be asked. when the question was asked of mr. cain about character, the issue of character and what american voters are looking for, this is what he had to say. >> i value my character and my integrity more than anything else and for every one person that comes forward with the false accusation, there are thousands who would say none of that sort of activity every came from herman cain. >> and there you have herman cain really taking that question head on. now, the most important part of the whole question about his character was the reaction from the audience, kyra. there were boos. the fact of the matter is, when the cnbc moderator asked that question, people in the audience booed. so, as jim has just said, he seems to be getting a break. rick perry flubbing last night really has provided herman cain a little bit of distance right now, but the fact o

the possibilities here for supporting sustainable growth will be in the center of this question mark preston for us the other side and. for more technical nature of real anyway from the passion of thirty years can i ask for example last year's only son it was worth something that one billion dollars. people of thought really think that anything comes out of this sense especially when it comes to plausible solutions to the real problems world is facing. for example last summer suggested that world needs more financial regulation and that countries with big budget deficits should cut those deficits and the countries with large surpluses in external trade should encourage internal consumption i know there's been incremental for us to look back to the sun it's so it's cheaper and cheaper from phone at the time and mind you are being spent in more efficient way than before secondly are that important to understand that while you're in the sun it's nor are specific decisions being made. accordingly from the four policies conducted by national governments are important result this power in the for.

mark preston remembers covering the barney frank himself as a very young reporter, even got chewed outa tougher journalist. hi, mark. >> the right of passage here in washington to have barney frank make you feel this big. that's a good thing for me. yes, first ee lengted in 1980, barney frank will announce in a few hours he will not seek another term. barney frank has been a stallworth for democratic ideals. he's been one of the best debaters in congress. one of the biggest fighters against republicans. he was one of the first openly gay members of congress, something that probably helped open the doors for other folks who were in the closet. they saw somebody in congress come out and talk about their sexuality. he also had controversy. back in 1990 he was reprimanded by the house over allegations of his association with a male prostitute. just in the past couple of years barney frank might have made the comeback, some would say, to push all those bad things aside when he was the co-author of the dodd frank federal regulation bill. w

mark preston in washington. so, mark, is this a political risk for cain or is the news conference just long overdue? >> well, there's no question that this news conference is long overdue, will it put anything to rest? i pretty much can guarantee you right now that it will open up mr. cain to more questions. the biggest problem for mr. cain is two. one, multiple women who said that he sexually harassed them and now we've seen, we put a name and a face to one of those women. in addition to that, his story seem to evolve at the beginning where he seemed to remember, you know, the payments to one of these women as the story continued on. you know, when the glare of the media spotlight hit him. so, today when mr. cain holds his news conference later this afternoon, he'll come under more questions about why he hasn't addressed it and this has been a terrible public relations nightmare that has been mishandled by his campaign, kyra. >> cain's opponents are staying pretty quiet on this, why? >> they are staying pretty

. >>> and now we want to check in with mark preston. a day of endorsements, i guess, for the republican candidates, or some of them? >> it certainly is. randi, it isn't just about the controversy surrounding herman cain. a couple big endorsements made for two other republican presidential candidates. mitt romney down in florida got the endorsement of three very prominent cubans down there. two of them are current lawmakers. representative mary diaz and former congressman lincoln diaz ballard. this is very important in the republican nomination held on january 31st. so the fact that mitt romney is getting the support of these three lawmakers down in florida where cubans tend to be more conservative and congregate down in the south florida area, that is very big news for him. >> yeah. what about rick perry? who was he chumming around with today? >> well, he is in new hampshire with none other than sheriff joe, sheriff joe arpaio. people know him specifically for his tough stance on crime, particularly, illegal immigration. of course, we a

our senior political editor mark preston has a look. tell us about the latest numbers this morning, mark. >> we are one day away from arguably the most important republican presidential debate of the year. it is going to focus on national security in the economy and the gallup corporation has a new poll from a few hours ago. let's look at the numbers. shows mitt romney remains on top at 20%. shows as well that newt gingrich who has come on in the last couple of weeks comes in at 19% followed by herman cain at 16%. ron paul at 10% and rick perry at 8%. this is showing us that newt gingrich has become the alternative to mitt romney. conservatives who aren't enthralled with mitt romney are looking for another candidate. right now that appears to be gingrich. we are seeing herman cain slip a little bit in the polls after skyrocketing in the past month or so. >> all right. that's an interesting comeback for newt gingrich. and herman cain is third at least in the latest poll. remind us when e the orc poll is out, i believe in a few hours. it w

. >>> let's check in with mark preston for politics happening around the country and in washington.e's putting me to shame right now, ran dye. >> we should talk about rick perry. >> he has a new plan and spelled it out at a speech, and you guessed it, in iowa. let's look at his plan. number one is dismantling congress as we know it. he's proposing that we have a citizen congress made up of part-time legislatures. their salaries should be cut in half and they should have to get other jobs back in their home districts. >> send them home, live under the laws, among the people that they represent. >> now, of course, in order for this to work, he has to repeal. members of congress can't hold other jobs. randi? >> and does he have any plans for the supreme court that he revealed today? >> he does. what he'd like to do is make a major, major change to the court and quote, unquote, the activist judges. we heard this a lot from conservatives. one thing that we would customer is term limits for supreme court justices. they would only be able to serve 18-year terms. implementing this term limi

senior political editor mark preston in washington. let's talk about how significant this defeat is. >> very significant, kyra. let's start off in mississippi. the parenthood amendment would have defined the idea of the very much against this. the fact of the matter is has the initiative passed on in mississippi would have given supporters who want to outline abortion to outlaw abortion all across the nation. in mississippi, another big loss for conservatives. specifically the republican governor joined kasich. there was a law on the books that he pushed through that was rejected by voters up there. his law would have, was curtailing the rights, the collective bargaining rights of public sector employees. now, we all know that ohio is going to be a huge, huge state next year, major battleground state in the presidential election. democrats saw this as a huge win for them, a huge win for unions and, really, a test of how they can mobilize, kyra, against republicans and especially what they say is initiatives are hurtful to american work

let me bring in mark preston keeping an eye on all things related to politics. new hampshire y guess mitt romney wished new hampshire voted first and guess they voted like, today. >> and last for that matter. you know, if it was just new hampshire that was going to choose the republican presidential nominee, mt these out right now. justame out this morning from bloomberg. shows that mitt romney has a commanding lead up in new hampshire right now at 40%. now, of course, mitt romney is the former governor of massachusetts. and he in many ways is staking his campaign on a big win in new hampshire. now, these poll numbers, t.j., follow another poll that was released by bloomberg yesterday out in iowa that shows that the race for the iowa caucuses is very much up for grabs. we have four people right now vying to try to win the iowa caucuses. but, again, focusing back in on new hampshire, t.j. one person who is staking his campaign on new hampshire, as well. jon huntsman, the former governor. he said some things last night that he probably wish he hadn't. jon huntsman

let's get straight to mark preston. t will be rolling out soon to support rick perry? >> no doubt about it, we're heading into the home stretch of the presidential nomination. that means these independent expenditure groups are starting to open up their wallets. a group that is supportive of governor perry is going to spend $400,000 in two states over ten days, iowa and south carolina. this is significant because this is the first real buy we're seeing from an independent group that's trying to weigh in on the republican presidential nomination. keira, it's worth noting that the whole presidential race is going to be driven by these independent expenditures that are going to be buying all this

senior political reporter mark preston joining us now. the poll is out. 3 caucus. cain on top here. perry lagging far behind, and he's unveiling a new plan today, right now, in iowa. >> good news for herman cain, especially since this poll was conducted after all the news of allegations of sexual harassment have hit herman cain. the problem for herman cain in iowa is he has no real ground operation. in order to win the iowa caucuses, you need a ground operation. i should tell you as well that herman cain is using iowa to raise money. they've been sending an e-mail out over the past week to try to raise $1 million that they said they would focus entirely on iowa. but as you said, rick perry there at 7% in iowa, which is a terrible number for the texas governor. he is unveiling a new plan to, what he says, dismantle washington, d.c., as we know it. a couple of those proposals would include cutting congressmen and senators' pay in half, making congress a part-time legislature, much like we see in many states. also put a moratorium on federal regulations as w

>> okay, mark preston. don't forget, everyone, 8:00 p.m. eastern tonight the cnn gop presidential debate. that's going to do it for me and i hand it over to jim costa. >> i have to get back here as soon as possible when i'm done with work to see that. thank you, hala. >> i'm jim costa. let's get you up to speed on this tuesday, november 22nd. a million man sit-in is taking place on tahrir square as violence erupts around it. security forces are using tear gas and rubber bullets against protesters armed with rocks and molitov cocktails. you're looking at live pictures right now of tahrir square. 24 have been killed, many injured. they have a new demand, this time aimed at egypt's military leader. >> we have a crowd here angry, young, furious at the loss of life here over the course of the past three days, demanding that the supreme council step down. >> mr. ivan watson, national security takes center stage at the presidential debate tonight. the stage is set just a few blocks from the white house. wolf blitzer will nar rate. a new cnn poll s

senior political editor mark preston, who we're all obsessed with.kyra, there's something to be said about perhaps the romney campaign wants to get a restraining order against the obama campaign and democratic national committee. they put out a memo this morning highlights the fact they say the obama administration is targeting them solely. what's interesting about this, kyra, is they're trying to make the case that they're the most electable right now out of the whole presidential field, but at the same time the romney campaign is acknowledging that they are, in fact, the front-runner. i've got to tell you when you run for president and run for any elected office, you never want to acknowledge that you're the front-runner because it puts you at the top and everyone, of course, is gunning for you. the romney campaign thinks, kyra, if they say they're the ones that the obama administration is targeting then, in fact, republicans will vote for them when it comes time to vote in january in iowa. >> i don't know if we're obsessed but we spend a lot of ti

>> all right, thanks so much, mark preston, appreciate that from washington. our next political update in one hour and a reminder for all the latest political news. you know exactly where to go to our website, of course. politics.com, cnnpolitics.com. >>> all right, we all know flying certainly is not cheap. airlines charge for just about everything from food to baggage. well, now we're hearing two chartered jets hit passengers up for extra cash in mid-flight during a layover. cnn's max foster has the latest from london. so, max, what happened? explain here. i know passengers were irate. >> absolutely. well, the back story is quite complicated. but essentially what happened is there was a load of passengers on the plane traveling from india to the uk and the plane stopped, was brought down in vienna and everyone on board was told to pump out tens of thousands of cash to pay for fuel. some were released off the aircraft and some were allowed to go to cash machine to get the money and some had to borrow off each other. eventually, they dead get up into the air,

mark preston stand by for the anything goes this political season. >> no doubt. no doubt. >> thanks, mark. our next political update in just about an hour. a reminder for all the political news, go to our website, 24/7. cnnpolitics.com. really turning out to be an interesting political season. >> and the great thing about this is we still have a year to go. >> it's just getting started. >>> jerry sandusky is fighting back against child molestation charges. he spoke by phone to nbc's bob costas. these are sandusky's first public remarks since his arrest ten days ago. >> i would say that i'm innocent of those charges. >> innocent? completely innocent and falsely accused in every aspect? >> well, i could say that i have done some of those things. i have horsed around with kids. i have shourd after workouts. >> you're going to hear more from jerry sandusky throughout the hour. >>> the heart of the occupy movement now wiped clean. these are shots of new york's zuccotti park being cleared of protesters in a police sweep early this morning. over 100 people were arrested.

senior political editor mark preston joins me from washington. what happened?were watching you, waiting to see this test come on. i kept seeing don lemon. all i saw was don lemon. this was the first ever test and it did not work properly. but fema and the fcc said it was not a failure. after all, this was a test to try to find weak points and flaws. and there were problems. some tv and radio stations never played the 30-second alert while others kept it up for longer than 30 seconds. the emergency alert system is often used on a local and regional basis, and it is used to notify people of events such as tornadoes. but to emif a spies this was not a failure, the head of fema said in an interview with cnn if we don't test it we don't know what we need to fix. clearly they know they need to fix something. >> that's the glass half full. sometime you need learn from mistakes. >> no doubt. >> appreciate that in washington. that will do it for me. brooke baldwin is in washington, d.c. as well today. brooke? >> i'm in your home turf. nice to be here in washington. i lo

thanks very much, mark preston, and a reminder tomorrow night at 8:00 p.m. is our debate. i'll be back tomorrow at the same time, but for now, jim costa is next. nice to see you in person. >> this doesn't happen very often, but nice to see you. i'm jim aacosta. let's get you up to speed on this november 21st. after months of talks the congressional supercommittee is expected to announce today it simply cannot agree on a debt reduction package. everybody is pointing fingers on what caused the mess. we'll explain that on capitol hill in about ten minutes. >>> speaking of the supercommittee, already markets are reacting badly to fears that the debt committee won't reach a deal. u.s. stocks opened sharply lower today. right now the dow is down over 300 points. this follows last week's losses on wall street, the worse in two months. former fbi director, louis freeh, will lead the internal investigation into the penn state scandal. jerry sandusky is charged with molesting eight boys, some on campus. freeh pledged a thorough and independent investigation. >> i am committed to ens

senior political editor mark preston is in washington.but is it really smart? >> yeah, i mean, look. he had no other choice, martin, except to go out there, try to embrace this, and to try to turn around his campaign. i'll tell you, when that moment happened on wednesday night if you were following social media you would see that everybody was saying his campaign was over. however, his campaign is not saving that. and, in fact, not only did we see him go on late night last night to try to poke fun at himself and turn his whole campaign around. he also did interviews with all the networks yesterday morning, something we hadn't seen from rick perry before, trying to get out in front of this. what people are not discussing right now, though, martin, is the fact that rick perry still can do very well in iowa. could potentially win iowa, which is the first state that will vote in the republican presidential nomination, and rick perry has a lot of money. so while this was terribly embarrassing, i don't necessarily think it is devastating and wi

. >>> let's check in with cnn's mark preston for today's political ticker. >> i tell you what, ted, bign washington and massachusetts. barney frank, the 16-term congressman, surprised everyone by announcing today he will not run for reelection. now, he was very much intending to do so, at least that's what he was telling people, however, he came out just a short time ago, said he did not want to run in a new zriblgt. he also had some tough things to say about the political process. in fact, let's listen to what he said, ted. >> i think i was pretty good at being a legislator. i think i have been pretty good at working inside it that framework of government. but, to my disappointment, the leverage you have within withe government has substantially changed. the kind of inside work i have felt best at is not going to be as productive for the foreseeable future and not until we make some changes. >> now, ted, it's not sure what he meant by the changes but clearly there's a hyperpartisan effort in washington and across the country. barney frank a partisan himself, somebody who would go toe-t

mark preston is live from the political desk in d.c. what are we hearing from gloria cain now?eard anything from herman cain's wife since these allegations came out several weeks ago. in fact she set down for an interview on fox news' channel. they did release a clip of it, and let's hear what gloria cain had to say. >> and i know that's not the person he is. he totally respects women. >> so there you have gloria cain right there, suzanne, rebutting the allegations that, in fact, her husband sexually harassed a handful of women that have come out and said so. this comes in addition to a new offense by the cain campaign. in fact, just a few hours ago i received an e-mail from the cain campaign. it was eight pages long where it not only tauts mr. cain's fund-raising success and his standing in the polls but attacks the liberal media for shoddy journalism. of course, we're all looking into the story, suzanne. >> mark. tell us a little bit about michele bachmann. she has complained about bias about how she was treated over the weekend debate. now she's trying to turn that to her ad

>> mark preston for us there on the hill. thanks. that does it for us. we'll be back here bright and early 9:00 a.m. eastern time. now taking over studio 7 in protest, suzanne malveaux. >> good to see you, keira. >> as she mentioned, i'm suzanne malveaux. herman cain and how he's responded in the last 24 hours to reports of inappropriate behavior, claims made by two women he worked with in the '90s. well, that's when he was head of the national restaurant association. he has been criticized for giving conflicting comments about what he did and didn't know after politico came out with this report on sunday. well, just this last hour, he clarified those comments with robin meade from our sister network hln. we're going to play it for you in its entirety. >> herman cain, who is a candidate for the republican nomination for the president, has been kind enough to join us in our studios in washington, d.c., and he's joining us live this morning after what was surely a very stressful and busy day yesterday. i do hope you got some sleep, and thank you for being

cnn's senior political editor mark preston live in washington. ooh.his caucus is going to be exciting. >> reporter: it is, carol. a segment of the republican party prefers they would have already chosen their nominee. they realize they're going up against the obama campaign machine. they realize how well tuned it sand the fact of the matter is president obama will have more money than the republican's nominee. look at a new poll out of iowa it shows it's anything but settled. look at numbers. herman cain even though he's had numbers of sexual harassment lodged at him in the past couple weeks he's coming in at 20% followed by ron paul at 19%, mitt romney at 18%. newt gingrich at 17%. you probably remember, carol, back in the begins of december, we all thought newt gingrich would get out of the race. he had lost all of his campaign staffers. clearly, he is making a comeback. the reason why that he is the anti-romney at this point, carol. >> amazing. let's talk about rick perry for a moment, because he's announcing a plan for the part-time congress, alth