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Controversial Anti-Obama Strategy Revealed; Ex-Cop Blames Attack on Zoloft

Aired May 17, 2012 - 15:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back. We are at the top of the hour.

Want to remind you we're keeping a live eye on Jacksonville, Florida, right now. That's where Mitt Romney, the presumptive Republican leader, has been at a campaign event and has spoken and is planning to address the reporters live.

And this is a critical time, too, because there has been a mess playing out since "The New York Times" hit everybody's doorstep this morning or your iPad, and that is a revelation that there was this plan in place yet to be approved by the head of the super PAC that could have been a big smear campaign in this race for the presidential election in November, a smear campaign against President Obama and an effort to bring up race and also the Reverend Jeremiah Wright.

That was an issue back in 2008 and it was something that John McCain, who ran against Obama back then, decided not to pursue.

Our Gloria Borger, who is the chief political analyst for CNN, is standing by live in Washington to talk me through this, because in this 24-hour news cycle, Gloria, I have often said it usually takes the 24 hours to get the story ramped up and then the next 24 hours to ramp the story down. But the dominoes have fallen at such rapid pace in this story.

Take me through the reverberations.

GLORIA BORGER, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, I think what you're seeing is a proposal that got leaked for whatever reason that was never approved, but the fact that it was even being proposed and possibly being considered by somebody who has got the big bucks to put behind it in a super PAC ad is quite incendiary because it was, of course, about the Reverend Wright, who caused the president so many troubles in the last campaign, and that presaged the president giving his speech on race in this country.

And I think what you are seeing from the Romney campaign, first of all, is a pushback. They did it in an interview, a prescheduled interview with a conservative Web site earlier. And I think the reason we're going to see Mitt Romney in a few more minutes is that they do not want to have anything to do with this ad.

This morning, he said he repudiated it. I suspect we're going to hear more of that. And there is also another side to this story, which is the ad person who proposed this used to work for Senator John McCain. And as you pointed out earlier in your conversation with Wolf, he referred to McCain as kind of this crusty, confused man. That, I am told didn't go over well in McCain world.

And also McCain advisers have come out on the record both to Jessica Yellin and to me. And I spoke with Charlie Black. She spoke with Steve Schmidt, both of whom worked for Senator McCain's campaign. And Charlie Black said to me that Senator McCain said very firmly we were not going to discuss the other candidate's relationship with his pastor. He was right about that and anybody who wants to relitigate that, he says, is absolutely wrong. So there we go.

BANFIELD: Hey, Gloria, I want to highlight specifically why this is so dirty, apart from what you just highlighted, the nastiness...

(CROSSTALK)

BORGER: Yes.

BANFIELD: ... refer to John McCain.

BORGER: Sure.

BANFIELD: There was a plan that was sort of in the works in this working paper, by the way, not just a working paper, like a 54-page glossy with photographs and all the rest.

BORGER: It was a proposal actually. That's the thing. So they are all bidding for business, right?

(CROSSTALK)

BANFIELD: In this proposal, the group suggested -- this is according to "The New York Times" -- hiring spokesmen as a quote "extremely literate conservative African-American who can argue that Mr. Obama misled the nation by presenting himself as what the proposal calls a metrosexual black Abe Lincoln."

That just sounds dirty.

BORGER: Yes, it is terrible. And I think that it is kind of the -- if you're cynical about politics, and lots of people are with good reason.

BANFIELD: No, no, not at all.

BORGER: Right? Then you read this proposal and you go, well, of course I am cynical about politics, because look at this, and...

(CROSSTALK)

BANFIELD: I'm sorry to interrupt you.

BORGER: Sure.

BANFIELD: I just want to get us live to that event where we have been waiting on Mitt Romney. He is addressing reporters and hopefully he will speak about this. Let's listen.

(JOINED IN PROGRESS)

MITT ROMNEY (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: ... with regards to a PAC that was presumably being formed to attack President Obama and if I had a reaction to it

I had not seen the article at that point, but I read the article on the aircraft. As I read the article, I want to make it very clear I repudiate that effort. I think it is the wrong course for a PAC or a campaign.

I hope that our campaigns can, respectively, be about the future and about issues and about a vision for America. I have been disappointed in the president's campaign to date, which has focused on character assassination. I just think that we're wiser to talk about the issues of the day, what we do to get America working again, and talk about our respective records.

And so, with that, I certainly hope that you get a chance to see our first ad. That will come up I think in a couple of days. It will a positive ad about the things I would do if I were president. It is contrasting with the president's ad which came out again as a character assassination ad.

So my own view is that we can talk about a lot of things, but the centerpiece of his campaign is quite clearly character assassination and the centerpiece of my campaign is going to be my vision to get America working again and provide a brighter future for our kids.

Emily.

QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE)

ROMNEY: I will let you take a look at it. But obviously his efforts to look at my work at Bain is to try and characterize me in a way that isn't accurate.

My effort at Bain Capital, as you know, was in every case designed to try and make the enterprises we invested in more successful, to grow them. There is this fiction that some have that somehow you can be highly successful by stripping assets from enterprise and walking away with lots of money and killing the enterprise.

That -- there may be some people who know how to do that. I sure don't. Our approach was to always try and make the enterprise more successful. And the purpose of the president's ads are not to describe success and failure, but to somehow to suggest that I am not a good person or not a good guy, and I think the American people will know better than that, if they don't already.

This really should be a campaign about the future and about who can get America on track again to create good jobs, who can do a better job for our kids. It is about jobs and kids. And having a campaign focused on character assassination is one of the things I find offensive, among many others, in the PAC and description that came in "The New York Times." If that's accurate, why, obviously that's something I repudiate.

QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE) Christian nation. It was responding to a quote that he had just played for you on the radio. Do you stand by that and do you believe that President Obama's world view was shaped by Reverend Wright, and, if so, do you see evidence of that in his policies?

ROMNEY: I am actually going to -- I am not familiar precisely with exactly what I said. But I stand by what I said, whatever it was.

And with regards to -- I will go back and take a look at what was said there. The focus of my campaign is going to be, as I have just suggested, on the future and on who can do best to build an America that has great promise and great opportunity for fulfillment of dreams.

Steve.

QUESTION: Is Florida a must-win state for you, Governor?

ROMNEY: I don't know what must-win is, but because you have to win the number of states that gets you over the electoral majority, but Florida is certainly a state I want to win, a state which George W. Bush won.

And given the fact it is voted Republican in the past, as well as Democrat, this is a state that will be a battleground state. And I sure hope to win this one and Ohio and Virginia, North Carolina. There are a number of states that should be in my column if I am going to be successful.

But as to which one is must-win and which ones could fill in for one that might underperform, I can't give you that. But I can tell you, you know, Florida is a state that I am counting on to be successful in.

Thanks, guys. Thank you.

BANFIELD: And that is where the presumptive Republican nominee ends his conversation with reporters in Florida, Jacksonville, to be exact.

Our Gloria Borger still standing by.

I just want to repeat what he said right off the top of that, Gloria. "I repudiate that effort. It is the wrong course for a PAC or a campaign," him obviously in reference to what "The New York Times" wrote this morning, a potential proposal for a multimillion-dollar campaign to take the president down based on his associations with the Reverent Jeremiah Wright, a lot of it based on race.

He also, by the way, Mitt Romney, was able to get in, I'm disappointed with the presidential campaign to date which has focused on character assassination.

So, Gloria, all throughout the primaries, we were listening to surrogates who could blame the PACs for the bad words that were being said on the trail. Is this the way things will be until November?

BORGER: Well, we're going to have super PACs. We're going to have PACs. They're not going to go away.

As you know, there is a separation between the campaign and the super PACs. So the campaign cannot tell the super PAC what to do. They operate as very separate entities and are not allowed to consult each other by law

So what Mitt Romney can do is say, I repudiate what this super PAC might have been thinking about or I repudiate this proposal. And then what he did say was go on and take a look at my ad that is coming out that is being produced by my campaign, which is a positive ad.

And then he went on to attack as character assassination the ads run by the Obama campaign about Bain Capital. It is really clear to me, Ashleigh, that every minute that Mitt Romney doesn't spend talking about the economy, talking about jobs, or talking about the president's health care plan is a minute they think they have lost, and an opportunity they think they have lost.

So, what you saw him do just now is try and turn that conversation back to where he thinks he is on really solid ground, and the polls show that, and that's on the economy.

BANFIELD: I was so surprised because as soon as the flash came out about the "New York Times" piece, there was a response on paper, e- mailed to us, saying, I am focusing on the economy.

BORGER: Right.

BANFIELD: I haven't really read through this thing.

So now he has made it absolutely clear, saying repudiation.

Gloria Borger, always a pleasure. Nice to see you.

BORGER: Thanks.

BANFIELD: Thanks, Gloria. Appreciate it.

A sniper targeting a school bus, putting a town on absolute edge. There is the rifle. It was found with ammo and a chilling note to boot. And now police are escorting school buses back and forth. What is going on here?

Also today, big news with Facebook. You and I use it, but did you know just how rich we are all about to make the founders? That is if you buy into the big IPO. We are going to play it out for you, break it al down and let you know about money bags to be, all in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BANFIELD: Well, moms and dads are pretty nervous, their children's safety at stake. Every parent's nightmare is you get up and get ready to pick your kids up from school or head to the school bus drop-off zone.

Police in an Atlanta suburb are now hunting for a sniper who set his sites on school buses. It turns out a couple of neighbors were watching him as he was hiding behind a fence and raising a rifle as an approaching Clayton County school bus on Monday morning. One of the neighbors yelled and the man dropped the rifle and a note and then took off, but not before firing a shot from a handgun at that witness as he was being pursued.

So, as you can imagine, security is heavy at the Clayton County school buses as they make their afternoon runs.

Douglas Hendrix is with the Clayton County Public Schools and he joins me now live.

This is just an unbelievable story. But for these witnesses, this person may have been able to fire off rounds from that rifle at the approaching school bus.

DOUGLAS HENDRIX, CLAYTON COUNTY PUBLIC SCHOOLS: Absolutely.

And we give a lot of credit for those citizens who decided that they would get involved and make sure that that didn't happen.

BANFIELD: Are the police updating you and the rest of the school district about what they're finding out? Are you working in concert with them?

HENDRIX: We are. And they have been with us escorting buses. They have a heavy presence in the area where the gunman was seen, and so we have been talking daily about what they have.

BANFIELD: So, what about this note? The gunman dropped a note. What is in the note?

HENDRIX: Now, we have not seen nor can we confirm a note, but we have heard that there was a note with bus numbers and possibly some route times.

BANFIELD: Bus numbers, route times. Do we know if any students' names might have been on that note?

HENDRIX: I have not heard that.

BANFIELD: Are the police guarding that, just keeping it a good secret for now?

HENDRIX: It is quite possible, because we haven't confirmed it. But we know that that was something that was said or something that they say they found.

BANFIELD: So, all we have now is the witnesses.

HENDRIX: Right.

BANFIELD: Were they able to get a good read on a description? HENDRIX: We heard a couple of different descriptions. We heard a gentleman in all black, possibly a fair-skinned black person, possibly a white person.

(CROSSTALK)

BANFIELD: Age range?

HENDRIX: Age range was from 18 to about 23. That's what we heard the last time.

BANFIELD: A young man.

HENDRIX: Yes.

BANFIELD: And what about direction he took off in, area, waiting car, nothing like that?

HENDRIX: No. It sounds as though the actual witness chased him and he was headed toward a wooded area and decided to shoot or fire back at the young man.

BANFIELD: That was Monday. This is Thursday.

HENDRIX: Right.

BANFIELD: And we're no closer to finding somebody who is targeting schoolkids?

HENDRIX: From what we know, I think there were persons of interest, but I can't confirm any of that.

BANFIELD: So now what is your public school district doing other than escorting these buses and escorting these kids in various areas to try to keep the kids safe?

HENDRIX: Absolutely.

Well, we're coming up to the end of the school year. So we're definitely -- we have suspended all outdoor activities for children in that area. Any activities they had, they would do them on the inside.

And we have also had the escorts going back and forth with our school buses. And kudos to the police department, because they do have a very heavy presence, and not just the police department, but all law enforcement. They're really joining together to make sure that our children are safe.

BANFIELD: It is confounding and it is very scary.

HENDRIX: It is.

BANFIELD: Douglas Hendrix, thanks for coming. Good luck. I hope things get better. I hope we can find who this person is, bring him to justice.

HENDRIX: Thank you for having me.

BANFIELD: Nice to have you here. Thank you.

HENDRIX: Thank you.

BANFIELD: So, how would you like to spend your days doing this? Try to save the life of your child by traveling far and abroad and trying something out that has never been proven before. Would you do it? You're about to hear one woman's story and what she is doing about all of this.

And doctor's promises, can they be kept? A procedure banned in America -- none of this is a story. It is all an actuality. Special report on CNN coming up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BANFIELD: Landfills in this country are quickly filling up with garage. It is a big smelly problem, but on Oregon company has come up with a hot idea to turn trash into something we can actually use.

And it is this week's "Solutions."

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHRISTOPHER LLOYD, ACTOR: Marty!

ZORAIDA SAMBOLIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The movie "Back to the Future" showed us a world where cars are fueled by trash.

LLOYD: I need fuel.

SAMBOLIN: At this landfill in Arlington, Oregon, the future is closer than you think.

JEFF SURMA, INENTEC: This technology is reality today. It takes what the world doesn't want and transforms that material into what the world does want.

SAMBOLIN: Jeff Surma and his company, InEnTec, are turning trash into energy. Garbage from Portland brought to this plant shredded and treated, then broken down, using a brand new technique, plasma converting.

SURMA: What a plasma in this case is a controlled bolt of lightning, allowing us to break down this waste material and reform those elements into this hydrogen-rich gas.

SAMBOLIN: The plasma heats to temperatures exceeding 18,000 degrees Fahrenheit, allowing even unrecyclable materials once it would stay in landfills for decades to be turned into reusable resources.

SURMA: Ultimately, a technology like this could basically eliminate most of landfill. You could take 90 percent of all that material and convert it into clean energy products.

SAMBOLIN: A dirty problem that could soon provide energy for your home and your car. Not bad.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BANFIELD: All right, no secret here, most parents would spend every last dime they have and maybe then some more in the name of their kids' well-being, but does that give rise to potentially some doctors who may be looking in scruples?

Let's watch this reporting from CNN's Drew Griffin.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DREW GRIFFIN, CNN INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It is Thanksgiving weekend at the airport in Greenville, South Carolina.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ma'am, can I help you with that bag? Anything I can do for you?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, please.

Stephanie Crolic (ph) and her ex-husband, Josh, are struggling to unload the bags and a stroller to get their 6-year-old son, Cash, into the terminal for the start of a very long trip to India.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Be careful. Careful.

GRIFFIN: This will not be a cheap trip.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I knew that it is very, very, very expensive. That money just doesn't exist in our lives.

GRIFFIN: The actual cost for travel, treatment, housing, all the extras, around $25,000, which the family raised during a year's worth of fund-raising anchored by this blog, Changeforcash.com. Critics of what the family is about to do say even the price of treatment should raise a warning.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It is all about $25,000. You know, in the days when Volkswagens were $6,000, that's how much these cures cost. Now they're $25,000. They're calculated to take a family to the brink of what they can afford. And they take everything.

GRIFFIN: Dr. Wise Young (ph) is one of the U.S.'s leading neuroscientists and has investigated the very clinic in India where Cash will be treated by Dr. Gida Sroth (ph).

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There is zero evidence for what she is doing being effective. She is charging patients a lot of money for this. And she has not published. And to my knowledge, there is no evidence at all that her therapies are effective. No Indian doctor I know would be allowed to practice this.

(END VIDEOTAPE) GRIFFIN: Ashleigh, we're going to take you on basically a journey of hopeless people striving to find some kind of hope at a clinic in India that is promising embryonic stem cell therapy that can relieve their incurable conditions.

It is an especially emotional story following this one child, Cash, and whether or not any of it did any good -- Ashleigh.

BANFIELD: That is just heartbreaking to look at those pictures, too, of them making this journey. Drew, thank you, Drew Griffin reporting for us.

And also want to remind you to watch Drew Griffin's special report, "Selling a Miracle." It is Sunday night at 8:00 Eastern. Great work.

A woman is kidnapped from a mall and then held at gunpoint and raped and the suspect is a former police detective. She says he even told her to smile for the camera. Now his defense in court, you will not believe it.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BANFIELD: A waitress is snatched at gunpoint from a shopping mall, she is raped, and then she is told to smile for the camera as the rapist takes pictures with his cell phone and sends them to a friend.

The alleged attacker is a former police detective and he's on trial in California. And get this. He is claiming that he was so zoned out on the antidepressant Zoloft that he didn't know what he was doing.

I didn't make this up, folks.

Legal analyst Sunny Hostin is "On the Case" with me.

And I can see by your smile you probably feel the same way I do when you see not reason by reason of unconsciousness. But that is a big pill to swallow for 12 jurors.

SUNNY HOSTIN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Yes, it really is, but I will tell you there have been jurors that have swallowed that pill.

In fact, in 2004, in Santa Cruz, a man who assaulted his good friend over a bike was acquitted by a jury based on this sort of Zoloft defense. Juries have also rejected this defense. But it is just not very rare for this defense to come up, which was very shocking to me when I did my research on this case.

What's also interesting, Ashleigh, is that when you argue this sort of defense, not guilty by unconsciousness, if the jury buys that argument, you get the -- get the "get out of jail free" card, right? But if you argue not guilty by reason of insanity, and you're convicted, you get to spend the rest of your time in a state hospital.

So really this is a very novel defense, very different from an insanity defense where, even if you're found guilty by reason of insanity, you still spend time in a sort of prison, at least in a mental hospital.

In this type of case you get acquitted if the jury buys it and you get to walk home free.

BANFIELD: And you know what, you and I have been on enough of the cases and heard enough of these increase defenses that nothing is surprising anymore.

Sunny Hostin, good to see you. Thanks so much.

HOSTIN: Thanks. Good to see you.

BANFIELD: In just minutes a huge moment on Wall Street.

Let's face it. You or someone you know is on Facebook every day, but do you have any idea how incredibly rich the makers of this website are about to become in a matter of hours?

And, p.s., will you even be on Facebook in five years? I am Ashleigh Banfield and the news starts now.

Zuckerberg, Sandberg, Moskovitz, Saverin, if you've seen "The Social Network," you know the players, but even low-level employees could soon become millionaires.

Plus, when it comes to teenagers, the "Millenials," the people who made Facebook a success, is it still white hot? We'll ask them.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ALI VELSHI, ANCHOR, "CNN NEWSROOM": Good afternoon, folks. Special coverage of the Facebook IPO. The IPO is the initial public offering, the first time that a private company takes its stock and offers it to the public.

Why does that happen? For a few reasons. There is a great deal of prestige associated with going public and being listed on a stock exchange and, in this case for Facebook, it will be the NASDAQ.

Number two, it allows the company to raise money to expand its offerings. Think about Google before its IPO. It was a search engine company. Now, it is a place where you store documents. You live on the Cloud. It has driverless cars.

These companies tend to get bigger because they have access to your money and, number three, these were all start ups once and invested in by something called venture capitalists who put their money into a company with the hope that a few years later they'll get it back. Most of those investors will get their money back tomorrow when Facebook starts trading.

The stock starts trading tomorrow morning sometime after 9:30 a.m. Eastern, so why are we giving you special coverage right now? Because in the next 25 minutes or a little later, we're going to find out the final IPO price for Facebook. Initially Facebook had said that price would be between $25, $28 and $35. They have since increased it to $35 to $38 and we think it will come in at the top of that range. That's because as they went on their road show to try and convince investors, mutual fund managers, hedge fund managers to invest in Facebook, they found more demand than they expected.

That price -- let's say it is $38 and we'll bring it to you as soon as we hear about it -- that price is what hedge fund managers and mutual fund managers and large institutional investors will pay for Facebook.

That is not likely the price that you will pay tomorrow morning when the stock opens for trade at 9:30 or sometime thereafter. The price you're going to pay is the price that the market will bear, the price that somebody who already bought those shares is prepared to sell them to you at.

Not all IPOs end up trading for higher than the initial price. But most do and, in this case, it probably will.

How much? We'll discuss that over the course of the next few minutes, but I want to first talk to you about what is going on, what the buzz is about this stock and why it is such a big deal.

Alison Kosik is standing by, covering the story along with me. She is at the New York Stock Exchange. She's going to be at the NASDAQ tomorrow because that's where the stock is going to trade.

What's the buzz down there, Allison, first of all? What are people saying about this, the most anticipated tech IPO and - I think for many of our viewers - probably the most IPO of all?

ALISON KOSIK, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: It really is. Even here at the New York Stock Exchange where the stock is not going to be traded, there is a lot of excitement and you knew that it really cut deep when Facebook chose the NASDAQ to list on instead of the NYSE.

On that day, everybody was pretty upset here on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. A lot of people had expected Facebook to choose the North America Stock Exchange because, when a company chooses that, it basically gives a lot of bragging rights to that exchange.

Now, that being said, you know, you talk about sentiment, how everybody is feeling about Facebook. You know, one thing you can do is look at what these other tech IPOs are trading at the moment and they're trading down quite a bit.

You mentioned those other big tech IPOs like Pandora, like LinkedIn, Google, GroupOn. They are all lower, quite a bit today, anywhere from 4 to 10 percent today, so, if you want to talk about sentiment in actual dollar figures, you're not seeing it in the numbers today.

But definitely that excitement is there to buy into Facebook. You know, on the road, one investor told CNNMoney that it is nothing short of pandemonium, this hype to buy into Facebook.

Ali?

VELSHI: And it is worth noting that the comparisons that we make to other tech companies, we've talked about Groupon and Zynga and company that came out and ended up trading lower than the IPO, probably Google is the more likely comparison.

While these companies are not similar in any way, they're both novel ideas. They're both ideas that really went and changed the paradigm of the Internet because, before Google, you know, we still had portals. It wasn't all just purely about the best search engine you could get and then you got Google.

And now Facebook is saying the future of the Internet isn't about search. It is about knowing what your friends do and the community that you choose and curating your life for that.

So there is really a sense of moment and of history, whether or not you're an investor in Facebook. Are you getting the sense from the traders this is a big deal?

KOSIK: This is a big deal, but with it comes a lot of questions, especially from the seasoned traders. Forget about the hype. Put the hype aside. Everybody is excited to get a piece of Facebook because we know it so well and we understand it and we're on Facebook and we are the customer.

But these seasoned traders are asking how is growth going to happen for Facebook? How will Facebook translate those ad clicks into real dollars, especially when you talk about on mobile devices, Ali?

You know, if you go to Facebook right now on your iPhone, tell me this, do you see any ads there?

VELSHI: No. No ads at all and that's a big challenge.

KOSIK: That's a problem. Exactly. And the challenge for Facebook is how to put ads on these mobile devices where most people access Facebook without alienating people from Facebook in the first place, Ali.

VELSHI: Right and you make an interesting point about the hype, Alison. A lot of people say the only reason to buy the stock or any stock you ever buy is because you stand the chance of selling it for more money at a later date and that is a consideration.

So I am hearing a lot of people e-mailing me and tweeting me and saying, how do I get in and buy and how much do I buy?

I will tell you all of that kind of stuff, but remember, you don't buy unless you think that stock is going to sell for more than you paid for it.

Alison, stay there. We'll be back with you. We'll take a quick break. When we come back we'll talk about the politics surrounding this Facebook IPO. There is more of it than you might think.

Stay with us. You're watching special coverage on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: We are 20 minutes away from the time at which Facebook's IPO can actually have a final price attached to it and tomorrow morning we expect the stock to start trading, allowing any of you out there to purchase the stock if you feel like it.

We'll discuss whether you should and how you can do that, but when you talk about Facebook, you associate it with that guy in the picture, Mark Zuckerberg. In fact, you would be hard-pressed to associate many companies with one person the way you associate Facebook with Mark Zuckerberg.

You may think of Apple and Steve Jobs, but try and think of a few more. Here is the thing. He's not the only guy. There are other people who were involved in Facebook from the beginning and one of them is getting a lot of attention on Capitol Hill.

Dana Bash has been following that story for us. Dana's joining me now to tell us about what that story is. Dana?

DANA BASH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right. He is Eduardo Saverin and the people who saw the movie, "The Social Network," remember that he was sympathetic because he was - from his perspective - betrayed by Mark Zuckerberg. He has since moved to Singapore and guess what? Singapore does not have taxes on capital gains. He renounced U.S. citizenship, so there is a lot of questions about whether he did that to not pay taxes.

He just released a statement saying, quote, "I am obligated to and will pay hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes to the United States government. I have paid and will continue to pay any taxes due on everything I earned while a U.S. citizen."

But, Ali, look at the last line. "Everything I earned while a U.S. citizen." What about anything he earns, meaning sales of his shares, when he is not a U.S. citizen? That is what is at issue here.

VELSHI: And Congress wants to do something about this or at least some people in Congress want to do something about this?

BASH: That's right. Today, two Democratic senators released legislation that they're pushing to try to make sure that taxes are paid and the specifics are that wealthy Americans, like Saverin, renouncing citizenship would be required to pay 30 percent capital gains taxes on U.S. investments and, if they didn't pay that, they would be barred from the U.S. They couldn't come back into the U.S.

Listen to the way that Senator Schumer described it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SENATOR CHUCK SCHUMER (D), NEW YORK: If you renounce your citizenship to avoid paying taxes, you can't set foot in America again and any investments you have in America will be taxed in the future at 30 percent.

Under current law Mr. Saverin would get away scot-free, but Senator Casey and I have a status upgrade for him. Pay your taxes in full or don't ever try to visit the U.S. again.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: And, Ali, these senators used some incredibly sharp rhetoric. Senator Casey said that Saverin is trying to spit in the face of America.

They also said that they are hoping they can move this legislation very quickly and the top Republican on the powerful Senate finance committee said that he likes this idea.

VELSHI: It's an interesting point. A number of people who've been tweeting me say, why do you talk about Facebook so much? Why do I care? I'm not an investor. This is for the one percent.

The state of California stands to gain $2 billion in the taxes that come due from all of these millionaires and billionaires that are going to be made overnight, so in tough times, everybody is looking for every last dollar of tax revenue.

Who would have thought that these guys on Capitol Hill would be discussing the Facebook IPO?

Dana, thanks very much for that. Dana Bash on Capitol Hill.

And remember, again, while we are going to be talking about Mark Zuckerberg and you are going to hear about Sheryl Sandberg, the chief operating officer, who is going to take a bigger role at the company now that it is going to be a public company, there are a lot of key players in here whose names you should know.

There are already some of them very wealthy and some of them famous and they're going to be a lot richer pretty soon.

Ashleigh Banfield, my good friend, standing by to tell us a bit more about that. Hello, Ashleigh.

BANFIELD: Oh, to be part of this company back when, when we were just kids, six years ago, Ali.

Closing bell just minutes away as you have been mentioning all along, so as we watch that clock, we want to make sure that you know afterwards just how much you'll be able to pay to buy one of those Facebook shares.

Let's talk about the Facebook faces for just a second because the billionaire in the hoodie and the people who helped build his social network, if the price turns out to be $38 a share, which is the high end of the range, Ali, they are going to be in it for some serious dough.

Starting with Mark Zuckerberg, all right? He's already a billionaire, but this is how much he stands to gain as the founder and the CEO of Facebook. He stands to gain an additional $20.3 billion dollars.

VELSHI: Wow.

BANFIELD: I know. As if a guy who didn't need it is going to get that much more. There you go.

But, hey, wait. There is more. Take a look at that face, Dustin Moskovitz. If you didn't know about him, now you should know about him because he was a roomy at Harvard of Mark Zuckerberg. He is also the co-founder and the youngest billionaire in the world already, according to Forbes. He stands to gain, after closing bell and the trading begins, $5.1 billion.

Let's go to Sheryl Sandberg, OK, the COO of Facebook. Already a very rich woman in her own right, she is the woman, Ali, who is responsible for ad revenues. That's a big issue going forward, right, so she has a lot on her plate. But it might be easy to go down with $1.6 billion that she stands to gain after tomorrow.

Again, Ali, all of this based on a $38 opening, OK? So let's move on to Sean Parker. Remember him of Napster fame, Ali?

VELSHI: Yeah.

BANFIELD: He is a pretty rich guy already. He is not with the company anymore, but he kept his shares, all right? He is one of the founding presidents of Facebook and he stands to gain an additional $2.6 billion.

And then what Dana Bash was talking about, Eduardo Saverin. Again, this guy is living in Singapore right now. He is already a billionaire. He sued because he was being pushed out of Facebook, but the settlement disclosures were never made so we really don't know his percentage is. But here's the best guess.

By the way, if you're trying to remember "The Social Network," he's played by that cutie-pie, Andrew Garfield.

VELSHI: That's what I was thinking.

BANFIELD: The cutie-pie part?

VELSHI: The cutie-pie part. That's what I was thinking.

BANFIELD: $2.6 billion, he stands to gain and, again, that's if the supposition of his stake in the company is accurate, but that could really be a pretty wide range, as well.

So there you go. Faces of Facebook, tilted in their favor to be even bigger billionaires than they already are, Ali.

VELSHI: You know what? Credit to them for being that smart that many years ago, Ashleigh.

BANFIELD: The American dream.

VELSHI: They're going to be very rich people at the end of the day.

All right, Ashleigh was mentioning that in a little over 10 minutes -- it might be a little longer than that -- we'll find out the price. The price is likely to be $38 a share. It may be different, but that's probably where it is going to be.

Should you buy it and, if so, how much should you pay for it? Erin Burnett is an expert on these things. She's joining us on the other side of this break for the question you really want answered.

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VELSHI: I like Facebook, I really do, and so do about 900 million other people. I really think it's a game changer in the Internet space, but you know what? It shouldn't matter. That shouldn't be part of my decision as to whether or not I want to buy shares of Facebook or not.

That needs to be both emotional and mathematical. I need to like what it's doing. I need to have faith in it, but I also have to wonder about the price. Why do some things cost more than others in the same space?

Erin Burnett, our chief business and economics correspondent, joins us now. She knows a lot of these things. Erin, let's say it will be $38. That could happen. Maybe it's going to be $38.

It's not the price that people watching us will pay for it. They will pay more for it and it will be more than you would pay for an equivalent company if you could find one. How do you decide what you pay for a stock like this?

ERIN BURNETT, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Basically, Ali, you've done a lot on this, as well. It's how much money you think this company will earn in the future.

So you look at General Motors or companies that are trading below this price. It's just about the price. It's about how much they're going to earn in future years and that's how you make the decision.

Of course, with Facebook, there are so many questions about that right now. Earlier this week, remember the headline about General Motors - that's why I mentioned them - saying, we're not going to advertise on Facebook anymore. We don't think we're making enough money doing it. Eighty percent of Facebook's revenue comes from that sort of advertising.

So, that's not to say that it isn't a smart buy, but there are the companies in growth mode and trying to figure out how it will make money in the future. So buying Facebook at the price that they're going to be offering it.

And, as you said, if you are able to get a share, you will pay more because it most likely will pop when it starts trading tomorrow. It's a bet on that future earnings. It's a bet that the business model will be strong over time and a lot of people have real questions about it.

VELSHI: And just to clarify for our viewers, the stuff that's happening now is we're going to find out the price. Let's say it's $38 a share. That's the price that these hedge fund managers, mutual fund managers, institutional investors who have already said they're going to buy this stock are going to pay for it.

Then it lists tomorrow morning and, Erin, you have covered a lot of IPOs. There's a great deal of excitement about this. There are a whole bunch of people who say, I've got this much money I can invest. Should I put it into Facebook?

What do you think? It's a momentous time. It's an historic moment. Does that mean you should buy the stock?

BURNETT: No, it doesn't. But I remember, Ali - and, obviously, this stock is going to be trading on the NASDAQ which is all electronic -- the New York Stock Exchange -- I remember standing on the New York Stock Exchange floor when the New York Mercantile Exchange went public and I literally was not able to move my elbows because there was so much demand and excitement for that stock.

A lot of people going, what is the New York Mercantile Exchange? I mean, this is on exponential steroids. So there will be a lot of interest, but as you point out with these institutional investors, 85 percent or so of those shares are going to go to those big guys.

Now, those big guys manage 401(k)s and pensions, so that is, in a sense, a lot of people's retirement money could be going in here. But the rest of it will go to retail investors and those are the people that often, as they say, catch the falling knife, right?

The big guys get the price of -- say it's $38. Then it will open even higher. It's going to close tomorrow. It could be double if it does what LinkedIn did. And then you jump in. So I don't know.

The question is, is it going to be something like a Groupon which, as you know, is 40 percent below where its IPO price is or is it going to be Amazon or Google, which, I mean, look at where they are. Amazon IPO at $18, It's at $225 now. Google $85. Everybody criticized the way they did the IPO. It's never looked back and I believe today we're at $623. It doesn't mean it's bad.

VELSHI: That's right. That's why you have to put real thought into it. Don't do it because everybody else is doing it. It doesn't mean you shouldn't buy it, and doesn't mean you should.

Erin, thanks a million. Erin had a thought there. There was half a thought. Is she still there?

BURNETT: Yeah, I'm here.

VELSHI: You were saying something. Don't just buy it?

BURNETT: I was saying, don't just buy it because you have an account. You know, you were talking about the 900 million people. Just because you're a part of it doesn't mean you should go ahead and buy it.

VELSHI: Brilliant point. Erin, thank you so much. Stay with us. We're going to want you back for our coverage when we find out what that price is.

Let's take it over to Lance Ulanoff, really quickly. He's with "PC Magazine," a good friend of ours.

Lance, the question here is, can Facebook keep growing at the pace it's been growing and can it keep making money as everybody migrates over to mobile devices where it doesn't have the same success in selling advertising?

LANCE ULANOFF, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, MASHABLE: Well, it's certainly a big question mark and Facebook has said that one of the critical parts and maybe the part where they have a little weakness is in the mobile space because guess what? On mobile phones, people aren't clicking on ads.

I still think there's room for growth, maybe not as much room for growth in the U.S., but around the world it's a global brand and, certainly, they'll grow there.

You know, Mashable, which is by the way where I work, we've been looking at closely and covering it like crazy. Facebook -- I heard you say earlier and I agree with this -- Facebook has really changed the online experience. It's really introduced social to the masses.

So that's why this is so exciting because not just the technophiles like me use Facebook, but everybody uses Facebook. And it's a big deal because of that and I think this IPO is going to help with growth because now everybody who was holding back from getting on Facebook is taking the leap and getting on.

VELSHI: Do you think it's a good idea?

ULANOFF: To be on Facebook? Well, yeah, I think so. I think Facebook is a really good and exciting platform. I think that it's got a lot of features that people like to get to reconnect with people.

It's a community. It's a digital, virtual community that is close, your family. It could be much more than that. It could be your friends around the world.

So I think we live in a global village. Why not be part of the social digital village?

ULANOFF: Lance, good to talk to you on this. Thanks so much for being with us.

Hey, that's our special coverage. I'll hand it over to Wolf Blitzer after this break where he'll take you into "The Situation Room." We'll be standing by until that price comes out and we'll let you know the minute we've got it. Thanks for joining us.

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