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American Morning
Taliban Forces Attack U.S. Embassy in Afghanistan; Rick Perry Endures Criticism in Tea Party Debate; Battle Lines at Tea Party Debate; Perry Under Attack at GOP Debate, Mainly by Romney; HPV Virus Front and Center in GOP Debate
Aired September 13, 2011 - 06:59 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Breaking news this morning. Under attack. The Taliban claiming responsibility for attacking the U.S. embassy in Afghanistan. Workers there taking cover.
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: After more than two years and countless pleas to get out, two American hikers are expected to be released from jail in Iran, but there's a huge price to pay for their freedom.
ALI VELSHI, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Taking on Perry. Facing off in front of the Tea Party, GOP candidates gang up on frontrunner, Texas governor, Rick Perry. Is that going to help them or hurt them and him on this AMERICAN MORNING.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS (on-camera): Good morning, everyone. It's Tuesday, September 13th. I'm Christine Romans.
COSTELLO (on-camera): And I'm Carol Costello.
VELSHI (on-camera): And I'm Ali Velshi in Tampa, Florida. More about last night's GOP debate just ahead.
ROMANS: But first, breaking news in Afghanistan this morning. The U.S. embassy in Kabul is under attack. People there are being told to take cover. Suzanne Malveaux is in Kabul just about a mile away from the embassy right now. Suzanne, what can you tell us about this attack right now?
SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN CORRESPONDENT: We know that it's still ongoing, that this has not yet been resolved. This happened -- it started about two hours ago. We're about a mile or so away from where this is. Kabul City, as you know, this is really at the heart of -- you know, the capital of Afghanistan.
What happened, about two hours, from eyewitnesses and both Afghan police a group of guys in a vehicle pulled up in across from the embassy. They jumped out. They had small arms, grenades. They started shooting, attacking the embassy.
We have heard from an embassy spokesperson who has talked to a CNN producer several times. She cannot give us a lot of information because they are in a duck and cover mode. They are essentially taking cover, hunkering down at the embassy as they are being fired upon.
There are choppers in the area. There have been Afghan police, the army, the International Security Assistance Force, all of them involved in trying to protect the embassy. We know that the Taliban has called a CNN producer and confirmed that they're responsible, releasing the statement saying "We attacked Kabul city. Our target, the U.S. embassy, governmental organizations and other foreign organizations. We are prepared with heavy and light weapons, such as grenades and rocket propelled grenades as well."
Now, what we understand is that they are trying to figure out how many there are that are involved here. It's about a one-mile square area that is on lockdown. From where we are, we have heard small arms fire. We've heard grenade explosions. There was guy in a vehicle who essentially was telling people get back in your homes. People have tried to kind of move on, and take their lives as normally as they can this afternoon.
But clearly, there is a lot of uncertainty. And this is really part of a larger strategy from the Taliban. This is hardly a soft target. This is one of the most secure areas, if you can imagine here, the U.S. embassy. I was just there a couple days ago for the 9/11 anniversary, and there are all kinds of international security forces, Afghan security around that building that are responsible for securing it. This is to show that they can strike. They can strike at the heart of some of the most important institutions.
So right now we are still kind of in a wait and see mode whether or not these guys, these insurgents who have taken responsibility are going to be captured, whether or not they're going to be killed. We do have information that there are two injuries, two people injured who have been taken to a local hospital. But right now there is still a significant area that is on lockdown as they try to figure out what is going on right outside the embassy.
ROMANS: All right, still an ongoing event. Suzanne, we'll let you back to the phones and work those phones to bring more breaking news to us about that. Thanks, Suzanne.
Also breaking right now, two American hikers who have been jailed in Iran more than two years will be released this week. CNN now confirming Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is prepared to free Josh Fattal and Shane Bauer with two days if each of their families is able to post $500,000 bail. Ali?
VELSHI: All right, Carol. We're live at Florida state fairgrounds right now. Last night the Tea Party had its turn at the GOP presidential candidates. Texas Governor Rick Perry found out what it is like to be the clear front-runner. Jim Acosta was watching it very closely for us. He joins us now. It really looked like that the fire power was al focused on him, and it looked at times like he was feeling it.
JIM ACOSTA, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: It looked like he was feeling it. But in the end I think he was showing he can take a punch. This thing started as sort of a heavyweight fight between Rick Perry and Mitt Romney. But after some time passed some of the other contenders in this debate were able to climb into the ring, and it was Rick Perry who was taking all the abuse.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How will you convince senior citizens that Social Security and Medicare need to be changed and get their vote?
ACOSTA: The first question may have been on Social Security, but it was really about Rick Perry, who once called the program is Ponzi scheme.
GOV. RICK PERRY, (R-TX) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: It has been called a Ponzi scheme by many people long before me, but no one's had the courage to stand up and say here is how we're going to reform it --
ACOSTA: But as Perry tried to turn down the heat, Mitt Romney cranked it up.
MITT ROMNEY, (R) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: The question is, do you still believe Social Security should be ended as a federal program as you did six months ago when your book came out and return to the states? Or do you want to retreat from that?
PERRY: I think we ought to have a conversation.
ROMNEY: We're having that right now, governor.
PERRY: If you let me finish, I'll finish this conversation.
ACOSTA: That teed up what might have been the one-liner of the night.
NEWT GINGRICH, (R) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I'm not particularly worried about Governor Perry and Governor Romney frightening the American people when President Obama scares them every day.
(LAUGHTER)
ACOSTA: But that wasn't the only flashpoint. Take the economy. As to whether the lone star governor was responsible for jobbed created in the lone star state, Romney said pro-business Texas deserved the credit, not Perry.
WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST, "THE SITUATION ROOM": Tell him how much credit he deserves.
(LAUGHTER)
ROMNEY: Well, look -- you know, I think Governor Perry would agree with me that if you're dealt four aces that doesn't necessarily make you a good poker player.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I was going to say, Mitt, you were doing pretty good until you started talking about poker.
ACOSTA: But it was Michele Bachmann who was coming up with some winning hands, hitting Perry on his executive orders that require schoolgirls receive vaccinations against the sexually transmitted HPV virus that may cause cervical cancer.
REP. MICHELE BACHMANN, (R-MN) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Little girls who have a negative reaction to this potentially dangerous drug don't get a mulligan. They don't get a do-over.
ACOSTA: Then she suggested Perry was interested in doing more than saving lives.
BACHMANN: I just wanted to add that we cannot forget that in the midst of this executive order there was a big drug company that made millions of dollars because of this mandate. We can't -- we can't deny that.
(APPLAUSE)
BLITZER: You've got to respond to that.
PERRY: Yes, sir. The company was Merck, and it was a $5,000 contribution that I had received from them. I raised about $30 million. And if you're saying that I can be bought for $5,000, I'm offended.
ACOSTA: And Perry found himself on the wrong side of the Tea Party when he defended his support for in-state college tuition for the children of illegal immigrants, a policy that got boos from the crowd.
BACHMANN: That is not the American way.
(APPLAUSE)
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ACOSTA: When the debate is all about you, which is very much what this debate was last night about Rick Perry, you tend to be winning, which is why Rick Perry in the next coming days will be continuing to run as the frontrunner in this race. Tomorrow he goes to Virginia. It's not a terribly important state as Republican primary. It is a battleground state in the general election, Ali. The trick for the rest of this field out there right now is to convince Governor Perry it's not over yet.
And one interesting thing happened. After the debate last night Sarah Palin did an interview in which she said she may still get into this race, which could change all of this all over again. Also raises the question, is she the queen of the Tea Party or the tease party?
VELSHI: And we're going to be talking to Michele Bachmann later on to see how that move might affect her, because in the polling Sarah Palin continues to poll very, very strongly -- ACOSTA: Very well.
VELSHI: -- for somebody not in the race.
I think it was interesting you pointed out Newt Gingrich's comment about President Obama, because when watching this debate, a lot of the focus on President Obama, was absent. That the broader Republican party concentrates on wasn't there last night.
ACOSTA: But Rick Perry did something very smart. Every time a candidate's going after him -- Jon Huntsman would try to land a punch. Rick Perry would take that and pivot and turn to the president and go after the president. It was a smart move. It is what frontrunners do. And at this point you have to say after this debate, he's still the front-runner.
VELSHI: Jim, good to see you.
ACOSTA: Good to see you.
VELSHI: All right. It was one of the key issues last night, by the way, one that many people here in Florida care about passionately, Social Security. In a new CNN-ORC poll out just this morning, 55 percent of Americans say major changes are needed to fix the Social Security system, just 4 percent say there are no serious problems with it.
We also asked whether Social Security should be replaced, and it does depend on your age. And 21 percent of people under 35 said, yes. Only two percent of people over 65 said yes because they're getting their money right now. Carol?
COSTELLO: Wow. What a shocker, huh? That's funny. Thank you, Ali.
President Obama will spend the next two days in two key states trying to sell his jobs plan. Today's stop, Columbus, Ohio. Then he heads to North Carolina tomorrow. The president's proposal includes raising taxes on wet wealthy Americans, individuals earning more than $200,000 and the president calling on Congress to pass his jobs plan immediately. He did deliver it to Congress yesterday.
So now it's your time to talk back on this story. Today's question, should Obama's jobs plan be funded by limiting tax deductions, you know, the jobs plan the president wants Congress to pass, like, right now? Like that doesn't look good. Yes Republican that like parts of the plan but don't like how the president wants to pay for the tax. He wants to raise taxing on the rich to pay for it.
Yes, Mr. Obama wants to end tax loopholes for oil and gas companies, hedge fund managers, and let the Bush tax cuts expire. The biggest chunk, $400 billion, will come from limiting tax deductions on Americans making more than $200,000 a year.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We've got to decide what our priorities are. Will we keep tax loopholes for all companies or put teachers back to work? Do we keep tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires, or should we invest in education and technology and infrastructure, all the things that are going to help us out-innovate, out-educate, and out-build other countries in the future.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COSTELLO: Deja vu all over again, as is the Republican response, this from Senator Jon Kyl.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. JON KYL, (R) ARIZONA: Who is it, Mr. President, that are the first to hire coming out of a recession? It's small business. So the very people that we are asking to hire more Americans, to put them back to work, are the people who would be impacted by the taxes that the president talked about the other night.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COSTELLO: So the "Talk Back" question for you today -- should Obama's jobs plan be funded by limiting tax deductions? Facebook.com/AmericanMorning, Facebook.com/AmericanMorning. I'll read your responses coming up.
ROMANS: Also new this morning, no school in Tacoma, Washington. Teachers voted to go on strike after months of contract negotiations. At issue class sizes, teacher pay, and whether seniority should have to do with jobs. School officials will be in court later this morning to try to force teachers back to work.
Former major league all-star Manny Ramirez was arrested and charged with battery after a domestic dispute in Florida. Ramirez retired from baseball right at the start of the season instead of taking a 100-game suspension for his second violation of the league's drug policy.
COSTELLO: His reputation's just about shot. That's a really sad story.
(WEATHER BREAK)
VELSHI: Still to come this morning, battle lines drawn at last night's Tea Party debate, Social Security, immigration, mandatory vaccination -- issues that kept frontrunner Rick Perry on his toes. Does he come out of this thing with the lead he wept into it with? We'll debate the winners and losers just ahead.
And in less than 20 minutes, we'll talk live to tea party favorite Michele Bachmann. We'll find out how she thought the debate went last night. It is several minutes after the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) VELSHI: Welcome back.
We're breaking down last night's big CNN Tea Party Debate. Eight GOP hopefuls facing off on everything from jobs to immigration to health care, and it got contentious early on. The two perceived frontrunners, Mitt Romney and Rick Perry, accusing each other of scaring seniors about Social Security.
Joining me now, CNN Chief Political Analyst Gloria Borger and CNN Senior Political Analyst Ron Brownstein. Ron's in D.C. Good morning to both of you.
RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Good morning.
GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: Good morning (ph).
VELSHI: You had just a few hours to -
BORGER: Yes.
VELSHI: -- to digest this and to think about it. I guess my question, we've been talking to a number of people this morning. Were there any knockout punches as far as you could see last night?
BORGER: No. I think Perry seemed really rattled on the vaccination question when Michele Bachmann essentially accused him of crony capitalism, which is the phrase du jour today.
VELSHI: Right.
BORGER: He was rattled by that. I think he was really rattled by the attacks on immigration and the Dream Act.
So here you had Rick Perry being attacked from the right -
VELSHI: Yes.
BORGER: -- which was kind of interesting, and I think Mitt Romney, again, went after Rick Perry on Social Security. Rick Perry did not fully explain whether he believes it is in fact unconstitutional, but that he handled a little better -
VELSHI: Yes.
BORGER: -- than I think he did the other attacks.
VELSHI: Ron, it was very clear that everybody was focused on this man - Rick Perry. They were - they ganged up on him. As Gloria said, at moments, his body language, his expression looked like he was a little rattled. Does he come out of being ganged up upon as very clearly the frontrunner or was some damage done last night?
BROWNSTEIN: No, no. I think last night was an important development. I mean, obviously he's the frontrunner in the polls. But I think what you saw the emergence of last night was an ideological crossfire on Rick Perry. It was notable that Mitt Romney, who has conservative credential problems stepped back and allowed Michele Bachmann and Rick Santorum to press the attacks on him from the right, as Gloria noted, on in- state tuition to illegal immigrants and the mandatory vaccination. And then Romney came in primarily in effect from the left criticizing him over Social Security.
So there is the emergence of this crossfire that can kind of chip away from both sides. And equally important for Perry, I think, was the re-emergence of Michele Bachmann, who had been kind of losing ground steadily. She had a very -
BORGER: Right.
BROWNSTEIN: -- strong performance. And generally speaking, if she does better, more of her votes will come from the Perry side of the party than the Romney side of the party.
VELSHI: Right.
BROWNSTEIN: So I think in both those ways, last night signaled some new challenges for Perry, even they didn't immediately dethrone him from his role as frontrunner.
BORGER: I think, you know, I think Rick Perry really didn't anticipate all of this, Ali. I think it - it came out of the blue. The HPV criticism came out of the blue. He said he was offended. Michele Bachmann said, I'm offended for all of those young women, and the split in the party is so evident. I mean -
VELSHI: Well, the applause for her on that was substantially greater.
BORGER: Exactly.
VELSHI: Then so Rick Perry is in a position where he called for mandatory vaccination, which parents could opt out of, of Gardasil, made by Merck, which is hailed as a medical breakthrough to stop girls from getting -
BORGER: Right,
VELSHI: -- HPV and ultimately getting cervical cancer. Most people think that was a neat thing.
BORGER: It's the mandate issue, right?
VELSHI: It's the mandate issue.
BROWNSTEIN: Yes, it's the mandate (ph).
VELSHI: Too much government in your life issue.
BORGER: Too much government, mandates and this is something particularly in that room last night -
VELSHI: Yes.
BORGER: -- Tea Partiers don't like mandates because it goes to the question of Barack Obama's -
VELSHI: Right.
BROWNSTEIN: Right.
BORGER: -- health care plan, which, of course, has mandates in it. It's a nasty word.
VELSHI: Ron?
BROWNSTEIN: Ali - Ali, and of course, that's why Mitt Romney can't press the attack. I think we saw from Governor Perry something very similar to what we saw at the first debate, which is that he is much stronger on the offense than on the defense. It reminded - whenever he could get to a point where he could kind of unfurl a ringing affirmation of conservative principles he was very strong.
He kind of reminded me of a tennis player who could deliver a booming winner when he could run around to his forehand. But when he kind of had to move his feet and was on the defensive, I think he was much less, you know, kind of on firm footing.
The other thing to keep in mind is the internal dynamic of this Republican debate is moving each of the candidates more steadily to the right, and there are questions about, you have to keep in mind that they're not only running in a primary, but positioning themselves for the general election and you could see some of -
VELSHI: Yes.
BROWNSTEIN: -- the dynamics that are emerging. For example, on illegal immigration, might put them in positions that might cause them problems in the general election for the eventual winner.
VELSHI: And this - this is a problem, particularly for Perry. Because if he gets pushed one way or the other -
BORGER: Right.
VELSHI: -- the fact is right now he's straddling that line where he's appealing to conservatives, fiscal and social.
BORGER: Right.
VELSHI: And he could have this broader independent appeal, but if these guys keep pushing him to the right -
BORGER: Right. He's got - and, I mean, and he's - so he's trying to appeal to primary voters.
VELSHI: Right.
BORGER: The other interesting thing, though, was that he was attacked on how well he did as governor and the economy of the State of Texas.
VELSHI: Right. And whether or not he had a lot to do with that, whether it wasn't just oil and - and other things.
BORGER: And when you talk to people in this campaign they say, he came out there to talk about jobs, jobs, jobs last night. Well, that's not exactly -
VELSHI: Right, right.
BORGER: -- what he talked about, and Mitt Romney said, if you have four aces, are you a great poker player? So remember the Dukakis Miracle in Massachusetts -
VELSHI: Yes. That's right.
BORGER: -- that didn't go off so well? Same thing. You know, Romney was trying to turn the economy and say, look, it's easy to be - to be a good - create jobs in Texas.
VELSHI: Although, Ron, Rick Perry's come back to that. He was great when he said you were doing fine, Mitt, until you started talking about poker.
BROWNSTEIN: Right, right.
VELSHI: The other thing is, is Newt Gingrich has a - you know, he took on President Obama. He said I don't really care about Mitt Romney and Rick Perry scaring seniors. President Obama scares them all the time.
But largely, there weren't a lot of attacks on - on President Obama last night, except when Rick Perry was taking the incoming attacks and trying to deflect them?
BROWNSTEIN: Right. Well, he was just certainly trying to assume the role of this debate as kind of the defender of the Republican faith against kind of all commerce, President Obama, the media and so forth.
And you're right. This was a more inward-looking debate among the Republicans. It got a little chippy, which is perhaps to be expected as these debates become more concentrated and held closely together.
You know, interestingly, we have a poll out this morning, a National Journal Congressional Connection Poll in which we kind of looked at the job creation ideas that President Obama's put out and the Republicans have put out. And by and large, the ideas that Obama put out last week scored better than many of the key Republican ideas, like Romney's proposal to limit regulation or extending the Bush Tax cuts, which all of them want to do.
And it's a reminder, gain, that all of this is happening on two dimensions at once. So a debate inside the Republican Party and there's a question about the positions they are being locked into that may affect the general election.
VELSHI: Yes.
BROWNSTEIN: And then I have to think most Democrats are comfortable with a Republican debate in which the two frontrunners are debating which one is more committed to eradicating Social Security as it now exists.
BORGER: Right.
BROWNSTEIN: Republicans have to be careful about the way this kind of discussion is evolving (ph).
VELSHI: Yes.
BROWNSTEIN: It takes a lot to get white seniors to vote Democratic again, but between Medicare and Social Security -
VELSHI: This might do it.
BROWNSTEIN: -- they're giving President Obama an opening he might not otherwise have had.
BORGER: But here's the thing that Perry's people will say to you that they want him to be the truth teller -
VELSHI: Right.
BORGER: -- in it. And so you may disagree with him.
VELSHI: But he says he is - that's what he's doing.
BORGER: But I'm going to tell you the truth about Social Security.
VELSHI: Right. They're all lying to you about Social Security and I know what's really happening.
BORGER: And I'm the one who's going to tell the truth and what Republicans want somebody who can win and somebody who actually will fight for what he believes. Our polls yesterday showed that Rick Perry does very well as somebody who can fight for what he believes.
VELSHI: Yes.
BORGER: Three in 10 said Rick Perry will fight for what he believes. Only 1 in 10 said Mitt Romney would fight for what he believes.
VELSHI: Interesting.
Gloria, great to talk to you both.
BROWNSTEIN: OK.
VELSHI: Ron, thank you. BROWNSTEIN: Thank you.
VELSHI: Great analysis. Ron also is the editorial director of the National Journal, which is where he brought those polling - his stats from.
Thanks to both of you - Carol.
BROWNSTEIN: Thank you.
BORGER: Sure.
COSTELLO: All right. Thanks, Ali.
Still to come this morning, how are American Airlines faring with customers? In short - not so good. We'll have details ahead.
ROMANS: And today's "Romans' Numeral" 53 billion. Here is the hint, you might be doing it right now.
Twenty-five minutes after the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROMANS: Welcome back. "Minding Your Business" this morning.
Right now, U.S. stock futures are trading sharply lower, worried this morning about French banks and their exposure to the deepening debt crisis in Europe and what that means for Europe and the financial sector overall.
Wall Street, meanwhile, bracing for more job cuts. Banks for years got bigger and bigger. Now they're shedding workers and they're shedding divisions to be smaller, more nimble, trying to make more money. Bank of America announced yesterday that it plans to cut 30,000 job. So far this year the big banks have announced more than 60,000 job cuts.
Complaints against airlines were up 17 percent in July. Up 17 percent from the same time a year ago despite some improvements in flight delays. That's according to new data from the Department of Transportation.
And this morning's "Romans' Numeral," the number 53 billion. What is that? It's how many minutes Americans spent on Facebook this past May, just one month. That's according to a new Nielsen research. And that number is equal to about 36.8 million days, but when you consider there are 150 million Facebook users in the U.S. to break down to by each person spending just ten minutes a day looking at Facebook. So not so bad, right?
Don't forget, for the very latest news about your money, check out the all-new CNNMoney.com.
AMERICAN MORNING will be right back after this quick break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: Crossing the half hour now, let's get back to last night's big CNN Tea Party debate here in Tampa.
Eight GOP hopefuls facing off on job, immigration and health care, and among them, Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann. The Republican presidential candidate joins me now live. Good to see you again.
REP. MICHELE BACHMANN (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Good morning. Good to see you, Ali.
VELSHI: A lot of people talked about you needing to sort of get back in the race in a big way. There was concern maybe you had lost a little momentum going into this after Rick Perry came into the race. The evaluations this morning are that you came in. You were in there swinging. How do you feel about last night?
BACHMANN: Very good. We were very happy with how the debate went. We had wonderful, positive feedback. So we're delighted.
VELSHI: All right, let's talk about what you got into with Rick Perry. I guess, there are two issues here. One is Rick Perry came in with a mandate.
He didn't do it the way you would have liked, through the legislature which compelled young girls to get this Gardasil inoculation against HVP. Here's what he said and then what you said. Let's listen in.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GOV. RICK PERRY (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: At the end of the day, this was about trying to stop a cancer and giving the parental option to opt out of that.
And at the end of the day, you may criticize me about the way that I went about it, but at the end of the day, I am always going to err on the side of life.
BACHMANN: The drug company gave thousands of dollars in political donations to the governor, and this is just flat out wrong. The question is, is it about life or was it about millions of dollars, potentially billions.
PERRY: The company was Merck, and it was a $5,000 contribution that I had received from them. I raised about $30 million. If you're saying I can be bought for $5,000, I'm offended.
BACHMANN: Well, I'm offended for all the little girls and the parents that didn't have a choice. That's what I'm offended for.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VELSHI: You got strong reaction from that, but in 60 seconds or so, three very distinct issues here, number one, is whether or not this breakthrough drug is a good thing for girls to be getting.
Number two is, how Rick Perry went about that and how that reflects your view of government. Number three, was this last comment you made about this donation from Merck to Rick Perry. Tell me about these things.
VELSHI: Well, crony capitalism is something that people are really upset with and they are fed up with. It doesn't matter if it's at the state level or federal level. If someone uses their political office to benefit themselves outside of the system, people are upset about that, and rightly so.
And last evening there's a woman who came up to me after the debate. I didn't know her and she was crying. And she told me that her daughter had taken this drug, this injection, and her daughter had suffered very serious consequences.
And she was devastated by it, and she wanted to talk to me more about it. So it isn't without peril. It's wrong for the government to mandate that a child has to take an injection that has such dangerous consequences.
VELSHI: Parents could opt out of that?
BACHMANN: You could, but let's face it, when the government tells parents you must have a vaccination for your child. You have to go to an extraordinary length in order to not do that for your child.
For innocent little 12 and 11-year-old girls this could have devastating consequences. I'm a mother. I'm a mother of three daughters that would be impacted by this.
VELSHI: Don't you think, though -- I mean, I know you're making the point about what government should or should not be doing and what role she should have in your lives. But do you really think the inoculation is a bad thing if it prevents girls from getting HPV and cervical cancer ultimately?
BACHMANN: Well, again, I'm not a scientist or a doctor, But I will tell you that there's enough controversies surrounding this that certainly it was an abuse of power for the governor, through executive order unilaterally force every little girl in the state to be subject to a government injection?
I just think as a mother of three girls, that's absolutely wrong. We took in 23 foster children into our home, all girls. I would not want to subject them to this kind of a dangerous drug.
VELSHI: Let's talk a little about jobs. This has been a big issue. We just heard a national journal poll come out saying that Americans are responding particularly well to President Obama's suggestion the other day that he just sent up to Congress yesterday. Ultimately, this will become the biggest part of the campaign --
BACHMANN: It is.
VELSHI: What's your take what we need to do now? We're at a crossroads. We have a proposal by the president. What should happen?
BACHMANN: Well, what should happen is we have to change the framework. I understand as a tax lawyer and also as a job creator myself that you have the federal government -- government-directed solutions with temporary gimmicks and fixes don't work.
We've seen that. What do work are private solutions that are permanent. So we need to permanently change the tax code so that people want to be able to create jobs and invest.
VELSHI: That has a great deal of appeal. It has appeal to independents, to Democrats, to Republicans, to members of the Tea Party, this concept of comprehensive tax reform. We haven't even started.
I mean, what kind of an exercise would that be? And why don't we just put out a proposal that we actually do it? But it would be a big effort. This isn't one presidential candidate's job. This is going to have to be something we're all very committed to?
BACHMANN: It will. We need comprehensive reform. Again, I have a doctorate degree, but a postdoctoral degree in federal tax law. We have to change the tax code. Overnight, we could bring $1.2 trillion of earned money into the United States.
American companies have earned it have a zero percent tax rate, bring all of that money in and then I want to bring those jobs in. I want to bring those companies back in, and we can do that, bring them into the United States, if we lower the corporate tax burden.
This is really not that tough to do, and, Ali, we know without a shadow of a doubt the federal government has already told us that Obamacare is going to cost the economy over 800,000 jobs, 800,000 jobs. Why would we have the government take over health care knowing it's going to kill jobs?
Also with Bank of America, we saw that story. The Dodd-Frank bill is killing jobs by the tens of thousands.
VELSHI: And yet you know -- you have watched through the financial crisis how absence of regulation did cause a lot of that to happen. How do you square that we need some financial regulation?
BACHMANN: Well, I sat on the Financial Services Committee. I was on the front seat of the financial meltdown. The real problem is the fact that the federal government was forcing homeownership through subprime mortgages that people could not afford.
And the federal government was pushing these mortgages on people that they couldn't afford and they were subsidizing. It goes back many administrations. It's Republican and Democrat, but it was the government's fault.
The government's solution is not going to get us out of our economic doldrums. Again, what we need very desperately are private solutions that are permanent. I'm a business owner. I got to have certainty in my business --
VELSHI: This is permanency --
BACHMANN: Permanency is the certainty --
VELSHI: Let me ask you one last question. You and I share an interest in energy.
BACHMANN: Yes, we do.
VELSHI: And I want to get your sense of what we do at this point because that could be a remarkable job creator, but we need plans. What do you think we need to invest in?
BACHMANN: Well, we need an all of the above energy policy so that we favor all energy. From whatever source derived, and if we open ourselves up to that, Ali, we will create 1.4 million jobs.
High-paying jobs, almost immediately, that will bring almost $800 billion into the U.S. treasury. But even better it will increase America's domestic energy supplies by 50 percent. That's all good news. All we have to do is legalize American energy production. We can be our own answer to our problem rather than scarcity.
VELSHI: The polling numbers are indicating that you're still very much in the game. Sarah Palin last night saying she might still get into the game. What's your sense of that? What's your relationship with her and how will that affect you?
BACHMANN: I like Governor Palin. She's a friend of mine, and the race is wide open if more candidates want to get in, they're certainly welcome to, but I am delighted about taking my message all across the United States.
One thing people know about me that sets me apart from all the candidates, when I've gone to Washington, from day one, I have been a champion for the voice of the people, the people that I've been fighting for.
Now I want to take their voice into the White House, where it hasn't been heard for a long time.
VELSHI: Good to see you.
BACHMANN: Thanks to having me on.
VELSHI: All right. We'll take a break. When we come back our senior medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen will join us to talk a little bit about what we were just speaking about this HVP and the vaccine that Governor Rick Perry ordered young girls in his state to take.
We're going to talk about what that means and what that drug is all about. Stay with us. You're watching a special edition of AMERICAN MORNING.
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VELSHI: Welcome back. I'm in Tampa. Eight Republican candidates shared the stage for last night's Tea Party debate here in Tampa, but only one needed a flak jacket, the front-runner.
Texas Governor Rick Perry came under attack from his GOP rival. Chief among them, Mitt Romney. Joining us now, Eric Ferdstrum, he's a senior adviser to the Romney campaign. Eric, welcome. You get any sleep?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I did. A little bit.
VELSHI: All right. This was an interesting debate last night. It was very clear that much of the focus was on Rick Perry. He was get attacked from all sides, including from Mitt Romney. It did look, though, that Mitt Romney wasn't the front-runner in this one.
One that something that the polls are also indicating, amongst the larger Republican crowd, our polling is showing that Mitt Romney's close to Rick Perry.
Amongst this crowd last night, the Tea Party crowd, there seemed to be a big distance between them. How are you feeling about where Mitt Romney is and what his performance was like last night?
ERIC FEHRNSTROM, SENIOR ADVISOR TO MITT ROMNEY CAMPAIGN: We think Mitt did a terrific job last night. I think he demonstrated once again that he is the person with the skills and capabilities not only to create jobs in this economic mess that we have, but also to lead a turnaround in the economy. The turnaround has to happen first before we create the jobs.
VELSHI: Let's talk about this because he specifically used that term talking to Rick Perry about the success in Texas that Rick Perry's team would like to take some credit for. He was saying, you guys got some things handed to you that had nothing to do with Rick Perry.
FEHRNSTROM: I think that's one of the big differences between Rick Perry and Mitt Romney as governors. Rick Perry is essentially a caretaker governor, as was pointed out last night. Texas has great some natural advantages. It's a no-income tax state, a right-to-work state. They have a Republican legislature. A lot of oil and gas in the ground, which creating revenues for their state budget. And when Rick Perry came in after George Bush left, he was handed a pretty good deal.
Mitt Romney faced a different set of circumstances as the governor of the commonwealth. Massachusetts is a great state, too, but they were in recession when Mitt became governor. They had a broken budget. They were losing thousands of jobs every month. And Mitt Romney turned that situation around. He balanced the budget four years in a row, cut taxes 19 times. And when he left office, he left behind a fund with $2 billion in cash in it, which he had built up over his four years in office. VELSHI: How do you translate that to an advantage because, last night, it appeared Rick Perry is the frontrunner in this race, and everybody was ganging up on him? Sure it was mostly, as our Jim Acosta said, looked like a heavy-weight fight between Mitt Romney and Rick Perry, but when everybody else got their jabs in, they were all focusing on Rick Perry.
FEHRNSTROM: Look, someone observed that Rick Perry went into the debate with a Social Security problem and he left with a conservative problem. That's a true statement.
VELSHI: Tell me what that means.
FEHRNSTROM: The first half hour of the debate was occupied by trying to get Rick Perry to clarify where he stood on Social Security. I do think candidates for president should speak with clarity. And when he was asked specifically by Mitt Romney whether he still believes that Social Security is a federal program, should be dismantled, that it's unconstitutional, that we should give this responsibility to the states -- these are all views that he expressed in his book and on his media tour to promote his book -- he did not give a direct answer. Instead, he said we should have a national conversation about this. And then the debate moved into other areas where Rick Perry had to defend his record of higher taxes in Texas, more spending in Texas, the HPV vaccine, and his record on illegal aliens.
VELSHI: I noticed Mitt Romney didn't jump in on the HPV discussion.
(CROSSTALK)
FEHRNSTROM: I think -- well, there were eight candidates on stage, Ali.
VELSHI: Right.
FEHRNSTROM: I think everybody had something to say about it.
VELSHI: Right. What happens now? Mitt Romney is definitely one of those guys, until Rick Perry came in, was seen as the frontrunner. He's run for president before. He's got this national profile, yet there's still talk -- Sarah Palin's still talking about getting into the race. Michele Bachmann, we just spoke to her. A number of people saying she got herself back in last night. Rick Perry, unclear whether he comes out at an advantage or a disadvantage after last night. Mitt Romney is still status quo. He's still kind of where he is.
FEHRNSTROM: We can't control external factors in the race.
VELSHI: Right.
FEHRNSTROM: We can't control who gets in --
(CROSSTALK) VELSHI: But you need another --
(CROSSTALK)
VELSHI: -- the polls to very clearly be a frontrunner?
FEHRNSTROM: What we can control what Mitt Romney says and does. And I think it's become clear, and it will become clearer as we go forward over the next four months, before the first voting takes place, that Mitt Romney is a unique candidate.
VELSHI: Right.
FEHRNSTROM: That he possesses skills and capabilities that no one else does. He's led in challenging times before. He did it as the governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. He did it at the Winter Olympics. He did it as a successful business man who helped launch companies and fix troubled ones
VELSHI: If -- you just heard Michele Bachman. If she is back in the race, if this thing helps her a little bit, that helps you more than it helps Rick Perry, right?
FEHRNSTROM: We -- we think Michele Bachmann is a terrific candidate and Mitt Romney has expressed the view any one of the Republicans running would be a better president than Barack Obama. And that's certainly the case with Michele Bachmann.
VELSHI: Good to see you. Thanks for being with us.
FEHRNSTROM: Thank you, Ali. Appreciate it.
All right.
Christine?
ROMANS: All right, Ali.
Still to come this morning, the HPV virus, front and center in the Republican presidential debate. Rick Perry ordered young girls in Texas to get vaccinated for it. Our senior medical correspondent, Elizabeth Cohen, weighs in when AMERICAN MORNING continues.
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ROMANS: If you watched the CNN Tea Party debate last night, you saw Michele Bachmann and Rick Santorum ganging up on frontrunner Rick Perry.
COSTELLO: Yes. They were slamming the Texas governor for his 2007 order that required 12-year-old girls in his state to get vaccinated against HPV, the virus that causes cervical cancer.
ROMANS: Senior medial correspondent, Elizabeth Cohen, is here.
Elizabeth, I remember back in 2007, I think, when this was a very big story and Rick Perry was really out front on this issue. How common is HPV? It's back in the news again. And his decisions, from several years ago, back in the news again. How common is HPV, Elizabeth?
ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: HPV keeps coming back at us in so many different ways, Christine. HPV is quite common. About 20 million Americans have it, the human papilloma virus.
Now, most people can fight it off. However, we have about 12 million American women who get cervical cancer, and about -- I'm sorry, 12,000 -- sorry, 12,000 women get cervical cancer and about 4,000 die from it. It is not a leading cancer killer of women, but 4,000 women die of it. And cervical cancer is caused by HPV.
COSTELLO: We heard Michele Bachmann say, just a short time ago, that this vaccination is not safe. It has not been proved. Is she right?
COHEN: Let me sort of tell you the two different versions of the answer to that question. The Centers for Disease Control and pretty much every vaccine expert you could talk to will tell you this is a safe vaccine, that really there's no major side effects. Probably the biggest thing that's going to happen is your arm might feel a little sore when you get the shot.
However, there are parents who say, oh, my gosh, my daughter got the vaccine and she became paralyzed, or something else terrible happened, and they report this reaction to the government. Now, the experts will tell you, wait a second, terrible things happen to children or young women, and just because this happened after -- the day after she got the shot, or shortly after she got the shot, doesn't mean the shot caused it. So there's no study that tells you, yes, you give a kid this shot and something terrible is going to happen. And the CDC will tell you that if anything terrible does happen after the shot, it was a coincidence and not a cause-and-effect kind of relationship.
COSTELLO: So just to be clear about this, there's no scientific evidence that says this vaccination is dangerous?
COHEN: Correct. There is no scientific evidence that says terrible things happen after this vaccination. But, there have been reports of terrible things happening.
COSTELLO: Right.
COHEN: And experts will tell you that is coincidental.
ROMANS: But this is where it becomes the culture war part of it. Because this girl -- you have to vaccinate girls before they become sexually active, which is why 12 years old or younger is when pediatricians and others suggest that you get this vaccination. It has to be well before the onset of sexual activity.
COHEN: It doesn't have to be well before. It could be just shortly before.
And here's what some mothers I know have gone. They have gone to their pediatrician and said, look, this is a relatively new vaccine, every medicine has a risk. And the long-term risks of this are really unknown because we haven't been vaccinating girls on a grand scale for all that long. So I know some mothers who have said, look, even if it's a tiny risk, I don't want to take a risk. My 11-year-old is not having sex. I'm going to wait until she's, let's say, 15. I'm going to wait until she's 15 to vaccinate her. And I know many pediatricians who say that's a perfectly reasonable way to go about it. You don't have to vaccinate at 11. You can -- as long as you're vaccinated before you have sex, the vaccine will work.
COSTELLO: I guess where Christine was going with this -- and it's part of the cultural war -- is that some conservatives think that, by giving a young girl this vaccination, encourages her to have premarital sex.
COHEN: That's a subjective opinion. I don't know. I have four daughters and if I said to my daughter, look, you're going to get a shot, this is going to prevent you from getting sick for when you're sexually active, I mean -- she's a smart girl. I really don't think she would take that as me saying, Sweetie, go ahead and have sex. Personally, as a mother of four daughters, that argument doesn't fly with me.
ROMANS: The kids are vaccinated against so many different things, in some cases --
(LAUGHTER)
-- you're not even explaining to them what they all are.
(CROSSTALK)
COHEN: If you're scared of that, if you're scared that giving her this shot is like giving her a permission note to have sex, just say, here, you're getting three shots today, and be done with it.
ROMANS: All right.
COHEN: You don't have to explain it.
COSTELLO: Elizabeth Cohen, many thanks to you.
COHEN: Thanks.
ROMANS: Ahead next hour, team work, strength, bravery -- how a team of strangers saved a young motorcyclist who was trapped under a burning car. You don't want to miss the heart-pounding rescue scene. That's ahead.
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