Transcripts For CNN The Situation Room With Wolf Blitzer 20120323

on this, the eve of a key gop primary in louisiana, rick santorum is charging hard. polls show him as a double digit favorite there, but santorum is also on the defensive today. he's taking a lot of heat from his rivals for hinting that reelecting barack obama might -- might be preferable to electing mitt romney. listen to this. >> you win by giving people a choice. you win by giving people the opportunity to see a different vision for our country, not someone who is just going to be a little different than the person in there. if they're going to be a little different we might as well stay with what we have instead of taking a risk of what may be an etch a sketch candidate for the future. >> strong words. let's go live to our senior correspondent joe johns. he's in louisiana. joe, i take it senator santorum is back peddling furiously today. joo he sort of has to, when you think about it, wolf. this is one of those situations where he said something and almost immediately the criticism began. conservative blogs started going after him. the romney campaign put out a press release, sent it out in e-mails and put it out on their website all of this because in a nutshell when you talk to a republican pollster as i did, actually last night, they'll tell you, look, when you look at the exit polls from all the primaries, from a bunch of states around the country, the conclusion is clear. republican voters are most concerned about getting a nominee who they think can beat president obama. so when santorum started backing away from these comments he certainly blamed the media for pushing it out there, but he also issued a clarification. listen to this. >> i've said repeatedly and will continue to say, i'll go through the republican nominee, barack obama is a disaster, but we can't have someone who agrees with him on some of the biggest issues of the day and that's the problem with governor romney. he doesn't provide the clear choice that we need. >> reporter: meanwhile, the romney campaign today was really trying to turn the corn tore health care which is such a big issue. today being the anniversary of the president's health care plan and also realizing the fact that the healthcare plan is going to be debated before the supreme court next week. romney trying to distance himself from the president's health care plan and also trying to sort of get on the record with the view toward the fall campaign should he become the nominee. listen to how he framed his argument in metairie, louisiana, today. >> they don't have anything going on and the president is not giving speeches on obama care and that's for a reason. most americans want to get rid of it. and i want to get rid of it, too. >> reporter: the problem, of course, is that provision that was in the romney health care plan in massachusetts when he is governor which was very similar to the provision inside the obama health care plan, that essentially requires taxpayers, people out there to pay for health insurance. both of those plans have that provision and the question really is how you differentiate. romney's trying to differentiate by saying, look, what happened in massachusetts was a state-run plan. that's different from what the federal government is allowed to do under the constitution. the question is whether it flies to average people who really don't care who is doing the forcing when they're being forced to pay for health care, wolf? >> joe, the polls show that santorum has a significant lead going into tomorrow's primary in louisiana where you are. what's the latest? >> reporter: well, that's very true, wolf. it's pretty clear that mitt romney is just about through campaigning here in louisiana. he's going out to california for the weekend. rick santorum is pushing a double digit lead according to the arg poll. so that's good news for rick santorum here. by the way, though, recent national poll shows romney with a big lead, wolf. >> nationally, yes, it does, indeed. thanks very much, joe, for that. >> let's bring in our chief political analyst gloria borger. santorum's comments about maybe obama would be better than romney even though he's backpedalling today. >> furiously. >> how much will it hurt him? >> i think it will hurt him a bunch because mitt romney's campaign intends never to let people forget about it. what they helpfully put out and joe was referring to this was a whole bunch of press releases today. we're referring to santorum's indifference to reelecting president obama and they have helpfully put together all of the conservative's comments about what rick santorum said because they believe, quite honestly, that it's the ultimate act of political treachery to say that you'd rather have president obama than any republican nominee. that's kind of unacceptable. so try as he might to walk it back, it's kind of hard to walk backward on a tightrope. >> you have a great column on cnn.com. >> thank you. >> and you write this among other things, talking about how this republican contest is different than in the past. first of all, the old time power brockers don't have much to offer anymore. the political power within the gop has moved away from the organized structure toward force fields and the populist guy in the streets and the rich guys that can write multimillion dollar checks. how do you see this playing snout. >> there are no smoke-filled rooms with power brokers anymore because this has been a very obstreperous republican primary season and the super pac and sugar daddies can write these checks and give people reason to live. so what we will see going on is not mitt romney sprinting across the finish line. mitt romney is going to crawl across the finish line and what's happening now is he's trying to get some of the establishment to come along with him and endorse him and we saw that this week with jeb bush, but it wasn't a full-throated let's have a huge rally endorsement. conservatives don't feel that way about mitt romney and they're as enthusiastic and passionate about someone getting into an arranged marriage. they don't really love him, but they think he's the most electable. >> santorum is showing no signs of giving up. >> he isn't. as joe pointed out. he's probably going win in the state of louisiana. good for him, not so good for newt gingrich who may get out after louisiana. >> we keep hearing that. >> if you take a look at the gallup poll that came out today, a national poll, again, among republicans you will see how well mitt romney is doing. 40% for romney, 26% for santorum, gingrich, 14,% and of course, paul at 8%. >> this is a national poll. >> it is a national poll of republicans and republican-leaning independents and what is key about this poll is that the first time we've seen any republican candidate get to that 40% mark. remember when mitt romney was kind of stuck at 25%? now he's up at 40. his lead is 14 points. it was at four points just a week ago. so you see the momentum building. my guess is april 24th is going to be a very big day because if rick santorum cannot win his home state of pennsylvania, then i think they're going to have to reconsider how they go on. if rick san tour up wants to have a national career and maybe run again for the presidency, he can't be blamed for having the party lose in the fall election. >> he's only in his mid-50s. >> a young man. >> he can run. at four years, eight years, maybe 12 years. who knows? thanks very much. president obama is speaking publicly for the first time about the growing national controversy over the shooting of trayvon martin. he was shot by a neighborhood watch captain who has not been charged and it's spiked debate over florida law. the president spoke about it earlier today. >> i'm the head of the executive branch, and the attorney general reports to me, so i've got to be careful about my statements to make sure that we're not impeding any investigation that's taking place right now, but obviously, this is a tragedy. i can only imagine what these parents are going through. and when i think about this boy, i think about my own kids, and i think every parent in america should be able to understand why it is absolutely imperative that we investigate every aspect of this and that everybody pulls together, federal, state and local to figure out exactly how this tragedy happened. so i'm glad that not only is the justice department looking into it. i understand now that the governor of the state of florida has formed a task force to investigate what's taking place. i think all of us have to do some soul-searching to figure out how does something like this happen? that means that we examine the laws and the context for what happened as well as the specifics of the incident, but my main message is to the parents of trayvon martin. you know, if i had a son he'd look like trayvon, and, you know, i think they are right to expect that all of us as americans are going to take this with the seriousness that it deserves and that we'll get to the bottom of exactly what happened. >> very moving comments from the president of the united states. trayvon martin's parent, by the way, they are also reacting to what the president has said today. we'll have details of that as well as mass high school walkouts in protest of the killing. that's coming up in our next hour. >> straight ahead, an announcement by north korea stoking new tension as president obama heads to south korea and the demilitarized zone for a nuclear summit. and american army officer murdered inside one of the most secure buildings in afghanistan. details coming up. >> it was senseless, murdered just for trying to help. it just doesn't make any sense at all. we always hear about jobs leaving america. here's a chance to create jobs in america. oil sands projects, like kearl, and the keystone pipeline will provide secure and reliable energy to the united states. over the coming years, projects like these could create more than half a million jobs in the us alone. from the canadian border, through the mid west, to the gulf coast. benefiting hundreds of thousands of families throughout the country. this is just what our economy needs right now. never took life too seriously... till our son was born. that day, he bought life insurance. now there's no way i could send our boy to college without it. if there was one thing i could say to hank, it'd be "thank you." you're welcome. hey, hank. 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[ clang ] the all-new 2013 lexus gs. there's no going back. see your lexus dealer. u.s. army sergeant being held for the murder of afghan civilians is formally charged. sergeant robert bales is facing 17 counts of murder for the shooting rampage and being get the death penalty. the story has dominated headlines out of afghanistan recently, but less than a month ago there was also shock at the murder of two american soldiers inside what was supposed to be one of the most secure buildings in afghanistan. now the family of one of those men is speaking out about their grief and demanding answers. cnn's deborah feyerick had a chance to speak to them. deb, what did they tell you? >> wolf, the man who was slain was a man of deep faith, a man of honor. he adored his family and he felt he was making a difference in afghanistan. for his wife and four children that makes this tragedy all of the more painful. like so many u.s. soldiers in afghanistan major robert marchanti was serving his country and laid to rest arlington national cemetery, his death under investigation by the u.s. army and afghan authorities. grieving wife peggy is stunned her husband was killed inside afghan's heavily fortified security headquarters. >> it's senseless that he was murdered just for trying to help. it just doesn't make any sense at all. >> major marchanti were with the nato team helping to transition afghanistan to full afghan control by 2014. as kabul erupted in protest over the accidental u.s. burning of cor arngs the two men worked together in their office. >> he said are you on lockdown? he said yes, so i said okay, you know, i love you. you are my life and he wrote back you are my life, too and then we said good-bye and that was our last conversation. >> less than 12 hours later a knock on the door of the marchanti's maryland home. two uniformed officers came with the tragic news. >> that he'd died from a single gunshot wound to the head. >> it is still unclear how the gunmen managed to leave the building and get past three security cameras. >> why wasn't it shut down so that he was caught before he left. >> the gunmen still at large was identified as an intelligence specialist working for the afghan police. no motive has been identified. with so much focus on the bad acts of soldiers like staff sergeant robert bales charged with 17 count of murder in afghanistan, marchanti's children are confused. >> there was, you know, there's all this coverage of the horrible things that this man did, but what about the greatness that my father did over there for his country and representing the army and what he did? to us, our dad is like superman. >> we love him so much and we're so proud of him. i wish i would have told him more. >> hundreds turned out to honor major marchanti, a teacher who loved his family and his country and the people he believed he was helping. >> my dad loved those people and i don't even think they realize the loss that they have had, the afghan people as well as our people. >> when that man walked in there with that gun he had no idea what he was taking from so many people, and what he was destroying. it was just totally senseless. joo the family has received hundreds of letters and e-mails from around the world, but it is this one, his wife clings to. >> my heart is right beside yours. i feel you here. i love my life with you. >> a life that ended too soon with many unresolved questions, why? >> and, wolf, the gunman's whereabouts are apparently unknown. the man hunt does continue. wolf? >> did you have a chance to speak to this family, deb, about the whole war effort now? have they revised and changed their attitudes whether or not the united states should even be there any longer in afghanistan? >> you know, i really think that they felt that their husband, the father was really just there and he was working to make a difference, that he believed in the people, believed in what he was doing, believed in the mission and there was the expectation that he was safe. so in that sense they felt okay. this is a good thing. clearly, it didn't work out that way, and the big question is why and how this gunman got into a building filled with police and security authorities. so that's under investigation. as far as the war effort, they don't know. they're dealing with their grief right now. >> my heart goes out to them, and i wish them only, only the best. thanks very much, deb, for that report. >> a planned rocket launch raising new tensions across asia and all of the way to washington, now on a fragile deal with north korea may simply be falling apart. the ramifications could be enormous. and vice president joe biden is naming names and going on the offensive and he's going off on the republican presidential candidates. paul begala and john fury are standing by for our strategy session. >> if any one of them get their hands on the white house, the keys of the white house, i promise you, you will see medicare ended as you know it. . new tone rehab 2-in-1 foundation. covers spots, lines... and wrinkles. and helps improve skin tone over time. new tone rehab from easy... breezy... beautiful... covergirl! covergirl! breezy... beautiful... there's another way litter box dust:e purina tidy cats. our premium litters now work harder to help neutralize odors in multiple cat homes. purina tidy cats. keep your home smelling like home. only hertz gives you a carfirmation. hey, this is challenger. i'll be waiting for you in stall 5. it confirms your reservation and the location your car is in, the moment you land. it's just another way you'll be traveling at the speed of hertz. president obama takes off for south korea just a few hours after a security summit with world leaders. it comes as north korea was raising tensions by announcing plans to launch a satellite. the north recently pledged to halt missile tests and nuclear activity in exchange for u.s. food aid. now that deal could be in jeopardy and japan is scrambling to prepare a brand new missile defense system. cnn's tom foreman is watching all of this. explain why the uproar is occurring over a north korean satellite launch. >> wolf, as you know, because the concern is that if you're talking about a satellite launch, maybe that's not exactly what it is. let's look at the lay of the land here. here's seoul where the president will be going. and here is the dnc, he'll also be going there. it's only 25 miles from seoul and the border. look at what the north koreans have that we know they have. they have scud missiles and the type o dong 1 missity and type o dong 2 missile. look at the range from where we started here on what the scud can do. if we can just get this to hold still to show you what the scud is. that missile which we saw a lot of in various parts of the world has clearly the range to strike everywhere the president is going to be. that's one cause for concern. beyond, that the type o-dong 1 has caused concerns before and taken it near japan and the type o dong 2 which is even more unreliable is the one that has scared us so much up to this point in the world because if you look at this, all of the way over here that would actually reach alaska, hawaii, oregon and washington, places like that. that's been the concern, but wolf, let's talk about that test next month because that's the one that has people concerned. we have new pictures here from goi of the facilities they have, the missile assembly plant on the northern western coast of north korea. this is the launch facility. you can see the shadow from the big launch tower. >> why does this concern people so much? because researchers have said for some time that north korea has material between four to eight nuclear weapons one stand for researcher found that there are two weapons and too big to be carried on the missiles they already have. what they're doing is developing a stronger missile with better control and better range while secretly working on miniatu miniaturization of their nuclear warheads. put the two together at some point and then north korea becomes a very, very different threat than it is right now. that's why there's so much concern about this. not so much the concern of an immediate attack, but what are they working toward een as they say they're working with peaceful space technology. >> good explanation, tom, thanks very much. we'll, of course, cover the president's stroz korea, south korea and the dmz. the vice president joe biden is coming out swinging and he's naming names again on the campaign trail as the campaign gets rather personal. >> there is no daylight between governor romney and republican leaders on the most important issues facing this country and not even romney's etch a sketch can change that. 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[ male announcer ] it's a network of possibilities -- helping you do what you do... even better. ♪ this reduced sodium soup says it may help lower cholesterol, how does it work? you just have to eat it as part of your heart healthy diet. step 1. eat the soup. all those veggies and beans, that's what may help lower your cholesterol and -- well that's easy [ male announcer ] progresso. you gotta taste this soup. let's get right to our strategy session. joining us the democratic strategist paul begala for the democratic fund-raising groups priorities ushs sa and priorities usa action. also with us republican strategist john fuhry and president of quinn, gillespie and associates. here's one of your associates. >> i am. >> his name isn't there. it's quinn and gillespie. >> that's even better. inthose gains. >> let's talk about the vice president joe biden. unlike the president, he's really in full campaign mode right now. he's not afraid to mention the names mitt romney or whatever. listen to this. >> make no mistake about it, the republicans in congress and their corner of romney, santorum and gingrich, if any of them get their hands on the keys to the white house, i promise you, you will see medicare ended as you know it. governor romney supports cut, cap and balance which is yet another demonstration that there is no daylight between governor romney and republican leaders on the most important issues facing this country and not even romney's etch a sketch can save that. >> what do you think? is this just the beginning of a lot more of this? >> oh, absolutely. that was like a news report. that was not even -- the former governor of massachusetts. >> that they want to end medicare as we know it. >> the policy parties took a look that the romney-ryan proposal. their words, would be the gradual demise of traditional medicare and it would replace it with a voucher system which would raise costs for seniors by $6,000 by cutting taxes for millionaires like mitt romney. that is the romney position on medicare. in his health care legislation, he wanted to cut medicare spending over the next ten years by $500 billion. >> no. because it came out of medicare advantage which was the corporate welfare part of it. you have not seen medicare beneficiaries and let me say that it is a very clever tactic by joe biden because it is the two-year anniversary where they cut $500 billion out of medicare which is why senior citizens do not like the administration. they're saying no thanks to these guys. i don't think they will come around because i don't think they know for a fact that the president -- >> the republicans called it med scare. >> he cut it from providers and doctors and hospitals and also the medicare -- >> medicare advantage and the corporate welfare piece of this. >> seniors love medicare advantage and the fact of the matter that's why senior citizens have turned their backs on their administration and that's why he's in florida begging them to come back. >> is it at great risk? >> absolutely. mr. romney doesn't want to tamper with it. he wants to destroy it. he's shifted into a voucher tomorrow which would be the slow demise of traditional medicare, not to will bahhance the budget, even so he could get new tax cuts and they talk about it every day. >> if you want to take the choice, it was a bipartisan plan, the democratic senator, biden supports a disaster? >> a good man and a democratic senator is the only democrat who saves medicare because senior citizens understand that medicare is an important program and they want to stick around for a while and they don't touch it. you have to save it for the long term. >> fixing medicare, sure. that's like the vet said he had to fix my dog major. >> it does not help anymore and major regrets. >> they cut it by $500 billion. >> entitlement spending which is social security, medicare, medicaid, that's a big chunk of the federal budget every year and something sea got to be done if we want to start cutting the national debt. >> and the worst thing we can do is destroy medicare to give tax breaks to the rich which is what representative ryan and romney want to do. the ryan plan ines krooes the debt because it gives so many tax breaks to oil companies and rich people. >> that's the plan. >> it takes from seniors and medicare and gives to millionaires. >> it reforms the tax code so rich people don't get away from paying taxes. >> it does cut the tax rate and it eliminates a lot of deductions. >> i read his plan. there's not one deduction he eliminates by name. there's not one exemption and one shelter and -- >> the wealthy won't pay taxes right now and they will pay taxes under this plan. everybody understands we need taxes. >> as long as -- i'm for rich people paying more. >> and mitt romney's got his tax breaks. >> there are people who don't pay anything right now. >> how worried should republicans be? even donald trump suggested this week that republicans should worry that whenever they start talking about changing medicare the democrats are going to pounce and it will be a very effective political campaign issue. >> medicare is a very important program and the fact is that one side has a record of cutting medicare and this is yet senior citizens have turned against the obama administration and joe biden is in florida begging them to come back. this is what i find, republicans oppose medicare and they voted against medicare and they tried to dismantle it at every turn and every time they get their hands, and newt gingrich when he was speaker and now mitt romney. this is what keeps republicans -- someone is getting medicare. when i worked for the speaker with the prescription drug benefits and they were a very popular part part of the program. >> a big debate and we'll have more of these debates in the weeks and months to come. the supreme court gets ready to hear a major case that could change health coverage for all americans jeff toobin, they are both standing by live. >> also, his heart was stopped for well over an hour. now the young soccer player in england is literally back from the dead. all right, let's decide what to do about medicare and social security... security. that's what matters to me... me? 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[ male announcer ] aarp is bringing the conversation on medicare and social security out from behind closed doors in washington. because you've earned a say. >> certainly one of the most closely watched and supreme court cases of the year, income week the justices will hear the challenge to president buobama' affordable care act cited two years ago exactly this week. our congressional correspondent kate bolduan has a prevow. your over at the supreme court. set the scene for us. what can we expect? >> reporter: wolf, there are some people here waiting, holding seats to hopefully get a seat inside the courtroom come monday. that's how important this case is. you'll recall the health care law is some 2700 pages. it includes more than 450 provisions and it impacts every american and that's why it's really hard to overstate just how high the stakes are in this next supreme court battle. >> we're done. >> reporter: march 23, 2010, president obama signs into law the signature achievement of this presidency, the affordable care act. the landmark and controversial health care overhaul. >> after all of the votes have been tallied, health insurance reform becomes law in the united states of america. >> within hours, states across the country filed lawsuits challenging the law. this is about liberty. it's not just about health care, led by florida, 26 states the law's central provision is unconstitutional. the so-called individual mandate. it requires almost every american to purchase health insurance by 2014 or pay a penalty. the constitution's commerce clause does not give congress the power to purchase a commercial product like health insurance they may not need or want. paul clement is arguing on behalf of the states before the supreme court. >> these issues are really central to whether the federal government can regulate anything it wants to. >> the government defends the sweeping reforms arguing medical care is not a choice. >> that every american will need health care at some point in their lives. they also say that tens of millions of uninsured americans are costing everyone else more. $43 billion in uncompensated costs in 2008 alone according to government figures. >> no one is saying that there's a right to free load off one's neighbor. you decide not to hear health insurance. the states only grow larger with the supreme court taking the case just months before the election. >> if i'm president we're getting rid of obama care and returning to freedom. and the election year blockbuster has turned the spotlight on the justices themselves. as with the bush v. gore case in 2000, will the justices be criticized for letting politics creep into the kourl. >> the health care cases have huge political overtones i think the justices will put them to the side. the legal stakes are so high that i don't think they'll pay attention that much if at all to the fact that it's occurring in election cycle that just have to get the case right. >> and here's what we're talking about, wolf, the justices will hear arguments on four separate issues. this will span six hours over three days. this rarely happens and shows just how important this case is. as for how this could shake out, so much speculation over that, the justices have very options and they can rule narrowly on the facts of this case and they have a sweeping road map for just how much power congress should have going forward. no matter what happens in these public sessions next week, we still will not have a final decision and a final ruling from the justices for probably three months, wolf? maybe june, we're at the hype of that campaigning for the general election and i know, kate, you will be inside all three days hearing all of those arguments. we'll have a lot of coverage with you, thanks very much. >> let's dig a little bit deeper right now into the supreme court showdown. joining us our senior legal analyst jeffrey toobin. jeff is an authority on the supreme court. jeff, this whole idea of individual mandates, you write this in "the new yorker" magazine and i'll put it up on the screen. the president's supporting the constitutionality of the health care act hasn't changed and the federal judiciary including the supreme court has as in the senate, they helped sway for years the supreme court, but that species has vanished on both sides of first street. first street is where the supreme court is. what's the point here that you're trying to make? >> the point is that if you look at who really control the outcome of cases at the supreme court for many years, you had justices like potter stewart in the '70s and lewis powell in the '80s and of course, in the '90s and in the last decade, sandra day o'connor, and they represented a streak of moderate republicans that's vanished. the people who were appointed, george w. bush appointed justices who reflect his judicial philosophy. samuel alito, chief justice john roberts and these are conservative republicans. they are very honorable and they're very intelligent and they bring a distinctive judicial philosophy that's very different from justice o'connor's. >> you wrote a book about the justices of the supreme court. how influenced are they by public opinion as opposed to the law, shall we say, or the various rulings and precedents? >> i don't think they -- they are influenced by the people chanting out in front of the supreme court, but it's also important to remember they have judicial philosophies. justice ginsburg, ruth bader ginsburg is a liberal democrat. that's how she sees the constitution. antonin scalia is a conservative republican. that's how he sees the constitution and that doesn't make one right or wrong, but it certainly makes them very different. they are going to look at this case differently as a result. so it's not a question of sort of shifting opinion because of politics, it's their politics that leads them to view the constitution in different ways and they are very likely to see this case in different ways. >> very quickly because we're out of time, jeff, this is the case where we have four conservative justices and four liberal justices and one swing justice and anthony kennedy. are you anticipating a 5-4 decision with kennedy making the decisive vote? >> that's certainly a possibility and certainly the four democratic appointees will vote to uphold the law. i actually think that chief justice roberts and perhaps even justice scalia and justice alito might hold justice kennedy in upholding the law. it will really be a big change in constitutional law and i'm not sure this court is ready to do it. >> jeff, thanks very much. jeff will be inside the supreme court hearing all those arguments and we'll check back with him, obviously. >> an american woman makes a plea to the pope as he prepares to visit cuba. she wants help from him, helping to free her husband in cuba. plus, a red carpet attack on a reality tv star. what is that all over kim kardashian? 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>> secretary of state hillary clinton herself signed off on it despite the failure of its military leaders to usher in democracy. the state department says the aid is in the best interest of u.s. national security. the $1.3 billion doesn't actually go to egypt. instead it goes to u.s. firms with contracts to supply american equipment, weapons, training and services to the country. >> t-mobile says it is cutting 1900 jobs as it struggles to stay competitive. the nation's fourth largest cell carrier is closing seven of its 24 call centers and it says more restructuring is in store. t-mobile has been losing customers and is investing billions to play catch-up to rivals verizon, at&t? sprint. >> the national counterterrorism center will keep information on americans on file for up until five years. up until now the data has had to be deleted after 18 months. the change was prompted by concern that the intelligence community failed to connect the dots from multiple databases about the so-called underwear bomber who tried to blow up a u.s. airliner in 2009. >> and kim kardashian, well, she gets flour bombed. take a look here. it happened at a red carpet in west hollywood last night. an unidentified woman powdered the reality tv star apparently with cooking flour before she was grabbed by security. kardashian dusted herself off inside and later laughed off the incident calling it the craziest, unexpected weird thing that has ever happened to her. still no reason on what the woman's motivation was there, but you can see there. >> that can be scary if someone throws white powder like that on you. it could be anthrax and could scare you. is this woman under arrest? >> i don't know if she's under arrest. this is something that we've seen litly. do you remember the glitter on a lot of the politicians getting glitter bombed because they see it as a way of attracting interest to a given cause of some sort. we'll look into it. >> let me know. >> i will. >> thank you. pope benedict xvi arrives in mexico in about an hour and monday he'll be heading over to cuba, and the wife of an american held prisoner in cuba is pleading to the pope to help set him free. cnn's erin burnett is going out front on this story. you can see what's going on. i know you'll be reporting extensively on this later tonight on your show, but you spoke to the wife of allen gross, the american who has been held prisoner in cuba for some time. what did she tell you? >>s it was pretty amazing. judy and allen gross were married for more than 40 years. he was in cuba in 2009 and he was jailed. he had communications equipment and he is in jail in a 15-year sentence and his wife has been fighting tirelessly for his return. she's been lobbying the white house and she's been lobbying the vatican and she spoke to senator patrick leahy who went to cuba and spoke to rafael castro who said look, allen gross is not a spy. still, there's no guarantee that the pope will do anything on his behalf and whether or not he'll be released and i have to say it was a pretty powerful interview and here's what she said, wolf, a snippet about her advocacy and what this has been like emotion emotionally. >> i hope it's very likely we haven't been told anything, but we've been working with the highest authorities of the church for quite a while now and we're very hopeful that he will intervene on allen's behalf. >> what emotion is the one that you feel the most? is it frustration? sadness? loneliness or anger? >> i'm very lonely. i miss allen's companionship so much. i also -- i've never been an angry person before, but now i am. i have a lot of anger which is very difficult for me. >> the situation, wolf, it's impossible to imagine the things that can happen to disrupt their life. they've had 40 years of marriage. allen's mother is terminally ill. his daughter had had cancer. so we hope that this can be resolved, but we'll hear her entire story out front tonight. >> looking forward to it. let's hope the pontiff can get him freed. a lot of people have gone to cuba, tried and failed. let's see if the pope can do it. we'll be watching at 7:00 p.m. eastern here on cnn. >> thanks, wolf. >> he was dead for 78 minutes and lived to tell the story. we have details of a young soccer player's remarkable medical odyssey. ♪ [ male announcer ] you're at the age where you don't get thrown by curveballs. ♪ this is the age of knowing how to get things done. so, why let erectile dysfunction get in your way? 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we asked susan o don hugh a physiologist, sometimes called the electricians of the heart at washington hospital center. >> we understand that he did not respond to 15 separate defibrillator shocks. explain to me how something like that is even possible for his heart to be restarted later. >> i think it's extraordinary that his heart was restarted after such a long period and it may be that the heart rhythm was briefly brought back and then deteriorated again. in addition he must have been getting very effective cpr. >> muamba is still hospitalized, but his teammates say he's speaking in both french and english, answering questions and even joking. progress some are calling astonishing. dr. don hugh agreed. >> even with very good cpr it would be truly astonishing to have that quick a recovery after a prolonged period of continuing cardiac arrest. she explained that without treatment a patient risks brain damage after just seven minutes. >> this is the type of defibrillator that we have generally in the hospitals. >> it's clear that cpr as defibrillators are key. >> it allows the heart to restart in an organized way. >> as for how long to work on a patient in distress, it comes down to the doctor's discretion. >> you're more likely to give up when it's a young individual and you expect that it was something that might be reversible or treatable. >> muamba is breathing without a ventilator, but doctors say his long-term prognosis isn't yet clear. the next step will be figuring out why muamba's heart suddenly stopped in the first place, wolf? >> we wish him a speedy recovery. >> thanks. >> you're in "the situation room." happening now, president obama speaks out about the killing of a florida teenager in very personal terms. those remashes add more fuel to the racially charged case? >> also a new way for americans to avoid foreclosure and stay in their homes. we'll tell you about an experiment that could help homeowners across the nation. and a judge orders a ban on antibiotics in animal feed decades after warnings that people might be in danger. some fear that the damage to public health has been done. we want to welcome our viewers in the united states and around the world. i'm wolf blitzer. you're in "the situation room." -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com president obama usually treads very careful low when it comes to racial controversy. his comments about the death of an unarmed teenager were unexpected and they were very powerful. the republicans who want his job also chimed in, but clearly the trayvon martin case is hitting this president very close to home. let's go to our white house correspondent dan lothian. dan? >> wolf, earlier in the week when white house spokesman jay carney was asked for reaction on this matter he said the white house did not want to weigh into what he considered a local law enforcement matter, but i can tell you an aide told me that the president had been thinking about this in personal terms now for some time and when he was asked a question about it today he jumped. >>. >> reporter: more often than not president obama dodges questions that reporters shout his way, but after naming his choice to head the world bank, mr. obama did respond when asked about the trayvon martin case. it got personal. >> my main message is to the parents of trayvon martin. if i had a son he'd look like trayvon, and when i think about this boy i think about my own kids. >> with the justice department now involved -- >> reporter: and a wave of national emotion that has sparked protests in civil communities, the president chose his words carefully to avoid, he said, impairing the investigation. >> i think all of us have to do some soul-searching to figure out how does something like this happen and that means that we examine the laws and the context for what happened as well as the specifics of the incident. >> martin's parents called the president's comments humbling and in a statement said it touched us deeply if his son looked like trayvon and wore a hoodie, would he be suspicious, too? in 2009 when he defended friend henry lewis gates after an alleged racial profiling incident. >> the cambridge police acted stupidly. >> a beer summit at the white house was called to smooth things out. but this case involves the death of an unarmed teen and it's resonating out on the campaign trail as well. >> it's a horrible case. it's chilling to hear what happened. >> it's pretty clear that this is a guy who found a hobby that's very dangerous. >> in a statement mitt romney said there needs to be a thorough investigation that reassures the public that justice is carried out with impartiality and integrity. >> reporter: now the president echoed those words saying it was important for all aspects of the case to be investigated and for federal, state and local officials to work together to figure out what caused this tragedy. wolf? >> dan lothian at the white house, thank you. students at several miami-area high schools walked out of classes today to protest the police handling in the trayvon martin death. martin's mother said she'd prefer they'd honor her son in other ways. cnn's john zarrella is joining us from sanford in florida. that's where the shooting took place. there are new developments i take it, john, in the possible prosecution of this case. what are you learning? >> reporter: well, wolf, as we know late yesterday afternoon and early evening, governor rick scott announced that he was appointing basically what amounts to a special prosecutor angela quarry, the state attorney out of jacksonville to handle this case and that the local state attorney here was going step aside so that there's complete transparency here. we talked to her office today and we said we are just getting our feet on the ground. we're just beginning fact finding and we have people in place already in sanford, florida, that she is going to be using two prosecutors and a homicide investigator and her office is telling us that, you know, it might not even be necessary to bring this case to a grand jury because her office has the power to arrest mr. zimmerman if necessary or to clear him or, if necessary, to go to a grand jury. this morning angela talked on local station in jacksonville about what her expectations are going forward. >> it requires a thorough investigation and extensive interviews of every witness and an extensive review of physical evidence and as to how we apply florida's law in any case. >> what what we worry about, that's our mission. is to seek the truth. >> angela quarry's office also told us that if they do go to a grand jury that it would be her prosecutor's handling the case, but the grand jury would be empanelled here in seminole county, wolf? >> john, what else do we know about this task force that the governor is putting place. >> the governor also announced that once angela cory's investigation is completed, at that point he is going to set up a task force to look into citizen safety and one of the things that that task force is going to be looking at is that so-called stand your ground law. that will be one of the things that they'll re-examine as they go forward. >> thanks, john, very much. >> this programming note, candy crowley will meet with terror da governor rick scott regarding the trayvon martin investigation. it airs at 9:00 a.m. eastern right here on cnn. >> the white house says president obama will meet with the pakistani prime minister next week in south korea after a nuclear security summit there. relations between the two nations have been tense since the killing of osama bin laden and the u.s. drone strikes that killed two dozen or so pakistani soldiers. the two leaders are expected to talk about the drawdown of u.s. troops in afghanistan among other subjects as well. >> the u.s. soldier involved in the killings in afghanistan has now been formally charged. we'll go there and we'll get you all of the latest information. stand by for that. we're also getting new information on the florida teenager, and i'll ask his former domestic policy pressure and they're putting fresh you on bashar al assad by going after his rather glamorous wife. >> a husband is charged with murdering his wife. you will hear the heartbreaking 911 calls that explains what happened. >> it's a lot of money, she needed her pills refilled. show was suffering. we've been through hell, and i couldn't see her suffer anymore. we were being evicted today. my daughter's grabbing some yoplait. lemon burst, blackberry harvest, pina colada... i can't imagine where she is... orange creme... 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[ baby crying ] ♪ what started as a whisper ♪ every day, millions of people choose to do the right thing. ♪ slowly turned to a scream ♪ there's an insurance company that does that, too. liberty mutual insurance. responsibility. what's your policy? ♪ amen, omen >> the u.s. soldier accused of slaughtering civilians in afghanistan now stands formally charged with 17 counts of murder. his lawyer says army staff sergeant robert bales is kind of in shock. let's get more from our pentagon correspondent chris lawrence. chris, what happened? >> wolf, i think what we're mainly learning from these charge sheets that were just released in the last hour or so is that the prosecutors believe that they can prove premeditated murder. in other words, they believe that staff sergeant bales consciously came up with the thought of the intent to commit these crimes, and i'm told by some of the jag sources that we've been speaking with he needed to have had that intent for a long amount of time. so it's not like you have to conceive of this for days and weeks. it can be a very short amount of time as long as it is premeditated. i think now as we start to move into more of a pretrial hearing phase and this starts to move along, evidence becomes in a very, very important point. on one side it's going to be very difficult for the government to find exact eyewitnesses because this happened in the middle of the night in a very dark area, in a rural part of afghanistan, presumably staff sergeant bales would have been dressed in full combat gear with a helmet and night vision goggles. it may be very hard to get witnesses who can positively identify him, but i also spoke with a jag officer who has tried hundreds of court marshalls in the united states military and he says there are things that the government has working for it as well. >> if any rounds were recovered from a wall or the floor or wherever that were not badly deformed they can be identified that and matched with a weapon. now, if bales' weapon was immediately seized and a chain of custody was initiated for that weapon that could be powerful evidence for the government. >> from these charge sheets some of that evidence may be with the victims, the wounded victims who survived this attack. a little afghan boy who was shot in the thigh. a little afghan girl who was shot in the head, their wounds may contain forensic evidence that the government and the military may now use. >> chris lawrence, thanks very much. >> let's get back to our top story right now. after days of protests, a growing anger across the nation, president obama apparently felt he had to talk publicly about the killing of 17-year-old trayvon martin by a neighborhood watch volunteer. listen to the president. >> i can only imagine what these parents are going through. and when i think about this boy i think about my own kids and i think every parent in america should be able to understand why it is absolutely imperative that we investigate every aspect of this. >> let's talk about it with melanie burns. a former domestic policy adviser with the president. thanks very much for coming in. >> it's great to be here. thanks for having me. >> the president said if he has a son. he doesn't have a son, he has two daughters. if he had a son that son would have looked like trayvon martin. he wanted to talk about this today. you worked with him closely for years. it's unusual for him to sort of volunteer to discuss what is clearly a racially charged case like this. >> well, i think the president feels what so many of us feel. you look at this situation and your heart just goes out to these parents. their son was out buying skittels and an iced tea and he never returned home. i think it goes on what the president said he's a father. he talks about his own daughters. it's what trayvon's mother said. my son is your son. this isn't a black or white thing, this isn't a right or wrong thing. we have to look at every element of this and understand what went wrong so justice can be done and so we can prevent this from happening again. >> you know the president obviously very well. you worked closely with him. take us inside. he didn't have to answer that reporter's question in the rose garden today, but he wanted to. >> that's the kind of person this is. that's the kind of president we have. this goes to the very personal set of feelings that he feels when he looks at his oewn daughters about how safe the children are when we go out into communities and to run to the convenience store and what it would feel like not to have your child come home and also all of the unanswered questions. we have to understand how this law is working in florida as well as in the 22 other states that have laws just like this to make sure that the right thing is being done and so we can have justice for these parents and for this community. >> and if you look at those pictures of trayvon martin, you can totally understand what the president says. if you look at the president and trayvon, what could have been, if you had a son that could have looked like him, your heart goes out to that. >> absolutely. i look at the picture of trayvon martin, and i just cringe. >> i look into that very sweet face, that innocent face and think this child is now gone and taken away from his parents and taken away from his dreams and right now there are so many unanswered questions and that's what this investigation is all about. >> until recently, you were the domestic policy adviser and one of the issues of health care reform. >> yes. two years to the day the president signed that into law. you know what? i don't hear the president speaking a lot about it. i don't hear him bragging about it. it's as if he's concerned that this could be a political loser for him going into the general election. why is he not talking about it? >> no, no, no, no, no. first of all, i'm excited because of the work that i'm able to do that it's been two years. >> why isn't he celebrating it? >> the white house put out a very robust report -- >> the president himself is not talking about it. >> with the quote from the president and the voices of the people that matter most, the people getting preventative care for free who get that now. the seniors who now are saving $500 on prescription drugs, the fact that insurers have to play by rules of the road so that women are no longer going to be discriminated against. the list goes on and on. what the president is saying is he signed the law, he passed the law and he considers it the accomplish ams thus far and now he's about the business of making sure this law gets implemented and not repealed in the way that mr. romney gets repealing it. >> not necessarily will be his challenger in the general election. we're talking about mitt romney. right. >> right. >> you note that the white house is not celebrating obama care today. they don't have any big, big ceremony going on. the president is not giving speeches on obama care and that's for a reason. most americans want to get rid of it and we're among those americans. >> go ahead and respond to mitt romney. >> first of all, he's just wrong on the data and wrong on the facts. most americans don't want to get rid of the affordable care act because they're starting to see and feel the benefits of it because their kids can stay on health care if they're under 26 years of age and the list goes on and on and the irony would almost make you laugh that here's someone who signed into law in massachusetts. >> mitt romney. >> mitt romney. he signed the law in massachusetts. >> did you study his law in massachusetts before coming out with the legislation that eventually became the law of the land on mandates? >> i've been working on these issues for a long time. obviously, i worked for a senator from massachusetts. >> ted kennedy. >> right. so i've looked at this over the years. >> is the president's health care law modelled on what romney pushed through massachusetts? >> well, we looked at a lot of different things to determine what would work and what would, in fact, be the best law for the country that would lower costs for people in the country that already have health care and that would ensure that the worst abuses are going away, that we bring people into the health care system so that we've got coverage and people are staying healthier and we're bringing costs down for everyone. >> i think you make good points and there's a legitimate debate on whether or not it's good or bad, but i'm just surprised that on this second anniversary we didn't hear from the president in the rose garden saying this has been great for america and it's just beginning. that's just me, though. >> the president is focused on so many issues right you in. we put out this report or the white house put out this report celebrating what's happened and explaining to people what's happened so they can understand the benefits and actually get them so that they know what kind of abuses they're no longer going to be challenged by with the access to preventive care that they can get and he goes on to make sure that he's handling the other problems and other business before the country. >> and he's off to seoul, south korea. you mack a fair point. thanks for coming in. >> it's my pleasure. >> i hope you'll be back. >> i will. thank you. >> horrifying shrieks of pain coming from the youngest victims of syria's broughtal slaughter ahead. an up close look to save the children of the siege. also, chilling video inside the gunman's apartment after the deadly shooting spree in france. stay with us. lots of news happening right now. your in "the situation room." 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[ male announcer ] it's a network of possibilities -- helping you do what you do... even better. ♪ >> we're learning more about the gunman behind the killings of three children, a rabbi and two french paratroopers. our lisa sylvester has been watching what's going on. she has some of the other top stories in "the situation rom." i think those three paratroopers. what's the latest? >> this is chilling new video taken from inside mohammed merah's apartment. a french citizen of algerian descent was shot dead by special forces after a more than 30-hour siege in toulouse. he attended an al qaeda training camp and was under surveillance. police had no ground to arrest him before the deadly siege. and this update to a controversial story we brought you yesterday. facebook is now joining the public outcry over job applicants and workers being required by employers to disclose their facebook passwords. the social media giant said the practice not only violates the user's privacy, but also those of his or her facebook friends and it's also warning employers could be liable for doing so. you might be familiar with the hit nbc comedy 30 rock, but you may not have seen this. >> you listen to me, blitzer. either cnn gets back on the jess up story or i'll tell everyone your real name steel hammerhands. hello? steel? mr. hammer hands? >> okay. our own wolf blitzer got a shout out from alec baldwin's character don hay, he was trying to call attention to his wife's kidnapping in north korea. wolf actually traveled to north korea, we have pictures there, just a little over a year ago. >> i would have been happy to help him get his wife out if i could have. it's always my pleasure to get a shout out on "30 rock." alec baldwin, pretty good actor. >> very good actor. very proud of you. >> what did he say my real name was? >> you know, i didn't catch that. i have to say, i want to go back and watch the whole show now and a lot of your wolf fans will probably have to do the same thing so we have the whole context of the show. >> good. we'll find out, if he knows i'm anxious to know myself. appreciate it very much, lisa. >> some americans facing foreclosure may be able to stay in their homes by becoming renters. we'll explain and 911 calls record a man's confession that he ended his sick wife's suffering. >> 911. what is your emergency? >> i just shot my wife. hohow w arare e yoyou? wewe'r're e gogoining g toto h e inintetervrvieiew.w. jojohnhn, , jijillll.....m.mr. whwhatat's's i it t lilikeke d e fufusisionon h hybybri? yoyou u cacan n rereadad e evet isis o opeperaratitingng b by ya bubuttttonon.. itit's's l likike e drdrivivin. whwhatat w wououldld b be e thtg fofor r yoyou u toto g gi? ththe e mimileles s peper r gag. whwhenen y youou'r're e ususeder cacar r upup o oncnce e a, ththenen s sududdedenlnly y one weweekeks,s, bebelilieveve e meme i it'tg didiffffererenencece g go. i worked at the colorado springs mail processing plant for 22 years. we processed on a given day about a million pieces of mail. checks, newspapers, bills. a lot of people get their medications only through the mail. small businesses depend on this processing plant. they want to shut down 3000 post offices, cut 100,000 jobs. they're gonna be putting people out of work everywhere. the american people depend on the postal service. >> you're een leaders are trying a new way to don vince the syrian president bashar al assad it's time for him to go. their target, his attractive wife and her free spending ways. brian todd has been looking into the story. >> before this uprising, asma al assad was revered in syria and highly regarded around the world for her charity work. now one calls her an inabler of her husband and the european union agrees. her name means supreme in arabic. in the past syrians called her their princess diana. the european union calls her under sanction. it's banning asma al assad, the glamorous wife of the president from traveling in countries and freezing her assets in the 27-member block. >> i cannot say to you in strong enough terms how much we are concerned about what's going on in syria. >> reporter: it's to put mre pressure bashar al arc sad's regime to put more crackdown on the opposition, but andrew tabler, the analyst who once worked with asma al assad and her charities believe the sanctions stem partly from the recent release of private, hacked e-mails between the assads and their inner circle. cnn and other media organizations have obtained many of those e-mails. >> very clearly it outlines who what many people behind the scenes knew that during one year of the uprising while syrians was being brutalized was standing by her man, not only standing by her man but also spending a lot of time buying things online and other kinds of things. >> ordering $16,000 worth of candle sticks, tables and chandeliers from paris according to the guardian newspaper, doing this while her hometown homs was being pummeled. in one e-mail she boasts she is the, quote, real dictator in her marriage. a different side of asma al assad than she displayed in earlier years. born in britain, educated at the best schools there, she was a social superstar, spearheading chair is that sought to improve conditions for women and the poor, balancing that with her role as first lady with three children. >> she carries an air about her, right? >> exactly, this was always the contradiction. you had as marx a the person who was very chill, very low key who was talking about serious things and then you have the other who was always emphasizing her very fine clothing, her elegant nature. >> three years ago she condemned israel for its treatment of the palestinians. >> as a mother and as a human being, as i said, we need to make sure that these atrocities stop. >> now tabler says she's an enabler of her husband's atrocities corrupted by the system, the people around her. how did that happen? >> in order to carry this well-intentioned project you have to carry it out through these corrupt people and that in itself corrupts what you're doing. >> we tried repeatedly to get response from syrian officials in the united states to the reporting, and also to what tabler said about her, we've got no response, wolf? >> the analyst suggests that she also may have tried to corrupt him? >> that's right. andrew tabler says that once while she was advising her charity a person who worked with that charity tried to get him to take a bag full of money $125,000, left it right on his desk and it could have been to carry out a project and tabler never really heard what it was for and why he had paid in cash and he turned down the money and started to look for other ways to, and they cut off contact and almost never heard from that. >> i remember the vogue cover story. >> it made her sound like she was the greatest thing in the world. >> vogue later pulled that from its website. >> did they? >> i think so. >> thank you very much. >> the bloodshed in syria showing no signs of letting up despite friday prayers. syrian forces are purportedly seizing on rebel strong holds, firing tear gas live ammunition in cities across the country. this is amateur video we're showing you that one building being hit. at least 36 people are said to have been killed just today. the united nations special envoy kofi annan is expected to hold talks on the crisis in moscow and beijing this weekend. cnn's arwa damon has been taking a closer look at some of the youngest victims of the siege and we must caution you that parts of arwa's report are quite graphic and disturbing. >> reporter: doctors try in vain to revive this little boy oifred as amran metriz. he has a head injury. >> is this child part of the armed gangs bashar al assad the doctor asks angrily. is this the response for kofi annan and call for peace? it's an utterly hopeless effort. the life drains from his body. other children shriek in pain. >> a little girl with the leg wound cries out for her father lying next to her, another child. she has a wound to her arm that is too gruesome to show. most of it has been blown off. she says i just want to go home, have dinner and watch tv. she says she was playing with three other children when an artillery round struck. >> these are scenes from the town close to the syrian lebanese border over the weekend. earlier this month, video obtained by cnn showed rebel fighters in and around the town, with meager and faulty weapons. >> and a population on edge, knowing a full-on assault was imminent, but with nowhere to go. government forces now seemed to have temporarily held back, allowing for activists to film images of the aftermath which they then post to youtube, in some parts of the city of homs itself. >> this boy is from the neighborhood, he says his name is abdullah. he was in a mosque when the soldiers came in, not even the children were spared. they lined us up against a wall and then they started shooting. there were 15 of us. some were my relatives. some were my friends, he says. some were even younger than he. it was under heavy shelling, army raids drove rebel fighters out. rescue teams were unable to enter. when they finally did, they say, the streets were littered with corpses. abu ham zi was there. there were bodies that were burned completely as if someone had poured gasoline on them and set them on fire, he recalls. i saw five slaughtered children. they slashed their eyes and faces with knives. among the piles of dead, evidence of dozens of wounded children. abu fetah was also part of the rescue mission. they committed a big massacre. we found 32 children, many with their fingers cut off, gunshot wounds. they were young, all under 15 years of age, he continues. this boy was one of them with a gun shot wound to the chest. both his tiny hands bandaged. more victims of violence, no one can comprehend and no one seems able to stop. arwa damon, cnn, beirut. >> what a story. an autopsy report confirming our worst fears about whitney houston. ahead what investigators are now saying about her longtime cocaine use and why hollywood isn't saying more. also, a judge orders a ban on antibiotics and animal feed decades after warnings that people might be in danger and some fear the damage to public health already has been done. greetings from the windy city of chicago. people here sure are friendly but some have had a hard time understanding my accent. so to make sure people get every word of the geico savings message i've been practicing how to talk like a true chicagoan. switching to geico could save you hundreds of dollars on car insurance... da bears. haha... you people sure do talk funny. geico®. fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or more on car insurance. so i wasn't playing much of a role in my own life, but with advair, i'm breathing better so now i can take the lead on a science adventure. advair is clinically proven to help significantly improve lung function. unlike most 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[ female announcer ] new from stouffer's. farmers' harvest steam meals for one in the steam perfect bag seal in all the goodness. they taste so good, we'll bet the farm on it. nestle. good food, good life. carrots! creamy! >> a bombshell new development in the story of the failed brokerage firm that was run by the former new jersey governor john corzine. congress is looking into the millions and millions of dollars of missing funds. let's go right to lisa sylvester. she's been working the story for months. what's the latest, lisa? >> wolf, just to refresh our viewers and for everyone's memory on this, what is at the heart of all of this is $1.2 billion that has been missing in customer money from mf global and the question now is did mf global use these customer-reg segregated funds to cover its losses? the company filed for bankruptcy and it went down in the matter of a week when the company started showing significant problems at the very end of october. corzi corzine, jon corzine, former senator of new jersey was the ceo of the company at the time. he was called before congress and he testified at least three times in three different congressional hearings under oath saying he had no knowledge of transferring some of these customer funds. we have some tape that we can go back and play for you now. >> i never directed anyone at mf global to miss use customer funds. i never intended to and as far as i'm concerned i never gave instructions that anyone could misconstrue. >> now hear is the issue, wolf, there is a woman named edith o'brien. she was a treasurer at mf global and she said that there was an e-mail from october 28th and this is a direct quote, per jai j.c.'s direct instructions, she's referring to john corzine and that those instructions were to transfer $200 million from a segregated customer account, this is customer money we're talking about to j.p. morgan in london to cover mf global's losses and this would be huge because for one there's always been the question of exactly how did this money from mf global, the customer money, how did it go missing and who was it at mf global who actually gave the okay? because as we all know that it's been a bedrock of really of finance that you always keep your customer money separate from your company money? we know in the case of mf global that that did not happen. now the question was who was responsible? and, you know, we'll have a situation when we think of a he says she says next week because edith o'brien has been called to testify before the house financial services committee and i'm sure she'll be asked the question how do you explain then jon corzine's testimony which we just heard which he repeatedly said he had no knowledge of it. how do you square that now with this e-mail that suggests maybe he did have something to do with it? maybe he did have the okay. we reached out to jon corzine's attorney, but we have not heard a response yet, wolf. >> let me know if you get a response. thank you very much, lisa, for that. >> new questions about whitney houston's long time cocaine addiction just one day after an alarming autopsy report confirmed what many people feared, but those who rushed to her defense following her death don't seem as quick to speak out right now. let's bring in our entertainment correspondent kareen wynter. you had a chance to speak directly to the coroner out in l.a. what did we learn? where does the investigation go from here? >> reporter: we now know what killed singer whitney houston and the investigator at the los angeles county coroner's department, they still haven't wrapped up all of their work. they're still working on finalizing a detailed toxicology report that will be given to law enforcement officials two weeks from now. it will give a more commy from hencive look at all of the factors that came into play when it came to whitney houston's death. we're talking about scientific data like the drug levels in her system, the actual autopsy and medical examiner's findings and one thing that coroners did say that whitney houston took cocaine right before her death and right before she got into the bathtub at the beverly hilton hotel and i've been in touch at with the coroner's office all day long, one of the questions i've asked them is how much cocaine was in houston's system? we cannot tell you right now. we're still crunching the numbers. this information will be helpful to law enforcement and it will be given to them a couple of weeks from now. the focus now shifts to the beverly hills police department. a lot of questions that have been raised wolf. it has to do with the cocaine found in houston's system. was there evidence of cocaine in the hotel room the day whitney houston died? if not, what happened to it? who supplied her with the cocaine? it will be levelled with questions with the beverly hills police department. they cannot say anything until we have that final detailed toxicology report in hand. >> what's interesting, wolf, at the onset of this investigation when i spoke to beverly hills police. the only thing they said was in terms of drugs it had to do with prescription meds and that's what they found in houston's hotel rooms and we're talking about drugs like xanax. they also said nothing appeared criminal want it. there was no foul play suspected and right now it seems unlikely that this would all evolve to a murder investigation, but this case is still open, wolf. >> kareen, thanks very much for that update. >> some homeowners are struggling to stay afloat. they're avoiding foreclosures by becoming renters in their own home. we'll tell you about an innovative and creative new program. hi, i'm sarah james. and i blog at hairthursday.com. lightweight nourishment is the best of both worlds. 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[ female announcer ] new aqua light from pantene. let's go to a gut-wrenching story right now of a man, his very, very ill wife, and his decision to kill her. let's bring back brian todd. brian, you listen to these 911 calls out of florida, and they are chilling. >> they're chilling, wolf, and very heartbreaking. police say randall walton willis called a 911 dispatcher this past tuesday to report that he shot his wife as she was sleeping. on the tape you can hear him say in a matter-of-fact way she had been sick for years, suffering strokes, seizures, and other illnesses. >> 911, what is your emergency? >> i just shot my wife. >> what exactly happened? >> she just suffered too much, and we're out of money, out of gas. she needed her pills refilled. she was suffering. we've been through hell, and i couldn't see her suffer anymore. we were being evicted today. i knew she couldn't last another hospital stay with my insurance being canceled. >> is she alive? >> i'm pretty sure she's not. >> okay. she knew you were going do this? did she ask you to? >> no. i'll be on the porch, i'll be waiting for them. the firearm is on top of the tv. >> on the recording you can also hear willis pleading with the dispatcher, when the police come, please ask them not to use sirens. he's been charged with second-degree murdercnn affilia. this is one of those things that this could be me. all of us can relate. >> what a story. there could be potential relief for so many homeowners desperately trying to avoid foreclosure. lisa sylvester reports. >> reporter: eric and deedee chris bought their house in january of 1987 when houses were at their peak. now their house is worth only a third of what they paid for it. they tried refinancing through bank of america. no luck there. they've received a foreclose notice. it's been particularly hard on the children. >> we've been trying to hide it the best we can. it's hard for them because we have to change schools and day cares and stuff like that, but, you know, there are times where they see, you know, mom crying and stuff like that. they want to know why. >> for every story like the crist family, there are millions more, but now bank of america is trying something new. instead of foreclosuring on a home, allow the troubled home lender to borrow the home. this may have the potential to further round out the broad set of solutions we offer customers in need of assistance, customers would sign away ownership rights to the property, they could rent for up to three years. their rents would be less than their monthly mortgage payment. initially the bank would be the landlord but eventually properties would be turned over to private investors. the pilot program will be rolled out first in arizona, nevada, and new york, with fewer than a thousand homeowners invited to participate, but if successful, it could be expanded throughout the country. she says for many it's a better alternative to foreclosure. >> for families what it does is keeps families in the homes, particularly people with children, it means you can stay in the school, you don't have to deal immediately with looking for a new place to live, you're still part of the community that you've been living in for many, many years for lots of families, and for the banks, it helps them as well. they don't have a vacant property that they're supposed to cut the grass, paint and keep up. >> reporter: but minnesota realtor josh says many homeowners won't call fie for the program. others may be so sick of everything, they may just want to walk away. >> it can't hurt. it's good that they're doing something about this mess, but a lot of people are ready to be done with their house and kind of move on with their lives. >> and under this program the rental rates will be at or below market rates but this is a special program and at this point bank of america is selecting the initial participants so it's not something people can apply for. wolf? >> sounds like it has potential for a lot of people. why are federal health officials revisiting right now the risks of antibiotics in animal feed? t imagine where she is... orange creme... 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[ female announcer ] yoplait original. 25 flavors for you to love. will be giving away passafree copies [ female announcer ] yoplait original. of the alcoholism & addiction cure. to get yours, go to ssagesmalibubook.com. all right. we've got a picture that lebron james just tweeted, a picture of the miami heat. look at this. they're all wearing hoodies in solidarity for the young teenager trayvon martin who was shot and killed in southern florida. this is the miami heat. here is other news. ryan released dozens of protesters outside of the consulate. demonstrators are demanding financial aid during their unrest in libya. a boy sells bread outside a sporting event. in pakistan, they celebrate the nation dale with a parade. and in india, women celebrate the end of the harvest and the new agricultural year. hot shots, pictures coming in from around the world. decades after warnings that the u.s. health system might be in danger, a judge is now ordering the fda to limit the use of antibiotics in animal feed. mary snow is joining us with the story. >> and, wolf, advocacy groups are calling this victory for public health but they're saying their fight is hardly over. for years there were concerns. it used to prevent diseases but they're also there to help animals grow. the real concern about the overuse of these drugs is how they're attributing to antibiotic resistance which ultimately harms adults. the food & drug administration proposed some antibiotic bans since 1977 but nothing happened. now years later the judge is ordering them to take action. >> antibiotics save lives, and there was no reason to useotics way that benefits the efficacy. >> a judge ruled the fda will need to with trau the use of penicillin and tetra psych lynn if drug companies fail to show they're safe. the fda had argued the 1977 order was outdated and it had taken voluntary steps. responding to the judge's order it said, we are studying the opinion and considering appropriate next steps. but after decades of giving livestock antibiotics, the question is will it make a difference. is it too late? >> no, it's not too late. as soon as we can stop the overuse of antibiotics and animal feed, the public health will benefit. >> not everyone is convinced there's a direct channel linking resistant bacteria from animals to humans. >> the verdict, thii think, is still out on that. what we lack is good scientific hard data that shows that it's contributing significantly to the development of resistant bacteria. >> but it's said there's a risk of drawing antibiotic animal feed so suddenly. that's because, he said, the livestock industry has gotten away with unsanitary conditions and antibiotics keep infectious conditions at bay. >> if we stopped it suddenly, we're going to have trouble. but we do have to get on this southeastern rather than later. >> the

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