0 readers early on. >> they decided to keep it short and start a blog. >> now, this really makes its comedy first responders and can get there very quickly and make fun of people. which is our basic mission in life. >> the hope is the jokes aren't just funny but informative. >> that's it for "the lead." i turn you over to wolf blitzer. he is in "the situation room." mr. blitzer. >> jake, thank you. happening now, lawmakers grilled the nation's spy chiefs about the tapping of the phone calls of americans and top u.s. allies. is the ing out of control? i will ask the house intelligence committee chair. congress gets the first public apology for the obama care website mess. with the president apologize for promising if you like your current health care plan you can keep it. millions of people now are finding out that's not necessarily true. senator lindsey graham gram joins thus hour as well. he is vowing to block all of the president's appointments until survivors of the benghazi attack are made available to testify before congress. i'm wolf blitzer and you are in "the situation room." massive suburb veil answer at home and abroad. millions of people targeted for snooping including dozens of world leaders. there was explaining to do in front of their congressional overseers. they strongly denied some of the allegations, made some of their own. let's begin our coverage this hour with our chief national security correspondent jim sciutto who is watching what is going on. how did they explain, first of all, jim, the spying that goes on allied leaders? >> very strong bush back from the director of national intelligence stating as fact that european allies spy on the u.s. as well and they said to an extent they are their elected leaders may not be aware of and made the argument the u.s. has better oversight than europe has on this. interesting hearing chairman mike rogers leaving no doubt whatsoever as he was questioning general alexander. listen tow this? >> have the allies of the united states ever during the course of that time engaged in anything you would qualify as an espionage act targeted at the united states of america? >> yes. >> and that would be consistent with most of our allies. let's pick a place. european union. >> yes, it would. >> so -- this is ongoing today. this didn't stop two years ago or last year or maybe last week? to the best of your knowledge. >> best of my knowledge. >> now, no one's hands are clean here. alexander also saying that the u.s. spies on its allies. he went further and said that leadership intentions, that is, the intentions of leaders even if they are allies, are reasonable, acceptable, goal of intelligence gathering and that would, therefore, seem to indicate that even the phone calls of an jael america i will are fair game in the spy game what did they say about the president's knowledge of this kind of spying? >> whether he intended to or not james clapper seemed to give the president cover here because he said the president in general would know about the output of the intelligence gathering but might not know the source of it. when he is reading these intelligence reports. he did say the white house, national security council, would know in general the targets of this kind of intelligence gathering but it is possible the president would not know that a particular report he was reading said it was sourced from one of angela merkel. >> listening in on millions of phone conversations of europeans p. >> on this one there was no question from clapper and al alexand alexander. those reports completely pauls and said it was not the nsa or u.s. in any form that was gathering this data. it was, in fact, european countries doing so. european intelligence services. two, the data was not the content of phone calls or phone calls themselves. this was part of a joint operation, the u.s. and nato allies that have nothing to do with the countries, spain and france, but had do with military operations abroad. >> we will speak to mike rogers. chairman of the house intelligence meeting with me later this hour. jim sciutto for that report. wlaets go to the crisis over obama care. and where it is heading. the official responsible for the obama care website today formally publicly apologized before congress for all of the problems that the users have been having and now into week five. does the president himself own apology for pledges he made repeatedly selling the affordable care act? >> putt like your doctor, you can keep your doctor under the reform proposals we put forward. if you like your private health insurance plan you can keep it if you like the plan you have, you can keep it. if you like the doctor you have, you can keep your doctor, too. we will keep this promise to the american people and if you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor, period. if you like your health care plan, you willing able to keep your health care plan. period. if you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor. if you like your luc plan you will be able to keep your health care plan. if you have health insurance you like your doctor and you like your plan, you can keep your doctor. you can keep your plan. if you like your plan, you can keep your plan. if you like your doctor you can keep your doctor. >> let's bring in our chief correspondent white house correspondent jim acosta. what is the white house now saying, jim about all those promises made by the president in 2009 in selling obama care? >> with white house officials are saying that the president was talking about the vast majority of americans who get their health care through group plans and through medicare and medicaid and perhaps the va, not this 15 million of -- pool of people who are receiving their health care insurance through the individual insurance market. that represents about 5% of the people who were in the insurance market right now. and when i asked jay carney, does the president regret making these comments, he said, no, the president was not misleading the public and that the people who are receiving these letters in the mail right now saying that their plans are being changed or discontinued, that those people are being affected or impacted by the insurance companies, not obama care. here is what jay carney had to say. >> did the president mislead the american people when he made that comment repeatedly? >> no. the president was clear about a basic fact. if had you insurance you liked on an individual market and you wanted to keep that insurance through 2010, 2013, in perpetuity if you wanted to, you could. you were grandfathered in. what no -- health care reform could envision or could responsibly stipulate is that any plan that might come along in the next few years would be grandfathered in because that would undermine the basic premise of providing the minimum benefits for the american people. again, in all of these cases, what is absolutely true is that if you had a plan, before the affordable care act you like order the individual market, and your insurance company didn't take that away from you and offer you instead something else that you then purchased, but they provided thank you same plan this whole time, you can keep it. that's true. >> white house officials going on to say that people who may end up losing their insurance coverage on the individual market or see a change, they do have the ability to buy insurance coverage through the obama care website or through the obama care call center and that those policies while they may be more expensive are going to offer more coverage and at the same time, subsidies may be available to those consumers at the same time. that's the official word here from the white house. but to keep in mind, health and human services secretary kathleen send slus going to be up on kwlil tomorrow. expect many of the questions to be aimed at her before she appears the house. the president will be in boston tomorrow talking about the fact that his health care law was modeled after what was passed in massachusetts by governor romney. romney will not be at that event. we talked to aides of the governor who said lee not be at that event. expect they president to make the connection between the two rollouts. >> these 15 million americans that got -- getting their health insurance in individual policies, it is interesting that there is a document released that we -- put in the practical register in june of 2010 which at that point, this is back in 2010, said anywhere between 40% to 67% of them would have their policies, policies, terminated that have to get some other care. anywhere from 5 million to 10 million americans, they are now going to have to find other health care, even if they have been satisfied with their earlier programs? is that what i'm hearing? >> that's right. i talked to a representative of the insurance industry who said that that number may be higher. and in terms of americans who may have their plans modified or canceled, but what the white house says is that unlike the pre-obama care era, maybe those insurance consumers may not have any luck getting coverage, they now can buy insurance through obama care. the issue, though, is for many consumers is what they will be paying is going to be a lot higher in some cases. perhaps not all cases. some may see their premiums go down. but the white house says -- argues that those are going to get better coverage in the long run. >> jim acosta at the white house. thanks. we now know the president wasn't necessarily precise with his words back in 2009. to be precise he should have said something like this. he should have said, if you like your health insurance, you might be able to keep your health insurance. if you like your doctor, you might be able to keep your doctor. on the other hand, millions of you will lose that specific health insurance policy because of the changes required by the affordable care act. but your new policy, new policy, may even be better than the old one because it will, in fact, give you greater protections and greater benefits. many of you might either wind up paying less each month because you might qualify for government subsidies. on the other hand, many of you, unfortunately, will wind up having to spend the more. some of you, a lot more. once again, many of you will be able to keep your doctor but, unfortunately, many of you won't be able to keep your doctor because he or she won't be in your new program. all of that certainly is not as catchy as the president's original sound bite but it is clearly more precise looking back on what was said then and what is going on right now. coming up, first on cnn, new evidence that the obama care website was headed for serious problems before its rollout on october 1. that's in our situation room special report. obama care under fire. that's at the top of the hour. tweet us what you think. powerful lawmakers vowing to block the president's nominations until baengz attacked survivors are allowed to testify before congress. i will speak live this hour with senator lindsey graham.