first shook. we're live in turkey with the latest. and i'm carol costello. president obama about to unveil a new plan to help young americans go to college without going broke. details on the president's proposal on this "american morning." -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com all right. good morning, everybody. it is wednesday, october 26th, and welcome to "american morning" this morning. >> buying car? >> so sorry for carter evans. i'm going to find out what the number one car was. >> we have commercial breaks here. e-mail. paper. any tough questions for me? write them down before you ask them to me on tv. how's that? >> what's the meaning of life? >> we'll get to that one. a busy morning for you. up first, new clashes overnight between police in oakland, california, and occupy wall street protester. police in riot gear using tear gas on the crowds in oakland's city hall plaza. look at pictures. fascinating. some protesters throwing paint at the cop. dozens arrested despite warns from police. the protesters returned to city hall last night where they've been camped out a couple of week. dan simon live in oakland. have things settled down behind you now? >> reporter: a little bit pup can still see some police in riot gear behind me. this is the line in the sand. a few protesters in front holding a sign. things really got ugly about 7:00 last night. this is some hours after police had disband the group of protesters who had camped out in front of city hall. they were there for about two weeks. things were pretty much peaceful during that period, and then police saw the situation deteriorating in terms of a public safety threat. they saw health conditions getting bad. so they decided to get rid of those protesters, to tell in to disband, and then a few hours later, after they had left, about 500 of them decided to take their space back. they wanted to get back in front of city hall, and that's when they confronted this group of police who were in riot gear. they unleashed tear gas. it was just a scene of pandemonium for about an hour. things seemed to calm down and then yet again, more protesters clashing with police overnight. and now the situation, ali, has calmed down a bit, but still a bit fragile. also sort of this haze of tear gas still in the air. we can feel it. our crews can feel it, but right now things seem to be calming down a bit, ali. >> remarkable pictures. trying to get a sense the fact they were done at night, maybe the lighting made that look at dramatic as it did, but it seems like there were some very tense moments nap looked very, very serious for a while? >> reporter: it was very serious. it gives you the sense of the anger that these people are feeling. people who have been here for two weeks. maybe some of them are tired, but anger on both sides. police had one of these protesters, asked them to disband several days ago, but they were there. so they came up way plan to send police to disband them. they thought they had basically put an end to it, but these protesters, very determined. you saw last night. >> dan simon, thanks very much. we'll stay on top of this story with you and across the country where many of these demonstrations continue. police and occupied protesters also clashing in atlanta. demonstrators arrested overnight after the city's mayor ordered police to clear them out of the park, home of the occupy atlanta movement. the beat goes on in new york city where it all began. complaints from residents about this noise, drumming. agreed to limit drumming to simply four hours a day. dug-in protesters only drumming between 12:00 p.m. to 2:00 p.m. and then again from 4:00 to 6:00 p.m. >> and in cases, education, you're paying for it. today president obama will bypass congress and announce new executive actions to help ease the burden of student loans. brianna keilar is live at the white house. brianna, this is supposed to help with the crushing cost the college education. something they attempted to health care reform. the congress actually passed. now the president wants to move up the day all that was supposed to start. tell us about that. >> reporter: what it does, speeds up changes to a program, an income-based college loan repayment program, that is already in place. those changes were supposed to take effect in 2014. this plan that the president will be trumpeting today at the university of colorado, that will -- those changes will now take effect in 2012. so what does it do? well, it would reduce the amount of money, of the monthly payment that student has to pay. the 10% of their income. reducing it to 10% from 15%. and then after 20 years of repaying a loan, that debt would be forgiven. so that this wouldn't go on for decades and decades. the other part of this plan is that there are some students who have different kinds of federal loans. they have two or more kinds of federal loans, this would allow them to consolidate this for a slightly lower interest rate and, again, this is going to affect students who would be graduating next year, meaning the current class in place. this would affect the class of 2012. they would see these changes, whereas before, it was supposed to be the class of 2014 that would be seeing these changes. i should mention, say, like, a student sun employed, they wouldn't then have a monthly payment. as you can imagine, would help a lot of students at risk of default on student loans. >> your monthly payments would be 10% of your pay. you know? after 20 years now, you would -- if you hadn't paid it off in 20 years it would just go away. also, if you work in, like a nonprofit or in public service, your loans can be repaid over ten years. tell us about the executive authority the president used for this plan. because congress basically passed it a couple years ago. this moves it forward. he needed an executive order to do that. >> reporter: that's right. wa you're see, this isn't just one effort we've seen by the white house lately. the president is on his three-day western swing and also announced changes for housing. for folks who are under water on their loans. the theme of the president's push here is, we can't wait. the idea is that congress is stymied, they aren't able to do things to help the economy. so there's no doubt a political message here that he's stepping in, taking executive authority, and he's doing what he says congress cannot do. you're going to hear him say this today as he has throughout the trip. this idea of, we can't wait. expect to hear it again for sure. >> brianna keilar, thank so much. this doesn't put to rest the prices of tuition prices. tuition up another 5.4%. the without wants to help pay for it doesn't mean tuition is going down anytime soon. coming up at 8:00, the student loan relief program with education secretary arne duncan and we'll ask him about tuition. it keeps going up. difficult for families to afford it. this is to help you repay it you but what's going on with tuition? >> those who think it's a bubble. like a housing bubble,s it has to pop. >> again, what do you do to bring down the cost of a college education? >> help you pay for it back, but i don't know. i think people have to do something. i think people have to start going to community college, and health care reform, more funding for community college, by the way. have to go to community colleges, state schools. putting the pressure on with your own wallet. people can't afford this. they really can't. income based or no, it's very expensive to go to college. >> and it's true. an interesting conversation with arne duncan. ed president carved out some time, i should say, with jay leno during his swing to colorado, nevada and california. here's a clip of that. >> please welcome the 44th president of the united states, president barack obama. >> president obama making his fourth appearance on "the tonight show" last night and his second as president. he told leno he shares the frustration of americans fed up with politicians putting their party ahead of their country, and when it comes to serving a second term, the president did not seem too concerned about the competition. >> have you been watching the gop debates? >> i'm going to wait until everybody's voted off the island. before -- [ cheers and applause ] once it's down to one or two, i'll start paying attention. >> maybe the president should start focusing on herman cain. he continues to come on strong. cain has taken a lot of criticism for comments about abortion and immigration. it does not seem to be hurting him in his standing with republican voters. the georgia businessman is coming out on top if the latest cbs "new york times" poll. check out the numbers. picking up 25% of the vote, four points ahead of mitt romney. newt beginning rir and ron paul, and rick perry slipped, not just to fifth place but a distant fifth place in this new poll, but hard to know. a lot of polls coming out. this one is decidedly unusual. >> came out with his flat tax plan just yesterday. maybe the numbers will change for him. we don't know. >> yeah. a dramatic rescue giving new hope to all those praying for missing loved ones in turkey this morning. you're looking at video from earlier today. a rescuer saving a 27-year-old woman from the wreckage. that rescue, 66 hours after sunday's earthquake that killed more than 450 people now. rescuers res kied a 28-year-old. taken to a field hospital. >> amazing. you know, the only things you hope for after an earthquake. >> the story of the 2-week-old baby, her mother and grandmother all pulled out alive. so wonderful in such stratraged coming up next, high unemployment, a housing crisis. why should you care about what is happening an ocean away in europe? i'll tell you very specifically when we come back. texas governor rick perry is going after mitt romney's wealth calling him a fat cat. so we want to know. can politicians relate to ordinary americans? we want to know. that's the "talk back" question of the morning. it's 11 past the hour. ♪ quaker oatmeal is a super grain. ♪ it gives me warmth. ♪ [ boy ] it gives me energy to help me be my best. quaker oatmeal has whole grains for heart health. and it has fiber that helps fill me up. ♪ [ male announcer ] great days start with quaker oatmeal. energy. fiber. heart health. quaker oatmeal. a super grain breakfast. delivering mail, medicine and packages. yet they're closing thousands of offices, slashing service, and want to lay off over 100,000 workers. the postal service is recording financial losses, but not for reasons you might think. the problem ? a burden no other agency or company bears. a 2006 law that drains 5 billion a year from post-office revenue while the postal service is forced to overpay billions more into federal accounts. congress created this problem, and congress can fix it. we asked total strangers to watch it for us. thank you so much, i appreciate it, i'll be right back. they didn't take a dime. how much in fees does your bank take to watch your money ? 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[ male announcer ] we're not employers or employees. not white collar or blue collar or no collars. we are business in america. and every day we awake to the same challenges. but at prudential we're helping companies everywhere find new solutions to manage risk, capital and employee benefits, so american business can get on with business. ♪ [♪...] >> announcer: now get a $250 airfare credit, plus save up to 65%. call 1-800-sandals. certain restrictions apply. rajaratnam. welcome back. as we speak, european leaders are trying again to hammer out a plan to fix the region's growing debt problems, but there are doubts that they'll be able to get a deal done in time. in time for what is the big question. it's already too late for some of these regions. ta could have major implications right here in the united states, and the state of the u.s. economy. joining me now to talk about it is ian bremmer, the president and founder of the eurasia group. good to see you. >> good to be here. >> there are meetings going on. another big meeting expected to happen today, and every day, every time we have these meeting, four major ones this week, we're hoping to emerge with something that is a solid plan that's going to be adopted by the 17 countries that use the euro, the 22 in the eurozone, and every time we do this we fall short a little bit. >> that's right. and that is the intentional strategy. right? the germans and french, those with money. >> the strong countries. >> they understand that the only way they're ever going to fix the institutions and get the greeks and the portuguese an spaniards to be responsibly economically is experience real pain. they're muddling through and using the market as a stick to beat these guys. you have to create a serious level of crisis to actually change things. the united states doesn't have that. >> we've been watching. one thing most american are familiar with are the scenes in the streets of athens. every time the government does something that is going to impose that pain, that the french and the germans say is necessary before greece gets a bailout, people take to the streets. >> in greece, first of all, demonstrations are a bit of a sport. communists about 8% of the parliament. i've been in parliament well before the crisis demonstrators or labor unions. in greece, they go to the streets, in portugal, the beach. the greeks want to avoid the pain, germans want to inject the pain. chicken going on between the two to make sure the compromise is somewhere in the middle. >> culturally what are the differences. some say europe is going through what america is going through. it's really a different thing. >> very different thing. in the united states unless we have a serious and imposed crisis congress is in gridlock, but the gridlock gets broken through in a crisis and we forget. when we have a government near shutdown, we forget. about to have the super committee. $1.2 trillion. i'm sure we'll work out something at the last ninminute and then we'll forget it. in europe, the crisis is severe and they are going to change the institutions. the institutions need to change not to create fiscal union and harmony but to stot letting everyone have a vote at the table [ bleep ] i was a kid, you have a kids' table and then an adult table. the kids table you don't have sharp utensils and don't get to the adult's table until you're allowed. in europe, 17 parliaments all eating with the same thing. >> slovakia holding things up because they want particular things for think tiny economy? >> and finland, malta, you mean they should have all the same voting rights and privileges as germans? ed germans aren't giving up fiscal autonomy but the greeks need to. you need to alter them so that the voting rights, the weight of responsibility actually is borne by the people with money. >> here in america, europe as a whole is an economy as large as america's. >> that's right. >> i don't think anybody particularly care about the summit today or the three meetings before it this week. next week, g-20. >> americans should be worried about a banking crises. the potential that in france, for example, you'll have insolvency, panic and a crisis that could create contagion. a lot of banks, jpmorgan, goldman sachs, trading down because they have a lot of exposure to european banks. truly a transmission mechanism. >> would it be another lehman? >> in the worst case, of course, it could be another lehman nap is what banks are panicking about now, and what viewers should worry about. longer term, looking for the europeans putting the building blocks together to allow the european institutions to function more strongly. europe has institutions stronger today than a few years ago. germans as leaders are stronger today than a few years ago. i expect that's going to continue, but it requires pain to get there. >> good to talk to you. president and founder of the eurasia group. carol? now's your chance to "talk back" on one of the big questions of the day. the question -- can rich politicians relate to ordinary americans? rick perry thins not. on cnbc, perry went there to describe mitt romney. >> i would say they ought to look in the mirror, i guess. i consider him to be a fat cat. >> did you hear it? perry called romney a fat cat. that term is toxic these days. a cnn/orc poll proves that. the vast majority of americans think wall street bankers are greedy and yoesh paid. although he's not a banker he's as rich as one. worth up to $ 50 million. something perry points out and liberals, too. check out the cover of "new york" magazine. money bursting from his suit jacket. hold on. just because a guy is rich doesn't mean he's heartless. romney says his business savvy can create what working americans need the most. >> for me, one of the key criterias, criteria in looking at tax policy is to make sure that we help the people that need the help most, and in our country, the people who need the help most are not the poor, who have a safety net. not the rich, doing just fine, but the middle class. >> romney's opponents disagree, and the left and the right hope that toxic term you know, "fat cat" will stick on mitt romney like glue. the "talk back" question for you this morning -- can rich politicians relate to ordinary americans? facebook.com/americanmorning. facebook.com/americanmorning. i'd read your responses later this hour. so my question is, can you become a politician at that level in this country, a viable one, without being rich? >> here's the difference, and i thought a lot about this. i think that many americans don't mind wealthy americans that become wealthy through hard work. started out with modest means and made themselves. like steve jobs. right? mitt romney, he's had a lot of inherited wealth. some americans kind of -- >> are suspicious about that. >> suspicious of that. how can you possibly know how the other half lives when you have never lived that way. >> interesting to see the response. up next, ga doffsy gone. a reason to celebrate for the libyan people. leer in america, the battle is begins for hundreds of the victim. alina cho with a special in depthth repo depth report. you're watching "american morning." ♪ ♪ ♪ [ male announcer ] the peace of mind of owning a 2011 iihs top safety pick. the all-new volkswagen passat. welcome back. "minding your business" this morning. right now u.s. stock futures are trading higher. you know markets took a big hit yesterday. the dow dropped 1.7% on, you guessed it, fears about europe's debt kicking up towards the end of the trading session. today is the day investors are waiting for on that front. all 27 leaders at the eu will meet in brussels to come up with a grand plan to save the european union and euro. the big question, how much of the debt burden from faltering countries like greece will be transferred to europe's largest banks? details of that plan expected to be announced this afternoon. former goldman sachs director raja gupta is expected to turn himself in this after and fade federal charges relating to the insider trading trial of hedge fund founder raj rajaratnam. and taking a beating after announcing third quarter earnings and missed estimates. the stock is down, wow, 10% in pre-market trading. down because of invests in expansion including opening new warehouses and launching the new kindle fire line. what's the new gift for christmas? a tablet computer. the top choice for a gadget. get this. tablet computers actually beat out peace, happiness and money this year. this on people's wish lists. you can make peace, happy and money out of a kindle. i don't know. a tv that can do everything. steve jobs talked about it in his just release