your first impression from what we learned from the eight republican candidates? >> i think there were a couple of really explosive parts of the debate for me. the first one was obviously iran. i thought that perry and gingrich led the way with strategy when it comes to iran. but the thing that sort of blew up in newt gingrich's face, i think, the discussion on immigration. he had a rick perry heartless moment with this. i think this is really going to impact him tomorrow. it's really going to impact him with grassroots conservatives. i can see both sides of the argument here. he was reaganesque, '84-'86, reagan signed a huge amnesty bill but i don't think he made that differential during the debate. this is one of the most substantive debates, we really were able to see a lot of different sides on the candidates on this side of the issue. ron paul did surprisingly well on a couple of different parts. perry talked more than normal. it was good. i think gingrich -- gingrich probably looked one of the best. >> dana, stand by. we'll get more analysis. the pictures, conditions are shaking hands in the hall. strong debate performance overall, but did he get in trouble with conservatives, his answer on immigration, saying we're nerve ever going expel the 10 million, 11 million illegal immigrants? gloria borger standing by with the former speaker of the house. take it away. >> here i am with former speaker of the house, newt gingrich. what did you think of the debate and your own performance? >> i thought it was terrific. i told wolf blitzer he did very well. a balanced and well-managed debate. people got to really talk about ideas. >> let me ask you, one thing that came up at the end of the debate the question of immigration. and you said that americans want to be humane about immigration. >> sure. >> they don't want to throw people out who have been in the country for a number of years. >> there are lots of people who will go home, they have no ties new york roots but also millions will end up staying. i can't imagine any serious person who can walk down the street see somebody they've known for 20 years, and say you're leaving your family, your church, your community you've been in for 20, 25 years and kicking you out forcibly. >> let me tell twryou what mich bachmann's campaign put out, newt gingrich is opening the door to amnesty. what would your response to that be? >> that is just totally inaccurate. what i've said is the foundation has a very good program for legalization without citizenship for people who have been here a long time. now, i'm one -- i want to say, go home to lots of people, i between create a border that's controlled. i want a guest worker program outsourced to american express or visa or mastercard. i want english as the official language of government. i'm willing to be tough but i'm not willing to kid people and i can't imagine any serious person here in the country who believes we're going to tear families apart that have been here 20, 25 years. >> do you think the republican party has hurt itself with the hispanic community because there might be that perception? >> sure. i think it makes -- it's not just hispanic community. we have people who come to america from the whole planet. i think governor romney had it right when he said, we favor immigration, we favor legal immigration. we actually would have more opportunity for people who are talented to stay and, frankly, the democratic party and the labor unions block that. so i mean, it's a mixed bag. i think it's important, i think somebody's up here going to be president, hopefully it's going to be me, but one of us is going to be. it's important to unify the country by having an honest conversation not just a series of slogans. >> here you are standing here saying i think it's going to me -- >> i said i hope it's going to be me. >> your campaign was imploding and your staff was leaving you and here you are and can you sort of reflect upon that for a minute about what's happened? >> it's like mark twain. the reports of my death were premature, which is what he said when somebody wrote an obituary before he died. all of our core staff stayed, calista and i had a team that we assembled over the years, all stayed except one person. the professional politicians left because i don't run a tra i traditional campaign. i run a positive campaign. >> what happened? what happened? >> now? >> yes. why are you where you are? >> i think what's happened people want substance, they want the exact conversation you and i had, exactly what this debate was like. they know the country's in trouble and want a serious person willing to talk through at a level of detail that's real and not just political slogans. >> one last question. looking at the folks around you on the podium tonight, who is it going to come down to, you and who else, do you think? >> look, i always think that governor romney would be one of two finalists, he has the money, he's run before, he's got a tremendous base in new hampshire. so if it does come down to two people, i hope i'm one of the two, i'm absolutely certain the other will be mitt romney, he has five years of campaigning and that gives you an enormous base. >> thank you. >> good catch grabbing the former speaker of the house, newt gingrich, one of the strong performers in tonight opposite debatele. we'll see if they agree if his remark at the enon immigration could hurt him with conservative. a look at the memorable moments from the just wrapped up debate. >> i think the patriot act is unpatriotic. i'm concerned as everybody is about the terrorist attack. timmy mcveigh was a vicious terrorist. he was arrested. i have a personal belief you never have to give up liberty for security. you still k. still provide security without sacrificing our bill of rights. >> you want to respond, mr. speaker? >> yeah. timothy mcveigh succeeded. that's the whole point. timothy mcveigh killed a lot of americans. i want a law that says you try to take out an american city, we're going to stop you. >> is it okay for muslim americans to get more intensive pat-downs or security when they go through airports than christian americans or jewish americans? >> no, blitz, that's oversimplifying it. i happen to believe that if you allow our intelligence agencies to do their job, they can come up with an approach -- sorry, blitz, i meant wolf, okay? blitz, wolf. >> thank you, cain. >> we haven't done a very good job defining and articulating what the end point is in afghanistan. i think the american people are getting very tired about where we find ourselves today. >> let me let governor romney respond. >> let me respond. are you suggesting, governor that we take all of our troops out next week? what's your proposal. >> i said we should draw down from 100,000. we don't need 100 troops. we need a presence on the ground that is more akin to 10,000, 15,000. >> president ahmadinejad came to the u.n. general assembly. he said that he wanted to eradicate israel from the face of the earth. he has said if he has a nuclear weapon he will use it to wipe israel off the face of the earth. he will use it against the united states of america. and that's why president obama has failed the american people. he has changes the course of history because at the time when we needed a leader most, we didn't have one. >> congressman paul what they're doing is cutting a trillion dollars out of the defense budget. we need to protect america and protect our troops and our military and stop the idea of obama care. that's the best way to save money, not the military. >> hold on one second. ron paul wants to respond to that point. >> they're not cutting anything out of anything. all of this talk is just talk. believe me. >> i don't think anybody is particularly surprised that a super committee failed. it was a super failure. this president has been an absolute failure when it came to this budget process. >> this president has poisoned the well. he's campaigned all over this country trying to divide group from group in order to win, you know, to position himself to win this election, to rally his troops, and what he's done is poisoned the well here in congress. >> some of the highlights there from tonight's debate. this was the 11th debate among and between the republican candidates for president. michele bachmann back in our first debate, at cnn in june, after that, strong performance skyrocketed in the polls. she has struggled sense. how does she rate her performance tonight? the conservative tea party favorite standing live with gloria borger. >> thanks so much, john. thank you for being with us, congresswoman. >> thank you. >> i was most interested in your comments on pakistan. you said that pakistan is too nuclear to fail, and you criticized governor perry as naive when he talked about foreign aid to pakistan, essentially saying we shouldn't write any more blank checks. >> with pakistan we don't necessarily write blank checks we deal with our -- our -- it's been a long night. thank you for your understanding. no, we deal with intelligence services and exchanges with them and we gain information on al qaeda, although there's more things that we need. this -- pakistan is a very imperfect partner in dealing with national affairs and national security. and one thing that we realize about them is that they are a very fragile country. they have a thin veneer of a government holding them together yet you have the epicenter of terrorism right there and you have hundreds of nuclear weapons. >> what would you say to governor perry? governor perry says we're essentially just handing the money and not getting anything in return. are we getting enough in return? >> we're getting something from them. and it's a relationship where we need them, they need us, and we need to hold them more accountable than what we are. there's no question about that. >> and let me also switch conversation, back to immigration for a moment because you and newt gingrich got into it a little bit there. your campaign put out a press release saying, after the debate, saying that speaker gingrich had opened the door to amnesty. is that the way you would put it he is talking about amnesty? >> i'm not speaking personally or ill of anyone on a personal level, this is based upon issues and there's a distinct difference. when it comes to immigration, i think there's one immigration organization that gave speaker gingrich a d minus on his immigration policy because he wants to legalize 11 million illegal aliens in the united states. that's not what i'm seeing from people who are talking to me about it, and he wanted to legalize the dream act. that's at the federal level for all states. that increases magnets to the united states and that's something that i don't believe that we should do. >> so it's amnesty? >> well, you're legalizing 11 million workers. if you're legalizing 11 million workers it sounds like am messty to me. >> let me ask you finally about the state of your campaign. when you came on early on you were the favorite in iowa, you won the straw poll. and now your numbers are down in single digits and you have to win iowa in order to stay in the race? >> we're working hard in iowa and the good news is, we've identified more supporters than mike huck by had when he won in iowa. iowa was a matter of getting your supporters out to the polls, that's what woo in the process of doing. don't count us out by a long shot. we have a very good opportunity in iowa and then to go on and secure the nomination. i think it's time to have a mother in the white house. >> do you need to win iowa? >> i think the country needs to have a new president and i believe that i'm the best candidate to be the next president of the united states. >> we've heard that. thank you so much congresswoman. back to you, john. >> nice try, gloria. trying to get congresswoman bachmann whether she needs to win in iowa. it's an important question. an important night. our debate, six weeks from tonight iowans cast the first official votes when then caucus. after that the new hampshire primary. including what the candidates said about a host of other issues, the patriot act, racial profiling, fireworks early on in the debate. we'll be back after a quick break. large pan toll consider. anderson cooper "360" special coverage of the republican presidential debate continues in just a moment. i was taking a multivitamin... but my needs changed... i wanted support for my heart... and now i get it from centrum specialist heart. new centrum specialist vision... helps keep my eyes healthy. centrum specialist energy... helps me keep up with them. centrum specialist prenatal... supports my child's growth and development. new centrum specialist is a complete multivitamin that gives me all the benefits of centrum. plus additional support... 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>> yeah. timothy mcveigh succeeded. that's the whole point. timothy mcveigh killed a lot of americans. i don't want a law that says, after we lose a major american city we're sure going to come and find you. i want a law that says, you try to take out an american city, we're going to stop you. >> racial profiling also came up. herman cain and rick santorum said it should be used to prevent attack. joining me donna brazile, ari fleischer, dana lohse, erin burnett. david gergen, the patriot act, conservative libertarian split that hasekisted since this was passed right after 9/11 came out in full force tonight however. >> absolutely. ron paul, i should tell you, john, he continues to speak well for the libertarians and you can see him on twitter, they're cheering him on because they thought he was strong tonight. but at the same time, i think when newt gingrich came back, as did mitt romney, they really speak for the majority of the republican party. a much stronger patriot act would be tough on terrorism, the war continues from their point of view. >> that's a question that essentially puts the legacy of the president wyou worked for i question, you want to continue in strength under the policies put in by bush or as congressman paul says walk way from it? >> it is 8% to 10% group that follows ron paul on this earn. i remember this, arlen specter, former prosecutor, senator from pennsylvania, sat in a meeting with bush that bin laden has been indicted and nobody paid attention to that because it wasn't enough. that debate was largely settled in the country, not alone the republican party, by using the military to protect us september 11th. >> do you agree with ari about the size of the ron paul constituency in the sense tea party people are suspicious of any government reach into their lives? >> i think it would probably be bigger than that but i also think there ray lot of conversations like myself who can see both sides and sort of have a foot in either -- in either party of the conservative ideology. i see libertarian principles that seem valid but i have conservative reservations that newt gingrich mentioned in the debate tonight. what good does it do if you're going to tell a terrorist, well after you've been successful, we're going to come and hunt you down? that doesn't deter anything. i understand that, but at the same time you also don't want to chip away at the civil liberties of american citizen whose are innocent. >> another flash point in the debate that was one of them. the conservative libertarians and the patriot act. the sensitive question of racial profiling came up, take a listen. >> if you're trying to fine somebody who may have anuclear weapon that they're trying to gri into an american city, i think you want to use every tool that you can possibly use to gather the intelligence. >> obviously muslims would be someone you'd look at, absolutely. those are the folks, radical muslims are the people that are committing these crimes, by and large, as well as younger males. these are things that not exclusively, but these are things that you profile to find your best -- the most likely candidate. >> target identification, if you take a look at the people who have tried to kill us, it would be easy to figure out exactly what that identification profile looks like. >> don't be willing to sacrifice liberty for security. today it seems too easy that our government and our congresses are so willing to give up our liberties for our security. i have a personal belief that you never have to give up liberty for security. you can still provide security without sacrificing our bill of rights. >> erin burnett, a decade after 9/11, this is another debate in the country, do you subject everybody who wants to get on a plane to the same security, or do you profile, do you say on 9/11 the attackers were muslims, therefore any muslim trying to board a plane, do you have a database that says who is more at risk of creating a terrorist attack or is it everybody gets the same thing? >> this is a really tough issue, right? when you look at recent attacks that we've had, even domestically, right, not necessarily people coming from overseas, domestically, and you look at some of the names, all right, some of those people would have identified themselves as people who studied under clerics, whether yemen or elsewhere, it's a tough issue. i think people can see both sides of it, but when you start talking about profiling it becomes much more difficult when looking at obviously the vast majority of muslims, whether they be muslim americans or not are not doing this. if you pick out ari fleischer and somebody else because you're so busy being politically correct and you miss someone with bad intent. >> we can never racially profile. it's wrong for law enforcement of any type to say we're going after one targeted group. if there's evidence that all of these people fit a proehl file, go after the individuals. if it ends up 90% are one ethnicity as law as the law's driven to go after individuals we can never put people in that categories and say that categories suspect, knit our dna. >> there's noplace in the country for stereotyping and racially profi