>> that's right. and given enough time he can transcend them. >> all right. cain as a lawyer issued a statement, this appears to be an accusation of private alleged is consensual conduct between adults. mr. cain alerted his wife and discussed it with her. he has no obligation to discuss these types of accusations publicly with the media." paul, true? be on the ballot in nevada on february 4th. he's in over ten states he filed. the herman cain train is full speed ahead. he's got precinct captains in iowa ready to nominate him. the herman cain train is moving full steam ahead. i think that's not only healthy he is a rocket scientist. he worked for the navy. graduated from moore house college. pro-life man and all of that. this really boils down to if you have two african-american men in the general election with opposing political views, the race card goes away. there can be no question of race. they're both black men. and it will change that base. many people who voted for mr. obama in the last election did so based on skin color. so you have two men with the same color skin and we are going to hear real political issues from opposing political viewpoints. that's really what this is about. >> so tell me, you've known herman cain for a long time. you're a woman though and obviously women sometimes see these sorts of allegations differently than men. why do you believe herman cain? is there a little part of you somewhere inside that says, gosh, where there's smoke, there's fire. i've got a little doubt. >> there are so many women who know mr. cain. we've known him for many years. a woman knows a skirt chaser when a woman sees a skirt chaser. mr. herman cain doesn't chase skirts. he chases solutions for america. so these allegations are not true. and it's so strange that many of these women, for three years coming out of the restaurant association, many affiliated with chicago. the man is not a skirt chaser. there are too many women for herman cain who will tell you that unequivocally. and i'm one of them. and i get text messages from him and there's nothing improper about those conversations at all. >> you have specific reasons for not believing ginger white. >> well, you know, one reason, if you think about miss white. she said she's had an affair with mr. cain for 13 years. and it was intriguing, it was exciting. now this is a man who has been fighting cancer. he victoriously won it on chemotherapy with a low libido who was supposed to be having an affair with a lady at the time that he was recovering from cancer. on chemotherapy? so how much affair was going on? no affair. the lady is not telling the truth. >> are you going to stick with him? how will you feel if it turns out these allegations turn out to have been true? >> this is tabloid politics. you know, people really want to hear about the issues. we want to hear more about 9-9-9. about opportunities zones. about his energy plan. these are the go things that america wants to hear. we want to get rid of the race card. sent two black men into the general election. let them talk from different perspectives. hear what mr. herman cain is saying. america wants solutions. america wants a leader. no more tabloid politics. president obama is chasing around stimulus dollars on a failing stimulus plan and here's the man with the solution that can heal america. >> thank you very much. a passionate defense for herman cain, as you can see who at this moment is speaking in hillsdale, michigan. as our sources say, expected to make a decision possibly on the future of his candidacy in the next few days. let's bring in john avlon, senior columnist for the daily beast. strategist and the former bush deputy secretary and republican strategist. okay. let me put this question to you. can he survive this? there is the whole smoke/fire question. there is the fact that nobody wants anybody talking about their libido on national tv, even in defense of them. >> yeah, that's right. i do think it is solely up to mr. cain as to whether or not he stays in the race. ultimately he'll have to make the decision as to whether he can recover from this. whether the odds are too long and whether he can continue to see this sustained damage of his reputation. his campaign was built on media attention last month. that's how he gained his rise to the polls. it was an untraditional campaign. not built on organization. and i think in this case, it is a little bit of live by the sword, die by the sword. the media coverage of his campaign obviously has turned very swiftly and i'm not sure he can recover. i think the allegations that we heard this week about the affair lead to that, where there is smoke, there may be fire. and it seems he may be smoked out of the race because of all of it. >> let me throw up a cnn poll in november. who is your second choice? for gop voters, newt gingrich, number one. 38% of would be voters who are voting for cain at the time said they would vote for gingrich. if cain wasn't in the race. and 25% said romney. john, i mean what do you think of that? this is newt's win. >> that's exactly right. the poll was done before these latest round of allegations really sunk in. what you see is that gingrich is coalescing the conservative alternative to the romney vote that had moved from perry to herman cain in the month of september. we've spent a month of this presidential campaign talking about this man's sex life with allegations that are ugly and harmful. it is a sign of how much the side show has moved into the big tent. we drag this out this week. ultimately herman cain and his wife gloria will decide if this campaign goes on. >> and of course the donors. >> in that donor e-mail, they categorically said ginger white's story was false when his own lawyer gave the classic nondenial, denial. not saying that. you set up a real problem here. you can't contradict yourself this way and survive. >> let me ask you, it's interesting. newt gingrich gaining from this has its own level of irony. right? newt gingrich has survived in his past affairs to which he has admitted. he has been forthright about that. his quote was newt has been honest and forthright that he had regrets, he's had to seek reconciliation and go to god for forgiveness. it is on his own website here. but how do you think this affects -- there is an irony here, am i wrong. >> >> it is certainly an irony. and it would take herman cain to make newt gingrich's personal life not look so outrageous. so sometimes when you're herman cain, you've got to pick your chips up and your cards, leave the table and buy yourself into another game. unless you're going to spend all your money here, he doesn't have anything left. so i think if herman cain really wants to be a speaker, a writer, an author, get a show or whatever else he wants to do, now is maybe the time to get moving and find something else to do. it is amazing that we've spent the last few weeks talking about this when this is not, these are not the issues of the country. herman cain is not going to be president. he's not going to win the nomination. if he wins the nomination, it's a very steep road to beat the president of the united states. so i would like for to us get back to talking about some of these other candidates who really do stand a chance. >> and the issues. forgetting herman cain, there is something to be said about a tabloid level on all candidates. >> we don't talk substance, we don't talk policy. the other candidates have a hard time getting into the conversation. especially if they're trying to put forward real policy plans. that only cheats the american people and reduces the whole level of the presidential campaign. >> you know the thing about newt gingrich is, newt gingrich probably does know who the president of uzbekistan is. at least newt gingrich read his briefing books and we know when he sits at the table, he is ready to play. >> thanks to all three. we appreciate you taking the time. "outfront" next, american airlines files for bankruptcy. they don't have showers on their planes. i'll explain. a crowd of protesters storms the embassy in tehran. after iran's parliament voted to expel the british ambassador. and the latest from the syracuse molestation scandal. the police chief admits his force failed to follow up on tips of abuse they got nine years ago. [ knock on door ] cool. you found it. wow. nice place. yeah. [ chuckles ] the family thinks i'm out shipping these. smooth move. you used priority mail flat rate boxes. if it fits, it ships for a low, flat rate. paid for postage online and arranged a free pickup. and i'm gonna track them online, too. nice. between those boxes and this place, i'm totally staying sane this year. do i smell snickerdoodles? maybe. [ timer dings ] got to go. priority mail flat rate shipping at usps.com. a simpler way to ship. [ man #1 ] i was fascinated by balsa wood airplanes since i was a kid. [ man #2 ] i always wondered how did an airplane get in the air. at ge aviation, we build jet engines. we lift people up off the ground to 35 thousand feet. these engines are built by hand with very precise assembly techniques. [ man #3 ] it's gonna fly people around the world. safely and better than it's ever done before. it would be a real treat to hear this monster fire up. [ woman ] i think a lot of people, when they look at a jet engine, they see a big hunk of metal. but when i look at it, i see seth, mark, tom, and people like that who work on engines every day. [ man #4 ] i would love to see this thing fly. it's a dream, honestly. there it is. awesome. that's so cool! yeah, that was awesome! [ cheering ] i wanna see that again. ♪ try bayer advanced aspirin. it's not the bayer aspirin you know. it's different. first, it's been re-engineered with micro-particles. second, it enters the bloodstream fast, and rushes relief to the site of your tough pain. the best part? it's proven to relieve pain twice as fast as before. bayer advanced aspirin. test how fast it works for you. love it, or get your money back. it's a melt in your mouth kind of experience. [ john ] the wood fires up the grill a little bit hotter so you really get a good sear and it locks in the juices. surf & turf -- you can't go wrong. [ male announcer ] don't miss red lobster's surf & turf event. choose from three grilled combinations all under $20. like our maine lobster with peppercorn sirloin or our new bacon-wrapped shrimp with blue cheese sirloin for $14.99. [ adrianna ] i think the guests are going to take a bite and be like "oh, man, this is so awesome." [ john ] i'm grill master john mazany. i'm grill master adrianna hollis. and we sea food differently. american airlines parent amr filing for chapter 11 bankruptcy today. one of the big problems was labor costs which amr ceo tom horton discussed with our richard quest. >> our labor costs alone are something on the order of $800 million higher than our big competitors on average. >> rising oil costs and the weaker global economy also hurting american airlines, forcing it to file for bankruptcy. but this brings us to our number tonight. 34. that's how many passenger airlines have filed for bankruptcy in america in the past ten years. one airline we spoke to says that american airlines, and we're talking about the group now, just not the company, faced stricter rules and more taxes than many of the international counterparts and it hurts them. it sure shows. take a look at these pictures from singapore. that's coach on singapore airlines. lufthansa. that's not coach. emirates airlines. nice seats. do you know what that is? that's a shower. not that. but you saw it. a shower on emirates. we're not saying we should go that far but airlines are sort of something where it is a point of national pride and they stand for your country around the world. someone gets on an american airlines plane, the tray table's nasty and it has sticky food and you get on lufthansa and the tray table is clean. a appointment of national pride. something to think about. for those of you who are planning to flight on american airlines, don't worry, your flight should be unaffected by the bankruptcy filing, but just something to chew on. a crowd of iranian protesters began throwing rocks. now it ended with a dozen arrests and the protests came after iran's parliament voted to expel the ambassador for the economic sanctions. after a report suggested iran was working on acquiring nuclear weapons. joining us cambridge, massachusetts, correspondent david sanger. great to see you. let me ask you, what happened today? we've had protests before at this embassy. this was violent. there was a lot of vitriol. what happened? >> i think what was remarkable about this particular protest is that it appeared to have been government sanctioned at a fairly large number of what the iranians said were students, but perhaps they could have been members of the force or some official iranian force, came in and ransacked the embassy. the embassy building in tehran is a very large complex about the size of the whole white house complex. and they tore up the place. they lit a car on fire. there have been conflicting reports about whether or not they may have briefly held some employees hostage. they were later released and eventually riot police got them out. >> so what happens here? obviously britain had gone further than the u.s. when it comes to the central bank of iran. they said we're not going to do business with you anymore. that was something the u.s. has been so gung-ho on sanctions pulled back a little bit from. is that indicative of how much that hurt iran or intended to be a lesson or a signal to the u.s.? >> i think there were a couple of things going on, as you suggested. the first is there is no u.s. embassy. there hasn't been one since the u.s. and iran broke diplomatic relations after the hostage crisis in 1979. so the british were the next best target. secondly, as you indicate, the sanctions in recent weeks at the british have invoked are significantly harsher. they've basically cut off all dealings with the central bank. the obama administration didn't go that far because they were concerned if they did, they would have to cut off relationships with banks of friendly countries that do business with tehran, including the japanese and south koreans and others. i think the third thing that's going on is tehran wants to indicate they're not going to simply take these sanctions. there will be a price to be paid in the west. >> what's your bottom line view on this? you've spent years and years reporting on this story. but iran and a nuclear weapon. is it really inevitable? >> you know, i think at this point, it would be very difficult to stop if the current regime in iran remains in place. what you've really seen happen in the past two or three years is really a race against time in which the united states and israel have tried to, among other countries, slow the iranian program. partly through sanctions. partly through sabotage like stuck smith, the computer virus that killed off many of the centrifuges for a while. and what they're hoping is that there is some change of political decisions about the nuclear program in iran while it slowed down. but you can't slow it forever. and it's unclear despite what governments say whether or not they're willing to take further steps. >> that will be a story the world watches. david sanger, thanks. late today the credit rating agency s&p downgraded six major american banks. this was thanks in large part to exposure to europe. this could mean loans are harder to come by in america and interest rates are higher for borrowers. it is proof of how much europe matters to americans. but the truth is there is not a lot of appetite in america to help europe right now, and the administration says it won't. >> we do not in any way believe that additional resources are required from the united states from american taxpayers. >> taxpayers, maybe so. here's the bottom line. europe matters so much to america that we already are helping them every single day. ben bernanke is the man in charge. lou breem is an economist and he explains the u.s. federal reserve led by ben bernanke has made unlimited dollars available to european banks, including a few downgraded by s&p today. like deutsch bank, and others. the fed can go further. ben bernanke has the authority to buy the debt of foreign governments. the fed has said they won't use this power to bail out foreign governments, that they would only purchase highly rated foreign government debt. as of tonight that means they can buy the debt of germany, france and britain. they're all highly rated. the u.s. treasury could be out there buying bonds to keep europe from crashing. we called the fed and didn't get a comment tonight. by the way, for those of you keeping scoring, the batch downgrade included two banks that's got upgraded. both are chinese. "outfront," the "outfront" five facebook getting ready for $100 billion ipo? and speaking of privacy, we can't resist telling you all about something -- we're not supposed to talk about. 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