them, has apparently crashed. six peace-keeping troops were aboard and have died and the taliban is claiming responsibility by sending a text message to cnn. >> and last night's debate. newt gingrich calls out the media, specifically john king, and he calls his ex-wife a liar. we're going to play all sorts of stuff for you this morning, get all sorts of answers and let people weigh in. >> talk about political heat. unbelievable stuff. and, also, and the story we've been watching, the italian cruise ship where the rescue operations have been on and off is teetering eight feet from an underwater ledge that could drop that ship 200 feet down. and rough weather is moving in, so this is a bad combination. the italian authorities are trying to stop any kind of environmental disaster because of the fuel that's on board. >> an anonymous strikes again. a notorious group is claiming responsibility for shutting down the internet -- or actually some web sites. what could be the largest coordinated internet attack that has ever been launched. >> sorry about that. i want to get you up to speed on the breaking news because we've been sort of working the phones through our international offices to get information on that helicopter crash. the taliban claiming responsibility to cnf for a downed nato helicopter in afghanistan. six peace keeping forces were killed in this accident. >> it actually happen late yesterday. this is what a chinook helicopter looks like. we don't have that picture for you. there's a chinook helicopter, was in the area when that chopper crashed. the taliban is claiming responsibility in that text message to cnn. and this is the worst crash since last august which happened in eastern afghanistan. 30 soldiers were killed in that accident. among those killed, 22 elite navy seal commandos. we have a live report headed your way at 5:30 eastern time. >> and a lot of other big news happening as well. what? 26 hours to go until voting begins in south carolina. and the presidential hopeful, newt gingrich is surging in the polls. the pun dents are crediting his performance during last night's gop debate. if you didn't see it, wow, wow. this was heat. and it all had to do with this. mare anne gingrich was his second wife. the opening question was to newt gingrich. it was about mary anne's interview on abc where she claims newt asked her for an open marriage with his mistress. and here is what his ex-wife, mary anne, told abc. >> it started with a phone call at my mother's house and he asked for a divorce. >> on the phone? >> on the phone. and he said i want a divorce. i said is there somebody else? and it was quiet. and i knew. i found out during our conversations that it was occurring in my bedroom in our apartment in washington. and he always called me at night. he would always end with, "i love you. while she was there listening. >> right next to him? >> in my home. >> i said to him, newt, we've been married a long time. and he said, yes, but you want me all to yourself. calista doesn't care what i do. >> what was he saying to you? >> oh, he was asking to have an open marriage. and i refused. >> he wanted an open marriage? >> yeah, that i accept the fact that he has somebody else in his life. >> and you said? >> no. no. that is not a marriage. >> well, this was grounds for some serious light and heat at the debate. newt gingrich flat out said what marianne said was false. and then he went further and he took on the media and slammed the media for running with that interview. >> your ex-wife gave an interview to abc news and another interview with the washington post and this story is kind of viral on the internet. in it, she says that you came to her in 1999 at a time when you were having an affair. she says you asked her, sir, to enter into an open marriage. would you like to take some time to respond to that? >> no, but i will. [ applause ] >> i think -- i think the destructive, vicious, negative nature of much of the news media makes it harder to govern this country, harder to attract decent people to run for public office. and i am appalled that you would begin a presidential debate on a topic like that. [ applause ] >> as you noted, mr. speaker, this story did not come from our network. as you know, it is the subject of the campaign. i get your point. >> john, it was repeated by your network. you chose to start the debate with it. doe don't try to blame somebody else. you and your staff chose to start the debate with it. this story is false. every personal friend i have who knew us says the story is false. we offered several of them to abc to prove it was false. they weren't interested. they would like to attack any republican. >> fascinating reaction from all of our political pun dants after the debate. our senior political activist who has seen a thing or two in politics called that a game changer for newt gingrich saying that this could be the moment that helps newt gingrich take south carolina tomorrow. >> speaker gingrich got a standing ovation in this auditorium for saying it was basically a completely inappropriate question. >> and he also scored points in the monday night debate by attacking juan williams' questions. this is one of those damned if you do, damned if you don't. it is a story that is making the rounds in the campaign. is it an issue? i'm happy came up in the last 48 hours. of course not. is it an issue that voters in the state are talking about today? is it an issue that he several times before the debate talked about in a very calm manner? >> it is. >> he talked about it today earlier in a much different manner. but you knew -- i mean, how much of this was debate thee ach riks on his part? did you know he was going to have that response? >> i knew he was going to challenge the question. i don't read minds. i don't want to make a judgment about the speaker's response. i've been covering politics for 25 years. i understood if i asked the question he was not going to be happy with it and he was going to turn on me. again, you make the judgment call. is it an issue in the debate? might not be a great issue. it might not be an issue we want to talk about, but it is a debate. it was my judgment. my decision and mine alone. let's deal with it up front. let's not try to sneak it into the middle of the debate. people at home agree or disagree with that. you make a decision, you ask a question. this is politics. he's trying to promote himself. of course he's going to attack us. we had a nice conversation afterwards. i've had a long relax ship with the speaker. >> panelists, what do you all think? >> let me just talk a minute. this is one of the most explicit moments we've seen in debate history. >> in debate history? >> it was one of the harshest attacks we've had on the press in a long, long time. as a political matter, i think gingrich saw a fast ball coming. for this audience, he smacked it right out of the park. i think there's a reasonable chance that he can win south carolina based on that answer. >> smacked it out of the park. that's big time. here's what we can tell you. he's getting momentum. he's got it on his side going into the debate. the policy polling found numbers like these. 35% of republican voters in south carolina are backing newt gingrich. 29% are backing mitt romney. 15% come in both equally for ron paul and rick santorum. >> so we want to bring in our political panel, sheira, eric ericson, editor in chief, and maria cardona former senior advisor to hillary clinton. eric, i'm going start with you. that gingrich explosion, it was really powerful stuff. we've just rewatched it. and you saw what our senior political analyst said about the debate. that this could actually win him south carolina. do you think it will? >> yeah, you know, we've got some bananas and apples and oranges over there. i think that's the fruit plate that newt gingrich sent. absolutely. that question, he did knock it out of the park. we knew it was coming. it was very interesting, after the debate, he went over to john king and thanked him for a great debate. of course he did. we just set him up nicely for tomorrow. and, you know, the question had to be asked, i'm glad john asked it first because it would have otherwise over shadowed everything in the debate. so, yeah, this question won newt gingrich the south carolina primary. >> so he was taking a lot of criticism, john king, that is, for asking this question first. you think that was a good idea? get it off the plate? >> oh, absolutely. everyone was waiting for the question. everyone knew it was coming. you might as well get it out of the way up front instead of being -- if he didn't ask it up front, cnn would be accused of dragging out the viewers until the very end in soap opera fashion. it needed to be asked. asked up front was the right place to ask it. >> sheira, let's go back to that poll. the new public policy poll. gingrich is ahead in that by six points. that does not reflect the debate performance. he already had the momentum. do you agree that gingrich is going to take south carolina? >> i think -- well, i think he could, absolutely. there's no question about that. and this is a tracking poll, so we will get new numbers in 24 hours that will reflect his debate performance. i'm going to be particularly looking at the female voters of south carolina when these poll results come out. i'll be in just to see whether or not they have a visceral reaction to mariann's statement, whether or not they view her as a bitter ex-wife or whether they're relevant. but after last night's debate performance, i think men/women in south carolina, in general, are trending toward's newt's side. >> how do you think that's going to translate, particularly to that woman voter in south carolina? >> i think some women will look at marianne gingrich sitting there, obviously still very emotional about this and maybe even relate a little bit, understand, feel sorry for her. and if they have any kind of inkling of distrust of newt gingrich in their head already, i think it will grow because of this. i think if they're already trending against newt gingrich, thinking about not voting for him, it probably just pushed him over the edge in that direction. i think people who like newt gingrich and that first comment last night just made them love him even more. >> all right, maria, let's switch gears here. a moment the democrats must have loved last night. john king asked romney if he would follow in his father's example and release 12 years of his tax returns. let's listen to what he said and then we'll talk about it. >> when you release yours, will you follow your father's example? >> maybe. [ laughter ] >> you know, i don't know how many years i'll release. i'll take a look at what our documents are. and i'll release multiple years. i don't know how many years. but i'll be happy to do that. >> i think it was a washington post, maria, that called that a flop on romney's behalf. the tax issue has been dragging him down. can he recover from that? >> well, i think if he would come out today or at least very soon to say that he's going to release not just this year's tax returns but multiple years before, he might be able to. but the washington post is right. i think that this has been one of the weakest issues for him. and last night's debate performance on this particular question was awful. and he has not been able to come up with a good answer on this. and it is something that is going to continue to come up. and the thing is that it's not enough for him, and, frankly, his father was the one who set the high bar: it's not enough for him to release this year's returns. why? because, clearly, he knows that he was running for president. he could accommodate those returns to make sure that they don't -- that they don't reflect anything that's untorn. he needs to release multiple past years to ensure to voters that there is nothing there to hide. the more that he hesitates on doing that, the more that it seems in voter's minds that there is something in romney's investments, something within his billionaire status or almost billionaire status that there is something to hide there. and that is nongood for romney. the more he stretches it out, the worse it's going to be for him. >> all right, maria, thank you for joining us this morning. we're going to talk to you again, so standby. somebody did release their taxes, right? newt gingrich? >> during the debate? i was wondering how long they might have been strike that jazzing about that and actually deciding off the debate and said no, no, they're online. who better to talk to about taxes and all of those number crunching that finance lady. can i tell you something? >> yeah. >> i had no idea he made the kind of money he did or paid the amount of taxes. >> newt gingrich paid a lot in taxes. very strategic in this one coming upright after the first commercial break. let's talk about the money. newt gingrich, $3.1 million. that's how much -- almost 3.2 million he made in 2010. but look at his effective tax rate. almost 32%. he paid nearly a million in taxes. how does that stack up against other millionaires? it's more, folks. the average for millionaires between two and five million dollars a year paid 26% in taxes. we have to compare this to romney who has said we don't know, but his effective tax rate is about 15%. look at that, 80% of americans, according to the tax policy center, pay an effective tax rate of under 15%. so you look at this, this boeds well for newt gingrich on the front if you're going to compare taxes to taxes here. again, we don't have romney's forms. he says he's going to release in april. so we don't have the numbers to compare them to. >> i'm guessing that people who are watching right now if they're awake enough are going to say you can do what you want with your taxes. you can make them look any way you want, right? >> to an extent. it depends on what you choose to write off and it depends on what you make off of capital gains. let's look at how newt gingrich made his money and his deductions in 2010. he made about $2.5 million from his businesses. what are those businesses? interestingly, we found out something called gingrich productions where he and his wife issue all of their books, et cetera. he gets paid a lot for speaking and consulting, rental property, stocks, bonds, et cetera. now, here's the thing. mitt romney makes almost all of his money off of capital gains. stocks, bonds, et cetera. it is law in this country that the max that those can be taxed at is 15%. you may not like that. he may come under fire for that, but that is the law in this country. if he is making more off of his investments than newt gingrich is, he is going to pay a different tax rate. we should look at how much romney paid in taxes, the full amount, not just a percent. he very well may have paid more money in taxes in 2010 than newt gingrich did. >> i would venture to say with $200 million to his name, he very well may have. two very different scenes. thank you very much. >> so we want to bring our political panel back in. we have the political politics writer for roll call. eric ericson, and maria cardona. so we've talked about a lot of things. fidelity is here, we're talking about tax codes trying to break it all down. but i do want you all to chime in a little bit. we haven't yet seen romney's, but there's a lot of speculation about what we are going to see. how do you think that is going to weigh? let's start with you, eric. >> you know, i don't know how the comparison is going to play, frankly. it depends on what mitt romney's taxes say. the worst thing is the two little words that have been banning about this week and those are cayman islands. he's got an account in the cayman islands. people scratch their head over that. they're used to the john grisham novels. he's paid his taxes on it. there's nothing illegal about it. but it's kind of hard to run a man of the people, main street campaign when you've got a cayman islands bank account. he's going to have to be able to overcome that. as maria said, he's having a real hard time talking about these issues. just from a historic perspective, his father set the modern trend for releasing tax returns. it's going to be striking if his son doesn't follow the man who started the trend of presidential candidates releasing income taxes. >> can you chime in on that? >> i think especially because romney has tolled his father as a great political influence. this is a guy who's talked about his dad a lot on the campaign trail. by not releasing his tax forms, he's doing a disservice. he talked last night about only wanting to release them in one fell swoop. multiple however many that is in april so general election voters can have their turn and democratics can have their turn attacking them. especially because he's running for an office that has a heavy influence over tax reform itself. i personally think he'd be better off strategically to release them sooner than later. especially if the only thing that's going to be shown on them, and maybe this isn't the case, but the only thing we're going to see is that he's a really rich guy. >> i'm going to let you chime in here for a moment. we've got to go. >> so i think what it's going to continue, again, underscore in voter's minds, and he said this already, that if he pays at the 15% tax rate, that is going to basically say to voters, oh my god, he's a zillionaire and he pays less taxes than me. that is not an image that you want going into an election where lower middle income blue collar voters are going to be the ones who he has vote you need to win. >> standby, we're going to continue talking to you all morning long. coming up at 7:00 a.m., he is going to sit down with former presidential candidate herman cain. >> make sure you stick around with us at cnn tomorrow night. it start it is live coverage of the south carolina primary. and you can bet it's going to be exciting. >> it's 19 minutes past the hour. still ahead, new video inside the italian cruise ship disaster that was shot right after that ship when it grounded. it was like a scene from the titanic. look at that. you're watching "early start." capital one's new cash rewards card gives you a 50% annual bonus! so you earn 50% more cash. according to research, everybody likes more cash. well, almost everybody... ♪ would you like 50% more cash? 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[ male announcer ] you do, business pro. you do. go national. go like a pro. hi, everybody. welcome back. some critical new developments this morning with that italian cruise ship disaster. we've got a live picture of the costa concordia. kind of looks the same, doesn't it? however, the search is suspended again because that ship is shifting. and the weather that is coming is not good. seas are turning rough and the authorities are really worried about an impending environmental disaster. that ship was three hours into its cruise, so it is full of fuel. right now, it is sitting in about 60 feet of water. take a look at that picture. that's really what's going on under water. it is freakish, isn't it? so it's kind of just teetering strangely on that reverse mountain. and if it shifts to the right eight feet, if the seas start shifting it to the right, it's a 200 foot drop off. and guess what that means? yeah, it goes down and it's deep water. but the gas tanks that are on board can only w