i'm erin burnett "outfront" tonight. markets plunged today. 297 points for the dow. the two-day drop, as i indicated, is close to 600. 573 points. it's a big story and we are covering it tonight. but first, we're starting with some breaking developments regarding herman cain. tonight, a report that one of the women who accused herman cain of sexual harassment wants to speak out. "the washington post" getting everyone's attention after posting a quote from the woman's attorney who told the post, "it's very frustrating that herman cain is going around bad-mouthing the two complainants and my client is blocked by a confidentiality agreement." he's asking the restaurant association to release his client from that agreement. it has been a gut-wrenching 24 hours for herman cain. allegations that he sexually harassed two women have his campaign back on its heels. but it wasn't the allegations or the fact that the women reported -- reportedly got financial settlements, but that he seems to keep changing his story. >> i am unaware of any sort of settlement. she and her lawyer were demanding a huge financial settlement. this was 12 years ago. i was falsely accused. and secondly, the word settlement suggested to me some sort of legal settlement. >> all right. he said he was, as you could see, unaware of any sort of settlement that she and her lawyer were demanding. he also spoke to greta van susteren last night in an interview where he said, he remembered certain parts of what happened, but not the whole story. and he said he never heard of the second claim and called the whole thing a smear campaign. john avalon is a contributor for us. jeffrey toobin is our legal analyst. what is going on inside the cain campaign? you've been reporting on it. is it mayhem right now? >> chaos behind the scenes. on the surface, they are trying to put a brave face on this. they raised $400,000 in online donations on monday alone from supporters citing conservative icons like rush limbaugh, ann coulter to defend themselves. but, look. they've set up a seminar in what not to do in terms of a political communications strategy. changing their stories. it's definitely taken momentum out of their step in terms of gaining new supporters. big question mark hanging over this campaign and they've shown the cost of being inexperienced when it comes to political combat. >> the allegations are of sexual harassment, not assault. but what is the meaning of confidentiality agreement? i mean if you had one, has herman cain already violated it by saying the story that he's already related which is, oh, i remember a woman coming into my office and commenting to her that she came up to my neck, just the same height as my wife. that's all i said. that's not harassment. just by saying that much, has he already opened up the confidentiality agreement? >> well, here's where things get complicated, and you have to know what's in the confidentiality agreement, which we don't know. because they are contracts. and, you know, there are certain standard forms, and i'm familiar with those, but i don't know what this one says. usually both sides are bound by it. so if herman cain, as a representative of the national restaurant association, breached it, she would have a right to breach it as well. but chances are he was not a signatory to the agreement. probably it was just the restaurant association. so it's not clear if he could breach it. i mean, these are the questions you can only know if you look at the contract. but it's important to remember the larger context here. in the united states of america, people who want to tell their stories usually wind up telling their stories. this woman obviously wants to go on the record. >> very politely said, jeff. >> and she's -- however the confidentiality agreement is worded, i think we're going to be hearing more from her sooner rather than later. >> of course, then there was potentially the second woman. we've heard no detail about, whatever that incident may or may not have been or from her. but i also want to ask you this, jeff, because sometimes these settlements are made. it is my understanding and personal experience from people that i know on both sides of this and various companies, sometimes you settle these situations even if the person isn't guilty. >> absolutely. you know, sometimes corporations, time warner where we all work, any big company says, look, it would cost us "x" dollars to defend this suit. if we gave her "x" minus $20, we're ahead of the game, even though we think our employee did nothing wrong. that is certainly a possibility here. obviously, today we learned the woman in question doesn't think that's what happened. she thinks something much more serious than that happened because that's why she wants to speak out. but the possibility that this was a nuisance settlement and that herman cain did nothing wrong, that is clearly a possibility as well. and we need to keep that in mind. >> so what does cain do now? >> his only recourse right now is to try to get out ahead of this story by putting out all the information, by asking the restaurant association to suspend the nda, to put the information out, to see if it corroborates -- >> so he should say, i want her to tell her story? >> this is not in his control. this is an association issue. just as the woman is now saying she wants to be released to tell her story, he's got -- his campaign has to get all the information out there, otherwise this will hang over every step of his campaign. >> ultimately, jeff, what is the bottom line here? it is going to be the national restaurant association's decision, right? >> it is, but if herman cain publicly says tomorrow, as he will certainly be asked tomorrow, i encourage the national restaurant association to let this woman speak her peace, i think the restaurant association will more or less be assured of doing that. so i think the ball is really in cain's court now. does he want the restaurant association to release this woman from her confidentiality agreement? that's the big question to him. but however we talk about the technicalities, it's really -- it's going to come out. this stuff always comes out. and i just think he's going to have to prepare and answer to her substantive comments about what happened here. >> all right. well, thank you very much. we'll all look forward to seeing how he handles it and what happened. >> now let's bring in a republican strategist and columnist for "the hill" and steve mcmahon, former adviser to howard dean's campaign and a democratic strategist. cheri, i wanted to start with you. mike huckabee said in an interview that he could almost guarantee this whole story was planted by a rival campaign. now that these additional revelations have come out and the woman's attorney is speaking, what do you think? >> i think it's possible that it came out by somebody within the republican circles. i doubt very much there's a rival candidate that would be aware of it. i really don't think there's anybody in the field that seems capable of that. but there might be some republicans that are looking out for the party and they would rather have something like this come out now than six months from now or at a time when herman cain is on the ticket. but i don't think it really matters where it came from. at this point, i think herman cain needs to get out in front of it. i would not like to see this woman come out front and do the book tour in a very lucrative 15 minutes of fame, but i think it would be appropriate for her testimony or whatever she put in those documents 12 years ago to be made public without her name. i think that would be fair and just get past this at this point. >> i sure hope she does come out front, maybe on this show. but any kind of lightheartedness aside, what is your perception, john, from talking to the campaigns? >> the chances this is all a big liberal media conspiracy are nil. the opposition researchers, this is almost certainly one if not more campaigns that when herman cain started to rise, they started digging dirt and stumbled upon this. so i think let's not be naive about how modern campaigns work. as huckabee said, this is -- there are sharp elbows here. >> steve, who benefits the most? >> i think whoever is next in line to be the alternative to mitt romney. you can make the case that rick perry is the most logical person to benefit because he was at 40 a few weeks ago before some very, very bad debate performances. and he is a sort of conservative that people thought they wanted until these very bad debate performances. he's tried to reset his campaign. he didn't do it perfectly on friday night when he gave sort of an odd speech. he's tried to restart it. he's got the money to be competitive and the record to be competitive. he's somebody who obviously would benefit. newt gingrich might benefit. the conservatives in the republican party are -- sort of grew up with newt. i think there's a soft spot for newt in many of their hearts even though he's not running a very effective campaign. but it's the next anti-romney who benefits, and i think it's going to happen pretty quickly. >> cheri, john, steve, thanks to all three of you. newt gingrich will be coming "outfront" tomorrow and we'll put these questions to him. he'll be our guest exclusively here on the program tomorrow night. still "outfront," the markets take a nosedive because of greece. is there any relief in sight? then an emergency landing in warsaw. truly incredible video whether you fly a lot or not. the hero of the miracle on the hudson, captain sullenberger, comes out with his take on a 767 landing on its belly. no wheels. and the strangest race you will ever see. we have all the details in the camel report. ♪ [ cellphone rings ] cut! 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[ male announcer ] we are insurance. ♪ we are farmers ♪ bum, ba-da-bum, bum, bum, bum ♪ 270. that is the millions of dollars that yahoo! is paying to buy interclick, the company they are hoping will help them, well, do better with ads. yahoo! investing in advertising. it's a huge business. they have had a lot of problems at that company. $76.6 billion is how many dollars will be spent on interactive marketing in 2016. that is more than double what is being spent this year. and that's just on what you do online. okay. well, that may be good news for advertisers, but it has been bad news for a lot of people. today, it was a terrible day on wall street. the markets nosedive affecting the half or more than half a percent of american homes who own stocks. s&p and nasdaq down about 3%. if you look at the two-day dow total, it's even worse. close to 600 points lower in the past 48 hours. and that's on top of the best october since the early '90s. why? greece. that is who is to blame. the world economy is held hostage by greece and greece is going back and forth and back and forth over a bailout deal and it's done and then it's not done and now they'll vote on it and it's a disaster. and judging by tomorrow's headlines in europe, it is a disaster. "the daily mail," greece in meltdown. "the guardian," germany and france battle to save the euro. peter costa is a new york stock exchange floor trader. you were there today. never thought you'd be held hostage by -- the greek prime minister said he's going to have a vote or not have a vote. >> it's strange, erin. you have these people, this country is sinking in quicksand. two countries, major countries, are throwing them lifesavers, including you know, people are trying to get them out of this hole that they are in and they refuse to take that help. you know, they can't do it on their own. and i think that's where this contagion just, you know, spreads from that point. they can't get out of it. they are being offered a lifeline and they refuse to take it. so yesterday they were taking it. this morning they're not taking it. this is a real whipsaw market because of that. >> all right. peter costa, thank you very much. we'll keep following this with peter because it's a whipsaw for all of america's portfolios. and another part of the problem for markets tonight is something that happened to a financial institution. the fbi investigating failed financial firm mf global after the company says it couldn't account for $600 million of its customers' money. now mf global would maybe be a small headline, but for this man. if he's not familiar to you, he may be when i remind you who he was. jon corzine, former new jersey governor and former goldman sachs ceo. there is jon corzine. lee gallagher is here and william cohen is author of "money & power: how goldman sachs came to rule the world." jon corzine. this is a spectacular blemish on a man who ran goldman sachs, got out at the right time. governor, senator -- >> not voluntarily. >> well, that's true. >> right. and so what can you tell us about this fall? >> it's a spectacular fall from grace. and if he were involved in the disappearance of this money or the using of the customer funds to shore up, you know, mf as it was falling apart, that would be a very, very serious situation. as it is, this was meant to be, erin, a redemption for jon corzine. back on wall street. back with the land of the giants of wall street after he got booted out of goldman sachs in 1999. and he's been absent from wall street all that time. he comes back to mf. this is supposed to be his chance to make a big mark again, and look what happened. he did not learn the lessons of 2008, unfortunately. >> leigh, jon corzine is still an incredibly wealthy man. you've run the numbers. when he left goldman, he was worth $400 million and is still worth a couple hundred million. >> he's worth less whatever he spent to run for governor a couple of times. and his wealth in mf global was almost nothing compared to that, even though it was generous. this is really significant. in addition to the reasons bill said, this was -- if he, in fact, did take this money to cover up the firm's trades, which were risky bets, proprietary trading. he tried to turn mf trading into a proprietary trading firm. if he used clients' money to do that, he may be the one person criminally prosecuted out of the whole financial crisis. we haven't seen that yet. i'm just suggesting. i mean, no one has yet. >> a long way from that. >> we don't know whether he knew. >> this is supposition. being greedy is not illegal. going after easy money is not illegal. that's why no one has been successfully prosecuted. but these allegations that he might have used money to cover trades, that's a big deal even for a small firm as bill said. >> and quickly, bill, this raises the question more broadly. we've had all this financial reform and now here we go again. >> as i said, no -- we have these laws, dodd-frank, a volcker rule that's supposed to be implemented. but in fact, no one has apparently learned anything. for jon corzine not to have learned the critical lesson of 2008 -- >> but he wasn't there. it's like he didn't have a seat at the table in 2008 so he's reliving it. >> our rules are not yet sufficient it appears. leigh, bill, thanks to both of you. we appreciate it. in a letter today, the u.s. department of justice asked alabama school districts to prove they are following the law when it comes to giving children equal access, regardless of immigration. nate valencia is following this. this comes on the back of the heels of basically schools being asked to verify whether children were legal or illegal. what information is the doj asking the state for? >> that's right, erin. this is just the latest clash between the federal government and states that have designed laws to step up enforcement against illegal immigration. on tuesday, civil rights division for the department of justice issuing a letter to the state of alabama school districts asking them to prove that they are not denying access for public education to students that have an immigrant status. among the things they are asking for in this letter is a list of students by ethnicity, by racial breakdown. they want to know how many students have officially withdrawn from the alabama school district. and one last thing, erin, they are asking for a list of all students that have enrolled or are part of english language training programs. erin? >> that's what they are going to give in those numbers tomorrow? that's your expectation? we'll get all of that? >> there's a list coming out from the alabama state department of education. it's very different from what the doj is asking the school districts to comply. i want to make this clear. the letter from the doj was sent specifically to the school districts, not to the department of education, which is very peculiar. we were on the phone earlier today with the spokesman for the state department of education, michael sibley. he's saying tomorrow the numbers that will come out do comply with what doj is asking for. without really being asked. what they are saying is they'll release numbers. average daily membership numbers. these lists may not really give a good look at what the doj is asking for because the state department of education mentions that students of immigrant parents often don't officially withdraw from schools, erin. they're often just -- they leave without going through that official process. what michael sibley with the state department did say, however is that we've had one rule and one rule only since the beginning of this debate. we'll comply with the law. students of all kinds are welcome in alabama schools. no matter what their ethnicity, no matter what their ethnicity is. >> thank you, nick. all eyes around the country are on this. obviously having big implications on employment, especially in the agriculture sector. more legal trouble for casey anthony. a woman claims she defamed her during her trial. then the emergency landing in poland. a flight that originated in newark. captain sullenberg is here for his take on the video. and we're introducing a new segment tonight. you will not want to miss the camel report. oh. but i did pick up your dry cleaning and had your shoes shined. well, i made you a reservation at the sushi place around the corner. well, in that case, i better get back to these invoices... which i'll do right after making your favorite pancakes. you know what? 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