american held hostage for months by somali pirates and a closer look at the president's state-of-the-union hint about the top secret mission. plus brand-new cnn polling ton underscores the stakes of our final florida debate showdown. a tiny mitt romney lead over newt gingrich just as their battle for the gop nomination takes another bitter turn. and put up or shut up. newt gingrich snaps back at nancy pelosi after she tells me if there's one thing she knows it is. this her long-time nemesis, she this her long-time nemesis, she says, will never be president. -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com a busy day of politics here in florida and back in washington. but we begin tonight with another stunning navy seal success story that sounds like a made for hollywood spy story. the u.s. military's daring raid to free an american woman and a danish man held by pirates in somalia. our first inkling something was up came as probe entered the house chamber last night for the state-of-the-union address. listen as he greets the defense secretary, leon panetta. >> good job tonight. good job tonight. >> just hours before a u.s. special operations forces parachuted into somalia near the pirates' compound. the strike team included navy 150e8s from the same unit that killed osama bin laden. they shot their way, in killing all nine of the kidnappers, then rushed the freed hostages onto helicopters and got away without a single casualty. cnn pentagon correspondent chris lawrence is live with us tonight to tell us more about how this daring raid went down. >> reporter: john, the military and fbi had been searching for these humanitarian workers since october. now officials tell us it was only in recent weeks that the sense of urgency really started to rise. part of the reason for that was the deteriorating health of the american woman, jessica buchanan. so when officials got specific intelligence, specifically where the hostages were and who was holding them, president obama made the call to green light this mission on monday night. on tuesday night, the weather was perfect for an assault. and that's when the military went in. you detailed how they got there, how they shot all nine of the kidnappers. they did find the hostages at an outdoor incampment, rustled then onto a helicopter, got them out of the country and then took them to the american base in jabuti where they were able to get medical care. john? >> and chris, the timing. just pure coincidence? the president's giving his state-of-the-union address in which he takes at least what some would call a little bit of a bin laden victory lap? >> reporter: he certainly worked it into both the beginning and the end of the state-of-the-union address while this raid was going on. i'm told by officials that at the moment that president obama told secretary panetta "good job good job" at that moment both men knew that the rescue team had rescued the hostages, but mission was not over. in other words, the rescue team had not completely left somalia and gotten safely back to the american base. so the mission wasn't a completely a done deal at that poin point. >> fascinating details. chris lawrence, live for us tonight at the pentagon. thank you. here in florida newt gingrich's top rival is mitt romney. and two republicans went at it today. but the former house speaker also took several opportunities today to fire salvos at another former speaker, democrat nancy pelosi. pelosi had this take on gingrich last night. >> he's not going to be president of the united states. this is -- that's not going to happen. let me just make my prediction and stand by it. it isn't going to happen. >> why are you so sure? >> there's something i know. the republicans if they choose to nominate him, that's their prerogative. i don't think that's going to happe happen. >> earlier today, gingrich fired back. here he is on "the today show." >> she lives in a san francisco environment, a very strange fantasies, very strange understandings of reality. i have no idea what's in nancy pelosi's head. if she knows something, i have a simple challenge. spit it out. >> took another shot later in the day in this radio interview. >> i have a simple challenge for speaker pelosi to put up or shut up. i have no idea what she's talking about. i don't think she has any idea what she's talking about. but bring it on. >> our senior congressional correspondent dana bash live now with more on this gingrich-pelosi grudge match. dana, the speak gingrich wanted to fire back today. what does the former speaker pelosi say? >> well, she's saying that she's not hiding any secrets. the problem, john, is this isn't the first time where she's maybe sort of suggested that she knows something but her office insists she doesn't know anything that isn't public record. in fact they put out a statement from her saying any reference i would make to the ethics committee is confined to the public record. the ethics committee. this is really what this is all about. it is an ethics committee report that has been talked about now on the campaign trail that came out while newt gingrich was in office. the issue is that nancy pelosi wasn't just an average member who read it and voted on it. she was part of the investigative committee that looked into it. she has said before she was one of four people on the committee locked in a room reading thousands of pages of his stuff. so that's why she seems to potentially know more than others. maybe she just took the time to read it. but you know, this john, maybe more than anybody that newt gingrich likes to use some entities as foils. the news media and of course the liberal left. what better an icon to use as a foil than nancy pelosi? she's maybe fed into it with some of the things that she said. >> she certainly when i asked her that question her eyes lit up. she was happy, happy to fire back at speaker gingrich. let's move onto the race before us right now. mitt romney, newt gingrich are in a tight race here in florida, dan that john mccain came to mitt romney's aid on a sneaking spending into bills, earmarks, let's listen on a conference call where he takes after and essentially blames newt gingrich for the explosion of this problem. >> i saw these earmarks explode. i saw the corruption also that resulted from it. it was infuriating. while gingrich was speaker, the number of earmarks doubled to more than 6,000 projects in the range of billions of dollars." >> can't say john mccain would be a tea party favorite, dana, but clearly that's what they're going at here for the romney campaign trying to peel away some of the speaker's conservative support, right? >> absolutely. when rick santorum was on the rise he said the same thing about rick santorum. look, john mccain is a good messenger for the issue of earmarks and spending because he has been on this crusade for years and years. he also accused newt gingrich of actually writing a memo back in 1996 telling the people who were in charge of the spending committees to make sure that people who are in tough elections were doled some of the most juicy earmarks. so this is something that john mccain thinks that he has a really good handle on. he also is no fan of newt gingrich. he said on this conference call i was on it, john, some of the things that we've been hearing in private from other members and former members of congress about newt gingrich's leadership, specifically reminding people he left as speaker not because he thought it was time to go but because he didn't have the votes to stay in office because people simply didn't think he had the right leadership style to stay there. it is very interesting to listen to john mccain on a conference call on behalf of mitt romney, the guy he was in florida duking it out with almost four years ago to the day. >> dana bash, senior congressional correspondent live on capitol hill tonight. an important fact check on a story that dates back to last week in south carolina. remember other presidential debate when speaker gingrich lashed out at my question about allegations his second ex-wife made in an interview with abc news. >> the story is false. every personal friend i have who knew it in that period says the story was false. we offered several of them to abc to prove it was false. they weren't interested because they would like to attack any republica republican. >> yesterday i asked the speaker about abc's insistence that no such character witnesses were offered. >> oh, that is just plain baloney. i mean, i'll check with r.c. hammond in a minute. but if they're saying that they're not being honest. because they said explicitly the opposite. i will check with r.c. because he was briefing me on this time whole way through. we had several people prepared to be very clear and very aggressive in their dispute about that. and they weren't interested. >> you heard the speaker there. he said we had several people prepared, and they were not interested. well, tonight after persistent questioning by our staff, the gingrich campaign concedes now speaker gingrich was wrong. both in his debate answer and in our interview yesterday. gingrich spokesman r.c. hammond says the only people the campaign offered to abc were the speaker's two daughters from his first marriage." proof tonight speaker gingrich perhaps should worry more about mitt romney and florida. our new times cnnorc poll shows a statistical dead heat here. mitt romney has 36% of potential voters, speaker gingrich 34% support. close but the momentum is clearly with governor romney at the moment. speaker gingrich was leading in the first day of our polling, but romney significantly up in the final two days. our debate here tomorrow night is the last face-to-face showdown before tuesday's voting. our chief political analyst gloria borger is here. gloria clearly the nbc debate helped governor romney stop the momentum. he now has it. the interesting thing there at the polling look at the gender gap. if you look at our polling among men, beginning rich 35, romney 31 slight advantage gingrich. among women, romney 40, gingrich 42. in a bigger, more diverse moderate state looks at the moment the gender gap benefits romney. >> it does benefit romney. he needs to get some men start to vote for him, though. that's really important for him. we didn't see a gender gap for newt gingrich in south carolina because he whomped mitt romney throughout the entire state and did well with both men and women. but generally newt gingrich tends to have a gender gap, whether because of his personal issues or because men like the way he attacks and is very effective at that. but i think that this news with romney's such a wide lead among women is good for him. but he needs to get some men to start voting for him too. >> south carolina very conservative state. tea party and evangelicals. florida a little bit more moderate. a lot more diverse. if you look at that breakdown among tea party voters, those who support the tea party, gingrich 39, romney 35. so again a close gingrich lead but not as big as he probably would like. among tea party opponents or those who are neutral when it comes to the question of the tea party, romney with a 11-point lead, 37-26. there are more of those people opposed or neutral through the tea party. >> the tea party people really are skeptical about mitt romney because of healthcare. healthcare is a very big issue for the tea party, as you know. look at what mitt romney did in massachusetts. they don't trust him to repeal president obama's healthcare plan. but the entire state is not tea party. and that could be very useful to mitt romney. but here's the key. the key is every republican wants somebody who can stand up against barack obama. and that's where they look at newt gingrich in these debates and they say, you know what, he does very well. the last debate, romney was on the attack. we'll have to see what happens tomorrow night. >> tomorrow night. going to bring gloria back a bit later to continue our conversation about politics. tune into our big debate tomorrow night. tonight the man republicans want to beat in november, president obama is touring five states to push hit state-of-the-union address. what he's calling the blueprint for an american economy built to last. part of that blueprint includes his call for higher taxes on the wealthy. >> do we want to keep investing in everything that's important to our long-term growth? education, medical research, our military? caring for our veterans? all of which are expensive. or do we keep these tax cuts for folks who don't need them and weren't even asking for them? because we can't do both. >> after that stop in iowa, the president headed west. he's about an hour now away from a speech in arizona. after that onto nevada, then colorado, back toward the east to michigan. our chief white house correspondent jessica yellin in chandler, arizona just outside phoenix. jess, tell us, curious looking at that map why these five states? >> reporter: well, first he's pushing his agenda which is two-fold. to grow jobs in the u.s. and to inoculate himself against anticipated attacks from the republicans. so he's focused on jobs, saying that he's promoting an energy agenda, and promoting skills in the u.s. and these states, 48, that's the number of electoral votes among them, john. three of the states are purple states that he won last time around. nevada, iowa, and colorado. one of them, michigan, is a blue state that he won. but because they suffered so badly in the recession he'll have to spend a lot of time there courting those voters again. they expect to do okay there, though, because of the auto bailout and how much the president's administration helped. but this is the state as you know that is a red state that democrats don't usually expect to compete well in and that this team, this campaign team, thinks they have a shot at because of the big latino vote here. a lot of republicans think that that's a stretch. some even think it's laughable. but the obama campaign is convinced that they can pick it up with work, john. >> jessica yellin live in chandler, arizona. new state to add to the map this time. off the map last time just because as she noted john mccain. jess, thank you. up next more insight on the training and coordination that goes into the daring raid like that one that freed those aid workers in somalia. we'll be joined by two former navy seals to break down the details. dave. dave. dave. i just saved a ton of money at staples. great job, dave. suck-up. [ male announcer ] in a small business, it's all you. that's why you have us. at staples, we have low prices on everything your small business needs. staples. that was easy. fascinating throughout the day as we learn more details about last night's stunning rescue of a u.s. aid worker and a danish citizen. we learned today the u.s. strike team in somalia included members of the navy seal six unit the same unit that carried out the raid to kill osama bin laden. a statement from president obama today says "as commander in chief i could not be prouder of the troops who carried out this mission and the dedicated professionals who is upped their efforts." join meeg now to discuss this raid, two former navy seals, john mcguire who runs physical training and kade -- it's the same unit that had the bin laden raid in pakistan. what's the difference between a raid on a compound like that and this nighttime parra trooping operation into africa? >> well, i mean, john, they're kind of two very separate operations. we don't know how much lead time we had on the bin laden one. i understand we had upwards of three months on the hostage rescue one here. i won't get into specifics because the world doesn't need to know that. but generally speaking, time is your friend in a situation like this. you're able to look for vulnerabilities, find out best way to hit the target, plan, plan, rehearse. but the guys who did this are so good they could also get the call ten minutes and ten minutes later it's done. that's just how good these guys are. they're a super bowl winning team for the last decade. >> super bowl winning team indeed. john, you have done this before. parachuting in from a helicopter undercover of darkness into what could be quite hostile tear toy. take us into the training and then the mindset as you jump out of the bird. >> you know, the training for a navy seal is not for the faint of heart. we train to never quit and to always win. and i'll tell you, these guys are focused. sometimes on the news you hear about olympic ath lights, the folks is takes to win an olympic gold medal. these guys have that focus from the time they get into isolation for training until they come home and get a shower. so it's a lot of preparation. a lot of rehearsal. >> and kade, we understand that the original plan hopefully was to capture and take into custody these pirates. go through the briefings, the rules of engagement, and when you make the call and how you make the call. we're not going to be able to do that this has to be a gun fight. >> well, look, rules of engagement are different for every evolution or every operation you go on. but at the end of the day if you feel your life is at risk you can take appropriate action. if somebody is shooting at me, i'm going to shoot back. and clearly these guys, if they're doing what they've done in my opinion don't deserve to be around. they've got shot at. make them disappear. that's the job we do. >> and john, these seals are getting credit they deserve. the front lines in this attack, this heroic rescue are getting both of the hostages out alive. but take us behind the scenes. people names and faces we'll never know, roles we'll never know about the planning, the intelligence, the support systems. that goes into an operation? >> i heard about 50 people palpated in this raid. obviously for navy seals there was only men. i'm sure behind the scenes there are military men and women from analysts all the way to the seal operator, many people have put a lot of time into this. and like it was said earlier, sometimes you get a two-hour notice sometimes you have two-months notice. we always say in training we train how we fight. and the more we sweat in peace the less we bleed in war. so i'm sure they did a lot of rehearsals. and from the analysts back home all the way to the guys boots on the ground these guys do a lot of planning to make it a successful mission. >> and cade, we had the bin laden raid, this dramatic raid. are we just hearing about this a little bit more, or is this the new front lines if you will, the new secret weapon in these wars? troops coming out of iraq, plans to bring troops back from afghanistan. are the wars of the future or engagements of the future more likely to be smaller-scale special operations? >> well, john, these guys, i mean, we've been at war for the last ten years. these guys have been busy. so just because you hear something every couple of months on the news doesn't mean that's all they're doing. they're working around the clock. they'll go, they'll do the op then get ready for the next one. that's how busy these guys are. now, if this is something that you're going to see more of in the future i would hope. so because as we've seen in the recent past it's highly effective. these guys continually doing it right the first time. and that's why seal training is so hard and so few guys make it. because when the president calls and said, okay, green light, you have to do it right and you have to do it right the first time. and again these guys are phenomenal. they're knocking it out of the park. they're a super bowl winning team every time they go do it. couldn't be more proud. >> cade courtly, john mcguire, can't thank you enough for your service and your help tonight understanding this