convention. the texas congressman will join us live this hour. we'll talk about his presidential hopes and the 2012 election. and if you're fuming about surprise credit card fees or lousy service, there's now a place where you can share your complaints with the entire world. i'm wolf blitzer. you're in "the situation room." this is just coming in to the "the situation room" right now. take a look at this. wow. it's a huge, huge crowd that has gathered at tahrir square in cairo. tens of thousands of people back at the site where last year's revolution started. the demonstrators are protesting the moves made by the egyptian military leadership, which they say could hurt the presidential election results. also, only moments ago we have confirmed that the former president of egypt, hosni mubarak, has suffered a stroke. that according to officials in egypt. his heart apparently has stopped. but it was revived. he needed critical condition care. he has received it. we're monitoring this situation very, very closely. but look at that crowd at tahrir square. it started there, it's continuing right now. the election results should be known by thursday whether the muslim brotherhood wins or a former aide to hosni mubarak. that crowd going crazy. it's approaching midnight in cairo right now. it's just after 10:00 p.m. right now. but it looks lively, shall we say, in cairo. ivan is on the scene for us. we'll go there momentarily. standby. drama unfolding on the streets of cairo right where that arab spring in egypt began at tahrir square. other news we're following including the presidential race here in the united states. the romney camp is using the summer lull before the fall campaign frenzy to re-introduce their candidate to voters even though he's been running for president for years. the goal, show mitt romney as a looser, funnier, more humble kind of guy. jim acosta's in michigan right now. he's covering romney's bus tour. what's going on on this front? i know you've been doing some investigating, jim? [ technical difficulties ] >> mitt romney had a confession to make in michigan. >> you're not here because i'm some spectacular speaker. ya'll know better than that. >> a looser, more confident emerged during his campaign's first big general election bus tour. the romney often turned to light hearted. some he got right. >> you have a lot of chicken here. chicken and, you know, noodles. good german food right here. what a wonderful place -- how many people are here from franken booth? >> other times like in pennsylvania he needed help from the crowd. >> where do you get your hoagies here? >> he also mixed it up with the media leaving it on the press bus kidding with reporters he erased their hard drives. he poked fun at himself for one of his more odd sounding moments in the campaign when he commented on the trees. ask what advice he gets from voters? >> stop trying to be like yourself and be someone else. just don't be you. just kidding. >> but the campaign was really trying to show a side of the candidate the public has rarely seen. which is why on father's day his staff released home videos of a young romney goofing around with his sons. >> he loved to horse around. >> no picking your nose at the table. >> how are you doing, knuckle snorts? >> the obama campaign complained the republican's bus tour was short on specifics and failed to acknowledge the progress being made on some of the states on romney's itinerary, like in michigan. unemployment rate has plunged from 14.2% to 8.5% in may. romney gives credit to the state gop leaders he campaigned with along the way. >> what i've heard in each of those states, if we could just do in washington what we're doing at state level, we could finally solve some of the kinds of problems we're dealing with. >> he made some bold predictions, that he will win states in the midwest. >> we're going to win wisconsin and we're going to get the white house. >> and in the northeast, the democrats have claimed for years. >> i got news for you, congressmen, i am going to win pennsylvania. >> and he understands the significance of winning his boyhood home state. >> and we'll be seeing something else from mitt romney in the coming weeks that we have not seen so far from his campaign. he's going to be doing a lot of minority outreach. later this week he's going to be talking to a group of latdin-american leaders in florida. and then in july he'll be giving an address to the naacp. wolf. >> he's really going after a lot of those undecided, independent, moderate voters, the decision to go ahead and address the latino community later this week in orlando, the decision to go before the naacp next month, it's presumably going to help him with some of those undecided. is that the strategy he's undertaking right now? >> i think that's right, wolf. and one thing that we saw throughout this entire bus tour is, you know, the obama campaign and president obama obviously with that immigration decision that came out late last week, that could have put mitt romney on the defensive throughout this bus tour. but what they decided inside the romney campaign was say, hey, look, our message is the economy. so the next day they were back to talking about the economy, wolf, at stop after stop after stop. that continued right until today. and i imagine he's going to be talking about it later this week when he talks to latino leaders in florida. his message is not so much about immigration, because that is an issue that obviously appeals to a lot of latin-american voters out there. he thinks the message of the economy pertains to every voting block out there no matter who he's talking to, wolf. >> jim, thanks very much. we also have new evidence that president obama's decision to stop deporting many young illegal immigrants here in the united states could help him in november. a brand new bloomberg poll shows 64% of likely voters support the policy change. 30% are against it. take a look at this. those very important independent voters support the president's decision by a slightly wider margin, 66% in favor, 26% opposed. let's bring in our chief political analyst, gloria borger, you're looking at these numbers. what are you seeing? >> i'm seeing a great advantage for president obama. they knew exactly what they were doing when they saw an opening because there was no republican proposal on the dream act. and so they decided to drive a truck right through that opening. and clearly what the administration is hoping is that this helps with the enthusiasm of hispanic voters. they need hispanic voters to turn out in key battleground states like colorado, new mexico, florida. so they're hoping that if they show this kind of a difference between the two parties that the choice will be pretty clear and that hispanics will turn out great numbers. >> and it's put the republicans sort of in an awkward position. listen to the house speaker, john boehner, speaking today. >> it puts everyone in a difficult position. i think we all have concerns for those who are caught in this trap who through no fault of their own are here. but the president's actions are going to make it much more difficult for us to work in a bipartisan way to get to a permanent solution. the president himself who said the last couple years that he couldn't do this. so the question remains whether he's violating the constitution. >> it's all difficult to position. are the republicans right? >> when you can't argue the policy, you argue the process. and i think that's what we heard john boehner doing. and today the senate republican leader, mitch mcconnell came out and said, you know, we're not going to say anything until we speak out in the conference later this week, a major latino conference of elected officials. what mitt romney is doing is he's saying, look, i'm going to focus on the economy. jobs is the number one issue for hispanic voters. the economy is the number one issue for hispanic voters. and the campaign is making a bet that those hispanic voters who believe immigration is the number one issue are going to be voting for president obama anyway. so he's going to stay on message. now, whether he will go beyond what he said, which is he wants some version of the dream act for the children of military families, for example. we'll have to wait until that conference. but expect him to talk a lot more about the economy and hispanics. >> marco rubio, he had his own ideas about a modified version of the dream act. he's the very popular republican senator from florida. where does this put him right now? >> well, again, in a tough spot. and in a way i think he's become a little bit less relevant, if you will. he was working oncoming up with some kind of a policy. his staff says it was very difficult to get any kind of bipartisan agreement. but because there was that opening and there was no policy, the administration jumped right in. and the president said, okay, i'm going to do this. even though as boehner pointed out a year ago the president said he didn't have the unilateral authority to do that. so marco rubio's now on a book tour. anz e abc news and "the washington post" are reporting he's not being vetted seriously for the vice president si. so suddenly i think he becomes a little less relevant. but when it comes to florida, expect to see marco rubio out with mitt romney. >> he'll be in with us later this week. jack cafferty's joining us right now in "the situation room." he's got the cafferty file. >> debate preparations for the president. this is great. it's perfect casting on the part of the obama campaign. one elite, rich emotion alist massachusetts politician filling in for another. the boston globe first reported that senator kerry's been tapped to mimic the presumptivive gop romney in debate practice, which means kerry will do everything from anticipating romney's answers and attacks to copying his speaking style and posture. of course kerry has a lot of experience in the presidential debate. he faced off against george w. bush three times in the 2004 campaign. most believe kerry won the debates, but bush won the election. president obama's senior campaign strategist says kerry is an expert debater who has mastered a wide range of issues including mitt romney's massachusetts. kerry's observed romney's role in pennsylvania politics going back to 1994. so he should be in a good place to point out romney's weaknesses while governor, especially his economic record. axelrod calls kerry the obvious choice, which may be true in more ways than one. as the globe notes, critics blast both kerry and romney for being aloof and for flip-flopping on major issues. plus, they're both rich. really, really rich. romney's worth about $250 million. kerry comes in at about $193 million. meanwhile, john kerry could wind up playing a larger role in a second obama term if the president manages to win re-election. there is growing speculation that kerry could takeover as secretary of state if hillary clinton leaves as she says she intends to. who's going to play mr. obama in romney's debate practice? we don't know that. is john kerry a good fill-in for mitt romney? go to cnn.com/caffertyfile. or go to our post on "the situation room" facebook page. >> good question, jack. thank you. we're going to follow the wild scene unfolding in cairo right now. take a look at this. thousands and thousands and thousands of people. these are live pictures you're seeing from cairo. it's 10:13 p.m. at night over there. they are in tahrir square. they are protesting. they are chanting. what's going on? standby. more of the special coverage right after this. cajun raw seafood pizza parlor french fondue tex-mex fro-yo tapas puck chinese takeout taco truck free range chicken pancake stack baked alaska 5% cashback. signup for 5% cashback at restaurants through june. it pays to discover. ♪ ( whirring and crackling sounds ) man: assembly lines that fix themselves. the most innovative companies are doing things they never could before, by building on the cisco intelligent network. 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[ meow ] [ male announcer ] another example of volkswagen quality. that's the power of german engineering. right now lease the 2012 jetta for $159 a month. visit vwdealer.com today. home protector plus, from liberty mutual insurance, where the costs to both repair your home and replace your possessions are covered. and we don't just cut a check for the depreciated value -- we can actually replace your stuff with an exact or near match. plus, if your home is unfit to live in after an incident, we pay for you to stay somewhere else while it's being repaired. home protector plus, from liberty mutual insurance. because you never know what lies around the corner. to get a free quote, call... visit a local office, or go to libertymutual.com today. liberty mutual insurance. responsibility. what's your policy? we're following breaking news in cairo. cnn's ivan watson is standing above all of this watching what's going on. it's very dramatic, ivan. give us the latest. what are these folks protesting, demonstrating about? >> well, you could call this deja vu all over again, wolf. i mean, this is the square where the protest started a year and a half ago that helped drive dictator out of power. and now they're at it again. but the protests are different now. just last weekend egypt held historic presidential elections. these are for the most part supporters of the muslim brother candidate who has claimed victory in the election. that victory is being challenged by the opposition candidate, mubarak's hand-picked prime minister. they claim they won the election. but really what these people are doing is they're protesting against the supreme council of the armed forces which took over after mubarak. and in the last week has dissolved the recently elected parliament and assumed a great deal of additional powers in addition to instituting what jimmy carter is describing similar to martial law. in fact, he went one step further in a statement today to criticize chief of supreme council saying he's deeply troubled by the undemocratic transition -- egypt's political transition has taken. he is warning the supreme council not to meddle in the affairs of writing up a new constitution. this country has no legislature right now and no constitution. and the winner of the election still hasn't been formerly announced yet. >> supposed to announce that on thursday. on top of all this, hosni mubarak, the former president under arrest apparently they say suffered a stroke, cardiac arrest. what do we know about this? >> well, the spokesman for the state prosecutor's office tells us that mubarak had a heart attack today and he was resuscitated by using electric shocks and cpr and now on an artificial res prater with military doctors on the way to inspect him and he may be moved to a military hospital within hours. he's 84 years old. but we have to warn the viewers over the course of the past year and a half since mubarak was ousted from power, there have been rumors about his deteriorating health and reports about health emergencies every week or month. and a lot of skepticism or suspicion that his families and lawyers are trying to use this to improve his conditions in prison and in the various hospitals he's been kept in. that hasn't saved him from being sentenced in court earlier this month to life in prison for being an accomplice in the deaths of some of the protesters killed in this very square a year and a half ago. wolf. >> ivan, we're going to stay on top of this story. we'll get back to you shortly. thanks very much. i want to get immediate reaction now from the republican presidential candidate, the united states congressman, ron paul, who is joining us from capitol hill. congressman, thanks very much for coming in. you see thousands and thousands of folks gathered at tahrir square right now. as you know the united states, the u.s. congress appropriates $1.3 billion a year in u.s. military assistance to egypt. what do you make of what's going on? what's your immediate reaction? >> well, look it's chaos and they have a long way to go before it's settled. and i would look at it and say those moneys going to egypt propping up dictator since 1978, '79, all wasted money. part of the reason why we're in debt. and then we got tired of our dictator, we sort of encourage the rebellion. look at where it is. al qaeda is stronger in that country now than it was before. this supports my argument that we ought to mind our own business and stay out of the internal affairs. but to me it looks sad. looks like a real mess over there and doesn't look like there will be any significant change of military dictatorship and the kinds we have unsupported so many times for so many years. >> when you say al qaeda's stronger in egypt, i think you immediate the muslim brotherhood, not necessarily al qaeda. the muslim brotherhood, their candidate has won the next for egypt. >> i say al qaeda as well. sometimes the muslim brotherhood get a bad rap and not equivalent. but there's more al qaeda there now my understanding than there was prior to the rebellion kboing on right now. >> so what you're saying is al qaeda has a significant presence in egypt right now? is that what i'm hearing? >> i say they have a -- how significant it is, look at a crowd like that, could there be some involved in the muslim brotherhood? possibly so. but because of the chaos, the same thing -- look, there's al qaeda now in iraq. there was none when we went into iraq and al qaeda in iraq are going into syria. i think all our well intention and money is for not. i think it just leads to problems like this and contributes to our bankruptcy. >> you delivered a major speech on syria today and warned president obama not to take any action, basically, to ease what's going on there certainly no military action. but give our viewers here in the united states and around the world the gist of what your point is. >> well, what i did is copied the bowlen amendment bag when nicaragua and contours were fighting. an amendment passed reiterating the constitution that you don't go in to deny the authority and go in. that's what this does. go in and get a declaration of war and certainly confide with the congress, don't get your declaration of war and your permission from nato, united nations. that is on a front to all of us, it's on a front to our constitution and not the way we're supposed to use military action around the world. >> and you're fearful that the obama administration is about to undertake some sort of military action in syria? is that your concern? >> well, last week it was announced the pentagon has the plans made. a month ago they said they didn't have them. last week they said the plans have been ready for military action in syria. the neo conservatives are gleeful and delighted because that's what they've been agit e agitating for. >> i want you to hold on for a minute, congress. we'll take a quick break. much more with congressman ron paul right after this. you back. but thed unless you ask, "what's next?" introducing the all-new rx f sport. this is the pursuit of perfection. in here, great food demands a great presentation. so at&t showed corporate caterers how to better collaborate by using a mobile solution, in a whole new way. using real-time photo sharing abilities, they can create and maintain high standards, from kitchen to table. this technology allows us to collaborate with our drivers to make a better experience for our customers. 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