>> he skipped the last republican presidential debate in las vegas saying he wanted to focus in on the first of the nation primary state of new hampshire. but former utah governor john huntsman is trailing in that critical state while rival mitt romney is enjoying a solid lead. john huntsman is joining us from salt lake city. governor, thanks very much for coming in. >> thank you, wolf. it's an honor to be with you. >> let's talk about mitt romney a little bit. george will, the conservative columnist writing in an upcoming edition of "the washington post" says this about mitt romney. he says, "romney, supposedly the republican most lektable next november, is a recidivist reviser of his principles who is not only becoming less electable, he might endanger gop chances of capturing the senate. republicans may have found their michael dukakis, a tech know democratic massachusetts governor who takes his bearings from data." do you agree with george will on that? >> well, those are pretty tough words, wolf. all i can say is this is a time when this nation wants leadership. we've been looking for leadership for some time in the white house. we haven't found it. this is when the candidates need to stand up and show a little bit of leadership. you can't be a perfectly lubricated weather vane on the important issues of the day whether it's libya, whether it's the debt ceiling, whether it's the discussion around the bill in ohio where governor romney has been missing in action in terms of showing any kind of leadership. i do believe that the electorate this go around will be looking for clearly defined presidential leadership. i'm not sure that we're seeing it. we're putting out our own economic proposals. next week i'll have an energy speech that i'll be giving in new hampshire. we're calling for clear cut leadership positions for the united states to be taking us back on our feet. and it will secure the american century for the people of the united states. >> so when you say it's it's a perfectly lubricated weather vein or when george will says he is a recidivist reviser, basically you're saying tez a flip-flopper on some of the most important issues. >> you don't get any more important than life. when you have an he pif any like this that is highly political. >> you're talking about abortion rights for women. what is your exact position on abortion rights for women? are there any exceptions from your standpoint for a woman getting an abortion? >> incest, rape, and the life of the mother are the exceptions that i can live with. >> so you're basically ignoring iowa and throwing all your eggs into the basket. our latest poll has romney way ahead. he's almost living there. he has a second home there. he's a 40% cain, 12%. you're at 6%. but herman cain, he's intriguing. he basically spent very little time in new hampshire or iowa for that matter. but he's doing pretty well in both of those states, even better in iowa. and he comes up with these crazy ads, including this one. watch. ♪ we can take this country back america ♪ ♪ i am america one vote ♪ >> that's his chief of staff who had a little puff of a cigarette there. but he's a 13%. you're at 6% in new hampshire. you spent a lot of time there. he has it. why is he doing so well? >> well, oftentimes can you spike for the moment. you're the flavor of the week or the flavor of the month. i remember when governor perry was at 20% in new hampshire. he came in with great fanfare. now he's in the low single digits. we're just trying a steady, gradual substantive rise in new hampshire. based upon real support, based upon 80 events that we have done so far. wolf, we did a telephone town hall meeting yesterday. we had 3,000 people on the line. our town hall meetings are packed these days. i say we've got a couple of very, very important months ahead in new hampshire. and the vibe that i'm getting, the fwway in which we're connecting or manufacturing muscle in this country is resonating with the all important people in the first primary state would you feel comfortable if herman cain was the presidential nominee? >> i think herman cain is an outstanding person. i've gotten to know him. he's a friend. he has a lot of the right prerequisites for understanding how the free market works. beyond that, that's why the early primaries are so very, very important. ultimately, the people get to decide. whoever they decide is the nominee for my party, i will stand behind that. >> so you would feel comfortable if herman cain on national security issues because he stumbled on many of the questions so far. you feel comfortable? >> well, as i say, anyone who gets through this very rigorous primary process, i think our chances are excellent for getting through this primary process. i'm going to stand behind. they deserve it because it's not an easy process to endure. you've got to win over the will of the people. by the end of the process, you're up to speed with the things that matter. >> the economy is still struggling. 2.5% growth in the last quarter. the stock markets are doing well, above 12,000. it was 6,500, 7,000 when president obama took office. do you see a trend that a double dip recession now is unlikely and things are at least beginning to move in the right direction? >> i think we're going to muddle along until we put forward bold structures that are standing in the way of knocking the ball off the cover of our economic growth. when i say that, i look at the jobs proposal package put forward by the president. and it amounts to half steps and half measures. it's going to be incomplete. it's going to be a temporary fix. we need a long-term fix. and that means tax reform. that means regulatory reform and really hitting on the issues that investor community is looking at being cleaned up, like health care reform and obama care and dodd frank. insuring we can begin to build manufacturing plants and power plants in this nation that will be able to fuel our manufacturing revival. it can be done. until you get to the structural fixes, you're not going to have the confidence in the innovator class, in the entrepreneurial class, in the investor class. indeed in the global -- in the global economy to be able to get this -- to be able to get this country moving in a direction that is long term sustainable. >> we're almost out of time. very quickly here. you're the former u.s. ambassador to china. china played a very important role in the u.s. economy. they have a lot of u.s. debt. most recently this week they played a significant role helping the europeans bail out greece and some of that enormous debt crisis there. our viewers in china are watching. we have a lot of viewers in china as you know having lived in beijing. say something to the people in china in mandrin right now and then translate it for us. what you would say to them given this opportunity? [ speaking in mandrin ] >> i basically said this is the most important relationship in the world today. it is incumbent upon the leadership in both countries in order continue to sure the economic and security of not only our two countries but the region and the world as well. having a president who can actually understand those issues and who knows intimately well are most significant economic challenge and opportunity as well as our most significant security challenge would be a great thing to have in the white house, wolf. >> governor, thanks very much for coming in. you're mandrin is pretty good. i must say. not that i understood what you said. it sounded pretty good. >> thank you, wolf. it's a pleasure to be with you. >> john huntsman, the former governor of utah, former ambassador to china and now wants to be the republican presidential nominee. thank you. mitt romney is the latest republican presidential conditioned date to make an parent mistake in the glare of the national spotlight. or was it something more calculated? cnn's joe johns is here in "the situation room." he's got some details. what's going on with mitt romney? >> months and months to go. it's already been a long race, even for some candidates who have been running just a short time. and mitt romney's recent slipup, if it was a slipup, just goes to show that into every campaign a little rain must fall. if republicans didn't like mitt romney's position on the union busting proposal in ohio, all they had to do is wait one day before he changed it. on tuesday, outside cincinnati when asked if he supports the ballot issue to restrict collective bargaining being pushed by the state's republican governor, romney gave the noncommittal answer even though he just answered a phone bank where conservative callers were selling the measure to the public. >> i'm not speaking about the particular ballot issues. those are under the people of ohio. i certainly support the effort of the governor to reign in the scale of government. so i'm not terribly familiar with it. >> reporter: but by the next day, romney had a different answer. >> oh, i'm sorry if i created any confusion in that regard. i fully support governor kasich's question two in ohio. what i was referring to is i know there are other ballot questions there in ohio. i wasn't taking a position on those. >> reporter: confusion, perhaps. among those other ballot questions, one would ban government from forcing people to buy health insurance which might give pause to a health care reformer like romney. raising the question whether what happened was a mistake or a political tactic. >> he walked into a call center for these two ballot initiatives and appeared to either not know what these ballot initiatives were about or intentionally tried to dodge them to kind of protect his brand for general election. so it's one or the other. >> reporter: if it was a mistake, romney is not alone among the contenders these days. rick perry's latest goof is stepping all over the big flat tax proposal rollout with off the cuff remarks with questions about president obama's birthplace. >> it's fun to poke at him a little bit and say hey, how about -- let's see your grades and birth certificate. >> then there was the here is strangeness of herman cain's latest ad showing his chief of staff singing the candidates praises and puffing a cigarette. author john avalon sees the ad as harmless but not some of the other mistakes. >> it's worse reflection on whether not only if that makes the candidates look bad, maybe makes the process look bad but makes our country look bad. >> interesting thing about the cain ad. it locked tens of thousands of views on his website. a lot of people don't understand it. but he certainly cultivated an image of an unorthodox candidate and that ad only plays into it, wolf. >> it certainly does. it continues to play on and on -- more than a million hits on youtuba lone for that ad. muammar gadhafi buried in secret and a new vow by libya's government to prosecute the man who allegedly killed him. and fears that iran's leaders have planted spies right here in washington, d.c. we're digging deeper on a congressman's call to expel iranian officials from this country. 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[ male announcer ] for a smoothie with real fruit plus veggie nutrition new v8 v-fusion smoothie. could've had a v8. wow! it's even bigger than i thought. welcome to progressive. do you guys insure airstreams? yep. everything from travel trailers to mega motor homes. and when your rv is covered, so is your pet. perfect. who wants a picture with flo? i do! i do! do you mind? got to make sure this is -- oh. uh... okay. everybody say "awkward." protecting your family fun. now, that's progressive. call or click today. the obama administration is pushing back against the call to expel iranian officials from the united states. the homeland security committee chairman peter king outlined his dramatic proposal right here in "the situation room" and we're taking a closer look at his concerns about alleged iranian spies. brian todd is working the story. what you are finding out? >> congressman king says he expects to be joined in the call by most republicans on the house homeland security committee. the congressman is now applying intense pressure to a group of iranians working on behalf of their government on u.s. soil. strong fallout from the plot to anass nature saudi arabia's ambassador to the u.s. iran has spies in america specifically, he says, people who work at iran's mission to the u.n. and iran's interintersection in washington. >> to me, we should get rid of all of them or most of them and send a clear signal. >> king says they all o could be expelled on the suspicion of spying. he knows the iranians in those offices he suspects of spying but the identities are classified. king didn't give specific information tying them to the alleged saudi assassination plot. but he says some of those people are tied to iranian intelligence and that people in those offices have in the past been id'd as members of the kuts force, a shadowy military unit. eric o'neal is the former fbi investigator who took down russian spy robert hanson, a case dramatized in the hollywood film "breech." i asked o'neal about the allegation that the plotters wanted to bomb the ambassador at a restaurant. >> could someone at their intersection in d.c. maybe give the information to the iranian that's the ambassador wanted to go to a certain restaurant or was frequenting that restaurant? >> that is possible. that is the sort of actionable intelligence that a spy, that is gold to a spy. >> reporter: o'neal says by day the intersection employees may be processing visas, but in their spare time, he says, they could be recruiting sources. we called and eemd the intersection and then went over there. this is the iranian intersection here in washington. it works through the pakistani emphasis. the pakistanies say they don't control what happens here. they just pass messages to and from both governments to each other. we're going to go in here and see if anybody wants to talk to us to respond to congressman king's comments. i'm met at the door. >> hi. i'm brian todd from cnn. i'm recording thisment we're rolling. i wanted see if mr. shiraz is here? >> no. >> can they come and speak to me? >> they're not available. >> when i call back, i'm told that all that is done there is counselor work. they did not respond to our calls and e-mail asking for response to congressman king. but iranian officials have vehemently denied any role in trying to assassinate the saudi ambassador. his country never had any intent to hurt saudi arabia. even if they did, they would never do that inside the united states. >> how many iranian officials work in new york and wash? >> there are 39 diplomats at the u.n. and 38 people who you says are not accredited diplomats at the intersection here in washington. king believes that the united states can expel even the diplomats at the u.n. if they are suspected of spying because he says they've done this before. he says the bush administration did that a few years back when they caught some people at the u.n. surveilling the new york subways and tunnels. he believes they can do that. >> and the u.s. government position is that the u.s. has responsibilities as the host country for the u.n. >> there's a bit of back and forth there. we're not sure who is correct. there is disagreement there. >> thank you. >> the new libyan government is under intense pressure to investigate the death of mow march gadhafi. dan rivers is in tripoli. a warning, you may find video in this report to be disturbing. >> ever since these disturbing images emerged on the day gadhafi was killed, questions have loomd about exactly what happened. circumstantial evidence has grown that muammar gadhafi was not killed in the crossfire. especially since this video surfaced the young man claiming to have shot gadhafi in the head with another insisting he witnessed the murder. now amid growing international pressure, the transitional government has said it will prosecute the man responsible if it can prove his guilt. >> what's going to happen to that young man? >> we ask him, there is an investigation. he said there's an investigation if we found this saudi specialist this story is true. so the emphasis is going to take action. there is an investigation. we would like to know who and why and how. >> reporter: bat in the caut in there is little sympathy with putting his killer on trial. >> i don't think he should be on trial. we asked him for this disallusion. we hope that we catch him alive. but if he's dead, that's okay. that man killed, you know, hundreds of people in this area. we're relieved that he's dead. and the man who killed him, i don't care about him. >> and that means he is a criminal. did a criminal, a terrorist, he did this. if he did this to me, i would have killed him. >> you would do it? >> absolutely. >> so for the young man that killed him, what do you think should happen to him? >> nothing. nothing. >> nothing? >> nothing. >> i'm glad that he's dead. everybody glad. >> reporter: and that's the problem. the transitional government is under a lot of international pressure to properly investigate gadhafi's death. but domestically, there is very little appetite to put a libyan on trial for killing the man who so terrorized this country. dan river, cnn, tripoli. >> a shocking revelation from the wife of bernie madoff. couples of the suicide pact. plus, millions of tons of debris from japan's tsunami heading to the u.s. west coast. these dogs wake up too early! you know what else is early? medicare open enrollment. now through december 7th. can i stick with my old medicare plan? sure! or find a new plan with better coverage, less cost, or both. medicare plans give you free cancer screenings and wellness visits and 50% off on brand-name prescriptions when you're in the doughnut hole. it's part of the healthcare law. so it's time to look, compare... and choose the right plan for you. learn more at 1-800-medicare or medicare.gov. shocking revelations about bernie madoff now in prison for running the largest ponzy scheme in u.s. history. his wife tells cbs's 60 minutes the couple attempted suicide as the scandal was unfolding. cnn national correspond susan candiotti has details. >> i think anything that comes out of their mouth is self-serving and are lies. >> richard and cynthia friedman lost their life savings to bernie madoff, so did eileen camp. so when they heard ruth madoff talk about a failed suicide attempt in a new "60 minutes" interview -- >> we decided to kill ourselves because it was -- it was so horrendous what was happening. we had terrible phone calls, hate mail. >> do you believe it? >> i don't believe it. if it's a madoff, can you not trust anything they say. >> assuming that she's telling the truth about taking pills, do you feel badly about that? >> i just can't assume it. i think anything that they say is extremely self-serving. ruth has been quoted in the past saying she's very concerned about the victims and she feels awful and she feels terribly -- well why do we open the wound three years later? >> reporter: victims scoff at barbara walters zriction of her bernie madoff interview. he says he's happy in prison because he feels safe there. >> for 16 years he has lived in fear that he was going to be found out and now he's not in control of his life. and so he is happier there than he was on the outside. >> i was very much against sending him to a maximum security prison because i felt that would be revenge and not justice. but he's really just snubbing his nose. he's thumbing his nose at the system. he's thumbing his nose at us. >> and there is stephanie madoff whose husband mark committed suicide last year, depressed over his father's crime. >> if i saw bernie madoff right now,