focusing their attention on mitt romney. paul is standing by. i'm wolf blitzer. i'm wolf blitzer. you're in "the situation room." -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com as controversy swirls around him, republican front-runner, herman cain, went behind closed doors with republican lawmakers on capitol hill. just a brief respite from the storm that has blown over previously undisclosed sexual allegations. earlier today, cain suggested some sort of conspiracy is at work, but he insisted he will prevail. >> there are factions trying to destroy me personally as well as this campaign. but there is a force greater, there's a force at work here that is much greater than those that would try to destroy me and destroy this campaign. and this journey to the white house. and that force is called the voice of the people. >> cain may face a new round of controversy. one of his accusers apparently wants to go public. brian todd has been investigating this part of the story. what are you learning? >> wolf, the wheels have been set in motion for that. we're now one step closer to one of cain's accusers speaking out. now that her attorney has made contact with the national restaurant association, which cain once led. the other shoe may soon drop for herman cain. the attorney for a woman who accused cain of sexual harassment has contacted the national restaurant association. joel bennett says his client wants to speak out and would like the association to release her from the contract she signed. >> naturally, she's been very upset about this since the story broke last sunday because mr. cain has been giving the impression as though she's someone who made false allegations and that's certainly not true. >> bennett says his client got a settlement against cain. he describes his client add married, highly intelligence. asks whether she's politically active -- >> i have no knowledge. she's a current employee of the federal government. >> by most indications, bennett's clients is not the same woman who "the new york times" reports got $35,000, a year's salary and severance pay after an encounter with cain. that could be the person cain described as someone who worked as a writer in the 1990s. of that woman, all cain said was he made an observation of her height. >> they were ridiculous. i said, if she can make that stick and call that sexual harassment, fine, but it didn't stick. >> cain has described the other woman as someone who worked in the restaurant association's governmental affairs department in the 1998s. a spoke with deborah kelly about the request to lift the confidentiality agreement. >> what are the odds of the national restaurant association releasing this? >> i can't see a reason in the world why the association would want to release because all the stuff they paid to settle and have go away and have not hit the representational damage of the company would emerge. then it would get back to the very did it happen, didn't it happen, who saw it, who didn't see it that they paid to avoid. >> for now, the national restaurant association has referred joel bennett to the association's outside counsel. bennett is meeting with his clients tonight and says he'll submit his formal request probably tomorrow, wolf. >> joel bennett also believes, brian, that herman cain has already broken that confidentiality deal, doesn't he? >> he apparently does. bennett says for all intents and purposes, cain has violated that. in a recent interview, cain said of one of his accusers, quote, i do recall that her performance had been told to me by her boss, had not been up to par, end quote. bennett says there is a nondisparagement agreement in the deal. deborah kelly says if cain spoke negatively about the woman's work performance in public, he might have broken that part of the agreement. cain has vehemently denied breaking that deal. >> because that agreement was between the national restaurant association and this woman and cain was the head of the association at the time, so automatically, he was part of that confidentiality agreement. thanks very much. for a brief moment, the controversy seemed to get the better of herman cain as the candidate showed a flash of irritation. jim acosta was on the scene for us as he often is. he's joining us live. walk us through what happened here. >> wolf, we certainly saw a change in the public face of herman cain. gone was the casual, easy going style that reporters are accustomed to mr. cain demonstrating and in its place was a much more confrontational style. he refused to answer reporters' questions in virginia this morning and i tried to get him to answer the question would he call on the national restaurant association to release those women and here's what happened next. >> let me say one thing. i'm here with these doctors and that's what i'm going to talk about, so don't even bother asking me all of these other questions that you all are curious about, okay? don't even bother. >> but are you concerned about the fact these women -- >> what did i say? >> are you concerned -- >> excuse me. excuse me. >> now, if we were to continue showing you that video, wolf, you would see that there is a confrontation that goes on between cain's security staff and reporters trying to ask him those questions. i can tell you having been there on the scene myself, wolf, there was some pushing and shoving. cain's security staff did elbow members of the working press. there were also innocent bystanders sort of standing in the way. they were also pushed out of the way at one point. this was a very sort of rough and nasty scene, something we have not seen from the cain campaign so far. and it marks perhaps a turninging point in his campaign given the fact that he's not p really talking to reporters about what's happening here and this very confrontational style on the part of his staff. wolf? >> were there a lot of reporters and camera crews at this event, joe? >> there were. there was a fairly large throng of reporters waiting for mr. cain to come out of this meeting. also with mr. cain was his chief of staff, mark block. he is the smoking campaign manager you see in that youtube video that went viral last week. i had a brief moment to catch with up him and i asked him about whether or not calls are going in from the cain campaign to the national restaurant association to release those women. he held up a phone to his ear, wolf, and said this may be the call now. he turned away. i caught up with him another brief moment and he said, quote, this should be an interestinging 48 hours. my understanding is that they are anticipating things will develop in the next day or two that may allow these women to talk. >> thanks very much. let's bring in our chief political correspondent, candy crowley. she's the anchor of "state of the union." what do you make of the way herman cain handled this sort of q and a with reporters today? >> i think with herman cain, you still see signs of a campaign that is not quite ready for this kind of prime time drama. the idea i thought he sort of started out well, which is i'm here with these doctors and that's what i'm going to talk about. but you can't ever lose your cool. it makes you look guilty. fair or not fair. i think you can also look at cain and believe on the bright side for him that the folk who is support him are the conservative republicans who support him are quite apt to take his side on this in this way. he says people are out to get me. certainly, there is no love lost for the media in that part of the republican party. and this may well either increase his support or not have it go away. i don't think he's handled it well. i think he still shows signs of a campaign that is not up to snuff. he needs to have a consular in there saying, stop talking. he needs to have someone in there for lodgistics saying, let's bring him this way. they need someone to say to him, you were great. say here are the doctors, say i know you want to talk about things that happened many decades ago, but i want to hear about health care. it's a tough situation, but there are ways to handle it and for that, you need staff who have been there, done that. >> do you think it's going to really have an effect though on his base? the conservative base, the tea party supporters who love him right now and put him atop the national as well as so many of these statewide polls? >> right now as i say, we don't know enough. we don't know what happened here between two people in the 1990s. we may hear more tomorrow. i think it depends on what comes out, but as of right now, this begins to be a herman cain versus the media, you know, the people are after me and i think that only enhances his image among those that support him now because they do believe that the lame stream media or the liberal media or whatever, how ever they choose to describe it, is against conservative candidates. >> you know, when i heard him say there were some elements out there out to get me, personally and out to get my campaign, you could on the one hand say the liberal news media, maybe he was referring to that, but i sense he was referring to maybe some of his republican rivals. who are afraid of him, don't want him to get the republican nomination. he was pointing his finger at him, but maybe i misinterpreted what he was saying. >> listen, it could be in of the above, but in either case, people who support cain now i don't think have seen enough to make them turn away from him. i think that's my point when the question is is he going to lose his base of support. not yet. we'll have to see what happens. but i do think that this is not going to go away without some further explanation because it's not been handled that well. >> certainly, thanks very much. programming note to our viewers. watch "state of the union" with candy every sunday, 9:00 a.m. here on cnn. the "cafferty file" coming up, then the pentagon grass on capitol hill with dire warnings about what could happen to the military if the deficit super committee fails. and herman cain earlier tht week singing to reporters. today, his frustration seemed to seep through. ♪ ♪ ♪ when your chain of supply ♪ goes from here to shanghai, that's logistics. ♪ ♪ chips from here, boards from there ♪ ♪ track it all through the air, that's logistics. ♪ ♪ clearing customs like that ♪ hurry up no time flat that's logistics. ♪ ♪ all new technology ups brings to me, ♪ ♪ that's logistics. ♪ hey, it's sandra -- from accounting. peter. i can see that you're busy... but you were gonna help us crunch the numbers for accounts receivable today. i mean i know that this is important. well, both are important. let's be clear. they are but this is important too. 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[ male announcer ] michelin knows it's better for xerox to help manage their finance processing. so they can focus on keeping the world moving. with xerox, you're ready for real business. the world needs more energy. where's it going to come from? ♪ that's why right here, in australia, chevron is building one of the biggest natural gas projects in the world. enough power for a city the size of singapore for 50 years. what's it going to do to the planet? natural gas is the cleanest conventional fuel there is. we've got to be smart about this. it's a smart way to go. ♪ jack? >> herman cain is just the latest politician in a long line to have a potential sex scandal damage his career. we have a lot of sordidness in our political bas past, but not all has been fatal. we had bill clinton impeached over the monica lewinsky scandal, found not guilty, then finished his second term and maintained a very high profile after he left office. but not all politicians have survived this type of thing. think anthony weiner. john edwards. former new york governor, eliot spitzer and that creep from south carolina, the former governor, mark sanford, who told the world he was hiking naked on the appalachain trail when in fact he was in argentina with his lover. there are many more. some are still crawling around the halls of congress. the key in cain's case, we still don't know if he's guilty. although his clumsy handling of this hasn't helped him so r far. cain changed his story multiple times since the news broke sunday, that two women accused him of sexual harassment in the 1990s. it is unclear how much this is going to damage his campaign if at all. there are no polls that have been taken entirely after the news broke, but polls taken before show cain at the top of the republican field. the story seems to be rallying his base. cain's campaign raised more than $400,000 online on monday alone and several high pro file conservatives are sticking by cain. they're blaming the media and racism, which of course is always convenient when things aren't going your way. any way, here's the question. should, not will allegations of sexual harassment more than 12 years ago cost herman cain his run for the white house? go to cnn.com/caffertyfile and post a comment on my blog or go to our facebook page. wolf? >> when ever you have a combination of politics and any inkling of sex, you know that's going to generate a huge amount of interest in the political community, the journalistic community. this story isn't going to go away for some time. you and i have covered these stories for a long time. >> arguably, this is the most interesting thing that's happened since the republican contest began. it was a pretty big yawn up until now. at least it's put a little electricity in the deal. >> a lot of electricity, too much for herman cain. the pressure on him is enormous. thank you. a fresh drum beat of alarm for the so-called super committee of lawmakers. the nation's top military officers were up on capitol hill today and they warn what could happen if the committee fails to find a way to cut a trillion and and a half dollars or so. automatic cuts would then be triggered. ray o der know says that could reduce the defense budget by a trillion dollars. >> cuts of this magnitude would be catastrophic to the military and in the case of the army, would significantly reduce or capacity to ensure our partners abroad and deter our adversaries while threaten iing the readine and potentially the all volunteer force. >> let's go live to our congressional correspondent, kate bolduan, on capitol hill. not just the military chiefs that are ratcheting up the pressure on the super committee, is it? >> that's right, wolf. yesterday, it was budget experts. today, it's the country's top military officers as well as members of congress leaning on the super committee sounding the alarm, saying the super committee must succeed of hitting its target in at least $1.2 trillion in deficit savings. democratic member of congress joined together today calling on the super committee to close oil and gas subsidies as a good starting point. but another very big group, 100 members of the house, both democrat and republican coming together, signing on to a letter to urge the super committee to go big. in their opinion, the committee should find $4 trillion in deficit savings over the next ten years, which is really the number that many budget experts say is needed in order to stabilize the country's debt. listen here to house republican steve as well as the number two democrats in the house, steny hoyer. >> when this comes out, in member can find 10, 20, 30 reasons to say no, but it's now time for the ostriches to pull their heads out of the sand, the holier than thou crowd to get out of their horses and we need to get this thing done in a big way. and there's a lot of talk about plenls in this town. people that pledge to do this, not to do that. it's time to put the pledges in a bonfire and reaffirm our conviction to the oath we all took to defend this nation. >> what we are saying is don't go small boar because we'll just have to be at that year after year after year an we will not create the confidence in two ways, both from the economic standpoint of meeting our deficit challenge and of the deficit that we have in the competence of america that it's congress can work. >> these lawmakers, this group of 100 that signed on this to letter, they all really acknowledged today that everything needs to be on the table. acknowledging that that needs to include the thorny issues of entitlement reform and increasing revenues, which could mean an increase in taxes. though the letter squels these house members were deliberately vague on what they would sign on to, saying they were not going to get into specifics, moore driving the point home that what congress faces isn't a policy issue. it's a political issue. does congress have the courage to do what's needed to be done? the reality that we all face though is that there are 12 members on this super committee. they're the ones making these decisions. they have three weeks left until their thanksgiving deadline and so far, this committee remains deadlocked around the issue of taxes. this super committee may have received some very valuable political cover today through this group of 100, wolf. >> i guess it depends if the republicans are willing to raise taxes, the democrats are willing to cut entitlements, then they'll have a deal. if not, that committee's going to be deadlocked then the automatic cuts will begin to cut. the headquarters of a magazine gutted by fire on the same day it prints a controversial cover. and herman cain gets testy, shall we say, with reporters after being questioned about past sexual harassment allegations. stay with us. you're in "the situation room." there goes dwayne's car. oh, man. there goes dwayne's house. whoa! whoa! and there goes dwayne. man, that thing does not like dwayne. [ male announcer ] state farm's got you covered. nice landing. it was. [ male announcer ] get to a better state. ♪ [ male announcer ] what is the future of fuel? the debate is over. ♪ lexus hybrid drive technology is designed to optimize any fuel source on the planet. even those we don't use yet. because when you pursue perfection, you don't just engineer a future-proof hybrid system. you engineer amazing. ♪ you engineer amazing. sun life financialrating should be famous.d bad, we're working on it. so you're seriously proposing we change our name to sun life valley. do we still get to go skiing? sooner or later, you'll know our name. sun life financial. a magazine with a controversial cover is targeted in an apparent attack. lisa sylvester is monitoring that. what's going on? >> today, a fire ripped through the paris offices of the french satirical magazine just as it was publishing an issue appearing to make fun of islamic law. the cover features a cartoon figure of the profit mohamed with the quote, 100 lashes if you're not dying of laughter. a director says the fire was caused by a molotov cocktail, but that has not been confirmed. a soldier had been accused of spying. he was arrested on friday following a joint fbi military investigati investigation. the fbi hasn't revealed specifics about the case, only saying he was under observation and any link was stopped. he'll face charges in a military court this week and in washington, it's surprising social event. joe biden and his wife are hosting house majority leader eric cantor and his wife, diana, for dinner at the vice president's official residence tonight. biden and cantor, they butted heads during the talks in june, but staffers are saying despite their differences, the two have developed a strong friendship over the past year and tonight, they will be breaking bread together. >> i noticed that the vice president asked john biden to, excuse me, john mccain, vice president biden asked john mccain to go with him on air force 2 to pay respects to the saudis the other day when the crown prince passed away, so making up nicely with cantor. a