unsupervised kids tonight, we will continue the debate. caution, you are about to enter the no spin zone. the factor begins right now. hi, i m bill o reilly. thanks for watching tonight. as we present a very special talking points edition of the factor. we begin with the american left. and capitalism. with president obama s job approval numbers falling, and the democratic party having trouble in an election year, you would think that committed liberalns americans would low key it a bit, you would think. but, no, they are upping the rhetoric, especially the anti-capitalism stuff. hillary clinton is widely seen to be the democratic nominee in 2016 for president. she portrays herself as a moderate. that s not good enough for on the far left.llar does hillary clinton sound to you like the right person for this moment? in a time when corporations have hijacked our politics, enabling them to reap all the profit without any compunction to do right by their workers. as someonee who sat on the anti-rabid board of wal-mart for six years, the rightto person to restore workers rights in a time when we re still reeling from a global financial disaster brought on by full hearty bank deregulation is someone who who recently took $400,000 to give two speeches at goldmanhe sachs the person we need tost rest control of the asylum back from the banking inmates? now that anti-capitalistic commentary is the far left signature issue. talking points believes there must bemu oversight on banks andd big business to to do the right thing is foolish and naive. if you don t believe me read a little teddy roosevelt. many on the left want to t dismantle the entire corporate system. and we are seeing the se consequences of that in thences obama administration. now, entering his sixth yearar in office, the president hasent not been a friend tote corporate america. he advocates high taxes topa pay for an entitlement culture. business knows that and has not expanded, preferring to hoard profits or keep themse overseas where theyas cannot be taxed. that s why the job situation and income for working americans is stagnant.good for every good job available, there are plenty of applicants, therefore, salaries are suppressed. the government can provide well-paying jobs on a mass scale. it cannot. and every country that has tried that has failed. 90 miles off the coast of florida look what happen in cuba. that should be affluent country but communism has killed the country. hillary clinton must fight zealot tri on the left. she will defeat it she will get the nomination and mrs. clinton will run as a moderate democrat promising to reform some of president obama s ante business policies. that s what she will do. and that s the memo. now for the top story tonight, reaction, joining us from washington, ellen who worked for president obama s 2012 campaign. and with us in the studio dr. screeny. who teaches political science. where am i going wrong, doctor? i think you are on to something here. i think in my mind this speaks to enormous division and increasing division in the democratic party. so you look and you see the attacks this hillary is getting from the left and not a surprise but i think many people predict that wall street for 2016 will be her achilles hill heel in the same way the iraq war was in 2008. something she will have a fight. if she becomes nominee and elected many on this kind of new left progressive left fear that she is going to be too close it wall street and continue her husband s moderate policy. that s a given. i don t think hillary clinton although they made a big show of being with de blasio who is about as far as left as you get and they were all raw raw and the mayor of new york wants to confiscate everything, i m not quite sure how much. but i have got my bike chained six times. so i bet you have a nice bike too. dr. there is a division in the democratic party like the republican party like the paper people and moderate republicans. growing division between the so-called progressive ring and moderate ring, do you see it that way? i don t see that division historically as you guys see it i see a rhetorical concern, i think about whether hillary clinton is talking to the right people, hearing the right ideas. what are the right ideas? tell me what s right and what s wrong? look, obviously the far left has articulated by ms. ball, the commentator that we use to set it up. believes that hillary clinton is a tool, a shrill, taking money from goldman sachs, 200,000 for two speeches. that s more than i get. that s outrageous. okay? and so they don t want her. they want elizabeth warren. they want this socialist up in massachusetts. that s who they want. maybe what they want is to have elizabeth warren s voice represented in hillary clinton s campaign. i think there is a great unanimity among democrats that hillary clinton would be a great candidate and we would love to have her. i think the concern about whether she is talking to bankers or not is not really real because i don t think that there is any ms. ball said we don t want her. i don t want her. flat out said it and you do you believe as ms. quawl does, is there a division? is it getting to be a brawl type thing or is it oh we just disagree? i think it s a division now. my feeling and my sense is it is going to grow because historically that s what happens with political parties in the united states. parties become begin and become divided. i think we are seeing that and i think bill de blasio s election here in new york city who is now the leading progressive in the country and somebody who we know has been close to the clintons but there is this kind of growing sense that. yeah, but she can t run on de blasio nationwide. and let me tell you this ms. qualls. hillary clinton has got to pull back from president obama. because he got a 19% decline in median income for working americans under obama administration. do you have a big burgeoning stock market that only gets fat cats like me. it doesn t benefit the worker people, union people. and you have this unbelievable unemployment problem because the private industry is saying you know, we are north going to expand. we don t like obama care. we don t like the high corporate tax. we are going it keep all our money in luxenburg, we are not going to bring it back. hillary clinton is going to have to walk back all of that stuff. you know that. well, bill, you, me, and hillary clinton probably all agree that the minimum wage should be increased. i do. but that s small ball. the big thing is jobs that pay well. but we all agree that wall street needed some reforms after the giant meltdown. i haven t geraldo hillary clinton say there is anything that shield roll back in wall street reform. i think it s rhetorical thing. it s a shot across the bough from the left. i don t think it s a real concern. i mean, it is an unsustainable argument that hillary clinton hasn t worked her entire public life to create more opportunity and access to opportunity. i appreciate you ladies coming on. it s a very interesting and important topic. here is what is sustainable. hillarycan t run on the obama economy unless there is a miracle in the last three years. she is not going to repudiate it because there are elements that she agrees with. we will see her walk a moderate line. positive signs from the obama economy you have got to commit. deficit is down, unemployment is down. there are positive signs. i agree with you not all is perfect. you have seen the polls, doctor, lately? have you seen the economic pulls? i have seen the pick polls. you and your little progressive friends may think there is positives but, don t have much time on but, don t have much time on obamacare: next on are my name is jenny, and i quit smoking with chantix. but, don t have much time on obamacare: next on are before chantix, i tried to quit. probably about five times. it was different than the other times i tried to quit. along with support, chantix (varenicline) is proven to help people quit smoking. it s a non-nicotine pill. chantix reduced my urge to smoke. that helped me quit smoking. some people had changes in behavior, thinking or mood, hostility, agitation, depressed mood and suicidal thoughts or actions while taking or after stopping chantix. if you notice any of these, stop chantix and call your doctor right away. tell your doctor about any history of mental health problems, which could get worse while taking chantix. don t take chantix if you ve had a serious allergic or skin reaction to it. if you develop these, stop chantix and see your doctor right away as some can be life-threatening. tell your doctor if you have a history of heart or blood vessel problems, or if you develop new or worse symptoms. get medical help right away if you have symptoms of a heart attack or stroke. use caution when driving or operating machinery. common side effects include nausea, trouble sleeping and unusual dreams. my quit date was my son s birthday. and that was my gift for him and me. ask your doctor if chantix is right for you. (woman) this place has got really good chocolate shakes. (growls) (man) that s a good look for you. (woman) that was fun. (man) yeah. (man) let me help you out with the.. (woman).oh no, i got it. (man) you sure? (woman) just pop the trunk. (man vo) i may not know where the road will lead, but. i m sure my subaru will get me there. (announcer) love. it s what makes a subaru, a subaru. honestly, the off-season isn t i ve got a lot to do. that s why i got my surface. it s great for watching game film and drawing up plays. it s got onenote, so i can stay on top of my to-do list, which has been absolutely absurd since the big game. with skype, it s just really easy to stay in touch with the kids i work with. alright, russell you are good to go! alright, fellas. alright, russ. back to work! captain: and here s a tip. bellman: thanks, captain obvious. when you save money on hotel rooms, it s just like saving money on anything else that costs money. like shoes, textiles, foreign investments, spatulas, bounty hunters, javelins. a crusade. there cosmtion comes a time when people with values simply have to stand up. think nazi, germany. most of those people did not believe in what hitler was doing. yep. exactly. but did they speak up? nope. did they stand up for what they believed? they did not. and you saw what happened. and if you believe that the same thing can t happen again, you are very wrong. and joining us now from virginia beach is dr. carson. if you mention nazis you know you are going to get hammered. what you said there at the end there intrigued me a bit. you said if you believe it can t happen again see i didn t believe that naziism could happen in the u.s.a. i don t think it could happen nor could communism happen here. do you disagree with me? well, i believe that what can happen is if people do not speak up for what they believe, they can be trampled. their rights can be trampled to various and sundry degrees. now, of course, the objective of many on the left is to take a single word that you are not supposed to say. you can t say nazis and slavery, that s political correctness as you well know. i do not believe in that. i think it s a bunch of crap and it doesn t really belong in the american system where we have freedom of speech and freedom of expression. you don t regr using the buzz word nazi. what you pointed to historically is correct. what you said is absolutely correct the germans were not members of the nazi party. they sat on their butts and they allowed the fanatics to take over that could not happen here because of our system in checks and balances. but, i think what you are worried about it is the obama administration s policies in general taking root. is that what you are worried about? there are a couple of things that i m worried about. i m worried about the fact that the pop police is being silent and is not expressing what they believe because they are afraid. they have been intimidated. by whom? by the government. how? by the government and by the media, by the p.c. police. you say something, all of a sudden like this is a perfect example. you know, you are using an example of how people would not speak up. they try to turn the argument away from that because they know it s true. they know what i m saying is true. but, rather than talk about that, they want to divert the issue to something else. you couple that with the fact that our congress needs to be a little more courageous because the reason we have a divided government is if one branch of the government gets a little bit over exuberant they need to reign them. in we need courage there to do that. politicians encourage, we are not seeing you know but, look, the last time well, maybe not the last time in the fall you said, look, you you were bothered by the irs to an extent that you felt they were trying to intimidate you; is that correct? yeah. i don t think it is cointhe government agency that you can point to in your life, dr. carson s life that you believe was put upon you to shut you up. and it s not just me. we we now have a government that is trying to take over the healthcare of the pop pop pop pop pop why would you put the irs over something so massive. they are the enforcement agency of fines. they because it was ruled a tax by the supreme court foolishly, so somebody has to enforce the taxation element and that s the irs. so, on paper, it makes sense. but you heard the president of the united states tell me, your humble correspondent there is not a smidgen of corruption in the irs. you heard that. right. we heard that and that, to me, is it strains credulity that he actually believes that but that we let people get away with it this is what bothers me. the fact that the congress doesn t stand up and say no, you may not implement this program because the a major portion of it is still under investigation. and we are not done with that. we don t do that in regular life. we don t take somebody who is under suspicion and put them in charge of something major like that. we have to just start doing things that are logical and that make sense again. all right, helping young americans at risk is a powerful talking points you do not want to miss. later, the action from obama s senior advisor valerie jarrett. it requires accountability and people to step up to the plate and work hard and stay in school and excel and dream. but it also requires a community around them to provide a safety net. ck pain. .and a choice. take 4 advil in a day which is 2 aleve. .for all day relief. start your engines fueling the american spirit. can you hear it? 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[ male announcer ] celebrate every win with nicoderm cq, the unique patch with time release smartcontrol technology that helps prevent the urge to smoke all day long. help prevent your cravings with nicoderm cq. that helps prevent the urge to smoke all day long. trwith secure wifie for your business. it also comes with public wifi for your customers. not so with internet from the phone company. i would email the phone company to inquire as to why they have shortchanged these customers. but that would require wifi. switch to comcast business internet and get two wifi networks included. comcast business built for business. now, i was invited to the announcement and i was happy to attend. the initiative is very well intentioned. but some specific things must be done. first, you got to teach children at risk to read. if that takes one-on-one tutoring that s what has to happen. two, you have to provide mentors to individual children that the teachers pinpoint who lack guidance at home. there should be a volunteer program for mentors in every city and town in this country. three. high profile americans including the president and first lady must go on television and the net to warn, to warn young people having babies outside of marriage and bringing children into this world without resources is cruel. it s cruel has to be a campaign, a persuasion so young americans wise up. also, there has to be peer pressure not to get pregnant unless you are in a stable situation. are we all understanding that? right now there is no peer pressure. that has to change. fourth, the initiative has to get local business people to hire kids for summer jobs and internships. children must know about the work place and what is expected there. and, finally, the american law enforcement has to engage children at risk to convince them they are not the enemy. if those five things are part of the my brother s keeper initiative, i can guarantee you america will begin to turn the terrible situation around. but, if people continue not to make judgments about bad parents, disorderly children, chaos in the family unit, we continue to make excuses for all that, problem is only going to get worse. hopefully today the white house made the first step and i believe that american business, law enforcement and we, the people, will step up to help the kids at risk.ea i really believe that andth that s the memo. top story tonight. reaction. senior advisor valerie jarrett. i was pleased you invited me to this.s. people were fainting when i walked in. we were delighted to have you. look, the president mentioned in his remarks a culture of cynicism on the a streets. nicism on the streets. not just blacks but it s the poor and the hard core, what they call gangstas. you know what i m talking about, right? there is a culture of cynicism like we can t make it. we re not going to be art pa of this. we re going to sell drugs and we are going to do what you we want. have you got to get in the afte. we all have a role we play here. this is not a big government program. the government s role is minor. it requires accountability. it requires people to step up to the plate. and work hard. and stay in school. and excel and dream. but it also requires a community around them to provide a safety net. the president talks about his own childhood he wasn t sitting in school. he was very some guidance. he had a lot of guidance. what he says he wants for all of our children is to have that safety net. but he also told them, look, boys, you aring if to have to work hard and you are going to have to act responsibly. have to attack the fundamental disease if you want to cure it now, i submit to you that you are going to have to get people like jay-z, all right, kanye west, all of these gangsta rappers to knock it off. that s number one. i think what these boys need is positive role models as you said. listen to me, listen to you c johnson there today he is a good guy. you have a bunch of these guys and a barrage, barrage, barrage and make it uncomfortable to have a baby out of wedlock. make it uncomfortable to sell drugs. you have got to reverse move, exercise. i want michelle obama to come on this program, right here and i want michelle obama look into the cam randstop say you teenage girls you stop having sex, you stop getting pregnant. this is wrong. i want her to do this right here. it s better iff she isassr actually sitting down in the classroom with the girls, inviting them to the white house. sharing her. that only reaches a few though. i believe that anything doe she does gets covered by the press. can i give you a compliment? would.sh you i believe that mymy brother s keeper program is going to work, okay.ok i think it s going to work. but it will work a lot faster and you will save a lot more lives if you incorporate what i m telling you tonight. you do you know, bill, what i really like is the fact that you are passionate about. this i care. i m a were fer teacher. i had them in my class 40 years ago. the situation has justhil gotten worse. it has. that s why we have to change the trajectory. wee appreciate you coming in tonight. it s a pleasure to beoni here. really? i m having fun. there you go. i am. white house correspondent ed henry will weigh in on the the my brother s keeper program. well, put on a breathe right strip and instantly open your nose up to 38% more than allergy medicines alone. so you can breathe and sleep. shut your mouth and sleep right. breathe right. at od, whatever business you re in, that s the business we re in. with premium service like one of the best on-time delivery records and a low claims ratio, we do whatever it takes to make your business our business. od. helping the world keep promises. upgrafor the most advanced norelshaving experience.00 with gyroflex 3d technology, you can get to those hard to reach places for the ultimate shave wet or dry. guaranteed. visit philips.com/fathersday now to save $50. enroute back to the vatican after a trip to the holy land. before departing today the pontiff honored holocaust victims by kissing the hands of several survivors. the ukraine s president elect wants to talks with moscow and end a pro-rugs insurgency in the eastern part of the country. porchenko promising to open a dialogue. he also said he would not negotiate with terrorists, rebels are calling his election illegitimate. i m kelly wright, now back it to a special o reilly factor. big things. number one, did anything stand out for you? what stood out for me is that the seeds of today were started a year ago this month in chicago is at an event with the president where he was highlighting a program called becoming a man which is sort of an after school sports program in chicago. the president was visibly moved there after meeting with some of the young people who are part of that program. some of those folks were back here today from chicago at the white house. and what stuck out for me then and now was that the president wasn t just sitting there saying i m going it help people and set an example by talking about how great i am. he talked about his failures and whether you are an anchorman or president talking to kids like this. the president opening up about how he basically didn t know his father. that he used drugs. saying things you don t hear a president say could be more effective with these kids by saying look that doesn t mean you are dead end. you could wind up becoming president and becoming anchormen. those messages are all positive. the i chided him in the super bowl sunday interview. i remember. i said come on, when are you going to get off it and start do something big. got into the door today. what i m trying to get across to the nation to valerie jarrett has got to be more personal than that the president can visit kids did at the white house. you can t visit with all kids. you can go on the television and the net and look into the cameraened a say don t g to hurt you. it s not fair to the baby. that s that s what has to be done. got to get pinhead rappers and get these people idolized to start to get that message out that was not included in the initiative broader economic issues not just about this issue inive. make sure the broader economic policies helping people not just of color but helping people all around the country if you look at it just african-american youth unemployment right now is something like 26% in this country. the president has been in office for five years. you can talk about these initiatives. they may make a difference. but the broader economic policies that the president is pushing, that he is fighting it out with the republicans on the hill, those have a huge impact as well. when you have got 26% african-american youth unemployment, i think it s about 15% for hispanic youth unemployment, obviously broader unemployment is bad for people, white, asian, black, you name it but when you look at those kind of numbers there are a lot of policies that need to be put in place. the reason the numbers are there a lot of these kids can t read and speak. that s why we have to get back down to hey, if by the 3rd grade you can t read, it s one-on-one. have you got to teach them to next up, is hip hop harmful to america s youth? 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[ male announcer ] if you can t afford your mication, astrazeneca may be able to help. thanks for watching us i m boiferl, thank you for watching us tonight. harmful entertainment. that is the subject of this east coast s talking points memo. if you saw the factor last night you know that president obama has launched a huge initiative target rother . it s a good initiative as we discussed with the president s senior advisor valerie jarrett. if you missed the interview ing the entertainment factor. these are effecting unsupervised children of all colors. makes billions putting out stuff like this. i fought so hard [bleep] now, if you can t see that unsupervised children might be harmed by that kind of stuff, then you are not responsible person. period. in order to help children at risk, the american society has got to convince them to stop destructive behavior. like using drugs. committing violence, getting enablers to showof apologists d themselves. the fact that this per pettation of young black men, whether you are famous or not famous whether you are a thug or a gangster because, what, because you listen to rap music, rap music is the reflection of our society. o reilly is uncomfortable with this culture. that s understandable. he did not come from this culture. that culture has some validities, if you will. sure. validities. the overall effect of base entertainment is corruption of impressionable children but will never ever get the far left and many in the entertainment industry to admit that the uber left will not make judgments. the industry simply wants to make money. i enormous. the my brother s keeper initiative is a very positive thing for this country. but unless it is coupled with a change in the entertainment culture, it will not reach nearly as many children as it should. and that s the memo. now for the top story underminig black america and what we can do about it here in the studio kevin powell, president of the b.k. nation. b.s. nation standing for building knowledge. where have i gone wrong. i think the issue is not that i myself hip hop culture for 30 years has said some of the things that you are s what you just saw. for adults, as i say, i don t care. i mean, you are an adult, you want this, that s fine with me. i have no problem. but 12 and it s corrupt. i mean, this is a culture of failure. it is dogging black america. i think you are right to call it out. but you know what happens is the critics as you say come out and they say oh, if yo are g talking about black women as hos and bitches. horrible. bad schools, all the environmental barriers to their success and attitude. how do you respond to that? but nothing about building a family. you know, the problem with people like mr. williams is that not only does he not know anything about hip hop culture and its history. oh, stop. actually you don t. because i have never seen you involved with anything to do with hip hop. wait, let him talk. the same thing you are saying now in 2014 mr. williams was said about hip hop when it was balanced in culture in the 198 os and 90s. we saw a diversity of voices same people attacking hip hop. even if you took hip hop out of the equation, poor schools, lack of economic opportunities still be out there. this morning i started my day in brownsville brooklyn. i have a firm in look britain one of the poorest communities in america. these kids are dealing with systemic problem. this initiative is designed to at least bring yesterday said there was a culture of cynicism in these precincts that young men who get into trouble, generally speaking. i think this applies to girls too. they don t want that s not whm saying. what i m saying. even if you listen to hip hop and its totality from the very beginning to the president. is actually as american as apple pie. they are talking about everything else we see in america. talking about it in a way that alienates the system. you can t get a job if you walk in to ibm and use that kind of a presentation. you can t. but what i m say talking, sir, with all due respect first of all we who are having this hip hop culture and the industry that you referenced at the top of the show. we agree about the problems with the industry. it s the ceos who put out this. i m putting the rap yawn is putting the rap on jay-z beyonce and so on. why are you accusing the rap people. basically they used to do ministerial shows with they have black people standing up and doing a minstrel show. the big market for this is white people. it s a white male teen fantasy, they get to use the n word and v. all the sexual references and nasty words. violence. and you asked me to let you finish. give the last words. let me tell you i grew up in brooklyn i come up from crown heights. i grew up in that situation. i have got to tell you when you are saying to young people you can t succeed in the system which is what the president and bill o reilly just said, that is corrupt. that is corrosive to the way (woman) this place has got really good chocolate shakes. (growls) (m) that s a good look for you. (woman) that was fun. (man) yeah. (man) let me help you out with the.. (woman).oh no, i got it. (man) you sure? (woman) just pop the trunk. (man vo) i may not know where the road will lead, but. i m sure my subaru will get me there. (announcer) love. it s what makes a subaru, a subaru. and the award goes to ceramics house. congratulations. thank you. the success of your small business depends on results. go vests! all organic, and there s tons of info on our website. that s why you rely on the best for your business. and verizon delivers the best devices on the best network. you re all big toes to me. so go ahead, stream and download with confidence on america s largest, most reliable 4glte network. activate any 4glte smartphone and get $100 off. for best results, use verizon. that corporate trial by fire when every slacker gets his due. and yet, there s someone around the office who hasn t had a performance review in a while. someone whose poor performance is slowing down the entire organization. i m looking at you phone company dsl. check your speed. see how fast your internet can be. switch now and add voice and tv for $34.90. comcast business built for business. what happened while i was away? that is the subject of this evening s talking points memo. well the benghazi situation is fairly clear, it s now apparent the obama administration tried to mislead americans about what happened to ambassador christopher stephens and three other men killed by terrorists in libya. even though a congressional committee is being formed, we pretty much know what happened. what we don t know is if president obama was directly involved. and that will be tough to nail down. what we do know is ambassador stevens traveled to the backwater of benghazi despite the fact it was a dangerous place. organized terrorists knew the ambassador s location causing damage but no one would give the order for the u.s. military to move into libya. no one. thus four americans killed and subsequently, no terrorist have been held accountable. some say fault lies with hillary clinton, then secretary of state. she was running the world and didn t have her attention on libya, why should she? mrs. clinton had her hands full. to blame her for the attack in libya, not fair. yes, security was bad and the state department was warned. but those things are usually handled by others, not the secretary of state. however, after the attack, now hillary clinton should have stepped up and explained the situation. instead, she herself referred to an anti muslim video as insighting the violence. she went along with what the ocbama administration was puttig out there. that was wrong and that s on her. the key question right now is did president obama himself actually come up with the false narrative? no committee will get that defined unless a guy like john dean steps up. his testimony took the president down. so the congressional committee will uncover some facts but unless a white house insider comes forward, the president will not likely be effected. there is a second scandal surrounding benghazi, some in congress don t want to know the truth, just like vice president gerald ford during watergate. they are in denial. the president was in the process of negotiating with the soviet union. the president was trying to handle the war in vietnam. i m sure he turned to those running the reelection campaign and said i have these major matters that involve the national security and well being of the american people and you run the campaign, and therefore i m convinced he had nothing whatsoever to do with watergate. it is erie the same kind of stuff being said today about benghazi. diversion benghazi, benghazi, why aren t we talking about something else? we ve already had thousands and thousands of pages of testimony, four committees in the house, two bipartisan committees in the senate. this is a waste of taxpayer money. again, supporters of the president simply want to know. now, as far as the irs scandal is concerned, the one woman who can break the case has been held in contempt of congress, as you know. if a federal grand jury is convened, ms. learner could be charged with a crime. that is the only way, the only way she might tell the world what happened, if she can make some kind of deal. just one man will make that decision, the u.s. attorney for the district of colombia. it s up to him alone to call for a grand jury. he works for eric holder and appointed by president obama. so talking points does not expect ms. learner to face a criminal proceeding. did the white house actually order the irs to target conservative groups? the president denied it to me on super bowl sunday. we re not likely to get to the bottom of this because the system is flawed. you cannot make learner talk for political reasons and it s the law. a muslim terrorist group kidnapped 300 girls 16 to 18 year ols old. the problem is not getting any better. there are scores of islamic groups terrorizing civilians all over the world, yet, what are the muslim nations doing? very little. there should be a summit organizing against them and if you speak out, you re a bigot, a terrible person. most muslims are good people but a substantial minority cause trouble, syria, iran, openly kill civilians with little repercussion and another problem that seems to have no solution. kidnapping little girls? i mean, that s enough. brit hue may disagree with me about hillary clinton and benghazi. he will be here. our fiber. try phillips fiber good gummies. our fiber. they re delicious, and an excellent source of fiber to help support regularity. wife: mmmm husband: these are good! marge: the tasty side of fiber. from phillips. nineteen years ago, we thought, wow, how is there no way to tell the good from the bad? so we gave people the power of the review. and now angie s list is revolutionizing local service again. you can easily buy and schedule services from top-rated providers. conveniently stay up to date on progress. and effortlessly turn your photos into finished projects with our snapfix app. visit angieslist.com today. whon a certified pre-ownedan unlimitedmercedes-benz?nty what does it mean to drive as far as you want. for up to three years and be covered? 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personally you know her? yes, i ve known her for years. i didn t know her that well. i did one interview, spent a little bit of time. you correct me if i m wrong because you ve known her for years. she s not a micro manager kind of person. she s the front person. all right? that got sent all over the world, constantly on the go, doing, i don t know what she was doing half the time. couldn t really figure it out. i can t imagine hillary clinton sit there and saying gee, what is going on in benghazi today. bill, we do know what that mission was there and what the ambassador was doing. we ll have a better idea it seems almost impossible that hillary clinton would be paying attention to benghazi no matter how many warnings the state department got, they don t go to her, they go to other people. i just can t see it. is it wrong, remember watergate, the third rate burglary. that was the first. it was almost like the democrats today. it was almost like nancy pelosi, all most the same. third rate burglary. all right? doesn t matter, these guys, the plumbers broke into the watergate to try to find stuff about the democratic campaign. that s what we heard. we heard it and heard it and heard it. that s exactly what we re hearing. this isn t a big deal. isn t it erie? it s almost exactly the same. it s the same in both cases we had a coverup. bill, before we make watergate comparisons, it s worth remembering that nearly 70 people were accused in the end of crimes in watergate and i think 48 or so were convicted. so we re a long way from talking about that. we re not a long way from how the politicians are reacting. we re right there, and when you re talking about a watergate break in for political intelligence, which it was, as opposed to an american ambassador being murdered, which story is more important? there is so much we know and can t say. watergate turned out to be a crime wave and until we see something that indicates something on that scale, i just think that watergate comparisons are best left on the shelf. i disagree respectfully.
to the russians. we no angela merkel has some concerns about that, because the trade flows between germany and russia both ways are huge, but so far, wolf. that test hasn t been put to the countries. they re still talking with one voight. maybe it s only that that s brought putin back from the brink. even so, i would put it this way. 200 points on the dow, it s scotch miss. it could disappear tomorrow if things turn nasty again. certainly could. this is a real volatile situation. richard quest, thanks very much. remember, you can always follow us on twitter. tweet me @warm frontblitzer. tweet the show @sitroom. let any step in with van jones and s.e. cupp. president obama s work is paying off he says have laid mer putin has hit the pause button. which means as much as when russia hit the reset button. the debate starts right now. tonight on crossfire , until pressure from president obama, is vladimir putin backing down? there have been some reports that president putin is pausing for a moment. is he proving his republican critics wrong? on the left, van jones. on the right s.e. cupp. in the crossfire, howard dean, former presidential candidate, and paul wolfowitz, a former deputy defense secretary. is the obama doctrine working? are some republicans undermining the president abroad? tonight on crossfire. welcome to crossfire. we re continuing cnn s breaking news coverage of the crisis in ukraine. i m s.e. cupp on the right. we have a former presidential candidate and former pentagon official. today we saw big hits that the tough diplomacy with russia might work. kerry delivered a billion dollar package to kiev. behind the scenes, the obama administration has put together a crippling set of proposed economic sanctions. while the president is busy doing his job, his republican critics keep trying to undermine him. freshman senator and self-appointed foreign policy expert ted cruz writing under the headline language of fools have laid mer putin running rampant shows how the obama administration s abdication of global leadership is making the world a more dangerous place. thank you very much for that help in a crisis, ted cruz. ted cruz is taking cheap shots. meanwhile, his republican friends are actually trying to raise money on this crisis. instead of actually trying to solve it. i just think that s terrible, s.e. let s moveon.org. here on kroich kroich, former governor howard dean and former deputy defense secretary paul wolfowitz. clearly, clearly president obama has underestimated vladimir putin. russia is stalling on syria, undermining our negotiations in iran, and now russia is invading ukraine. i m not suggesting that obama has made putin a bad actor. russia has been a bad actor for quite some time, but can t you agree that putin has been emboldened by our weakness in that region? no, i don t agree with that. first of all, i think it is true that putin has not kept his word on syria. i think what putin s actions are against international law. i think the president is doing the right thing. he s ratcheting up the heat, slowly enough that putin has a chance to back off. one problem with putin is not only he s broken the law, but he now has to back down an save face at the same time. he needs the opportunity to do that. the president needs to titan the vise, and not making it to some of the rhetoric is great, especially with what secretary kerry has said, the fact that he s taken the ukrainian foreign minister with him is a good thing. you can talk about tightening gradually, but there s i think we re long past the point where some firm action should be taken. let me be clear, the firm action is to begin to scare the 100 or 200 richest people in russia who are the prop of putin s regime and have the money illegitimately. that s the money at risk. that needs to be done and done quickly. the brits, usually or stronger allies are putting the can i bosch. david cameron in a leaked piece of paper, said it was leaked today, said yesterday, that he wasn t interested in any kind of thing that might take russian money out of the city of london. talk about a message of weakness. putin is the problem here, not ted cruz. i have criticism of obama s behavior up to this point. i would say, for example, on this example, you know, putin looks at the red line in syria, the chemical weapons thing. he doesn t but the way to make him take it seriously is to do something now. if cameron doesn t like it, tell the british people that enabling london s theft of money. i didn t say weakness. i said rhetoric and reality. duly corrected. isn t the reality that they face the same situation when putin ran into georgia, and they did nothing? two wrongs don t make a right where i come from. we should say something about american values and interests at stake here. and it is taking place in a very unstable where every country has large minority interested in it. what would you have done difficultly this week, what would you have told him to do? i would go bad further. i would say don t talk reset with a man who s declared his goal in life is to restore the soviet union. i would not have whispered i ll have more flexibility after the election. fair enough. what would you have done this week difficultly? you start with evaluating him realistically. what do you think he thinks of our study? i really have no use for the russians at all. i haven t for a long time. i like the russians. i don t like putin. the history of russia since the revolution has not been a pretty one in terms of their can i correct you on that for a minute? yeah. in 1994, a different russian president, boris yeltsin agreed with ukrainian independence. the ukrainance in return gave up their nuclear weapons and allowed the russians to have this base in crimea. putin is not a typical russian. he s a typical kgb cold war the point i m trying to make is i do want to say that if i m behind the scenes, i want to screen the russians carefully and slowly. i think the ukrainance have handled this incredibly well. they just kicked out an incredibly corrupt president who really had no stanton anymore. they have an unstable government, because they re trying to put this together. for them not to fire a shot was very, very smart. they would have ended up where the georgians did. this is tough stuff. i don t have to tell you that. you ve been in the seat. it s not a matter of saying we have to support the president. it s a matter of saying we need to give this president time to get to the result he needs to get to. i think running going too fast and too hard is probably a mistake. do you agree with the ambassador we should cancel our appearance at the g-8? eventually yes, but let s work up to that carefully. i assume somebody is telling vladimir putin, this is what you can expect in the next few days. if you don t do something to i don t think have laid march pew people tell putin there s always a back channel, always a way that somebody is talking to somebody in the kremlin. i presume they re saying this is what is really going to happen. let me bring up recent poll numbers on president obama. he came into office in 2009 and said he wanted to restore image around the role, but this poll asked if americans think the president is respected abroad. in the five years he s been in office, it s dropped 26 percentage points president isn t that an indictment of the foreign policy? i think that s hard to say. almost every president, including his predecessor is at their nater of this time in the second term. if you think the president kicks his dog, he might get better numbers. don t you think the president has made some very serious foreign policy mistakes. we don t need to color the entire administration, but you would add miss his s made some mistake. i this was that was a mistake. putin bailed him out. a farce cal but that s on putin. we need to hold him accountable for that red line. i think we need to do that. let me ask you a question. even looking at russia. if you look at what obama has been able to do, first of all, he didn t what he said was we re going to do three pragmatic things air rights over russia. he got that done. he said he was going to get russian table on iran. he actually has gone some things done here with regard to russia, and now the eu really is the one that how system obama s fault at this stage? look, you talked about what american public opinion, judging what foreigners think about the united states. i care about one foreign are at this moment and it s vladimir putin. he kind of gave his opinion, maybe is changing his mind, but the last statement is a warning that he will do it elsewhere in ukraine. i think we re talking about how to manage risk here. no one wants this thing to blow up into a military confrontation, but peeten seems to think he can keep pushing and pushing. we re going to find out. in the next few days. he s going to stay where he is or advance into eastern ukraine. if he does that, i think you ll see some major stuff going on. we blamed obama and bush, but there s one person who also bearing blame here. i ll ask howard dean about her, next. 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this is ridiculous conversation, s.e. it really isn t. this is going to haunt her for the next two years. these are talking points. it s beneath your show to put out partisan talk you don t think she s responsible for setting the tone of naivete with a clearly bad actor? first of all, it was joe biden s idea, and second of all the president s idea and that was before hillary clinton was even asked to be secretary of state, first of all. second of all, it is irresponsible not to talk to a major glob power and try to work stuff out with them. as van earlier said, what about the disarmament agreement, which is still successful, which the president had to get through, thanks to people like dick lugar, we prevailed. this is ridiculous washington talk. i hope you re right, i have a feeling this might come back to haunt her. i m sure it will, and people won t give a damn. people give a damn. this is a this is the ted cruz talk of the this is also s.e. cupp. people are talking about it. you don t want to be in the same seat with ted cruz. i don t mind. as we get to you, actually talk does matter and some of the talk from the republicans has been incredibly irresponsible. i want you to see this tweet from one of the great republican leaders, lindsey graham. he said it started with benghazi. when you kill americans and nobody pays a price, you invite this type of aggressio aggression, #ukraine. here is lindsey graham, a foreign policy guru sending out mean tweets, blaming the president for this. don t you think that s irresponsible? lindsey graham has to speak for himself. i think it is a risky world when people begin to think forget benghazi. people look at syria, and they see the president of the united states says assad must go. he says chemical weapons mustn t be used. now they have agreed chemical weapons are used and we do nothing. frankly he was fighting the act, which have labeled some of the cleptocrats didn t. don t you think this type of stuff it s not like anything the democrats ever did. i know! where is this i ve got one more indignant thing which i think is even worse, and this is from the head of the republican senate campaign saying president obama s leadership on the world stage has been marked by weakness, indecent and incompetent. say you re committed to restoring real american leadership by contributing today. they are actually raising money in the middle of a crisis. are you really sure that democrats have not done just that a million times? that feels an hypocrite cal. do you think this type of stuff is appropriate? i m not here to condone or approve. that s not the way i talk and it s not the way i like people talking about us in the administration, but believe me, the democrats in my experience do it three or four times more than republicans. so, you know, it s the pot calling the kettle black. maybe so. but honestly it s not the biggest issue of the time, by the way. putin is not judging his behavely what ted cruz or lindsey graham says. he s judges behave by what he thinks president obama is going to do. so far he hasn t seen much. i have not seen the republicans support the president on anything. name one thing that the republicans have supported him on. we did support your administration when it came to immigration and health care reform. we did try to stand with you on the wars. unfortunately the republicans have not stood with the president on anything. the republicans have supported the president in afghanistan. i don t know i think better than democrats. the republicans supported the president on his asia policy, particularly his breakthrough in burma, which was a genuine success. and democrats did not support the president on his syria policy. they didn t vote for it, either. i know a lot of democrats who are privately unhappy, as maybe howard is privately, at what looks like, sorry to say it, weakness in the face of a villain out tie rant. just today, it s still teetering on the brink of disaster. take a look at this encounter. i mean, that s intense stuff. today the russians moved forward with a preplanned intercontinental ballistic missile test which would been scheduled. i don t know that he had to do it today, but he decided to. isn t putin showing he s ready to go? we have to find that out. look, we re not going to commit troops to this. of course not. of course not. so that leaves one other possibility. that s some sort of diplomacy coupled with sanctions, which i hope is where the president is going. again, i revert to what i said earlier. first of all, we don t know what s going on behind the scenes, but i m sure something is, because it always does. secondly, what the president should be doing, and i suspect he is, is tightening plenty i have advance notice. i think he s trying to avoid any rhetoric that he doesn t have to get into. he needs to get putin to stand down and putin to save face needs to show he s doing it. so far, there hasn t been a shot aimed at another soldier on the other side. once that happens, it s almost impossible to put that the genie back in the bottle. are you confident we can talk putin down? not at all. i think putin has to see something tough in his face. we re consumed with who in the united states is to blame for all this. the man to blame is vladimir putin. the tragedy and we should emphasize this more than we do is that you know, boris yeltsin was comfortable ukrainian independence. things were going well till this thief became the tie rapt of russia. taking russia back into the 20th century. shevardnadze was the president. the succession of crooks. it wasn t till the orange revolution putin started to get nervous. you re right shevardnadze wasn t in russia. weigh in on today s fire back question. is president obama underestimate std vinnie polit ing it vladimir putin? we also have the outrage of the day including how republican indifference is now hurting more than 2 million americans when we get back. 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[phones rings] okay, i ll send it. one hundred seventy-two dollars for a chemistry book, what is it, made of gold? just use citi popmoney. boom. ah, she s feeling lucky. hey sweetie.cancun, yeah no, you ll be spending spring break with your new chemistry book. with citi popmoney it s easy to send money to just about anyone, anytime. visit your local branch or citi.com/easierbanking to learn more. . welcome back. it s time for the outrage of the day. i am outraged on behalf of 2.3 million of our fellow americans. these are active job seekers the republicans refuse to give any help or support to. you ve got the job market that s still tough. folks need more time to look for jobs. plus, a little bit of gas money to get to job interviews. that s why congress should have extended unemployment benefits straight out. unfortunately, just before christmas, republicans said no way. that is unbelievable. they extended, these same republicans extended unemployment five times under george w. bush but under obama, the gop decided it wants to be the party of scrooge all year long. i wish that extending unemployment benefits would actually get people back to work. i m sorry to say. helps them find work. it doesn t. my outrage. this is a warning to parents out there. please shield your children s eyes. i m about to do something you don t want them to see. ready? that there got a columbus ohio fifth grader suspended from school for three days. the charge? exposing other students to a level two look alike firearm. yes, those words exist. i d sure hate to see what a level three looks like. this is the kind of ridiculous childish progressive nonsense that makes it nearly impossible to have a real conversation about curbing gun crime because if you start with dumb ideas like this, how can anyone take you serious will i? let s also curb obesity and alcoholism by banning the hand gestures that accompany them. this is ludicrous. grow up, people. well, or the nra s gazillions of dollars they spend. this is going to solve everything. let s check in our fire back results. is president obama underestimating putin? right now 56% of say an yes, 44% say no. ambassador, are you surprised by the results?
minutes. so when that statement comes, we ll, of course bring it to you. and of course all of this ongoing in sydney as it comes up on 6:00 local time. this siege going on now for more than eight hours. i m john vause at the cnn center in atlanta. and i m natalie allen. we have been with you for several hours, and we will push on as this situation in australia continues. it is breaking news of a siege there in a coffee shop that has been ongoing. a gunman holding people hostage at the lindt coffee shop in downtown sydney. sky news has just informed us that the gunman is calling himself the brother , and has contacted a radio station and two tv stations via hostages with demands, a conversation with the prime minister and an isil flag. we do know five people have managed to get out. three men were seen running out two hours ago. two of them were customers. the man in the blue jacket, the man in the white zirs and a few moments later there was a man wearing an apron who appeared to be a worker. coming out of a different door. and it appears he was a worker at the lindt coffee shop. he s wearing that apron. and we ve been questioning our experts. was this an escape or were they released. and according to our sky news reporter, the police saying this was a report, just there. then, after this, two women ran out, about 45 minutes later. this is a different camera angle, coming from a different way. there goes one. and police hustled her away. a then right after her another suddenly emerges. police tell us they have been in touch with the hostage taker, though they will not say who he is or what his motives are. let s listen. our number one aim is to resolve this incident peacefully. we have numerous resources from the new south wales police force on-site, in that effort to make sure that everybody who is in this location remains unharmed. we do not have any information that suggests that anybody is harmed at this stage. and a peaceful resolution will be what we are working towards. that was the new south wales deputy police commissioner there, a little over two hours ago. well, when the standoff began more nan eight hours ago, a flag with an islamic phrase was held up to the cafe s window. also as can you see, hostages were norsed to stand in that window with their hands on the glass. since then, heavily armed police have taken positions around the coffee shop anchor dod cordonede area. our reporter on the scene has reported this is a ghost town in this area. otherwise, very, very busy area. three blocks in every direction of this coffee shop. there have been evacuations linked to suspicious packages found around the city. air traffic has been re-routed around sydney. this is a very disturbing incident. i can understand the concerns and anxieties of the australian people at a time like this. but our thoughts and blaprayers must, above all, go out to these individuals who are caught up in this. i can think of almost nothing more distressing, more terrifying than to be caught up in such a situation. our hearts go out to those people. well, tony abbott is part of this story, since we just learned that the hostage taker, the brother , as he wants to be called, wants to talk with the prime minister. he wants a conversation with the prime minister and he also wants an isil flag. he had displayed that other flag which had an islamic phrase on it. many people thought it was an isis flag. it was the white writing on a black background. but now from our affiliate reporter in sky news, he is demanding an isil flag. it will be interesting to know how the police negotiators are dealing with this person and his demands. we want to go now to anna coren. she s been live there and on the streets of sydney for us, talking about what people are saying, the surprise from typical australians, and what she is learning. it s been very hard to get information. but anna joins us now. anna? reporter: well, the siege has been going on now for more than eight hours, and it doesn t look like it s going to be finishing anytime soon. as we said, five hostages have been released. and it s a promising sign that police negotiators are in touch with this gunman and making his way to release those hostages. we don t know. we can t confirm that that is the result of those negotiations. but certainly, from the people within the area, people who have evacuated from nearby buildings, there really is a sense of fear, that this is taking place, this is something australia has not been exposed to yet. australia very much involved in the war against isis in iraq and syria, but not here. there have been no attacks on home soil, threats most definitely, but no attacks. obviously raids over the past couple months and numerous arrests made, but, as for anything event waiting or coming to fruition, law enforcement authorities keeping on top of that. but this gunman walking into the lindt cafe this morning, really catching people off guard. we don t know if he had guns or other weapons, if he had bombs. but he clearly sought out his target. he is opposite 7 network australia. tv cameras able to film the cafe, film what s taking place. so obviously that building is being evacuated or everything nearby as is the u.s. consulate. there are dozens of buildings within that vicinity, and the police have gone and blocked off much of the cbd around the cafe, around martin place, not allowing anybody in. there s heavy, heavy police presence. we ve seen snipers. heavily armed as well as other police with flak jackets. there is that contingency of law enforcement. they are not your regular police officers but the more experienced and highly trained law enforcement officials who are on the scene as well, monitoring what is taking place inside that cafe. i want to talk to you about the fact that this was hour the ago that this thirfirst broke o there were images of the hostages inside the coffee shop, and there s been nothing since. is that because think cordoned off the area? is that because it s an ongoing dangerous situation? how come we haven t seen anything else as far as video from, through that first window that we saw earlier? reporter: yeah, it s safe to sayna all media has been evacuated from the media. so that live that you ve been getting through channel 7, that has now stopped. they ve probably been told they have to leave the building. they re not allowed to leave any crews there because of the potential threat. we were within 100 meters of lindt cafe a few hours ago. police then came and moved us on. they don t want to have visuals of the cafe, they say, security reasons. obviously, if the gunman starts to spray bullets or if there is an explosion, they want people away. they re greetitreating it very, seriously. we spoke with a woman earlier, and she said they have contact with him, they are in touch with him. but they want this resolved peacefully. at this statement, it s gone 6:00 here. it could very well go into the night. but they do want this to resolve peacefully. we ve just received some new information. i think we have a comment from someone who saw the gunman. this is a witness. outside the cafe actually saw the gunman. and he describes exactly what, he said it was, i believe it was a man who was actually didn t realize that there were hostages as first. let s listen to what the person had to say. when i first ran into the building, he was trying to get someone s attention, trying to get in the doors. and on the third run, i was looking in there, wondering what her problem was, why she didn t go somewhere else to get her coffee. and then obviously the gunman or alleged yoefder held a bag out, and she said gun, gun, gun. in a blue bag. i saw the gunman. i was quite tall. probably late 40s. long white sleeved shirt on with a vest. i was very calm and pacing, looking out. and several customers were sitting down at their tables, still drinking. i m not sure how alert they were as to what was going to go on. but they were locked in. clearly that person did not want to be identified, which is why he was shot that way, but giving us very interesting details about this woman who was turned away, and telling us just what the gunman looked like. his age and that kind of thing. earlier there had been a report that he was in his 40s, and some people were surprised that that seemed a little old. old, for whatever reason. these people who carry out these kind of things are younger, more easily influenced, are looking for some kind of direction in their lives. we often hear how it s not just religion but poverty, unemployment, lack of opportunity which drives people to these extremist groups. as we ve heard from sky news our affiliate in sydney, that the government is debating an isil flag. isil is another term for isis. isil is often used by governments. islamic state. that s all it is. it just depends on who you are, what you use. that link is very, very close to isis. at least from the government s point of view. he is aspirational. he wants to be a representative of this group, which is why he wants this flag. why he didn t have one in the first place i guess is another question. some plan in reaching out to the media. now three member the of the media so far that s been reported. well, this, of course, we ve always been told about the lone wolf situation, or, as you say, anyone who just needs someone to pay attention to them for whatever deranged reason. but australia s grand mufti released a statement. we want to read it in part. and we quote, the grand mufti and the australia national imam s council condemn this criminal act and unequivocally denounce. and we aspire to a peaceful resolve to this calamity. let s go to the president of the lebanese muslim associate in sydney on the line with more details about this. so samir, explain to us, there were occasions where police raided an area southwest of sydney. an area where many ex-pats from lebanon live. that was not the case. tell us exactly what had happened the last couple hours. caller: well, i don t know where you got this report. in fact, there s been reports of police on their official website. there have been a lot of these type of reports and trying to link it to what s happening in the cafe, and police have come out and said that none of those events in any kind of shape or form related to what is currently taking place in the cafe. so you ve got a car driving down, a police vehicle driving down the street, people getting a little frustrated or calling up and being concerned maybe that this is sort of related. so it s more fear mongering than anything else to be quite frank with you. my understanding from one of the reports i read said that police actually met with leaders from the islamic community. that s not the case? caller: that s not the case. i ve been in direct discussion with the premier of the state just about ten minutes ago. we had another conference call to try to give us more briefs. there have been these briefs been giving to the community leaders every few hours to give us a bit more of an insight and give us a little bit more information about what is currently taking place. and what can you share with us about those conversations? what are they telling you? caller: they re telling us in terms of information, which is not much. they currently don t know the identity of this individual. they don t know what the motive is. they re treating it as a criminal hostage situation. they re not sure whether he s linked to any particular group. and hopefully that information will unfold. there are five hostages that have left the cafe so far. so we don t know whether they have been released or whether they ve escaped. taken from the point of view from what you ve reported that he s seeking an isil flag, so he comes across as someone who s not really well prepared if he intended to cause that type of harm. as community leaders, we ve offered our help and assistance in any shape or form if they can identify who this individual is so we can be involved in a negotiation and a dialog with this individual. i was going to ask you about that samir, because i wondered if they asked you about that, are you disappointed in any way that they haven t reached out to the community to incorporate you somehow, seeing this to a peaceful end? caller: well, unless they have facts as to which group he belongs to it will be hard to engage. he carried a black flag with some type of arabic writing on it. it s not the isis flag. we don t know who this individual is. then we can target this eideal. the police and the government have been in close contact with community leaders, as i highlighted. we ve also made contact with different departments within the police offering our help and assistance when they see or feel the need. we have the protocol and the safety and security of these hostages at the utmost importance. this is at the point where we as a community coming together as australians. our first and foremost priority is the safety of these hostages. samir, when this situation first started unfolding and there was this confusion about whether or not it was a shois flag or a flag with an islamic phrase on it. and everybody s making this connection that this is this lone wolf terrorist attack that many in australian security had been warning about, was that your reaction? or did you think this was something else? caller: i take everything seriously when someone s life is at stake. it doesn t bother me whether this is a lone operator or connected to a group or not. i m someone who needs to be well-informed about the facts. and this is where we leave it to the authorities. once the facts become available then we can deal with the situation. the current situation which is of crucial importance to us is the safety of the hostages and the families. this is our main concern. the fact that we saw a black flag with arabic writing on it made us more concerned, obviously. you can just imagine where we wanted to try to deliver everything we can to help defuse the situation. it s important what group he belongs to. what we want to do is defuse that. once more information comes available we are more briefed and more informed and we can deal with this issue accordingly. we have new images of what appear to be the gunman inside the cafe. s wearing a hid band, a vest and a white shirt. a backpack as well. you said you re trying to defuse the situation regarding who this guy is and what his motivation might be. exactly how do you do that? caller: well, once the police officers, if they get aligned to talk to this guy and identify who he is, and then if we reach out to the community organizations to identify his family members. maybe he s got someone that he s a trusted individual from an ethnic group or a family perspective, maybe we can help the police identify the individual and bring them into the negotiations, try to defuse it. from the video right there, it s almost hard to believe that they can t figure out who that person is. caller: because they haven t been able to speak to the individual. so you tell me well, they did say the negotiate eors have been in tou with him, but they haven t been able to work out who he is. caller: that s something you need to work out with the negotiators. do you think they re talking through hostages to the gunman? caller: no, i don t think so. from what we know so far, there s been absolutely no conversation with the gunman. we did hear from sky news that the negotiators have made contact with him. you don t have any more information about that, obviously. caller: no, i don t. well, we thank you for your time and letting us know that community members have been briefed every so often on this case. that s good to hear. it must be frustrating. you can imagine that they re standing by, they want to help, they want to get involved and find out who this person is. when they do find out who he is, maybe they can reach out to him and work to defuse the situation. all we know at this point is what we ve heard from sky news australia is that that guy there, right there in the vest with the white shirt is calling himself the brother. he has made two demands. one is to have a conversation on the radio with prime minister tony abbott. it s unlikely that will ever happen. but you nene never know. the other demand is that he wants an isil or isis flag in exchange for one hostage. he apparently has said there are two bomb the inside that cafe and two bombs inside the sydney cbd. and this security camera that picked this up, he s adamant whatever he s saying and someone is walking up to him with their hands up. hands up. right that s right. this is the latest since we ve been here for many hours now. but we have seen people, of course, run out. and we have some compelling pictures of one of the two women who ran from that cafe toward police, not long ago, wearing lindt aprons. three men ran out before them. one of the men that ran out also had an lindt apron. that s three staff member the working in this coffee shop. i believe the woman who came out before her was carrying her purse. this woman looks like she just got out with her apron and out. and sky news reporter we talked with, believing information she has this was an escape. it wasn t a part of negotiations. and john and i s perspective. it did seem as if the police weren t expecting they did seem to be taken a little bit by surprise. earlier, the deputy director of the new south wales police took questions at a news conference. that s when we learned that police have maid cde contact wi the gunman. i cannot confirm numbers. about how many people might remain or have left. it is really important, i think, for us all to take on board that as this situation is continuing, and as it is unfolding, and as it is that we actually have people who are in this premises at the moment, that we manage it through patience through our negotiators, and we give them the time at the moment that they need to work through this so that they can resolve it. so those operational details will be forthcoming, but it s not a good point in time to speculate. can you talk about negotiating? does that mean the police have made contact with the gunman? police negotiators have had contact, and they phone have contact. and we will work through this as, as we do with our negotiators. it might take a bit of time, but we want to resolve this peacefully. and i assure you, if it takes a bit of time, we will take the time. who is the gunman and what does he want. i know you can t give specifics. but basics, who is i and what does he want? at this stage, those might vagss are not known, and it would not be good to special late, but we have set up our protocols. so the moment we have activated our investigators and our intelligence officers. so we now have numerous police who are working on establishing who this person is and what those motives might be. all i can say is that they are now out of the building, and they are now with police. do the police have a rough idea about how many hostages were in the, how many had initially before the three left? look, i know there has been some speculation about numbers, but it really is not really helpful at the moment to speculate. we clearly, we clearly are dealing with a situation that is unfolding, and it s happening as we speak. and the most important thing is the safety of those hostages. so i wouldn t want to do anything that might impact on their safety. some of the speculation has been up to 30, 40 hostages. that seems high with some of the other estimates. that sort of a number does not equate with what we be assuming. we don t know. we don t know for a clear fact, but it is not as high as 30. those that have escaped, candidate police have contact with them? we are with those people now. the first thing we are doing is making sure they are okay. we will then establish who they are. and we will continue to work with them. there was some suggestion coming from inside that some hostages were, had fallen ill, that they were not okay. the information that i had is that nobody has been harmed or injured at the moment. we have been working through our negotiations to try to make sure that the people inside are cared for, that they have what they need to, so that they don t become ill or injured. so we will continue to do that. i think that from the information that i had, that is not related to the incident that we are dealing with. as you know, we have certain protocols in the city. and particular infrastructure and building have their own protocols. that might have been a matter for them, but we are not saying that that is connected with this. we have our protocols in place. pioneer has been activated. are you treating this as a terror could you explain a little bit more about what pioneer is? this really is about setting up command-and-control, so that we make sure that we have a clear police commander in charge, that we have an incident management team is he sce menme people are able to identify the resources needed. in terms of a policing response, this is a reasonably familiar policing response. [ inaudible question ] any other links? there have been several reports of at the moment the martin place incident is what we are dealing with. there have been other reports, as you would expect, because we do urge people to be vigilant, and we do urge people to contact us if they see anything suspicious, whether that be a suspicious package or vehicle, and people are doing that, which is what we want. so we want people to continue that. and we will respond. but at the moment, the situation that we are dealing with is in martin place. can you confirm that there are one or two hostage takers. i can t confirm those numbers. there are reports that ieds might be involved, that he may have an explosive buielt. all this will be forthcoming once we get the information. i believe the police commissioner made the comment in that regard. can you confirm that is the case? i can t confirm what the police commissioner has said. no, whether that is the case that there is an ied. i can t speculate on what may or may not be, and that would be unhelpful at the moment. at the moment we know that the person we are dealing with is armed. we are aware of that. and what we would do in terms of their situations is make sure that we consider any, any possibility and so that we are able to respond accordingly. can you confirm if this is a terror incident? we still don t know what the motivation might be. but in terms of our protocols as i ve said, we ve set up our command-and-control protocols [ multiple questions ] we ve had three hostages released unharmed. how positive is that for this afternoon? i ve said, as long as nobody gets hurt, we want though resolve this peacefully. and that is what we are working towards. and the negotiators are extremely experienced and skilled at what we are doing with the negotiation and if it goes on for a few more hours, it will go on for a few more hours. but, as i say, the priority is the safety of those people as well as the safety of everybody in new south wales. thanks very much. we d like to welcome you back to our continuing coverage of the situation in sydney. a gunman continues to hold hostages at the lindt coffee shop. the hostage taker seen here has identified himself as the brother. he has reportedly contacted three media organizations, using the hostages to speak with the outlets. he is demanding an isis flag and also a fon call with australia s prime minister. take a look at this video. five hostages that managed to get out. three men were seen running out first. all this happened about three hours ago. two customers it seems, followed shortly by a man who worked at this coffee shop. he is wearing an apron which read lindt on it. then two women ran out about 45 minutes later. all five hostages reportedly escaped from the cafe. they were not released. still not clear how many hostages remain inside that coffee shop. the situation began almost nine hours ago now. a flag with an islamic phrase was held up to the cafe s window. hostages were forced to stand in that window with their hands pressed against the pane of glass. anna coren joins us not far from the coffee shop. bring us up to date. we are now in the situation where there are five less hostages being held. we have more details about who may be holidaying them and what he wants. reporter: yeah. that s right. we re learning certainly more details from police about what in fact this hostage taker wants. as you say, he wants a phone call with the prime minister tony abbott and also an isis flag. but this is all unfolding about a block from where we are standing. as you can see, the ambulances parked up here on mcquarry street, where this cafe is, the lindt cafe. it s about a block, 100, 200 meters as the crow flies, but heavy police presence. we ve also seen sniper police, many of them taking position, watching and waiting. as we heard from the deputy police commissioner, catrkathry burn, if this goes on longer so be it. we know there are still hostages inside with that gunman who is armed. we don t know if he has other explosives or bombs, but certainly, all the people working in the buildings around lindt cafe have been evacuated. obviously, the 7 network, australia, that have opposite the cafe. the reserve bank of australia, the law society, very close by are the law courts. as well as the u.s. consulate. so all these people, you know, hundreds of people have been evacuated from the heart of martin place, in the cbd here in sydney as this siege unfolds. a short time ago, over the last hour or so when you got there, you were much closer to the action. so why are they continuing to expand this exclusion area? reporter: yeah. that s right. where we were several hours ago, we could actually see the cafe. we had a visual on it. since then, police have moved us. they are concerned. you know, like i said, they don t know what this gunman has or if he will start shooting. so they want everybody out of harm s way. they want to focus purely on this gunman. very senior negotiators are currently speaking to him. we don t know if the release of those five hostages is a result of those conversation, a result of the contact that these negotiators now have with this gunman. but certainly, there is a dialog. there is a conversation taking place. we know for a fact that this gunman chose that position because of its location. he wanted attention. he got it. he was in the heart of the city. he was opposite a major tv station. he clearly wanted the world watching what was taking place. now we know that the part of his demands are to speak to the prime minister of australia and to get an isis flag. other than that, we don t know his motivations, and we don t know, you know, who in fact this man is. okay. we appreciate that. we want to go to ray hadley now. he is the number one rating radio host in sydney. i think in australia as well. you re with 2 gb. i understand you had a conversation with the gunman via hostages earlier today? caller: good day. we kept going because we made contact with the hostages on my program. obviously, i didn t want to put them to air. so i took their calls off air and at the same time could hear the hostage taker giving the young man as he spoke to me, a 23-year-old, instructions on what he wanted to do. what s revealed by your reporter, he wanted the isis flag, a conversation with the prime minister. i spoke with our police chief in new south wales and spoke to him, spoke with the premier, which is a bit like your governor, and they told me off air that it would be best if we didn t report those matters. i kwept in contact with the young man. he gave me his mobile. whee about four conversation, and i felt troubled. i asked the police to supply me with a negotiator. i didn t feel equipped to negotiate with him. the negotiator arrived here, and i went off air about 20 minutes ago. and the negotiators are still dealing with him. as you ve been told, five people have been escaped. they weren t released. one of them a worker. and then two young ladies who were also workers, escaped as well. and police continue their negotiations. they re dealing with a lunatic. they re dealing with a person who s making outrageous claims. he wants the government to acknowledge that this is a terrorist operation, that he s doing this on behalf of isis or isil. and the government at this particular stage are treating a terrorist as you would treat any terrorist in any part of the world. they re doing their best to secure the safety of the hostages without meeting too many of his demands. explain how this process works. you got this phone call, this 23-year-old man, a hostage being held inside the cafe. and he relayed what the guy with the gun was saying and then he told you and you d respond and he d say it to the gunman? is that how it went down? i could hear the gunman. first of all, we were skeptical. you get a phone call on your line saying i m a hostage. i wouldn t talk to him on air, because i was fearful that i was being duped or that i might be at risk after i came off air. and i spoke to the man and ringed him back to confirm he was a hostage. i had spoken to police, they had a list of some of the hostages. his name was given to me by the young man. i could hear the hostage taker issue the instructions about wanting to talk to the prime minister, calling me a scumbag, calling the media generally scumbags for incorrectly reporting isil as being a group of people who are murderous bastards who have no regard for human life. i didn t report what i d been told. i said i have a phone call from a hostage and i contacted police, which i did do. he phoned back again and left his number. so i went to a newsbreak and rang him again. at the end of three or four conversations when these demands were still being made, that he wanted, the hostage taker wanted to talk to the prime minister, mr. abbott, i then said to the police we need someone over with a bit of expertise. so a negotiator came over and decided to take the calls. since then he s had conversations with a number of other hostages over the course of the last two or three hours. can you describe what i sounded like? was he unhinged? was he yelling? what kind of accent he had? caller: he had a middle eastern accent with an australi australian tinge. we have been a country like your country, very welcoming of people from that part of the world. we have a long tradition of lebanese christians coming to sfr australia. and more recently, people of the muslim faith. the vast majority are peaceful, hard-working people who want to make a life for themselves. but we have these radicals, lunatics who have between 12 and 25 people holding hostage. the police know, but they won t release the number. originally there were somewhere between 15 and 30. so you take a guess. it s either ten people in there or 25. we don t know. now you say he threatened to dispose of hostages. i m making the assumption he threatened to kill them. caller: that s what he was saying. police negotiators say now that we re in the ninth hour and no one s been hurt or injured this is someone they can deal with, if you nknow what i mean. hang on. we re getting a live news conference. might assist, and, again, i put out that plea and that message, if anybody does have information, please let us know. it s really important that you pass it on, because even a small snippet of information might be vital. inside, facebook and social media some of the demands that the gunman s making. i know you need to keep some things under wrap, but it s out there for everybody to see. we were monitoring what s happening on facebook and twitter. and that is forming a part of our tactical response and how to handle this. yes, that is out there, and we are aware of that. what do you tell the negotiators? that s not what i can talk about, what he might be telling negotiators, but the contact that we have will be ongoing, and it will be based on our best assessment about how to get those people out safely, which is what does count most. some are talking about that there are to police? or is he trying to use the media to make those demands? i think that there s probably a number of mediums that are being used at the moment, but we all have to be very careful not to completely overreact at this time. because it is still ongoing, but it is important to reiterate, that we are aware of that. we are monitoring it. and we are using that as a part of our strategy. why can t you say how many are still inside? it s not something that i can confirm at the moment. and it s not technically useful to actually confirm potential numbers. for people who we are, we might be dealing with who may have concerns that a friend or relative or a loved one might be in that building. we have set up, clearly, our, our public information inquiry number. the people who have been released, they have been able to tell you how many are inside? 30 is an imperative why is that so sensitive? because at this point, everything has to be about the safety of the people in the location. so it s important that we don t confirm it at this point. can we talk, would you be able to explain a little bit about task force pioneer? pioneer is really just a term, a standing arrangement. it s a term that relates to our command-and-control arrangement. so when we do have a major incident, such as this, we set up our police operation center so we have a commander in place, and we have a forward command, and we have other management protocols so that we are ensuring that we have the best police response. so that includes investigators. that includes intelligence. that includes logistics. it includes all resources. and it also includes long-term planning. so that is basically a standing arrangement in terms of a response that we put in place to make sure that we have the best control and command arrangement under way. can you [ multiple questions at once ] again, i don t want to speculate, but we are in contact, and we will continue, and we will continue and the aim is peaceful resolution. that there are bombs, that this man has threatened that there are bombs across other places in sydney. can the public be and feel safe with that threat? we have a large police response in place as a part of this operation. we have our police out. they re very visible. we have our police transport command as well as reminding the public to be vigilant and to be aware. our police are also vigilant and aware and are making sure that if there are any suspicious packages or suspicious vehicles, but i think it is important for me to reiterate that we have got this situation contained to one area at the moment. we are responding to other pieces of information, other calls, et cetera, and we will continue to. but our response is in relation to the incident at martin place. [ questioning simultaneously ] can you tell us more about the gunman? we have to wrap it up. thank you. thank you. thank you. we ve been listening to another briefing there by the new south wales deputy police commissioner. and, again, not a lot of information coming out. she is saying there is an operation under way. we know that. we have been watching it for some time. they are limited in how much they are willing to reveal to the public at this point, which is fair enough i guess. it is frustrating for a lot of people. there are reports out there that catherine burn discussed it that there are some hostages inside that cafe who have been posting on facebook and twitter. really bizarre. the police don t feel comfortable addressing those reports. if they rt stastarted to, wh would they stop? the main message we re getting from these briefings, and we had it again there, the police are stressing that the situation is contained to just one area. that one area just happens to be the very center of the sydney cbd. that would be if there was a hostage situation in times square and that area was closed down. you can imagine how that would throw the city into disarray. the banks and u.s. consulate is there as well. and that is the person causing all of this described by ray hadley, the number one radio guy, as a lunatic. that s i have commvery commoo use that type of language. in the past ray has been very outspoken about the influence of radical islam and the effect is having across australia. he s been very vocal about it. so that may explain why he was the first call before reaching out to other media outlets like channel 9 and 10. the gunman has been making two demands. the first is that he wants an isis flag, which raises the question, if he is affiliated with isis, why didn t he have an isis flag in the first place. the second demand is that he wishes to speak via phone with tony abbott. there was some discussion that he wanted to do that live on the air as well. that would be unlikely that that would happen. and ray hadley also telling us that he was speaking to the gunman by the 23-year-old hostage who was inside that cafe, and he could hear the gunman in the background. he spoke with a middle eastern ak sechbt with an australian tinge. he didn t sound very rational. he did threaten as ray described it, to dispose of hostages, which is an indication that he would be inclined to kill some hostages, but there s no indication that anybody inside that cafe has been hurt. i was wanting to ask him, too bad that we did have to go away from him to take the news conference, which we didn t learn very much from, but what was the demeanor of that young hostage that was being kind of the filter the go between. for this gunman. we ve been talking about whether these three men who got out first, followed by the two women, whether they were part of this negotiation that was going on. we do know part of the developments is that the negotiators have made contact with the government. the police aren t confirming it, but what we ve heard from a number of reports as well as ray l hadley, that these five people managed to escape. he had what, three conversations with this poor hostage before the police got involved. yes. he kept calling his cell phone, and the guy kept answering. let s bring in justin hastings. he s a terrorist expert currently in hawaii. we have a situation that we ve got this guy taking hostages, but he doesn t have the right flag. he s allowing hostages inside there to receive cell phone calls, on their mobile calls. he s let five people actually manage to escape, if that is in fact what has happened. he s allowing people to post on facebook as well as twitter. is this adding up to a profile of a guy who isn t really in control of what s going on? caller: it doesn t seem very well planned. it depends on what his actual goal is, if it s to get attention for his cause then it s suck sided beyond his wildest dreams. if it s something else, he s got a problem. he didn t control the exit. he didn t control information in and out of the building. and he does sort of sound crazy to people who overhear him. it may be something drove him to do this without a lot of planning, without a lot of forethought. that s what you said earlier when you joined us, the whole thing by isis, if this is indeed related to that, which it does appear, is that they reach out to all kinds of people in the west and other countries to try to mobilize them and these aren t people that, in particular, have any experience, thankfully, in dangerous situations or taking hostages and causing harm. so that s some good news, but it seems like this person didn t really have or hasn t had a plan. caller: right, so isis reaches out. they may or may not have been in contact with him. but in some sense it doesn t matter. isis wants people to go and attack outside their home base. people do it. they may or may not be successful in killing anyone, but they certainly attract a lot of attention for the cause and they certainly are able to cause a lot of disruption even if they have no training at all. so from this point of view, isis would say, if in fact he s doing this on behalf of isis or sympathetic to isis, this a win for us even if we didn t order it ourselves. we ve got five people who got out, a guy who doesn t have a particularly good plan. this has been going on for mean ho nine hours. no one has been harmed. this seems to be the indication, as far as you can tell, coming to a benign end? caller: well, i don t know. this could go either way at this point, right? they re trying to wait him out, he may get tired of waiting. he may start to lose more control and lash out. or he may just sort of give up. it s difficult to say, right? so, you know, things are delicate. it depends on how the police and the gunman handle things. but the fact that hostages have escaped shows that his plan isn t working to the extent he wants it to. it doesn t mean it s going to be a benign end, but we hope it will be. now that he has asked to speak with the prime minister and requested a flag, according to reports, what typically would be the police response to something like that? a negotiator, are they trying to drag this out? do they turn him down cold? how does the process work? caller: well, you know, the police could try to delay, to see if that would sort of help the situation. they could sort of, the largely unobjectionable. see if that will calm him down or if that will sort of, you can trade some hostages for the flag for example. we can see what s going on and then sort of come back out again. but, again, it s all subject to negotiation. they may not want to have it happen in delay. natalie and i were quite surprised when we heard these reports that the gunman is a man in his 40s. that seemed a little old for us, for, you know, the typical profile of the young, disaffected, you know, muslim who, you know, takes up the cause on behalf of one of these jihadi groups. caller: right. it s certainly outside the standard demographic in terms of age, but the full range of sort of terrorists are much younger and much older than, you know, might say the 18 to 35-year-old. there were some australians who were found to be much younger than 18. you see people older helping out. we don t want to derive too much from the fact that he s in his 40s. i want to ask you this last question. what has struck you as watching this unfold for the last several hours as the most unusual thing about this particular hostage situation? caller: anything unusual about it? mm-hm. what has struck you as being the most unusual as far as the guy that we re seeing on the screen here? caller: i would say that what s unusual about it is that, you know, typically, we, you know, in the past couple years we thought of terrorist attacks as sudden, an explosion or they ll capture someone and behead him. but this is being drawn out. in some ways, the fact that it s drawn out and sighieeing it plat over a long period of time is more dangerous than a sudden explosion. justin hastings, we talked with you earlier, we appreciate you talking with us again out of hawaii. we should mention he s with the university of sydney. so he has an understanding of the current terrorism situation in australia. we ve also been hearing more from witnesses in sydney. they ve been coming forward and speaking with our affiliate. and some have described the events before the gunman took hostag hostages. in the few minutes i was on the phone this unfolded. i don t know whether the gun man was in there when i was in the cafe. but this unfolded very quickly at about 9:35, 9:40. and inside that cafe people were sitting down chatting over could have e coffee. the building was on lockdown. it was a bit scary, really. did the police come and clear your building? what happened. they were clearing the channel 7 news building. and then we were put on lockdown. we wouldn t go out. we couldn t go down to the public toilets downstairs, and basically we just got took out. we got shipped out in single file really fast. it s just amazing, isn t it, with all of the threats in the world. people are just caught off guard because they re just living their life. they don t think anything s going to happen where you are. well, the #sydney siege is the number one topic right now. many world leaders are weighing in on their comments. david cameron says he was briefed overnight. my thoughts were with all those caught up in it. stephen harper says canada s thoughts and prayers are with our australian friends. john keith send this message, i ve contacted prime minister tony abbott to let him know our thoughts are with the people of australia. and finally from narendra modi. i pray for everyone s safety. and we also know that in the united states, the u.s. president, barack obama has in fact been briefed by his senior terrorism adviser, so he is aware of the situation which is ongoing right now. it is coming up to 3:00 in the morning on the east coast on monday. and earlier, bob behar told us this is not in line with what an extreme group like isis would do. caller: the police will get an idea, not until he comes out and starts talking will they get an idea of what the situation is. now they re talking about negotiators in contact with the government. first of all, how would they have done that, and exactly what will they be talking to this guy about, if they re in fact still talking? caller: well, they re going to first try to figure out who he is and what he wants. he may simply be a lunatic or several of them. they won t know that until they talk to the released hostages and ones that got away. and i think that the situation s looking more benign as we go. i think when we saw the police helicopters and closing downtown, this is a standard procedure. it s an overreaction, but it s absolutely necessary in a situation like this. and what gives you the conclusion that this is more benign? caller: well, simply because, if you re going to go into a mall, and you are an isis-like group, you almost immediately resort to violence. and lockdown a place like this and some sort of a martyrdom operation. with shoisis, a lot of these pee are self-recruited and a lot of their information they re getting off the internet. we ve seen them attack in
this is not an ordinary time and this is not an ordinary election. we are going to be choosing a president who will set policy for not just four or eight years, but some of the important decisions we have to make at home and around the world to energy and so much else. so there is a lot at stake. it s one of the most consequential elections we had. that s why i tried to put forth specific policies and plans. try to get it off of the personal and put it on to what it is on i want to do as president. that s why i hope people will check on that for themselves. so they can see that yes, i spent 30 years, actually a little more, working to help kids and families and i want to take that experience to the white house and do that every single day. mr. trump? well, i consider her statement about my children to be a very nice compliment. i don t know if it was meant to be a compliment, but i m proud of my children. they have done a wonderful job and they have been wonderful kids. i consider that a compliment. i will say that about hillary. because of that tape. he spoke for 40 minutes and 10 seconds and hillary clinton spoke for 39 minutes and five seconds. almost exactly the same amount of time. you didn t hear a robust emotional apology. from donald trump, did you? the inbox from republicans, that s one of the things they are worried about. that s powerful for hillary clinton to use him saying such vulgar things about women and he didn t say anything aggressively to apologize. he didn t do that behavior and he was pressed by anderson cooper and he said and talks in the tape about assaulting women. he said he didn t do those and he apologized. nowhere near as aggressive as many republicans wanted. he went into the personal attacks of bringing bill clinton into it. i think it will be based on where do you stand from a partisan perspective. what donald trump is doing is getting more engaged and counter punching. throwing mike pence under the bus at a time when mike pence is standing by him is an interesting dynamic and he did say that yes, he took that giant deduction so he wouldn t pay federal income taxes. you can bet that s coming to a tv ad without a doubt. that is true. back to you. let s check in with the panel of experts. i said it was a wash, but feel free to disagree. at the beginning donald trump did the opposite of what i thought he should have done. he said he was embarrassed by this. the videotape. he said it was locker room talk. he did not apologize to the women involved and he kept saying it s words and it wasn t anything more than that. period. end of sentence. so there was nothing more than anything he already said. he had already had the press conference about bill clinton. we knew that story and when asked are you different than at the young age of 59, he said i m not proud of it and i have great respect for people, my family. hillary got him on that because she said you needed to apologize. for the rest of the debate. i think donald trump when he got over that was more disciplined, attacking hillary on the e-mail issue where she is vulnerable. i think in a sense he may have done enough. she seemed a little stilted at times and i think he may have done enough to stop the bleeding and i m not sure minds were changed. so much has occurred over the last 48 hours and the last week that people have to digest all of this including the debate tonight to see where they stand. i want to echo one thing that dana said was the mike pence remark. he is praising a dictator who was trying to interfere with our election, period. whom his running mate said we should stand up to and putin is propping up. that struck a note. here disagrees with him. i m sure you watched the debate as we all did. we commented on the issues. we are not the same policy. give it a broader look. much better counter puncher. i think he did poorly on that he was much more animated and much better counterpuncher i think that he did poorly on that question and he did poorly on the strange syria discussion where he got off on a rant there. which i think will leave a lot of questions and led to the mike pence question. the truth is hillary clinton has her struggles with the same issues she always struggles with, e-mails, speeches. i thought his counterpunch on the lincoln comment was good. at the end of the day, i come to the same conclusion. i think she probably wins at some point and i don t think it changes much. just to set the stage, this has been one of the most disastrous periods for a presidential nominee in the history of the united states. from the first debate and before this debate. did he change that at all? i think he stopped the panic among most of the republicans there who were panicking. at least for now. i thought it was basically a draw which is basically a good thing for donald trump thinking that hillary clinton was going knock him out of this debate and have such a strong performance that there would be no question of where this race stood. i don t think she had that great of a performance. he was odd pacing around and standing over here in some of those shots. i think there ll be a lot of material stylistically, for snl, she counterpunched well on the you ve been there for 30 years what have you been doing and listed all of the things she had done. children s health care, expa expanding health care. veterans and secretary of state and 400 pieces of legislation. that was a good moment for her. she dropped one of the hillary clinton new information things and the alicia machado things. with she talked about trump gobbling up illegal steel from china. to build his buildings. i bet we ll hear more about that. i believe thaefs a news week story about how two out of three buildings that are using the steel that hurts american workers. what d you think? i think the night belonged to donald trump. we re not talking about the trump tape. he was able to pivot away and barely controlled at some point. it was a greatest hits real for the 14 million who voted for him. no hand shake at the out set. bill s infidelities and the e-mail erasure and islam and dishonesty and the media, you will hear a lot about how they reported the role of the moderators in this. i think those who voted for him got everything they wanted in their vote. did he grow? i can t see if there was any outreach. i looked carefully where i thought he could have expanded the base that he already has. not a knockout, but his night on points. where could he have expanded the base? obviously there was a muslim american woman who spoke. there was an african american who wanted the country african american gentleman, james carter who wanted the country to be united would he be devoted to bring us together? where were the opportunities that he didn t take? he could have been more expansive on health care reform and rather than repeal and replace it with what and how and whom it would benefit. he could talk more about the reform he wants in the tax code aside from getting rid of interests for wealthy people. where he always falls down is that he goes on the attack without when a direct question is asked. what would you do about x, y or z, he deflects and goes on the attack that hillary has been here for 30 years and didn t do anything. the way you bring people into the tent is to tell them exactly what you would do for them. like taxes and health care, i still do not think that we got much beyond obamacare is a disaster and why didn t she fix the tax code? and by the way, i think we might have heard him admit, i m not sure about this, that he did use on the $918 million debt, that he actually used that not to pay taxes. he did say. he didn t say how long but he did say he use it. i think the trump teams thinks they are reaching out to suburban, white women and college-educated women when they talk about african-americans and hispanics, he hurts his case because of his record and the way he talks about african-americans and the way that he tends to say the african-americans and not just african-americans, which is a way of referring to folks in deeply odd. i think they are doing that but i don t think there s any success in growing that tent. the real question is, they fear he doesn t have the right temperament or command, were they assured tonight or think of him differently as a result of this performance? i agree with michael, he was speaking to the base and i think the base is probably very happy. the base is just not big enough to win the election. the demographics of the country are such i m sorry to hit this point again, george herbert walker bush and mitt romney got the same percentage of the white vote. 59%, what earned bush 136 electoral votes got mitt romney only 56. and there is the changing demographic of the country and that s why the missed opportunity was with the muslim woman and the african american man at the end. that was magnanimous. where he s doing poorly, he needs to improve significantly, has to do with college educated white voters. he s even with college educated white men. health care and their families. there was a poll out today in your home state and your home state that had him leading among college educated voters, white voters by 20 points. this is a cohert that romney carried by 14% in 2012. that s a stunning tolerance, right? they think he s a bigot. right. that s why you hear hillary clinton, all of her ads, are about donald trump and what he said and those words, whether it s about women, whether it s about the birther controversy, those things turn off college-educated white voters. he can t undo that because he spent so much time branding himself in that way as this kind of unreconstructed alpha male and the tape only underscores that. let me say one thing about the tape. we re all talking about the debate and that s going to be our focus until 1:00 in the morning. tomorrow morning we wake up in a world where the debate is over. we re not talking about it. we re talking about something else. i can t help but think the clinton campaign is going to make sure that that tape is everywhere from now until the election. it s about the image of the women from this point forward. four women and donald trump and that story s going to get told. college educated white women that we ve been talking about. can i just make one other point in which is it s very clear they don t like each other very much. it was kind of an irritating debate in that sense because they were firing these jibes back and forth. and what was missing from it was any invocation of people, humanity. we re in a town hall meeting. the only person that was raised i think hillary clinton raised an individual and just as in the last debate she raised an individual to weap weaponize that story against donald trump but the day-to-day struggle. health care, nobody mentioned anybody who was actually struggling with health care. i was surprised by that. let s go back to the tape. i want to play donald trump s response when the subject of this access hollywood tape, him talking very crudely about women, seeming to boast about grabbing women, assaulting women inappropriately. here was his response. you called what you said locker room banter. you described kissing women without their consent, grabbing their genitals. that is sexual assault. you bragged you sexually assaulted women. do you understand that? no, i didn t say that at all. i don t think you understood what was said. this was locker room talk. i m not proud of it. i apologized to my family. i apologize to the american people. certainly i m not proud of it. but this is locker room talk. you know, when we have a world where you have isis chopping off heads, where you have and frankly drowning people in steel cages, where you have wars and horrible, horrible sights all over, where you have so many bad things happening, this is like medieval times. we haven t seen anything like this, the carnage all over the world, and they look and they see. can you imagine the people that are frankly doing so well against us with isis and they look at our country and they see what s going on. yes, i m very embarrassed by it. i hate it. but it s locker room talk and it s one of those things. i will knock the hell out of isis. we re going to defeat isis. isis happened a number of years ago in a vacuum that was left so because of bad judgment. and i will tell you, i will take care of isis. so the basic response there, van, it was locker room talk but nothing compared to the horrors of isis and i m going to stop isis. i just thought that was just horrible. he rather than apologizing he minimized. and that was something that everybody here agreed he should avoid doing. and basically, if the only thing you have to say about yourself is i m not as bad as isis, i mean, that s your defense, there s something wrong with that kind of response. [ cheers and applause ] the other thing is that you cannot underestimate the history that was made in our country. a line was crossed that i don t know has been crossed in my lifetime, maybe ever. he threatened to jail his opponent. right. he threatened to jail hillary clinton if he became president of the united states. that is something i think is a new low in american democracy. but i will say something maybe provocative. i think hillary won because donald trump kind of won. in other words, the worst possible outcome for hillary clinton could have been if she knocked him out. if she had knocked him out and forced him out of the race, you could have been in a situation where the republican party could rally, get somebody else in there. it was actually a good outcome for her. she did well enough. he did well enough. he stabilized himself. and he s going to bleed out. and she s going to be able to get across the finish line. i m not sure we watched the same debate because read the transcript. donald trump issued three more apologies. he s now up to issuing five. that s enough for most of the american people. i m still waiting on the media to call on the apology for hillary clinton lying to the families of benghazi members when she told them their families were dead because of a video. i m still waiting for a call for that apology. but i think something very big happened tonight that is lost upon most of us. what we saw tonight was someone speak for the people against the washington elite. there are people in this country, 2/3 of the country thinks we re in the wrong direction. they re tired of being promised hope and change, which is what president obama promised millennialed, promised the american people and it did not materialize. and you saw donald trump flawlessly expose the double standards of justice when he said when he said if someone, an american citizen had done 1/5 of what you had done with your e-mails their lives would have been destroyed. and there was an audible boo from the audience because people know hillary clinton lied when she retorted with the fact that i didn t do anything wrong with my e-mails. the audience booed because there are two standards. the washington elite get one and we the american people get another. i think that was explosive. i think the audience had trump supporters and clinton supporters and we heard both sides. but let me go into let me play some of what you re talking about and specifically, van jones, it s the moment you that referred to where he said that were he in charge of the laws she would be in jail. i didn t think i d say this but i m going to say it. and i hate to say it. but if i win, i am going to instruct my attorney general to get a special prosecutor to look into your situation because there has never been so many lies, so much deception. there has never been anything like it. and we re going to have a special prosecutor. when i speak, i go out and speak, the people of this country are furious. in my opinion, the people that have been long-term workers at the fbi are furious. there has never been anything like this where e-mails and you get a subpoena. you get a subpoena and after getting the subpoena you delete 33,000 e-mails. and then you acid wash them. or bleach them as you say. a very expensive process. so we re going to get a special prosecutor and we re going to look into it. because you know what? people have been their lives have been destroyed for doing 1/5 of what you ve done. and it s a disgrace. and honestly, you ought to be ashamed of yourself. secretary clinton everything he just said is absolutely false but i m not surpris surprised. i told people that it would be impossible to be fact-checking donald all the time. i d never get to talk about anything i want to do and how we re going to really make lives better for people. so once again, go to hillaryclinton.com. we have literally trump. you can fact-check him in real-time. it s just awfully good that someone with the temperament of donald trump is not in charge of the law in our country. because you d be in jail. secretary clinton [ cheers ] so jeffrey, i heard you laughing. obviously that is a crowd pleaser for trump supporters. there s no question about that. he already has trump supporters. they already support him. is that the kind of line that exemplifies the kind of temperament that those who are undecided want to hear from him? yes. and i ll tell you why. this is about as kayleigh was saying, this is about the american people versus the political class in this country. media elites, politicians, et cetera, who as he said repeatedly there, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk and they never get anything done and they lie and they dissemble. and she would in fact, if she were not hillary clinton, she would be in huge trouble with these e-mails. and she would conceivably be going to jail. i mean, other people have gone to jail for these kind of problems. so what he s doing there is hitting the broad themes, one, the division between the american people and the political class. two, her character. if you remember that famous quinnipiac poll from last year where they asked people to free-associate one-word descriptions of the candidates and for her it was dishonest and liar. you know that s kind of a bogus poll where they i mean, i think the biggest ones for trump were unflattering as well. but i take your point on the fact that she has very, very low trustworthy and honesty numbers so he was hitting this. okay, paul. the strategic context in which this debate occurs is the trump campaign in meltdown. a meltdown especially with women because of this really horrific tape where he brags about committing sexual assault. i don t think he put it to bed. you keep hearing stories that there s more tapes to come. the guy did 10 or 14 years on television and people keep saying we re going to go through these tapes. maybe they will. maybe they won t. but he certainly did nothing to put it behind him or even to inoculate against the stories to come. now, tonight s audience, i bet you a nickel, would be much more female than male. first off more voters are female than male. but tonight we re up against qupt sunday night football. packers by the way 17-9 over the giants leading right now fourth quarter. the performance he put on, first being so bizarre about this sexual assault. in one of the answers he mentioned isis, immigration, and the economy. in one of the follow-ups he rambled on about michelle obama, sidney blumenthal, debbie wasserman schultz, bernie sanders, e-mails. that doesn t assuage any women voters. and then the style throughout the debate i kept hearing from a lot of women, they didn t like that the pacing, the stalking. yeah. the really kind of creepy behavior when he wasn t speaking. toward hillary. last time it was he got in trouble for interrupting. he did a fair amount of that again. he seemed to actually pick a lot of unwise fights with martha raddatz also. less so with anderson. this is not if i m as a super pac guy, i work for the super pac that s opposing trump and is supporting hillary. i m happy about this. if i were a trump strategist i d say boss, we ve got a problem with women and you just made it worse. we re going to keep it there. everyone stay. we ve still got two hours. wolf, let me throw it back to you. anderson anderson. jake, thanks very much. we ve got an excellent moment right now to discuss something i d never heard in any of these debates before between two presidential candidates. and dana, let s talk a little about this. one candidate says not only is he going to put forward a special prosecutor to investigate his rival but, and this is very significant, he s going to put her in jail if he s elected president of the united states. that s pretty extraordinary. okay. not to sound too corny, but what makes this country different from countries with dictators in africa or stalin or hitler or any of those countries with dictators and totalitarian leaders is that when they took over they put their opponents in jail. to hear one presidential candidate say, even if it was a flip comment, which it was, you re going to be in jail to another presidential candidate on the debate stage in the united states of america, stunning. just stunning. certainly is. john king. most of his strategy on these issues was clearly designed, a, listening to his alt-right advisers. this was a breitbart strategy from the predebate and the debate. if he s bleeding across the electorate, if his goal priority one is to stop the bleeding on the right, then it may have succeeded in that. if you look at state by state, if you look at the battleground states, if you look at the demographic breakdowns in the states he is losing now heading into the last 30 days. remember, the timing of this is critical. in the last 30 days there are some people already voting. more people will start voting this week. even more will start voting after that. many in the most important battleground states. 30% of the american people last tight voted early. that will probably be a little higher this time. so the election is not on november 8th. it is now for many people in the states that matter. and if donald trump needed to shore up his conservative base, his team is very happy. he was much modern gauged than he was tonight. he was much more aggressive. he did more counterpunching. he got to some of the issues that he believes are her weaknesses but to dana s point there is that going to win you the vote of a moderate woman in the philadelphia sbushds? i think not. is it going to get you raves on zruj and breitbart and the conservative media and the other network, we all know who i m talking about, most likely. but at least he ll stop the bleeding among his own base. yes. i think that is a fair assessment that you can see in the mood and even the republicans who don t like trump. they think this is the worst possible outcome because they thought if he tanked tonight there would be pressure to get him out of the race. exactly. and now they re saying he did well enough to stay in. they don t think he can win and they think he hurts other senate and house candidates. but they think he did well enough to sustain himself without a doubt and i know that s what they think inside team trump. without a doubt they think they had a strong night. we re just hearing that eric holder apparently just said that trump s threat was like nixonian. not so much the jail threat but the threat that if he becomes president he s going to instruct his attorney general to appoint a special prosecutor. it s first of all, i believe it s kind of a misunderstanding of what is even allowed and the way that the process works. but even so, putting that aside, just the threat is something that is going to this is something that s going to have ripple effects in the days to come. i also think another giant question tonight, again, people view these things through their partisan prism but we know that hillary clinton has barack obama, michelle obama, bernie sanders, elizabeth warren, joe biden, bill clinton. donald trump has mike pence. there are no other senior republicans out there. and he threw mike pence under the bus tonight. he threw his running mate under the bus tonight, who has stood by him mike pence did not defend donald trump on the specifics in the vice presidential debate. i was told that got under donald trump s skin a little bit. mike pence did stand by him this weekend. mike pence, a christian conservative whose wife i m told was horrified when she heard that tape and who talked to her husband about it, mike pence did stand by donald trump even though he did say the language is offensive. dysfunction in the campaign in the last 30 days is dangerous. he just did put out a tweet mike, pence that s what i was looking for. going ahead and endorsing congrats to my running mate @realdonaldtrump on a big debate win. proud to stand with you as we make #make america great again. brianna keilar you ve got a special guest in the spin room. i have hillary clinton s campaign chair john podesta. and i want to get your reaction to something first. donald trump called hillary clinton the devil but he also made a threat that if he were in charge of the laws of the country that he would jail her, he would imprison her. what is the campaign s reaction? well, it s one more over-the-top statement by donald trump. and fortunately, he s not in charge of the laws of the united states and never will be. but i think that maybe he was trying to appeal to his base. what we ve seen over the last few weeks and particularly over the last few days are republicans peeling off him in droves. so maybe all he s got left is his base. so to call her the devil is i think beneath a presidential candidate. it s one more reason yes he doesn t have the temperament to do the job of being president or being the commander in chief. the optics from the beginning of the debate were that we sea chelsea clinton not there to shake the hands of melania trump and her kids as we saw during the first debate. and then hillary clinton did not shake hands with donald trump at the beginning of the debate. that s a very clear signal she was trying to send. well, look, i think he came in here sort of pulling this stunt that he did at the beginning of this and was on the attack from the beginning. again, i think maybe he was just trying to stabilize his own base of voters even as that s shrinking. but i think that given what we saw, what we saw on the videotape, what we re seeing now in the howard stern tapes, his she s trying to signal something. she s trying to signal that she that his behavior is doesn t really deserve the respect of a handshake at the beginning. she did shake his hand at the end. but i think that, you know, he came in tonight and even walked back whatever bit of an apology he gave for the access hollywood tape that every american now has probably seen over and over again. i know that one of the strategies coming into this was thinking that after that tape came out there were people who were newly open to hillary clinton. but the assessment seems to be that she really just rallied the base and whether or not she has really expanded it seems that she and donald trump just rallied their base. what do you say to that? i think she came in trying to answer the specific questions. this was supposed to be i think in my mind a town hall where voters got to ask specific questions. the moderators asked a lot of the questions tonight. but the voters did get to ask questions. and i think she wanted to talk about the specific ideas, the specific plans, what she s been able to do in a bipartisan way when she was first lady, when she was senator, the children s health insurance program, the other program she talked about. but most importantly what she wanted to do to build an economy that was going to work for everyone, not just those at the top. so if n. doing that i think what she wanted to try to accomplish was to say i want to be a president for everyone and i want to have you listen to me with a positive message, an optimistic view of what america can be. in contrast i think he was dark and divisive again. john podesta with the clinton campaign. thank you so much. back to you guys. all right. thanks very much, brianna keilar. let s play a clip. this is donald trump speaking about the former president of the united states, bill clinton. i told you, that was locker room talk. i m not proud of it. i am a person who has great respect for people, for my family, for the people of this country. and certainly i m not proud of it. but that was something that happened if you look at bill clinton, far worse. mine are words and his was action. his was what he s done to women. there s never been anybody in the history of politics in this nation that s been so abusive to women. so you can say any way you want to say it, but bill clinton was abusive to women. hillary clinton attacked those same women. and attacked them viciously. four of them are here tonight. one of the women, who is a wonderful woman, at 12 years old was raped at 12. her client, she represented, got him off. and she s seen laughing on two separate occasions, laughing at the girl who was raped. kathy shelton, that young woman, is here with us tonight. so don t tell me about words. absolutely i apologize for those words. but it is things that people say. but what president clinton did, he was impeached. he lost his license to practice law. he had to pay an $850,000 fine to one of the women, paula jones, who s also here tonight. and i will tell you that when hillary brings up a point like that and she talks about words that i said 11 years ago i think it s disgraceful and i think she should be ashamed of herself if you want to know the truth. he gets to run his campaign any way he chooses. he gets it decide what he wants to talk about. instead of answering people s questions, talking about our agenda, laying out the plans that we have that we think can make a better life and a better country, that s his choice. when i hear something like that, i am reminded of what my friend michelle obama advised us all. when they go low, you go high. [ cheers and applause ] she got some applause for that line but i didn t hear a robust vote of confidence, a defense of her husband in that response, because he really went after bill clinton. hillary clinton didn t mention bill clinton s behavior or actions at all. she didn t defend her actions at all. she just went after more or less donald trump essentially saying you re trying to go back and we re talking about you here. a couple of points on that. donald trump clearly tried to gin up support on the r50i9d right with his base. if you talk to conservatives, especially the all the rooilt conservative media they think these issues have been ignored or forgotten. you and i covered the white house at the time. the paula jones case, kathleen willey case, monica lewinsky impeachment that dominated our lives. i had color in my hair when that started. that was several years of our lives. they think we should still be talking about this later. and trump was trying to connect hillary clinton to that. will that be a winning strategy in the general election? we ll see how it plays out. but clearly donald trump came here tonight saying when i m asked about me i m going to deflect to bill clinton. i do think it helped him rally conservatives. i also know from e-mail conversations with clinton campaign people anderson cooper said this is sexual assault. and what donald trump he said he didn t do it. he said he was just talking about it. he did say tonight which he did not say in that weekend night video-e didn t address whether or not it actually happened. he just said he was sorry. donald trump did say he never did those things. so he was bragging about sexually assaulting women. and he said no, it s locker room talk. the clinton people that s going to be in an ad probably by the time we get to the end of this week. with anderson cooper asking a direct question and donald trump saying it s locker room talk. it s not locker room talk. it is not locker room talk to whether you re fantasizing about it speculating about it or talking about it of groping people, sexually assaulting people. that s a crime. but i will just say, and probably getting similar notes from republicans, i just got one from a top republican who s very skittish about donald trump saying that he did okay acknowledging the bar this is among republicans. that the bar is pretty low right now for him to kind of bring some of them back into the fold but that in the words of this republican he moved the conversation beyond the caught on tape hot mike situation. on the flip side of that i ve been hearing from some democrats who think that hillary clinton did well but wondering why didn t she put it away, wondering what could she have done differently to after the weekend that donald trump just had to just end it. just completely end his candidacy. and that she possibly could have with this debate but didn t. but you think that s in part the result of an hour before the debate he invites these women no. to come here not only to do a little joint photo opportunity with him but then to sit in the front row you mean whether she was rattled? yeah. i mean, i don t know. i didn t get the sense that she really changed her strategy much at all. that she was going to do what she was going to do. she clearly was ready for bill clinton s name to come up in the context of these women or in any other context. and he she made the decision she wasn t going to go there. she was going to instead hit all the demographics that she thinks that donald trump has offended, whether it s the disabled or the hispanics or muslims and so forth and she was just going to pretend like the bill clinton question didn t happen. she s trying to keep what she s got. she d she s ahead right now. she s head in the moltum in the last ten days and we don t know about the weekend. we don t know how that will be processed by voters or this debate which they ll be processing at the same time. what they learned over the weekend about donald 2ru78. and now this debate. hillary clinton came saying if i protect what i have i win the election. and she was it was clear she was hoping that donald trump hurt himself with his own words and donald trump turned in a much stronger performance in terms of punching, counterpunching and getting to the issues more favorable to him. a much better job tonight than in the first debate no doubt. our exclusive cnn/orc poll results momentarily. who won this debate? in the meantime let s go back to jake. thanks so much. appreciate it, wolf. i m back with our panel. something i want to throw out to everyone here. i ll start with this side and work over. the alicia machado moment was a throwaway line at the end of the last debate and it became a huge story because of how the clinton campaign went with it and because of donald trump s reaction. one thing i m wondering if donald trump introduced at this night s debate that we just talked about over here that might become a bigger thing for the clinton campaign and i think we can agree they re much more effective at the attacks and the commercials and with surrogates, et cetera. that is with donald trump saying if he gets elected president he s going to ask his attorney general to appoint a special prosecutor to put hillary clinton in jail. yeah. this is the kind of thing they do in countries not like the united states, where you lock up and jail your political opponents. this feeds into something a criticism we ve heard actually more from conservative critics of donald trump than liberal critics of donald trump. can you imagine this man with his dem pramt and his drive for vengeance having instruments of government at his hands, the irs, et cetera. i wonder if that was a much bigger gaffe than we are making it out to be. i think it is. i think it s a huge gaffe. republicans talk about the imperial presidency and how barack obama has abused his executive powers. imagine somebody being asked to serve as attorney general if you knew that a president was going to direct prosecutions. i m not a lawyer. but i get that. and it is as dana was pointing out nixonian to a great degree. and i think that it is also un-american to a great degree. and i think that is something the clinton campaign can use and can use very fevtly. also to me when he said i d put her in jail. remember during the convention lock her up. lock her up, lock her up. and he kind of tried to quiet it a little at the convention because he was in presidential mode. now this was a primary campaign debate to me tonight and what he was doing was rallying the base by saying lock her up effectively, which he did also, calling her a liar multiple times and the devil. multiple times. and saying he d put her in jail. and he said she had hate in her heart. i don t think that s going to play very well with voters. i think what happened was he said i m throwing out the playbook and i m going with, as you point out, i m going with the material that s worked for me when i go out there and speak to these rallies. this line of prosecuting hillary clinton is something he s used in his rallies. this is not a new idea. he just raised it to the level of a debate point here. and my guess is it will resonate well with his base and it will antagonize the people he needs to grow who worry about the things you point out, who worry about his temperament, worry about whether he would handle the job of president in a responsible way. so you know, i think he galvanized the base again, perhaps at the expense of expanding it. it s another iteration of her argument, which is in an ad, about having him near the nuclear codes. a man you can bait with a tweet shouldn t be near the nuclear codes. and he also probably shouldn t have the instruments of the military, of the justice department. so yeah, i think that ll certainly end up in an ad. and again, it s going to turn off those moderate swing voters who want a steady person, who want somebody who is steady in terms of their temperament, in terms of their manner, in terms of their speech and approach to issues. so i think this it wasn t a plant by hillary clinton in any way. i don t think it s going to end up in an ad because this isn t the issue she doesn t want to i don t think alleged criminality those who watched it i think it was cringeworthy for a lot of folks who watched it. jake, the two of us have ties to the philly suburbs. i still live there. you have family who are there. i ve waited, we re now a month out from the election, less if you start and think that people are already voting and i ve been waiting and waiting and waiting for the pivot or the outreach to the folks who come in from our area because if we had a nickel for every time they get invoked, even on snl, we d be wealthy individuals. it s never going to happen. i mean, this is the donald trump who got this far. i think there potentially is an emperor has no clothes thing going on around him where perhaps the people who could say to him you need to pivot won t do so for whatever reason. but this is what got him thus far and this is how he s going to ride it out. and i think that he feeds on the reaction that he gets from that base which is what keeps him hitting but michael, maybe he felt like he took the advice of the people who were telling him to pivot and be more muted in the last debate and it didn t turn out well for him. could be. so he decided well, the hell with that, i m going to throw all that out and go back to the stuff i know works. and just to elaborate, it s not michael and i are biased because we re from philadelphia but it s not just the philly burbs we re talking about, we re talking about white college educated voters, the people in the i-4 corridor in the middle of florida, we re talking about the people in northern virginia, in the suburbs of denver. these are voters that mitt romney did well with, that john mccain did well with. still not well enough to win harrisburg, where thousands show up for donald trump. and donald trump is underperforming with them. and i know that this i m sure he will win every online poll. i know that the breitbart crowd ate this up. my question is did he win over any suburban households in philadelphia? sure. i think he can. and let me use the issue here that you were just talking about to illustrate. talking about jailing the opponent and how this is dictators and all this kind of stuff. there is another side to this. and on a side that independent voters, the kind of folks you were talking about are very concerned about, and that is the politicization of the department of justice where you have an attorney general, eric holder, who said in that case of the black panthers group there that were at the polls in philadelphia and they were armed and they were in uniform. he said he wasn t going to do it because these are my people. again, i m sure he s winning fox news voters. that s not my point. when you talk about he said he would some fact checker is the fact check machine is going tilt right now. you re speaking against the politicization of the justice department under the obama administration. his answer was i ll tell my attorney general to appoint a special prosecutor to lock her up. that s not what he said. he said i will appoint a special prosecutor to look into it. yes. and then later in the same exchange he said if he were in charge of the government she d be in jail. as a response. i know the media doesn t get satire and humor but that was a humorous line we do. we get satire. you compare him to hitler and stalin locking people up when he said i don t think anybody mentioned hitler or stalin. but let s play it. let s play the exchange. i didn t think i d say this but i m going to say it. and i hate to say it. but if i win i am going to instruct my attorney general to get a special prosecutor to look into your situation because there has never been so many lies, so much deception. there has never been anything like it. and we re going to have a special prosecutor. when i speak, i go out and speak, the people of this country are furious. in my opinion, the people that have been long-term workers at the fbi are furious. there has never been anything like this where e-mails and you get a subpoena. you get a subpoena, and after getting the subpoena you delete 33,000 e-mails. and then you acid wash them or bleach them, as you would say. a very expensive process. so we re going to get a special prosecutor and we re going to look into it because you know what? people have been their lives have been destroyed for doing 1/5 of what you ve done. and it s a disgrace. and honestly, you ought to be ashamed of yourself. secretary clinton everything he just said is absolutely false but i m not surprised. oh, really? i told people that it would be impossible to be fact-checking donald all the time. i d never get to talk about anything i want to do and how we re going to really make lives better for people. so once again, go to hillaryclinton.com. we have literally trump, you can fact-check him in real time. it s just awfully good that someone with the temperament of donald trump is not in charge of the law in our country. because you d be in jail. secretary clinton. yeah. humor right there. you re saying he wasn t being serious? i m saying he used that line. it was humor to illustrate the point. and the point is as with the e-mails i mean, how many so he thought she was innocent of anything wrong with e-mails? how many stories have we seen, jake, in the last two weeks about destruction of computers, special privileges, the president president clinton gets on the plane i love you guys know i love jeffrey lord. i do. i m not joking. here we go. and i greatly appreciate this is a clearing of the throat. this is it. jake, you may want to get out of the way. but the idea that you are threatening to prosecute your opponent is as best i can tell unprecedented in american history. and i will say this. you don t appoint a prosecutor to investigate. you appoint a prosecutor to lay the groundwork to put somebody in jail. and here s the problem i have with the whole thing. but hold on a second. here s the problem i have with the whole thing. look, we do have a criminal justice system that is unfair, that is biased, but when people like black lives matter point this out people like yourself say they re race baiting, they re racist, and turn a deaf ear. so you can t have it both ways. you can t pretend to care about a broken criminal justice system only when donald trump is scoring political points about hillary clinton and then turn your deaf ear to the cries of actual people who are suffering. and there was a big missed opportunity tonight. when that muslim woman stepped forward, donald trump could have very easily said to her, i understand what you re going through. and he did. and he didn t. he did. let me finish. we ll get the tape. we ll get the tape. he very briefly said one thing. and then he basically gave an islamophobic answer to a question about islamophobia. why do i say that? because he said you the muslims have to report on the things that are going on. as if only the muslims have to do this. as if all of the mass shootings are done by muslims. you can say you want everyone in the country you see something say something. that s an american position. he says the muslims have a special responsibility. that s an islamophobic response. and he missed opportunity after opportunity to reach out. but don t play games with criminal justice with me. so kayleigh, let me ask you. you maintain and tell me what you think. that the first part, special prosecutor, serious, but then the other thing about because you d be in jail that was a joke. i do. and the audience laughed. so i think they clearly got the humor. but you know, to van s point about criminal justice and double standards and caring about citizens, you know who i care a lot about? petty officer christian saucier, who s sitting in a jail right now sentenced to one year in prison for taking eight photographs on a submarine to show his family and bringing back classified information home for him. christian saucier s in jail. hillary clinton did the same thing. she s out free because the fbi, to jeffrey s point, is politicized. they re friends. four of the people sitting at this table have worked in the white house. the white house must maintain an arm s length relationship from the prosecutorial power of the justice department. and it always has. except in the nixon administration where nixon did try to politicize both the fbi and the cia. it was one of the darkest moments of our history. what trump has suggested is straight out of the dictator s handbook. and it came during the same debate when he publicly broke with his running mate who dared to question vladimir putin. now, ken vogel of politico points out, but i remember this from my own work, that in ukraine a putin puppet, viktor yanukovych, did the same thing. he became president. he was a putin puppet. he locked up his predecessor, yulia tymoshenko. this guy is laying the groundwork for exactly he wants to crack down on the first amendment against journalists. in every rally he attacks journalists. now he wants to lock up his opponent just like putin s buddy. and even his running mate takes second fiddle to his pal putin hold that thought. coming up who won tonight s debate? what do voters think? we ll reveal the first results of our instant poll of debate watchers. and we ll get the first reaction from our focus group of undecided voters in the key battleground state of ohio. stay with us. yeah mom, the new kitchen s great. hey! if you want somethig to cook faster, you just double the heat right? no reason. hey mom, for laundry, the maximum load is just a suggestion right? oh that makes sense. ummm mom, how do i monitor my credit? ok. thanks mom. that was easy. sign up for credit karma s free credit monitoring today. we re here in the spin room getting reaction from all the candidates both the candidates surrogates. lots of reaction coming in. we re also standing by for the exclusive results of our cnn/orc poll of voters in ohio. we re going to get that momentarily. stand by for that. first official unofficial but poll results. scientific poll that we ve got, you re going to get those results momentarily. david chalian will be with us for that. the big question of the night, what did undecided voters think about donald trump s answer to the question about the leaked tape? pamela brown watched the debate with a group of these voters. we re about to show you what they thought. while you watch look at the bottom of your screen. if the lines go up, voters liked the answer. if the lines go down, they didn t like the answer. men s responses are in green, women in yellow. here s donald trump s response. just for the record, though, are you saying that what you said on that bus 11 years ago, that you did not actually kiss women without consent or grope women without consent? i have great respect for women. nobody has more respect for women than i do. for the record you re saying you didn t do those things? you hear these things are said and i was embarrassed by it but i have tremendous respect for women. have you ever done those things? and women have respect for me. and i will tell you no, i have not. and i will tell you that i m going to make our country safe. pamela, these voters didn t seem to like his answer. yeah, as you saw the very strong reactions from these 29 undecided voters from the ohio state university. so let s get straight to them to see what their reaction was when donald trump defended himself against that access hollywood video. what did you think, barb, when you heard what he had to say? i find it hard to believe whatever he says. he just doesn t seem to be a truthful person. reporter: and you have two sons and you had sort of a visceral reaction to what he said in defense of that video and what he was saying in that video. what did you think? well, i just feel that everyone has placed all of the accent upon young women and how we should protect them. we are equal citizens. i would hope that my sons would not talk like he did and i have tried to raise them not to act that way. reporter: it s interesting, because he reiterated in his defense that this is locker room banter, that this is just words. what do you think, larry? did that resonate with you? no. because that s not locker room talk. and for a 59-year-old man to claim that that s locker room talk i think is offensive to the young men who are out playing sports and doing the right thing. to me, it s pure and simple, sexual assault. and he should be held accountable for his thinking and actions of sexual assault. so to you that is not just locker room banter? that s not. not at 59 years old, especially. i don t know any 59-year-olds who are in locker rooms. i just want to get quickly a show of hands. who thought that donald trump did enough to put that controversy surrounding the tape behind him? raise your hand if you think he did enough tonight in defense. okay. and there were some positive reactions when hillary clinton actually spoke after donald trump defended himself against that video. let s take a listen to what she had to say during the debate. this is who donald trump is and the question for us, the question our country must answer is that this is not who we are. that s why, to go back to your question, i want to send a message. we all should. to every boy and girl and indeed to the entire world that america already is great but we are great because we are good. so i want to ask you, what was it about hillary clinton s argument that resonated with you following donald trump s defense of the video? she stated that america is already great and i tend to agree with that. though we are slow in progressing in a number of areas, we are progressing and we need to continue the momentum. what about you? what did you think about hillary clinton s argument, the way that she reacted, particularly when he brought up bill clinton s past and the allegations against him? what did you think? i think that she tried to clarify that they weren t the same, that what donald trump had done was she had talked about her children and other people s children and daughters and that it just it was uncalled for and he should not have done it and didn t feel that his apology was sincere. and it s interesting because she largely sort of stayed away from going there. do you think that was a smart move? raise your hand if you think that was a smart move. and raise your hand if you think it was a smart move for donald trump to bring that up, if that was fair game. why do you think that? well, i think, you know, if everything is out on the table, then everything is fair game. is it apples to apples, absolutely not. but i don t think in these debates it just doesn t ever seem like anything s off the table. i m going to get a show of hands now. the big question, who do you think won this debate? hillary clinton. raise your hand if you think hillary clinton won tonight s debate. okay. raise your hand if you think donald trump won this debate. okay. so clearly there are some of you who thought this was a draw. raise your hand if you think tonight s debate was a draw. all right. there you go. there you have it, wolf. mixed response. coming up, we re going to talk about what they thought and who they are going to vote for, these undecided voters, if any of them cemented their vote after tonight s debate. you won t want to miss that. hillary clinton is now speaking to reporters aboard her aircraft. i want to listen in. go back and lean up against my stool but he was very present. we re going to take off. then we re going to bring you - you . [ inaudible question ]. nothing surprises me about him really, dan. i was surprised by the absolute avalanche of falsehoods. i mean, i really find it almost unimaginable that someone can stand and just tell, you know, a falsehood after falsehood. you all remember politifact said he was the most untruthful candidate they d ever evaluated. and we sort of did the numbers. i think they said he was like 70% untruthful. and so i think he exceeded that percentage tonight. how did president clinton anyway, thank you, guys. we ll come back in a few minutes. there she is. hillary clinton going to the back of her plane to speak to reporters, making some tough statements once again against donald trump. we have the results now of our instant poll. we ve been waiting for this. david chalian, our political director. give us the results. wolf, as you know, we did a pofl debate watchers. this is not a national poll of all voters. this is a poll of debate watchers and just like we saw in the first debate and the vice presidential debate, the audience skews a little more democratic. debate watchers are a little more democratic than we would see in a national poll overall. having said that, who won the debate? according to the debate watchers we polled, hillary clinton won the debate. 57% to 34% for donald trump. that s not as big of a victory as she got in our poll in the first debate but it is a clear victory here. but talk about besting expectations. take a look at this. did donald trump best expectations, did he do better than you thought he would do? 63% of debate watchers said donald trump did better than they expected. only 21% say that he did worse and 15% say he did the same as they expected. how about hillary clinton s expectation game? take a look at these numbers. did hillary clinton do better or worse than you expected? 39% say she did better. 26% said she did worse and 34% said she did about the same. hillary clinton the winner in this poll of who won the debate. but donald trump significantly overperforming expectations. but the polls show that she did win this debate. let s get immediate reaction from kellyanne conway, the trump campaign manager who is with us. what s your reaction to that? my reaction is that i m glad that people think that 60% according to your online poll believe that hillary clinton either did worse or the same as they expected. it showed she wasn t very well prepared for tonight s debate. and that really surprises me. because if she s anything she s, you know, very wonky. she s very pedantic, lawyerly in her responses. i would have thought she d be better prepared for this debate. ail heard all week, wolf, is that the town hall format is really great for her. whereas we know it s our sweet spot because donald trump is out there every single day engaging with voters. he loves that. he s at the rallies. he s at the smaller forum round tables. he s at his own town halls. he clearly won the debate tonight why? because if you watched anybody s shows this whole weekend we ve just been left for dead, it s all over, why even show up, will there be a debate, are people jumping ship. he came here to play tonight and he came here to take the case right to hillary clinton and to show americans this race is still what it s always been. past versus future. politician versus successful businessman. washington insider versus disrupter. and he made that case very clearly. he did not back down. kellyanne, i want to ask you about what he said at the beginning of the debate. more than one time he referred once again to what he said on that tape as locker room talk. you re his campaign manager, the only woman at the head of that campaign. what did you think when you saw and you heard that? truthfully, what was your reaction? my initial reaction was very close to what melania trump said. i was offended. and i think that language is offensive and disgusting. and i m also very happy that he apologized. i m glad that he holds himself excuse me. accountable. because i look at the full measure of people, what they ve said, what they ve done, dana, and how they deal with adversity that comes to him to them. and donald trump is absolutely correct. these are words compared to actions. and he made that very clear tonight that hillary clinton blaming and shaming the women in her husband s life, that is not somebody who s standing up for women. but the term locker room talk. you had the highest-ranking woman in congress, republican woman, kathy mcmorris rogers, blowing that off and saying no, no, no, this is suggesting sexual assault and that s a very unfortunate phrase and people should stop using it. why? because i know him better. and i know better. but it s what he said. he did not say the word sexual no. it s what he implied you want to talk about sexual assault, right here in the hall i know cnn doesn t want into the view them for whatever reason. you give miss universe a big platform. but we have in the hall tonight juanita broaddrick and paula jones and kathy shelton the 12-year-old rape victim that two years before the rape shield laws were implemented in arkansas hillary clinton defending her 42-year-old rapist successfully defending him getting him a plea bargain. she was willing to blame and shame that victim as well who was 12 years old. we can talk about sexual assault but let s have a full conversation about it. this is what i know. i have to assess people based on what i see in totem. this is a man i ve been alone with many times who s never been anything but gracious and a gentleman and elevated me to the top level of his campaign the way he s elevated women in the trump organization for decades. because he respects women. let me just say that cnn at the time many, many years ago did fully litigate these two gentlemen were actually covering the clinton white house fully, talk about and report on their stories at the time. because it is very old. and i just because you brought it up i just have to say, kellyanne how she treated them. no, no. it was real time. i just have to say because you brought it up that your boss himself back in 1998 told neil cavuto about these victims. i don t necessarily agree with his victims, talking about bill clinton. his victims are terrible. he, meaning bill clinton, is the real victim himself. he put himself in that position. and he talked about how unattractive these people are. so in 1998 we re not going to talk about paula jones because it s too old but we ll talk did what i m saying is at that time he was defending bill clinton and going after these guys and now he s changed he s gotten to know them. we took note of hillary clinton s comment on the campaign trail and actually she said all sexual assault victims deserve to be heard and believed. these are her words. she s running for president now. she wants to be the president of all people. i assume except for the ones she thinks are deplorable and airredeemable which is tens of millions. but in fairness i know we want to talk about this because we certainly don t want to talk about tonight s campaign performance. when hillary clinton just on her plane lying that donald trump said falsehood after falsehood. i was watching the debate in real time. politifact, the fact checker said he was right about her wanting to have a 550% increase in sir refugees let me ask you another question about the debate. donald trump said he had not spoken to his vice presidential running mate mike pence about syria and he disagreed with him. we re 30 days from the american people voting. mike pence will be out there campaigning tomorrow. is the message to the american people at mike pence rallies don t believe what he says because not at all. they were talking about two different things. i just talked to governor pence not ten minutes ago. he says hello. he and mr. trump had also talked about what a great debate we ve had between tuesday night the vice presidential debate and tonight obviously donald trump winning here. in a vice presidential debate the conversation was about humanitarian crisis. and that s what governor pence was referring to. and mr. trump said and he said the united states might have to use force. governor pence the united states might he might have to. and donald trump said tonight i disagree with that. and i haven t spoken with him. about that particular aspect of it since the debate. that is true p they ve spoken many times this week. but let me be clear. on tv on your network today cnn s jake tapper took tim kaine to account because he couldn t answer a simple question about what hillary clinton said in the e-mails about having open borders. we know she s for open borders but the only way we know it now is because we saw it in her e-mails we did hear something extraordinary from donald trump today. he said if he s elected president he will ask the justice department to name a special prosecutor to go after hillary clinton. and then he went one step further and said he would arrest her and lock her up he would put her in jail. in all of the years, i don t remember a time in american history when one candidate has said of the other candidate if he wins the other candidate s going to jail. donald trump is channeling the frustration of a lot of americans he hears from, wolf. so many americans say i can t believe that people have been their lives have been ruined, their livelihood gone, they face jail time for doing far less than hillary clinton did hear and yet she was completely exonerated for deleting 33,000 e-mails, not turning over another 17,000. that s 50,000 right there. setting up the private server to begin with. saying that there s no classified information. fbi director comey said that s not true. i only had one device. she had many. they took a hammer to them. the story goes on and on. and it s an active investigation. in other words, just less than two weeks ago did ybut you understand the enormity of that statement. he s going to lock up his opponent if he wins. well, no, what he said is he wants to appoint a special prosecutor because he feels and he channels nearly public will here he hears all the time if we don t hear about the disasters in obama care and her failure with the russian reset and benghazi we re always hearing about the e-mails. and he is telling he told america tonight what america has told him. the frustration that there s a different set of rules for this woman as goes for e-mails. and she i you ve got to run. i m going to put up on the screen the results of our poll. you re a professional pollster. you ll see the results. these are people who actually watched the debate and millions and millions of americans watched. who won the debate? 57% said hillary clinton won the debate. 34% said donald trump won the debate. that s the results of our cnn/orc poll. kellyanne, thanks very much for joining us. i watched a different debate, but thank you. coming up we re going to have a reality check on some of the most contentious statements we heard from the candidates tonight. and we ll reveal more results from our own poll of watchers. what was their response to trump s attempts to explain his vulgar comments caught on tape? stay with us. welcome back. we re here in the spin room following this historic debate. we ve got a reality check, some fact checking with tom foreman and phil mattingly. tom foreman, first to you. what have you found out? wolf, attacks and insults have characterized this campaign for months now. and tonight as well. with hillary clinton saying donald trump has gone after women again and again. but it s not only women and it s not only this video that raises questions about his fitness to be our president. because he has also targeted immigrants, african-americans, latinos, people with disabilities, p.o.w.s, muslims, and so many others. that is really an enormous list of people up there. could this possibly be true? well, if you go all wait back to when he announced his candidacy, yeah, at some time or another he s either said or done something to disparage people on every one of these lists. this was actually a very easy one to check. and her claim is true. wolf? thank you, tom. phil mattingly, you ve been doing a reality check as well. yeah, that s right. it wasn t just hillary clinton that was taking some swings tonight. donald trump rolling off a litany of attacks against bill and hillary clinton. included this one. that bill clinton lost his law license. but what president clinton did, he was impeached. he lost his license to practice law. so here s the claim, that bill clinton lost his law license. quite simply was no longer allowed to practice law. so here are the facts. in the wake of revelations that bill clinton lied during the monica lewinsky investigation the arkansas supreme court brought a disbarment lawsuit against clinton. now, clinton agreed as part of the resolution to that lawsuit the day before leaving office to a five-year suspension of his arkansas law license as part of that plea deal to put an end to the lewinsky investigation. so where does that leave us? the verdict. it s true. on donald trump s claim that bill clinton lost his law license for five years. it s accurate. for this and all of tonight s reality checks go to cnn.com/realitycheck. wolf? cnn s coverage of the second presidential debate continues right after this. a high one. donald trump s campaign staggered after the video where the bragged he could grab a woman s genitals. then he went to attack mode and hillary clinton responded. look, it s just not true. you didn t delete them? personal e-mails. not official. we turned over 35,000. what about the other 50,000? please allow her to respond. she didn t talk while you talked. that s true. i ll try not to in this debate because i d like to get to the questions that the people have brought here tonight to talk to us about. and get off this question. okay, donald, i know you re into big diversion tonight. anything to avoid talking about your campaign and the way it is exploding and the way republicans are leaving you. the news this morning,
so there s no training behind this. there s no standard attack in any of this. so, actually, we can see it going any way. but i think the i think the longer it goes on without violence the more likely there won t be any. welcome back, everybody. i m john vause at the cnn center. i m natalie allen. thank you for joining us. we ve been here several hours with this breaking news out of australia. and we will continue to bring you the latest now. and we d like to welcome our viewers in the united states and all around the world. we d like to give you the update now. a gunman is still holding an unknown number of people at a lindt coffee shop in sydney s main business district. sky news australia reports that the hostage taker, seen here, is calling himself the brother. he has forced hostages to speak with three media outlets over the phone. he apparently has two demands. he wants an isis flag. he also wants a conversation with australia s prime minister. we also have video of five hostages who managed to get out. we still don t know how they did it. but they got out. that was the first one we saw in the blue jacket. then the man in the white shirt. and then there was one more that burst out of another door, a door that police aren t standing behind. that was about four hours ago. when that happened. and then two women, two workers ran out a short time later still wearing their aprons from the coffee shop. that woman. and then right behind her this one. all five hostages reportedly escaped from the cafe. they were not released. that is the information that we have at least. and they are now of course speaking to police. one was being observed at a hospital. it has been now more than ten hours since the gunman walked into that cafe. a flag with an islamic phrase was held up to the cafe s window. later hostages were forced to stand at that window with their hands up against it. australia s prime minister has spoken about the hostage taker. we don t yet know the motivation of the perpetrator. we don t know whether this is politically motivated. although obviously there are some indications that it could be. we have to appreciate that even in a society such as ours there are people who would wish to do us harm. well, our anna coren has been with us pretty much from the start of this, and she s now live there in sydney, and you ve been describing a lot of things going on today, anna. but the good news is that you haven t had to report on anyone getting hurt. and as far as you know, is the situation ongoing, hostages still inside that cafe and no one at this point hurt? reporter: yeah, that s right, natalie. certainly according to the deputy police commissioner. she wants this resolved peacefully. the siege now into its ninth hour. we know that the hostage taker, who is armed, has a number of hostages. we still don t have specifics. it s rather frustrating. i have to admit that we don t have the details that we would hope. but certainly police remajor extremely tight-lipped. they say they have the situation under control, that they are talking to the gunman, who is armed. we don t know if he just has a gun or if he has explosives or bombs. but certainly the cbd, the central business district of the city here in sydney, has been evacuated. all those buildings. the banks. the law courts. the commercial area has been evacuated. and there was a stream of people leaving the officers, telling me that authorities have told them to keep away from the window. they were kept in their building for hours until police could get to them and get them out safely. but certainly now we know that five hostages have managed to get away from the cafe. still here on the ground we don t know if they escaped or if they were released. but certainly according to the police commissioner, the deputy police commissioner, catherine burn, she wants this resolved peacefully. and if this is going to go into the night, and now it s gone, 7:00 p.m. local time, then they are prepared to do that. they don t want there to be any bloodshed and any violence. so anna, you and i, both stranl australians, we ve both reported in australia. never before has there been anything like this on the australian mainland. we had the bali bombing in 2002. this is an unprecedented situation. how are people reacting to it? because it s been going on for a number of hours now. we re getting a lot more information. is it all starting to sink in? reporter: yeah, definitely. and i think you re absolutely right. australia s real taste of terrorism back in 2002, when 88 australians were killed in bali, we haven t had anything like that since then. and really for this to be taking place now, still obviously these gunmen wanting an isis flag, holding up, or forcing these hostages to hold up a sign in arabic writing, it would certainly suggest that he is a sympathizer of islamic extremists, but we don t know that for sure. but yes, it s startling for people here. talking to tourists, talking to people who live, who work here, they say it is seriously offputting, it s scary. they are fearful that there could be other people out there who want to harm australians, who want to harm our way of life. which is a very open society. a tolerant and democratic society, an open society. we know that there are people here in this country who have ties to isis, who are sympathizers of isis. we know that there are 100 citizens who go on and join the fight in iraq and syria and that there are many people still here who are supporters of those fighters. certainly australia became a target for them ever since they got involved in this fight against isis. we know we have hundreds of troops helping out, you know, advising and training the peshmerga, the kurdish forces, the iraqi forces on the ground there. and certainly, you know, fighter jets, part of the air campaign that is aggressively attacking isis. so australia very much a target. but certainly we haven t seen anything like this on our home soil. yes, i m curious, anna, this is natalie. what is that all around you? we re seeing a long line of police cars, ambulances. kind of describe the situation that you re seeing around you. reporter: for sure. so just to give you an idea, we re about a block from where that cafe is, the lindt cafe. and along here, this is mcquarry street, all these ambulances are parked. they ve been coming here over the past several hours, obviously on standby in case the situation turns violent, turns ugly. we haven t seen any sign the five hostages who have managed to get away. we know that they re with police. there are hundreds of police in the area. but certainly this area is cordoned off. we cannot go any further. we were closer to the cafe. we had a visual of the cafe several hours ago, but police have since moved us on. i am now here with all the rest of the media. australian media and also international media. there s a huge contingency of media here now focuses very much on this story and what it means. for australia and the threat of course of terrorism. and as it s emerged what the gbman demands-r the two demands, he wants an isis flag-e also wants to talk to the australian prime minister tony abbott, the authorities there have been reluctant to release that information. why is that? it seems kind of benign really in the scheme of things. so why was there concern that this information was getting out there? reporter: yeah, it does seem very strange, and it s certainly frustrating for us in the media trying to disseminate information to the public, to not have access to that, to not know how many hostages are still in the building, to not know if it s only one gunman or if there are more involved. police have been extremely tight-lipped. that is the way that australian authorities operate. it always has been that way, as you would know, john, having reported here in australia for many years. it just is the culture. they want to contain it. they want to focus on resolving this situation. they don t want the media involved. we have to remember that that gunman you would have to presume chose that site. it was located opposite the 7 network australia. perfect vantage point to get the world s attention. so clearly he had an objective. now his demands, they seem a bit bizarre. they seem very strange, that he now wants an isis flag and he wants a phone conversation with the australian prime minister tony abbott. but certainly i think what we can assure you is that negotiators are talking to him, hoping that the situation will be resolved peacefully. okay. all right. anna coren for us there in sydney. we thank you again. and it s interesting, isn t it, john, that police aren t saying much at all, but this man, whoever he is, has reached out to the media and maybe this is the point. sorry. didn t mean to interrupt. but maybe this is the point, that the police don t want him getting his message out and they ve managed to stop him at every turn. he contacted a radio station, two tv stations, and it s only now, nine hours into this that really his demands, his message is actually getting out there. well, hopefully they do have a plan, they re working on this to figure out how to bring it to a successful conclusion. but so far, again, no one has been hurt. so thank goodness for that. we want to talk now on the phone with tiffany gender. she s a police reporter with 2gb radio. several of the hostages called into that radio station. so tiffany, what more can you add as far as what these hostages were relaying? what was their demeanor? what information did they give you about their situation? well, basically, that line of communication opened up quite early is this morning. one of the men from inside the building, the lindt cafe, actually called one of our announcers on air, and they took a conversation off air. it was decided it was not really appropriate for that conversation to be going on air, a lot of sensitive information. and basically, it was identified that he was a hostage inside and that he wanted to speak to prime minister tony abbott live on air, a live on-air interview. now, of course that demand was not met. negotiators have been to that 2gb radio station all day. we ve been fielding a lot of calls from people inside the building, from family members of people inside the building. who are just listening to this ordeal i guess play out on the radio. so let s get this straight. so people inside that cafe, inside that coffee shop, have had the ability to get on their cell phones and just call in whenever they want? that s exactly right. many of them have been on social media. one hostage in particular has posted a very horrifying message on social media with a list of the demands. and they have also been texting family and friends from the inside to say look, i am inside, i am okay at the moment, these are the demands, and if they re not met, you know, threats to kill and, you know, some other very horrible threats have been made against the group. interesting, isn t it, that this gunman didn t take their phones away. they re sitting there texting whomever they want, it seems, and presumably they could reach out to the police or be texting with the police. we just don t know, do we? you re right. it is bizarre. this whole thing is playing out on facebook, twitter, you know, through radio announcers. it is a very bizarre situation. and police have actually mobilized a special task force which is only mobilized during an act of terrorism. so basically, that allows i guess mobilizes the huge amount of resources that they have. it allows police to share more information with authorities, with azo and the federal government. police have just held a press conference and have said they are actively trolling through facebook and twitter to get information, you know. a lot of these the hostages are posting information on their facebook pages. that is one avenue that police are actually getting their information from. i guess the assumption could be this is a deliberate ploy maybe this gunman has taken to get the word out because what we ve been talking about for many, many hours now is what they want here is publicity. they want the megaphone so they can have their voice heard, their demands met. and one lady much like the 9/11 hijackers allowed the people on the plane to call their loved ones to tell them the plane had been hijacked. they weren t worried about that because they knew the plane was going to crash. so in a similar way this guy with the gun is letting people get this same horrific message out. that s exactly right. and that is fueling the fear and that is fueling their message. and police actually asked us to stop reporting those demands because it is really fueling hysteria and it is putting their message out there. and that was their objective. and what more have you been able to learn about the gunman, tiffiny, through these conversations? as your reporter mentioned earlier, police are keeping very tight-lipped on the operational information. they have not even been able to confirm how many hostages are inside. from what i understand personally, and that s speaking to sources, that police know who the gunman-s they know who they re dealing with and they are aware of his identity. but as far as any publicly released details about that gunman, nothing is being released. well, we can understand that because now at least we know they know who they re dealing with and they ve got a tactic to try to figure out how to deal with this person. but it is really bizarre that hostages are sitting there posting pictures making telephone calls and posting on social media. tiffiny gender the police reporter with radio 2gb giving us some very valuable information about what has actually been happening there all day long. she works at the same radio station as ray hadley. he has spoken to the suspect as well via at least one of the hostages, a 23-year-old man who actually managed to call on his cell phone into ray s radio show, and a short time ago we spoke with ray. i ve just come off a nine-hour shift. i normally do nine till midday. and we kept going because i made contact with the hostages. they found my program. obviously i didn t want to put them to air, so i took their calls off air. and at the same time could hear the hostage taker giving the young man who spoke to me, a 23-year-old, instructions on what he wanted to do. what s now been revealed by your reporter and others, that he wanted the i.c.e. flag, he wanted a conversation with the prime minister or he d start to dispose of hostages. i spoke to our police commissioner, our police chief, the equivalent here in new south wales where sydney is the capital, and spoke to him, spoke to our premier, which is a bit like your governor. and they told me off air it would be best if we didn t report those matters. i kept in contact with the young man. he gave me his mobile. and we had four conversations off air. between about midday and 3:00. and then i felt troubled by his tone. so i asked the police to supply me with a negotiator. i didn t feel equipped to keep talking with him because i m not a trained negotiator. i m a radio broadcaster. so the negotiator arrived here and i went off air about 20 minutes ago, about quarter past 6:00 at night our time on monday night, and the negotiators are still dealing with him. as you ve been told, five people have escaped. they weren t released. three gentlemen, one of them a worker from inside the lindt cafe, and then two young ladies who are also workers escaped as well. and police continue their negotiations. they re dealing with a lunatic. they re dealing way person who s making outrageous claims. he wants to be he wants the government to acknowledge that this is a terrorist operation, that he s doing this on behalf of isis or isil. and the government at this particular stage are treating terrorists as you d treat any terrorist in any part of the world, they re doing their best to secure the safety of the hostages without meeting his demands. just explain how the process works. you got this phone call from this 23-year-old man, this hostage which was being who was being held inside the cafe there. and then he relayed what the guy with the gun was saying. he told you and you responded and he said it to the gunman? i could hear the gunman. well, first of all, we were a bit skeptical, as you would be, getting a phone call to your open line saying i m a hostage. can i talk to ray on air. and so i made an editorial decision that i wouldn t talk to him on air because i was fearful that i may have been duped or that i might put people at risk. so i came off air during a three-minute commercial break and spoke to the young man. i thn rang him back and confirmed he was in fact a hostage. i spoke to police and they had a list of some hostages and his name was one of the hostages. his name was given to me by the young man. i was talking to him and in the background i could hear the hostage taker issue instructions about wanting to talk to the prime minister, calling me a scumbag, calling the media generally scumbags for incorrectly reporting isil as being a group of people who are murderous bastards who have no regard for human life. so i heard all this in the background. i went back on air. i didn t report what i d been told. i just said i had a phone call from a hostage and i contacted police which i did do. then he called me again and left his numbers and asked me to call him. i went to a news break and rang him again 37 this happened three times. and as i say, at the end of three or four conversations, these demands were still being made, that he wanted to talk to the the hostage taker wanted to talk to the prime minister, mr. abbott. i then said to police i need someone over here with a bit of expertise. a negotiator came over and started to take the calls. and since then he s had conversations with another four or five hostages through the course of the last two hours. ray, you said you could hear the gunman in the background making these demands. can you describe what he sounded like? yeah. that s what i was wondering. weighs he unhinged? was he yelling? what kind of accent he had. he had a middle eastern accent with an australian tinge. he was obviously someone originally from that part of the world, be it iran or syria or somewhere else over there. and you know, we have been a country like your country very welcoming of people from that part of the world. we have a long tradition of lebanese christians coming to australia, particularly of the maronite variety, over a long period of time and more recently people of the muslim faith coming here. and the vast majority of them are peaceful, hard-working, decent people who want to mac a better life for themselves. but we have these radicals highlighted by this lunatic who still has somewhere between 12 and 25 people being held hostage. the police know, john, how many people are in there but they won t release details to the media. five have escaped, but we know originally there was somewhere between 15 and perhaps 30. sow take a guess, it s either 10 people in there or 25 people. we don t know. you say he threatened to dispose of hostages. i m making the assumption he threatened to kill them. well, that s what he was saying. police negotiators told me the fact that we are now into the ninth hour and no one s been hurt or injured would indicate that this is someone they can deal with, if you know what i mean. ray hadley there, a radio host on radio 3gb in sydney. he is one of the most listened to programs in the country. he s a very popular radio announcer. for the number one talk station in sydney. and i believe across australia, really. and he had a number of conversations with a hostage in there which he s detailing to us. but it is now appearing to be a very bizarre situation, that we re learning more details, that many of the hostages in there have been able to use their telephones to call out, to post on social media, to tweet, to post photographs or demands, whatever, on facebook as well. all of this apparently being allowed by the gunman. right. and all the while, according to the radio, the same radio station, he alleges he has two bombs. that s right. inside the cafe. inside the cafe. and another two bombs hidden somewhere in the area. the police have had nothing to say about that. but a short while ago we did hear from the deputy commissioner of the new south wales police and she updated the situation, but she stayed clear. she continues to stay clear of confirming any specific numbers on how many people are still inside. here she is. i put out that plea and that message. if anybody does have information, please let us know. it s really important that you pass it on. because even the smallest snippet of information might be vital. there are hostages inside who are posting on facebook and social media some of the demands that the gunman s making. how are you responding to that? i know operationally that you need to keep some things under wrap, but it s out there for everybody to see. look, absolutely right. and we are monitoring what is happening on facebook clearly. we are monitoring what is happening on twitter. and that is forming a part of our tactical response in how to handle this. yes, that is out there. and we are aware of that. what has he told negotiators? that s not something i can talk about, what he might be telling negotiators. but the contact that we have will be ongoing. and it will be based on our best assessment about how to get those people out safely, which is what does count most. some of the hostages are talking about is he making the same demands to police or is he trying to use the media to make those demands? i think that there s probably a number of mediums that are being used at the moment. but we all have to be very careful not to completely overreact at this time because it is still ongoing. but it is important to reiterate that we are aware of that. we are monitoring it. and we are using that as a part of our strategy. why couldn t he have said how many are still inside? it s not something i can confirm at the moment, and it s not particularly useful to actually confirm potential numbe numbers. for people who we might be dealing with who might have concerns that a friend or a relative or a loved one might be in that building, we have set up our nb[ inaudible ]. how many maybe inside. that is a tactical, operational imperative. why is that so sensitive? because at this point everything has to be about the safety of the people in the location. so it s important we don t confirm at this point. that s catherine burn, the deputy police commissioner for new south wales speaking a short time ago, give us a little bit of new information, which was essentially what we ve heard from a number of people of the demands being listed on twitter and facebook by the hostages inside. what was interesting was she couldn t bring herself to call the people being held hostages. he had stopped herself from saying that. we should note it s coming up on 7:25 p.m. local time in sydney. all of this has been going on for nine hours and 40 minutes. we re coming up to our tenth hour. and want to point out this video we re seeing right here, that is the gunman and we ve also should h. video as you know of the hostages putting their haunds on the glass. that was much earlier. that was hours ago before police cleared off a wider area and had the media pulled back and not even sure how we got this picture. and the few details that we do know, again, coming from our afwilts who have been working their sources in sydney. apparently, the gunman inside there likes to be known as the brother. that s what we know about him. and that he is in his 40s. ray hadley, the radio host who actually heard him speaking, says the gunman speaks with a middle eastern accent. with an australian with an australian tinge. that s what we know. and we ve also been told police know who they re dealing with, but they re not letting us know that. earlier we spoke with roger shanahan. he s a former australian army colonel. he s a middle east expert and a fellow at the middle east center for policy. he thinks the hostage taker chose his location for maximum international impact. here s his comments. it s going to be very difficult obviously to determine what the whole purpose of this was until we find out more about the hostage taker, but i think the fact that the cafe in question is directly opposite one of the major television stations in sydney, it s done right in nearly the dead center of australia s largest city in the central business district, all of these point to the fact that the person in question wanted maximum exposure not only nationally but internationally. and putting up that flag with sh shahada on it even though it s not specifically the same as any islamist organization s flags, it s certainly a replica or a variation on a theme. so i think all of these together indicate the person in question wants a great deal of media attention placed on this. whether that s because he holds these beliefs or he has some kind of mental issue we won t know until the siege is over. what if that is in fact the case, that this is just a guy who is essentially suffering from some kind of mental derangement and he s grabbed this flag to try to get this attention and he has very little to do with isis? well, it s going to be the fact that either way he s got little to do with isis 37 but the kernel is that isis in the past has called for these kind of individual attacks against people. they said it in the past. and also in australia. so the concern is that this kind of flag in concert with the fact that he appears to be an individual doing it in such a public way. you think that might be his expression of his belief in what isis stands for. but as you pointed out, it could also well be possible that he s somebody with mental issues. should we have heard any kind of statement from i.c.e. at tsi point? they re very active on twitter, social media, they love to get their memorandum out. has there been any kind of support support for this guy? claim of responsibility is probably a stretch. but any kind of message that this guy is one of ours? you pronl wouldn t expect to see something like that until after the situation is resolved. you would assume if he s done this he s done this off his own bat, so it s not quite a limited degree of professionalism in what he s doing, so you would assume he s doing it off his own bat, and you would assume therefore the media branch of isis is probably playing catch-up on this issue and they d wait to see how it resolves itself before they make some kind of proclamation as to whether they support it or what they want to spin out of this situation. is it possible to know how many other people like this guy are actually in australia right now? no, it s very difficult. police and security forces for obvious reasons are quite cagey about what they say. what we do know is that in terms of figures there s been about 20 australians killed as foreign fighters overseas. it s believed there are about 70 over there currently active. about 20 have returned after having fought. and there s been approximately 60 or more passports of people of concern that have been canceled by the australian government, stopping them from leaving the country. how many people have concern like this if that s what this person is? that kind of information is only known at the highest levels of the security services. and hello to everyone, to our viewers in the u.s. and around the world, we continue to bring you breaking news out of australia. i m natalie allen. and i m john vause. thank you for staying with us. it s now 3:30 in the morning on the east coast, 7:30 in the evening on a monday night in sydney where a gunman is still holding a number of hostages at the lindt coffee shop in the very heart of sydney s business district. sky news australia has reported that the hostage taker has identified himself as the brother. he s reportedly used his hostages to contact three media outlets. the government has three demands. phone call with australia s prime minister. he also wants an isis flag. that s according to media reports. throughout this ordeal five hostages, you re about to see the first three, managed to get out. three men running out right there. two people who were just visiting the coffee shop and then an employee of the coffee shop comes out of another door. not the one that police that you see there standing behind. suddenly the door just bangs open and he comes out running. we believe the guy who comes out is in fact one of the workers because there s a combination of workers and customers who are being held hostage. and there he is. that was many, many hours ago. and of course they were debriefed by police after they got out. two women, here s the first one. also ran out a short time later. all five hostages reportedly escaped. that s not coming from the police. that s coming from other reports from the cafe. they were not released. what is not clear, almost ten hours after this all this began, how many hostages remain inside. let s go to cnn s anna coren. she s been with us for many hours. she s standing out near just a block or so away from the scene. anna, anything new? reporter: no, natalie. we re just waiting for more information from police. at this stage this is as far as we can go. we re on mcquarry street. anybody who s been to the city here in sydney before would have aware this is a very busy street. we re about a block from that lindt cafe where the gunman is holding up several hostages. we don t know how many. we know as you ve reported that five have managed to get away. we don t know if they have escaped or if they were released. however, we do know that police negotiators are in touch with him. that is being confirmed. that dialogue ongoing. and hopefully this will be resolved peacefully. but certainly for now the entire area like blocks in all directions are cordoned off. hundreds of police here on the scene. and then there have also been a number of police snipers who we have seen as well. as you can see behind me, a row of ambulances lined up. obviously on standby in case anything were to go wrong. but certainly an unfolding situation. a tense situation has people very much on high alert and very concerned that this could happen here in sydney. anna, just for our viewers who are outside of australia who are not familiar with martin place. i think the best way to describe it, this is an ongoing siege in an area of sydney which would be like times square in new york, for instance. this is pretty much in the heart of the city. reporter: yeah, absolutely in the heart of the city. there in martin place you have the reserve bank of australia. you have other financial institutions. you have the u.s. consulate. yove the 7 network australia located opposite this lindt cafe. so you d have to assume that the gunman chose his target very carefully. he wanted that exposure. he wanted the world to watch. police have now evacuated the entire area. hundreds of staff. we spoke to some of them a little earlier. streams were coming out from beneath the police tape. asking how it all unfolded this morning. they were told they had to keep away from the glass, from the windows, in case there were any bombs, any explosions, if the gunman started firing. and then they waited for police to escort and evacuate them from these buildings. but as i say, people are fearful that this could take place. obviously, there have been many raids anywhere australia over the past few months. terror-related raids. police trying to get on top of the situations. doing a great deal of intelligence gathering and foiling many attacks. but there have been many arrests. we know australia has been atarget. but it s another thing for it to actually be happening. yes, and it s been interesting to hear both of you since you re australian talk about the fact that this does not happen in australia. you can even hardly find a gun in australia, anna. and this person was able to do this. and the people in australia have now been caught up in a situation that sadly in the united states we see almost on any day, some sort of hostage situation with a gunman. yeah, that s absolutely right, natalie. australia s gun laws are just so strict here. and to think that somebody could actually walk into a cafe in the middle of the city armed with a gun with other weapons is frightening because it doesn t happen, as you say. and the last time that we really, you know, i guess felt the impact of terrorism other than it happening to australians overseas was in bali back in 2002, when there were the bombings and there were 88 australians that were killed in that attack. but it s another thing for it to be unfolding here on the streets of sydney. australia clearly involved in the war against isis. hundreds of troops over in iraq helping to train the kurdish and iraqi forces. we have australian fighter jets involved in the aggressive air campaign. threats have been made against australia. threats have been made against martin place in recent weeks. but as i say, for this to be happening, unfolding on the streets of sydney here in the heart of sydney is certainly very unnerving. yes. i can imagine unnerving for the people inside that coffee shop right now. so many hours. they are still in there. we don t even know how many. with this man. thank you so much, anna coren for us live there in sydney. miles godfrey is a political reporter for the daily telegraph. and he joins us now. he s been at the hostage scene all day, and he is now on the phone. miles, most of the information we re getting has been coming from reporters who talked with hostages in there, who ve been been contacted. we re not getting a lot of information at all from police. what do you know? what have you heard as far as who this person is, his demands, and how many people might still be in that coffee shop? yeah, good evening, guys. and good evening to your viewers. the latest information that we have is there are still a number of hostages obviously involved that are still in this cafe. the initial reports we got this morning were there were around 13 hostages being held. that number has crept up very slightly. and we think the latest information we have is there might be around 15. in terms of the perpetrator here, i don t think it s too helpful to speculate at moment as to who he is or where he s actually from. we don t actually yet know his motives apart from the obvious banner that he has put in the cafe. that would hint at a sort of background as to where he s coming from. nevertheless, it pears he s acting alone and he is acting in terms of sort of his mental state perhaps not from a very good place. but the thing you have to remember with all of this is that it is not actually it s not actually come as a huge surprise to many here in sydney. you may or may not know that we had a series of terrorism raids across the western area of sydney just a few months ago in september. and that actually led to a raising of the terror level threat here across australia from medium to high. the central part of that raid in september was an allegation that was later reported that there was a plot to kidnap someone from this very spot, from martin place. the allegation that was widely reported was that once that person was kidnapped they were going to be beheaded. now, the washout from that was a lot of people actually cast doubt on these claims and said was that really a reality, was that something that really could happen here in central sydney? and i think what we ve seen today is very much it is. we are living very much with the threat of terrorism on our doorstep. and miles, my understanding is one of the demands that the gunman has made is essentially he wants the world to know that australia is under attack by isis. and it seems that one of the reasons why police will not declare this a terrorist incident is because they don t want to give in to that demand. is that a fair reading? i think it is. and we re seeing right now at this very moment actually reports coming through that the hostages who are being held in this cafe have throughout the day been contacting a number of organizations, not to mention the national broadcaster. my understanding is they ve been ringing these organizations under the demands of the hostage taker and making a number of not least to bring an isis flag to the cafe and also a demand for the hostage taker to be allowed to speak to the prime minister perhaps on the national radio station, something like that. now, a lot of the media organizations that have received these demands are refusing to air them. some have, and that s how we know how they ve come about. but some of the broadcasters are actually refusing to pass on that information. and that is a direct result because they don t want to be seen to be assisting this guy, this madman, i guess, who s taken people hostage and is holding them under a siege. do you have any indication, miles, at this point as evening sets on in australia how long police are willing to wait this out. have there been any changes in the scene there? have you heard anything about are they allowing anything in, anything out? food, electricity ongoing. is there any kind of informat n information? i know it s very hard to get. but anything like that you re hearing. actually the assistant police commissioner here, catherine burn, who heads up the sort of terrorism side i guess of the new south wales police 230rss, just in a press conference in the last few minutes actually and they said they will be there for as long as they need be. and you wouldn t expect any less of any police force anywhere in the world. not least of all the new south wales police force, which is incredibly professional and incredibly capable as well. they ll thereby as long as they need to be. we ve got lives on the line here. they re not going to be taking any shortcuts. they re not going to be trying to end this quickly, by sort of pushing the situation or anything like that. in terms of food and that sort of thing being passed into the cafe, i ve not actually seen any going in there. by the very nature of the premises it s a cafe, you would think there would be some adequate splierksz food and water at the very least, to keep these people going. it s a very interesting point because it raises the question how long will this actually go on? and now we re in the 10th or perhaps the 11th hour of the siege that began around sort of 9:45, 10:00 a.m. sydney time. it s a very interesting question. all of australia and probably all of the world is surrounding their tvs this evening or whatever time of day it is in your part of the world and watching this unfold and we re all asking that question. when will this end? how long will it go for? and praying there is a speedy resolution and a safe resolution. and we certainly hope negotiators are talking with this person to try to talk him out of whatever else he wants. we do not know how long it will go but we know how long it has gone. almost ten hours now since that gunman first walked into that coffee shop. that chocolate coffee shop. the lindt coffee shop there in martin place in sydney armed with at least some dined of shotgun and took everybody inside hostage. and in the past few hours we ve seen at least five people manage to escape. there s also been communication with the hostages inside by a number of media organizations. but the police rin sifting the area is secure and they ll wait him out. and of course it is now turning into night in sydney. all this happening in the very heart of the city. chris reason be a reporter with 7 news australia was at the scene for hours. his newsroom is across from the cafe. listen to how he can describe what he can see from his position. let s start with what we can see of the gunman. he has been clearly identifiable through these last few hours as he paces his way back and forth affront of the four plate glass windows that link cafe. he s wearing a white shirt, a black cap, he s unshaven and he s carrying what appears to be a pump action shotgun. that gun almost coming into the frame of the windows, often close and menacingly close to the hostages themselves. let s talk about them, mel. we ve counted so far 15 different faces being forced up against the windows over these last eight, nine hours. not the 50 that had been speculated earlier. i think that number is wildly inaccurate. we re talking about that number, 15 people, combination of men and women and young people but thankfully no children involved as far as we can tell from our vantage point up here. now, you can the ghan seems to be rotating these people through the positions at the windows with their hands and faces up against the glass. one woman we counted was there for at least two hours. an extraordinary, agonizing time for her surely, having to stand on her feet for that long. some of them have got their heads in their hands like this as they re standing in the windows, mel. others look so vibly upset. one whom whose eyes were bloodshot red, obviously been crying her eyes out for some time, who knows what s been going through their minds these last few hours? just a terrifying ordeal for them. and i ve got to speculate here but would have been even more terrifying two hours ago when we saw the rush of escapees. we saw at this vantage point the gunman got extremely agitated as he realized those five had got out. he started screaming orders at the people inside. the hostages remain behind extremely agitated. we didn t see anything more than that. and we can t swing our camera around from this position to show you those windows directly live, mel. the police have been good enough let us get up here. we re not going into the fehr with their tactical operations by doing that. but there s a little bit of detail about what can be seen at this time in the siege. that was before they evacuated the network and well, actually, what they have done is i think the timing on that is that they did evacuate the network and the police took over that building because it is line of sight directly across from the coffee shop. chris mentioned right at the end they did allow them back in to make that report. i see. but hundreds of people who work at channel 7 in that building. most of those people, pretty much all of them had in fact been evacuated. we saw earlier tonight we were broadcasting from their melbourne studios because they had to leave their sydney studios. and they were the first network to give us these pictures you re seeing here of people in the windows and also of the suspected gunman. reporter glenn conley describes what he saw. reporter: our camera was trained on the front door of the lindt cafe, and we had quite a long lens on the color. we were able to see right 234. what we saw is nothing short of terrifying. he was using one of the employees of the lindt cafe as a human shield as he moved between what appeared to be two groups of hostages. the first group in the front window that we had seen looking across from the 7 newsroom from the very moment this began but also another group further into the cafe which led to speculation perhaps there was more than one gunman. at various times he was going backwards and forwards with his hand on the back or back of the neck of this lindt cafe employee as he moved the hostages around. we did see other hostages there. in particular a middle-aged woman in a white top who was very, very distressed. she was wiping her eyes, wiping her nose, and at one stage went to wipe her eyes and was obviously yeltd at by the gunman, her hands went straight back up in the air. she was visibly upset. we ve seen that. particularly with the faces of those who escaped. the terror in their eyes as they reached the moment of safety was something unforgettable. certainly agree with that. glenn conley there with channel 7 australia giving? good details of what happened in the last couple hours or so. and you ve been saying, and anna coren is from australia as well, our reporter there, that this is the first time australia has seen a hostage situation like this. it s the terrorism dimension as well which makes this so different. earlier we heard from david mallen, associate director of the melbourne school of government. he told us the government has been ramping up security in the country for quite some time. here he is. it has been a very big concern for the past few months. at least for the government. i m not sure it s been the case for the general public. there was a planned attack in the same part of sydney martin place a couple months ago. it led haveto very tough anti-stror laws being passed. tougher in some ways than in the u.s. you can go to prison for an extended period simply for traveling to iraq and syria without permission. a lot like the patriot act after.95 pv. there s been a threat here but like some of the people you had the interviews for a few minutes ago, a lot of australians feel this is a safe country, nothing happens, the police are on it. and the threat comes with these lone wolves that don t necessarily have chatter that can be picked up and eventually luck runs out because the police have to be right every single time. ? very true. very hard to stop someone who walks into a coffee shop with a shotgun. it s a low technology, high-impact attack and they re the hardest ones to stop. americans in sydney, meantime-v been warned about the ongoing situation there in market place. the consulate, which has been evacuated, issued this statement a short time ago. u.s. citizens are strongly encouraged to review your personal security plan, remain aware of your surroundings including local events, and monitor local news stations for updates. maintain a high level of vigilance and take appropriate steps to enhance your personal security. good advice, not just for u.s. citizens who happen to be in sydney for pretty much for everyone who is there. concerning this situation ongoing in the world. witnesses to what s going on there at the cafe say australians are wandering around the streets with looks of disbelief. listen to what some people had to say near the scene. kind of a bit weird. like i ve never seen anything like this happen. like it s probably the first time in australian history that something this major in regards to a terrorist threat has happened. it is worrying me, actually. as you know, as me as a muslim i feel because it don t represent me. and if he think that he s a muslim he s doing the right thing, then he s very bad. because that s not us. that s not the muslims doing this. that s why i m worrying. if he think that he is what he s doing is islam then he s definitely wrong and everyone has to stand against him. people in australia shocked about what s going on. we ve been reporting that the hostages have been able to use their cell phones and they ve been involved in social media throughout this deal. people on social media throughout the world have been reacting to the hostage situation for hours. many tweeting about it using the #sydney siege. many hoping for a peaceful resolution. one person writing hope that sydney siege at martin place will end peacefully. please remember that islam is not a crime, extremism is. they aren t the same. another tweeting more innocent lives at stake spilling of innocent blood is not what allah taught us. pray for those captured in the sydney siege. the prime minister a few hours after this began addressed the nation. he encouraged everyone to stay calm. he said this is an ongoing operation and that australians should go about their business, not to be interfered with if you like by what is happening in martin place, not to be affected by it. this is some of what tony abbott had to say. i just want to make a short statement on the hostage incident in martin place in sydney. new south wales police responding. they are being strongly supported by commonwealth agencies. we don t yet know the motivation of the perpetrator. we don t know whether this is politically motivated. although obviously there are some indications that this could be. we have to appreciate that even in a society such as ours there are people who would wish to do us arm. that s why we have police and security organizations of the utmost professionalism that are ready and able to respond to our whole range of situations and contingencies including the situation that we are now seeing in sydney. the whole point of politically motivated violence is to scare people out of being themselves. australia is a peaceful, open, and generous society. nothing should ever change that. and that s why i would urge all australians today to go about their business as usual. of course if anyone does have any suspicions of untoward activity there is the national security hotline, 1-800-123-400. which i would urge them to call. i can let you know that the national security committee of the cabinet has been briefed on this incident. i ve been in regular contact with premier baird over the course of the last couple of hours. i ve been briefed by commissioner schipione of the new south wales police and by commissioner calvin of the australian federal police. this is an unfolding situation, and as the situation unfolds there will be operational updates provided by the new south wales police. i want to assure people that the ordinary business of government must go on and it will go on and that s why treasurer hawkey and finance minister corman will shortly be releasing the mid-year economic and fiscal outlook as planned. finally, this is a very disturbing incident. i can understand the concerns and anxieties of the australian people at a time like this. but our thoughts and prayers must above all go out to the individuals who are caught up in this. i can think of almost nothing more distressing, more terrifying than to be caught up in such a situation. and our hearts go out to those people. [ inaudible ]. i m going to leave it to the new south wales police, who are in operational charge of this incident, to provide those kinds of details. obviously, in a situation like this all sorts of reports fly around. all sorts of claims are made. so i do urge everyone to exercise caution in their reporting, but i will leave all the operational details to the new south wales police, who as i understand it will begin providing operational updates shortly. thank you. australia s prime minister tony abbott speaking a number of hours ago when this situation was first unfolding. and as he did say there, the new south wales police would be providing some operational details. we have learned a lot more about what has been going on in sydney over the last ten hours or so. we understand there s more than a dozen people being held hostage inside this cafe, that the guy with the gun has made contact with three media organizations, making a number of demands. among them he wants an isis flag, he wants contact with the man you just saw there, tony abbott, the australian prime minister. he s also making these claims that there are two explosive devices, two bombs inside the cafe none of that confirmed. yeah. somewhere in the cbd. we ve also seen over the course of the last few hours five people managing to escape from inside this cafe. yeah, we have. and we have the compelling pictures of the women who left the building with the lindt apron. five total. we still don t know how they were able to get out. most reports are they escaped. it wasn t a negotiation release. we don t know. although tony abbott said the police would bring us an update, they are not forthcoming. they like to control the situation as best they can. all is taking place in the lindt chocolate coffee shop. it is a popular place in the morning, especially when the siege began. the company put a statement out on facebook and addressed the situation. it read in part we would like to thank everyone for this kind support for the situation at the lindt chocolate cafe at martin place. we are deeply concerned over this serious incident and our thoughts and prayers are with the staff and customers involved and all of their friends and families. we don t know how many people left in the coffee shop are workers or employees of the lindt company or people who were just stopping to get coffee. we know it is a mixture of both staff and customers who are still being held hostage. we did get some details from the police that negotiators had made contact with the gunman. those negotiations are continuing. they are working out who this guy is. we have been told by our affiliates in australia they know who this man is, but not releasing details. this guy is an aspirational jihadist who wants to be linked to isis in some way. there have been messages of support from the canadian prime minister and the u.s. president barack obama has been briefed. we will continue to report on the interesting aspect that the gunman has had reach out to the media. the hostages reached out to the media. we will continue our coverage