. >> all right, brianna keilar, you have a full plate. >> yes. >> thank you very much. >> next hour we'll get reaction to general allen now being tangled in this scandal. nic paton walsh will join us with perspective there. >> and tom fuentes from the fbi will join us to talk about all this. >> then on "starting point," a man whose own sex scandal led to his down fall, former new jersey governor jim mcgreevey. jason chaffetz will way in and debbie wasserman shultz. >> man there is a lot going on today. you might not know this man. his software might be on your computer. john mcafee wanted for questioning now in a murder case. we'll have the details. >> another bizarre one. [ woman ] ring. ring. progresso. i just finished a bowl of your new light chicken pot pie soup and it's so rich and creamy... is it really 100 calories? let me put you on webcan... ...lean roasted chicken... and a creamy broth mmm i can still see you. [ male announcer ] progresso. you gotta taste this soup. how they'll live tomorrow. for more than 116 years, ameriprise financial has worked for their clients' futur

hear a lot of names in the mix, zoraida. >> lots to talk at. brianna keilar, thank you so much. >>> there's a lot going on in washington including questions this morning surrounding nancy pelos pelosi's future. she is expected to announce whether she'll seek another stint at the house minority leader. she has elections for november 29th and 30th, later than usual prompting speculation she may relinquish her role as the top house democrat. >>> and coming up in the next hour of "early start," military analyst and retired major general james "spider" marks will join us to talk about the petraeus scandal. >>> and coming up, i understand she's moved on. republican senator loretta sanchez was supposed to join us. >> and newt gingrich and his wife callista have their take on the presidential election and they will weigh in on petraeus as well. >>> keep it on cnn for special coverage. remember, president obama holding a news conference at 1:00 p.m. eastern time. wolf blitzer will be all over this covering it for you. make sure you stay tuned. >>> listen to this, another major recall fo

new jersey bounce back even stronger than before. >> white house correspondent brianna keilar joins us from green bay, wisconsin, where the president will make his first campaign stop since the storm. brianna, will the president -- of course the president will continue to monitor from wisconsin, right? >> reporter: of course, he will, carol. we're hearing from white house officials that before he leaves this morning, heading back on the campaign trail, he will be receiving a briefing from the head of fema, craig fugate as well as his top aides, and he will remain in contact with them while he is traveling here today to wisconsin, also to nevada and colorado and that he will be doing conference call with his local officials from areas where the storm has hit. as you know, air force one is equipped so that he can stay in constant contact while he travels, carol. >> what do you think his tone will be out on the campaign trail today? >> reporter: i think we've seen a little bit of a break, obviously, from a lot of the harsh back and forth. but we're going to start to see it ramping back

recession. white house correspondent brianna keilar is live for us this morning from washington. john boehner was the guy who said he didn't think a lame duck congress could do big things. what can be done in the next, what did i say, 53 days? >> well, maybe finding some sort of stopgap measure. some sort of framework on tax reform, soledad. i think that's the goal here. the fact is, house republicans and president obama and senate democrats, they don't really have a choice. they have to do something, and that became very clear yesterday when the cbo put out a report showing that if the country goes over the fiscal cliff you're looking at economic calamity. you're looking at unemployment ticking up, perhaps two points. you're looking at a recession next year. so, also listen to the conciliatory language that we're hearing from the hill and that we may be hearing from president obama when he speaks here at the white house this afternoon. listen to what john boehner also said about being reasonable. >> we can talk about all kinds of things we may disagree on. i'm the most reasonable, re

it's looking like, wolf. >> let's stay in chicago. brianna keilar in the crowd. they seem pretty excited as the president gets closer and closer to 270. he has 249 by our count right now. >> the excitement in downtown chicago is really building with each projection ha comes out, especially when we sawa wa, we'll tell you, standing among people, 10,000. >> bre anna, hold on a moment. we can't hear you. that crowd is very excited right now. let's go to john king. the president, 249. not that far away from the 270 he needs to be elected. >> takes 270. 21 shy. this is a safe bet. have to count votes. oregon, a democratic state very long time. that would get the president 256. some republicans say watch, watch, watch. they expect that to go right there. that puts the president at 262. you know what that means, wolf? you look at anyone left. pick one more state, turn one more blue, four more years. you have to count these, haven't officially called these. history is history. and reporting shows very strong, oregon will stay blue. nevada likely to stay blue. comes to that, 262. that wou

shows us how your money is in play. is your paycheck about to shrink? brianna keilar, three days after a bitter election, is either party really ready to budge? christine, nearly every american has money riding on this outcome, right? >> absolutely. the overall american economy does, too. let's talk about what the fiscal cliff is. starting in the beginning of the year because of a deal the congress did last year to raise the debt ceilings, all these things will go into play at the same time, big spending cuts, bush tax cuts expire, minimum tax cut goes away, payroll tax holiday goes away, unemployment benefits extension. whole bunch of things. middle income households making, say, $50,000 a year would see their tax bill rise $2,000. $2,000 for the year. immediately your paycheck, you would notice a change there o r overall, certainly in what you pay when you pay your taxes. this is the spending part of it. 8% to 10% cuts in budgets for everything you could think of, from the fda, centers to disease control, education, border patrol, cdc director has said this. 8% to 10% reduction will

on the general allen investigation. brianna keilar is at the white house with that. >> reporter: this coming from a spokesman for the national security council. it says really, pretty much, what we knew from leon panetta's statement overnight. it said at the request of the secretary of defense the president has put on hold his nomination of general allen as supreme allied commander europe pending the investigation of general allen's conduct by the department of defense inspector general. we know president obama has gone ahead and put on hold the nominating process, the confirmation process for general allen. that was set to go forward on thursday on capitol hill, thursday, as you know, carol. starting today for its lame duck session with a whole lot on its plate, including these confirmation hearings. general joseph dunford, who is actually in line to succeed general allen in charge of u.s. and nato troops in afghanistan, his confirmation hearing is still set for thursday, still set to move ahead and the statement goes on to say that the president is urging congress to act quickly on

white house correspondent brianna keilar -- actually, brianna is not yet available i'm told. but we do expect to get her up soon. we'll speak to brianna keilar momentarily. we'll also have a quick check of some of the day's other top stories. that's coming up including mitt romney, did he hurt himself with gaffes during his presidential campaign? is he hurting the republican party right now with his latest comments, the louisiana governor, bobby jindal, he's standing by to join us live. (splashing)... (child screaming underwater)... (underwater noises). >>> we've reconnected with brianna keilar, our white house correspondent, brianna keilar, is watching what's going on in new york. right now the president wrapping up a visit to new york in the aftermath of the superstorm sandy. what happened today, brianna? >> reporter: wolf, he got a rsand look at the aselasthvastue nrh h onsten of breezy point, where you know all of those homes burnt down. and the thing is, during the election climate change was not really a topic that got a lot of attention. but it was very much thrust into the d

europe. it's all going to be delayed because of this scandal. white house of course, brianna keilar has been following developments on that front. good morning. >> good morning to you, soledad. i'll tell you, we just got reaction in from the white house. the first since this new development involving general allen. this reiterating what we heard overnight in a written statement from defense secretary leon panetta. this is from the spokesman for the nsc, the national security council says at the request of the secretary of defense the president has put on hold his nomination of general allen as supreme allied commander europe. that's the top u.s. commander in europe, the head of nato forces in europe. this is spending the investigation of general allen's conduct by the department of defense inspector general. says the president remains focused on fully supporting our extraordinary troops and coalition partners in afghanistan, who general allen continues to lead as he has so ably done for over a year. meanwhile the president has nominated general dunford to be the next commander of isaf.

correspondent brianna keilar with a look at that. great to see you. a labor, of course, intent on making sure the president keeps his promise on those tax hikes for the wealthy. but what can we expect from this meeting today? we're talking about one hour with two dozen labor leaders. is there anything that can really be accomplished? >> reporter: i don't know anything really tangible is going to come out of this. this is a big kickoff for president obama, having meetings this week. today he's meeting with labor leaders, also liberal leaders. tomorrow, he's meeting with business leaders. obviously he needs to span the interest of these interests, i should say of these groups. as he tries to work out a deal with republicans and then he'll be meeting with the top democrat and the top republican in the house and the senate here at the white house on friday. so this is really him, we're told by white house officials listening to the concerns of some of these labor and liberal leaders. and what they want is to make sure that taxes on the wealthy increase to obviously, if that's going to

correspondent brianna keilar is live from washington, d.c. for us this morning. brianna, speaker boehner seemed to be offering the president on olive branch earlier this week when he talked about the possibility of increasing revenue. but here he's taking a hard stance against tax increases. what does that say about the chances of a compromise? >> well, it may actually sound kind of like it's splitting hairs. but it's really two different things where he's talking about increasing tax rates. he says he's not okay with that. but he would be maybe okay, maybe amenable to increasing revenue. to bringing in more tax dollars, because there is a difference. and what he's saying is part of a chorus of conciliatory language that we're hearing from democrats and republicans on the hill. listen to more of what john boehner said in that interview. >> -- talk about all kinds of things we may disagree. i'm the most reasonable, responsible person here in washington. the president knows this. he knows that he and i can work together. the election's over. now it's time to get to work. >> now obviously i

hilliard, ohio, soledad. >> brianna keilar for us in hilliard, ohio. thank you, appreciate it. want to get to grover norquist. he is the president of americans for tax reform. he's also the author of debacle, obama's war on jobs and growth and what we can now do to regain our future. thank you for being with us. >> good to be with you. >> thank you, appreciate that. you heard some of the predictions with christine starting out with those actual numbers. what do you think we're going to see today? >> the key number to look for is not simply the unemployment rate, which is the number of people who are unemployed divided by the number of people who are looking for work. take a look at the number of people who've left the workforce. in 2009, more people were looking for work and in the works for. if that number had been consistent the unemployment rate today would be 10.7%. the problem we have is that people have given up and left the workforce. there are fewer people in the workforce today than when obama took office. >> so let me stop you there for a second, grover. i think we have that

and closer towards us. just 48 days away. brianna keilar joins us from washington, d.c. so, brianna, i guess you have this fiscal cliff, that the administration is dealing with, at the same time you have this unfolding scandal. how is the administration, or has the administration really been dragged into the scandal? >> it's certainly been a distraction. if you watched the white house press briefing yesterday you could see almost all of the questions revolved around this scandal involving generals petraeus and allen. so we know that. certainly. but, jay carney, the white house press secretary, was downplaying this was a distraction, saying the president is still very much focused on the fiscal cliff. we do know, however, that this situation has taken some of the president's time, a limited amount of time, carney said. but at the same time, we know that a lot of staff hours get dedicated to something like this kind of scandal. meantime, carney said that president obama still thinks very highly of general allen. he said that he thinks highly of the job that he's done in afghanistan, a

, alison kosik, brianna keilar and miguel marquez. greg walden will be our guest, ken r gochlt off. sheila bair, former chair of the fdic is sticking around. >>> we're talking about sandy's destruction, unfortunately, it's far from over. pretty desperate situation for millions of folks are still in the cold and the dark. many don't have food or shelter. the gas lines just completely out of control. friday, november 2nd. special edition of starting point begins right now. >>> welcome, everybody. christine romans is with us. erin burnet is with us as well. she's host of "out front." and host of cnn's state of the union, candy crowley. ali velshi is in ohio this morning. john berman, anchor of "early start" sticks around. president of americans for tax reform, joining us this morning. nice to have all of you. i want to welcome our national viewers who are joining us as well this morning. lots to get to. half an hour away from the most important report. i don't think that's overstating it, right? >> this will show what the biggest labor market, the biggest economy in the world is doing

in hollywood? >> interesting. brianna keilar joins me now. good morning, brianna. what does the president face this week? >> reporter: he's got a number of meetings and this is really going to be the kickoff as he tries to get his ducks in a row ahead of negotiating a deal here. first off, i will tell you, carol, wednesday the press conference that we've been waiting for, the post-election press conference. but tomorrow he'll be meeting first with labor officials and members -- or i should say folks in the progressive movement. so ahead of meeting on tuesday with business leaders and on friday with congressional leaders. they are feeling like they have the leverage after the election. they want to strike while the iron is hot to work towards an agreement here for the fiscal cliff and they feel like they have the leverage and they want to do this now before, as one democratic source that i spoke to said, they don't want republicans to kick this down the road, kick the can down the road until they can get their mojo back and have more leverage themselves. they really want to get w

correspondent brianna keilar who is in near columbus, ohio n franklin county. tell us more about president obama's final message to the voters. >> well, carol a lot of the message is going to be about patience, and things are getting under way here in hilliard and i have to tell you that governor strickland was just introduced. we know that president obama is on the way here, and we are expecting that is a message of patience that he will be urging. probably using the jobs numbers from today to say, look, the economy is slowly but surely moving in the right direction, and this isn't the time to change course. obviously, countering very much to what we have heard from governor romney as he tries to urge the voters to change course. if yesterday was any indication, expect some strong jigs at governor romney for positioning himself as the candidate of change in this election. we heard yesterday that president talk about how mitt romney is not the candidate of change, but he has not put specifics on to a number of his economic plans. and we are expecting him to hit governor romney in the same

, huh? >> let's bring in brianna keilar. hello to you. what happened in today's meetings? any big action? >> no real big action. part of this, don, is sort of like show business. it is setting the scene for these negotiations that will take place here on the coming weeks and sounding a positive note and obviously setting the expectations pretty high that they are going to get something worked out so people shouldn't be too nervous. but make no mistake, there is a whole lot of work here that needs to be done. it appears that this scene is kind of being set for these leaders to deal in the near term with the fiscal cliff. the spending cuts, those tax increases that are set to kick in at the new year, and then sort of set up a framework for the bigger issue of deficit reduction, including tax reform, perhaps entitlement reform, reform of medicare, medicaid, and deal with that in the coming year. that seems to be the idea. i will tell you today, i saw something i haven't really seen before, and that is the four leaders together in front of the microphones, talking very positively about worki

getting very close to. white house correspondent brianna keilar joins us now. i guess we should expect the president to address this sex scandal, too, right? >> reporter: no doubt he's going to be asked about that, carol. it's been more than eight months since the president has had really a full-length press conference. in june he had an abbreviated press conference at the g-20 in cabo san lucas that revolved mainly around foreign policy. and in august he had another brief press conference taking questions from four reporters. today we're expecting he will be asked about this scandal no doubt involving the generals and also the fiscal cliff. we expect that he will, as he has before, expressed support for tax increases on the wealthiest americans. the question may be how wealthy. the president has said $250,000 or more for a couple. but perhaps it will be more. we'll see if he puts meat on the bones there. and also benghazi. this will be the first press conference since that attack in egypt that killed a u.s. ambassador and three other americans. and i wouldn't be surprised as well, car

correspondent brianna keilar who is live for us there. it looks like a pretty packed house this afternoon where the president will be speaking. and speaking of that ohio poll that we just showed, slight advantage? how is team obama feeling about those numbers? >> reporter: they're feeling good, brooke. this is a sliver of an advantage, i will tell you, but president obama is enjoying and has consistently for a while the sliver of an advantage here in ohio and in a number of key battleground states. ohio is really the most key battleground state. you look at the picture nationally, and he's not quite performing as well. our latest cnn orc poll of polls nationally has mitt romney tied with president obama, 49-49. but aides to president obama, david axelrod and david gibbs expressing confidence this morning saying that they think he will carry not only the electoral college, but also the popular vote, and, yeah, it is already very noisy here in the nationwide arena as you can tell, brooke. there is actually some areas you can't see, i know, on camera, in the upper levels of the arena that are not

house correspondent brianna keilar's been keeping track of what the president's been doing since his victory speech early this morning. brianna, the president should be landing back in washington very soon taking marine one over to the white house. he's got a full agenda ready i assume. >> reporter: he does. and i will tell you, wolf, the white house is keeping it under wraps as far as what happens after he arrives at the white house. but we know he'll land obviously at andrews air force base. we're expecting that not too long after 5:00 eastern. and then he'll come here to the white house landing on the south lawn in marine one. the first time he's been back to the white house knowing that he'll be here for another four years. this morning he did wake up in chicago as we await for him to leave chicago he called con gregs gnat leaders, democrats and republicans in both the house and senate before making his way to the airport stopped by his campaign headquarters to meet with hundreds of volunteers and staff members and really thank them. we understand people were standing on desks tr

white house correspondent brianna keilar is at the white house watching all of this unfold. what is the president doing, brianna, about this really dangerous escalation in the region? >> reporter: wolf, officially the white house is condemning the violence. it's urging israel to not have civilian casualties while also walking the line of putting forth its long standing support for israel to defend itself. but behind the scenes there is urgent diplomacy underway. both on the part of president obama and dpoeks here at the white house and also secretary of state hillary clinton. the u.s. obviously doesn't have leverage with hamas, but it does have leverage with some countries that have leverage with hamas. turkey of course, egypt, qatar and because of that president obama today for instance called turkish prime minister to talk about this. two days ago he talked to egyptian president morsi in addition to talking to prime minister netanyahu. and egypt key of course because of its peace agreement that it has with israel. so you see secretary clinton has made two calls to the foreign minister

, every, every electoral vote counts. brianna keilar is in obama headquarters in chicago. candy crowley is at romney headquarters in boston. brianna, first to you. what's going on over there? >> reporter: we're on the floor at mccormick place, a convention center in downtown chicago, and supporters of president obama have just begun to come through the door and they're obviously staking out their position as close to the podium as possible. the campaign says they're expecting about 10,000 people here at this event and most of them i should tell you are chicago-based obama campaign volunteers. many of whom had to agree to do at least two canvassing shifts, voter canvassing shifts in nearby battleground states, iowa and wisconsin. >> candy is in boston. lot of folks already gathering behind you. >> reporter: they are. they started sort of the preliminary program, the pledge of allegiance, national anthem. we also heard from craig romney, who came over to talk to the folks here. as you can hear the music has started. but the number crunching, the watching the polls, the white knuck

on that event. we'll bring it to you, as well. brianna keilar is waiting for the president. it looks chilly in wisconsin. i've got to ask you, off the top, a very serious question about how this president is going to segue from what he has been doing the last three days, which has been in emergency mode, into a stump speech. >> reporter: you know, i think we may have gotten a preview of that, actually, ashleigh, because we did hear from charles woodson, a safety from the green bay packers, a popular person here. and he was making the case for the government providing services or assistance for people, and then he was saying that he was raised by a single mother, and that the government stepped in to bridge the gap in between jobs for her and the family, just as he said, the federal government is doing on the east coast. with the storm. and then he pledged some money to the red cross for that. so i think we may be seeing some kind of segue in that regard, certainly from someone introducing president obama. i have to tell you, about a minute or so ago, air force one touched down here i

two hours from now at the white house, and that's exactly where we have positioned cnn's brianna keilar standing in the wind and waiting for the words. what are we expecting to hear? are we expecting to hear specifics and talk about the fiscal cliff or just about a kum ba yah moment that the whole country really needs? >> reporter: you know, i think definitely he's going to talk about the fiscal cliff, lay out the consequences of going over it, urge congress to work together and find a solution, ashleigh. but no, we're not expecting to hear specifics. he is going to be talking to an audience, which includes a lot of middle class supporters, and he is going to be giving remarks, but he's not going to be answering questions from the press. so this is sort of a safe zone for him to explain the consequences, and also to say that the middle class cannot be hurt by tax increases. part of his pledge, obviously, through his re-election. and he'll point to the fact that he feels most americans support that. so that's really what we're expecting to hear. but no, no specifics. this is reall

jersey, first stop for the president will be green bay, wisconsin. brianna keilar is there for us this morning. hey, brianna, good morning. >> reporter: good morning, soledad. president obama will be here in a few hours, holding an event here at the airport. this obviously does come on the heels of spending all day yesterday touring the devastation in new jersey and touring the devastation with one of mitt romney's most effective surrogates, chris christie. this was an opportunity, obviously, for president obama to really flex his presidential muscle. i think people can say he did that effectively and also politically, not great for mitt romney as he was trying to surge up politically. some people may wonder if that's reflective in that cnn poll of polls, the president ahead by one point. that's something we haven't seen recently. also taking a look at "the wall street journal" nbc poll out today showing that president obama has a slim lead in some key battleground states. four points in iowa, three points here in wisconsin, two points in new hampshire. same time, soledad, those are no

covers the white house for us, brianna keilar, she spoke with a source, very familiar with some of these top negotiations. let me quote her source here when the president raised the issue of increasing revenue there was no, no word on moving we're not doing that and when the republicans raised entitlement reform the president agreed it was needed as part of a package that included revenue. so there's the quote. do you hear hope for compromise somewhere in there? >> well, it sounds like at least the message we receive. >> good, mayor smith. >> from the white house and from some members -- >> go ahead, mayor smith. >> that's okay, mayor nutter. >> see this is -- >> look at this. this is beautiful. >> gentlemen, one of you, begin. >> sure. i think -- >> well i think you're going to see certainly from the white house and from congress was that they want to get something done. and again, the focus on the middle class tax cuts as an issue that can take place literally tomorrow. it's one vote. and other than the presidential election on november 6th, this could be the most important vote

polls. white house correspondent brianna keilar joining us live from milwaukee, wisconsin. it will be a while before the president speaks there, but you got a crowd and lots of music, nonetheless. >> that's right. and this crowd is eagerly awaiting not only the president but katy perry who will be performing a small concert before president obama. here in wisconsin it's all about for the obama campaign getting people out to vote now on election day. early voting wrapped up in this state yesterday, but here, voters can also register as well as vote on the same day. back in 2008, more than 1 in 10 voters in the badger state did that. that's what the obama campaign is focusing on. when the president talks in the 4:00 p.m. eastern hour, he's going to be trying to counter as he did in ohio, mitt romney's message about being the candidate of real change. he's been saying to his supporters that mitt romney is not about change, and also he's been trying to urge them to be patient, saying that the economic recovery is on the right track. >> after four years as president, you know me. you may not