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Pakistan Calls for End to Violence; Issues Driving the Campaign; US-Israel Relations Major Issue
Aired September 23, 2012 - 16:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
SUSAN HENDRICKS, CNN ANCHOR: 4:00 on the East Coast. Thanks so much for joining us. I'm Susan Hendricks, in tonight Fredricka Whitfield. You know, you hear plenty of noise and lots of spin on the campaign trail around the big issues. So for the next hour, CNN will help you figure out where the candidates stand on them. We will size up issue by issue how Barack Obama and Mitt Romney claim to tackle these key American challenges. Before we get to those though, I want to get to the top stories making news today.
A deadly avalanche sweeps through at least 12 camps in Mt. Manaslu in Nepal today. The eighth highest mountain in the world. A rescue pilot says at least 11 people are dead. An entire camp reportedly swept away when the avalanche hit climbers on a high peak at about 5:00 a.m. this morning. Now rescue efforts are now on hold until tomorrow because of bad weather there.
We are told however that 10 people survived and others who were injured have been air lifted to local hospitals. Some skiers and over 200 foreign mountaineers broken up in teams of 25. They were there attempting to climb the mountain and break a world record. At least 38 people are believed to be missing. Coming up we'll talk to a man who spoke to a ski mountaineer who got caught in the avalanche. That's next hour.
Pakistan's prime minister says his nation believes in nonviolence despite a death threat against the filmmaker behind that anti-Islam movie. This man seen here, a government minister says he will pay $100,000 for the death of the Nakoula (INAUDIBLE) Nakoula. He has invited the Taliban and Al Qaeda to assassinate the producer. Nakoula is said to be in hiding. The anger over his movie is not dying down either. Still some Muslim leaders are pleading for calm.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ALI GOMAA, GRAND MULTI OF EGYPT (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): I call for (INAUDIBLE) and resisting the spread of hatred and to cooperate with each other against violence, against terrorism, against killings and against confrontations.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HENDRICKS: Now Pakistan's government is making it clear that the bounty is not an official position.
Around the world, people are protesting against the U.S. and that anti-Islam film and today Greece sees its first demonstration. Hundreds of Muslim protesters gathered in Athens to protest that film. Some of them reportedly yelled "All we have is Mohammad" as they marched toward the U.S. embassy.
And in Bangladesh, buses were destroyed, bikes got torched, protesters hurled rocks in anger over the film. But there were peaceful protests like this one in Germany. Many of the protesters want the U.S. to punish the man who made the film mocking the prophet Mohammad.
And Libya's military is taking a stand against the militias who ruled the street. The army says those fighters have 48 hours to leave bases, public buildings or property belonging to the former regime or else soldiers will use force to evict them. The military's decision follows protests like this, from Libyans trying to show that they will not stand for more violence months after winning a bloody civil war.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad sat down today for a one-on-one interview with CNN's Piers Morgan. Ahmadinejad is in New York to attend the United Nations General Assembly this week. Well, Piers asked the Iranian president if he's worried Israel will attack his country over concerns that Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons. Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
PIERS MORGAN, CNN HOST: Do you fear war is imminent? Do you fear there will be military conflict perhaps even before the end of this year between your country and Israel?
PRES. MAHMOUD AHMADINEJAD, IRAN (through translator): Of course the Zionists are very much, very adventuresome, very much seeking to fabricate things and I think they see themselves at the end of the line. And I do firmly believe that they seek to create opportunities for themselves and their adventurous behaviors.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HENDRICKS: And you can watch the full interview with Ahmadinejad tomorrow night, 9:00 p.m. Eastern on "Piers Morgan Tonight."
You know, President Obama arrives in New York to attend the U.N. General Assembly tomorrow. The president speaks to the assembly on Tuesday.
Administration officials say he will likely talk about the worldwide protests over an Amman film that insults the Islam religion. An official says the president is expected to restate his opposition to the movie and also denounce the violent acts of some of the protesters as we showed you.
Both President Obama and Republican rival Mitt Romney will talk policy and presidential politics during interviews tonight on "60 Minutes." Both candidates are also bracing for a busy week on the campaign trail.
Here's CNN's political editor Paul Steinhauser. PAUL STEINHAUSER, CNN POLITICAL EDITOR: Hey, Susan. Mitt Romney campaign's in the Rocky Mountain battleground of Colorado today and tomorrow. Our new CNN poll of polls indicates its a close contest between the Republican nominee and President Barack Obama for the state's nine electoral votes. Tuesday, both Romney and the president will speak separately at former President Clinton's annual Global Initiative gathering in New York City.
After that, Romney heads to Ohio for a bus tour through the crucial swing state.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MITT ROMNEY (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I need Ohio to help me become the next president.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
STEINHAUSER: Our poll of polls in Ohio indicates that right now Mr. Obama has the upper hand in the race for the state's 18 electoral votes.
Both men have been frequent visitors to Ohio this year and while Romney rolls through the state on Wednesday, the president stumps there as well.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: It is good to be in Ohio. It is great to be in this beautiful setting.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
STEINHAUSER: Also this week, with the first presidential debate closing in, both men will continue their debate preps. Susan.
HENDRICKS: Paul, thank you. I want to get to Houston now to a police shooting. An officer shot and killed a schizophrenic double amputee after police says he advanced at the officer's partner in his wheelchair. A police spokeswoman explains what happened.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JODI SILVA, HOUSTON POLICE DEPARTMENT: When officers arrived and went inside to speak to him, he was situated at a wheelchair, holding an unknown object. It's tight quarters in there and he was able to corner the officer back into a corner of the room.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HENDRICKS: Police had been called by the caretaker of the group home where the man lived after he had been acting aggressively. The officer involved has been put on leave which is a department policy. We're going to have more on the story next hour. To New York, police are charging the man who jumped into a Bronx Zoo tiger den with trespassing. They're also giving an odd explanation for that decision. Police say David Villalobos was not drunk or crazy, but simply had "a desire to be one with the tiger." Villalobos was hospitalized with several injuries most suffered because of his leap from the mono rail into the tiger den.
Barack Obama and Mitt Romney have some big challenges to address. This hour, we're looking at the issues that will decide this election. First up, how will each man create more jobs?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HENDRICKS: Well, this hour we are taking you through the presidential candidates plans to solve some of the country's biggest challenges. We start with Christine Romans and her look at their strategies on jobs.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Over eight percent unemployment, five million without work for six months or longer. More than eight million only working part-time. If there's one thing Mitt Romney and Barack Obama can agree on the economy and more specifically the jobs crisis in America is the issue of this race.
Mitt Romney's philosophy let the private sector create new jobs. President Obama agrees but thinks the federal government must play a larger role by investing in programs that may pay off in the future.
ROMNEY: I have a plan to create 12 million new jobs.
ROMANS: Romney advisors also claim their plans will add another seven million jobs over the decade.
ROMNEY: The government doesn't create jobs, it's the private sector that creates jobs.
ROMANS: So what's in this Romney plan.
(on camera): First Romney wants to overhaul the tax code by cutting marginal tax rates 20 percent across the board. He argues that people have more money in their pockets to buy things in turn more jobs will be created to meet the demand for those goods and services. Romney also claims that regulations cost private business about $1.75 trillion a year, so he says he'll repeal Obamacare and Dodd Frank financial legislation much of which is still yet to be implemented.
He also plans to reform the regulatory system to make sure it balances the benefits to society with his cost of business. Finally by balancing the budget, Romney plans to inject confidence into the business environment. However capping federal spending, it means hundreds of thousands fewer government jobs at the federal, state and local levels.
(voice-over): Supporters of Romney's plans say it will create 12 million jobs conservatively. But no president has accomplished it in a single term since the data was first collected in 1940s. Now for President Obama's plans to get more Americans back to work.
OBAMA: Jobs must be our number one focus in 2010 and that's why I'm calling for a new jobs bill tonight.
ROMANS: Well, that jobs bill never panned out and neither did the $477 billion effort he promoted last year. Both essentially blocked by Congress. So what does Mr. Obama want to do moving forward, similar to what he proposed in the past.
OBAMA: We need to create more jobs faster, we need to fill the hole left by this recession, faster, we need to come out of this crisis stronger.
ROMANS (on camera): He wants to create jobs in manufacturing and green energy through tax incentives and investment. More spending on infrastructure, the president signed a more than $100 billion transportation bill in July, it extends mostly current programs through 2014. And the president also proposed spending $35 billion for school, police and fire department payrolls along with another $130 billion to shore up state budgets. This was in his failed jobs plan last year, yet to be seen if he's re-elected whether those plans would have more success than they have had in the last three years.
(voice-over): Both candidates say they want to cut the corporate tax rate, expand energy jobs in the U.S. and support small business. Whoever's elected will probably have to do all that and much more to get us out of the jobs hold.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HENDRICKS: That was Christine Romans.
Now we've got two more monthly jobs reports due before election day. You know, it's been more than a year since U.S. debt was downgraded by Standard and Poor's. They said Washington just can't get it together to make any real progress. And getting the debt and the deficit under control. So what did the candidates plan to do about the national debt. Now it's $16 trillion and how did we get here in the first place. Ali Velshi has a look at the issue of national debt.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ALI VELSHI, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Just a few steps from the billboards of Times Square is a billboard of a different sort, the national debt clock. New York real estate developer Seymour Durst set up the first debt clock in 1989.
DOUGLAS DURST, NATIONAL DEBT CLOCK INVENTOR'S CLOCK: When my father set up the debt clock, the debt was about $2 trillion. He would be shock that we're at this number today.
VELSHI: Last year the federal government spent 3.6 trillion. But it only took in $2.3 trillion in revenue. It borrowed the shortfall, 1.3 trillion. And that's the deficit. The accumulated deficits or short falls plus interest make up the national debt and it's more than $16 trillion today.
The debt had run up under both Republican and Democratic presidents and congresses. Both have had opportunities to tackle it but it is never politically palatable. President Obama formed the Simpson Bowles commission headed by former Republican senator Alan Simpson and Bill Clinton's chief of staff Erskine-Bowles. They came up with a plan to cut the growing debt by $4 trillion over 10 years.
Vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan was a member of that commission but he and enough others voted against it so it never even got to Congress. Critics say President Obama has all but ignored it. Commission co-head Alan Simpson says the growing debt poses a major threat to the U.S. economy.
ALAN SIMPSON, FORMER CO-CHAIRMAN, DEBT COMMISSION: Where is the tipping point? I don't know where it is, but when it comes, it's going to be so swift and so savage.
VELSHI: The president says he still wants to reach an agreement based on Simpson Bowls. And while these proposed cuts they're not enough. Obama's plan proposes $360 billion in cuts to Medicare, Medicaid and other programs over the next decade. But because costs in those programs are rising fast, the debt will be $6.4 trillion higher in 10 years. The president's budget also proposed cuts to discretionary and mandatory spending that will save $737 billion over a decade. Military spending will be reduced, saving $487 billion and unlike anything the GOP proposes, there's a $1.5 trillion tax hike, with the wealthy taking the biggest hit.
Mitt Romney doesn't want tax hikes for the rich, so how will he deal with the debt.
ROMNEY: I will cut the deficit and get us on track to a balanced budget.
VELSHI: Romney's 59 point economic plan calls for reducing the federal workforce by 10 percent. Like Obama, he also proposes entitlement reform and some major spending cuts, but he hasn't detailed them yet. As for taxes Romney proposes cutting income tax rates by a fifth across the board, presumably balanced by closing loopholes but again no specifics. In short, neither candidate has proposed a plan that puts a serious dent in the U.S. debt. But Douglas Durst still holds out hope that one day he'll be able to retire his dad's debt clock.
DURST: I'm an optimist, we would have a very big party.
VELSHI: Ali Velshi, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HENDRICKS: Now Republicans often blame the Democrats for a bloated federal government but you may be surprised to learn just who really is responsible for all that growth in Washington? Big government is a big issue in the 2012 campaign.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HENDRICKS: Welcome back. So just how big should the U.S. government be? Well, it depends on who you ask and what political party they're in. As our Tom Foreman reports, the size of government has become one of the core issues of the 2012 presidential campaign.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Here are three reasons why the federal government has grown bigger in the past few years, because the economy has crashed forcing more people to rely on government programs like unemployment and food stamps, because the baby boomers started retiring, collecting social and Medicare and maybe because Barack Obama is president.
OBAMA: The question we asked today is not whether our government is too big or too small but whether it works.
FOREMAN: From the start Mr. Obama has clearly believed that government is a positive force, that expansion is not bad and that it serves to control what many consider the excesses of the free market.
OBAMA: Without the livening hand of wise policy, markets can crash, monopolies can stifle competition, the vulnerable can be exploited.
FOREMAN: He frequently cautions against unwarranted government growth yet through the economic stimulus healthcare reform and the auto bailout, he sounded another democratic president. Franklin Roosevelt when the great depression insisted that government must protect economic right.
FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT, FMR. U.S. PRESIDENT: The right of every family to a decent home. The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health.
FOREMAN: Flash forward four decades, and here comes another president with a very different view.
RONALD REAGAN, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: Government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem.
FOREMAN: Ronald Reagan's perspective has dominated Republican thoughts on this matter for years, including Mitt Romney's opposition to Barack Obama.
ROMNEY: We have a very different approach, the president and I, between a government dominated society and a society driven by free people pursuing our dreams.
FOREMAN: Romney feels the federal government should be smaller and less intrusive in terms of regulations and taxes. It should expand only when absolutely necessary and that largely it should keep out of the free market.
ROMNEY: I lined up with a smaller government, a less intrusive government, regulations being pared back. FOREMAN (on camera): Such views on both sides, of course, can make a difference but here is the catch. For the past century, with a few exceptions, the government has been expanding, no matter which party has held the White House.
(voice-over): More cabinet positions, more agencies, more spending per citizen and much of that is driven by things like we mentioned at the start, population growth, economic trends and entitlements, meaning the question is probably not whether the government will keep growing under Mr. Obama or Mr. Romney, but rather how fast.
Tom Foreman, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HENDRICKS: Now out of all the issues that Mitt Romney was supposed to be far out in front of Obama was the economy. But even on that issue, the president has proven to be a tougher man to fire than the Republicans expected. An expert weighs in.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HENDRICKS: When it comes to campaign issues, jobs and the economy are supposed to be the big drivers of this election. And both would seem to be big negatives for the president yet it doesn't look like Mitt Romney has been able to gain much traction, so where do we stand?
I want to bring in Ryan Lizza, CNN contributor, Washington correspondent for "The New Yorker" joins me from Washington now. Ryan, great to talk to you.
RYAN LIZZA, WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT "THE NEW YORKER": Hey, thanks for having me.
HENDRICKS: Let's talk specifics here, we keep hearing that Mitt Romney needs to be more specific about his plans for what he's going to do about the economy, do you think that being more specific, though, will help or hurt him and how damaging regarding the economy is that video that we have all seen now of Romney?
LIZZA: Well, specifics in campaigns, they're a catch-22, voters in the polls more recently back this up, often say they want to hear specifics. When the economy is bad or there are big problems in the country, voters want to know with some level of detail, not superwonky policy detail that people in Washington talk about, but in plain language what you will do as a candidate. And I agree with the way you set up the piece in that, I think the Romney strategy in this campaign has been to think, the economy is so bad and that the public has turned against Obama in such a major way that he will lose just because it will be a sort of no vote on Obama rather than an affirmative vote on Romney.
I think what Romney's learning now is that maybe that's not enough and that he does need to lay out a much more detailed agenda which remember, at his convention speech, the biggest opportunity he had in this campaign to talk to the most voters, he didn't do, he didn't talk specifics and he didn't talk policy in that speech. He just talked about his biography. The danger of laying our specifics is sometimes they're unpopular. And if you're ideas of how to fix the economy can be attacked by the other side, then maybe you don't want to talk about specifics. So that's sort of the catch-22 that campaigns are often in.
HENDRICKS: Right. Specific or vague and then people will pinpoint exactly what you're saying in terms of specifics.
LIZZA: Yes.
HENDRICKS: Let's talk about Nevada. You've been doing some reporting there, foreclosure, unemployment - they're hitting that state hard. You know the saying now - are you better off now than four years ago. A lot of people in Nevada especially saying no. What are people saying there in terms of this election?
LIZZA: Well, you know, I went to Nevada recently to do some reporting because I think it helps answer this question nationally that we were just talking about is - why is - despite the bad economy, why has Obama remained so buoyant, why is he right now, why does he have a slightly - why does it seem like all of the inside Washington people are saying that he's the favorite at this moment given how bad the economy is, given over eight percent unemployment. Nevada is even worse. Unemployment is in double digits, the foreclosure crisis hit Las Vegas just unbelievable -- you can drive around the city and you can just see where the construction stopped and where the homes have been abandoned. And yet, despite all that, Obama is leading in that state and he's the favorite to win in Nevada.
It's a number of things, one the demographics of that state are changing and they're changing in a way that favors Democrats and that's a story nationally as well. The big story there is Hispanics, Hispanics making up a bigger part of the population and Romney's inability to make any head way with that group of voters. And the other thing is its message, the Obama campaign has taken this idea of Romney that it's just going to be a referendum on Obama and it is going to be an up-or-down vote on Obama and they said no. We are going to make this a choice. We are going to run very hard against Romney, very aggressively into finding him negatively. Voters aren't going to see him as a viable alternative.
So those are two big dynamics there. And a third one is just a lot of the voters I talked to, even though they were disappointed in Obama, and some or them are reluctant to vote for him again, they don't think he has had it -- some of them don't think he has had enough time and they do realize that he didn't create the crisis, he inherited the crises. And that fact I think is holding up Obama a little bit more than you would expect even though it's still tough times.
HENDRICKS: Speaking of time, I wish we had more of it we have so much to talk about. Ryan Lizza thank you. Appreciate it.
LIZZA: Thank you.
HENDRICKS: You know the red line has become a major issue in the 2012 election, how to stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons coming up.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HENDRICKS: It was President George H.W. Bush who declared a line in the sand against Iraq after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in 1990. Now in 2012 President Obama and Mitt Romney are talking about a new line, a red line against Iran. Barbara Starr reports this issue has great consequences for our national security.
BARBARA STARR, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): President Barack Obama and Governor Mitt Romney agree on two crucial national security issues. Iran will not be allowed to go nuclear and Syria will not use its chemical weapons. But if it looks like either might happen they differ on what could trigger on sending U.S. troops into action.
On Syria --
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We have been very clear to the Assaad regime, but also to other players on the ground that a red line for us is we start seeing a whole bunch of chemical weapons moving around or being utilized. That would change my calculus.
STARR: The White House won't say what it will do if the red line is crossed. Seizing dozens of chemical weapons sites would be tough, requiring tens of thousands of troops on the ground. Romney has openly called for covert action.
GOV. MITT ROMNEY, (R) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I would instead of watching what's happened in Syria, from a dispassionate distance, I would be leading in Syria, by encouraging our friends there, like the Turks and the Saudis to provide weapons to the insurgents in Syria.
STARR: But he too hasn't said how or when he would use U.S. troops. The bottom line on Syria, President Obama's red line, using or moving chemical weapons, Governor Romney advocates greater U.S. involvement now. On Iran, the candidates agree, Iran cannot be allowed a nuclear weapon.
OBAMA: We are determined to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon.
STARR: Romney has a different take.
ROMNEY: Clearly we all hope that diplomatic and economic pressures put on Iran will diswait them from becoming a nuclear capability nation.
STARR: The bottom line on Iran President Obama says the regime will have to take direct steps to acquire a nuclear weapon. For Governor Romney the red line merely having a nuclear capability with out actually moving ahead to produce a weapon. But in the case of Iran, many believe the red line already has slipped.
MICHAEL O'HANLON: We said that any enrichment was unacceptable in the case of Iran. And yet here they are with hundreds of kilo grams if not thousands of material. STARR: Neither candidate is advocating war with Syria or Iran, both of them in fact have expressed hope that the sanctions will work, but if the red lines get crossed, both of those countries pose serious national security challenges to the United States.
Barbara Starr, CNN, the Pentagon.
HENDRICKS: While the candidates keep a focus on Iran the over riding issue of terrorism also remains high on the radar. As CNN Suzanne Kelly reports even though Osama Bin Laden is dead, terrorism is still alive.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SUZANNE KELLY, CNN INTELLIGENCE CORRESPONDENT (voice over): The killing of Osama Bin Laden, undoubtedly the national security highlight of the Obama administration. Few argue it was a risky move for the president to give the order to invade Pakistani air space and go after the al Qaeda leader. As a candidate in 2007, Romney questioned whether it was worth the time and money it would take to hunt Bin Laden down.
Later saying of course he would have given the same order. Don't expect much of a difference between the two candidates on the issue of drones either. The program started under President Bush hit full speed under Obama; he relies on the still classified mission to limit the numbers of troops on the ground by launching hell fire missiles from the air.
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: My most sacred duty as president and commander in chief is to keep the American people safe. And what that means is we brought a whole bunch of tools to bear to go after al Qaeda and those who want to attack Americans. Drones are one tool that we use.
KELLY: Romney supports the use of drones as well, like his rival even in a case where a U.S. citizen may be the target.
GOV. MITT ROMNEY, (R) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: For some of us that are going to join with that group like al Qadea that declares war on America. We're in a war with that entity, and then of course anyone who is bearing arms with that entity is fair game for the United States of America.
KELLY: There are places where the two candidates differ. Mainly over the Guantanamo Bay Detention Facility, and the use of the interrogation tactic known as water boarding, where a detainee is made to feel as if he is drowning.
OBAMA: The first executive order.
KELLY: On the Guantanamo question, despite his 2009 promise to return the American people to the quote moral high ground by issuing an executive order to close the facility, and it turned out it was easier said than done for the president. Romney on the other hand wants to keep Guantanamo open for business. On a question of torture, you have to know what it is to know where the candidates stand. While both have said they're opposed to the use of torture, Romney has so far refused to characterize water boarding as torture.
ROMNEY: I just don't think it's productive for the president of the United States to lay out a list of what is specifically referred to as torture.
KELLY: Romney's lack of a specific definition worries security experts like Bruce Riedel.
BRUCE RIEDEL, BROOKINGS INSTITUTION: The Governor really posed it to the American people to explain exactly what he means. How he won't allow torture, but then he doesn't want to comment on techniques of torture.
KELLY: Obama literally banded the practice as one of his first official acts.
OBAMA: Waterboarding is torture. It's contrary to America's traditions, it's contrary to our ideals, that's not who we are.
KELLY: A recent poll suggests that likely voters like Obama when it comes to national security issues. When it comes to terrorism specifically 50 percent of likely voters polled last month said Obama would better handle terrorism, 43 percent threw their weight behind Romney.
RIEDEL: Any American president at this time is going to wage a relentless struggle against al Qaeda and associated movements because Republicans and Democrats alike recognize we still have a significant threat coming from al Qaeda and its allies.
KELLY: Regardless of who occupies the oval office come January, the only certainty say intelligence experts is that the enemy will still be there, still plotting to do Americans harm.
Suzanne Kelly, CNN, Washington.
HENDRICKS: Coming up, the plan for Afghanistan, all U.S. troops out by the end of 2014, but do the presidential candidates have different strategies beyond that? Details ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HENDRICKS: The last of the search troops just left Afghanistan and the tens of thousands U.S. forces still serving there are all supposed to be back home by 2014. So is President Obama's plan for Afghanistan different from Mitt Romney's? Our Chris Lawrence found out.
CHRIS LAWRENCE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Seventy thousand American troops are still fighting in Afghanistan. But will Election Day affect them one way or the other? We see two candidates moving closer and closer, to the point where there's not much space between them.
GOV. MITT ROMNEY, (R) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Our goal should be to complete a successful transition to Afghan security forces by the end of 2014.
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Next year Afghanistan will take the lead for their own security. By 2014, the transition will be complete.
LAWRENCE: There were real differences in the beginning of Governor Romney's campaign last summer when he seemed to criticize President Obama decision to send 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan.
ROMNEY: It is time for us to bring our troops home as soon as we possibly can. I also think we have learned that our troops shouldn't go off and try and fight a war of independence for another nation.
LAWRENCE: But the governor's position evolved. By November, he opposed any plan to bring most of the troop's home before 2014.
ROMNEY: I stand with the commanders in this regard and have no information that suggests that pulling our troops out faster than that would do anything but put at great peril the extradinary sacrifices that have been made. This is not time for America to cut and run.
LAWRENCE: Who ever sit in the oval office will have to decide how the U.S. hands over to the Afghan's. And that is where seeing the biggest difference when it comes to talking to the Taliban.
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We're pursuing a negotiated peace, in coordination with the Afghan government; my administration has been in direct discussions with the Taliban.
LAWRENCE: While President Obama makes a distinction between Taliban and al Qaeda, Governor Romney says he won't haggle with a group that has killed American troops.
ROMNEY: We don't negotiate with terrorists. I do not negotiate with the Taliban. That is something for the Afghan to decide how they are going to pursue their course in the future.
LAWRENCE: So there's negotiation versus no negotiation with the Taliban. President Obama announced an end date years in advance. Governor Romney opposed publicizing that date. The president ended the surge this month during the fighting season. The governor would have kept additional troops there through December. Analysts say neither man has spent much time talking about the war but Burt Jacobson says that is partly because the biggest strategic it shoots like the surge hand over have been pretty much decided.
What we're looking at now is execution of this strategy. And that doesn't require the same sort of political capital and time from Washington, D.C. that was required two years ago.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Because after two wars that have cost us thousands of lives and over a trillion dollars, it's time to do some nation building right here at home.
LAWRENCE: The two men don't exactly renowned how the fighting affects the nation's finances. OBAMA: Because after two wars it has cost us thousands of lives and over a trillion dollars. It is time to do some nation building right here at home.
ROMNEY: Of course the return of our troops cannot and must not be used as an excuse to hollow out our military through devastating defense budget cuts.
LAWRENCE: Reporter: so the biggest difference on Afghanistan may be how to spend the money when the war is over.
Chris Lawrence, CNN, Washington.
HENDRICKS: Well thanks to Chris Lawrence. You know, we hear a lot of heated rhetoric about the Middle East even from the presidential candidates, but are they really that far apart in their plan for peace? We're breaking it down next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HENDRICKS: For decades now, every serious presidential hopeful has had to claim a working knowledge of and strong position on Israel. The Palestinians have relations between the two. It is the same thing this year and Wolf Blitzer looks at what those positions are.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WOLD BLITZER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: In addresses that largely focus on domestic concerns, one country in particular was singled out by both candidates in their convention speeches.
GOV. MITT ROMNEY, (R) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: President Obama has thrown allies like Israel under the bus.
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Our commitment to Israel's security must not waiver.
BLITZER: President Obama came to the office determined to make Middle East peace a central tentative as foreign policy even if it meant exerting what some of his advisers described as tough love on Israel. He took a harder line on Israeli settlements in Palestinian territories.
OBAMA: I had conversations where I was very clear about the need to stop settlements, to make sure that we're stopping the building of outposts.
BLITZER: That angered many Israelis, especially Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. And early trips to Turkey and Egypt with addresses to the Arab and Muslim world without a stop in Israel further exacerbated that relationship. The push for Middle East peace has been stuck ever since and that rocky personal relationship with Netanyahu was further underlined during a tense oval office meeting in May, 2011 when the prime minister seemed to be lecturing the president.
BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER: The president is prepared to make generous compromises for peace. It cannot go back to the 1967 lines because these lines are indefensible.
BLITZER: Still, at least in public, they seem to have moved on.
OBAMA: As I have said to the prime minister in every single one of our meetings, the United States will always have Israel's back when it comes to its security.
BLITZER: And some of the most sensitive issues Obama and Romney seem to agree at least when it comes to the big picture. Jerusalem is Israel's capital, a final peace agreement should include what's called a two-state solution, Israel living alongside Palestine, and Iran must be stopped from building a nuclear bomb.
But there are differences when it comes to specific details on how to achieve those goals. Romney charges that President Obama hasn't been a strong enough ally to Israel in opposing Iran's nuclear ambitions.
ROMNEY: Israel doesn't need public lectures about how to wage decisions of war and peace. It needs our support. If I'm president of the United States, my first trip, my first foreign trip will be to Israel to show the world we care about that country.
BLITZER: The under score of that during his July visit to Jerusalem.
ROMNEY: Well the Palestinians is going to say --
BLITZER: In a recently revealed tape from a closed fund-raiser back in May, Romney said that Israel didn't have a strong Palestinian part. But Romney declared his support for the two-state solution during an interview I did with him during his recent trip to Israel.
ROMNEY: The decision as to where the borders would be as we move to a two-state solution, which I support, that's a decision on borders that will be worked out by the Israelis and the Palestinians.
BLITZER: Romney says Obama has rebuffed his real security concerns, however, the Israeli defense minister Ehijo Barack told me in July that the relationship with the United States is solid.
EHIJO BARAK, ISRAELI DEFENSE MINISTER: What President Obama is doing for our security, more than anything I can remember in the past.
BLITZER: Wolf Blitzer, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HENDRICKS: As you know Election Day is just weeks away, but do you really know where the presidential candidates stand on the issues? With tons of digging and you may be surprised to learn what we found.
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HENDRICKS: If you want to know exactly where the candidates stand and what they have said about the issues most important to you, we do have the perfect online poll, just for you Josh Levs is here to break it all down for us. Hi Josh.
JOSH LEVS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, hey there to you. You know, before we bunt off this hour I want to point you to a really helpful resource that will help you follow not just where the candidates stand on key issues, but when those positions change, you can stay alerted and stay on top of this through out the entire election season. Take a look here, you might not be familiar with this, this is CNN.com/election, and within this we have an entire section right here that you can see that is called candidates and issues.
And if you click on the issues page, here's what you have over there, I'm going to open it up for you, you have this whole column you can close in on over here, and you click on which ever issue is most important to you, everything from taxes to health care, same-sex marriage, Social Security, you click on any one of those, and between what you find there and what you find at the candidate web sites themselves, you're going to find a lot of specifics.
Now let me just give you one example. This is by no means a summary of their entire position. Just giving you a taste here of what you can learn if you go to one of these sites. Take a look here at the screen we have. For an example, education, if you take a look at where President Obama stands and where Mitt Romney. President Obama says that he started a stimulus based program. He also talked about doubling Pell Grants. Mitt Romney is for school choice programs and he also said that he will launch an unprecedented effort to tie federal funds to dramatic reforms. So follow up at CNN.com/elections. Also called the CNN political ticker. And I'm telling you throughout the election season you will see what you need to know about all these.
HENDRICKS: Very helpful because there are so many issues and it really breaks it down for you.
You know, next week at this time, we will continue our issues 2012 coverage with a look at the topics, such as health care, gun control that may impact this election for you.
