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Romney Presses Libya Attacks; Getting Unemployment Below 6 Percent; Biden and Ryan Clash Over Medicare; The "He's a Loser" Strategy; Endeavour Rolls to New Home; First Lawsuit Filed in Meningitis Outbreak; Biden, Ryan Clash Over Syria

Aired October 12, 2012 - 14:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: Hi, everyone. I'm Brooke Baldwin. Happy Friday. What a debate it was you watched or perhaps rewatched. I think you might agree with me here, that was very much so worth looking at twice. Joe Biden, Paul Ryan, they really went at it, especially Biden. Here he is, Mr. Fact Check, Joe Biden, challenging Congressman Ryan on Ryan's Medicare plan.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PAUL RYAN (R), VICE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: This is a plan that's bipartisan. It's a plan I put together with a prominent Democrat senator from Oregon.

JOE BIDEN, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: There's not one Democrat who endorses it.

RYAN: It's a plan --

BIDEN: Not one Democrat who signed the plan.

RYAN: Our partner is a Democrat from Oregon who --

BIDEN: And he said he does no longer supports your plan.

RYAN: We put it -- we put it together with the former Clinton budget director.

BIDEN: Who disavows it.

RYAN: This idea -- this idea came --

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: And so it went. But now, all of a sudden, we have Mitt Romney checking Joe Biden's facts concerning that consulate attack in Libya. And this is something you haven't yet heard. This is Mitt Romney speaking just a short time ago. Here he is in Richmond, Virginia. You need to hear this. Mitt Romney.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MITT ROMNEY (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Because the vice president directly contradicted the sworn testimony of State Department officials. He's doubling down on denial. And we need to understand exactly what happened, as opposed to just having people brush this aside. When the vice president of the United States directly contradicts the testimony, sworn testimony of State Department officials, American citizens have a right to know just what's going on.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: OK, we need to break this down. And to do that, I want to bring in CNN's Jill Dougherty live for us at the State Department.

And, first, Jill, let me just play a little sound. We all need to hear what the vice president said last night. Again, this is Vice President Joe Biden explaining the administration's evolving accounts of what happened in Benghazi. You know the date, September 11th, the day terrorists killed United States Ambassador Chris Stevens. Biden is saying that as new facts have become available, U.S. intelligence has changed what it's telling the Obama administration. Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: As they learn more facts about exactly what happened, they changed their assessment. That's why there's also an investigation headed by Tom Pickering (ph), a leading diplomat from the Reagan years, who is doing an investigation as to whether or not there are any lapses, what the lapses were, so that they will never happen again.

MARTHA RADDATZ, MODERATOR: And they wanted more security there.

BIDEN: Well, we weren't told they wanted more security there. We did not know they wanted more security.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: We hear the pronoun that he's using, Jill, it's "we." And that many of the -- agree the bone of contention here could be the "we" here. "We" were not told that U.S. diplomats in Libya wanted more security before that fatal attack on September 11th. Romney is say Biden contradicted sworn testimony from State Department officials, but Romney didn't say which State Department officials that would be. He didn't say specifically which testimony. So, Jill Dougherty, let me just -- let's start with that. Can you discern what Romney was talking about when he said that Biden contradicted that sworn testimony?

JILL DOUGHERTY, CNN FOREIGN AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Well, I would say, number one, that is probably a reference to Eric Nordstrom, who was the regional security officer. That means he works for the State Department. The diplomatic security side of that. And he, in sworn testimony, did say that he had asked for more security assistance, more personnel, and that he was refused.

Now there -- you have to get into the subchapters on this because there also were requests that he made that were verbal. There were requests that were not necessarily formal, bureaucratic stamped type of things. So I think you'd have to really, you know, get down into the weeds to say, was it a formal request that was turned down, was it a less formal, verbal one et cetera.

And then on the other side, that "we" that you were talking about, what he is saying is, look, this is handled, these personnel issues are handled -- and security, I should say, are handled by the State Department. That type of detail doesn't come to us here at the White House. At least that's what the White House is saying. So you've got two things going on.

BALDWIN: OK, let me -- two things going on there. Let me throw another layer on this because, you know, just a short time ago at the White House, spokesman Jay Carney, he got hit with a slew of questions, specifically about this, about Libya. And I mentioned Biden was saying that, quote, "we were not told" our people in Libya were asking for more security. Here's a little bit of what Jay Carney said on that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAY CARNEY, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: No one who testified about this matter suggested that requests for additional security were made to the president or the White House. So these are issues appropriately that are handled by security professionals at the State Department. And that's -- that's what he was talking about.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: So, Jill, does that explanation pass the smell test, that the president didn't know, the vice president didn't know? That's the State Department's purview here.

DOUGHERTY: Well, when you get into those requests that were going back quite a ways, yes, that probably does pass the test in the sense that the president is not going to get involved in, let's say, a request for three or five additional personnel in Benghazi, which wasn't even -- wasn't an embassy, it wasn't a consulate, it was a temporary mission. There is no way that the president could keep on track of that.

Now, later, were there other requests, we have to -- we would have to look into that. But I would say that that probably is fair to say that the president doesn't deal with individual security requests. That's what the State Department does.

BALDWIN: OK. Jill Dougherty, thank you. We want to keep asking these questions here. And to do that, I want to turn to Gloria Borger, our chief political analyst.

And, Gloria, I was watching you post game after the debate. I do want to get to the debate here in just a minute.

GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: Sure.

BALDWIN: But we have to stick with Libya for just a moment here.

BORGER: Sure.

BALDWIN: And let's just listen one more time to what Mitt Romney said today, accusing the vice president of contradicting sworn testimony at the debate last night.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MITT ROMNEY (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Because the vice president directly contradicted the sworn testimony of State Department officials. He's doubling down on denial. And we need to understand exactly what happened, as opposed to just having people brush this aside. When the vice president of the United States directly contradicts the testimony, sworn testimony of State Department officials, American citizens have a right to know just what's going on.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Now we all hear him say it, but, Gloria, would the claim by Romney be a bit more credible if he'd come right out and say specifically, you know, which State Department officials he's talking about and what their sworn testimony was?

BORGER: You know, and, what, if you listen to Joe Biden, Joe Biden said we didn't know. Well the "we" I think he's referring to is himself and perhaps the president of the United States. And as Jill just pointed out to you, these things don't necessarily rise to that level. The State Department may not know, but they may not know. But just set that aside and take a look at this in the larger political context.

Right now this is a distraction for the White House that doesn't want to be answering questions about what did you know and when did you know it, and also get in sort of an internal administration disagreement, say, between the State Department. You know, the White House saying the State Department knew. Then you have to ask questions about the judgment of the State Department, why did they turn down the security requests? One explanation given to the committee was that they turned it down because they wanted to train the Libyans to do this themselves.

So you get embroiled in a whole discussion that allows Mitt Romney to say, you know what, they're not really in charge the way they should be in charge. They're not leading the way they should lead, which is part of his whole re-election theme. So for the White House, I think this is a story they'd rather not be talking about today.

BALDWIN: We need to be talking about it. We need to be asking the tough questions.

BORGER: Uh-huh.

BALDWIN: And, you know, speaking of tough, we talked about the vice president. You know, he very much so going on the attack last night and he may have scored some points on this one. Let me play something. This is Joe Biden responding to Paul Ryan's criticism of the government stimulus package.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) JOE BIDEN, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: He sent me two letters saying, by the way, can you send me some stimulus money for companies here in the state of Wisconsin. We sent millions of dollars. You know why he said --

MARTHA RADDATZ, MODERATOR: He did as for stimulus money direct?

BIDEN: Sure he did. By the way, he --

PAUL RYAN (R), VICE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: On two occasions we advocated for constituents who were applying for grants. That's what we do. We do that for all constituents who are applying for grants.

BIDEN: Oh, I love that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: What a debate that was. But I digress. Did Biden help the president's case last night? You know, especially after the president's tepid performance last week?

BORGER: Right. He was -- he was sort of the polar opposite of the president. If the president had no passion, Joe Biden had all passion, all the time. And his job last night, as we were saying after the debate, was to kind of right the ship, the Democratic ship. And I think he did that because for all of the base of the Democratic Party that was really disenchanted with the president's performance, disappointed, I think Joe Biden gave them something to root for.

But I will say that Paul Ryan also passed a threshold last night, which is that he seemed very credible, very fluent on foreign policy, which some people were really concerned about. And don't forget, Paul Ryan was the first test of Mitt Romney. Mitt Romney chose him to be his running mate. And so it was very important to Mitt Romney himself that Paul Ryan be a credible contender sitting next to Joe Biden, who's a very experienced politician and also has been vice president.

BALDWIN: Gloria, you've been doing this a while. Was that the most incredible vice presidential debate you've ever seen?

BORGER: Well, it is. I mean, I must say, the anticipation was more for Sarah Palin for me because --

BALDWIN: Huh. I was just curious.

BORGER: Because we were sort of interested to see, again, Joe Biden, how he would deal with Sarah Palin.

BALDWIN: Yes. Yes.

BORGER: And whether she could actually stand toe to toe with him. The bar was very low for Sarah Palin and she surpassed what people expected. This was so interesting, of course, because Joe Biden essentially had to save the Democratic Party, or so it seemed.

BALDWIN: Yes. BORGER: And the president had to watch him very closely and is probably pretty beholden to him today. Although you have that town hall coming up that Candy is going to moderate.

BALDWIN: I know.

BORGER: Candy Crowley.

BALDWIN: Can't wait. Can't wait. Let me tell everyone about it. Gloria Borger, thank you.

BORGER: Sure.

BALDWIN: You know, coming out of here, this VP debate, and heading into -- it's Tuesday. It's the second presidential debate, which voters count the most here. Does everyone really have a voice? This is actually one of the questions CNN is asking. So this Sunday, I want you to watch CNN's special report, "Voters in America: Who Counts," Sunday night 8:00 Eastern. And as Gloria pointed out, that next debate moderated by Candy Crowley.

As the president and Mitt Romney get ready for round two, CNN's Ali Velshi is telling each man, cut the BS and get serious about this one thing Ali explains next.

I'm Brooke Baldwin. The news is now.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARTHA RADDATZ, MODERATOR: Please talk personally about this, if you could.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: How each man's response is scoring among divided Catholics.

Plus, one politico is about to tell me why this presidential race is like pro wrestling. Not very real.

And the man who led Endeavour's final mission will join me live as the shuttle makes its final move on earth.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: The vice presidential candidates butted heads last night over everything from, as we mentioned, the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, to taxes here at home. But there is one item they agreed upon, getting the unemployment rate down below specifically 6 percent. So, how exactly do they plan to do that? Here's what they said last night.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PAUL RYAN, (R), VICE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Get America energy independent in North America by the end of the decade. Help people who are hurting get the skills they need to get the jobs they want. Get this deficit and debt under control to prevent a debt crisis. Make trade work for America so we can make more things in American and sell them overseas. And champion small businesses. Don't raise taxes on small businesses because they're our job creators.

JOE BIDEN, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: If they'd get out of the way, if they'd get out of the way and let us pass the tax cut for the middle class and make it permanent. If they'd get out of the way and pass the -- pass the jobs bill. If they'd get out of the way and let us allow 14 million people who are struggling to stay in their homes because their mortgages are upside down but they never missed a mortgage payment.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Ali Velshi is our chief business correspondent.

Ali Velshi, welcome back.

Unemployment below 6 percent. To quote you in your op-ed on CNN Money, "no more BS, please." Care to extrapolate?

ALI VELSHI, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Right. So let's put the unemployment number aside for a second.

BALDWIN: OK.

VELSHI: That is a nonpartisan number. That's Congressional Budget Office. They say if nothing changed, we'd have an unemployment rate of about 6.3 percent by the end of 2016. Right, the end of the next presidential term.

But as we've learned in the last week, the unemployment rate measures different things. Why don't we talk about how many jobs we need to create. And both parties, both presidential candidates, have come up with this number, 12 million jobs in four years. Which is a good number, but it would be 50 percent higher than the current rate of job growth.

And as you heard there, I was listening very carefully, how exactly are you going to do this. There were a lost words, but I didn't hear a lot of facts. What we heard Paul Ryan say is reduce taxes. And what you heard Joe Biden say is reduce taxes on the middle class. He's not talking about small business taxes. And he also said get out of the way and let us pass the jobs bill. Both of them are kind of right, but nobody can come up with a formula that says they're actually going to produce 12 million jobs over five years. And that's what I say when I talk about the BS. It's like come up with a plan that actually does it.

BALDWIN: And I'm not trying to get you fired up, or maybe I am a little bit, because I know this 12 million jobs number, it irks you very, very much.

VELSHI: It does.

BALDWIN: So before we irk you a little further here -- VELSHI: Yes.

BALDWIN: Let just play this again.

VELSHI: Yes.

BALDWIN: This is Paul Ryan doubling down on that number last night.

VELSHI: Yes.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARTHA RADDATZ, MODERATOR: When could you get it below 6 percent?

PAUL RYAN, (R), VICE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: That's what our entire premise of our pr-growth plan for a stronger middle class is all about, get the economy growing at 4 percent, creating 12 million jobs over the next four years.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: I mean you point out, it's virtually impossible. It happened, what, three years looking back at history.

VELSHI: Three times. Three times in history.

BALDWIN: You can't even really count World War II, right?

VELSHI: Correct. You actually can't count the first one, which is World War II. So only three times have we created 12 million jobs in four years. The last two times are irrelevant. One was under President Reagan, where economic growth was 4.8 percent. The second time was under President Clinton where it was 4.3 percent. We have 1.3 percent growth. This week, the IMF and the World Bank both dropped their growth estimates for the next two years. So the point is, this is kind of like when people took mortgages at 3 percent and somebody said, oh, they'll never go up. That mortgage won't go up. And, guess what, it went up. And then you said, well, I didn't plan for that.

BALDWIN: Hmm.

VELSHI: What both of these parties are saying is that, you know, we're going to count on economic growth, we're going to lower taxes and little bit and goose economic growth and that's how we're going to create jobs. It's a little nonspecific. It sounds really great in this desperate environment where the intractable problem of our time is job creation.

BALDWIN: So how do we do it?

VELSHI: And just because it sounds good, doesn't mean it's great.

BALDWIN: How do we do it?

VELSHI: All right. Well, there are a combination of a number of things that will lately create jobs over the next few years and the government can do something to help in those areas. One is housing. The government's doing a great deal already keeping those interest rates low with the Fed. That is probably the golden lining around the silver cloud.

Number two, both candidates are very similar on their investment in energy. More energy will create more jobs. It's one of the biggest job creators around here. It can be clean energy, it can be dirty energy. The point is, energy is a big area.

Number three, and this is a particularly Democratic position, and that is an infrastructure bank. That is where the government puts some money in, the rest of the money comes from the private sector, and they fund things like an electrical grid, like bridges, like high speed rail, taking on these projects.

BALDWIN: Yes.

VELSHI: A lot of Republicans don't like that because they think that's government directing spending that the free market should direct. But guess what the free market got us? No high speed rail, bridges that crumble, an electrical grid that's out of date, a broadband grid that's not sufficient for attracting business. So that might be a really good role for government. But the bottom line is, I'm suggesting all that to you. I've put it together. Some other people have. It's not coming from the government.

BALDWIN: Hey, since we're talking housing, I just want to point out, I know you saw this, I don't know if our viewers have, the headline this morning from JP Morgan Chase's CEO Jamie Dimon.

VELSHI: Yes, huge.

BALDWIN: Quote, "importantly, we believe the housing market has turned the corner."

VELSHI: Yes.

BALDWIN: Has it?

VELSHI: And that's a big deal for them because most of their record profit, by the way, that they had, they reported today, came from loans. A lot more loans.

Look, it's turned a corner because there's a combination of very low interest rates and low home prices that buyers are starting to believe will come up. So that confidence is, oh, I better get in now because I'm going to not get interest rates this low and prices are starting to creep up.

BALDWIN: Yes.

VELSHI: I think that probably stays in place for a little while unless something goes wrong and all of a sudden interest rates start to soar. But, yes, for the moment, everybody I'm talking to, companies, people, car companies that sell trucks, they're all telling me the same thing. Construction, new building and renovation are way up because people are buying houses.

BALDWIN: Good. Good.

VELSHI: That is good.

BALDWIN: If they buy, then, as you point out, that could be one way to create some of these jobs.

VELSHI: It creates a lot of jobs in this country.

BALDWIN: Ali Velshi, thank you. Have a great weekend.

VELSHI: My pleasure.

BALDWIN: And we'll be watching for you this weekend. Don't forget, you can watch Ali on "Your Money" this weekend, Saturday, 1:00 Eastern, Sunday, 3:00 p.m. Don't miss him.

You heard a lot of numbers thrown at you last night, I know, especially when it came to Medicare. But, fear not, because we have our fact checkers working and they're very clear here, you will hear who was not, I repeat, was not telling the truth.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: You know this. They call Paul Ryan wonky. But at least for one night, you could say the same about Joe Biden. Why? They threw a lot of numbers at you, especially when it comes to Medicare. But were both sides truthful? CNN's Tom Foreman with a 3-D fact check.

Tom.

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Brooke.

As I'm sure you know, Medicare is a government health insurance program mostly for people over the age of 65. About 50 million Americans rely on this program. And its long term financial future is pretty shaky right now. But, that's not the scary part. The scary part is that each campaign says the other side's plans for dealing with that are just plain terrible.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PAUL RYAN, (R), VICE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Obamacare takes $716 billion from Medicare to spend on Obamacare.

JOE BIDEN, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: All you seniors out there, have you been denied choices? Have you lost Medicare Advantage?

RYAN: Because it's -- they haven't put a credible solution on the table.

BIDEN: Their ideas are old and their ideas are bad and they eliminate the guarantee of Medicare.

(END VIDEO CLIP) FOREMAN: This is their essential claim, that my opponent will destroy Medicare. But is that really true? Let's take a look at some of the facts and consider it. I'll bring in some tools here and look at the White House plan to begin with. This is the landscape they're dealing with. The cost of Medicare is going to generally increase over the next 10 years until it reaches about a trillion dollars annually. They want to reduce that by about 10 percent. That's the orange part here. That's the part they're cutting out.

Now, their opponents look at that and say, that's real care for real people that you're getting rid of and you just can't do that. But the White House says, hold on, no, it's not. That's a reduction in the amount of money that we're paying to the administrative cost of hospitals and to insurance programs. In a word, they say, that is waste. We can get rid of it and we should get rid of it. That's the White House take on things.

Now, if you bring in the Romney/Ryan plan, you'll see the landscape is just the same. They have the same increase. They also want to reduce it by about 10 percent, but they want to rely on the private sector, not government, to get that done. In a word, they're going for vouchers. Now, they don't like calling it vouchers, but that's really what it is. Right now, if you're on Medicare, what happens is the government pays Medicare, Medicare pays the hospital, the hospital takes care of you. Under this plan, the government would pay you and you would decide if you wanted to buy into Medicare or into private insurance. That will create competition between the two and their theory and that is how you get at that very same waste that the White House wants to get out.

These are two very complicated, huge programs. There are critics on both sides who say this plan won't work or that plan won't work or this plan will leave people stranded or that plan will leave people stranded. But the truth is, it is complicated. It's hard to deal with all that.

So if we go with this basic claim that both sides have raised here, that somehow this is all about destroying Medicare, that is simply false. That is a scare tactic no matter which side is saying it.

So why are they saying it so much? All you have to do is look at the map and you know. Across the country, the baby boomers are getting older. They're becoming a bigger percentage of the voting population fast. All those dark states is where the percentage is highest.

And look at Florida down here. Battleground state. More than 17 percent of the population there is over the age of 65. These are engaged voters. They are voters who show up when it's time to vote. And they're very concerned about Medicare. Even though both sides say neither plan is going to affect people over the age of 65 right now, they're engaged on this issue. And whichever side wins, the Medicare debate will probably win a lot of senior votes.

BALDWIN: Tom Foreman, thank you.

Barbs, finger pointing, one liners, all of it, of course, makes for compelling television. But does it help undecided voters make up their minds? My next guest says the race is like pro wrestling. Not real.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: What a debate that was. No shortage of finger pointing during that debate. Take a look at this, this exchange during the discussion of jobs and the economy.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: They talk about this great recession as if it fell out of the sky, like, my goodness, where did it come from? It came from this man voting to put two wars on a credit card, at the same time put a prescription drug benefit on the credit card, a trillion dollar tax cut for the very wealthy.

REPRESENTATIVE PAUL RYAN (R), VICE PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: Let's not forget they came in with one party control. When Barack Obama was elected, his party controlled everything, they had the ability to do everything of their choosing and look at where we are right now.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Craig Crawford, let me bring you in. You are a prolific Tweeter to the wee hours last night, loved reading your tweets.

CRAIG CRAWFORD, BLOGGER, CRAIGCRAWFORD.COM: I can't keep up with you.

BALDWIN: I try. I try. I want to talk about the presidential race with you in a second. But first the debate, I mean, I wasn't done. After 90 minutes, I wanted to keep watching. In terms of undecided voters, Craig, do you think they got the clarity they were looking for?

CRAWFORD: You know, you're right. I haven't had that much fun watching a debate since Arnold Schwarzenegger and Arianna Huffington. They debated without a moderator. I've never seen a debate I didn't want to end.

I don't know that undecided saw it that way, however. Those of us in the political game, we like to see these fights and we enjoy the back and forth. Undecided voters historically react poorly to too much negativity and too much emotion.

That's why these aides are always telling these candidates, you know, just ripping the personalities out of them, telling them, don't take any chances, don't make any mistakes. That's what was refreshing about Joe Biden. He just tossed all that advice aside and showed us who he was, showed us some skin.

BALDWIN: And vice presidential debate, that's certainly one of those debates where you're watching you want to see who, heaven forbid, they have to leave the country. You want to see who can step up. You said that person was Biden, why?

CRAWFORD: I think in the end of the day, Biden was the one who is really answering directly the specifically a lot of the questions, some of it a lot of spin. Some of it a little off on the facts, but he was being more direct.

What I saw in Ryan was somebody who was tutored, a tutored novice on foreign policy, clearly, not answering questions. All the talk about Biden laughing, why shouldn't he laugh? I think the moderator should have laughed when she was trying to get Ryan to be specific about how they would pay for tax cuts.

The 20 percent tax cut reduction, how they would pay for that without blowing up the deficit. He didn't answer. His answer was bipartisanship this is the leader of one of the most mindlessly partisan majority parties in Congress I've ever seen.

BALDWIN: Talking to Ali Velshi though, you know, he said both parties are kind of guilty of not being specific in terms of all the job creation there, talking about, talking and pontificating, but lacking in specifics.

But I want to talk presidential race here because let me read something you blog about. Quote, "The race is about as authentic as WWE's Monday Night Raw, a theatrical exchange of punches, but without the agreed upon outcome, pro-wrestling? Why?

CRAWFORD: I love my Monday Night Raw. And, you know, absolutely. This campaign has been one of the most vapid I've ever seen. I agree with Ali, the Democratic side is not as specific as we need to hear, understand what they're going to do about job growth.

But I find the Romney side just completely lacking in anything that we can put our hands on. And they don't do press conferences, they never submit the questions. Except in debates, Ryan the other day, when a local reporter, which only interviews they do because they're usually pretty soft.

A local reporter actually tried to press him on specifics and he got mad and walked out. He was so outraged at being put to the griddle there.

And that is the problem with this campaign is its theatrical, we're focusing on gaffes and laughs and it is not just the media's fault. It is what the campaign drives us to focus on as well, though that doesn't get us off the hook.

BALDWIN: Let's be fair. Paul Ryan, didn't, you know, storm out and walk away from that local reporter. I saw the video too and on the flip side, you could argue where is Joe Biden in terms of giving interviews.

We certainly would like to talk to him as well. Craig Crawford, got to leave it there. Thank you so, so much. We appreciate it. I will look for your tweets.

In the meantime, preparations, very much so on for Tuesday and CNN's Candy Crowley will be moderating this debate number two between the president and Mitt Romney, live coverage begins right here at 7:00 Eastern.

One way to get out of LAX, take the shuttle. Hands down one of the coolest things I've ever seen. Blue skies, live pictures in Los Angeles, probably the only time we will ever see this kind of picture, at least in our lifetime.

We're going to talk to former "Endeavor" Commander Mark Kelly about this and his life highlights on this shuttle coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: The shuttle "Endeavour" traveled nearly 123 million miles in space, going more than 17,000 miles an hour. Today, not so fast because right now the shuttle, the retired shuttle is chugging along, actually right now it is staying put in a parking lot.

It will be chugging along 12 miles in two days as it winds through Los Angeles to its new home at the California Science Center. And, guess who I have on the phone.

Mark Kelly, the last commander of the space shuttle "Endeavour." Mark Kelly, welcome, a pleasure to be talking to you.

And, first question here, out of the gate, did you ever think in a million years you would be seeing this shuttle from which you probably experienced the highlights of your career rolling down the streets of L.A.?

MARK KELLY, FORMER ASTRONAUT, LOS ANGELES (via telephone): No, Brooke, I didn't. I've flown on "Endeavour" twice, first time 10 years ago, and, you know, it has got -- it has got a long journey ahead of it still, 12 miles that I think -- less than 2 miles an hour.

BALDWIN: Creeping through and an incredible sight for perhaps astronauts to be on the streets of Los Angeles as you point out. You were on the first "Endeavour" mission and also the final one. Do you mind sharing a life highlight from your time on the shuttle?

KELLY: Well, certainly, you know, any space flight is, you know, a pinnacle of a career for an astronaut. I was fortunate enough to get to do that four times. I'm really fond of space shuttle "Endeavour" having been the commander, you know, of the last flight of that vehicle, I'm happy to see it go into the California Science Center. You know, it is a difficult trip, a lot of stuff had to be moved.

BALDWIN: A lot of trees down.

KELLY: Company Time Warner Cables invested, you know, a lot of money and a lot of effort and volunteers to get it there over the next couple of days.

BALDWIN: Just this week, Mark, we saw the first commercial mission that the Spacex rocket reached the ISS, first with cargo, perhaps eventually with the hopes of ferrying astronauts. Just from a NASA veteran perspective, how you to view these private companies picking up where the shuttles left off? KELLY: Well, you know, originally I was not a fan of the cancellation of the constellation program. You know, we were pretty far into that, and this is the follow-up program after we made a decision to retire the space shuttle.

But, you know, you got to give Spacex a huge amount of credit. I mean, they have now rendezvoused and docked with the space station twice, once just a couple of days ago. They have delivered cargo. They're going to be returning cargo again.

You know, that's something even the Russian space agency can't do. So they have done a great job. I'm hopeful to see them flying people in the next four, five years, whatever their timeline is.

I think they're going to be successful at it. You know, we're continuing to move forward with space exploration. We got, you know, a Lockheed Martin building Orion that's going into deep space. So it's still a pretty, you know, I'm pretty optimistic about the program.

BALDWIN: Charlie Bolden told me sort of recently, he hope that we will see blue prints, you know, on Mars in our lifetime, but as far as right now, Mark. I mean, election season here, what you like to hear from the candidates with regard to the future of space travel?

KELLY: Well, I don't like, typically, is that we change directions all the time. You know, we get started on one program, and for some reason either, you know, the White House, Congress or NASA typically cancels it or decides to do something different.

So I think it is important that we stay focused, stay the course, you know. I hope we continue with the commercial cargo and commercial program and also invest in a deep space exploration.

And maybe someday, one of these kids that see "Endeavour," look up at it, at the California Science Center, will be that person that walk on the planet Mars. That would be a great thing to see.

BALDWIN: Maybe a kid who would like to read "Mousetronaut," can we talk about "Mousetronaut," for a minute? This is -- this is your new children's book.

It's based upon your very first trip in the space shuttle. You were in charge of mice, Mark Kelly, in flying the shuttle. Can you tell me about this one intrepid mouse?

KELLY: Yes, so I was the pilot of space shuttle "Endeavour" on my first flight, but I was also the guy who had to make sure that the mice were eating their food and drinking their water and they were OK.

We had 18 mice on board, 17 of them were not happy about this experience. But one little guy seemed to get it, float over and get his water and food, every so often seemed to do a flip.

So "Mousetronaut," the book, is based on that little mouse. But, you know, obviously, it is fictional and he goes on to, you know, be part of the space shuttle mission.

BALDWIN: And finally, you're in L.A., we're talking at the commercial break. I was asking you if you would pop out and see the "Endeavour." Do you think you will tonight and what do you say to a kid tugging on your arm and saying, are you Mark Kelly?

KELLY: Well, usually, you know, I say, yes, and then I'll ask them, do you want to be an astronaut some day and tell them how to do that. I hope to get out there today.

I'm also hoping to get Gabby out here at some point. She was a really big fan of the space shuttle program. She was the chairwoman of the Space and Aeronautics Subcommittee when she was in Congress.

So hopefully one day, not too soon, when it is fully on display we'll get her out here as well.

BALDWIN: We're looking at pictures of her from I believe this is from the DNC, she's doing well, right?

KELLY: She's doing really well. We -- NASA was very kind to fly "Endeavour" over Tucson so she could see it one last time. That's the first time I saw it since I climbed out of it on June 1st after landing it at the Kennedy Space Center. I'm excited to see it again maybe tonight.

BALDWIN: It's incredible. Mark Kelly, thank you so, so much for calling in. We appreciate it. We'll have more live pictures, we promise, from Los Angeles, from "Endeavour" coming up. But for now, we got to take a quick break. Be right back.

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BALDWIN: Well, you knew it was going to happen here, the first lawsuit connected to the fungal meningitis outbreak has been filed in Minnesota. The suit against the New England Compounding Company was filed on behalf of a Minnesota woman and seeks class action status to cover others.

Fourteen people have died now after being injected with the tainted batch of steroids. So far there have been 184 cases of non-contagious disease here in 12 different states.

The Centers for Disease Control says some 14,000 people may have gotten the injections. Patients who have tested negative for the bacteria are not in the clear yet. They still have to be watched for several months.

And there was a moment in last night's debate where neither Joe Biden nor Paul Ryan seemed to have an answer. And what happened next? It sent chills down my spine.

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BALDWIN: There were a lot of items to look at, moments to watch, in the Joe Biden/Paul Ryan debate last night. Key among them, how should the United States respond to the ongoing crisis in Syria?

We never did get a clear answer from that from either of them, but the vice president and Congressman Ryan certainly quarrelled over what President Obama has done thus far. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BIDEN: What more would they do other than put American boots to the ground? The last thing America needs is to get in on another ground war in the Middle East, requiring tens of thousands, if not well over 100,000 American forces.

RYAN: Nobody is proposing to send troops to Syria, American troops. Now, let me say it this way, how would we do things differently? We wouldn't refer to Bashar Al-Assad as a reformer when he's killing his own civilians with his Russian provided weapons.

We wouldn't be outsourcing our foreign policy to the United Nations giving Vladimir Putin veto power over our efforts to try and deal with this issue.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: CNN international's Hala Gorani with me again here after this debate. I tell you I got goose bumps or chills when I heard Martha Raddatz said well, what if, you know, Bashar Al-Assad doesn't go away, but they both agree no boots on the ground in Syria. In that exchange, was there any moment that made you sort of take a deep breath?

HALA GORANI, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, it's looking back and not looking forward because Paul Ryan is talking about what potentially a Romney/Ryan ticket would have done differently if they had been in charge.

In other words, identify rebel groups, identify freedom fighters, perhaps help those that the United States might want to push forward as far as the future leadership of Syria is concerned a little bit earlier than the Obama administration has.

But as far as plans for what happens from this point on, no. And there is no appetite from the United States or quite frankly any country in the western world for boots on the ground in Syria. As we heard from the vice president, Joe Biden, this is not Libya. It is a much more complicated scenario.

BALDWIN: I want to get to the Libya sort of comparison here in just a minute. But Ryan claimed that the administration referred to Assad as a reformer, a reformer. To your best --

GORANI: No, this has been -- it has not. This has been fact checked by several sources including CNN. The word reformer was used by Hillary Clinton in March of 2011.

And in reference to Bashar Al-Assad, many of the members of Congress of both parties she said have gone to Syria in recent months said they believe he's a reformer.

Now, of both parties, and you to remember something about Bashar Al- Assad before the uprising against him in the year 2000, 2001 when he took over from his father, he was viewed as potentially a reformer by many people in western countries.

Clearly, in the last 19 months, this notion that in any way he's a reformer has gone out the window.

BALDWIN: Since we touched on it, 30 seconds, point of contention, you know, that why the U.S. stepped in Libya but has not in Syria?

GORANI: Well, we heard it from Joe Biden, but not just Joe Biden. I mean, these are observers, experts, people who have gone to Syria, much more complicated scenario, a bigger country, it's more populated.

The Syrian military is stronger. There's no split between east and west as there was in Libya going in. And air support alone probably wouldn't do it. That said, something needs to be done, many people say. What will it be? That's a big question because people are dying.

BALDWIN: Final presidential debate on foreign policy specifically. Hala Gorani, thank you very much.

Now, Joe Biden, just want to give you the heads up. We are watching and waiting this will be first time we will have heard from him since the debate last night.

Speaking for the first time in, here we go, live pictures, don't see him yet, in Paul Ryan's territory, Lacrosse, Wisconsin. We're waiting for him. We're watching. Be right back.

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