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Romney, Obama Set for Second Presidential Debate; Hillary Clinton Accepts Blame for Libya Attack

Aired October 16, 2012 - 15:00   ET

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

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: And we continue on. Good to have you with me. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

Count them with me, six hours now from debate number two, presidential debate number two. Our live coverage begins here on CNN at 7:00 Eastern. Candy Crowley will be moderating this evening again. This is a town hall format.

And I want to start this hour with a quick look, there he is, at the president, obviously a lot of pressure on him tonight. This is Barack Obama arriving in New York, where he will square off this evening with Mitt Romney on the campus of Hofstra University.

And now to this. Here is the president out for a stroll this morning. Let's listen in.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

QUESTION: Mr. President, are you ready for tonight? How are you feeling about tonight?

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I feel fabulous. Look at this beautiful day.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: So the president is feeling fabulous. And that is a bit of a contrast to what he said before debate number one. Remember that? He complained to reporters that his aides had him holed up, cramming, and in the president's words, it was a drag. Well, we know how that went.

As for Mitt Romney, moments ago, his motorcade arriving at Hofstra University. There it is.

Dana Bash is live for us now on campus at Hofstra.

Dana, we are going to talk about that debate tonight here in just a second. But, first, let's all look at the surprising poll. This is from "USA Today" and Gallup. It shows Obama and Romney running virtually dead even among women, very important here, asterisk, footnote here. This is women in 12 swing states.

Dana, we have seen the president running far ahead of Romney among female voters. In fact, if you look at these other polls, these are the nationwide polls, couple of them here, Obama is still leading Romney among women by seven points or more.

Question to you is, why is this? What accounts for the jump toward Romney among women in the 12 swing states? Any clue?

DANA BASH, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: It is an outlier poll when you look at that, even not just nationally, but even in the swing states, when you look at the Gallup poll vs. other national polls that are polling in the swing states.

As you can imagine, the Obama campaign is really trying to poke holes in the methodology that Gallup has been using, saying it is just not accurate. And the Romney campaign are saying that this is so encouraging because it looks like Mitt Romney is narrowing the gender gap, which is so, so important.

So, you know, I think it will be unclear until we see a few more days of this poll and see if it is matched in other national polls, but so far it is an outlier. But just a sort of underscore for our viewers why we're even talking about this is because women are so, so important when it comes to winning an election on a presidential level, any level, because women tend to vote for. But they also according to many pollsters tend to break the latest, that they decide late. And there has been historically such a huge gender gap and definitely that is so in this campaign.

BALDWIN: We will look for some women's issues coming up, abortion, contraception, from both of these candidates, I'm sure.

And also a major difference tonight, this is a town hall style debate, Candy Crowley, she will be out there moderating, point being this is a different dynamic from first presidential debate.

BASH: Completely different.

The candidates are obviously going to be poised to go after one another. But the name of the game for both of them is to connect with the voters who are asking the questions. And that is important for many reasons, but first and foremost because actually both of them, mostly Mitt Romney, but both of them kind of have a rap of being disconnected.

And when it comes to Romney in particular, his aides know he really has to kind of sell the fact that he does care about people like me and you and he does understand the problems that people are having out there. This is his real chance not to just say it, but to actually show it.

I just want to give you one little piece of color.

BALDWIN: Sure.

BASH: And that is, according to a Romney aide, how they prepare differently for a town hall than the other debates, they will be sitting on stools. We're told the governor had to practice getting up on the stool because he's not used to sitting on a stool. He's a Mormon. He doesn't go to bars. He doesn't hang out on stools very much.

This is -- it actually sounds inconsequential, but it isn't. It just shows you also that they're not leaving any detail to chance. Nothing is too small to focus on when it comes to the imagery and the stagecraft for these candidates.

BALDWIN: Now we're all going to be watching Mitt Romney climbing up on that stool tonight very closely thanks to you, Dana Bash, and your color.

Dana, thank you.

Let's go to Washington now to our chief national correspondent, John King.

John, you got an interesting piece on CNN.com today. I just want to read a quote from Democratic pollster Peter Hart, says -- quote -- "Voters need to see the fight, the inspiration and the grittiness of Obama which they perceive is just plain missing."

And you have to wonder, John King, how in the world did that happen?

JOHN KING, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Let me start by saying, Brooke, I'm one of the most experienced stool people in the United States of America.

(LAUGHTER)

KING: I have a lot of experience when it comes to stools.

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: Go ahead.

KING: That's a fascinating point.

Peter Hart is veteran Democratic pollster. This is not a Republican saying this. This is a veteran Democrat who wants President Obama to win the election. He did a focus group in the Columbus, Ohio, suburbs right after this debate and he said people were just shocked. He said swing voters were just shocked. They say, where is the president?

Why does that matter? Because people's legs are tired. They're deciding whether or not it keep the president for four more years. They're tired of slogging through the tough economy and they wanted to not only see him lay out a road map for four years, which he did not do in the first debate -- he defended the last four years a lot, but he didn't give people a clear sense of where he was going, but they said they saw no fight, no spunk in him and they want someone to fight, fight to create jobs, fight to get the economy going, to want the job.

But a lot of swing voters, and Peter is one of them, Stan Greenberg, another Democratic pollster, has similar research saying people looked at the president and said, pal, if you're not willing to fight in debate, I'm worrying whether you're going to fight for me, maybe you shouldn't get the job back.

BALDWIN: Let me quote Stan Greenberg, since you bring him up, deeply respected among Democrats, quoted in your piece as well -- quote -- "The campaign has reached a tipping point, and voters are not looking for continuity but change that helps the average Joe."

You know, that doesn't bode well for the president. How does an incumbent president, you know, present himself or herself as the candidate of change?

KING: What a change from four years ago, too, when change was the coin of the Obama realm. Now he's the incumbent president, as you know. I will read one more line from that memo from Stan.

He says "The starting point is a strong desire to see major, not modest changes in the country and the way we govern ourselves."

That's not a sentence that is encouraging to any incumbent, especially an incumbent again who went into the first debate and left not only independent voters, undecided voters, but many of his own supporters despondent and down saying where are you taking us, Mr. President?

Governor Romney did a very good job in that first debate of explaining where he wants to go, a much better job than President Obama did and frankly Democrats say Governor Romney did such a good job because of most what he said was unchallenged by the president of the United States.

Here's the question. The first debate without a doubt was race changing. If you go to battleground state to battleground state to battleground state, Governor Romney has picked up momentum. It was race changing. It changed the race. I would have told you a week ago, close race, advantage Obama. I would say today close race, slight advantage Romney.

The question is whether the president can use the second debate to change the race again and a lot of Democrats are nervous, thinking he better.

BALDWIN: Before I let you go, let's talk Pennsylvania. We just saw Ann Romney in a town in Pennsylvania speaking yesterday to a lot of women. Here are these new numbers. This has the president's lead there having shrunk to four points, a four-point advantage. It was just 12 points last month.

And it wasn't even one of those tossup states that we have been talking so much about. You write in your column though that Pennsylvania, maybe even Michigan, could be in play here.

KING: Could be in play. There are sometimes mirages in the desert of presidential politics. By that, I mean, a state's polls change for a week or two, and the campaign says, whoa. The campaign is saying whoa right now is the Obama campaign saying do we have to go there, do we have to spend time in Pennsylvania, do we have to spend precious resources on television ads, do we have to gin up our turnout operation?

The Romney campaign is looking at its path to 270 and all of a sudden it says do we want to try to expand the map and spend money there? The election is three weeks from today. Any decision you make about time and money, you can't get it back. It's a consequential decision at this point.

Both campaigns are going to watch tomorrow and the next day and the next day. If you see Pennsylvania and Michigan still tight, every now and then you get a poll, Dana used the term outlier, it gives you a shock, and then states go back to what I call their presidential DNA. Michigan and Pennsylvania have deep blue DNA. If they're purple closer to Election Day, that is another piece of evidence that the map has changed in Governor Romney's favor.

BALDWIN: John King, wow. Three weeks from today to that election. John, thank you.

KING: Who's counting?

BALDWIN: We all are.

Round two for President Obama and Mitt Romney happening tonight, Candy Crowley moderating the debate this evening, this town hall debate. Special coverage here at CNN, 7:00 Eastern. Hope you join us.

Something that certainly may come up this evening, the fact that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is now saying the buck stops with her when it comes to security at the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya. You know the story. U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens, three other Americans died on that attack back on September 11.

And I want to bring in Fareed Zakaria to talk about this. You know he's the host of "FAREED ZAKARIA GPS" and columnist for "TIME" magazine.

Fareed, nice to see you back on the show.

I have been challenging lawmakers, I have been challenging surrogates on what the administration knew when it came to Benghazi, how they reacted and Hillary Clinton has been kind of quiet until now and here she is, the night before the debate, in Lima, Peru, says what she does to a number of networks, including us. But this is all politics, is it not?

FAREED ZAKARIA, CNN WORLD AFFAIRS ANALYST: It is about politics. But it doesn't change the fact that what she said is probably quite accurate.

Look, what we're talking about here is whether a request for security that came from the consulate in Benghazi -- this is one of the 275 diplomatic outposts the United States has -- whether that went up to the White House. The answer is obviously no.

In fact, I would say it is obviously also true that they didn't even get to the secretary of state. This is probably dealt with by an assistant secretary or an undersecretary, but Hillary Clinton is making the point, to the extent she runs the State Department, all 60,000 people, she's responsible and takes responsibility for it. But it did not go to the White House and so it is in fact true that they didn't know that there were these requests.

I think that's a separate issue of course from whether or not the White House handled the crisis after the ambassador was killed, whether or not they were entirely honest, whether they didn't just know what had happened. All those -- as you know, in a sense, these are two separate issues, crisis management of what happened after the ambassador was killed, and the events leading up to the violence and the requests for security.

On that piece of it, I think Hillary Clinton is being quite accurate.

BALDWIN: OK. Libya certainly will come up tonight. I want to move past Libya, though, to the Obama administration's policies toward Syria and the Middle East. And to do that, I want to quote Florida Republican Senator Marco Rubio writing on CNN.com criticizing Obama's empty rhetoric, his words, in support of the Syrian opposition.

Here's what he writes: "This is why Iran is more deeply than ever involved in arming and providing financial support to al-Assad, why Russia makes a mockery of Obama's reset by supplying currency for al- Assad and why Russia and China predictably continue to stifle U.S., Arab and European efforts at the United Nations."

When you hear that, when you hear that criticism, Fareed, is it fair?

ZAKARIA: I think this is purely campaign rhetoric.

The Syrian situation is very complicated, and it's not entirely clear how to handle it. It is a very, very sad, tragic, humanitarian catastrophe, and it's causing regional instability. But what does Senator Rubio propose?

When Vice President Biden challenged Congressman Ryan at the debate, do you want U.S. intervention there, if you don't want U.S. intervention, what should we do? Do you want to try and get some kind of sanctions embargo, no-fly zones? Well, for all of that, you need other countries to help you, which means you need either the Arab League to sanction it or request it as they did in Libya or the U.N. to do so, which they did in Libya, or are you saying you want a unilateral American no-fly zone, which means the United States alone shoots down planes and things like that?

When you push people and ask them what is it they would do different from what is the current policy, you don't get a lot of specifics, you get a lot of hot air and you get this kind of rhetorical stuff, but the truth is our options are pretty -- Syria is the land of lousy options. It is not clear what we could do that is very different from what the Obama administration is doing.

BALDWIN: On either side. We heard, what was it, Mitt Romney at VMI talking about how Syrian rebels should be armed, but there were no specifics as far as who should then arm them. So, again, Syria as you point out is tough. It's tough.

ZAKARIA: And he says they should be armed, not by us, but by others, and as long as we can be sure they're not radicals? How do you figure that out in the midst of a civil war?

BALDWIN: All good points. But while I have you, I do want to talk about this special, your special coming up Sunday. Talk to me, Fareed Zakaria, about green power. What are you looking at?

ZAKARIA: What we're looking at is, you know, the candidates both want energy independence. And what is strange is we're sort of going to get it, but almost despite what is going on in the politics.

No matter who is president, the United States is on the verge of this huge energy boom, which is -- you know, it is this new revolution, this technological revolution. We were expecting it in solar and wind. Instead we have got it in shale and deep-water oil. And it is going to be this enormous boon for the United States. What we argue in the special is that should be the bridge technology to get eventually to the cleaner, greener future that we all have been looking for.

We look at a lot of countries around the world from Denmark to France, believe it or not, France gets 75 percent of its electricity with zero carbon emissions because they use nuclear power. So we try to look at best practices around the world.

BALDWIN: It is called "Global Lessons: The GPS Road Map for Powering America," airs Sunday night, 8:00 Eastern right here on CNN.

Fareed Zakaria, thank you. Always a pleasure.

ZAKARIA: Pleasure.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BALDWIN (voice-over): As a teenage girl clings to life, one activist is challenging President Obama and Mitt Romney to address the resurgence of the Taliban.

I'm Brooke Baldwin. The news is now.

What's behind Romney's surge in the polls? That's easy. He's moving to the middle. So says one half of his political power couple. They join me live.

Plus, we can fact check all we want. But I will speak live with one expert who says facts apparently don't matter anymore.

And...

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: You have 72 hours to get them out.

BALDWIN: "Argo," Lincoln, bin Laden, how Hollywood is coming to an election booth near you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: I know so many of you are following the story about the 14-year-old Pakistani schoolgirl who was shot point blank by the Taliban right in her head.

So British doctors treating 14-year-old Malala Yousafzai at this hospital in Birmingham in England say they are impressed by her resilience and her strength, but they warn she has quite a ways to go.

Then there is this. This is some news from overnight. Police in this city say two so-called well-wishers were stopped as they tried to get inside this hospital to apparently try to see this young girl. The hospital's director says the intruders were probably just being, to quote him, overcurious, but security is tight there, of course, following the Taliban threats to try again to kill the girl.

Today marks one week since that Taliban gunman boarded Malala's school bus in Pakistan's Swat Valley, called her out by name, fired three shots at her, all for being an advocate for girls getting an education.

I want to bring in Suzanne Nossel. She is the executive director of Amnesty International USA. She's written this opinion piece on CNN.com asking both Mitt Romney and Barack Obama to bring this young woman up during tonight's debate.

So, Suzanne, welcome. And the title of your piece, "Candidates, Answer the Malala Question."

What is the Malala question?

SUZANNE NOSSEL, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL USA: The Malala question is what specific concrete steps can and must be taken to protect and stand with women whose rights and whose security is in jeopardy right now because of the Taliban?

The world has been captivated by this case of Malala, her life right now hanging in the balance. But there are more than 18 million women in the region, in Pakistan, and the Swat Valley and as well in Afghanistan who are at risk from the Taliban, who are standing up for themselves who are demanding an education, who are moving into the professions and who are going to need the help of the international community so that they continue to enjoy their rights.

So it is an important question for the candidates to answer. They're both looking to pick up and keep the votes of women, so I hope we have this conversation tonight.

BALDWIN: Yes, so much to talk about women and here is this 14- year-old girl in this hospital, right, in England, fighting for her life. You mentioned girls and education. I just want to give some context that you bring up in your piece.

Three million girls go to school, women make up 20 percent of university grads. Certainly under the Taliban rule, that number was zero. I want to play an interview here that was just obtained actually exclusively by CNN's Reza Sayah, who reports for us from Pakistan, with another young girl who was wounded with Malala. Let's first just listen to that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REZA SAYAH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Do you regret standing up against the Taliban now that you have been hurt?

KAINAT AHMED, PAKISTAN (through translator): No, sir, I don't regret it. God willing, I will continue my education.

SAYAH: What do you want the world to know?

AHMED (through translator): Girls' education here is more important than boys because boys can have any jobs they want here, but girls cannot. I want to tell all the girls to continue their mission to get an education.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: So here she is, Suzanne, speaking from this, don't know what that was, a hospital bad perhaps, saying she will continue to fight.

On the flip side, I just have to juxtapose that with Americans who certainly have war fatigue, our troops have been in there for more than a decade. What exactly are you asking people to do?

NOSSEL: This is not about prolonging the war. This is about taking concrete steps to stand with the women who are demanding their rights.

That woman is so courageous, lying there on a gurney, saying she is going to continue.

BALDWIN: How about that?

NOSSEL: Really astonishing.

The shot of Malala -- shooting assault on her, is really a shot that should be heard around the world. And the kind of steps that we're demanding now include setting aside funding so that we're sure that these amazing women's groups and organizations that have sprung up over the last decade can continue their operations, that they have control over the resources that they need to continue to operate and to serve other women the way they're doing so effectively.

We're also demanding that women's quotas for participation politically and in parliament are sustained. And we talk to Afghan women and what they say is outside pressure does matter. It is true that there is not limitless leverage. These aren't easy issues to resolve. But the outside pressure, they say, is absolutely necessary.

And another issue we're focused on is women's involvement in policing and the military, because those responsibilities are being turned over to the Afghan government. And it is vitally important that women participate, that they are trained, equipped, empowered to play a role in policing and ensuring the security of other women and of whole communities.

BALDWIN: I know you want outside help. You talk about wanting whether either of the candidates, Congress to enact legislation, though We just have to point out, it is not just the U.S. Pakistan and Afghanistan too have to step up as well.

Suzanne Nossel, I want to just encourage everyone to read your piece. Just go to CNN.com/opinion. Suzanne, thank you.

NOSSEL: Thank you.

BALDWIN: And today, a surprise on Wall Street. A top CEO, one of the men at the center of that bank bailout, decides to up and call it quits. Why? Next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: It takes a lot to stun Wall Street, but this morning, that's exactly what happened.

Take a look at this man. Vikram Pandit abruptly quit his job as CEO of Citigroup. And then his top aide, Citi president John Havens, he announced he is stepping down too. Why did they leave? No word yet. But Pandit released a statement saying it is the -- quote -- "right time for someone else to take the reins."

Citigroup veteran Michael Corbat has been named the new CEO.

For baby boomers, early retirement planning is key, but when you retire, is it OK to carry some credit card debt?

(FINANCIAL UPDATE)

BALDWIN: Back to politics.

John Avlon says Mitt Romney is telling people just what they want to hear.

But will that win him the White House?

We will talk to John and his wife, Margaret Hoover -- there they are, coupled up -- in New York.

(LAUGHTER)

BALDWIN: They're next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Mitt Romney marched to the right in pursuit of the Republican nomination, but John Avlon says he didn't attract independents until he started marching more toward the middle.

John Avlon, want to welcome you and Margaret Hoover. I should say my political couple here, live in New York. John is a CNN contributor and a senior political columnist for "Newsweek" and "Daily Beast." Margaret is a CNN political contributor and a Republican consultant.

So, guys, welcome back. And, John Avlon, I love the imagery with the Rorschach test, so I just want to quote you.

"At the moment, Mitt Romney is a Rorschach test with voter seeing what they want to see. This is the secret to his surge in the polls since the first presidential debate."

Quick, you know, Rorschach 101, that's almost like -- here it is. Here you go. Got a Rorschach test, so the inkblots, right? So, you look at that and you see what you want to see, right? The whole point is that it's in the eye of the beholder.

But, John Avlon, I thought we wanted our presidents to have principles.

JOHN AVLON, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: What? That's so old-fashioned, Brooke.

I mean, you know this is the real question of Mitt Romney's candidacy, though. It is not just that he lurched to the right while running for president. He's really been two entirely separate, political people.

First, when he was running and governing in Massachusetts in 2002, he was a proud, self-described progressive Republican. And then when he began running for president five years ago, he started portraying himself as a severe conservative.

And it's not just a matter of labels. It's a matter of policies. He actually didn't just evolve on policies. He did a 180, not on one, two or three policies, but really on them all.

And now he started succeeding in the debates, however, and he started getting traction in the polls in this last debate where he very intelligently, finally pulled out the Etch-A-Sketch that was promised and he moved back to the center.

And what happened? Swing voters started giving him a second look. That's the secret to his bounce in the polls. It's very effective. The question is, what is it based on?

BALDWIN: I was about to bring up the Etch-A-Sketch and, Margaret Hoover, I mean, you know, Mitt Romney is your guy. How -- what do you say to the people who say, here he is flip-flopping. He was on one end of the spectrum early on. Now, he's "Moderate Mitt." How do you defend him?

MARGARET HOOVER, CNN POLITICAL CONTRIBUTOR: Well, I mean, we're talking about respectfully my husband's article, which I'm just going to put out there for the viewer, I fundamentally agree with the premise of the article.

The premise of the article is that Mitt Romney has now surged in the polls because he's somehow reinvented himself as this moderate from Massachusetts that's going to be likable to independent voters.

If you actually go to the polls that show that Mitt Romney is closing the gap with independents in swing states, particularly among women, Brooke, you actually see that the place he's closing it is on in the cross-tabs, specifically on issues like debt and deficits and the economy.

These are the issues, kitchen-table issues, economic issues that women care about and that independents care about and that, frankly, when Mitt Romney showed up at the debate 10 days ago, they thought he was going to be a very different person based on the bad and negative portrayal of him over the summer by the Obama campaign.

And it turns out he seemed relatable. He made sense on his tax policies. They ...

BALDWIN: But...

HOOVER: ... he explained it. So, I think the place -- I don't see this 180-degree shift that my husband is characterizing.

BALDWIN: John, go ahead and disagree with your wife.

HOOVER: I actually see something ...

AVLON: Yeah, happily. I mean, look, here is the issue. The issue of deficits and debt has always been the Romney-Ryan ticket's strongest suit. That's been consistent in polls and he made a very persuasive case about it.

What was different is all the sudden Mitt Romney starts talking about bipartisanship again. He starts harkening back to the time he was governor. He came very close, perilously close, to talking about his healthcare plan, which, of course, he subsequently repudiated, which was the basis of Obama's healthcare.

So, it was this all the sudden talking about himself as a bipartisan problem-solver. That was the key to his debate performance and that was the key to him resonating with swing voters and centrists.

BALDWIN: But I see you, Margaret Hoover. I know you want to get in there. I know you want to get in, but I have to say this is my "but." Because, John Avlon, you point to this Catch-22 because you say, you know, this is all well and great, the fact that he's moving more toward being a moderate. Even though, Margaret Hoover, you disagree with that. You know, that that is a good thing perhaps for some of the swing voters, the independent voters.

But then you point out it goes against conservative chapter and verse, which says that a centrist Republican candidate all but guarantees a general election loss for the Republicans.

AVLON: Right.

BALDWIN: So, what then?

AVLON: Well, I mean, this is the fundamental problem that I think the conservatives have to reconcile.

Look, the problem with our politics is they've become more polarized, so you have people treating politics like a religion and you have a cult of conservatism. And they want to make sure that every candidate checks every litmus test issue box.

The problem is that hurts candidates ability to reach out to the center, to reach out to swing voters, centrists and independents. So, it's not an accident that when Mitt tacks back to the center, he did well with centrists.

But conservatives have to come to terms with that and the Republican party is going to if they want to really reach out and become a governing majority.

BALDWIN: It's OK, Margaret. You can pinch your husband live on TV, if you would like to.

HOOVER: I was actually turning off my phone. I'm so sorry.

But, yeah, as a person in this couple that actually calls themselves a conservative, that identifies with the conservative movement, which he does not, I think I have a little bit more authority to talk about conservatives and what conservatives want.

And you're talking about conservatives as though it's a monolithic bunch. There is actually a very diverse faction within the conservative movement and what I'm hearing from the Romney campaign and I heard it as recently as last night is that economic conservatism, fiscal conservatism, fiscal issues, economic responsibility, lower taxes, strong monetary policy, lowering regulation, this is the strongest tent -- this is the strongest pillar within the big tent of the Republican movement and the conservative movement.

And that is what they're rallying behind and that is how they're going to bring all the coalition together.

AVLON: But ...

HOOVER: That is what -- when you refer to conservatives, you're not -- you're thinking about social conservatives. AVLON: Yes, I am.

HOOVER: You're not talking about economic conservatives.

AVLON: Yes, Brooke?

BALDWIN: Guys, we have to go.

I am curious, when we are finished with these chats, do you walk away from one -- each other and cool off and then come back or are you just all ...

AVLON: No, no, no. This is fun.

HOOVER: We saved it for you, though. We didn't talk about this before we came on.

BALDWIN: John Avlon and Margaret Hoover ...

AVLON: We'll report back tomorrow.

BALDWIN: We appreciate it. Thank you, both, so much. I love talking to the two of them.

Round two, President Obama and Mitt Romney coming up tonight and CNN's Candy Crowley moderating the town hall debate this evening. Please tune into CNN. Our special, live coverage begins at 7:00 Eastern.

And, now, to this. You would think this is something out of a sci-fi movie, but this is for real. A new planet named PH1 and its size and multiple suns trump Earth. Chad Myers is on it, of course, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: This next story is when reality trumps science fiction. A new planet one ups this scene from "Star Wars." Luke Skywalker walks beneath two suns setting on his planet, Tatooine.

Yeah, check this. This new planet has four suns. And what's even cooler, two amateurs found this planet. They named it PH1. It is the size of Neptune, six times larger than the planet Earth.

Chad Myers, this is super cool because just two regular folks just minding their own business found a planet.

CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: And named it something we can say.

BALDWIN: PH1.

MYERS: Not really some long name that we can't pronounce.

BALDWIN: Come on. If you find a planet, no offense, but PH1? MYERS: PlanetHunters.org. That's where you can find it. I just tweeted it and you just retweeted it. PH, Planet Hunters and you can go on there and you find your own planet.

BALDWIN: PlanetHunters.org, you can just ...

MYERS: They have the Keck Observatory. They have other things, in fact, systems shot up into space, looking for literally dark spots going across stars, going across suns.

This particular planet has four suns. The suns are actually rotating around each other and the planet is kind of caught in the middle. It's the Stealers Wheel's song, "suns to left of me, suns to the right, here I am, stuck in the middle with you."

BALDWIN: "Stuck in the middle with you."

MYERS: Exactly. Now, that's going to be will be stuck in your head for rest of the day. I'm sorry.

But there are four suns and this planet and the cool thing is that it was completely by accident and these amateurs found it, overlooked by computers. That's why they're putting this out there.

BALDWIN: How about that?

MYERS: The computers are looking at this sequence ...

BALDWIN: Actual human beings trumped a computer.

MYERS: Absolutely. They found the dim of the star. They knew that the planet got in the way. When the planet gets in the way that's why it dims. They found it automatically.

BALDWIN: If I find a planet, maybe I'll dedicate it after you.

MYERS: Call it BrookeBCNN.

BALDWIN: No, I'll call it something after you. I'll marinate on that.

Chad, thank you very much.

MYERS: All right.

BALDWIN: It's pretty cool, nonetheless.

Back to politics, of course. Candidates who stretch the truth. What? Manipulate the facts? We've all heard our fair share this political season.

So, the question is, do facts matter anymore? My next guest says, apparently not.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) BALDWIN: Well, the ads, the polls, the candidates themselves, fact checking is a staple of election time. Mitt Romney and President Obama have been burned by and benefitted from fact checking. Sometimes in the most unexpected ways.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: And every outlet said this is just not true. And they were asked about it and they said, one of their campaign people said, we won't have the fact checkers dictate our campaign. We will not let the truth get in the way.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: But you want to know the truth behind fact checking? It doesn't matter because you, the voter, apparently are not swayed by it, at least so suggests Princeton professor Julian Zelizer in this new CNN.com editorial entitled "Do Facts Matter."

And, Julian, let me welcome you here from Princeton and I have to tell you. I tweeted about this and I can feel the people on Twitter yelling at me for saying, yes, Brooke, facts do matter, but we'll get to that in just a second.

You write about how the candidates are stretching the truth, manipulating the facts. I think Stephen Colbert and his word "truthiness" here. How are these politicians able to get away with it?

PROFESSOR JULIAN ZELIZER, AUTHOR, "GOVERNING AMERICA": Well, that's the question. You have this proliferation of fact checkers and outlets that are telling you all the data that you need to analyze what candidates say, but as we just heard and we hear from both sides, the candidates still stretch the truth.

So, I think we're in an environment where there are more facts out there, but people are having trouble distinguishing between partisan facts and independent facts.

BALDWIN: I want to get to that discernment in a moment, but, you know, in this day and age and I know we here at CNN we have our own fact checkers. There are people online who are watching debates. They are live blogging, you know, fact checking these facts that come out of either candidate's mouth.

Yet, there's little impact when it comes to public outrage, as you point out in your piece. Why aren't there consequences for lying?

ZELIZER: Well, part of it, of course, is for 30 years now, all the polls have shown that people just don't trust government and they don't trust politicians. Ever since Watergate happened, public esteem for government is very low.

So, I think when we reveal that someone is not telling the truth, for many voters, that's exactly what they'd expect. So, the fact checkers are going against that and they're trying to generate outrage in a culture that expects the worst from its leaders.

BALDWIN: So, let me quote you because you blame not only talking about things like Watergate, but partisanship.

You write, quote, "Perhaps one of the worst effects of partisanship, however, has been the fact that the truth is much harder to discern and in many cases voters don't even expect it.

"The public lives in a world where it seems impossible to know what is fact and what is partisan fiction."

So let's just take away -- I don't know if malaise is the right word, but the lack of trust in government and just ask you how is American voter supposed to discern between what is fact and what is fiction, politically speaking?

ZELIZER: It's virtually impossible. We see in all the media there's more outlets that either conservative ...

BALDWIN: That is really sad.

ZELIZER: ... or that are more liberal and there's more organizations that are putting information out there from both perspectives.

So, you have more outlets, more information hitting you. And, so, for a voter who wants to know was what President Obama or Mitt Romney said about the budget true, they might turn on their computer or the TV or the radio and they'll find so many voices, many of whom they know are partisan. They walk away shrugging their shoulders and I think just not believing either side.

BALDWIN: Folks, if you would like to read Julia's piece, you can do so. Just go to CNN.com/opinion.

Julian Zelizer, I appreciate you coming in, talking to me from Princeton University and to you watching and I already am seeing my tweets. Let me know what you think. Do facts matter? Can you discern between fact and fiction. Send me a tweet @BrookeBCNN.

Next, Hollywood. Could Hollywood give us the so-called October surprise? Coming up next, new movies, all with these political themes, releasing as voters get ready to head to the polls.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: In Hollywood especially, timing is everything. Some films are specifically designed to coincide with election season and some films are purposely postponed not to interfere with it.

And then, once in a while, a film becomes intertwined with the election totally by accident.

CNN's Kareen Wynter joins me from Los Angeles. And, Kareen, this new film, I really want to see this. This is a film called "Argo," directed by and starring Ben Affleck, details the story of the 1979 Iranian hostage crisis.

And, you know, this comes weeks, of course, after what happened in Benghazi and this is all just sort of coincidental, is it not?

KAREEN WYNTER, CNN ENTERTAINMENT CORRESPONDENT: You know, it is, but certainly not intentional. Ben Affleck even told me he didn't want to make a political film here.

But, Brooke, unless producers had some sort of crystal ball, there's really no way they could have known that the release of "Argo," as you mentioned, set during the 1979 Iranian hostage situation, would come just a month after the deadly attack on a U.S. diplomatic mission in Libya, an accident -- an incident, rather, that's raised so many concerns over security. It's really hard to ignore all the parallels in the movie.

Agents, for example, they shout that they need more security while under attack. And CNN's been reporting Secretary of State Hillary Clinton tried to douse a big political fire storm Monday for taking responsibility for security of U.S. diplomats security, also saying that neither the president nor vice president would be knowledgeable of security decisions at that level.

But that said, Brooke, it's safe to say that the administration probably didn't want a dramatic portrayal of a U.S. embassy under attack hit theaters a month before the election, right?

As for the film, "Argo," it's gotten great reviews. It's earned more $20 million at the box office, coming in second over the weekend, Brooke.

BALDWIN: OK, it's on my list for sure. So, you have "Argo." Add to "Argo," "Zero Dark Thirty." I love Kathryn Bigelow's "The Hurt Locker." So, this is her new film.

This is the one we talked about this. It chronicles the hunt for Osama bin Laden. It has moved back its release date even, you know, farther away from the election. Why is that? Is that a political reason?

WYNTER: Well, there are so many reports out there, but what we do know is that even before it was shot, the movie got a whole lot of criticism from President Obama's opponents, some of them arguing the movie just before the election, something of this coming out, would remind audiences of the president's decision to order the strike that killed bin Laden.

But the makers of "Zero Dark Thirty" told "Entertainment Weekly" that the film is just basically a study of the unsung heroes of people behind the scenes who worked tirelessly behind the scenes to take down bin Laden and not a celebration of Obama's decision.

It was, by the way, originally supposed to hit theaters before the election, but Columbia Pictures, Brooke -- that's the studio behind the film -- decided to push the release date to December.

BALDWIN: And then, finally, this movie "2016 Obama's America," this was no accident.

WYNTER: There is no doubt that the release before the election of that film you just mentioned, the anti-Obama documentary, "2016 Obama's America," it was no accident.

The movie was a surprise hit at the box office. It took in more than $33 million. It hit DVD shelves today.

And I just want to mention quickly another film, Steven Spielberg's film, "Lincoln," two-time Oscar-winner Daniel Day Lewis steps into the role of the 16th president and the movie chronicles Lincoln's life during the Civil War and his efforts to abolish slavery.

Brooke, I don't know if you've seen the trailer, but he looks just like Lincoln, just like Lincoln. Right-on. And I just want to add that the trailer aired so many times on multiple networks in commercial breaks during the first debate between Obama and Mitt Romney, we'll have to see if we see it this time around with the second debate coming up.

BALDWIN: Daniel Day Lewis is phenomenal, that man.

Kareen Wynter, thank you. Appreciate it. A lot going on in Hollywood, politically speaking.

Coming up, though, new information on the deadly outbreak of meningitis. Not only are there more victims today, now word of two more drugs linked to the deadly outbreak.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Two more drugs are being linked to the deadly outbreak of meningitis throughout the country. You know, most patients got sick after being given contaminated steroid injections used for back and neck pain.

The newest reported infections are from drugs used in hardened eye surgery. So far now, at least 233 people have become sick with the rare fungal disease. Fifteen have died.

Now, the FDA says anyone taking drugs made at the same compounding facility in Massachusetts could be at risk.

And that's it for me. Thanks for being with me.

Now to Wolf Blitzer in Washington. Wolf, to you.