[Kate Bolduan, Cnn Anchor:] Happening now: Oprah Winfrey speaks out about her interview with Lance Armstrong and how he surprised her. We talk to the man who was uncovering the truth about Armstrong before anyone wanted to hear it. Will the gun you own be outlawed? The White House is ready to reveal its gun control plans. We will go inside the lab working on a flu shot that could last years. And we will talk to a Republican leader threatening a government shutdown. Plus, a stolen train off the rails and straight into a house. Wolf Blitzer is of today. I'm Kate Bolduan, along with Joe Johns. You're in THE SITUATION ROOM. New details of Lance Armstrong's highly anticipated interview with Oprah Winfrey from Oprah herself. She's offering intriguing clues about their lengthy conversation.
[Joe Johns, Cnn Anchor:] But Winfrey isn't revealing exactly what Armstrong said about doping, although she hints he did make some sort of confession. CNN's Ed Lavandera has the latest from Austin Ed.
[Ed Lavandera, Cnn Correspondent:] Joe and Kate, we are in Mellow Johnny's bike shop in the heart of downtown Austin, Texas. This is a bike shop that is partly owned by Lance Armstrong. And this is a place where he still has many friends, a place of refuge, considering everything that is swirling around Lance Armstrong right now, and it's also a place where you can find his picture still on the wall, his arms up in victory. But when we see him in a couple of days in that interview before Oprah Winfrey, his arms will not be like that.
[Lavandera:] For Lance Armstrong, it was not enough to deny using performance-enhancing drugs. He had to stand on a mountaintop and righteously challenge anyone who questioned how he did it. This was Armstrong in Paris after winning his seventh Tour de France title in 2005.
[Lance Armstrong, Cyclist:] To the people who don't believe in cycling, the cynics and the skeptics, I'm sorry for you. I'm sorry you can't dream big and I'm sorry you don't believe in miracles. There are no secrets. This is a hard sporting event and hard work wins it. So, vive le Tour forever.
[Lavandera:] So, the question is, which Lance Armstrong will appear in the two and a half hour interview with Oprah Winfrey. Her comments so far only add to the injury.
[Oprah Winfrey, Host, "oprah's Next Chapter":] I would say he did not come clean in the manner I expected. It was surprising to me.
[Lavandera:] But what does that mean? Will Armstrong make a full confession and accept full responsibility for his actions? Will he bring down others in the cycling industry? Or will he be the combative cyclist who, as he has many times in the past, complained that he's the victim of a witch hunt?
[Winfrey:] I choose not to characterize. I would rather people make their own decision whether he was contrite or not. I felt that he was thoughtful. I thought that he was serious. I thought that he certainly had prepared himself for this moment.
[Lavandera:] Lance Armstrong knows it is time to salvage his reputation. Veteran political consultant, Mark McKinnon, who lives in Austin, Texas, and sits on the board of the LIVESTRONG Foundation, says he feels betrayed.
[Mark Mckinnon, Livestrong Foundation:] I think he's got a lot of apologies. I think he's got to crawl over a lot of broken glass and drag the sackcloth. And but I think that they're the one thing they can't take away from him, John, is his cancer survivorship. And he does that story gives hope to millions of people.
[Lavandera:] And for Craig Staley, a longtime friend of Lance Armstrong, that's what he is he holding on to. Staley runs Mellow Johnny's bike shop in Austin, Armstrong is one of the owners. Staley and Armstrong have known each other since they were teenagers. [on camera]: Have you I mean, have you told him you lost faith in him? I mean, do you
[Craig Staley, Mellow Johnny's:] There's still a lot there. You know, there's still a lot of things that he's done and accomplished outside of the seven Tours of France. A lot of people are sort of abandoning him really quickly, and I think that I think that was in some ways a rush to judgment, because I have known the guy a long time and story's not over and he's not finished.
[Lavandera:] But many of Lance Armstrong's biggest enemies in the cycling world, and there are many, now must feel like they're the ones standing on the mountaintop, looking down on him. But it's not clear what a full confession to Oprah Winfrey will get for Lance Armstrong. The World Anti-Doping Agency says it won't be enough to simply go in an interview setting and confess to have to doped throughout your cycling career. That agency is calling for Lance Armstrong to testify under oath, and anything short of that will not affect his lifetime ban from sports around the world Joe and Kate, back to you.
[Johns:] Ed Lavandera in Texas. The White House will unveil its plans to fight gun violence tomorrow, just one month since the Connecticut school massacre that made the issue a priority for President Obama. CNN White House chief correspondent Jessica Yellin has the details. Jessica, what are you hearing?
[Jessica Yellin, Cnn Chief White House Correspondent:] Hi, Joe. I have spoken to a number of Democrats who met with the vice president and his guns task force, and they tell me they believe there are two proposals the president will lay out tomorrow that both have the greatest chance of passing Congress and the chance to do the most good, a measure to pass universal background checks for all gun purchases and an effort to ban high-capacity magazines.
[Yellin:] At the White House, they're ready to unveil their list of gun safety priorities.
[Jay Carney, White House Press Secretary:] The president and vice president will hold an event here at the White House to unveil a package of concrete proposals to reduce gun violence and prevent future tragedies like the one in Newtown, Connecticut.
[Yellin:] This comes just a month after the Newtown shootings and weeks after the president named Vice President Biden to head a task force on gun safety.
[Barack Obama, President Of The United States:] Their task is going to be to, you know, sift through every good idea that's out there, and even take a look at some bad ideas before disposing of them, and come up with a concrete set of recommendations in about a month.
[Yellin:] The president will announce his proposal surrounded by children who wrote him in the wake of Sandy Hook tragedy. And they're prepared for a fight.
[Carney:] The president's committed to pushing these proposals. He is not naive about the challenges that exist.
[Yellin:] Multiple sources tell CNN the vice president told lawmakers he will outline 19 actions the president can take without going through Congress, examples, better enforcement of existing gun laws, keeping data on where the guns are. The government stopped keeping records in 2004. And improving the background check system, so there's more sharing of information and prosecution of people who try to buy guns illegally. Then, the president will call on Congress to take action to pass an assault weapons ban, expand the background checks law to apply to all gun sales, and limit the sale of high-capacity magazines.
[Obama:] Will all of them get through this Congress? I don't know. But what's uppermost in my mind is making sure that I'm honest with the American people and with members of Congress about what I think will work.
[Yellin:] Now, Joe, CNN has learned the vice president has spoken with a number of families of Newtown victims, this after some of them were critical of the vice president for not reaching out to them sooner. But he has now done so. We have also learned that among the other measures that the White House will press is for a tightening of laws regarding gun swaps. These are regulations that would prohibit, for example, me from selling you a gun privately, with no record of it, no transaction, and no background check Joe.
[Johns:] Chief White House correspondent Jessica Yellin, thanks.
[Bolduan:] It's going to be an uphill fight for the president, but we're getting some new information about his battle plans. CNN's senior congressional correspondent Dana Bash is on Capitol Hill looking into that. Dana, what are you picking up from there tonight?
[Dana Bash, Cnn Senior Congressional Correspondent:] Well, part of the battle plan, according to the vice president himself, he told congressional Democrats yesterday that they intend to use the infrastructure from the president's campaign to try to galvanize support for the proposals that Jessica was just reporting on. Our Deirdre Walsh was told this by one of the members who was at that meeting. And based on the conversations that we have had with members of Congress all day, even Democrats, they're going to need that infrastructure.
[Bash:] Newtown, Connecticut, is now represented by a freshman Democrat determined to ban the weapons used to massacre her young constituents.
[Rep. Elizabeth Esty , Connecticut:] It's my job to advocate for my community and all of these other communities. That's what I will be doing and working with leadership to get the votes we need.
[Bash:] But her burst of fresh energy to pass the new gun control proposals is already colliding with political reality. Listen to how lukewarm the Democrat who runs the Senate is.
[Sen. Harry Reid , Majority Leader:] The numbers around the country, most people favor having the ability of people to carry guns. The American people want us to be very cautious with what we do.
[Bash:] Gun control is still such political dynamite. A House GOP leadership aide tells CNN the Democratic-controlled Senate must go first. Yet the Senate majority leader, a gun owner himself, won't yet commit to any legislation.
[Reid:] Let's be realistic. In the Senate we're going to do what we think can get through the House. I'm not going to be going through a bunch of these gyrations just to say we have done something.
[Bash:] Never mind Republicans. Harry Reid's reluctance to go through quote "gyrations" mostly comes from some half a dozen vulnerable Democrats up for reelection next year who represent pro-gun states. Support for any gun control would immediately put them in the NRA's political crosshairs, an organization always looking for new ways to advocate gun rights, like this new app on iTunes, a 3-D target practice game marketing to consumers starting at age 4. But the NRA doesn't need to pressure Republicans like Cory Gardner from Colorado.
[Rep. Cory Gardner , Colorado:] I don't think that this administration's ideas on gun control are the right steps forward.
[Bash:] Gardner is one of many Republicans who will oppose virtually everything the president proposes, even strengthening federal background checks. [on camera]: From the perspective of House Republicans, is anything that the president will announce with regard to gun control measures likely to pass legislatively?
[Gardner:] I hope that we can work with the president on issues that concern mental health.
[Bash:] But what about gun control?
[Gardner:] I don't think gun control is the right direction and I believe most of my colleagues in the House Republican Conference would disagree with gun control measures.
[Bash:] And when it comes to the NRA, they are staying mum until the president and the vice president formally make their announcement tomorrow. We do expect a statement then. But there is one interesting note that we heard again, our Deirdre Walsh was told this today that members of the NRA intend to meet with Democratic members of the House task force next week about potentially, potentially coming up with something that they can all agree on.
[Bolduan:] Yes, this is definitely one of those issues that seems to be less a matter of party and more a matter of geography, at least this time. Dana Bash, thank you so much.
[Johns:] The gunfight isn't the only battle on the horizon. The debate over debt and spending also promises to be bruising. Will Republicans go as far as a government shutdown? We will talk to a top Republican lawmaker who questions whether it could be necessary. Plus, the journalist who raised doping questions about Lance Armstrong more than a decade ago and wound up being accused of libel.