[Sambolin:] It is 47 minutes past the hour. A couple of quick headlines. The U.S. Marine who bashed President Obama on Facebook has been discharged. Sergeant Gary Stein called the president a liar and suggested he would not follow some orders. A military board said he broke the rules of limiting political conduct. He was given an other than honorable discharge. TSA screeners busted in a bribery and drug scheme. Four former and current screeners at Los Angeles International Airport are charged with allowing large amounts of cocaine, meth and marijuana to pass through x-ray machine at security in exchange for cash payoffs. One drug courier is already in custody and another is expected to turn himself in at some point today. Christine, back to you.
[Romans:] Thank you, Zoraida. From the White House to the governor's mansion, this time legally. Infamous White House party crasher Tareq Salahi is running for governor in his home state of Virginia. But is anybody buying it? Tareq Salahi joins us now from Washington D.C. Welcome to the program. We understand you're interested or you say you filed to run for governor of Virginia. There are a lot of people are saying, look, this could be the next step in a long list of publicity-seeking endeavors. The White House party, for example, appearing on the "Real House Wives of D.C., a $50 million lawsuit against your soon-to-be ex- wife, who left and took up with a journey rocker. Why should the public assume this isn't just another publicity stunt?
[Tareq Salahi, Plans To Run For Virginia Governor:] Good morning, Christine. Well, you know, it's not. A lot of people think it might be part of a TV show. It's not. I love Virginia. I'm taking it very seriously. I have passion for Virginia. I've been living there my whole life. I'm excited about this. You know, currently, the Virginia attorney general has been making personal attacks against me and I said enough is enough.
[Romans:] You mentioned the attorney general. You say you would like to be governor of the state where the attorney general has actually filed suit against you with regard to your business dealings of your winery, which raise a whole lot of questions as well if you're about to be in legal battle with the state of which you want to run.
[Salahi:] Well, it's really against him. I mean, this person is this person can who's the Virginia of AG has been doing these personal attacks against me. This is the second time. He's doing this to grandstand. He is doing this because he's going to be running for governor. And he's really doing this for all the wrong reasons and, frankly, is wasting taxpayer dollars. So I'm going to not only run against him, but I'm taking this very seriously. I'm in it to win it.
[Fugelsang:] Sir, good morning. There are those who would consider it grand standing when you filed the $50 million against your ex-wife.
[Romans:] Soon to be ex-wife.
[Fugelsang:] I beg your pardon. How do you respond to those allegations when you hear them?
[Salahi:] Well, I filed against Journey and [inaudible] and against the entertainment company because there are a lot of money involved in that from agencies that owe us significant dollars. You know, there's money that needs to be sorted and distributed and that's part of the divorce. There's a lot of money because of the marriage and because of the divorce that has to be divided now.
[Romans:] I'm going to be honest with you. You have a real sloppy personal history here. It's all over the public airwaves. You called your soon to be ex-wife I think a groupie slut or something. It's not often you see someone running for the highest seat in their state, only 50 of these jobs exist, with sort of that kind of real baggage.
[Salahi:] Those were her actions that she did what she did. When she started her cheating affair with the founder of Journey, that's something she did. So I'm reacting to her.
[Romans:] So you are only known for these things. What makes you qualified to be the governor of a state?
[Salahi:] You know, I have a number of political things that I've been doing in Virginia for the last 15 years. I've been appointed by Governor Gilmore in 2000. I was appointed by Mark Warner who was governor at the time and now senator and I was reappointed by Tim Kaine. In fact, you know, I've done things on both sides, both the Democratic side and the Republican side. I was on steering committee for DNC. I've been very active
[Romans:] You would be running as a Republican this time?
[Salahi:] Yes.
[Romans:] The application that your spokesman sent to CNN listed November 6th, 2013 as the election day, but the election day is November 5th. Are you aware of that error?
[Salahi:] You know, this was filled out by some of our attorneys. So if there may be a date error. It doesn't get submitted until after January 1st. So these types of materials including signatures can't be submitted until January. So all we're doing now is exploratory work and a lot of meetings with attorneys and our committees.
[Romans:] The statement we got from Virginia State Board of Elections regarding your application is nothing has been filed with the state board of elections yet. The candidate
[Salahi:] It can't be filed until January.
[Romans:] So you also have to have 10,000 registered voters from Virginia and a minimum of 400 from each of Virginia's 11 congressional districts. Will you get all that support?
[Salahi:] Yes, there's no question. We've had several thousand new fans come on our Facebook page over the last 12 hours. So clearly, there's a huge amount of momentum. We have hundreds of messages of support. People who know me prior to my wife know how serious and how much I love Virginia and how much I've been involved in Virginia community and Virginia politics. So those who knew me before I got married and before we did Hollywood things and television and TV shows and reality TV, know how serious I am.
[Romans:] Don't you think that has tarnished it?
[Salahi:] Absolutely not.
[Romans:] People think reality TV is garbage.
[Salahi:] I disagree. It's really the opposite. The social media and those people that associated me with television or reality TV, it opens up a whole new audience. Frankly, the younger audience is very important in winning this governor race.
[Huntsman:] I would argue that one of the biggest issues today for voters is the trust deficit especially as there is to government institutions. Here you are where you recently snuck into a White House dinner and dealing with issues with your winery, I want to know how you are going to prove
[Romans:] Here we go.
[Salahi:] We're going back into the White House. Do you really think you can sneak into the White House? Come on seriously. That was put to rest a long time ago. Matt Lauer broke that story almost two years ago and then it just became entertainment. Went to "Saturday Night Live" and then David Letterman and then it just transitioned, but no, nobody can break into the White House. Come on, please. That's impossible.
[Huntsman:] So how are you going to convince the people of Virginia to really trust you? Do you have a big vision you feel will real appeal to the people in Virginia?
[Salahi:] You know, again, it goes back to who I was and who I am. The real me is back. The real me is what you see what I'm doing and what I have done in the past. I've done a tremendous amount of policy writing and authoring bills in the general assembly supporting the Virginia wine industry.
[Romans:] You were asked to step down from the tourism industry from the board after that whole White House thing you said isn't really a problem. But you were asked to step down and had to leave that post.
[Salahi:] Why bring noise to the Virginia tourism authority when it's not necessary. I did the right thing there. Now it's time to
[Cain:] I have some questions for you. I want to go back to the point that the reality show didn't tarnish your ability to run for governor, but in fact enhanced it and exposed you to a new perspective voters so would you suggest that Mitt Romney or maybe even Barack Obama in his re-election campaign look at a reality show on Bravo?
[Salahi:] You know, worse things could happen.
[Romans:] All right, Tareq Salahi, thank you so much. Planning to run for Virginia governor. Nice to see you this morning. Focus on 15 minutes of fame, but focus on all of the years before that, I guess. All right, so ahead on STARTING POINT, a Catholic school teacher who says she was fired for receiving fertility treatments. They called her a sinner. Now she's suing. The details of that story ahead. Plus, it's been one year after the double tap that killed Osama Bin Laden. This morning exhilarating brand new details of that raid and the Wikileaks that could have tipped Bin Laden off. You're watching STARTING POINT.