27 Days Until November Election; Lawmakers To Debate Libya Attack Today; Supreme Court Hears University Race Case
DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: Ben Baltz plays sports like any other 11-year- old. He even competes in triathlon. Nothing seems to stop Ben even though he lost part of his right leg to cancer. But something did stop Ben in his last race in Florida: his prosthetic leg broke in half. A group of Marines was watching the triathlon. The Marines lifted Ben up and carried him across the finish line. Ben's mom said everybody was crying and cheering on Ben and the Marines. Very nice, very nice. The next hour of the CNN NEWSROOM begins right now. Stories we're watching right now in the NEWSROOM, Congress gets ready to grill State Department officials and others about the deadly terrorist attack in Libya. And we're learning more about the security situation in Benghazi. One of the world's largest carmakers issuing a huge recall. There's a problem with nearly 7.5 million cars, trucks and SUVs. Is yours one of them? And the running mates get their turn in the spotlight. Joe Biden, Paul Ryan preparing for tomorrow night's vice presidential debate. It is a must-win. Is it for Biden? And a North Carolina man is incredibly lucky. He's nailed by a hit- and-run driver and he walks away. The NEWSROOM starts right now. Hello again, everyone. I'm Don Lemon. Carol is off today. After last week's face-off between President Obama and Mitt Romney, the effect of debates on the campaign can no longer be denied. Just take a look at these poll numbers. In a new CNN poll of polls, Mitt Romney edges out the President by one point, 48 percent to 47 percent. And in key battleground state Ohio, a new CNN/ORC poll shows the race tightening with President Obama at 51 percent and Mitt Romney at 47 percent. That is a significant post-debate bump for Mitt Romney. Take a look now, live pictures inside that debate hall where the debate -- we will soon. Will take place between Vice President and his challenger, Paul Ryan. The showdown happens tomorrow. But until we get those pictures, why don't we go to our national correspondent. We had him and then we didn't. It's live television. He is in the critical swing state of Ohio this morning. So John, good morning to you. Vice presidential debate tomorrow night -- how critical will this be in this election?</s>JOHN KING, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I think it's very important, Don. Look, Americans pick presidents. They don't pick vice presidents. So if you go back in time and look at these in past years, there's great theater. It's hard the day after the election and say, "Aha, that moment in that vice presidential debate changed the election." But this one is important for a number of reasons. Number one, you just mentioned, Mitt Romney has a bit of a breeze at his back right now. Can Paul Ryan turn on a strong performance and keep that momentum going? That is the number one concern of the Romney campaign. They have momentum now. They want to keep it. If you're the Democrats, you're probably mad at the President, probably disappointed he didn't bring more energy and passion to the debate the other night and you're hoping -- you're hoping that the President comes in -- the Vice President comes in with an emphatic performance. That's what they want. Will it matter in the end? Don't know. But at this moment it's very key for the Republicans to keep their momentum and for the Democrats to try to stop it.</s>LEMON: Mitt Romney's already started to downplay, you know, what to make of this whole game, downplaying his game. What do you make of that?</s>KING: Well, look, expectations. You want the viewers at home to think if Paul Ryan turns in a really strong performance, wow, he wasn't ready for that. How did he do that? He's never been on this national stage before. Joe Biden, he is the sitting Vice President, he's run for president twice. He has more experience on the national stage. He was 36 years in the United States Senate, the chairman of a committee for a long time. So, sure, if you look at the history and the resume, he has more experience. But Paul Ryan is no newbie here. He's the Chairman of the House Budget Committee. He has debated in these congressional elections. He stood up directly to the President of the United States in meetings before between the President and House Republicans. But every campaign tries to get any advantage they can heading into the debate. The expectations game is kind of silly. It's a subplot both the candidates and we in the media play. From an issues perspective, this is important. They're going to fight over who best would help the middle class. Expect Joe Biden to be very aggressive about criticizing the Ryan budget and how it would change Medicare and entitlements. Expect Joe Biden to have the passion that the President lacked the other day about how all this would affect the social safety net if you're going to cut government spending. Look, you have a conservative that many say is the heir to Ronald Reagan and Jack Kemp. You have a progressive vice president who the Democrats and liberals are looking for passion. Don, let's be honest, you also have two people who could factor into 2016 presidential calculations. If Mitt Romney loses, Paul Ryan is an early frontrunner for Republicans. If Barack Obama wins, Joe Biden is telling people, yes, I might be getting up there in age, but I feel great. I might run.</s>LEMON: Let's talk about Joe Biden for a minute. Remember, last time they said you don't want to come off as condescending to Sarah Palin or even sexist. Does the same thing play here? Obviously, not the sexist part, but condescending to someone younger than him, for a Paul Ryan who seems to be new? Does that challenge exist in this particular debate?</s>KING: Well, I think that challenge exists in every debate. Certainly, it was different to have, you know, you're having a man debating a woman. That's a different calculation. But you don't want to be smug in any debate. It was interesting, you know, a lot of people after the first presidential debate thought the President was disinterested. The President was detached. I was interviewing suburban women yesterday. One of them said, you know, Mitt Romney won on points, but I thought he was smug. I thought he was disrespectful to the President. So viewers pick up on these things. It's different, you know, Paul Ryan is a House chairman. Joe Biden was a Senate committee chairman. Now he's the Vice President of the United States. So there's a generational -- there's an age difference, these a generational difference, philosophical difference. Both sides, you want to make your case passionately and effectively. You don't want to seem mean or smug or certainly not condescending.</s>LEMON: Absolutely. John King, thank you very much. We want to go to Capitol Hill now and a high-stakes high-noon showdown a potentially heated hearing on the deadly attack at the U.S. Consulate in Libya. A Republican-led hearing is demanding to know how security failures led to the deaths of a U.S. ambassador there and three other Americans. And were warnings ignored for political reasons, and did the White House have any motive in first denying it was terrorism? Depending on which party you ask, today's hearing is either election- year grandstanding or an effort to better protect American lives in the future.</s>REP. JASON CHAFFETZ, (R) UTAH: What clearly didn't happen is, Libya was not a priority. I believe what I've heard is that it's because they wanted the appearance of normalization. That's what they wanted. That fit the Obama narrative moving forward.</s>REP. ELIJAH CUMMINGS, (D) MARYLAND: You know, it's one thing to make allegations that are backed by facts. It's another thing to make allegations and then search for the facts. And we've heard a lot of allegations flying around. And Erin, today in depositions, we've heard things that are contradictory to some of the allegations that have been made by Chairman Issa and Congressman Chaffetz.</s>LEMON: Elise Labott is CNN foreign affairs reporter and she joins us from Washington. OK, many have said that this is a partisan investigation. Others are saying they just want to find out exactly what's going on here. So, then, Elise, what is it? Do you get a sense that heads will roll once answers start to come out from what happens at these hearings?</s>ELISE LABOTT, CNN FOREIGN AFFAIRS REPORTER: Well, Don, I think you need to separate the political from the serious investigative as to what went wrong. I mean, the Democrats, Representative Cummings we just heard from, are charging that the way that this hearing is being investigated is in a political way -- that the Democrats on the committee are not being given witnesses, not being given testimony or documents and basically are excluding the Democrats because they want to run this through right before the elections. What the Republicans are saying is, listen, something went very wrong here. There were warnings that were missed. Some documents have been leaking out, some of them obtained by CNN, that show that senior security officers did send warnings and messages to the State Department asking for additional security for Benghazi, for Libya, in general, and those requests were ignored. We're going to hear today from a few key people. We're going to hear from Lieutenant Colonel Andy Wood, who was head of a security support team in Libya. He was trying to get that team to stay beyond its mandate in August. It was pulled out. Eric Norstrom, the senior security officer in Libya, also says he asked for requests additional security in Benghazi. He was not answered. And we'll also hear from some people at the State Department. Key among them is Deputy Assistant Secretary Charlene Lamb. It kind of seems as if the buck stopped here. These requests went to her and my understanding is they never went up the chain of command so lots of questions. It is very politicized. It is a political campaign season. Election just weeks away. But I think that there are some serious questions as to whether the embassy -- the consulate was fully protected, whether warnings were missed and whether -- whether this is a political reason for hiding what really happened. Don.</s>LEMON: And it is Washington. What in Washington is not politicized? Thank you very much. We appreciate it, Elise Labott. The man accused of making the anti-Islam film that incited so much violence in the Middle East is due in court today. Mark Youssef has been in federal lockup since last month. Prosecutors say he violated his probation for a bank fraud conviction and the judge ruled he was a flight risk. The Egyptian-born U.S. citizen does not face charges related to the film or the protests that swept through more than a dozen countries in the Middle East and Africa. Happening next hour, the Supreme Court begins hearing arguments on what could be the biggest case of this term, dealing with diversity on college campuses. Joe Johns gives us the details of this case.</s>JOE JOHNS, CNN CRIME AND JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Abigail Fisher dreamed of going to the University of Texas at Austin for most of her life. After applying, she didn't get in. Attending Louisiana State University instead, but the rejection from UT led Fisher to file a lawsuit against the school claiming she was squeezed out, unfairly denied admission because of her race. She's white. She said in a statement, "There were people in my class with lower grades who weren't in all the activities I was in who were being accepted into UT, and the only other difference between us was the color of our skin." She declined an interview with CNN. Whether race should be part of the application process at the University of Texas is the issue that will come before the Supreme Court on Wednesday. Edward Blum recruited Fisher to file the lawsuit.</s>EDWARD BLUM, PROJECT ON FAIR REPRESENTATION: The most important question is should a university judge a student by his or her skin color when it comes time for admission? And the answer is no.</s>JOHNS: Here's how the admissions process at UT works. The top 10 percent of each high school class statewide gets in automatically. For those below the top 10 percent, like Abigail Fisher who was in the 11th percent, the university uses what it calls a holistic review where race is one of many factors considered, one that University President Bill Powers says doesn't get much weight and didn't play a role in Fisher's rejection.</s>BILL POWERS, PRESIDENT, UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN: We take ethnicity as one of many, many factors to make sure that the three quarters coming in under automatic admission, that we add to that with a quarter coming in where we can look for these other characteristics including diversity.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think she's fighting the wrong fight.</s>JOHNS: Minority student leaders on campus like Bradley Poole agree with Powers that the process is fair despite Fisher's claims.</s>BRADLEY POOLE, PRESIDENT, UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS BLACK STUDENT ALLIANCE: Seeing as race is probably one of the least parts of the holistic review process, I feel like it's harping on one of the things -- on the easiest thing that she could have a win against.</s>JOHNS: Others take offense that the lawsuit implies some minority students are less deserving of admission than their white counterparts.</s>CATHERINE RODARTE, STUDENT, UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN: To hear people saying that some of us Latinos got in here easily and the only reason we got in here is because of our race, that's really disappointing. We work just as hard as anyone else did to work to get here to</s>UT. JOHNS: Conservative groups say it's not just about getting in. The U.S. Civil Rights Commission says studies show that using racial preferences can hurt minorities by starting them out near the bottom of their classes.</s>GAIL HERIOT, MEMBER, U.S. COMMISSION ON CIVIL RIGHTS: If they're towards the bottom of whatever class they go to, they are much more likely to give up on an ambition to major in science and engineering.</s>LEMON: Joe Johns is live outside of the Supreme Court for us. So Joe, will this decision -- it probably will -- have implications on all college campuses?</s>JOHNS: Well, it certainly could. And you know, I have to say, this is such a hotly contested issue even now, and it has been over the years. Just that last statement from the commissioner is disputed, you know. The academic mismatch, as it's called, is disputed among people on the other side who say it is unsound science. So just about every single point you look at across the board on the issue of affirmative action and preferences is disputed here in this courtroom right now. What does it come down to? Perhaps a very even split. And we do know that Justice Elena Kagan has recused herself. So there's potential for a 4-4 tie on the court when they get around to making a decision on that. In that case, by the way -- and I don't think we can say this enough -- in the case of a tie, Don, the previous precedent would stand. So there wouldn't be any change in the law in the United States.</s>LEMON: Joe Johns, thank you. Lucky to be alive. That's the best way to describe a North Carolina man hit by a car that keeps on going.