Missing Mt. Hood Climbers Found Safe and Sound; Hecklers Taunt Romney's Mormonism
BLITZER: Happening now -- in Oregon three mountain climbers and their dog walking away from the nightmare they endured. They came down a mountain where they spent the night trapped. Our Chris Lawrence is in Mt. Hood, Oregon now with the latest -- Chris.</s>CHRIS LAWRENCE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Wolf, we now have confirmation that all three of those climbers are down from the mountain. The rescue teams have brought all three and the Labrador Retriever named Miss Velvet safely down from the mountain. They're all being evaluated at sort of a base camp and there may be the possibility that one of them may be transported to a hospital, but they're all in fairly good shape for what they have gone through. Once they slid off the side of that ledge, dropped probably 100, 150 feet below the other group of climbers that they were with, they had to hunker down, the three climbers and the dog. Meanwhile, the other five climbers were also hunkered down, trying to send out word to rescue teams to come get them. But what really turned the tide was the fact that they had these electronic locaters and they were well prepared for what could happen.</s>TREVOR LISTON, RESCUED CLIMBER: We knew weather was coming in, so we had a pretty low threshold of turning around the next day. We had brought enough gear just in case Saturday wasn't bad, we would just kind of hunker down for the day and maybe Sunday would be better, but -- so we had food and gear for two nights up there.</s>LAWRENCE: Yes, he was part of the first group of five that was brought down yesterday. Just in the last few minutes, we received new video of snowmobiles bringing those other three climbers back down from the mountain, much earlier than we had been led to believe by authorities initially. They had said it could be anywhere from five to seven hours to get them down that mountain. They were talking about a three to four mile hike through avalanche country trudging through snow, made it out to seem very, very treacherous. So it's a very good thing that they're now back at a base camp and being evaluated. All three climbers and the Labrador Retriever they huddled with all night -- Wolf.</s>BLITZER: And we've just been showing our viewers, Chris, the new video coming in showing those climbers getting into that ambulance to help them, but I take it all of them are doing relatively fine. Is that right, Chris?</s>LAWRENCE: Yes. Well we're told that all three are in fairly good shape, you know with everything that they have gone through. One may be taken in for further treatment.</s>BLITZER: Chris Lawrence on the scene for us. Chris, thank you for that. Meanwhile, a shocking confrontation on the campaign trail. Mitt Romney is heckled over his faith. Let's go to CNN's Carol Costello. She's joining us in New York with details of this face-off -- Carol.</s>CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, it was pretty nasty. I just talked with Romney's campaign. Kevin Madden told me the heckler's blunt comment came out of the blue and with a ruckus by far.</s>COSTELLO (voice-over): A Florida retirement center, a heckler hurled insults at presidential candidate Mitt Romney.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And I want my testimony to read that I voted for a man who stands for the Lord Jesus Christ, and you, sir, you're a pretender. You do not know the Lord. You're a Mormon.</s>COSTELLO: It's something Romney has heard before. His easy response won him a standing ovation.</s>MITT ROMNEY (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: One of the great things about this great land is we have people of different faiths and different persuasions. And I'm convinced that the nation does need -- the nation does need to have people of different faiths, but we need to have a person of faith lead the country.</s>COSTELLO: But Romney's faithful dog him. Although there are nearly six million Mormons in the United States, many Americans are confused about Mormonism. The HBO show, "Big Love" doesn't help. It's a show about a man with three wives who lives in Utah. Many viewers assume this polygamist family is Mormon, but the Mormon Church outlawed polygamy more than a century ago. Perhaps the more nagging question is about what the Mormons believe about the Bible and Jesus Christ.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We believe in God, the eternal father, his son Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost. Jesus Christ is at the center of our worship, and we believe he is the Son of God and the Savior and Redeemer of the world.</s>COSTELLO: Still, the Mormon belief and Christianity is different. They reject traditional Christian beliefs about the Holy Trinity. For example, they feel God was a person as well as Jesus. Evangelicals call Mormons a Christian cult. Romney tried to change minds by inviting evangelicals to his home for some Mormon one-on-one. He hopes the questions and the heckling will eventually go away.</s>M. ROMNEY: I don't think faith will become a factor in the final analysis, but it may become an issue people talk about early on,</s>COSTELLO: We'll see. As for who won, the heckler or Romney, well Romney's camp says he got the standing ovation. It was the heckler who was booed out of the room -- Wolf.</s>BLITZER: Carol thanks for that. And by the way, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints started in upstate New York in 1830. Members followed their leaders west to what's now Utah, settling the area in 1847. By 1963, the church had two million members. Today, it's approaching 13 million worldwide. Still ahead tonight right here in THE SITUATION ROOM, haunting images on this President's Day. Newly found video of John F. Kennedy shortly before he was shot four decades ago. You're going to want to see these pictures for yourself. And an airline in crisis. JetBlue cancels many more flights, strands many more passengers. Can it get its schedule back on track? Stay with us. You're in THE SITUATION ROOM.