i m wolf blitzer. you re in the situation room. what s the latest on the fight between the front-runners. reporter: wolf, it s pretty clear last night s debate touched off a very personal tone in the race for the gop nomination. that s because there s a lot riding on the next several days. i hope you watched the debate last night. it was kind of fun. reporter: the morning after the debate, mitt romney had a smile on his face, swinging away at rick santorum. i don t know that i ve ever seen a politics explain why he voted against his you re entitled to your opinions, but not entitled to misrepresenting the facts. i took that at aim. romney took aim at his performance. when le tried to justify his vote for the no child left behind law sometimes you take one for the team for the leader, and i made a mistake. politics is a team sport, folks. in front of a big crow, romney knocked that one into the blea bleachers. i wonder what team he was taking it for
miguel marquez is joining us. what more can you tell us? reporter: it sounds like an accident. they were training late at night. it may have been a live fire exercise. it sounds like there was fairly intense training. these are two that provide close air support for marines on the ground. they were training for afghanistan, as you said. and they trained very, very hard at night and it s possible that it was just an accident. the marines are saying that they collided in the air. obviously something went very wrong during that training, whether it was darkness, dust or dirt that blocked their view. it s not very clear yet. but the marines are investigating it. and among those items they are looking into it, those are new images that you were showing as we were talking, miguel, that is believed to be that cash site. they are looking into whether there could have been any mechanical problems? it s possible. look, the one huey helicopter is typically can hold up to ten indiv
families being notified today, receiving the sad news. one was a uh 1 helicopter, one an ah 1 w helicopter. very routine training exercise by all accounts and sadly a mid-air collision killing all seven marines on board both heel lows overnight. we will follow all of the breaking details that we get from you, barbara, and also the investigation now taking place. barbara starr at the pentagon, thanks. sure. look, it s no surprise when you reach the top, you get a target on your back. and poll surging rick santorum found that out last night at cnn s debate in arizona. while i was fighting to save the olympics, you were fighting to save the bridge to nowhere. you re entitled to your opinions but you re not entitled to i ve heard that line before. misrepresent the facts and you re misrepresenting the facts. you don t know what you re talking about. yes, governor you balanced the budget for four years. you have a constitutional requirement to balance the budget i
of almost like front-runnerish position. that was the 20th gop debate last night on cnn and really hit from all sides accused of being a big spender and accused of being a washington insider and accused of being a fake at which point he s like, i m real, i m real. some of the toughest attacks came from mitt romney. they literally yelled at each other. listen. while i was fighting to save the olympics, you were fighting to save the bridge to no where. just as torturous as they were kind of going at it. al stewart national press secretary for the santorum 2012 presidential campaign. nice to have you with us this morning. there were some comments from if you scan the headlines. some people said he did a great job in the debate and others said he was deep in the weeds of the debate. he outlined his record and also pointed out the fact that despite the distortions from other candidates, he never voted to raise taxes in washington and voted against the wasteful spending i
the right. a new television ad that labels him as a fake. why? because he s a fake. while i was fighting to save the olympics you were fighting to save the bridge to nowhere. we re going to stay with cnn, full highlights from last night s republican debates live from phoenix in just a moment. and gas prices have jumped again. up 3% three cents, rather, overnight, according to aaa. average is $3.61. it is still going up. economists say the gas could jump to 4 or even $5 a gallon by the summer. you re going to hear from president obama on gas prices and energy policy. that s happening later today. president obama is apologizing for the burning of korans by nato troops in afghanistan. now, this incident set off protests across the country. after again president hamid karzai said president obama sent a letter calling the burning an inadvertent error. he also promised to take steps to avoid any reoccurrence. two u.s. troops were killed by someone wearing an afghan army