investigation. we begin with the gabby giffords announcement. giffords released a video statement online just hours ago saying she has to focus on her recovery. i don t remember much from that horrible day, but i will never forget the trust you placed in me to be your voice. thank you for your prayers and for giving me time to recover. i have more work to do on my recovery. so to do what is best for arizona, i will step down this week. i m getting better. let s bring in athena jones in washington. so, athena, what kind of reaction is pouring in? well, we re getting a lot of reaction there was a lot of love and support shown to congresswoman giffords after the shooting last year. you remember in august when she returned to the house chamber to vote on the debt ceiling bill, she got a standing ovation from her colleagues. so today we have seen reactions from both sides of the oil. democratic leader nancy pelosi released a statement saying in part, i join all my colleagu
fix. and would you ask your boss s wife out on a date? especially if your boss is the president of the united states? announcer: from cnn s world headquarters bringing you news and analysis from around the globe, live from studio 7, this is cnn saturday morning with t.j. holmes. let s start with the senate. open for business today. it will be open about three hours from now. they have some work to do. they need to work on a couple of bills. one is a big spending bill that will fund the government through september. a deal is reached that will keep us from having a government shutdown. the government was supposed to run out of money, a one-day extension so they could vote today. looks like crisis averted there. the other issue is payroll tax holiday extension. that could mean an extra $1,000 in your pocket. at least mean you won t lose that $1,000 at the beginning of the year. a compromise keeps it going for another two months. okay. two months is not something that
good morning, everyone. it s wednesday, december 14th. i m christine romans along with carol costello on this american morning. good morning. good morning, good morning to all of you. good and bad news this morning for the gop front-runner newt gingrich. with less than thee weeks until the iowa caucuses his political director in the state stepped down after calling mormonism a cult. two gop candidates, mitt romney and jon huntsman are mormons. gingrich is already working with a bare bones staff in this state and meantime, gingrich opened a commanding lead nationally over mitt romney, but head-to-head with the president, well, that s another story. cnn political director paul steinhauser got your title wrong, paul. it s all good. you re the best guy at cnn. paul steinhauser, and you re here on this american morning. okay. let s talk about these polls. reporter: yeah. starpt with t staff with the numbers. brand new from nbc wall street journal numbers. the battl
and good morning, everybody. this is your wake-up call for monday, december 5th. i m christine romans, carol has the morning off. newt gingrich, the one to watch in the gop race in a new nbc marist pole leading the pack in iowa but mitt romney is still ahead in new hampshire. although his support has dropped from only a month ago, less than 30 days from the first gop nominating contest in january. he s taking some time off. atlanta megachurch pastor eddie long made that announcement yesterday. he says he needs time to work on family issues. long s wife of 21 years vanessa filed for divorce on thursday. last spring long settled a lawsuit piled by four young men who accused him of sexual coercion. the u.s. and pakistan mending diplomatic fences after that nato air strike that killed two dozen pakistani troops. president obama called pakistan s president yesterday making clear the incident was not a deliberate attack on pakistan. both presidents agreed to stay in touch. le
cain has been battling serious image problems. he s accused of sexual misconduct and have a 13-year extramarital affair. here is how cain ended his campaign. so as of today, with a lot of prayer and soul searching, i am suspended my presidential campaign. given the recent accusations of extramarital affairs, was this cain s best recourse? cnn s wolf blitzer joining us now on the phone from hollywood, florida. wolf, was this cain s best option? you know, under the circumstances, he really didn t have any other choice. his poll numbers had really gone down over the past few weeks since the first allegations of sexual harassment by four separate women came forward and when this other woman alleged a 13-year extramarital affair. the money was drying up, the poll numbers were going down. in october, he was in the mid-20s among republican likely caucusgoers in iowa. now he s down to 8%, some were suggesting he was going down to 4%. it looked like it was all over. and it obvio