the presidential candidates go toe to toe tonight. as they face off in jacksonville. romney and gingrich are in a virtual poll. romney is ahead by just two percentage points. on the campaign trail, gingrich conceded that all the super pac attack ads have now hurt. but he s not backing down. i can promise you i am going to fight every day from here until we win the nomination, because i am not going to allow the monied interests that are bose buying those ads to come in here and into other states, to misinform people and think we re too dumb to fight back. jessica buchanan, she is safe. right now at a u.s. navy base in italy after her rescue from kidnappers in somalia. u.s. special ops troops parachuted in and picked up buchanan and a fellow aid worker and killed all the people holding them hostage. her father expects to see her some time today. massive crowds of people said to be supporters of syrian president al assad gathering in cities across the country today. it ra
new cnn/orc polling tonight shows a statistical dead heat, 36% to 34% romney to gingrich. well within the five-point margin of error. that s from sampling of monday, tuesday and wednesday. in other words, after saturday in south carolina. but if you isolate just tuesday after governor romney s sharp attacks in monday night s debate, there s a nine-point advantage for him over the former speaker. you can expect the numbers to change. expect tomorrow night s debate to move the needle, as well. also, expect more of what we saw today. each candidate hammering the other. [ speaking spanish ] the gingrich campaign today stopped running the radio spot accusing mitt romney of being, quote, the most anti-immigration candidate in the race. they took the ad down after florida senator mark rubio who s cuban-america took strong exceptions to it calling it inaccurate and inflammatory. the romney campaign meantime also angling for the latino vote slamming speaker gingrich for being the ul
board i boarding a flight after refusing a pat-down. and news on beginning itch s work for freddie mac. we have the contract just released. let s go outfront. good evening. i m erin burnett and tonight, breaking news. the truth behind newt gingrich s ties to freddie mac. literally, within the past eight minutes, the former speaker released records explaining his connection to the taxpayer subsidized mortgage giant. i ve been reading through it, it s a 15-page contract and this is a contract for just one year, 2006. now, the speaker worked for freddie mac for several years, so 2006 is the only year that i have in my hands and here s what i can tell you it says. it says that the gingrich group had a $25,000 monthly retainer fee from freddie mac. he said that adds up to $300,000 a year, which is the maximum for the year 2006. i want to emphasize this is one out of the six that he worked for freddie mac. now, he was a consultant and he released this to make that point, to try t
in taxes, that s the headline from mitt romney s tax returns. it was released today. going to have a breakdown ahead. right now romney is on the campaign trail, he s in tampa focusing his attention on president obama. we re actually waiting to hear from him and what he s calling a prebuttal to the president s state of the union address. and rick santorum campaigning in stuart, florida, this hour. florida primary just seven days away. republican candidates are facing off for more one more debate rather ahead of tuesday s florida primary. the latest matchup in tampa last night, mitt romney hammered, hammered away at newt gingrich, and his record of leadership. gingrich shot back, accusing romney of lying. here s a taste. in the 15 years after he left the speakership, the speaker has been working as an influence peddler in washington and during those 15 years, i helped turn around the olympics, helped begin a very successful turn around in the state of massachusetts. he
many untrue things as fast as you can to get them all into one or two quick statements. so i thought it was kind of wild. here s a snapshot of romney s tax details. for 2010, he and his wife reported income topping $21 million, mostly from investments on which they paid less than 14% in federal tax. the gingriches and the obamas earned far less and paid, percentage wise, far more. tax rates are sure to come up in president obama s third state of the union speech. here s one tip-off. we re told warren buffett s secretary will be a guest of the first lady. you ll remember in calling for higher taxes on millionaires, billionaire buffett remarked that his secretary pays a higher rate than he does. in just a few moments, we ll go behind the scenes of the biggest presidential speech of the year with man who s been there time and again. michael waldman joins me in face time about six minutes from now. as we speak, fans and friends of joe paterno are getting their first chance to