the actions of the perry campaign are despicable. rick perry and his campaign owe herman cain and his family an apology. both rick perry campaign and politico did the wrong thing by reporting something that wasn t true to anonymous sources. bret: mark block, the herman cain campaign staff, chief of staff for the campaign says that rick perry s campaign is behind stirring up all the sexual harassment allegations that have been getting so much attention. point specifically to a former aide of cain when he was running for senate in georgia in 2004. he remembers telling kurt anderson back then about the national restaurant association allegation. anderson works as a senior advisor on the perry campaign. the cain campaign links the
two and says other evidence as well. but not getting in specific details. the response, ray sullivan saying, no one at our campaign was involved in the story in any way. any claim to the contrary is patently false. the first we learned of it is when we led the story in politico. kurt anderson has a similar reaction saying that is the first he learned of it. saying i never heard of the allegation until he read them in politico. and went on to say herman cain is upstanding man and gentleman and he wouldn t speak ill of him on or off the record. what about the story and how it affects the race? bring in the panel. fred barnes, mara liasson of national public radio. and syndicated columnist charles krauthammer. fred, it has been an interesting couple of days. your take? for the last couple of days, the cain campaign appear to set records for being off
exist. what did i say? excuse me. excuse me! appearing in a separate high-tech conference, the front-running g.o.p. presidential hopeful himself brought up the issue. there are factions that are trying to destroy me personally as well as this campaign. cain is denying any other allegations. if something comes up, they will. they will make it up. they believe racism is behind the year s old incident. one alleged victim is reluctant to speak about it but the lawyer today contacted the national restaurant association and indicated he may formally ask trade group to waive the confidential agreement part of a $35,000 settlement in exchange for her silence. i have never sexually harassed anybody. it s a false sexually harassment claim. we are not going to chase anonymous accusations. cain s blitz of tv interviews denying allegation included other news.
bret: our top story at bottom of the hour, herman cain campaign is accusing a former aide who now works for rick perry s campaign of leaking information regarding past sexual harassment complaints. kurt anderson denies the charge. the cain campaign is calling on rick perry to apologize to cain and to the american people. a third woman came forward today anonymously to the associated press. with alleged complaints about sexual harassment allegation from cain. tonight, shannon bream looks it how sexual harassment claim are big business and headaches for business. the types of claims are cost of doing business. some legitimate, some not. the equal employment committee handled 12,000 sexual harassment complaint in
cain and frankly to america. bret: another veteran pollster with the, used to be with the national restaurant association chris wilson. he is now working with the super pac that supports the texas governor s bid. he is on the record detailing what he says is another incident of sexual harassment. another allegation. again, the perry campaign needs to apologize to herman cain and his family. and america for this despicable action. politico, too. politico won t release any documentation. or will they even admit they spoke to these two women. why? because they have nothing and cited unnamed sources. chris wilson put out a quote saying i had nothing to do with leaking this in any way. i never discussed or shared this story with my clients. listen, you have a prepared statement here. i know you are kind of reading off of it.