dressing unbalanced approach. they also voted on defense. and passed a huge defense authorization bill, $662 billion. it came short of what president obama wanted, short of what they actually passed for this year. reflecting the fact that the wars in iraq and afghanistan are winding down. president obama has threatened a veto. lynn? tracie, thanks so much. elsewhere as herman cain weighs his white house aspirations, the he said/she said continues between the gop presidential candidate ant an atlanta businesswoman, who claims she was his mistress for more than a decade. in a newspaper interview, cain admitted to providing ginger white with financial aid, for monthly bills and expenses after she asked him for help. cain said he never told his wife that he had befriended the georgia woman, recounting what he called a purely platonic relationship. however, in an exclusive interview last night on msnbc s the last word white told a
cain but it s not the most devastating of results. if his numbers were falling, herman cain should be very correspond read. at this point he should just be very concerned, i guess. it s still a serious issue, and the growing number of people who believe the allegations are true is a problem for the cain campaign. the fact that only 24% believe his campaign has handled it well is a concern. this is a mixed result over law. two out of three americans say, it s all right, herman cain s ethics are at least as good as most politicians. even among those who believe the allegations are true they say he s asset that cal as his peers. jon: there seems like there is a flavor of the month to the republican campaign. michelle bachmann is up, then she is down. rick perry is up, then he s down. herman cain has been up. you re saying, though, that he s not necessarily dropping. reporter: well herman cain is not in as strong a position as
and said none of this is true. absolutely none of this. even though you do have women coming forward claiming in their cases it is true. and you have the national restaurant association acknowledging that in two cases there were settlements, one of which i should add cain was not part of or didn t agree to. you have that credibility issue nagging the campaign and secondly it has moved into with these women coming forward it has moved into a stage this isn t a story you just can put an end to. you talked about this joint press conference coming up. so i think this is, more, as these women come forward, as the story stays alive longer and takes more of a to on the toll on the campaign, all of that said there is a still a chunk of the republican party electorate who believe this is conspiracy, a media conspiracy against cain and are going to stand by him. i think a good chunk still will. jon: this karen kraushaar
something in the mail in next couple months. jenna: rick, thank you. jon: right now at least two women claiming herman cain sexually harassed them will be appearing a the a joint news conference they say. there is no word when it is going to happen. yesterday cain defended himself against allegations that have engulfed his campaign. a new poll shows the scandal seems to be affecting cain s image. according to gallup, his latest positive intensity score dropped to 25. that s lower than his rating before the allegations surfaced. fox news contributor nina easton is a washington columnist for fortune magazine. nina, so far the allegations don t seem to have a lot of proof behind them. they are very vocal, very public but not a whole lot of proof. but it is affecting the cain campaign. i think the story moved into a danger zone for two reasons for cain. first of all it has gone from allegations to a credibility issue. so cain yesterday came out
he was a week ago. we have some numbers coming out from a florida primary poll later today. he s still doing pretty well there. this is a difficult time. but when you say flavor of the month, what i think it really is, there is a big debate in the republican party between the people who want mitt romney and the people who want somebody else. right now herman cain is the i m not mitt romney candidate and he s holding there until more information comes out. most americans, two out of three americans when we asked them about the allegations about herman cain, they may have an opinion one way or the other, but they are not too firm on it. they are waiting to hear more, and we don t know how the story will play out. if the women gather together and have a press conference and the information is credible and damaging, herman cain s campaign will be in serious trouble. if he can deal with it and perhaps change his communications team, it may go in a different direction. jon: as it plays out w