Good morning, everyone. Im randi kaye. It is 10 00 on the east coast, 7 00 a. M. On the west. We start in gaza this hour, as people there have to fear death from above. Israeli war planes have been relentless in their attacks on targets in gaza. They are hunting rocket launchers, but dozens of civilians have been killed as a result. The latest round of this conflict started wednesday, and there is no end in sight. Sarah sidener is in gaza city for us. What are you seeing at this hour . Are you hearing or seeing any air strikes . Reporter were hearing drones above, but just five minutes before we started this show, we saw rockets coming out of central gaza, literally a few hundred yards away from us. We could see the rockets going up into the air, and they were sort of white, and then they would disappear and they were pointed, of course, towards israel. Usually when that happens, you see that happening and then you hear the sound of planes above shortly after. And then usually that area is pounded in air strikes. We have been hearing air strikes all day long, that has not stopped. There has been a lull maybe for the past 30 or so minutes. But it has just been relentless here over the past cup of days. We know that the hospitals have been overwhelmed with people. Were hearing from hospital officials that the death toll has gone to 40plus people so far. I think were at 42 now, and were talking about more than 250 people injured. And as weve been talking, weve been watching some of these live explosions here taking place now just after 5 00 p. M. In gaza. Talk to me a little bit about the mood there. Are people taking cover . Reporter yes. Theres almost no one in the streets. There are a few places that are open. One of the grocery stores, we went there today to pick up supplies for ourselves, and as we opened the store, you could see there were a few people milling about, a few people trying to get supplies. But generally speaking, in the most densely populated city in the world, theres almost no one outside on the streets. What i can tell you is that we are seeing and hearing the sounds and the rest of the civilians are seeing and hearing the sounds of these air strikes. Its scary. They dont want to be out. They know better than to be out. Theyre trying to hunker down. And all of the businesses are generally closed. Sara sidner, thank you very much and do stay safe. Some of our reporters there that you will only see that access on cnn. Lets go to the israeli side of the border. Israeli tanks and troops have been taking up positions. Were joined now live from the border there. Fred what are you seeing in terms of military activity . All right, we lost fred there on the border, on the israeli side. We will try and get back to him. In the meantime, nick valencia is live at our middle east news desk monitoring all the news thats coming in about gaza and israel and whats happening there. Nick, good morning. Fill us in on whats happening. Good morning, randi. This is the hub for our International News gathering division. Were next to a very special desk that we created today to monitor all the feeds and signals that are coming in out of gaza and israel. These are two middle east experts. I want to bring in ali. Youve been monitoring several feeds going on. Tell us a little bit about what youre doing at the desk. As this conflict is unfolding at an exponential rate, we are monitoring the arab channels as well as the israeli channels in the arabic language live. At the desk, we try to digest all this flood of information to bring to the audience in the u. S. , to put them in perspective of whats going on here. And you see it is a very fluid situation. Were dealing with correspondents in the field. This is exactly where everything is funneled to. The arab league is convening in cairo to discuss the situation in gaza. This desk will be live all throughout the morning and afternoon to bring you the latest information, so when we have breaking news, well toss it back up to you. We appreciate that, nick. Thank you. And lets take you back to the israeli side of the border. Israeli tanks and troops certainly taking up positions there, trying to get us back to fred. What are you seeing there in terms of military activity . Reporter hi, randi. Theres a lot of military activity on this side of the border. On the one hand, you have the air strikes that the Israeli Air Force is conducting there over gaza. Sara was talking about it just a little bit. As she was talking, there was actually a bomb being dropped on gaza that we could see here from our position. Id say were about four, maybe five kilometers away from the gaza border, but we do see it right behind us. We also saw those rockets that sara was talking about that were being fired out of gaza. Those were actually fired in the direction of where we are right now. Some of those appear to have been intercepted by a intercepter system that the israelis have called the iron dome. The other thing thats going on is that there is a massive military buildup going on by the Israeli Military on this side of the border. Were seeing a lot of trucks passing by on the road here with tanks on them with armored personnel carriers on them. Also with armored bulldozers as well. Its something that weve seen throughout the entire day really, and keep in mind that the israelis have now said that theyre calling up tens of thousands of reserves as well, as they say the ground defensive going into gaza with Ground Troops is something that is a very real possibility, randy. Things have escalated rapidly in the past few days. But would you say are we hitting sort of a stalemate right now of air strikes versus rockets . Well, the air strikes are ongoing. Im not sure whether or not i call it a stale masmt bmate. The israelis are probably stepping up their air strikes swhasm however, theyve not been able to suppress the fire coming out of gaza. There was an alarm in tel aviv, the largest city here in israel. Apparently that rocket was intercepted also by an iron dome system. However, it shows that those who are firing rockets in gaza are still very much capable of reaching towns like tel aviv. Yesterday, a rocket fell close to jerusalem. So in that sense, yes. At this point in time, it does not appear either side is gaining the upper hand, at least from taking the objectives that they want to reach. On the one hand, you have the israelis who want to suppress the fire coming out of gaza, and what hamas and others want to do is keep firing into gaza. One of the things that can really change the game would be a ground defensive launched by the Israeli Military. Its unclear whether or not that is imminent at this point. I know youll be watching that for us. Do keep us posted on any activity that you see. Thank you. The politics behind benghazi. Closed door hearings this week havent ended the partisan bickering. Plus, mitt romney explains his loss. But his reasons arent sitting so well with fellow republicans. Maria cardona and amy holmes standing by, so get ready. Big splash with the employees. [ duck yelling ] [ ma announcer ] find out more at. [ duck ] aflac [ male announcer ]. Forbusiness. Com. Ha ha is what drives us to broadcast the worlds biggest events in 3d, or live to your seat high above the atlantic ocean. Its what drives us to create ecofriendly race tracks, batteries that power tomorrows cars, nearly indestructible laptops, and the sustainable smart towns of the future. At panasonic, were driven to make what matters most better. Just another way were engineering a better world for you. One is for a clean, wedomestic Energy Future that puts us in control. Our abundant natural gas is already saving us money, producing cleaner electricity, putting us to work here in america and supporting wind and solar. Though all Energy Development comes with some risk, were committed to safely and responsibly producing natural gas. Its not a dream. Americas natural gas. Putting us in control of our Energy Future, now. Get on etrade. Set up a real plan. Frank oh wow, you didnt win . I wanna show you something. Its my shocked face. [ gasps ] [ male announcer ] get a Retirement Plan that works. At etrade. It is the battle of benghazi. It is also our focus this morning. Congress has spent the week trying to get to the bottom of the benghazi attack on september 11th. Four americans were killed including ambassador christopher stevens. Now it seems to have boiled down to a war of words between republicans and democrats. Joining me now as they do every week are Maria Cardona and amy holmes. Good morning to both of you. Good morning, randi. Maria, is the actual search for answers being turned into more of a search, do you think, for a scapegoat . It sounds like that, randi. And its really unfortunate, because what was one of the mandates that came out of this election from the American People is for their leaders to Work Together to find solutions. I think that from the very beginning, both democrats and republicans have said that the whole benghazi incident needs to be something that we Work Together to find out what happened. Unfortunately, a lot of republicans are politicizing it, trying to politicize it before the election i think for political gain, and are continuing to do so. And what were finding out now is that the intelligence that was handed to the white house by the Intelligence Community was exactly the one that was used in the days after the benghazi attack to tell the American People what had happened and what was known up to that point, and so i dont think that its a good move for the republicans to continue to try to politicize that. Lets find out what happened. Thats what needs to be done. There was some question about the wording, using the word extremist. If they really thought it was a terrorist, why wasnt there an interagency decision to not use al qaeda in the unclassified talking points that susan rice was using on the morning shows. But amy, do you believe at all that the Election Results are playing a part in this washington drama . I dont think so. I think benghazi is such a serious scandal and debacle in terms of American Foreign policy that Everyone Wants to get to the answer, including senator dianne feinstein, the democrat from california. As far as those talking points go, it is not at all clear where they were edited. What we do know apparently is that the original determination that al qaeda was involved, or Al Qaeda Affiliated groups was sent out the front door to the cia and went through some sort of editing process, perhaps interagency, perhaps at the white house that still hasnt been answered. What we do know is if the white house wanted to provide the answers, they could have done it before the election and chose not to. Lets not forget, of course, general petraeus and his whole personal scandal, debacle, that could also be professional. We still dont know the answers to that. The administration knew of the petraeus investigation. The president claims that he didnt before the election, now were only learning of it after. Lets talk a little bit more about susan rice and that whole situation with the talking points, because she is the ambassador to the u. N. She has been mentioned as a possible replacement for Hillary Clinton as secretary of state. Republican senators john mccain, lindsey graham, they have already said no way, they will hold up her confirmation because of benghazi and comments made days afterwards explaining the attacks. At the time, she said it could have been because of this antimuslim movie, as we said, but now thats sort of been disproved. I guess the question is well, first, listen to. This then i want to ask you listen to some of the sound that we have from obama and mccain this week. If senator mccain and senator graham and others want to go after somebody, they should go after me. And im happy to have that discussion with them. But for them to go after the u. N. Ambassador who had nothing to do with benghazi and was simply making a presentation based on intelligence that she had received, and to besmirch her reputation is outrageous. That statement is really remarkable in that if the president thinks that we are picking on people, he really does not have any idea of how serious this issue is. So maria, to you on this, is this a fair attack, do you think, on ambassador rice . She did use the talking points that were given to her after this interagency decision. No, absolutely its not fair, randy. And the president was spoton in his defense of her. Lets remember that these were talking points that were given to her by the Intelligence Community, and i do agree with amy that we need to figure out what happened in terms of the words that were used. I dont agree that it had anything to do with the white house. I think it had to do with classified versus unclassified use of the term al qaeda. Republicans need to tread a very careful line, because lets remember their full embrace and defense of another rice, condoleezza rice, when she was clearly using faulty intelligence to take us into war that killed thousands of troops, so that is something that they need to be careful about. Theyre heading into a place where theyre going to be seen as being incredibly hypocritical and very political. Thats not what the American People are looking for from their leaders right now. Amy, our dana bash did some great reporting. She got it confirmed by a senior u. S. Official telling cnn that it was an interagency decision to take the word al qaeda out of the original unclassified talking points. So who do you think is going to win this round . Will it be mccain or obama . Well, theres no reason why the president of the United States and the commander in chief would not be told that it was al qaeda, and he is privy to all classified information. I can person as far as susan s concerned, shes a cabinet member, she went on the sunday shows and repeated over and over and over what we knew at the time could not possibly be the full story, and i was on this show with you two ladies before she went on those sunday shows and i said if you think this is about a youtube video, then get in line for a female procedure, which i will not again repeat. It was clear to reporting, to anyone who picked up the newspaper who read even read foreign papers that what susan rice was pedaling on those sunday shows was not the full story. Even though she insisted over and over and over again that this was a spontaneous mob action, which as we have now learned, did not even take place. She has to be held accountable, as well as the people who president obama himself who said they put her out there to carry this water. Why . All right. Were going to leave it there on this discussion. But i want you both to stick around because i want to ask you about mitt romneys postelection assessment and why he says the president was reelected. His reasoning next, so sit tight. E of Business People like you, things are beginning to get rolling. And regions is here to help. Making it easier with the expertise and service to keep those wheels turning. From Business Loans to cash management, we want to be your partner moving forward. So switch to regions. And lets get going. Together. A new way to save on your prescriptions. Its the aarp medicarerx saver plus plan from unitedhealthcare. With this plan, you can get copays as low as a dollar through a preferred Network Pharmacy like walgreens where youll find 8,000 convenient locations. Best of all, this plan has the lowest part d premium in the United States only 15 a month. Open enrollment ends december 7th. So call today or visit your local walgreens. To get our adt Security System. And one really big reason the house next door. Our neighbors house was broken into. Luckily, her family wasnt there, but what if this happened here . What if our girls were home . And since we cant monitor everything 24 7, we got someone who could. Adt. [ male announcer ] while some companies are new to home security, adt has been helping to save lives for over 135 years. We have more monitoring centers, more of Tomorrows Technology right here today, and more value. 24 7 monitoring against burglary, fire, and high levels of carbon monoxide, starting at just over 1 a day. And now get adt installed for just 99. Isnt your family worth americas number one security company, adt . [ woman ] our girls got us thinking, but the breakin got us calling. [ man ] and after buying two of everything, it was nice to only need one Security System adt. [ male announcer ] get adt installed for just 99, and ask about adt pulse, advanced Home Management here today. Adt. Always there. Welcome back, everyone. Im randi kaye. Were talking politics now and a frank assessment from mitt romney on his election loss. He said president obama won because he gave gifts to africanamericans, hispanics and young voters. What gifts . In particular, health care. Romney said with hwith hispani voters, Free Health Care was a big plus. Plus, with regards to young people, for instance, a forgiveness of college Loan Interest was a big gift. Free contraceptives were very big with young collegeaged women. There was instant backlash from republicans. This is not where the Republican Party needs to go. Look, we want if you want voters to like you, the first thing youve got to do is to like them first. And its certainly not helpful to tell voters that you think their votes were bought. Thats not a way to show them that you respect them, you like them. We need to stop talking down to voters. Maria cardona and amy holmes are back with me now. Amy, you heard that there. Sour grapes or does mitt romney have a point . Well, you know, the president did campaign on those issues, but whether or not he won because of them is a separate question. And republicans are suppo