we're bringing you the news from "a" to "z." it's 5:00 a.m. in the east. six police officers were shot overnight while serving a search warrant in utah. that was drug-related. they are recovering in the hospital this morning. apparently, only one suspect there. >> also in the hospital, right? >> yes, also in the hospital. >> we'll continue to watch that. also, guess what? some huge announcements coming. pictures like this may not be as voluminous if the government gets its way. president obama is about to announce we're going to cut a lot of troops and change our war tragedy. we're not going to be so capable of fighting two wars at once if what he says is going to be the way of the future. so, you know the dallas teenager that was deported by mistake? well, her family says she was sent to colombia where she didn't speak the language, didn't know anyone. why? because apparently, she ran away from home, and when the police picked her up, she gave them a false name, which happened to belong to a 22-year-old illegal immigrant who had a lot of arrest warrants, so they're trying to get her back home. >> another reason not to lie to police. if you need another reason, don't lie to police. we've got a bunch more on the docket for you as well, including, oh, politics. have you heard, we're in political season officially, and this man can now be called perhaps mr. money bags. rick santorum has raised upwards of $1 million in just about the last 24 to 36 hours, which amounts to more than half of what he's been able to raise since he started his campaign, if the numbers actually shake out, which is pretty remarkable. so, we're going to talk a little bit about what that means and whether that money's going to continue as they surge forward to the next few states. seismic changes coming to the united states military forces. defense department today and leader leon panetta as well as president obama planning to talk today about how the pentagon will cut about $500 million from its budget. here's how the new strategy will shake out. apparently, we're no longer going to be able to fight two ground wars at the same time. 4,000 troops are going to be cut from european bases and at least 47,000 fewer marines and troops will be in active duty in the next five years. and all of this, if you're keeping track, it comes at a time when we might just be needing them, because iran is ramping up its military might, china has been building up its army as well, and of course, if you've been following syria, anderson cooper's phenomenal work on covering syria, those crackdowns continue. and who knows if we're going to get involved in that. our chris lawrence, crack reporter at the pentagon, joins us live, getting up for an "early start." chris, the reason i want to talk to you about this, you've been working at the pentagon for a number of years, i've followed you in your work. you walk those halls on a regular basis and you've got sources and you talk to the generals and on down. there must be grumbling if they're talking about massive cuts. >> reporter: yeah, exactly, ashleigh. you're not going to get agreement on something this big. some people say, well, look, you know, this is sort of like, you know, trying to buy health insurance for the diseases you think you're going to get instead of having a comprehensive plan that will cover you in any regard. some of the other people i talk to say, look, it still allows us to fight one ground war and deploy forces somewhere else to sort of, what they call spoil another adversary. so, in other words, if the u.s. military was heavily engaged in korea and iran, you know, started to act provocatively, they could deploy enough forces to sort of settle iran down until those forces could be moved over to the second war. >> okay, so, i get the chess match, but at the same time, there's a lot of smart people in the building where you work, and i'm guessing that many of them understand that our strategies going forward include technologies that we never had when many of the war plans were actually drawn up. in fact, i think some of the war plans that we have in existence right now are maybe upwards of a decade or plus old. so, are there people who are actually thrilled with this because they know that we could use better gear to fight a different war? >> reporter: yeah, in other words, using your money in a smarter way. you know, some of the people i've spoken with say, look, you know, the chances of us sending 150,000 troops to two separate wars, they just don't see that on the horizon. they say that's not the way war's going to be fought in the future. and if you really look at this plan, you'll notice that a lot of the nuclear deterrent, a lot of the big weapons systems, a lot of the investment in the things like unmanned submarines, you know, drone subs, so to speak, a lot of that is still going forward because they think a lot of the combat in the future is going to be cyber warfare and things like that. >> yeah. and you know what? even though you're the pentagon beat, you're going to be the politics beat, because guaranteed today, there will be some gop folks who jump on that on the stump. >> reporter: i would take that bet in a heartbeat. >> yep, yep, you'd better keep your monitor on today. thank you, chris. talk to you in a little bit. so, it dovetails perfectly into the big story of the week. adios, iowa! we loved it, but we've got to move on. republicans are ramping up for round two. next stop, new hampshire. mitt romney already in the state. not everybody is. not everybody is thrilled about new hampshire, but this guy picked up the big endorsement. senator mccain stopped by to announce to that thrilled audience that he's putting his support behind mitt romney. that makes a difference. makes a big difference. >> yeah, and the gop field is one candidate lighter. michele bachmann suspended her campaign. rick perry we thought had suspended his, but nope he's back in the game. what's ahead now? in new york, we have wilt kane, columnist with "the blaze," and ruben navarrete with "the washington post" writers group. and in chicago, conservative commentator lennie mcallister. thank you, gentlemen, for joining us this morning. ruben, i want to start with you. you know, santorum announced that he raised $1 million. so, does that finally put him in the game here? >> it does, and there's more to come, you can be assured of that. i think the trick is how he takes that money and more money to come and turns it into an apparatus, builds this structure in these states, but working in his favor is the fact that there's so many republicans out there who, one, are not warming up to mitt romney, and two, frankly resent probably the attempts by the media and the republican establishment to anoint romney. it certainly happened in iowa. so, if south carolina, even shades of new hampshire, get this way, that's a big opening for santorum. he could do very well in those places. >> will kane, jump in on that thread, because that's amazing to be able to say that -- well, if it's true. we're hearing a lot about $1 million. and if that's the case, that's a big bump, but is that going to actually happen more and more or is that sort of it for santorum? he didn't have the kind of boots you need for a state like florida or south carolina. >> right, ashleigh. and you know what i'm curious, where is this money coming from? where is santorum's constituency, both from a voter and a donor base going to come from? i'm confused by it, because here's the narrative, right? conservatives are looking for their true, idealistic base candidate, who they can count on being conservative, and that's rick santorum, we're told now. we've been told that's various candidates over the last six months, but we're told it's not mitt romney. that's the moderate candidate you settle for. i don't know about the narrative. santorum is the mirror opposite of ron paul, advocating for big government programs, from giving the manufacturing base a corporate tax rate cut, well, down to 0%, and none other. that's picking losers in the economy. beyond that, he has the most absolutely interventionist foreign policy out there. rick santorum is not what people like to believe, a small government conservative, so i don't know where this -- if this narrative holds true, it's not going to be valid. i mean, if we're selling a lie. so i don't know who's going to keep giving him money. >> people in the position in government are giving him money. who knows? >> i'm going to switch gears -- well, maybe not switching gears, because we know he'll be scrutinized more and more now. lenny in particular, listen to this, but the naacp blasted santorum for targeting blacks in entitlement reform. let's listen to this and then we'll chime in. >> i don't want to make black people's lives better by giving them somebody else's money. i want to give them the opportunity to go out and earn the money. >> all right, lenny, i'm going to bring you in on this because i know that we've been texting back and forth on this. you say that you actually have an explanation for that comment. we'd love to hear it. >> well, here's the thing, rick santorum's from pittsburgh, penn hills, pennsylvania, where i grew up. rick santorum, working class catholic, same way i grew up. good people, such as the reverend and mrs. alpert price live there, own their homes, been there 40 years. rick santorum has seen them going from homeowners to watching other peers around them grow up people, such as me and my friends, to now having their neighborhoods decimated because the education and the jobs have gone away. and what he's basically saying is, listen, i remember people such as the folks that i live around in penn hills being able to be working class and do something for their children, and now we don't have those type of opportunities in place. and when you find bureaucrats trying to push social programs for these younger generations as being a way of life and not the way of life of the people that i grew up with -- >> lenny -- >> -- in penn hills, the people santorum lived around, if we don't put those things back into place, we'll continue to see what we've been seeing. >> lenny, let me interrupt you because there's something key i failed to mention earlier. last night on "john king," he actually said he is confident that he never said "black" there, but we just listened to it. will, let's talk about rick perry. you know, we thought that he was out. he's back in again. so, is this actually going to be good news for romney? >> absolutely, that's good news for romney. first of all, rick perry -- i mean, this is getting kind of funny. not getting, it is funny, and i'm a native texan here. but i guess what we saw is he was going to get out and michele bachmann decided to get back in and he and his campaign said, wait a minute, those are constituents we can court, so let's get back in and take her voters. it's so good for romney, we should wonder if somebody in the romney campaign or somebody close to romney said, hey, rick, you know, it'd be really nice if you stuck around. romney needs a fractured field. he needs that vote split up. one thing you remember about rick perry is he's been miscast as this tea party ideologue, this true believer. rick perry is a politician and has been for two decades. he's going to do what's best for his long-term political career. and i would say, being on the right side of mitt romney is probably going to be good for your political career. >> will cain, ruben navarrete, lenny mcallister, thanks for joining us. stand by because we'll be talking to you all morning. keep it on cnn for the best political coverage on television. you know that senator john mccain joining us live on "starting point with soledad o'brien" in the 7:00 hour. >> also, we have a packed show, talking to christine o'donnell in the 7:00 hour as well. remember her? tea party darling? "i'm not a witch"? she endorsed romney, but will the rest of the tea party follow suit? i'm curious what that bloc is going to do. i feel like they've fractured all over the place. almost 12 minutes after the hour. u.s. markets rose from earlier losses to close mixed by the end of business day yesterday. so, the dow was up 21 points while the nasdaq and s&p 500 closed flat. christine romans, one of my favorite people in the universe, is here. >> closing flat was a good thing, quite frankly. people were worried about europe and -- >> you're more excited about that than being called my favorite person in the universe? >> self-efacing or what? >> okay, so, business to talk about. sort of a government appointment that skirts congress. >> yeah. >> the consumer financial protection bureau. >> the money police, basically. now look, this is the hallmark of the president's financial market regulation reform, right? there were all of these things that weren't republicgulated th to the credit crisis and he wants this to be the centerpiece of banking regulations. republicans don't want one guy in charge of an agency. they want the agency to have to come back year after year to ask for money. they want a board of people to run it and want it to be more accountable to congress. basically, this is republicans in the business community who don't want the president to have one of his signature, what he would call his signature legislative achievements. what is not regulated right now, right? payday lenders, some of the mortgage originator and nonbank mortgage originator and servicers, some of the credit, the debt collection agencies. without a head -- >> debt collection agencies aren't regulated? >> without a head, this agency can't go and really go in there and watch what these different groups are doing, and so, this is just pitting two ideologies, you know? the republicans and the chamber of commerce and others don't want this agency around, or they want it watered down, right? and this is something that consumer groups and democrats really, really want. this is a political fight. politically, the president stepped in, made the recess appointment. so, now these debt collection agencies and all that will fall under the purview of this agency. >> do libertarians want it at all? ron paul and libertarians want it at all? >> less government, less government, less government. that's where we stand. futures are ail little lower and later on, i'll have jobless claims coming up later this morning. jobless claims, let me be really clear -- the labor market has been slowly improving, so it's going to be important to see what happens with jobless claims. >> election year. >> i know. >> every one of those will be snapped up -- >> you're right! and the big jobs report, i know the press release is already written. >> both sides. >> talking about it yesterday. >> christine romans, thank you very much. >> good morning, you guys. so, every morning we give you an "early start" to your day by alerting you to the news that's happening later and the stories just developing now but will be the big story tonight. first up, president obama is expected to announce a new summer jobs program today. that is for the young americans who cannot find jobs. the white house is hoping to create 250,000 opportunities between the government, private companies and non-profits that volunteer to take part. and also, the government is still working to try to get back this texas teenager. she was deported by mistake in 2010, by mistake. i.c.e. officials apparently shipping the 15-year-old girl to colombia after she was arrested, but she gave a fake name to the cops. even though she's an american citizen, doesn't speak a lick of spanish, and according to the family, doesn't know anyone in colombia, ended up there. so a big oopsy. this is a bummer, especially in the mornings. orange juice more expensive as florida fights a freeze. orange juice prices jumped almost 9% with temperatures dipping into the 20s and breaking record lows in some cities. so, on the heels of that, rob marciano, see what you did to the prices of oranges? >> i didn't have my morning o.j. >> couldn't get your juice? you know, we're in the elections center, but we're in atlanta and -- >> are we disclosing that now? >> the election's over, so it's okay. i always hear it called hot-lanta. i didn't wear a coat and i saw a fountain that was frozen into an ice cascade. >> we tried to dig it up -- >> ask and we shall receive. this truly was the place i had lunch the other day, in atlanta. >> oh, my goodness! >> in atlanta. i kid you not. >> they didn't do that on purpose. >> by the way, zoraida, that place is called front page news, so i don't know that's why you went there, being a journalist. >> totally accidental. >> anyway, good southern cajun food there. speaking of the southeast, the low temperatures from yesterday, we talked about the freeze across much of florida. yes, some of the citrus crops saw some damage, but overall, it wasn't really that bad. the more damaged crops replace things like strawberries and some vegetables that are a little bit more sensitive to that. teens and 20s yesterday. we're not seeing that this morning. on average, about ten degrees warmer today than yesterday. but still, freeze warning out for at least the central parts of the peninsula. temperatures are 29 degrees in gainesville, 32 degrees in jacksonville. at this time yesterday they were down to around 22 degrees. a couple of snow flurries across parts of upstate new york this morning. other than that, things are actually kind of quieting down, especially across the midsection, where record highs are going to be the case today as they were yesterday with storms not all that bad. only three spots where we're looking at potential delays today -- new york metros, boston and seattle. we will take it as 2012, relatively speaking, gets off to a fairly quiet start. guys, back to you. >> rob marciano, thank you for that, my friend. >> all right. this one's awesome. still ahead, how far one woman will go to protect her baby. >> i've got two guns in my hand. is it okay to shoot if he comes in this door? >> yeah, that's her and that's the baby. she grabbed a gun, called 911, put the bottle in the baby's mouth and then unloaded with deadly force. what do you think happened to the intruder? what do you think the sheriff's going to do about it? you will not believe what you're going to hear. it's "early start." and major medical? major medical, boyyyy! 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