this case are no longer able to speak publicly about any of this. the information we've been getting is going to slow to more of a trickle as the hearings go on. people here got a bit of a surprise when christian bale, the actor who plays batman showed up here. it was a surprise to just about everybody. he visited patients in the hospital at the bedside. after that he came to this make shift memorial here and joined a prayer circle and prayed with people. it was all unannounced, they had no cameras with him and didn't want media coverage. our affiliate happened to be there and caught him. and it exploded on twitter and facebook, people pretty excited he took the time to come and visit. >> i'll bet that helped folks trying to recoup rate in the hospital. thanks, jim. the rest of the day's top stories, let's get right to christine romans. good morning. >> good morning, soledad, syrian forces stepping up attacks to regain control of aleppo, targeting rebel strong holds in syria's largest city overnight. there are reports thousands of troops are being sent in as reinforcements. violent clashes killing 123, 21 in aleppo. there are concerns in u.s. and iraq about al qaeda's growing influence in syria and video warns the group is forming suicide cells to make jihad in the region. apple stock is down 5% this morning after earnings missed estimates yesterday, a rare earnings missed for apple. and iphone rumor mill is churning once again. the latest, the iphone 5 will come out in september instead of october. iphone sales were a disappoint in the second quarter, people have been holding out buying their phones, waiting for the new version this fall. ontario's special investigation unit looking into the death of a man who went over the wall and fell into niagara falls. a police officer was chasing a man when both fell 100 feet in the gorge. the officer was rescued and recovering from a broken leg. the man he was chasing didn't make it out alive. cops are not offering any other details about that incident this morning. life and then some, a chicago judge sentencing jennifer hudson's former brother william balfour, to three life terms plugs 120 years for the murders of her mother, brother and nephew. balfour was convicted in may. in delivering the sentence, the judge said balfour's soul was as baron as dark space. competing plans to extend the tax cuts. it would extend the cuts for couples making less than $250,000 a year. republicans want to extend the tax cuts for all taxpayers, including the wealthiest americans. neither proposal is expected to pass. >> he was george jefferson, actor sherman hemsley rose to fame with "the jeffersons", spinoff of "all in the family." no word on the cause of death, he was 74 years old. too young, soledad. >> really young. he had a couple of successful sitcoms. remember amen? >> yeah, just a funny guy. >> yeah, christine, thanks. a new high is new low for president obama and mitt romney -- that's a way to put them together. save a little time. president obama and mitt romney is what i'm trying to say, the new cnn poll of polls shows president obama with a lead over mitt romney, voters prefer him 47% to mitt romney's 43%. but the negative tone of the presidential campaign seems to be taking a toll on both candidates, a new poll from nbc news wall street journal shows 43% of the voters polled now have an unfavorable view of the president, that's up 38% in june. 40% have a negative view of mitt romney up one point. when they are asked which candidate is conducting a more negative campaign, 22% say president o obama, 34% say both sides are equally running negative campaigns, brings us to congressman, democrat from maryland. good morning to you. >> the polls show that the tone and the nastiness seems to be hurting both candidates. both are winning when it comes to campaigns perceived as negative. that would be a bad thing. a pollster who was interviewed said this is the kind of thing you expect come october, not in july. do you see a major downside to both campaigns in this? >> sure, i think the public are tired of the partisan politics and want to know where each candidate stands on the issues of creating jobs, looking at their issue of national security. i know an issue know that has come up because of the recent storms that people are concerned about how are we handling energy as far as losing power, what's happening with respect to the weather, that type of thing. hopefully we're going to move forward with respect to the issues important to the country and i just hope that people will vote on what they think is the best candidate. i support president obama and i think that he has done a good job and i think he's doing the best he can to attempt to create the jobs necessa to get us out of this serious financial problem we have. >> the basic wisdom is people will vote based on what's important to them and that we know from polling is jobs, jobs, jobs. when you look at this nbc news wall street journal poll, they said when asked, better ideas to improve the economy, whose got those ideas? mitt romney leads the way, had 3% to the president's 36%. when it comes to better overall in dealing with the economy, mitt romney leads the way, 43% to obama's 37%. those polled numbers are quite close. again, if everybody is thinking jobs, jobs, jobs, that's how they are going to vote, doesn't this spell big problems for your candidate, the president? >> i think it is an issue but you look, they both have records, if you look at mitt romney's record in massachusetts, i can't say that has been as positive as it should be. in the end it's about the two candidates will debate, people will make hopefully the right decision. we are moving ahead, moving ahead slowly. remember, president obama inherited a lot of these issues, he's attempting to do the best we can. my concern is congress, congress has to stop the partisan politics and we have got to come together and a lot of what happens with the market and business is consistency and people want to know that we are working together in congress. and i hope we can do that. i think if we do that together and deal with those issues that will then allow two candidates to debate and people will decide. at this point, if i was a betting person, i would bet the president would win in a close race. >> you say as a man who supports the president, i'm not sure anyone will take that bet from you, sir. let me ask you about leaking and this is a conversation mitt romney brought up yesterday in reno, nevada. here's what he said about leaks. >> more top secret operations were leaked, even some involving covert action going on in iran. this isn't a partisan issue. it's a national security crisis, just yesterday democrat senator dianne feinstein whose chairman of the senate intelligence committee and i quote, i think the white house has to understand that some of this is coming from their ranks. end of quote. this conduct is contemptible. >> says this conduct is conte t contemptibility and national security crisis. is the white house doing enough to control the leaks even if they are not the leakers, it has to come from somewhere near the inner circle. are they doing enough to control the leaks? >> the leaks are serious and undermines our country. senator feinstein chand list are the two leadership in the house and we are focusing in the oversight capacity to make a determination where the leaks are coming from. it seems to have started, the leaks have gotten more aggressive since 9/11. but these leaks can cost lives and hurt us internationally, the ability to get money. as far as what romney said about the white house, you know, i was a former prosecutor and did investigations and one of the things you have to do is you have to get the facts and follow the facts. and in this country we do not find somebody guilty because issues are in the media. it's very important that we move forward with the investigation. you have some of the best fbi agent investigators working on it. you have two prosecutors, one republican and one democrat focusing on the leaks. and i can say this, senator feinstein and chand lis and congressman mike rogers and i are focusing on this investigation and we need to find the leaks. the problem though is the culture of the leaks. we will eventually find who leaked this and they will be brought to justice. but the bottom line, we need to stop the leaks today and we have to make sure that we focus on all of our intelligence agencies and make sure that we can stop these leaks because they are hurting our country and hurting our national security. >> senator feinstein said this, i'm disappointed by the statements made by mr. romney today regarding a question i was asked yesterday at the world affairs council. i stated that i did not believe the president leaked classified information. i shouldn't have speculated beyond that because the fact of the matter is i don't know the source of the leaks. you just mentioned the culture of leaks, what do you mean by that? >> i mean we've had serious leaks since 9/11. i'm concerned about the information that has come out with respect to iran as an example. we have really dedicated people working hard to gain intelligence and analyze intelligence and get it back so we can use it to protects ourselves and our citizens. not only can it cost lives but hurts the ability to recruit people to give us information, that's very, very serious. and it also costs us money. i mean, we're getting information and our sources and methods are out there and getting to the enemy because of the fact that somebody decides to give information to the media. that's wrong, we have to stop it and we're going to aggressively pursue it. i have a lot of respect for senator feinstein and mike rogers, the chairman of the intel committee, we're working hard to coordinate with the fbi and administration to find out where the leaks are and they have to stop today. >> congressman ruppersberger, thanks for your time. >> weet get reaction from the other side when we talk to campaign surrogate randy forbes from virginia. stocks taking a plunge, a fiscal cliff is approaching and congress needs to do a little bit more than they are doing. is another recession looming? christine romans will join me to break it all down. this man told to leave disney because he looks like our favorite jolly old elf. look trey songz is on my playlist this morning. bottoms up. ♪ ♪ ♪ [ male announcer ] everyone likes a bit of order in their life. virtual wallet helps you get it. keep track of spending, move money with a slide, and use the calendar. all to see your money how you want. ♪ s differentow you want. but centurylink is committed to being a different kind of communications company by continuing to help you do more and focus on the things that matter to you. u.s. markets in the red for three days. christine rom anz following all of this bad news. >> it feels a lot like it did last summer quite frankly. >> it does, doesn't it? >> it really does. futures look a little better this morning quite frankly, but how long that will last, i don't know. if you look at the dow over the past year, it's up a tiny bit year to date. but you know, it's down about a half a percent over the past 52 weeks. look all the way to the left of that screen, you can see what happened last summer. see how it was ugly into the fall and spent a whole year trying to crawl back out. here we are again worried about the same thing, deja vu, we saw ford earnings and you can see europe's problems hitting the international. now we're worried about the fiscal cliff and debt ceiling again later this year. high unemployment, and slow economic growth, we'll get a gdp number on friday and it could be one and a half percent growth in the you hu.s. economy, not enou >> i think in some ways you could argue worse or is it stabilized? >> i think it's been a whole year now and we're still fighting these fires in now spain, greece, still uncertain whether it will stay in the euro zone. it's uncertainty that is the enemy of your 401(k) quite frankly. there were comments overnight by european officials saying that they were hoping they could boost the fire power of their rescue, their bailout fund. i think you'll see markets recover today a little bit. after three down days that's not a hard call to make. lots of uncertainties and one thing soledad, that i think is interesting, we've been talking about europe, something that other people are doing to us that is a problem for the u.s., u.s. companies that are seeing it in the slow european sales, there's also what we can do to our selves and that's the fiscal cliff and uncertainty in washington. >> if you're talking about an election year, add to the uncertainty, i don't know there is a political will or there's a sort of energy to really tackle tough things, it may not help you in an election year. >> this is the kick the can washington and they keep kicking it and what have we done since we lost our aaa credit rating? nothing to get it back. now we have the fiscal cliff looming. those are big tax increases and big spending cuts that go in together starting at the end of the year. that would be a real jolt to the system. there are conservatives telling me, we need a jolt to the system. but the congressional budget office says it will cause a recession. we're watching -- or you're watching and will tell us what happens. still ahead this morning, it may be the happiest place on earth but it is saying no to this man. why? because he looks like santa. it's our get real up next. we're back in a moment. and the "starting point" team is heading in. arguing in the corner. i said heading in, that's the cue. >> we didn't hear. >> you, will cain, roland martin will join us in just one moment. we'll play the theme song from "the jeffersons" as we remember sherman hemsley. let's listen. ♪ collegei was a kid. when i didn't know how i was gonna to do it, but i knew i was gonna get that opportunity one day, and that's what happened with university of phoenix. nothing can stop me now. i feel like the sky's the limit with what i can do and what i can accomplish. my name is naphtali bryant and i am a phoenix. visit phoenix.edu to find the program that's right for you. enroll now. the lines, the cost, the hassle. ♪ express yourself [ female announcer ] why not try coffee-mate? 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[ male announcer ] at 0% apr for 60 months, no one needs to know how easy it was to get your new volkswagen. that's the power of german engineering. but what about your wrinkles? neutrogena® rapid wrinkle repair. its retinol formula visibly reduces wrinkles in one week. why wait if you don't have to. neutrogena®. welcome back, new agreement to overhaum the scandal ridden new orleans police department. the justice department has announced hundreds of new policies on the use of force, searches and seizures, arrests and interrogations, coming up next hour, soledad talks to ronal serpas. >> $22.6 billion in fees from passengers to check bags and upgrade their seats and get reservations and change the reservations to pay for food and drinks. this is according to a new study. recently merged continental airlines collected the most at $5.2 billion. take the clothes and leave the baby, surveillance video from a walmart parking lot shows a 19-year-old woman on the run after she was allegedly caught shoplifting. police say she ditched her baby in a shopping cart before she took off. they found the woman and her sister partying in a nightclub the next night. the baby was taken in by authorities and police say the woman denied he was her son. soledad? >> that's a lot going on in that story. what? baby she says isn't hers but happened to be in the shopping cart, lecht the baby to try to get away, was shoplifting allegedly, because she hasn't gone to trial yet. >> don't forget the nightclub. >> yes, as many do at the end of the day. >> with all of the details, classy. >> i think it's sad really, i do. >> christine, thank you. today's team, margaret hoover joins us, don't laugh at his terrible jobs, will cain -- >> strolling in late, look who's here? >> nice to see you. >> will cain as i was mentioned the blaze.com. >> roland martin -- >> what's shaking? >> i'm chilling. >> every time you get time with roland, i'm in ohio, i'm in texas today. >> san francisco, new orleans. yeah, glad to be here. >> our get real this morning, this is such a great story. it may be my favorite of the day. walt disney world, happiest place on earth. pays people to dress like cartoon characters and spread cheer. one guest looked a little too much like santa who is not a disney character. according to wkmg in florida, they asked a guest, thomas tolbert who looks just like this, this is his picture, he looks exactly like santa claus. they said, please be less santaish because he was becoming a distraction at the park. apparently kids saw him and they assumed it was santa on summer vacation and were asking for autographs and pictures. something that he's used to because apparently he's an actor and does a santa impersonation. he was told by park officials, tell the kids no. he was supposed to say this, you need to say, i'm sorry, i'm not who you think i am and this, i'm on vacation and you need to leave me alone. imagine if you thought santa said that to you, listen, i'm on vacation, you need to leave me alone. >> that is the get real, he's not a disney character so it puts the park in a rough place. >> don't stop them from handing out scripts. >> if this was a hollywood star who was going to disney world would they actually tell them, don't take photos and dough autographs for fans. >> they need -- the kid goes to disney land and they see disney characteristics and santa claus. >> he says he's not in costume and anybody who spent more than ten seconds at disney understands it's all about costume and kind of controlling the message of how the park runs. walt disney was very specific about how he wanted those parks to run. they are really careful about that. >> someone is coming up to him, so be it, he's a customer. >> but it fits into the narrative too, it's summertime and off season for christmas, santa is on vacation, not in the north pole and building toys. >> my kids would die of joy if they happened to run into santa in jeans at disney, it would he be done and done as we say. >> you know what's going to be the story tomorrow? universal will say please come over here, we'll glad you come to our facilities. >> santa, we would love to have you. >> i love you're wearing pink, the color of the website of the 22-year-old running for congress. >> i'm supporting her candidacy. >> tomorrow you're going to dress like sata. >> pink and green today. >> oh, my goodness, still ahead this morning, banged heads at the white house over t.a.r.p. funds and how they are used. the special inspector general for t.a.r.p. says the white house is more interested in protecting wall street than americans on main street. a new book called "bailout" we'll talk about that straight ahead. syrian rebels gearing up for a fight in the biggest city. a former general will talk about what they are up against. if there was a pill to help protect your eye health as you age... would you take it? well, there is. 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