the world. i m wolf blitzer. you re in the situation room. in this special hour we will take a close look at the man mitt romney has skoed sked to join him on the presidential ticket, paul ryan. romney made the announcement from front of the battleship uss wisconsin. ryan made a name in washington by battling deficits and fighting for cuts in government spending. listen to how mitt romney broke the news. it s an honor to announce my running mate and the next vice president of the united states, paul ryan! his leadership his leadership begins with character and values. paul is a man of tremendous chacter shaped in large part by his early life. paul s father died when he was in high school and that forced him to grow up earlier than any young man should, but paul did with the help of his devoted mother, his brothers and sister, and a supportive community. as he did he internalized the virtues and hard working effort of the midwest. paul ryan works in washington but his
remembered for some of the most spectacular performances in history. michael phelps is a remarkable 22 medals in all, 18 were gold. we talked about the victories, mistakes both professional and personal. he speaks from the heart and holds back very little. michael, welcome. you said if you are ever tired, you get a bit grouchy and you can be very short. how are you feeling? i feel all right. grouchy and tired? not yet. maybe a couple of questions. you can answer the questions all day. then it will give me less time. i feel like a tape recorder though. london is my hometown. what is extraordinary is every american athlete i have interviewed, when i asked them about their role model, 90% said you. you are like a god-like figure. with that comes responsibility. are you aware of that? what do you feel about that responsibility? sometimes i feel it, but i like to think of myself as a normal person who just has a passion and a goal and a dream and goes out and does
role at the republican national convention? i m wolf blitzer. you re in the situation room. we begin with mitt romney s preparations for what may be the most crucial week of his presidential campaign. with several new polls out including our own showing him losing ground to president obama, romney begins a bus tour on saturday through four swing states he absolutely needs to win. but he s still traveling without a running mate. dana bash is here in the situation room taking a closer look. these are going to be huge days the next week. look, the day is young traveling without a running mate as we speak. you never know what s going to happen. regardless, mitt romney is going to have several vp-buzz generating news with him. but the campaign knows it first has to do some refining about the man on the top of the ticket, romney himself. oh beautiful, for spacious skies. reporter: if you turned on your television last month, there s a good chance you saw this brutal att
it is 5:00 a.m. here in the east. we begin this morning with breaking news. a deadly past 48 hours in afghanistan. new details of two attacks. an effort to derail the transition of power there. the taliban is claiming responsibility for an attack wednesday that left four americans dead, including senior members of an army brigade after an in-ssurgent detonated a suice vest. thomas kennedy and kevin griffin and walter gray were killed along with an american aid worker and afghan interpreter. and nato confirms that three u.s. service members were killed when a sgun man wearing an afghan forces uniform opened fire in the southern helmand province this morning. no claim of responsibility there yet. new details are expected and well be live at the pentagon at the bottom of the hour with more information for you. and now let s take you inside the wisconsin temple where six peoe were killed, three others wounded by a gunman on sunday. this video shot exclusively by cnn showing
from now on, we re going to look for a brighter fuehrer. we re going to look for a united community, a prosperous community, and the negativity over the last two years will go away in no time. in afghanistan today, three american service members were killed by a gunman wearing an afghan military uniform. it happened here in the unstable helmand province. we heard a few details and about a couple of attacks on coalition forces this week alone. chris lawrence is at the pentagon. chris, what happened today in the helmand province? we re told the soldier was part of a coalition force working on stability in the helmand province. they were going to meet some of their local afghan contacts when they were shot and killed. right now the isaf, the u.s. military is looking for the gunman, the man who shot and killed these troops. the taliban claims that the troops were lured in by an afghan police commander under the ruse of having dinner and being friendly when he turned on them