Catherine Herridge, FOX
You're logged in as  On Air Now ›On Air Personalities › Previous Slide Next Slide By Catherine HerridgePublished October 31, 2012FoxNews.comThe U.S. Mission in Benghazi convened an "emergency meeting" less than a month before the assault that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans, because Al Qaeda had training camps in Benghazi and the consulate could not defend against a "coordinated attack," according to a classified cable reviewed by Fox News.Summarizing an Aug. 15 emergency meeting...

The Truth-o-Meter says: Pants on Fire! | Adam Putnam: Obama campaign gives free cell phones to supporters

An A-team of Florida Republicans packed a Tampa stage Wednesday to welcome Mitt Romney and rally supporters in the final days of the presidential campaign. Former Gov. Jeb Bush and U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio were in the lineup, as well as Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam, who warmed up the crowd and encouraged voters to head to the polls early. "Early vote now so that you can wave signs on election day next Tuesday," Putnam said. This is a team sport. This is a team sport. It's fully interactive. We can't just show up ...

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The Truth-o-Meter says: Mostly True | Barack Obama says Mitt Romney would roll back banking regulations

In the final days before the election, the Obama campaign has put up an ad that is a sort of Cliff Notes for voters before they walk into the voting booth. It lists many of the points Obama has used against Mitt Romney throughout this contest. It warns about the future of Medicare, support for education, tax breaks for the wealthiest, and banking regulation. On that last point, it says, "Mitt Romney’s plan rolls back regulations on the banks that crashed our economy." This fact-check examines that claim and tries to ...

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David Ignatius, Washington Post
WASHINGTON -- The attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi has become a political football in the presidential campaign, with all the grandstanding and misinformation that entails. But Fox News has raised some questions about the attack that deserve a clearer answer from the Obama administration.Fox's Jennifer Griffin reported Friday that CIA officers in Benghazi had been told to "stand down" when they wanted to deploy from their base at the annex to repel the attack on the consulate, about a mile away. Fox also reported that the CIA officers requested military support when the...

Two former members of the Bush administration may have inadvertently acted as a buffer for the president, driving a wedge between the attacks from Republicans and the administration's efforts in Benghazi.

With the elections less than nine days away, the Republicans, conservative blogs and television shows have hammered the president over the events that took place in Benghazi, which led to four dead Americans including Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens, hoping to damage the president's reputation.

Despite campaigning for former Gov. Mitt Romney, Condoleezza Rice has made the decision to not join the Republicans in their fervent criticism of the Obama administration's handling of the attacks in Benghazi, which has brought a storm of criticism the president's way.

In an interview with Fox's Greta Van Susteran, Rice said, "We don't have all the pieces and I think it's easy to try and jump to conclusions about what might have happened here. It's probably better to let the relevant bodies do their work."

General Colin Powell, a retired four-star general, chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff under former President George H.W. Bush and national security advisor under President Ronald Reagan, said Romney's foreign policy views are inconsistent. He told CBS that Romney's foreign policy is like a "moving target."

The endorsements from Powell and Rice may be enough to help legitimize Obama and his handling of foreign affairs because of their strong track record among Republicans and the military.

Since the Obama administration has been met with such fierce opposition in relation to this event, a flood of information has come forth, but none of which makes the situation more clear.

Recently, a story from Fox News said CIA operatives were denied additional help during the Benghazi attack.

An unnamed source close to Fox News said the CIA was told multiple times to "stand down," but CIA spokeswoman Jennifer Youngblood denied the assertion that the CIA's requests for support were not met.

According to Egyptian security officials, a man who is a suspect in the Libyan attacks was killed in Cairo. The Egyptian official spoke under anonymity and said the details of the suspect's involvement in the Benghazi attacks are under investigation.

The Truth-o-Meter says: Half-True | Barack Obama, critics clash on whether Planned Parenthood provides mammograms

In recent weeks, President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney have sparred over Romney’s promise to eliminate federal funding for Planned Parenthood. Romney has made his pledge several times, most recently in speaking to reporters in Ohio in mid-October, when he said, "I think I’ve said time and again that I’m a pro-life candidate and I’ll be a pro-life president. The actions I’ll take immediately is to remove funding for Planned Parenthood. It will not be part of my budget." On several occasions, Obama has countered that doing so would hamper women’s health ...

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The Truth-o-Meter says: Half-True | Obama ad says Romney will make ‘catastrophic cuts to education’

With Election Day approaching, a new ad from Barack Obama implores voters to remember, in the solitude of the voting booth, what Mitt Romney plans for the country. "In here, it’s just you," a narrators says against an image of a man voting. "No ads, no debates, just you. "So think about this: Mitt Romney’s plan rolls back regulations on the banks that crashed our economy. Medicare: voucherized. Catastrophic cuts to education. Millionaires will get one of the largest tax cuts ever, while middle class families pay more. "That’s ...

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The Truth-o-Meter says: Half-True | Clint Eastwood says in ad that U.S. borrows $4B day, much 'from China’

In an ad from American Crossroads, Clint Eastwood tells the country it "just couldn’t survive" another four years of President Barack Obama: "We borrow $4 billion every single day, much of it from China," he says. The message, part of a $12.6 million ad barrage, is running in seven states, including Florida, New Hampshire, Ohio and Virginia. Images of unemployed workers and foreign-marked shipping containers accompany Eastwood’s gravelly narration: In the last few years, America's been knocked down. Twenty-three million people can't find full-time work, and we borrow $4 billion every single day, ...

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The Truth-o-Meter says: Pants on Fire! | Mitt Romney says Obama's Chrysler deal undermined U.S. workers

With Ohio’s 18 electoral votes very much in play, the Mitt Romney campaign aims to blunt one of Barack Obama’s key advantages in that state -- his rescue of the auto industry. The carmakers account for about one out of eight jobs there, and many Ohio assembly line workers are backing Obama for a second term. The Romney campaign has produced a controversial ad that argues Romney would be better for the auto industry than Obama. In the ad, an announcer says, "Obama took GM and Chrysler into bankruptcy and sold Chrysler to Italians ...

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James Barron, NY Times
Hurricane Sandy battered the mid-Atlantic region on Monday, its powerful gusts and storm surges causing once-in-a-generation flooding in coastal communities, knocking down trees and power lines, leaving about two million people "” including a large swath of Manhattan "” in the rain-soaked dark. At least seven deaths in the New York region were tied to the storm. Follow @NYTNational for breaking news and headlines. Twitter List: Reporters and EditorsThe crane hovered Monday from One57, a tower under construction on West 57th Street. ...

Walter Russell Mead, American Interest
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Chris Cillizza, Washington Post
President Obama has a problem with independents. And it’s not a small problem. In the last three releases of the tracking poll conducted by The Washington Post and ABC News, Obama has trailed former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney among independent voters by between 16 and 20 percentage points. That’s a striking reversal from 2008, when Obama won independent voters, who made up 29 percent of the electorate, by eight points over Sen. John McCain of Arizona.

The Truth-o-Meter says: Half-True | Mitt Romney says women White House employees earn less than men under Barack Obama

As part of his campaign to court women voters, President Barack Obama has repeatedly noted that one of his first acts in office was his signing of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which makes it easier for workers who claim pay discrimination to sue for relief. But Mitt Romney’s campaign is using a clever counter-attack -- charging that Obama’s own White House pays female employees less than male employees. "Under President Barack Obama, women are lagging behind," says a mailer distributed to homes in northern Virginia, a key battleground in a ...

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Ezra Klein, Washington Post
According to the latest Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll, 55 percent of registered voters say the outcome of this election will make “a great deal of difference” in their lives. That’s a 10 percent increase over the 2004 election, and more than double the percentage of voters who felt that way about the elections of 1996 or 1992. The stakes this year are higher — and most voters know it.

The Truth-o-Meter says: Pants on Fire! | Romney says Obama plans $4,000 tax hike on middle class

With jobs and other pocketbook issues the top concerns for most voters, the Mitt Romney campaign has been running ads that warn about rising taxes for the middle class if Barack Obama is re-elected. In a television ad called "Putting jobs first", a video clip shows Mitt Romney speaking during the Denver debate. Romney says "I’m not going to raise taxes on anyone." As he says that, these words appear on the screen: "Under President Obama: $4,000 tax hike on middle class families." The ad doesn’t say when this tax hike will ...

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The Truth-o-Meter says: False | Ad claims GM used bailout money to boost China operations

If there is one economic success that President Barack Obama likes to tout, it is the recovery of the American auto industry. An ad now circulating on the Web aims to strip Obama of that accomplishment. It is called Chinese Motors and accuses General Motors, and by extension, Obama, of parlaying American taxpayer dollars to create jobs in China. The ad comes from Let Freedom Ring USA, a group that fuses religious and fiscal conservatives. The group’s president Colin Hanna said he has spent $7 million dollars to have the ad show up 300 ...

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Erick Erickson, Red State
Barack Obama has lost North Carolina and Florida.His ground game is at near parity in early voting with the GOP, the GOP is more energized, and he is going to lose both.But he will not stop spending money in those two states and redirect the resources to Ohio, which is now a must win state for him. He will not do it because he does not want news stories to come out in the last two weeks of the campaign that he's closing up show in two battleground states. 

The Truth-o-Meter says: Mostly False | Barack Obama says Congress owns sequestration cuts

In their final debate before the election, President Barack Obama and challenger Mitt Romney each said they would be the staunchest supporter of the military. Said Romney: "I will not cut our military budget by a trillion dollars, which is a combination of the budget cuts the president has, as well as the sequestration cuts. That, in my view, is making ... our future less certain and less secure." Obama responded by saying Romney was assigning blame in the wrong place. "First of all, the sequester is not something that ...

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The Truth-o-Meter says: True | Obama says Romney would spend $2 trillion that the military hasn't asked for

Republican nominee Mitt Romney has said he plans to increase defense spending by about $2 trillion over the next 10 years if he’s elected president. In the final debate of the campaign, moderator Bob Scheiffer asked Romney, "Where are you going to get the money?" Romney said he would take it from other parts of the budget -- by abolishing Obamacare and by changing Medicaid to a block grant and turning it over to the states. President Barack Obama said Romney’s plan for more defense spending is a bad idea, because it isn’t ...

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The editor-in-chief of the Des Moines Register published a pointed criticism of President Barack Obama Tuesday night for his campaign's refusal to go on the record when the president lobbied for the newspaper's presidential endorsement.

Obama spoke with members of the Register's editorial board by phone Tuesday morning, a conversation that editor Rick Green described in a blog post as "an insightful glimpse into the president’s vision for a second term." However, Green writes, "what we discussed was off the record. It was a condition, we were told, set by the White House."

Green describes the Register's negotiations with the Obama campaign as such:

[The conversation would be] a "personal call" to the Register’s publisher and editor, we were told. The specifics of the conversation could not be shared because it was off the record.

Of course, we immediately lobbied his campaign staff in Des Moines for a formal, on-the-record call. We were told it was not their decision; it came from the White House. We requested that the White House be asked to reverse course so whatever the president shared with us could be reviewed by voters and our readers.

No reason was given for the unusual condition of keeping it private.

Politico's Dylan Byers notes that "[w]hether the 'off-the-record' agreement extended to reporting on the call itself, which the editorial board has now done, was not clear.

Republican nominee Mitt Romney, Green writes, did agree to go on the record with the Register -- and even met with the editorial board in person during an Iowa campaign stop, which Obama declined to do. "Despite at least 28 campaign stops and 11 days in our state, we never could convince his team to carve out a few moments for our editorial board."

An audio recording of Romney's conversation with the editorial board was posted online on Oct. 9.

Green included on his blog post a portion of a letter he sent to the Obama campaign's Iowa branch, which reads:

Thanks for making today’s call happen. It was very beneficial, informative and wide-ranging. I appreciate the hurdles that needed to be cleared. ...

One note of feedback for you and the Obama Team: It should have been on the record. You would have wanted this 30-minute conversation to be shared with the rest of Iowa. I understand all the worries, the fears and potential implications. … I know how one slip-up could lead to a (news) cycle-changing ‘gotcha.’ But you and I both know Iowa is coming down to the wire and the polls are incredibly close.

What the President shared with us this morning -- and the manner, depth and quality of his presentation -– would have been well-received by not only his base, but also undecideds. From a voter standpoint, keeping it off the record was a disservice.

Green did emphasize that the slight would play no role in the editorial board's ultimate endorsement decision. "That would be petty and ridiculous," he wrote. "We take far too seriously what’s at stake this election and what our endorsement should say."

This isn't the first time the Obama campaign has run afoul of the press this election cycle. In August, the president took heat when members of the White House press corps -- including ABC News' Jake Tapper and NBC News' Andrea Mitchell -- complained that the he had avoided formal answers to reporters' questions for more than two months.

The Register, which endorsed Obama in 2008, plans to unveil its 2012 endorsement on its website Saturday evening.

The Truth-o-Meter says: Half-True | Obama claims Romney said "we should ask Pakistan for permission" to take out Osama bin Laden

In an attempt to portray Mitt Romney as "all over the map" on foreign policy, President Barack Obama said the candidate once argued that the United States "should ask Pakistan for permission" to strike Osama bin Laden. "When it comes to going after Osama bin Laden, you said, well, any president would make that call," Obama said at the debate in Boca Raton, Fla. "But when you were a candidate in 2008, as I was, and I said if I got bin Laden in our sights I would take that shot, you said we shouldn't move ...

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The Truth-o-Meter says: Mostly False | Mitt Romney says Barack Obama was silent about the protests after the 2009 Iran election

While much of the foreign policy debate was about what President Barack Obama has said and done, Mitt Romney leveled a charge about an area where he said Obama had been silent. "And then, of course, with regards to standing for our principles, when the students took to the streets in Tehran and the people there protested, the Green Revolution occurred, for the president to be silent I thought was an enormous mistake," Romney said during the Oct. 22 foreign policy debate at Lynn University in Boca Raton, Fla. Later in the ...

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The Truth-o-Meter says: Mostly True | Mitt Romney says Pakistan is on a path to overtake the U.K. in nuclear weapons

Pakistan emerged as a source of concern during the third presidential debate in Boca Raton, Fla., which focused on foreign policy. At one point, Mitt Romney said, "Pakistan is important to the region, to the world and to us, because Pakistan has 100 nuclear warheads and they’re rushing to build a lot more. They’ll have more than Great Britain sometime in the relatively near future." We wondered whether Pakistan, a relative newcomer to the nuclear club, was really poised to leapfrog longtime nuclear power Great Britain. First, let’s look at ...

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The Truth-o-Meter says: Mostly True | Barack Obama: Mitt Romney said troops should still be in Iraq

President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney sparred during the third presidential debate over how Obama ended the Iraq war, a decision he announced about a year ahead of their final matchup. The candidates at one point saw eye-to-eye on an exit strategy, Romney said, though they now disagree over Obama’s call to withdraw all troops by the end of 2011. "With regards to Iraq, you and I agreed, I believe, that there should be a status of forces agreement," Romney said during the Lynn University debate in Boca Raton, Fla.
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