Cain: "I was Falsely Accused"
BLITZER: Let's get back to our top story. Republican presidential Herman Cain forced to respond to a report he sexually harassed two women while he headed the National Restaurant Association back in the 1990s. Listen to this.</s>CAIN: Delighted to clear the air.</s>CAIN: Number one, in all of my over 40 years of business experience, running businesses and corporations, I have never sexually harassed anyone. Number two, while at the restaurant association, I was accused of sexual harassment -- falsely accused, I might add. I was falsely accused of sexual harassment. And when the charges were brought, as leader of the organization, I recused myself and allowed my general counsel and my human resource officer to deal with the situation. And it was concluded after a thorough investigation, that it had no basis. As for, as a settlement, I am unaware of any sort of settlement. I hope it wasn't for much, because I didn't do anything. But the fact of the matter is, I'm not aware of a settlement that came out of that accusation. Per the article, two anonymous sources claiming sexual harassment -- we're not going to chase anonymous sources when there's no basis for the accusation. I would draw your attention to the three people mentioned at the end of the article that were at the restaurant association as past chairman, chairman and incoming chairman of the board who would have known about this if it had turned out in fact to be a charge with some validity. But it was not. And so, as a result, I have never sexually harassed anyone and those accusations are totally false.</s>BLITZER: So, a statement from Herman Cain over at the National Press Club here in Washington in earlier in the day. Let's discuss what's going on in our strategy session. Joining us, our CNN political contributor, the Democratic strategist Donna Brazile. Along with CNN contributor David Frum of the FrumForum.com. For 10 days his campaign has been alerted that this was on the way. They didn't respond, really. They could have gotten ahead of this story instead of trying to catch up. What's going on here?</s>DAVID FRUM, FRUMFORUM.COM: The amateurishness of the Cain organization should not lead us to a conclusion that Cain did something very bad. He may just be a victim of the fact that he is not running a normal presidential campaign. He is not ready for primetime. That doesn't make him guilty of anything serious. It's important to understand that companies settle claims all the time for reasons other than thinking they did something wrong, especially with the amounts of money here that is said to be in the five figures. So I did a little research today. And in the world of sexual harassment litigation, those are not big figures.</s>BLITZER: As Ken Vogel from "Politico" said anywhere from $10,000 $90,000. And sometimes companies just do it to get this thing out of the way and move on, as you well know.</s>DONNA BRAZILE, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: First of all, anyone who is accused of sexual harassment, that's a very serious charge, it is a very serious incident, because it's a serious incident. It is discrimination in the workplace. It makes people very uncomfortable. It is a form of bullying, and we should take the charges of allegations seriously. That's why I think the Cain campaign should have been prepared for it. They should have understood the seriousness of the allegations. It is not just one woman, it is two women. It is now a drip, drip, drip. I don't think it's going to go away because I don't think Mr. Cain officially answered the question. He is trying to put it behind him after with answering questions.</s>BLITZER: The National Restaurant Association says as a matter of policy, they don't talk about personnel issues in the past or current personnel issues, which is standard boilerplate comments from most associations.</s>GRUM: So he will have to give a fuller answer than he has given. And we probably will end up knowing what that answer is. Sexually harassment covers a wide range of different behaviors. As we remember from the Thomas case, that's what put --</s>BLITZER: Clarence Thomas.</s>BRAZILE: The Clarence Thomas case -- before the Thomas case there were 7,000 or 8,000 sexual harassment case easier according to the EOC. Afterwards it jumped to over 15,000. So there a big change in consciousness. It covers a lot of territory, everything from an untoward remark if a physical attack. And, again, people will feel differently about this depending on the details --</s>BLITZER: The difference is Anita Hill went public with accusations against Justice Thomas, whereas these two women are staying silent, honoring their confidentiality agreements they made with the organization.</s>BRAZILE: That's true. As you recall, the Senate first ignored Anita Hill, and that led to many women on Capitol Hill watching, members of congress, marching across the tarmac. And of course we all know what happened when Anita Hill was finally able to testify. I still believe he hasn't fully answered the questions. I think he has to do a better job by answering these allegations, otherwise it will distract from his campaign. He is running, not because of his experience in government, but in large part because of his character. He is a businessman. He's an unconventional candidate. This is a problem he needs to talk about.</s>BLITZER: He is doing amazingly well for someone with no real strong political experience. Look at "Des Moines Register" poll that came out over the weekend in Iowa. Cain is at 23 percent among likely Republicans caucus-goers. Romney statistically tied, 22 percent, Ron Paul 12. Perry seven, Gingrich seven, Santorum five. You see, and in the national polls among Republicans, he is doing very well indeed. Here is the question to you. How much, this early stage in this, do you think this could hurt him?</s>FRUM: If it turns out to be an allegation with substantial bite, of course it could hurt, especially because he is running as a candidate of faith and family. If it turns out that what happened here was he made a rude joke or said something stupid, people took offence and in order to make it go away his organization wrote a relatively small check, then it won't mean anything at all.</s>BRAZILE: This is why women get so upset, when men just try to dismiss it. It was just a rude joke. It was just routine. No, these are serious allegations whenever they are brought up, and it should have been investigated. It may not have been properly investigated. We should know more and he should be more forthcoming. He cannot clearly just blame the media and try not to answer these allegations. FRUM I'm not a Herman Cain fan, but let's roll back. We don't want to use the word "allegation" because we don't know what allegations are. There is fact of a settlement. Companies settle all the time, including when nothing happened, because the case is cheaper to settle than it is to defend. We and if we find out what's in it, we will learn what the allegations were. As yet, there are no allegations. There's only the fact of settlement.</s>BRAZILE: Well, first they denied it, then then acknowledge that there was allegations. So drip, drip, drip.</s>FRUM: If there was a slip and fall at the company, that would be a serious thing if the company were to blame.</s>BLITZER: Let's be precise, because we're going to move on in a second, don't go away. In his remarks at the National Press Club, he did confirm there was an allegation of sexual harassment that was leveled against him. He says there was a thorough investigation that cleared him. "Politico" is saying maybe not such a thorough investigation, although there was a settlement. He said he wasn't aware of the settlement, so there's a lot more that we're going to be learning about. So guys, stand by, we have a lot more discuss, including Rick Perry, was poked some fun at president Obama for using a teleprompter. But he uses one as well. He also tried to do without one, and he doesn't do all that well with these remarks. We will play it for you and discuss more in our strategy session when we come back.