i've heard stranger ideas. >> don't be surprised if you see a new product in time for the election. the best part is the wine. i mean, they've got to be kosher, right? thanks for joining us. and on that note heroics prn"pi morgan tonight." tonight, battleground america. with just 13 days to go president obama and mitt romney mano a mano. the prize, the white house. >> the president doesn't understand what it takes to get this economy going. he doesn't have a job for americans. >> we cannot go back to the same policies that got us into this mess. >> it's all about the economy. massachusetts governor deval patrick argues with mitt romney while jack welch defends mitt romney's math. and the firestorm over the gop candidate who said this -- >> even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something that god intended to happen. >> mitt romney disagrees but says he still supports him. will this stall romney's surge?

plus, donald trulmp's october surprise fizzles a bit. i ask him some tough questions. what is the difference between mitt romney's refusal to release his tax returns and the president not being inclined to release his college records? >> this is "piers morgan tonight." good evening. our big story tonight. a shift in the electoral map. with just 13 days to go until the election day, cnn's moving north carolina from a tossup to a lean romney. that is of course, the state where president obama accepted his party's nomination just a few short weeks ago. indiana and missouri also shift from lean romney to safe romney. cnn now estimates that mitt romney's leading in states with a total of 206 electoral votes, the president's leading in states with 237. it takes of course 270 to win the white house. listen to mitt romney today talking in cedar rapids, iowa. >> our campaign is growing into

a movement across this country that says we're going to get america back, we're going to get america strong, we're going to provide for our families. >> jack welch is a big supporter of mitt romney and he'll be reacting to all this in a moment. but in the meanwhile, president obama is in the midst of a 48-hour nonstop campaign exhibition making time to sit down with brian williams at nbc's "rock center." >> people say what did i say i was going to do in 2008 and what have i delivered? and they can have some confidence that the things i say i mean. >> we begin tonight with governor deval patrick of massachusetts here to try the case for the president. governor, how are you? >> i'm great, piers, how are you? >> somebody tweeted me in the middle of last night's show, an interesting tweet. it said whether or not you were a supporter of president obama, what he doesn't hear of people saying president obama's done a brilliant job, that's why he should be re-elected. they say you know what? it could have been worse. he inherited a very bad

situation, he hasn't done a bad job. it's all fairly negative positive if you know what i mean. how do you react to that? >> well, it's funny. i think i told you the story once before about when the president came to visit massachusetts about a year before my own re-election campaign and he asked me how i was feeling about the coming campaign and i said i'm excited about it except for two things -- i hate to ask people for money and i hate the bragging. and he said, deval, get over it. and in many respects i want him to take some of that same advice in terms of the bragging. i mean, remember, this is the president who's added 5.5 million jobs in the last 30 months, more in that period than george bush added in eight years, who's extended health care to every single american after 90 years of trying, who's raised our stature abroad, who's ended the war in iraq, who's brought osama bin laden to justice, who's saved the american auto industry. i mean, the record is long, and it's extraordinary under any circumstances, but particularly when you consider that he's been up against such extraordinary

political and economic headwinds. >> i mean, newt gingrich said last night in contrast to this that there were five words that were going to break barack obama in the election -- unemployment, gasoline, benghazi, and big bird. >> well, leave it to newt gingrich to be so pithy. but also to be so wrong. this is a president who sees everybody, who sees both the folks who have emerged into success because the recession has touched them, but also those who are struggling and understands that we all of us have work to do to finish the job. and that's why i think this president deserves a second term. he actually cares about and sees everyone and has a strategy to reach them. and a very -- >> say, let's go through the list. let's remove big bird because it's a bit facetious. but 23 million americans unemployed. nearly 8%. gasoline prices have doubled in

obama's four-year term. and benghazi today we see that there are e-mails that have appeared which basically prove that the administration did know this was some kind of planned terrorist attack. and wasn't related to any protests over the video. none of this is very good for the president, is it? >> well, look, first of all, you cannot deny that there are still people out of work. you can accept and you have to that a strategy that is about investing in education, in innovation, and in infrastructure is a winning strategy for this country and is the reason why we're getting the job growths we are. imagine how much better it would be if the president got the tools from the congress that he's asked for while the congress has sat on its hands and rooted for failure. when you think about what's happening in libya, remember the fog of war. there was an intelligence report on the basis of which the u.n. ambassador made the comments she did in the sunday after -- on sunday talk shows. and more information has come out. but if you ever would think that

this president, given the seriousness with which he takes the role of commander in chief, would carelessly put americans in harm's way, you need to think again. you don't understand who this man is. >> let's turn to mitt romney. you obviously -- another governor of massachusetts. his old stomping ground. did you inherit his binder of women? >> well, let me tell you that we have had a lot more success in encouraging talent of all kinds and backgrounds into this administration than the record of governor romney. i will say i listened to governor romney sometimes talk about his experience governing here in massachusetts and how successful he says it was. remember that governor romney is trailing the president here in massachusetts by 20 or 30 points. we know him. we know what that record really is. we know what that performance really was. we know that we slipped from 35th in job creation to 47th while he was governor.

we know that the level of debt hit record highs and we know that he came in making promises to reform state government and delivered on none of that. he made one profoundly important contribution, and that was the health care reform, which is very successful here and very popular. and when i listen to him talk about obama care, it sounds like the only element of obama care he doesn't like is the obama part of it. and i think that tells us something about governor romney's character as well. >> governor, always a pleasure. nice to talk to you. >> good to be with you, piers. thank you. >> now, jack welch is team romney. he's here to talk about his man and about keeping america great. he's the former ceo of ge and founder of the jack welch management industry at stray university. welcome, jack. >> it is nice to be here. >> you fled the country to south america to get away from the furor that erupted over you questioning the jobs figures. have you recovered? >> very well, thank you. very well. i was glad to get my story out there, and i was glad that media

everywhere learned a little about just how those numbers are calculated and we don't have one number determining anything about this election. >> any regrets? >> none. >> were you surprised by the ferocity of the attacks -- >> particularly i was surprised when you think about the fact that they've called governor romney a felon. just about every name you can think of. when i -- look, what i did was i laid out just what that number meant and how it's derived. you know, when i went on some of these shows with people like you, i didn't go on with you, though, they were describing how these numbers are arrived at. you think it came out of fort knox with white gloves and the numbers calculated. and that i was accusing the president of coming down in his pajamas and changing the number the night before. piers, this is 2,000 people calling up people and saying are you working? >> here's the problem i see for you, jack, going forward.

if mitt romney becomes president, every single time the jobs figure has announced and it's gone down, in other words, it's good news for him, every democrat will jump up and say jack welch says this is complete rubbish. >> no, this is traditional -- austan goolsbee in 2003 accused president bush of cooking the books. so this has been going on for a long time, where people are challenging numbers that make no sense. in this case i'm in the business world. i'm seeing the layoffs. did you see the layoffs today? whether it was dow with 2,500, du pont with 1,500. 52% of the companies, piers. 52% in the third quarter missed their revenue forecasts. this economy is weak. >> having said that, new home sales jumped 5.7% in september. that's the highest rate in more than two years. that is a green chute for the housing industry, right? >> autos are strong. oil and gas are strong. and housing is starting to turn. housing starts are -- we're at

775,000. that's about half of what a good economy has. >> isn't the reality -- this is a clip from warren buffett i'm sure you know very well. let's see what he had to say about the economy. >> i do think that under either of the two candidates, either one that becomes president, american businesses are going to get a lot better over the next four years. if i were a woman concerned about reproductive rights i think there could be a very distinct difference. but in terms of the economy i think the economy will get better under either one of them. >> i mean, that's an interesting point i thought from warren buffett-s that regardless of who wins the economy is clearly beginning to show enough green chut shoots to recover. >> we've said that every time in the fourth quarter in the last two years. the economy has gotten better every year. 10 was better than 9. '11 was better than '10. warren was partially right. warren made the point that the economy will be better. a 1 1/2% gdp growth next year, same as we had this year, will be better. what you'll get with mitt romney is a chance at 3% to 4% and job

creation. not this stagnant -- >> you don't really know how he's going to do this. are you disappointed he hasn't revealed more details? >> he's revealed tons of details. he's going to have an energy policy. i mean, we have a chance in america to create the american century. we have 100 years of gas. we're finding liquid petroleum everywhere. we have a chance to be the low-cost producer of all chemicals for sure. we're going to create $100 billion worth of chemical plants over the next five years based on this. we've just become the saudi arabia now. so all this migration of plants to china and to saudi arabia in chemicals is now here. we'll have low-cost electricity. that'll make all of our products lower cost, piers. we have a chance -- mitt romney is going to -- and look what happens to this thing in new york state. in new york state you have governor cuomo. the marcellus shale is going like crazy in pennsylvania, in

west virginia. new york state has blocked it. the epa has stepped in. do you want to take a chance that the epa under barack obama and lisa jackson will just put a clamp on this thing? do you want to take a chance on this thing? >> it won't be down to me, fortunately, jack, because i'm british. but what i can say is wouldn't it be ironic? wouldn't it be a devastating irony for mitt romney if what costs him the election in the end, if what costs him the is the one op-ed piece he said about detroit saying -- >> adon't you dare say that. >> that was the headline. >> written by the nrkts. his mistake was putting a very thoughtful article into "the new york times" because they write the headline. what he talked about there which the president denied him the other night and said he didn't say that. he said let the company go through a chapter 11, the government would back up the dip financing. you wouldn't spend $50 billion

of taxpayer money. you'd get the same result, but you'd have a -- >> here's the thing, jack. you're a smart business guy. so you understand all the subtle nuances of chapter 11 and so on. the people in places like ohio, which could be the crucial -- >> a big deal. >> they hear let detroit go bankrupt and they think, hang on a second. then they see obama win with his bailout. they get their jobs back. unemployment in ohio is way lower than it is in the rest of the country. and they say yeah, i'm going to vote for this guy. if that's what gets obama home, wasn't that one op-ed piece a disaster? >> he put it in the wrong place, with the wrong headline. because it was very thoughtful. now, let me tell you a little bit more about that. in the delphi bankruptcy, which was part of the same thing, guess what the obama administration did. they gave the pension benefits to union employees and cut the throats of 20,000 non-union

retirees. so that's got to be told in ohio because there's a lot of non-union people who are smashed. >> is the problem, should he have had a question mark rather like your tweet about the jobs numbers? is it down to a question mark? >> hold it. you don't have a thing to do with the headlines in america. the headline goes in by the newspaper. and the "times" took a very thoughtful article of his, and they put across it "let detroit go bankrupt." piers, he got stung with that headline. and that was not the article. that was not the -- if you read that article. and president obama the other night was disingenuous when he said that's not true, that's not true. if you read the article, it's very clear that he did not say -- that he did not want to throw them under the bus. >> final question, jack. greg smith, former goldman sachs employee, coming on a little later on. what would you say to him if you have the chance? >> why didn't you vent through the system? why didn't you take your grievances through the system? and i'd ask goldman sachs, which

i don't know, do you have a safety valve in your place? do you have a mechanism where people can ring the bell, go to an anonymous person anonymously, and get the story out? because you want to have a safety vent in every one of your factories, every one of your offices. >> jack welch, good to see you. >> piers, good to be with you. >> you've lost none of your verve i'm pleased to say. the man who started an uproar over his october surprise. why donald trump says he's serious and why he says the president should take his $5 million deal. humans -- even when we cross our t's and dot our i's, we still run into problems. namely, other humans. which is why, at liberty mutual insurance, auto policies come with new car replacement

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donald trump promised an october surprise. a bombshell that he said could shake up the election. it turned out to be a pledge to give $5 million to charity if president obama releases his college transcripts and passport application. now, in a bit of full disclosure i've known donald trump since i won the first season of "celebrity apprentice." i continue to appear on that show sporadically. and donald trump joins me now. donald, how are you? >> hello, piers. >> have you been getting a bit of a kicking since your announcement? people racing to condemn it as a cheap publicity stunt. or the one thing it wouldn't be if president obama calls your bluff is cheap, of course. >> well, not condemn it. i've had tremendous praise for

the most part. i don't think condemn is the word. i think the opposite is the word. and frankly, i hope -- i'm looking at it in a very positive way for the president. i think it's a tremendous thing for the president. he gets to give $5 million to a charity of his choice. it can be inner city children in chicago, aids research, american cancer society. he gets to spend and give $5 million to a charity of his choice, and all he has to do is release papers that will sort of explain a little bit about the president, which is positive. which by the way other presidents have done, almost all presidents have done to my knowledge. >> we both know, everyone knows he's never going to do this. so what was the -- >> i don't know that at all. piers, i don't know that at all. i think he will do it. i hope he does it. there will be nobody happier than me if i can sign that check. $5 m$5 million to a charity. i would be very happy. i assume he's going to pick a good charity. but i would be very, very happy. if he doesn't do it, i would say why hasn't he done it?

you know, $5 million is a lot of money. >> frank rich from "new york" magazine sums up the criticism you've been getting on twitter. he says, "i'll see trul pmp's a i'll double it, a $10 million donation to mitt romney's favorite charity," brackets we know what it is, the mormon church obviously, "if he releases all his tax returns." >> well, you have to understand frank rich. he was a terrible theater critic. he got thrown out of that. he got thrown out of the "new york times" like a dog. and now he's writing for some other magazine, i guess. and he'll certainly attack it. but frank rich was a failed theater kritic and now he's critiquing politics, which is sort of an interesting combination. >> what is the difference between mitt romney's refusal to release his tax returns and the president not being inclined to release his college records? >> well, there's a massive difference. first of all, mitt romney has released his tax returns, and he just recently released more tax returns. and he's released as much as you can imagine and frankly more than many people have released.

and they're very complex. and frankly, they were very honorably done. and he has been releasing. but in the case of president obama, we're talking about other types of releases and i think it's something that he should do. it's something that other presidents and presidential candidates have done. john mccain did it. the clintons have done it. i mean, people have done it. it is not a big deal. it's releasing your college records applications, your passport records applications. and i can't imagine that for $5 million he wouldn't do it. and frankly, i personally hope he does it. and i would think he would do it because it's a lot of money that would go to a great charity. that he can choose. >> now, donald, i'm a big admirer of yours, and i consider myself to be a friend of yours. but when it gets to this birther issue, i'm resolutely on the side of i believe 100% barack obama was born in america, he's an american. >> well, that's okay. by the way, that's not the only issue, but i have to tell you,

that that would be solved in two seconds. piers, whether you agree or disagree, there's a tremendous percentage of this country that just doesn't know. >> getting back to the tax returns, barack obama released seven years. john kerry released 12 years. mitt romney's own father released a dozen years. what's to stop him in this new spirit of transparency that you want to see, what is to stop your friend mitt just saying you know what, i know there are doubts, people still don't see all the offshore records, here it is going back 12 years? >> well, i tell you. as far as i'm concerned, i think -- and i told this to mitt. if you -- if he released, i'd like to do a swap. college records, passport applications for every tax return he ever signed. his returns are absolutely beautiful and perfect. i looked at them. a lot of people looked at them. those returns are perfect. now, i would say if i were mitt, and i'm not, and i've never discussed this aspect of it. but if i were mitt, i'd say, hey, listen, i'll release all of the rest of them. he's already released a lot.

i'll release the rest of them if you release your college records and your college applications. >> see, i think that's a good deal now. i think we're in a good place. >> i think that would be a good deal for mitt. >> if we can broker this -- >> i'm doing this in a positive manner. this isn't a negative. this is a positive. this can clear up any doubt about the president. and that's a positive thing, not a negative thing. >> if he doesn't do it, and i would say there's a 99.999% certainty he won't -- >> why wouldn't he do it? >> well, the only reason he would do it -- >> piers, if there's nothing wrong with his applications, with everything's fine, why wouldn't he do it? to pick up $5 million for a charity. why wouldn't he? i think that would be a terrible thing of the president to not do it in order to pick up $5 million. i think that would be outrageous, personally. >> he would say that it's just a publicity stunt for you. >> it's not a publicity stunt. what difference -- i'm not looking to pay $5 million.

frankly, i have other things. i have my own charities i contribute to. i don't have to pay $5 million to a charity of his choice. it's not a publicity stunt. it's a serious, very serious offer essentially where a charity is the beneficiary. a great charity and a charity of his choice. now, if everything is fine with those applications, why wouldn't he do it? now, he'll pooh-pooh it. he'll say forget it, i don't want to do this, trump's a bad guy. all this nonsense. has nothing to do with me. here's $5 million. a tremendous amount of money going to a charity of his choice. all he has to do is show some papers. >> if he doesn't take up the offer, as i suspect he won't -- >> but why wouldn't he take it up? why wouldn't he take it up? >> i don't think he will is my point. >> the only reason he wouldn't take it up is if there's something wrong -- >> i don't think he -- >> if there's something wrong he won't take it up. >> i don't think he will. but the good news is if he doesn't you can see all mine. >> i'm sure i'd be very impressed. >> born in great britain. donald trump, always a pleasure

to talk to you. >> thank you very much, piers. coming up, the return of another legend. clint eastwood. an all-star panel. this is a good or bad thing for mitt romney's campaign? [ male announcer ] research suggests cell health plays a key role throughout our lives. one a day men's 50+ is a complete multi-vitamin designed for men's health concerns as we age. it has more of 7 antioxidants to support cell health. one a day men's 50+.

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america's been knocked down. 23 million people can't find full-time work. we borrow $4 billion every single day, much of it from china. when someone doesn't get the job done, you've got to hold them accountable. obama's second term would be a rerun of the first and our country just couldn't survive that. we need someone can turn it around fast, and that man is mitt romney. there's not much time left and the future of our country is at stake. >> he's back. the unmistakable voice of clint eastwood minus his empty chair, doing his best for mitt romney. does it help or hurt the zmnd join meg my political all-stars, "new york times" columnist charles, van jones, president and co-funder of rebuild the dream, and katy pavlich of townhall.com. welcome. >> good to be here. >> let me start with you, katie, i can't work out for the love of god whose side he's on because i

remember watching the super bowl and halfway through it out pops clint eastwood doing a chrysler ad in which he appeared to be endorsing barack obama's bailout of the auto industry. now he's popping up with empty chairs and new ads attacking obama. apparently supporting mitt romney. i am confused of new york. >> well, you shouldn't be confused considering he made his appearance at the rnc convention, gave a very memorable speech with his empty chair speech. the new yorker -- >> memorable is one word to calling. i thought it was completely barking. >> well, that's funny considering the "new yorker" ran their entire front-page image based on clint eastwood's empty chair speech right after the first debate. that's something that people remembered. >> i think they were joking, weren't they? >> well, the point is it was memorable, right? >> well, memorably awful. i love clint eastwood. so you're convinced he's a whole, fully fledged romney man, are you? despite his -- it seems to me

that -- >> i don't think -- >> it seems strange to me, i said to jack welch, it could be the great romney that mitt romney ends up losing places like ohio, which cost him the election, all because of one op-ed piece in the "new york times" saying detroit should go bankrupt. and there's clint eastwood in a commercial today and he was the guy in the super bowl halftime ad who said the bailout was a great idea. well done, barack. >> well, clint eastwood is making one point here. and he says that the middle class in america has not been successful in the past four years. you take joe biden's term of the middle class has been buried, i think clint eastwood agrees with the vice president on that. maybe does support the bailout. he hasn't openly expressed that. but he's supporting mitt romney and for good reason based on the economic -- >> i can see my other guests bristling here with fury. so let me start with you, charles. your reaction -- >> bristling with fury? >> you're always very calm about it. then you boil over. i like it. what do you think of clint eastwood and his apparent flip-flopping? >> i think it's probably a

rehabilitation of clint eastwood as much as it is an endorsement of mitt romney. he's actually pretty good when he has a script. it's just that that rnc thing flopped. >> i think he should keep out of this. he's one of the great movie stars of the world. self-imploding in all this political stuff, isn't he? >> i don't see -- you know more hollywood than i do. i don't see how it helps him in the long run as a hollywood actor. and i don't really even see how it helps mitt romney. maybe they're focus grouping and figuring out that there's some small group. they do microtargeting with a lot of advertising. and maybe some microtargeting focus group says this works. i don't know. but clint eastwood did mitt romney a lot of harm before this ad. >> van jones, clint eastwood, there he is, all over the tv again. and as i say, it's a rather confusing message to the electorate because it could be that the whole bailout of the auto industry becomes the key determining factor in the election. if obama scrapes home in ohio because people in ohio think you know what, our unemployment rate's a bit lower than it is

nationally because of the bailout and that all comes down to that split with romney over what he wrote in the "new york times," then clint eastwood's the guy who told everybody in the super bowl the bailout was a good idea. >> i just think this has got to be a terrible day for romney. i mean, look at today. today is the republican party just kind of going off the rails. you've got mr. empty chair making his big debut. you've got donald trump coming back out with the sort of birtherism 2.0 remix. sarah palin comes out and says the president is shucking and jiving, wink wink, (witness indicates by nodding head up and down.) and then you have mourdock come out and confirms there's a big strain inside the party who thinks the government should force women to bear the children of their rapists. so the republican party has a brand problem already. i'm sure mitt romney would like to keep pointing to his phony five-point plan, but at this point it's coming apart. and the true character of some

of the extreme elements in this party and just some of the wacky elements of this party are rushing to the fore. it is not good timing by mitt romney. >> let's play that sound bite, remind people of exactly what he said. >> i've struggled with it myself for a long time but i came to realize life is a gift from god and i think even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape that it is something that god intended to happen. >> katie pavlich, why oh why oh why do all these republican wannabe senators come out with this garbage causing such damage to mitt romney? why don't they just stay away from rape, not mention rape, just steer clear of it? >> he was asked about the question of rape. so he was answering the question, first of all. and second of all, it's a perfectly legitimate pro-life argument that he made. if you listen to that clip, he said, i've struggled with it in the past, it's my personal opinion. i've thought about it a lot. i know there's a lot of people who disagree with me. but i do believe that the broader thing that comes out of a horrific situation is the

blessing of a child. >> right. so you would like it for -- you'd like mitt romney to stand up tomorrow and say that god intends rapes to happen. >> that's not what he said. he said rape is horrific. but there are -- the blessing of a child, what god intended may come out of it. >> women get impregnated by rapeists, it's god's intention. >> the child's conception. >> aim wrong here? >> i don't think we should misquote him. i think his words actually stand up without any interpretation. and i think it's unfair to misquote him. in fact, to really look at what he's saying, this is not a theological argument that we're having here. we're having an argument about social policy and whether we want to live in a country where the government can force women to bear the children of their rapeists. now, you think that's an extreme position, but it's actually the position of paul ryan. you have paul ryan with the exact same position. this particular candidate, mr. mourdock, is the only person for

whom romney has cut an ad. $5,000 has been given by paul ryan personally to this man. this man represents a big strain in the party. my concern, if i'm a voter, if i'm a working mom someplace, if i'm a father like i am, if this is the kind of person that romney is associating himself with, he's cutting ads for, he's picked paul ryan, who has these extreme views, as his running mate, who will he pick to put on the supreme court? i do not want to live in a country as a man where a woman can be forced to have the child of her rapist and the government enforce that. but apparently, mitt romney has the opposite view. i think that's bad -- i think it's bad social policy. it's not a theological argument. it's social policy. >> let's talk a short break, come back charles with your reaction of this. because it's an emotive subject. i have a cold... i took dayquil,

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back now with my all-star panel, charles blow, van jones, and katie pavlich. we left it on richard mourdock, the indiana state senate candidate who said even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape that is something that god intended to happen. charles blow, am i

misrepresenting him when i say he's saying basically women who get raped and have baby it's all god's will. >> right. and i think there's a part -- this becomes very personal, but i think that the part of me says that's easy for you to say. he starts that off by saying i've struggled with this a lot. you think you've struggled with it a lot? think about the woman who has been raped and now has to make a real decision about whether or not they will carry the child that is without -- what will turn into a child to term and give birth to a child. i think that when men start talking about what rape means and what the consequences of rain mean and what god meant by what came from the rape, we are always on shaky ground. >> i wouldn't say shaky ground -- >> i think we need to -- >> men should keep their big noses out of it. a woman gets raped it's her sedation. katie pavlich? >> i just want to make -- >> why is it not a woman's decision in the most appalling circumstance of being raped,

that she decides without any fear of censure from anybody else in america, she decides what she does? >> i personally believe that there should be an exception in the case of rape. but i do want to make the point of it is unfair to classify republicans who do not believe abortion should be an exception in the case of rape to just call them pro rape. they're two completely separate topics. it's not fair to classify them as pro rape because they don't believe in abortion even in the case of rape. and i want to say that richard mourdock's democratic opponent helped co-sponsor legislation that defined forcible rape versus rape. so if we're going to talk about this, maybe we should be asking democrats too why they're defining the difference between rape and forcible rape. >> van, you're waving your hand furiously. steam in. >> i think that she makes a fair point. i really think that is more a question -- i don't think that it's fair to say that someone is pro rape if they're saying it's a horrible situation. so i don't think that's fair.

i think she's right on that. but this is a bigger issue because what it -- it goes to the judgment of romney. some senator saying something crazy, you can say who cares? well, another one did it, who cares? but what you're seeing now is a pattern inside the party. romney has not withdrawn his support for this person. they're running ads right now. the only person whom romney has cut an ad for is this man, and those ads are running today. it goes to romney's judgment. it goes to who will he be as president? what are his sensitivities? who is he going to care about? who is he going to put on the supreme court? who is going to put in positions of power? he's associating with people who think this way. he personally might be saying i don't think this way but he seems to be on the side -- >> and i should say it reminds people his own position on issues like abortion has changed more dramatically than anybody i can remember. you know, he flip-flops from being pro choice to being pro -- as he would put it, pro life, and then he's changed the criteria for the pro life and now he's supporting more

exceptions and so on. the pitch is very confused. that's why the democrats love it when these republican senate candidates do what they do and say what they do. >> nobody loves this. i'm sorry, nobody loves this. this is disgusting. nobody loves this. >> you may say that. but you can't deny that democrats -- we've seen the attack ads coming out already tonight. they do love it politically when a republican senator candidate makes a stupid fatuous comment about rape. >> i think it's terrifying to people in this country, democrat and republican, when people get this close to power and have these kinds of views. maybe somebody takes advantage of it politically but i think in our hearts people are very afraid of this kind of politics -- >> mitt romney had explicitly said that he is -- he thinks there should be an exception for rape. >> so why support people like paul ryan who think the other way? >> -- or that he has a vice presidential candidate who varies with him on that. doesn't mean that's his point of view. he has said on the campaign trail multiple times that he believes there should be an exception for rape. >> okay. katie, i gave you the last word because you were outnumbered

tonight. so i thought i'd give you the last word. >> thanks. i appreciate it. >> we'll speak to you all again very soon i hope. coming up next, the wall street vp who quit goldman sachs in a scathing "new york times" op-ed. he accuses the firm of deceiving clients. and he'll join me live. [ ross ] we are in the dades gorge,

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ask for transitions adaptive lenses. my next guest quit his wall street job in pretty spectacular fashion publishing an op-ed in the "new york times" blasting his employer goldman sachs. he called the firm's environment toxic. the managing directors refer to their clients as muppets. and greg smith is back with a new book that's generating a lot of buzz. "why i left goldman sachs." welcome. >> thanks, piers. good to be here. >> my initial inclination when i read the first piece you wrote was good, someone's come out and said what i've been trying to say about all these bankers for quite a while, they got too above themselves, too greedy, too detached from reality, from people and that's what got america into the unholy financial mess it was in. but when i read the book, here's where i come from. i want your honest reaction to this. you apparently gave your colleagues a 9, the highest score possible, for culture and values, in your last performance

review. they say you wanted your pay doubled to more than a million dollars and your promotion. you're left with the impression, given you'd been there 12 years, that really what this is all about is you just feeling a bit paef peeved. >> not at all, actually. the thing you cite about your reviews, you get to choose who reviews you. the people who gave 9s to wrt people who selected me to review them. but it's not an issue of how i felt. it's an issue of the fact i worked at the place for 12 years. i used to fly out to stanford twice a year and recruit kids to come there. and i saw the system veer so far from what it was when i started, a company that took microsoft public, took ford public, to a company today that has, you know, a $500 million settlement with the s.e.c. for fraud and has a board of director member convicted and goes to jail for two years. >> goldman sachs at its heart has always just been a banking firm that wants to make as much money as it can, hasn't it? i mean, you knew that when you

joined it. presumably it was that for the entire 12 years you were there. yes, they've had a couple wobbles. everyone knows about these. but essentially, you were buying into the culture from day one, weren't you? >> absolutely. and goldman sachs has a long history, except its mentality used to be a thing called long-term greedy, which sidney weinberg used to stand by. and it was the idea that you show your clients your fiduciary duty and you service them well and they keep coming back to you to do business. today's mentality, and what i talk about in the book, it's a profit at all costs, eat what you kill mentality, where you don't even care what happens to the client. and i talk about a story where ever the s.e.c. suit i fly to asia to comfort one of the biggest clients of the firm and the client will look you in the eye and say, we did not trust goldman sachs. i leave the meeting with a goldman sachs partner and he's celebrating the fact that the client's still going to do business with us because he has to. my position would be why not actually address the problem and try to repair this client issue?

>> lloyd blankfein, the ceo, he said this today. >> we went and we investigated and we turned over everything. and you know something, at the end of the day, with all the stress and i wouldn't want to go through that again, i'll tell you, we're probably going to be a better firm for it anyway because we really, really, really did look at everything again. but as far as the book itself, i think the consensus of those who reviewed the book was there really was nothing there. >> i mean, you know, in a funny way, you probably have done them a favor. because they clearly have slightly changed their ethos, according to their boss. are you proud of that? are there any things you regret about all of this? >> no, what i would say is this idea that goldman is relieved or found nothing in the book. i think there's part of this wall street mentality. i guarantee you if someone not on wall street reads the book and hears about teachers' pension funds being ripped off or the firm betting against clients or the firm using information to sell clients complex products, to the normal person this behavior is egregious. and the ironic thing is it's all

legal. and that's the reason no one's gone to jail for the financial crisis is because it's very unethical but by the letter of the law it's all legal. and my position is this needs to change. >> is it getting better? is it changing? do you see any xhaz since this has all blown up? >> the biggest misconception in terms of the financial crisis, dodd-frank was a bid that was passed almost two years ago. what i think people don't know is two years later less than 1/3 of it has been implemented. more than 75% of the deadlines have been missed. and wall street has spent $300 million lobbying against the most serious things that caused the crisis, which are derivatives and banks betting with their own money. so i would tell your viewers, they should be calling their politicians before this election and actually asking them why don't you have the political will to fix this. and to be frank, the answer is, as you probably know, most of their campaigns are funded by the big banks. and i think unfortunately this revolving door between washington and wall street affects their ability to make objective decisions.

>> my biggest issue was with the bonuses. they get bailed out. goldman sachs is probably going to go under, they get bailed out and the first thing they do once they get ak on their feet was hand themselves bonuses again. >> 2009 they gave themselves a billion six of bonuses. jpmorgan, they lost $6 billion in trades gone bad. they go in front of congress and say it was just a hedge. and the person who lost their money, the person who runs the group, leaves with a multimillion-dollar golden parachute. so what's the worst that happens to society if the loss is $100 billion? taxpayers have to bail the banks out. so there's this perverse incentive where bankers swing for the fences, things go wrong, they lose their job, and if things go well they make millions of dollars of bonuses. so in my mind -- and i'm not anti-wall street. i just think it needs to be more transparent. and i think you actually need to have smart regulations that make markets free because right now they're not free markets. they're unfair markets. in my opinion. >> okay, greg smith. it's called "why i left goldman sachs." it's an interesting read for

anyone interested in wall street and the banking world. appreciate you coming in. thank you. >> thank you, piers. coming up, a photo bomb for the ages. only in america. it's a very touching one, this. questions?

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the kid stays in the picture. the talking points. the prompter reads. the rallies. everything's planned and staged in this presidential race. but there's one thing obama and romney can't control. the wonderful,al always unpredictable photobombs. they strike without warning. here's the president and first qulad in the stands, completely blissfully unaware of the guy staring into the camera stealing the show. or how about this shot from the second presidential debate? josh romney giving obama a menacing death ray stare. honestly, there are millions to choose from. but tonight we may have a winner. hands down surely the best political photobomb was served up yesterday in delray beach, florida. the president sitting with children at zion junior academy. until you witness the back row. there we witness one of the great budding romances in history. a little boy seizing the moment to kiss his sweetheart. we're not sure if it's requited or not. he's certainly in full casanova mode. she doesn't seem, well, q