tments. and it was just as clear as day. >> cenk: climate change! "viewpoint" is next. [ ♪ theme music ♪ ] >> eliot: good evening i'm eliot spitzer "viewpoint." to win in politics it is crucial to have a clear message and the ability to get it across. something that the g.o.p. is clearly lacking in the wake of the supreme court ruling on the affordable care act or how republicans like to call t obama-care. the latest poll, 48% of registered voters say that they support the affordable care act. but republican leaders could not be more direct. >> this has possible rips out by its roots. >> this is the worst legislation passed in modern times.

>> eliot: senate minority leader mcconnell said there had was a massive deception when he described the healthcare act as individual mandate as a penalty. >> the president said it was not a tax. the supreme court said it is a tax. >> eliot: unfortunately for mcconnell's fellow republicans, their presidential standard-bearer is mudding their issue. mitt romney's massachusetts' healthcare plans will had an individual mandate. his spokesperson eric fehrnstrom insisted that he did not. >> the governor believes that what we put in place in massachusetts was a penalty and he disagrees with the court's ruling that it was a mandate as a tax. >> putting romney for the first time perhaps in this entire election cycle on the same side as house minority leader nancy pelosi. >> it could come under any other

place but it's under the tax code. >> eliot: democrats have more success running ads like this about the aftermath of a bain corporate takeover. >> we all lost our jobs. mitt romney made over $100 million by shutting down our plant and devastated our lives. >> eliot: and the ads seem to be resonating with the voters. 23% of the registered voters began with a positive view of romney's business record, but that number dropped to 18% with 33% having a negative view in 12 swing states where the bain attack ads were played. for more i'm joined by boris ebb stein republican strategist daily caller and former mccain

mccain-palin communication aide. we have mitt romney and the g.o.p. congressional leadership. isn't this a nightmare? they're fighting over tax versus penalty and its hurting their message. >> it's not a face-off. there is no fight that mcconnell was wrong. mcconnell did not say that romney was wrong and you have not had romney talking about the mandate of tax versus not tax. what this is going to matter is the economy. is it important? yes, for people like you and i yes. but for voters, it is not. >> eliot: let me concede one issue to you, the economy will be more significant. but at this moment there is a trajectory to messaging when the economy is what mitt romney should be talking about and what everybody is talking about is gee, is mitt romney a taxer? did he impose a tax and is he

and president obama the same on healthcare, something that he certainly doesn't want to acknowledge and mcconnell and boehner highlights that fact. i don't get why he has not been able to circumvent this and get on the same page. he's sinking into quick sand. >> there is a difference in having a law passed in massachusetts only for massachusetts and a law passed that applies to the whole federal institution. it never ruled on the massachusetts law. if there was any hint that that law was inconstitutional it would have been brought out. >> eliot: it's one thing to pass a law for a state and then another thing for congress to pass it. two different constitutional issues.

here's the issue. as a matter of policy mitt romney obviously pleased in the healthcare plan that he put in place in massachusetts. >> he worked hard for it. >> worked hard for it, lobbied and explain to me why if it was so good for massachusetts, it isn't good for the rest of the country? what logically at a policy level doesn't it make it good for new york or cal or texas. >> it may be good for those individual states. those states elect legislatures to support that and elect governors who support that, but it doesn't make it good for the federal government as a whole. if you look at the approval, it might have changed but it's still upside down. >> eliot: you're talking about a process distinction. yes, i agree with you. it was a state that passed it, massachusetts passed it, but it had an individual mandate penalty or tax call it whatever you want. it says if you don't pay into the system system you must contribute.

otherwise you're a free rider. the same comment that barack obama made for the whole nation. is there anything logically wrong with that argument let alone who passed it. >> the state of massachusetts was a small state. it had a balanced budgets and they were able to pay for that. we as a big country we don't have a balanced budget and we are are not able to pay for that. >> eliot: we will get closer to a balanced budget who people who are now free riders--this is mitt romney's logic--if you're a free rider and you pay in, we get close for a balanced budget. you know what, they persuaded good liberals like me and barack obama and hillary clinton that they were right. we accepted their argument. are you now saying that his argument was wrong? >> it was right for massachusetts. he started first of all with a balanced budget. he said this is good for the budget balance. federally are we able to pay for the obama-care? we are not.

>> eliot: come back to my point. if you're a free rider and contributing zero, don't you get close for balancing the budget than if you're no longer a free rider and contributing to the cost of your care. >> inner if you're contributing that that's one thing. but if the government is contributing to the majority of it. >> eliot: that's not what the analyzes showed. we've pretty much the same. i don't see the distinction as a matter of policy. >> i would say that new york--beyond having better baseball teams the demographics are different the background and the population is different-- >> eliot: none of that, this is the issue that mitt romney is going to have to confront in the debates when barack obama looks at him and said it was good when you passed it, your lodging is right, now you're running from it. i have a theory. mitt romney would have been done to embrace it saying it was our idea it was right i'm better

than you on the economy and embrace it. >> as a conservative, we have a federal system. and the federal system gives to the rights to the federal government. the rest belongs to the states. >> eliot: that issue has not been resolved with chief justice roberts who disagrees with you on that. >> it's a tax. let barack obama run it as a tax. >> eliot: but mitt romney had to embrace it as a tax because he did, too. boris epstein daily caller contributor and former mccain-palin aide, thank you for coming to the program. >> thanks for having me. >> eliot: repeal and replace the affordable healthcare act if romney wins in november. but mcconnell did not have an answer when asked if repeal and replace would include coverage for 50 million americans without

health insurance. >> that is not the issue. the issue is how can you go step by step to improve the american healthcare system. it is already the best healthcare system in the world. >> eliot: for more on that, let's go to thomas frank harper's and author of "pity the billionaire." something we do every day. did i hear right? mcconnell said that's not our problem. do me not care about the 50 million uninsured americans? >> they care about it in theory. this used to be their plan. this is the hers taj foundation's big idea. they scared very deeply back then. i'm sure that they care now, but what you don't understand, mr. spitzer, is we have to let the market take care of this because the market has a solution. >> eliot: and it's done so well on wall street.

>> absolutely. >> eliot: this is another tension that i have not been able to get my arms around. free riders are the bane of the republican party. they love to say look, 50% of the american company doesn't pay income tax. they're free riders. we got get them to pay in. pay up a little bit and they recoil. how do you square that inconsistency? >> well, not being a republican any more-- >> eliot: you're not. >> look, it's an election year. people say things that contradict each other wildly all the time. if we go down the list of conservative messages, look, you got a highly ironic republican presidential candidate this year. not only--look their number one issue is repealing obama-care and then as your presidential candidate of the party who wants to repeal obama-care the guy who basically designed it in massachusetts. big problem. number two you come here like three years after the biggest financial crisis we're ever

going to see in our life sometimes, a crisis engineered for us by wall street, and who do they nominate for their presidential campaign, a wall street guy. >> eliot: this troubles me, and it really does trouble me and your book outlines the failure to communicate messages properly. we're doing it again. on healthcare, markets regulating wall street, we have an argument that is absolutely bulletproof logically yet we're not persuading the public, why. >> i do my best, but look, the problem is you're--this is the biggest problem facing liberalism. you watched over the course of our life sometimes you watched this movement shrink basically almost die because you go to a place like wichita kansas, and the message is not there. people are looking for an angry voice that is critical of the wall street and the powers that, and you know what it is? it's rush limbaugh, glenn beck,

the tea party movement. >> eliot: we let the tea party steal our thunder. we let them grab the angry the venom. you know why? we were chicken lily livered we had no spine. >> that's what "pity the billionaire" is all about. these guys have crafted a movement that replicates the 19 30's. >> eliot: the title is ironic. >> don't pity, vote for the billionaire. he's not really a billionaire. half millionaire right. >> eliot: on a similar note it seems that the president and bain capital is having restriction. >> that's right. and it worked for ted kennedy when mitt romney challenged him for the senate seat. >> eliot: that was a very different place. >> what works there doesn't work any place else. >> this is clearly romney's achilles' heel.

you remember those ads that gingrich was running, they were extremely powerful. it looked like it was made by the afl/cio back in the 30s. they were devastating especially in the state of the economy and anybody could see this coming from a mile away. >> eliot: we're living in a couple of days where the focus has been healthcare and mitt romney is stuck with mcconnell and boehner on one side and barack obama and he said get me out of this miss. he's a smart guy. friday jobs come out. can president obama survive a sequence of months with sub 100,000 private sector jobs created. >> it looks bad and it will get worse. europe will drag the rest of us off that cliff if we're not careful, and maybe there's nothing we can do about it. it will get worse. the republicans have essentially nominateed a spectacularly weak candidate. the only argument he can give us is hey i come from the private sector and i managed these companies really well.

obama's argument is well managing a company like bain capital isn't anything like being president of the united states. whether obama can pull this off? it's anyone's guess. romney does very a very good shot at taking it if the economy gets worse. >> eliot: in the pit of my stomach i'm worried in a sequence of months we'll have 80,000 jobs and the unemployment creeps to 8.3 or 8.4. and then romney who has been as devoid of ideas as anyone i'm ever seen. >> he has great hair. >> eliot: it creates great jealousy, but he has not brought forward a single idea. >> i don't know what you're talking about. you know all you have to do to get this economy going again is cut the red tape and get government off the back of small business and stop restricting wall street. let it work its magic just like it did four years ago. >> eliot: yeah, you and i should

go back and reread the history. maybe mitt romney is a happier guy. >> that's where all the big ideas come from. >> eliot: i picked it up one time. it's too fat. >> the tiny pages. >> eliot: thomas frank, author of "pity the billionaire," ironic, don't forget. thank you for your time. >> sure thing. >> eliot: banks are getting sicker the scandal of barclays bank and the rigging of interest rates coming up. >>we talk a lot about the influence of money in politics. it is the defining issue of this era. the candidate with the most money, does win. this is a national crisis.

innovation matters now more than ever.

>> eliot: our number of the day is good news for students but another example of congress waiting almost too long to doing is crucial. it's 3.4%. that is and will continue to be the interest rate on subsidizeed stafford loans. it was scheduled to double on sunday if congress did not extend the rate for another year. congress did literally on the last possible today that they could. they approved it in a 596-page bill that several lawmakers apparently had not read, and they argued about the legislation that passed two years ago and argued about contempt charge against attorney general eric holder that won't stick. it seems like a part of recent trend with an immovable congress

that cannot pull itself together even on a red-flag issues such as raising the debt cerealing this year. about the only way to get a legislative body to act is to have a genuine crisis of deadline. debt default interest rate increase and without some imperative like that, let's face t congress just won't act. congress will have to extend the interest rate again next year right around the same time. if you missed joy behar one week only... >>hey, time flies when you're having fun. >>don't worry because she'll be back. >>where are the lefties besides on current tv? >>joy behar is getting her own show coming to current tv this fall. >> eliot: the fallout continues from the barclays interest rate fixing scandal. the after the bank was ordered to pay $453 million by u.s. and

british authorities last week today the chairman of the board marcus agius announced his resignation. in a statement he said, last week's events evidencing as they do unacceptable standards of behavior within the bank--have dealt devastating blow to barclays reputation. i must stand aside. however, according to many in britain the buck actually stops with barclays' ceo bob diamond who has remained defiant despite mounting pressure on him to step down well. joining us is matt o'brien. thanks for joining us. >> good to be here. >> eliot: whywhat is libor and what does it matter. >> it's the amount that banks borrow from each other at.

i say supposed to be. banks say what they think they can borrow from other banks at. they take a panel of say 16 banks and take the medium guesses and average them out. >> eliot: libor stands for london interbank borrowing rate. the debt around the world is pegged to what libor is. >> exactly. the interest rate you pay on your mortgage may fend on what libor. now it also matters because it's a sign of financial distress there is. you know, banks depend on confidence. if banks don't have the confidence to lend to each other the system will collapse. >> eliot: there is a thing called credit default swaps at the center of the aig scandal.

when libor goes up, that means that banks pay more and they have an interest in manipulating this thing. >> the problem is what they say they think i can borrow at. if you look back at the crisis you find out it wasn't what it should have been. if you look at things like credit default swaps the banks should have paid more at the height of the crisis. it came out in 2008 they were underestimating what libor should have been before that they were overestimating it to make more on their trades. >> eliot: it's not only a critical measure of the confidence but it also means that i'll pay more or less on my mortgage. now you move that 1%. we're not talking about a 1% move but $1.35 trillion, huge numbers of manipulations that scale and swamp everything else in the market. >> exactly. the problem is that it's been apparent for a long time. this is something that the

financial press did a very good job of reporting on realtime back in september of 2007. the financial times actually broke the story. she said libor was not what it should have been. may 2008 the wall street journey and came out looking at their own study and their own numbers, they concluded the same thing. this is something that we've known for a long time, and it's taken a long time for regulators to act on. >> eliot: once again what we're seeing then are two things that have become repetitious to the point of boredom. one, the banks scamming everyone manipulating and doing things they shouldn't be doing and regulators fast asleep snoozing away in the corner, missing everything. are these the two things that are once again unfortunately apparent from this scandal. >> it's worse than that, maybe. the regulators may have been aware. it's not that they were snoozing but they okayed it, at least in the later stages. in the beginning of the crisis, crisis, 2005 through 2007 the

banks were overestimating libor. they are jacking it up to help their traders. then they said it was much less than it was so the banks looked healthier. the regulators, at least in britain, seemed to be aware that they were doing this. that's what the banks are saying saying. >> eliot: british regulators, maybe the sec should get together and see who is the worst possible regulator when it comes to the financial market. we know that the royal bank of scotland, there has been a stand off between rbs and barclays, who will squeal first. any major u.s. institutions that might be implicated here? >> a couple. if you go back to the may 2008 journal report they mention jpmorgan and uvs. it takes a panel of banks to set this. the idea is that they're all colluding on this. it wouldn't be enough just for barclays. >> eliot: if we're smelling a rat, this rat is not just one bank doing "u" running around running

around and doing all this. >> exactly. >> eliot: the interesting thing here is the chairman of barclays has resigned. i don't think we've seen that happen yet with a major u.s. financial institution. is that going to bring pressure on the u.s. institution for someone in the senior ranks of management to stand up and say i'm sorry by the way i'm going to have to karen cash my $20 million. but i'm sorry and i'm resigning. do you think there will be the obligation to do something? >> i hope so. this would not at all be the last step, but we hope britain which has been just as bad on regulation, if not worse than us they're starting to wake up. maybe we'll start to get the same-- >> eliot: i don't want to make relations between us and our good allies across the ocean bad but the brits have something called principal based regulations where they say we don't need a lot of rules. they do things based on

principals. they do nothing. they sit and drink tea and crumpets. that's why the banks loved what the brits were doing for so many years. they failed once again. matt o'brien, associate editor of the atlantic. thank you for your time tonight. >> thanks for having me. >> eliot: sarah palin calling

>> eliot: coming up, how do lib liberals get things done? by working with corporations. but first, donald trump, sarah palin, chris christie, the all-star team of right wing nuts. when it doesn't fit anywhere else we put it in the view finder. >> the pundits will figure out the politics of this. when it comes to the supreme court ruling. >> by the way by the way yelling does not make your point

even more cogent. >> stop interrupting. >> you're grandstanding. that's a sign of weakness. >> the affordable care act. you said this is the biggest disaster ever. you don't really believe that, do you? >> no, i don't. it's not the end of the world as we know it. just not a good law. >> well, it's a disaster and would have been better if it was knocked out but justice roberts wanted to be loved by the washington establishment. he is loved. the way they talk about him it's unbelievable. >> rank and file people who are very displeased with him and he might come out publicly and said he was a traitor. >> whether it's true or not one reasonable interpretation consistent with my colleague's comments is that the chief justice crumbled like a dry cookie here. >> it's telling that a victory for the obama administration means a middle class tax increase. that's exactly what this is.

>> senator rubio has intelligence experience, and honesty issues or what pundits call the full palin. >> i believe it was a tweet yesterday it might have been on facebook but the president lies and freedom dies. >> freedom dies, yep i did that. >> now many republicans of course want beanbag chairs with chris christie second in command. >> did i say on topic. are you stupid? next question. >> nancy pelosi is a dingbat. >> thank you very much and i'm sorry for the idiot over there. >> eliot: i love bill maher and i have no idedededededededededededededededededededededededede >>we talk a lot about the influence of money in politics.

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>> eliot: corporations are not washington's enemy. at least according to bill scher, executive editor of liberal owe oasis.com who argues in an op-ed for "the new york times" that american liberals win policy battles by working with not against cooperations. citing business reports to help establish the sec and allowing johnson create the transportation department and as

scher explains, the realities of corporate power cannot be wished away by any president no matter how tough the talk because corporations can and will spend freely during the legislative process. when unified they have the resources to dominate the debate. joining me now is bill scher online campaign manager for america's future. thanks for your time tonight. >> thanks for having me. >> did i capture your argument properly? you're saying join 'em don't fight 'em. you go back and argue historically from fdr to johnson to obama. >> join something strong. these people are not your friends. they're not nice people but they have the degree of influence and power that has lasted the test of time going back to fdr. presidents have tried to say we'll crush them like clinton with healthcare and carter with

energy, but you not only lose your battle but you fail to achieve other progressive reforms and you scare politicians off for years and those problems festers. when fdr said i welcome their hatred. he said that after the bills got passed, the new deals were done. he dealt with wall street. he dealt with the bankers these are imperfect deals but we got the ball rolling. >> eliot: what you're making is a powerful argument but if i use the language properly you talk about borrowing versus vanquishing. that's a false choice. obviously you have to bargain but i would respond it's all a question of how you handle the negotiate. fdr when he negotiated with the banks he did it with a proverbial pitch fork in his fist using the full weight of

his populous anger and ven yum venom. president obama came not with a pitchfork but a piece of plastic and said i'm here to protect you not to point this at you. really it isn't really so much bargain versus vanquish than how much strength and tensile in your backbone. >> back in fdr's time people were angry with him. why are you not keeping the system as it is. you're not doing radical reform enough. we now look at fdr and lbg through a romantic lens and we look at obama through a cynical lens. i think it will look different ten years down the pike. >> eliot: you're right. there is a sausage making

process. it's inevitably ugly, and the it raises the ugliness of the deals cut and the possibility of greater success. we're hesitant to embrace anything fully. having said that i have a hard time in your article you use as one of your examples the fact that we have a consumeer protection bureau out of wall street reform as a sign of success. minute this is an issue where i'm cynical but this was a third-tier issue. i'm glad we got it but it has nothing to do with the structural issue of too big to fail the fed the board and shareholders are inadequately responding. if you read some of the recent books that came out, when it comes to wall street the president embraced them rather than negotiating aggressively. that's the contract between president obama and president roosevelt on that issue.

>> there are subjective views on how good each individual compromise is. i'm not always saying it's awesome. some are good. some are bad. you can make critiques of what you gained in column column-a compared to what you lost in column-b. in healthcare, you didn't get the single payer and that led to cynicism and that it's fundamentally broken and we shouldn't try any more until we rip apart citizens united. if we spend the next 50 years focusing on that and not dealing with issues of climate change immigration, jobs, places where there is potential for compromise and groundwork has been laid. if we don't invest in that and will be how to split the deal there, we'll be worse off. >> eliot: coming back to the funneledfundamental principles. i think you're right you will

probably fail and not come out with subjectives. nonetheless, we should remember a lot of energy for it came from nancy pelosi and the house the unsung hero. and likewise to the extend we got anything terribly use informal wall street reform that came out of the house and an much more aggressive negotiating posture from legislative branches where the white house was too willing to accommodate and the metaphor with the relationship with the republican party whether its tax cuts, budget issues or stimulus they were too quick to cave. that may an harsh word but not negotiating and using the full weight and potential of the bullhorn that they had as a few generations used earlier so i think your point is right. you got to deal with them, negotiate with them, work with

them but it's a question of what firepower you bring total table. that's why you're not fully persuading me. >> i think there is a good inside-outside strategy going on and organizing on the public option really critical. people should be proud that have organizing. it helps to get the final bill done. but people i fear say organizing public option, i didn't get it, all is lost. that's the wrong attitude to take. we got as good a bill as we did because there was good organizing on the ground coupled with a drug lobby and insurance lobby. i think both piecings are needed to get the best comprise is need good to quote frank, he said, he said every time you talk about legislation the question has to be compared to what? we can't live in a world of absolutes and a world where we're measuring against the perfect.

editor of oasis.com we appreciate your time tonight. >> thanks formation me. >> eliot: from whether or not liberals will compromise with business to ten

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septic subscriber program helps prevent backups by sending you monthly doses right to your door so you will never forget to maintain your system. sign up at rid-x.com. >> eliot: my trip to the galapagos islands helped me figure out something about politics. but first let's check in with jennifer granholm in "the war room." governor, what have you got for us. >> welcome back. and as you've been reporting lots has been going on. healthcare bus has left the station. the question is how quickly can republican governs throw their own constituents under it. we'll chase down the politics and the politicians with governor ted strickland and we'll have joe williams talk about his public departure in the wake of his comments about mitt romney. the role of the media. and we'll talk third party

politics with another former governor and another former colleague of ours. >> eliot: i want wait to watch it. i'll watch it every the real world and politics collide on "the gavin newsom show." this week the experts are wrong. failing is good and wall street is bad. but how does vinod khosla really feel?