n't mean that. yeah sure, i guess maybe save someone's life, as long as you're in our area, that's area, that's unacceptable. all right. "viewpoint" with eliot spitzer is next. >> eliot: good evening. i'm eliot spitzer. this is "viewpoint." it is almost been fun watching mitt romney's gymnastic twists and turns as he tries to find a label to slap on the obama healthcare plans' individual mandate. the supreme court ruled it was a tax. but romney insisted on calling it a penalty. anything but admit he might have raised taxes when he helped pass a nearly identical health plan as governor of massachusetts. but that set off screaming from g.o.p. leadership, desperate to push its anti-tax message so romney did what he does best. he etch-a-sketched his way into a flip-flop and suddenly, it was

a tax. >> well, the supreme court has a final word and their final word is that obama care is a tax. so it's a tax. >> eliot: romney seems to have flipped on chief justice roberts. as president, mitt will nominate judges in the mold of chief justice roberts and justices scalia thomas and alito. seems roberts cast the deciding vote on the president's health plan and offered the opinion upholding it as a tax romney went back to his gymnastic performance. >> i certainly wouldn't nominate someone who i knew was going to come out with a decision i vehemently disagreed with. >> eliot: going one step further, i accused roberts of being political not legal in his decision. >> it gives the impression the decision was made not based upon constitutional foundation but instead, political consideration about the relationship between the branches of government. >> eliot: accusations from the white house and democrats not

withstanding romney might have more to fear from the conservative media. the "wall street journal" editorial page was less than impressed with romney's attempt to clarify his position on the individual mandate. according to the journal and i quote "he offered no elaboration and so the campaign looks confused in addition to being politically dumb." romney also took heat from weekly standard editor bill kristol accused romney of running his race on auto pilot and insisted "his campaign's monomaniacal belief that it's about the economy and only the economy has gone from being an annoying tick to a dangerous self-delusion." apparently romney doesn't agree. >> romney: as long as i continue to speak about the economy i'm going to win. >> eliot: romney's hidden financial assets from "the associated press" riding the undisclosed holdings meaning the public doesn't know what he's got, what it's worth and what it

is being taxed. >> president obama is betting on america and american workers and mitt romney is betting his resources in the cayman islands in bermuda in switzerland and god only knows where else he's putting his resources. >> eliot: to discuss the multifront assault on romney from left, right and sister and ben white. and sam seder host of ring of fire and majority report. guys, thanks for joining me. mitt romney is under assault and it seems to me when you watch what he's done, post-supreme court decision on healthcare, it is becoming a character issue. he's appearing to be an invertebrate who believes in absolutely nothing. ben, can he win when that's what the public is seeing about him? >> he can't win if this is the discussion we're having is what

does mitt romney believe on healthcare, is it a tax is it not a tax is it okay in massachusetts? he needs to get the discussion back to the economy. but we're not clear on what his plans are for the economy. he said it would be different. are your specific plans on economic growth and how do you get jobs growing faster? if the discussion is about his cayman accounts, where he is on healthcare, he doesn't win. >> eliot: sam, you're jumping to get in here. i understand that. ben, what you said is exactly what the "wall street journal" editorial page said about his plans for the economy today. it says that means offering a larger economic narrative envision that mr. romney has so far provided, means pointing out the differences with specificity, even the ed etorial page is saying he doesn't give us anything. flip-flopping and vacuous devoid of ideas. am i being hard on him sam? >> no. >> eliot: great answer. >> this is the first time in my life i've ever agreed with bill kristol about anything.

the problem is that romney doesn't -- he doesn't want to talk about the economy. he wants to talk about nothing. he wants this narrative to take place, this discussion take place without him so that at the end of the day he's a guy standing there after everyone has decided they don't want obama. it is not happening. they're sticking to their guns in this monomaniacal fashion. they're being disciplined in sticking to a plan they had with the hopes a year and a half ago the economy would be in such tatters he would be the guy who's not romney and it is not happening. >> eliot: they're playing a defensive game that is disciplined which is often a good thing. devoid of risk which is sometimes a good thing. but as a consequence as you point out stands for nothing. he wants to stay up at like win ski and say i'm not the -- >> they just haven't figured out, they have to come up with a new plan. >> eliot: before we get to the economic plans and job numbers i want to come back to the supreme court. i think seeing the flip-flops

and the gymnastic games where penalty tax a distinction that i don't think matters to more than two people in the world but the way he's handled this, attacking roberts saying roberts is the political one when it is mitt romney who's taken 18 different positions will that fly? >> he made it clear in the debate john roberts is ideal for a supreme court nominee and then john roberts comes out a decision he doesn't agree with and all of a sudden, this is a guy i don't want on the supreme court when the american people could come to the conclusion john roberts decided on this issue on the question of congress's ability to tax something, a behavior they don't like that they have the right to do that. doesn't mean's guys but -- agrees but it isn't the wrong thing to do. where does mitt romney come down on doing things on principle? it could be purely political. >> eliot: mitt romney is beginning to look unprincipled and devoid of the leadership qualities that we want in a

president. george w. bush whom we rarely invoke for anything positive, at least had a clarity of thought so people said we know what he thinks. and the rap on john kerry in '04 was the flip-flopping. >> romney is just following -- the weird thing is he's still having to play so much to his base. his entire base had the same 180 on roberts as well. so he's gotta go out there and he still for some reason, has not solidified his base. you cannot continue to talk to the tea party and the rest of america at the same time and not look crazy to one of them. >> right. >> you have to get to the point where you're above these kind of petty attacks on supreme court justice and say i don't agree with the decision but i'm not going to go attack john roberts because it is beneath me. he's sitting on the supreme court. the chief justice of the united states. but he's still stuck in those kinds of arguments and still playing to bill kristol the editorial page. here we are heading into july

and august he should be well past that. >> eliot: he's not doing it terribly effectively. >> that's the thing is nobody -- none of those people on the right believe him anyway. so he's making -- he's losing the people in the middle. and he's not convincing the people on the right. i think -- he knows he's headed for disaster. >> eliot: when you said earlier, this is exactly right sam, it is a risk of disciplined approach. that strikes me of what bain capital is all about. i'm not faulting it as a business idea. never put yourself at risk, never have a downside risk. he's saying i'm not going to do anything that puts me at risk of losing a few votes. but at the end of the day it leaves you open. >> one thing to play -- he's not ahead. he's behind. he has ground to catch up and the economy is not as bad as he thought it would be. >> eliot: let's talk about something else that is going to cost him in the long run. the offshore accounts. is this a theme that begins to resonate the way the bain capital tax did over time? sam, what do you think? >> definitely. at the end of the day, i don't think people are terribly

concerned whether he has $250 million or $300 million but the point is he's -- i don't think there's anybody in america who believes that he opened up -- he's opened up accounts in bermuda and the cayman islands because he wants to pay as much taxes as he can. he's obviously doing it to avoid taxes. not necessarily evade but he's avoiding them and -- >> eliot: avoid being okay. evade being illegal. it is not illegal but it doesn't smell right. >> not illegal. this guy is not doing anything to help the country. >> it reminds people he's not like them. he has these accounts. most people don't have a cayman account or swiss account. president obama is talking about that very thing in short sleeves, in ohio, sweating saying i saved your auto manufacturing jobs. >> eliot: the list of places where he had accounts struck me as a good place for vacations. not where you keep your money. >> it is not just that -- if you're running for president you should theoretically, the

idea is that this guy is so patriotic, he's going to -- it is all about public service and he's not even willing to subject himself to the amount of taxes that are less than most americans -- >> the issue of how much taxes he pays, it is the transparency issue. do we know all of this stuff? why are you changing it from your name to your wife's name before you become governor? people don't begrudge wealth but they want the details. >> eliot: there was a subtle and effective argument it is not patriotic. there is a whole argument, president obama is betting on american workers. mitt romney is betting on the cayman islands. there is a sense he doesn't not only one of us which i think has been the point you made exactly right but a lack of patriotism when you're sending your money somewhere else. >> i don't think that's fair that's all true. he does believe in america and creating gobbles but he should explain why he has the money there, why he did it. let people know and make the decision. >> you know, look. it is perfectly legal to do that but it is greedy. there's just no other way to

phrase it. it is just greedy. when you have $250 million and we're going to -- >> eliot: i want to swifn gears because -- switch gears on you. this may go out of the number depending on how many jobs created in the private sector. if the number is below 50,000 people people panic and everybody forgets about healthcare. what number do you think we're going to get and what is the impact going to be? ben, you're the economic source. your e-mail every morning where you bring the economic data is the first thing i read. >> somewhere between 100,000 to 150,000. it is a number that keeps up with people entering the work force. keeps the unemployment rate at 8.2. you get above that and that's a big positive for the president. below 100,000 another indication the economy is weakening. i think it changes from the narrative from healthcare, offshore accounts to jobs and the economy. i think we'll get the 100,000 to 150,000. >> eliot: 100,000 is the threshold.

>> i would go a little bit lower. i tend to be more pessimistic in general. i don't think frankly, i think there's already an existing amount of pain out there and that i think is being ignored in some respects. so the material difference in the fact that the cable and television narrative will change i don't think will have any implications unless it is really horrible. >> eliot: you mean below 50,000? below 50,000 is a horrible number. >> not to say that below 100,000 isn't horrible, too. i'm talking about in terms of the their at this, i don't think that -- i just don't think it is going to connect. >> there's also the issue of how people view the economy going forward. there was a recent cnn poll very interesting, people are optimistic about where the economy is going. they're not as pessimistic as the romney camp thought they were going to be. you see decent numbers continue to stack up. we're moving in the right direction. >> eliot: a sense of optimism is increasing. i'm going to do something with no upside. i'm going to predict we get

175,000 or above private sector job creation tomorrow. if we do, that will be a great number for the president and the their at this begins to look good for him. mitt romney should stay at the lake. he won't be elected. ben white economy reporter with politico. sam sered, thank you very much. >> richard blumenthal from connecticut joins us after the break. this week, failing is good and wall street is bad. what else does vc billionaire vinod khosla think?

and everyone likes 50% more cash -- well, except her. no! but, i'm about to change that. ♪ every little baby wants 50% more cash... ♪ phhht! fine, you try. [ strings breaking wood splintering ] ha ha. [ male announcer ] the capital one cash rewards card. the card for people who want 50% more cash. ♪ what's in your wallet? ♪ ♪ what's in your...your... ♪ >> eliot: our number of the day is good news or maybe it's no news. it's 176,000. that's the number of jobs that private employers added in june but that's according to the adp

national employment report so yes, that's good. but don't start celebrating just yet. we'll be getting another number tomorrow from the bureau of labor statistics and it will probably be completely different. the previous three months, the totals for bls have been more than 25% lower than those from adp. turns out measuring job numbers can be done a lot of different ways. and yield a lot of different results. adp is in the business of processing payrolls. that's what they look like. the bureau of labor statistics on the other hand conducts a monthly survey of 60,000 households. what do we know for certain? not much. but the number of private sector jobs probably went up last month. it is possibly more than expected. maybe we'll have cause for celebration tomorrow or maybe not. we'll know >>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. it's go time! >>every weeknight cenk uygur calls out the mainstream media. >>the guys in the middle-class the guys at the lower-end got screwed again! i think you know which one we're talking about. >>overwhelming majority of the county says: "tax the rich don't go to war." i just wanted to clarify. >> eliot: dick ballen all this was a classmate of bill and hillary clinton at yale law

school. he was a law clerk for blackmun. he is now the soon to be senior center from connecticut. we can ask him about anything and that's what we're going to do. senator blumenthal, thank you for joining us tonight. >> thank you very much eliot for having me. >> eliot: let's begin with this enormously important decision from the supreme court last week that put mitt romney in a bind with the healthcare act that was upheld. mitt romney, it seems bizarre beyond words is now attacking chief justice roberts for being political. does this make any sense to you? explain this crazy dynamic to us. >> you know, i wish i could explain it. but it is bizarre. first of all for governor romney to be switching his campaign characterization initially calling it a tax and now a penalty and vice versa. i think the public is justifiably confused by this

shifting labeling but bottom line the supreme court upheld it because it could constitutionally interpret it as a tax and it has a duty to uphold the law if it can. and you and i know from our cases in the united states supreme court that the first argument we make is that laws have to be presumed constitutional. that's why i predicted from the very outset, from the very beginning that it would be upheld. >> eliot: it seems to me mitt romney has been his own campaign called him etch-a-sketch. he's a weather vane. there are so many metaphors that can be used. the frequency of which he changes seems to me to undercut his viability as a candidate as the days go on and the credibility issue he has with the public seems to be growing. you're out there campaigning and talking to the public. >> credibility is the right word eliot that he's losing because he could have left the healthcare issue and gone to what really i think concerns

most americans today which is jobs and the economy. that is where quite frankly the people care most about what our two presidential candidates are saying and more important doing the latest job figures are somewhat encouraging. we still have an economy that is recovering all too slowly, all too fragilely. that's where the people's hearts and minds are right now. >> eliot: you referred to today's numbers from adp which are sometimes a good predictor of what the bureau of labor statistics numbers will be. we have to wait and see what happens over the next couple of months. let's talk about dobbs for a moment. struggling to create an environment and a stimulus. does mitt romney have a single idea that you believe will actually create jobs? >> he is failing on that score to set forth an agenda and i don't want to write his campaign book for him but that's where people care about what he is

proposing and he's failed utterly and completely to set forth anything proactive anything other than simply cut taxes to benefit the wealthy on the old trickle down bush economics that have failed, obviously proved to be failures and so i think even the financial community and others who might be inclined to support him rightly with -- and you have only to look at the "wall street journal" of today really faulting him for failing to adopt consistent initiatives that will benefit the economy. >> eliot: you refer to the wall street editorial that ran one of the most acrimonious sharpest editorials it has writ been a republican, going after him not only for the inconsistencies, failure to use healthcare as a distinction and his economic plan saying he hasn't given us anything. that's why i wonder what is his campaign all about? >> he hasn't given us anything, for example on what i regard as

the central core challenge for healthcare system and for our economy, one of them these days which is to bring down the cost of healthcare delivery. we can see that there are ways to do it to protect patients and increase patient safety. these patient protections in the healthcare bill are really central. you know from your very extensive law enforcement career how important it is to protect people against insurance company abuses. and that's where he is failing to set forth an agenda. bringing down cost of healthcare is one of the central challenges and job creation. >> eliot: i think you and i would certainly agree that mitt romney has not offered anything. we hope the president will prevail. he has an agenda. it is working in some regards and not well enough in others. let's switch gears. citizens united, the supreme court decision that has changed the landscape about campaign finance, something you care deeply about. what is the answer given we have to accept citizens united will be there as part of the constitutional framework? >> we have to accept that the

constitutional fabric will include the doctrines i believe they're misguided about corporations being people for purpose of the first amendment about the striking down of restrictions on spending but we can adopt statutes that require disclosure. the great threats to our democracy, i think are the unlimited amounts of individual spending through the super pacs and even more threateningly the so-called social welfare organizations, the 501c4s that have no limits at all and that's where statutorily we can take action under the proposal, the disclose act that i hope will be voted on in the united states senate within the next few weeks. >> eliot: it is so important -- i agree with you 100% we go beyond the rhetoric attacking citizens united, we think it may be constitutional. that was right as it related to the first amendment.

the remedies are what we have to focus on. the 501c4s are masquerading that they don't need to disclose is a travesty. also the issue of independence whether the super pacs are independent of the campaigns when so many of the same people are running them. isn't that another area where we have to really force a division? >> very, very clearly. absolutely right. that's a very important point about these so-called 501c4s and the super pacs. we need more effective enforcement by the internal revenue service. to make sure that they are independent and also, another feature of the disclose act will be to require a disclaimer like is required of all political candidates when it comes to the super pacs or the 501c4s, i'm richard blumenthal and i paid for whatever, that kind of identification. very important for the public knowing who funded it and who sourced and supported it. >> eliot: very quickly

control of the senate. obviously hugely important in terms of your capacity to move the agenda that you believe in. we share with you next year. how do you assess right now what are the two or three races that are most likely to determine the fulcrum decision of control of the senate? >> i think the races will come down to ohio, sherrod brown incumbent democrat, missouri, the incumbent claire mccaskill and florida bill nelson, all democrats. where i think the president needs to win and i think he will win as well as virginia, pennsylvania where in pennsylvania, we have an incumbent. in virginia, we have a -- hopefully newly to be elected tim kaine and i think the races will come down to those five. >> eliot: if we hold the senate, you will be chair of which committee? we want you to be chair of the judiciary committee. i don't know whose toes i'm stepping on. senator richard blumenthal, senator of connecticut, thank you for joining us. >> thank you very much.

>> eliot: joe walsh doubles down hershey's chocolate syrup. stir up a smile.

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>> eliot: nothing says 4th of july like bad hot dog puns and fireworks. when it doesn't fit anywhere else, we put it in the viewfinder. >> i don't think there's any question this city is hot dog in the culinary -- is top dog in the culinary world. that may be perfectly frank. this is one of my favorite traditions. i relish it so much. no question, it's going to be a

dogfight. one of their dogged pursuers will finally catch up, cut the mustard and be pronounced wiener. >> sonia the black widow ate 45. [ cheering ] >> who wrote this? [ laughter ] >> take a look at last night's fireworks display in san diego. all of the fireworks apparently accidentally went off at the same time. >> on the 4th of july, we think about who our heros are in america. what do you think? >> congressman walsh is running for re-election against war veteran tammy duckworth who lost both legs in iraq. >> i am running against a woman -- that's all she talks

about. our true heroes, the men and women who served us. last thing they in the world they talk about. >> do you regret what you said about your opponent who lost two legs fighting for the united states in iraq, that she's not in your words a true hero? >> no, not at all wolf. it is good to be with you. happy 4th. >> my hero is ronald reagan was my favorite president. >> favorite flavor of ice cream? >> rocky road. give me chocolate with nuts and marshmallows. >> joe walsh is an embarrassment. he should get out of thehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehe so, you guys grew up together. yes, since third grade... what are you lookin' at? not looking at i anything... we're not good enough for you. must be supermodels? what do you model gloves? brad, eat a snickers. why? 'cause you get a little angry when you're hungry. better? [ male announcer ] you're not you when you're hungry™. better. [ male announcer ] snickers satisfies.

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of sununu, you're wrong. mitt romney, you're wrong. we need more teachers, not fewer teachers and more cops and more firefighters that support our >> eliot: tensions rising in the middle east. iran this week is engaging in a three-day war game known as great profit 7 meant as a show of defiance against western

sanctions. war games included the test firing of dozens of missiles including long-range missiles with the capability of reaching the u.s. bases in the gulf, prompting one iranian general to claim that iran is prepared to launch these missiles at u.s. targets within minutes of an attack on iran. iran's increasingly bellicose attitude may be evidence it is having an impact. as many as 65 iranian oil tankers have been turned into floating warehouses for months with no place to deliver their cargo. the harshest catchingses dmikd including a complete embargo. all of this comes against a backdrop of the mideastern turmoil with high level defections in syria following the egyptian elections. here to discuss this is columnist for foreign policy.com, james traub. sir, make sense out of this. is what's going on in iran a sign we're winning or losing? >> you know, one of the

underappreciated dmefntions of diplomacy is time. i think the obama strategy has always been we don't have a good solution. it is really terrible but time may be on our side. they've been abused for that by romney and others. you're vacillating you're being too soft and so forth. there was no hard, easy, fast solution so the solution has been let's force iran into a position where we'll be negotiating a way things otherwise would not do. it is not -- it's not clear that we're there yet. i think it is arguable we're getting there. >> eliot: let me take the other side for a moment. the more time they have, the greater the likelihood they actually develop nuclear weapons. the timeframe for that, of course is so elastic. you see one c.i.a. report, one leaked report. is it six months, a year, as they move toward some line in the sand. house those two collide? we impose sanctions. it takes time for the economic impact to be felt.

are they in fact getting closer to -- >> this is an argument between israel and the united states even though both sides say it is not. both sides say we agree on the intelligence. barack, the defense minister yesterday said several years a little bit longer than what has been saying, than what benjamin netanyahu, the prime minister has said. it is clearly a race against time. we don't know quite where that's going to wind up. i think the hope though will be something like this. that the iranians are now in a situation where there is mass national discontent. there was a survey that the iranian tv station accidentally put on their web site saying that the large majority of iranians would rather limit their nuclear enrichment program and get rid of the sanctions. that's a thing that the iranian administration has to deal with. that ahmadinejad and khomeini have to deal with. they're in a difficult place. the west is in a difficult place. nobody's in a good place on this one. >> eliot: that poll along with the article in "the new york

times" suggests there's some greater fragility of what's going on in iran. we think of it as monolithic, one mindset, it is not. and yet there's no question what's going on internationally with the threats to close the gulf, close the shipping lanes they're launching the missiles, we're beefing up our military presence in that region. it is an accretion of factors you worry the spark will generate some sort of explosion. >> it is worth bearing in mind, iran is dangerous but not as dangerous as it says it is. iranian generals say we'll wipe out israel and destroy american bases in the region. they would like to do that. they can't. they say they would like to build a nuclear sub. they say they'll build 20 nuclear power plants. they can't. so the fact that they want to do that makes them a dangerous country and they have to be dealt with. their capacity to do harm is not quite as great as they claim. their willingness is not quite as great as they claim. >> eliot: how do we measure the sanctions? >> the economic harm we can

know. that's not the question. the question is what is that going to cause the regime to do? what we've seen in recent months is a willingness to make concessions on a subject they had not made concessions on before. that's the following. the issue is not the enrichment of nuclear fuel. it is the enrichment of it to a point where it can be made into material. the iranians have begun to say in their unclear ambiguous way they're prepared to stop enriching to 20%. that's the key. >> that's the threshold. >> if that's true and it is not clear, it has to be tested, if that's true, there may be a way to a solution. >> eliot: true and verifiable. >> this is the big problem. if you ask me, i would say the ultimate place this is going to come out, if it is going to come out peacefully is the west will accept iran's right which it claims, the sovereign right to enrich nuclear fuel. iran will accept the right of international community to engage in invasive inspections to make sure it is not going

beyond low enriched uranium. i can't see any other solution but that one. >> eliot: the only problem with your analysis is it is based upon reason and logic which has not been what's pervaded this negotiation until now. on their side certainly. >> all true but we haven't had a war yet either. clearly there's some element of restraint. >> eliot: moving across the middle east. to syria where assad hangs on. are we correct in seeing the first sign of fissures in the wall around, generals defecting things getting more severe and more acrimonious and more violent rather than less? >> we have to remember this guy has a huge army. he has 500,000 people under arms. so we see defections of dozens, hundreds of people, generals, it is bad. he has hundreds of generals. there have been no defections so far from the community his own ethnic group -- >> eliot: significant minority. >> only 15% of the country. there was a very important defection today of sunni general very close to his father and to

him. >> eliot: i can't pronounce it. >> they must know. we don't know. that's important. each one of these things are important. we hope they'll have a cumulative effect. time here is a terrible enemy because he's killing hundreds of people every week. but nobody has the willingness to go in there with a big libby style intervention. >> eliot: is there anything we can do that would be meaningful? no-fly zone, military or nonmilitary action, anything of significance we can do? >> let's put aside what we hypothetically won't do and what is possible we might do. the issue there is there is a civil war going on there. you can't put that back into pandora's box. the u.s. has begun ways to try to help organize the military and diplomatic forces of the rebel groups. that's going to continue, i think that it probably has to become more forceful and more explicit. u.s. working with turkey,

working with saudi arabia, qatr and others. >> eliot: there are real tensions there the shooting down of turkish. for clearly series becoming more isolated. the possibility we create that alliance and impose structure on the rebel forces. >> it will be very slow. even the turnings, if they wanted to, the turks could have used the shooting down of the plane as a cause to go to war. they could have invoked article five of nato. they didn't want to do that. they were quite reluctant to do that. yes, they desperately want to get rid of assad but they don't want a war. >> eliot: behind putin russia. >> also the fear of civil war. even leaving aside the support he has libya, the destruction of a qaddafi's regime was not a disaster for the region. the fear is that this could be an ethnic war that could spread to lebanon and elsewhere. >> eliot: syria always the most complicated. radiates out in ways that have been unpredictable.

james traub, thank you as always for your time tonight. >> thank you. >> 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. and everyone likes 50% more cash -- well, except her. no! but, i'm about to change that. ♪ every little baby wants 50% more cash... ♪

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>> eliot: a tax that could slow down global climate change. first, let's check in out west with jennifer granholm in "the war room." what have you got for us tonight? >> jennifer: the president has taken off the gloves on tariffs over american cars and china. we're going to tell people why it is a critical move to bolster the american middle class and to create jobs in the u.s. we're going to look at that. we're going to follow the bus tour and check out how the president is betting on america. we've got michigan congressman gary peters who is my guest. that's the congressman in whose

district chrysler is headquartered. we'll look at the battle for ohio as well. we'll have some fun with mitt romney's art of the flip-flop which i know you have taken on tonight as well. we have a lot going on in "the war room" at the top of the hour >> eliot: mitt the gymnast. i want him on the olympic team. floor routine is the best i've seen. man, i'm impressed by that guy. if only he stood for something he could be qualified to be >>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. rrenttv