to vote but you saw her opinions there......................... next. >> eliot: good evening. i'm eliot spitzer and this is "viewpoint." mitt romney made a quarter billion dollars or more when he ran private equity firm bain capital. but with outsourcing jobs, a major issue in the race for the white house, the political cost of his success may be rising. from the start of his political career in 2002, romney's insisted and i quote "i left bain capital in 1999 and have had no authority or responsibility for managing that enterprise since then." but a story in "the boston globe" claims s.e.c. filings show that from 1999 to 2002, romney remained bain's and i quote "sole stockholder

chairman of the board chief executive officer and president." bain investments in that three-year period included firms that shipped american jobs to companies overseas. and with today's story suggesting romney could have been involved, obama deputy campaign manager stephanie cutter made these damming comments to reporters. >> either mitt romney, through his own words and his own signature, was misrepresenting his position at bain to the s.e.c., which is a felony, or he was misrepresenting his position at bain to the american people to avoid responsibility for some of the consequences of his investment. >> eliot: romney deputy campaign manager matt rhodes responded calling cutter's comments "a reckless and unsubstantiated charge that calls into question the integrity of their entire campaign." cutter also demanded an apology. which the obama campaign rejected. as for the substance of the globe's story romney's press

secretary andrea said in a statement "the article is not accurate." romney's former colleagues at bain capital insisted romney did leave in 1999 and tried to explain away the filings saying he remained the sole stockholder for a time while formal ownership was being documented and transferred to the group of partners who took over management of the firm in 1999. accordingly, mr. romney was reported in various capacities on s.e.c. filings during this period. meanwhile, mother jones has its own story out today on an investment plan made during the period when even romney acknowledges he was in charge. on the campaign trail romney likes to say... >> we will not let china continue to steal jobs from the united states of america. [ applause ] >> eliot: but according to mother jones in august of 1998, bain threw a vehicle romney owned invested in a chinese company whose entire business model relied on outsourced u.s. jobs. among the firms that shipped jobs to global tech while bain was enjoying the profits

hamilton beach, mr. coffee revlon, proctor silex and vidal sassoon. for more on when romney left bain capital and what it means let's go to callum borchers who reported the story. >> glad to be here, eliot. thanks for having me. >> eliot: every day there is more evidence that mitt romney in fact did not leave bain bain capital in 1999. tell us how you interpret this. >> i guess it depends on how you define left. what we found is through a combination of government documents, some filed with the securities and exchange commission some filed with corporations formed in delaware and some that mitt romney filed himself as financial disclosures both at the state and federal level, they showed he was still the sole owner of bain capital. he was the president the ceo the chairman of the board up until 2002 which is three years after he claims to have left in 1999 to run the winter olympics in salt lake city. >> eliot: let me see if i get this right. somebody who is the ceo the

president and the chairman of the board and owns 100% of it is saying he's no longer there. this is making the definition of is from a couple of years back seem almost simple. how can he say he's not there when he has all of those positions and if i recall your article is being paid at least $100,000 a year to be there. what is their defense to this? >> those are all fair questions. the defense is that he was quite busy running the winter olympics. no doubt about that. i don't think anybody believes mitt romney was managing the day-to-day operations at bain capital. that's not really what's in question here. certainly, he had his hands full turning around the olympics. what is the question is the romney campaign's position and bain capital's position is not only that he wasn't managing the day-to-day operations, the minutia. they claim it was a drop dead firm he had nothing to do with any bain capital entity in any way after february of 1999. and as you pointed out the question then is it believable for someone who retained full ownership in a company and who

by the way, planned to return as the ceo after the olympics. is it believable that he had nothing to do with any of their operations? >> eliot: honestly it defies credibility he did not maintain some contact to make sure that the general principles, the investment guidelines, the sort of macro decisions didn't purport with what he wanted to do. it was his company and the s.e.c. documents prove that. it seems to me they're in a bind, stuck between s.e.c. filings that say he was there. legal ownership that says it was his. a salary that says it was his and a political statement that he wasn't there. there is a credibility gap here at a minimum. what are they doing to address the credibility gap that they seem to be dancing on? >> there is a credibility gap there although he's sticking to his guns. it is important to note there isn't firm evidence that he actually performed a specific task on a specific deal. we're waiting to see if anything like that will emerge. so for right now we're left, as you said to wonder whether it is

credible he has had absolutely nothing to do with any dealings between february of 1999 and 2002. but remember, the word "retirement" is only a word that they started to use more recently. it was a footnote in history. when mitt romney ran for governor in of massachusetts in 2002, there was question because he had been living and working in utah for the last few years. one of the arguments he made to the state ballot commission was when i left bain capital in 1999, it was a leave of absence. those are his words. he added he intended to return after the fact. now he didn't end up returning. but it is quite clear from his own statements as recently as 2002 that he really did not intend to retire or resign in 1999. they only started using the phrase more recently. >> eliot: an intent to return during the period of 2000-2001. the issue is how much did he do during the period. are there not records that would be dispositive on this.

even though it seems like ancient history 1999, there are phone records that exist. how many long distance calls did he make from utah back to bain? are there logs of his participation in conference calls? was he copied on documents? did anybody sought to get from bain or mitt romney that, documentary evidence that would establish in a tangible way what his day to day involvement was. >> that's the next step, isn't it eliot. your instincts are great and your new career in journalism. there will be a mad dash. that's where the next reporting step is going. they'll see if there is some way to substantiate, was he attending board meetings, was he making phone calls like i said, there is nobody alleging he was managing the day-to-day operations at bain. but what people are questioning is this contention that he had absolutely nothing to do with any bain entity in any way. >> eliot: i think the rigid of his initial position that he had nothing to do with it was no at smart position. it is going to get him into some

trouble. correct you on one little think. my instinct to get the documents that, wasn't as a journalist. i'm thinking back to my days as a prosecutor when we had these wonderful things called subpoenas. we could give them to the companies and say give us these documents because i think at the end of the day, you don't have that as a journalist nor do we, it would prove the issue with certainty. >> you're making me jealous. we're wishing we had that same subpoena power. >> but can you only imagine if the journalists had subpoena power. a scary thought. "boston globe" reporter callum borchers, thank you for your time tonight. >> a pleasure, eliot. >> eliot: for more insight on mother jones' story on a chinese firm that depended on outsourced jobs let's go to andy kroll. thanks for joining us. >> thanks for having me. >> eliot: just like every story with mitt romney, this one seems to get more complicated. now we have another company that mitt romney through bain invested in that seems to have had its entire business model based on outsourced u.s. jobs.

>> it is a company called globaltek with factories in the southern part of china. they existed to absorb jobs from the united states and to make household products for brand name companies that we know about. individual alsassoon -- vidal sassoon, revlon, sunbeam mr. coffee, these profits depended on the western companies sending jobs to china and a bain affiliate through securities and exchange commission records and through other financial documents we found that a bain affiliate solely controlled by mitt romney invested in globaltek. invested in an outsourcing company and did so -- this was before mitt romney supposed february 1999 departure date so he was very much in charge and in control. >> eliot: this is not a question of his doing something at bain after he pretended or -- claims to have been gone but this goes squarely at the issue of whether he himself embraced outsourcing as a business

investment model. do we know yet who found this investment, who suggested it? did he push it within bain? did he say wow we're on the cusp of the next tsunami of profits. we're going to outsource jobs from pennsylvania and ohio. each swing state is going to lose its jobs. they'll be in china. was he involved with that? do we know? >> we don't have his specific comments or notes or memos because it was a very difficult deal to track down, to parse out, to find who the players were. the key take away is that the bain affiliate -- the bain affiliates that invested in globaltek and invested in the outsourcing company the ceo the sole shareholder the one person in control was w. mitt romney. this was a deal he signed off on. frankly, he was still at bain. he was still very much in charge. this is a deal he had a say in. we know he was very much a hands on executive at bain capital. he very much involved and scrutinizing and planning every deal to the last detail. he brags about this.

and if he was in charge in the spring of 1998 when this investment happened, clearly, he was intimately involved. >> eliot: put a couple of numbers on it. this is about a $14 million investment. that was one of the valuations at a certain point in time. within the context of bain where they're investing hundreds of millions of dollars, on the other hand, it is $14 million he's investing in china. he must have known the details of this transaction. >> without a doubt. like we said, he did not put his name down. he did not take control of the bain affiliates and then give over responsibilities of their actions. in the romney campaign's response nowhere do they say mitt romney had no idea about this deal or mitt romney did not approve this deal. they tried to play it off saying the stake was small. the amount of money was relatively insignificant. but nowhere do they contest the fact that a solely-owned, solely controlled bain affiliate --

mitt romney was in charge of -- invested in a company that specialized in outsourcing. >> eliot: in a way, this is the most damming of all of the facts about outsourcing because here mitt romney took a $14 million equity position in a business whose entire business model was predicated on hollowing out america's manufacturing base. you talk about sunbeam and mr. coffee. these are the things we used to make. now we import. and he must have studied the issue of how is china going to get a cost advantage. is it going to grow and is this company going to grow because you don't want to invest in this company unless it is going to get more and more of these types of products. he must have bought into this very notion, contrary to everything his campaign is saying. >> the records the few that we have about globaltek at this time show that they were courting investors and selling them on the prospect of outsourcing increasing. that they were bringing in money at the time of the bain

affiliates investment and mitt romney's the entity controlled by mitt romney, globaltek was in the middle of the ipo process and putting throughout to potential investors that outsourcing is going to be profitable. we are in this business and our outlook is good. it is very clear the purpose of this entity, this company globaltek and china. and any investment is an investment in the company that takes jobs away from the middle class in this country and sends them to china. >> eliot: the documents we could begin to get our hands on, i would think in terms of pursuing this would be the offering documents from bain in which it was raising money from the pension founds, the endowments to see how it represents globaltek investment as being representative of the sorts of investments it was making, sort of saying to the world look how smart we are because we're on the cusp and on the leading edge of this outsourcing phenomenon. that's how they would describe it because i'll bet there, you would see affirmative comments being made about outsourcing, at the heart of the bain business

model. >> yeah, bain prided itself on being ahead of the curve. being one of the most rigorous, the most forward-thinking, private equity firms out there. and they're not going to go invest in a duty of a deal. they wouldn't have invested in globaltek if they thought globaltek was going to barely increase its profits or putter along. they invested in aggressively growing companies or companies they thought were going to do that. i'm sure that when bain capital was courting its own investors that it included globaltek and the same kind of prospect. >> eliot: mother jones staff reporter andy kroll, thank you for joining us. >> thank you. >> eliot: mitt romney says the naacp just wants free stuff. more "viewpoint" coming up. the real world and politics collide on "the gavin newsom show". this week: can a futurist really predict the future? find out on "the gavin newsom show".

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>> eliot: on wednesday, the house of representatives voted to reverse president obama's affordable care act for the 33rd time. the 32 other times all got shot down by the democratically controlled senate and that's exactly what's going to happen this time, too. the vote was a giant waste of time and everyone knew that before they started. but time isn't the only thing republicans wasted here. which brings us to our number of the day. $48 million. that's how much these pointless votes have cost the american taxpayer. the party that keeps yelling for spending cuts is once again squandering money. these vain attempts at repeal add up to at least 80 hours of time on the house floor which cbs calculated has cost $48 million. all of this just so republicans can posture once more, beating the dead horse of their opposition to healthcare reform. meanwhile, the g.o.p. spending

no time or money proposing an alternative health plan or voting on the president's jobs bill or coming up with their own jobs bill. nope. this was just $48 million for political posing. everyone knows it. and you paid for it. maybe we should bill this to the >>it's the place where democracy is supposed to be the great equalizer, where your vote is worth just as much as donald trump's. we must save the country. it starts with you.

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>>overwhelming majority of the county says: "tax the rich don't go to war." i just wanted to clarify. >> eliot: one audience, two speeches, two totally different responses. mitt romney faced a crowd at the naacp convention in houston that was frigid indeed hostile. while vice president biden faced the same crowd today receiving a hero's welcome and was barely allowed to leave. the loudest of jeers for romney came when he mentioned his desire to get rid of obama care. once he was safely back in the comforts of his own circle of supporters last night, he claimed to take pride in the boos he received, telling the crowd at a fund-raiser in montana and i "if they want more stuff from the government, tell them to go vote for the other guy more free

stuff. but don't forget nothing is really free." joe biden, on the other hand, wishes he could have a crowd like this every day. taking the convention stage to rousing applause the vice president used his speech to discuss the vast differences between romney's vision for the future of the country and the president's vision. proven the audience was evenhanded the vice president got some boos, too but only when they heard he was leaving. joining me now is strategist and author of "the language of trust" is michael maslansky and political reporter joe williams. michael, is it fair to say mitt rom ne's speech wasn't directed at the audience in that convention hall? he was speaking to very different voters than those listening to him. >> i don't know if that's true. if you watch the whole speech, aside from the two two times he was booed for mentioning obama very measured, very thoughtful. very open speech. i think there were benefits to how this played out in the broader community. i think he was actually there to

talk to the african-american community. if he could move a little to make them a little -- feel like he was a little less bad maybe -- motivate them a little less to go out and rally people in favor of obama, that's a win because obama needs the base to come out. if romney isn't the enemy maybe they won't come out as much. >> eliot: joe, as a political consultant, be dispassionate here, if you or anybody had crafted that speech for that audience, don't you think you knew they were going to be -- there were going to be boose and if there were going to be boos, that would be the media outtake the entire country would see? >> if he was going to go there to reach out he either needs to fire his speechwriter or hire a whole new consulting team because the take away, by in large, was that it was a bit condescending, a little insulting. michael is right the bulk part of the speech was fairly measured but nobody's going to remember that part because they're only going to focus on care,

i can do more for the african-american community. if you want someone who will do more than president obama your hero your icon, you're looking at him. it was almost calculated to rub people the wrong way. i have no access to the romney inner circle. there was no talk about reaching out, no talk about -- about his father's long legacy. no rope line afterwards. there was barely an effort to try to connect with theú audience. >> i think if you look at the totality of the speech. there were two mentions of obama that took about 15 seconds. the rest was about extending a hand to the african-american community, about the philosophy of governing that romney believes in. things that will bring more equal opportunity that will raise up all families, not just african-american families and not just white families. >> we're not talking about that part of it. we're talking about the part where he got booed and it was kind of a polite

certainly not anything overwhelming or enthusiastic and recall, george bush gave a very warm speech before the naacp. so did john mccain in 2008. and in 2004, ken the president of the republican national committee, was very much talking about you give us a chance, we'll give you a choice. that was his mantra. we're way far from those days when you have a candidate coming there and not getting that kind of warm reception and not even trying to reach out beyond certain boxes that he had to check to get through the speech. >> eliot: let me also add this. not to pile it on, michael. the language he used about the healthcare reform was edgy and condescending to use joe's word. it was not an explanatory moment when he said let me explain to you why i disagree with you. understand i share your values and here's what i want to do. this is even a bit crasser, not a single word about the voter i.d. laws. they have been the talk of the naacp convention. are the litmus test by

which many people are being measured. voter suppression. nothing about that. that would have been a mechanism by which he could have said let's explain what we're doing. >> we're talking about a candidate accused of pandering. here he comes to an arena and he doesn't pander. >> i beg to differ. talk about -- it is not really pandering if you talk about some issues in a very respectful manner or if you don't go there with sort of an abrasive, hostile intent. pandering is saying something they want to hear. the difference between pandering and what a speech like john mccain or george bush gave is trying to reach common ground. there is a difference between pandering and common ground. common ground means i come from a religion that a lot of people have misunderstood and i know that your issues have been misunderstood. i understand where you're coming from. i would like to make your lives better. we didn't hear a whole lot of that. especially once we got to the

obama care we got to -- if you want a president who is going to make things better, you're looking at him. >> eliot: michael is dying to get in here. >> he made one big mistake. he trusted the media to cover the speech the way he intended. >> eliot: i'm smiling. michael, i'm smiling because nobody has been in politics would ever make that mistake. >> fair enough. that's a big mistake. if you take out those two words the two references to obama, i would disagree with almost everything that joe said. it was respectful, it was inclusive. it was thoughtful. it was reaching out to the african-american people. >> eliot: here's the thing. you said this was an incident where he didn't pander. i would say he was pandering but not to the audience in the hall. he was pandering knowing full well the boos would become the image of the speech. that would play very well among certain demographics, swing voters whom he desperately needs to carry ohio, west virginia, pennsylvania. it is not the politics i would like to see but i think it was pandering. let's pivot for a minute.

naacp convention is something we us for a moment. bain capital, when was he there? mitt romney playing defense on that, of course, what he has said. he said publicly if you're playing defense you're losing. then he put up a tv ad that does nothing but play defense and accuses the obama campaign of misrepresenting on this issue of the bain claims. but he's playing defense. he's losing this battle. am i right michael? he won't win this debate about whether he was at bain or not. >> i don't think he's going to win. he should be taking the positive elements of his record as a job creator, as a successful businessman and touting those things. his response trying to paint obama as a liar, it is not a narrative people are going to buy into and fundamentally elections are about narratives. pick the ones that are going to help you. attack the ones that are going to hurt your opponent. this is a place where he's losing on both the positive and negative side. >> eliot: joe, your response

to that? >> michael has a point to a degree. it will be very, very difficult to run away from this one though because not only is it a that, in my opinion, he probably had to take because he was getting a lot of heat from his party insiders. i think one of them called an armchair quarterback, some of the people criticizing the romney campaign for not doing enough to respond. you have to -- you have to respond but you don't necessarily have to say hey everybody, i'm not going to respond to this then do the response. so i think that part of it was a bit of a muddled message. i do think he has to find a way to put the bain capital issue to rest, especially the time line either fess up and say i'm proud of my success. we didn't depart exactly as i said we did but we did make some money and did some good things or let the narrative run away from him and have a hard time trying to beat it down or bring it under control. >> eliot: it seems to me mitt romney made consultant, you

shouldn't be playing defense then he started playing defense then he put up an ad that was ineffective. he's lost track of what should be his one narrative that might put him in contention in the race which is that he understands the economy. it seems to out left, right and center. fire the team, bring in a new speechwriter. michael, maybe he should hire you. he's not going to win doing what he's doing right now. g.o.p. strategist and author of "the language of trust michael maslansky, joe williams, thank you. thank you both for your time tonight. >> my pleasure. >> lysol knows the soft places we love could be home to thousands of bacteria. so use lysol disinfectant spray on soft surfaces everyday when you're cleaning up

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admitted that that look, we were able to keep a lot of the folks because of the stimulus. >> bill: absolutely. again, do you great work, judd. thank you. all of your colleagues at think progress. we'll see you again next >> tomorrow, how many of you would run out and vote for mitt romney? [ applause ] how many of you would vote for president obama tomorrow? [ applause ] >> all right. so it is about even. >> when i do them, i just kind of like make sure to kind of --

uh start -- >> good afternoon. >> i've got 99. >> we really are like a family. we are. we have such -- >> no, we're not. >> we don't like you. >> he doesn't like us. >> a family is like a family. you know you're related. we're not related. we can fool around with each other. >> paul krugman is a little hyper. and when this started for me, he said that i would never -- never saw a spending cut i didn't like or some snide little crack. i think he needs to rest. >> jacki started her business, the snuggery a month ago. she charges $60 an hour to snuggle. >> i thought i need to validate my position. i need to have some kind of certification or license but it says i'm a qualified cuddler. >> joe biden v.p. of comedy. >> those walls are awful thin, i

wonder how the hell my parents did it but that's a different story. >> every laugh. >> as barack says, a three letter word, jobs. j-o-b-s, job. >> god rest her soul and although your mom is still -- your mom is still alive. it is your dad that passed. god bless her soul. >> the joe biden v.p. of comedy tour. you'll v.p. your pants laughing. >> eliot: everybody loves joe. a report on penn state and jerry sandusky, not the real world and politics collide on "the gavin newsom show". this week: can a futurist really predict the future? find out on "the gavin newsom show". only on current tv. [ man ] ever year, sophia and i use the points we earn with our citi thankyou card for a relaxing vacation. ♪ ♪ sometimes, we go for a ride in the park. maybe do a little sightseeing.

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former federal judge and fbi director louis free released findings of the penn state investigation. the report makes it clear that senior members of the university not only failed to stop sandusky or report him to the police but allowed him continued access to kids in what the report described as "a striking lack of empathy for child abuse victims." the leaders being singled out are graham spanier former senior vice president gary schultz, former athletic director timothy curley and former head football coach joe paterno. after reading 3.5 million e-mails and documents it details knowledge of sandusky's abuse by university officials as far back as 1998. but the abuse was able to continue because of a lack of oversight by the board of directors, a quote culture of reverence for the football program and i quote a decision by spanier schultz paterno and curley to allow sandusky to

retire in 1999, not as a suspected child predator but as a valued member of the penn state football legacy with future visibility at penn state and ways to continue to work with young people through penn state essentially granting him license to bring boys to campus facilities for grooming as targets for his assaults. for more, let's bring in radio talk show host buzz bissinger author of "friday night lights." thank you for your time. this is something you've been writing about focusing on, doing everything you could to get us to understand the enormous magnitude. is this a sports scandal or a scandal about an entire culture that's been betrayed by a failure of leadership? >> well, you know, i think it is both. obviously, it is -- it is a sports scandal, it goes to the insidious culture of football at an institution but i think it also rises now beyond this. i'm trying to think certainly it is the worst scandal that i know of in the history of universities and colleges. i cannot think of anything like

this where an institution failed on so many levels, so willfully and miserably and so dangerously in aiding and abetting what we now know was a sexual animal. >> eliot: you know it is hard where we're dealing every day with financial scandals and i look for analogs where you have institutions which turn a blind eye, they want to make money. money is the source of greed. here the source -- it was as you say, it was a football game. it was a program that they took pride in. they let kids be abused for fear of disrupting a football program. how twisted bizarre and animalistic and heinous can this be? >> you took the words out of my mouth. we talked earlier. am i shocked by the general findings? absolutely not. i've been writing this for a year in the "daily beast." four top officials of penn state including deceased coach joe paterno failed in every way possible. what sickens me is -- bent overbackwards, not for the kids

who were abused but for jerry sandusky, the retirement package they gave him, the lump sum pension payment they gave him. $168,000 that, kind of payment unprecedented. in school history emeritus status. keys to all of the facilities, his own office in which they forget he has it and the state attorney general of pennsylvania, they later find boxes that contain love letters to some of these kids. dereliction at every level. for me, the point came home with what the janitor said about joe paterno. >> eliot: we were talking. the tension between the janitors who knew what they wanted to do. they were terrified. these are people who had the decency to say what we should do is report this but they knew they would be fired. the entire power structure of the institution was designed to cover up and repress rather than do the decent thing which was take care of the kids. >> decent thing i honestly don't think that what allegedly

happened to those kids and they knew -- the allegations eliot i don't think it ever crossed their minds. i don't think they cared about the kids. they cared about jerry what are we going to do about jerry? what are we going to do about the football program? how are we going to get away with this and cover it up? as i understand it, they may have had a federal responsibility to report it. it is a crime. they did not. we now know from the e-mails that athletic director curley said all right the plan of attack is we are going to inform the pennsylvania department of welfare. he then speaks to joe paterno and all of a sudden, that plan is off the table because he's spoken to joe and it is clear. joe has said well, it is jerry. he's a member of the football family. i've been sick today. i swear to god. i have. i've written about this for 30 years. >> eliot: you know more about the culture of football, how it is permeated. do you think people will pull back and say wait a minute,

we've gotta reevaluate? or is this going to disappear into the night? >> you've been around, i've been around, we all get excited. this is going to change and that is going to change. i felt the board of trustees had a great opportunity today instead of saying we take accountability, they get up and say we are banning football for a year. we have to take the first step in reducing the insidious effect of the football culture at penn state. instead, it was the same old runaround. i'm afraid come september beaver stadium fills up and it is a bitter memory. >> eliot: it has been fascinating to watch when joe paterno was first fired, the students rallied around him. it will be interesting to see what the response is. will the sympathy go to those who deserve it. what will the ncaa do? should they ban penn state, no

football for five years? >> i would say no football for five years. send a message to the university, death penalty for two years for recruiting violations and payoffs. let's double or triple that. no football for five years. i think the ncaa has that moral responsibility! >> eliot: today sitting here during the course of the afternoon, we were saying the irony almost doesn't capture the magnitude of it is even penn state, somebody captures a recruiter, give him $400 or someone out to dinner, they're ban and sanctimonious. this is permitted to go on. the hypocrisy of is startling. >> it is incredibly startling the board of trustees, they could have taken the first proactive shot. the way not to tolerate the football culture is for us to take responsibility. it is gone for a year. they don't do it. eliot, you know what the ncaa is like. they run after kids taking illegal dinners. they don't want to get involved. penn state is a cash cow. it makes $15 million of profit for the school and football.

and i hate to say this. come september people say boy that was a bad moment in our history but rah rah i think we're going to beat ohio state. >> eliot: buzz bissinger author of "friday night lights," thank you for joining us tonight. >> thank you. >> eliot: the libor bank lending scandal keeps gettitititititititititititititititititititititititititi 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. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ [ male announcer ] what's the point of an epa estimated 42 miles per gallon if the miles aren't interesting?

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delighted accomplice in the billionaires' purchase of our nation. >> and you think it doesn't affect you? think again. nice to talk to you. [ applause ] >> when someone stumbles across the show, it usually doesn't end well. >> stephanie: it ended better do. all right. just a truce. all right. 45 minutes -- it was a wash. 45 minutes after the hour. right back on "the stephanie miller show." >> eliot: the view of mitt

romney. he knows he will not win votes in a speech in opposition to healthcare reform and devoid of a single mention of the voter i.d. issue that is central to the naacp focus this year wasn't designed to win over black voters. who was it meant for? well, white voters. specifically, white swing voters in states like pennsylvania and ohio. that's what it sounded like at a fund-raiser in montana following the naacp appearance when romney said and i quote "if they want more stuff from the government, tell them to go vote for the other guy. more free stuff. but don't forget, nothing is really free." romney wants those white voters to believe the black naacp audience wants stuff for free and the campaign wanted the image of romney standing up to the freeloaders. this is deeply offensive and at least -- in at least two ways. first, it is an only thin thy veiled effort to revive the

imagery of the welfare queen the false notion that our social programs are costly because it caters exclusively to the lazy and entitled. this tawdry and offensive argument had discarded. romney seems intent on bringing it back to revive his base. second, the utter hipocracy of him attacking healthcare and pretending he's opposed to giving anything away are from -- for free. the mandate is to eliminate the freeloader problem. as congressman rob andrews expressed yesterday on this show, if your neighbor buys an expensive motorcycle but refuses to buy health insurance needs care and gets it at the emergency room and then we pay for it because he has no insurance, something is wrong. that is why the healthcare act forces him to either get coverage or pay a penalty. no more free riders, nothing for free. in fact, that's why romney himself helped pass the individual mandate in his healthcare bill in

massachusetts. and oh by the way speaking of freeloaders, mitt romney paid less than a 15% tax rate on his income last year and now we're hearing he hides his money overseas in foreign accounts while folks earning a fraction of his income have to pay double his rate. who was always desperately seeking something for nothing? something for free? who's the welfare queen in this picture? mitt, i have bad news for you. it is you! 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... ♪

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bank of america, jpmorgan, deutsche bank and citibank to court for manipulating interest rates they say robbed their local governments of millions of desperately needed dollars. meanwhile, the new york fed insists it took prompt action when it was alert and says it has the documents to prove it. document they plan to release tomorrow. joining me now to discuss this is bill cohan author of "money and power" how goldman sachs came to rule the world. thanks for your time as always tonight, bill. >> great to be here, eliot. >> eliot: did the libor stuff shock you? does this one push you over the edge? >> it is hard to know which one really pushes me over the edge. you could hear the despair in buzz bissinger's voice when he was talking about the penn state scandal. i'm so distraught. i cannot believe this continues to happen. this didn't happen before 2007. this has been going on for a decade. you know, you've prosecuted this. spinning laddering.

this is just -- it just keeps going on time and time again. i don't know when is enough. i think there's literally no shame anymore. >> eliot: i think you've hit on the problem. it is a cultural issue and it spans every part of human life and every endeserve no accountability and i think that's the issue we're beginning to confront. this when it comes to libor. which is the interest that dictates all other interest rates. significant mortgage, credit card loan, auto loan, it all comes back to libor. i marvel at the fact we let the bankers set this themselves. >> that's amazing, too. there's a group of 15. same thing eliot. the way they set the prices of the hard to value securities. all of these things are set by pricing coming to a clearinghouse or a central -- a group and they pick the highest and the lowest. >> eliot: 80 plays in the market we have found fraud.

>> it is incredible. the fact that they could manipulate this rate and toast each other with champagne and high-fives and then bob diamond can sit there the former ceo of barclays and wonder why he's losing his job this goes back to the treasury bond scandals in the late '80s with the solomon brothers. of course there has to be this very basic amount of accountability. >> eliot: at least at barclays, the chairman and ceo have been axed. none has happened over here where there should be have been issues. jamie diamond, i don't want to pick on the poor guy. he's on the board of the new york fed that is perhaps implicated in this. morgan chase being investigated for this. will this finally get people to go back to the power on the board is beyond the pale? >> the u.k. has definitely been way, way ahead of the americans in terms of being outraged about this and trying to take real action. you know better than i that there's been no prosecution on either side of the atlantic. nobody is going to stop their bad behavior until there is

serious prosecution, throw away the keys on these guys. the greatest thing we have in this country is our capital markets and these guys are systematically destroying it day after day after day. >> eliot: nobody in his right mind would believe wall street would give an honest answer to a significant position where they can gain the system. nobody is going to buy that anymore. what do you think we'll find out from the new york fed? do you think that they knew about this, turned a blind eye in a moment of crisis? did they try to reform it? i'm curious. >> i have no idea what's going to be in the documents tomorrow. you saw with the bank of england, the number two guy there, i couldn't tell whether he was trying to manipulate the rate with diamond and people or he was trying to defend it. the answer -- a lot of ambiguity in there. we may see the same ambiguity in the documents tomorrow. we better see something eliot because if the new york fed wasn't trying to do something what are they there for? >> eliot: people forget. the new york fed is the most important regulator of wall street. the fed and washington runs

monetary policy. the fed in new york city is the most important regulator of the banks. if they cannot prove beyond any doubt they saw this and did something, i think their reputation, tim geithner is on the hot seat. what should be done with the libor rate? should we take it away from the banks and we're not going to let you set it anymore? >> something like that needs to happen. i don't know whether the market needs -- that's really what is happening. it is the market. the banks are the market. they were tossing out the top five and tossing out the bottom five. that doesn't seem -- people are doing the right thing. that doesn't seem like a rock way to go about it. when you start manipulating, honestly, unless you have a machine do it, human nature has gotten out of control. you see penn state, you see it here. you can't even conceive of these things and yet they're out there doing them. >> eliot: we could go back to mortgages and debt being set on prime. i don't know. this one we have to think through. damages. the story of the day to a certain extent is municipality,

suing for damages. i think proving is is going to be not only complicated but not clear how big they will be. >> there is a subtly the rate may have been lowered as opposed to made higher. i think a bigger scandal i wrote about this in the bloomberg view column is what continues to go on the municipal finance market where bankers and intermediaries buy each other off and manipulate the price of the bonds that the municipalities has to pay. that's a bigger scandal than this libor. >> eliot: and in terms of the damages. >> in terms of the damages and the overpaying going on and the manipulation of the payoffs between the middle men. >> eliot: you're not suggesting there are other scandals we haven't yet focused on. >> just when you think you're safe to go in the water again they do something else. >> eliot: we'll do a quick web extra. people can continue to get the wisdom of bill cohan. author of "money and power" how go