$13.6 million in a severance package. if you're a banker it doesn't matter how bad you screw up. you get $13 million for getting fired. that's what pisses me off. nonetheless have a great weekend. [ ♪ theme music ♪ ] >> eliot: good evening i'm el he will and this is "viewpoint." it has been a rough 24 hours in london for mitt romney. >> if he's here to make friend he has a funny way of showing it. >> exactly. >> eliot: after offending his hosts by questioning their preparations for and commitment to the london olympics, which kicked off tonight, british newspapers were scathing from the times of london, romney shambles from the upscale guardian, romney tries to pick up the pieces. and this classic mitt the twit.

the former massachusetts governor and olympics chief tried to backtrack this morning. >> romney: i'm absolutely convinced that the people here are ready for the games and in a few moments all the things that the politicians say will get swept away. >> eliot: he should hope so. but this comment from carl lewis may be tough to sweep under the table. i quote sometimes i think some americans shouldn't hereof the country. are you kidding me? stay home if you don't know what to say. however, the romney campaign is unconcerned about his gaffes. louisiana governor, a romney supporter said, we're not worried about overseas headlines. we're worried about voters back here in america. romney's foreign policy continues tomorrow with a trip to israel and meeting with netanyahu and other meetings in poland. romney gave israel something

more to talk, signing a bill for funding for short-range air defense known as iron dome. >> obama: what this legislation does is bring together all the cooperation we've seen at an unprecedented level to israel security. >> eliot: while romney insisted he would not criticize the president while overseas he had harsh words for obama before he left. he claims situations could have been avoided if obama had followed the agenda set by were bush. president obama webbed the freedom of agenda and we are seeing a whirlwind of to multi in the middle east because he did not follow the agenda that could have change the the

situation. >> eliot: was he giving britain all the entertainment it needed over the last 24 hours? >> the romney shambles, as they're being called, actually started before romney set foot in the u.k. romney adviser, of course, is quoted as saying that romney understood the quote angelo saxon heritage of the united states better that the president did. he is participating in all of the olympic events. he will not be watching his wife participate in the dressage competition, but he will be watching the u.s. men compete in the swimming competition. that's barely going to make up for the gaffe-prone trip he has had in london so far. >> eliot: i'm glad you messageed that dressage competition.

i never knew how to pronounce it. it never instruct me that you needed to have a net worth of nine figures to know what it was. is it the horse or the person who competes who gets the medal. >> the person gets the medal. the horse gets the glory. it's a more complex form of horse ballet. it is a horse with a rider in a top hat and suit going through a choreograph set to music. and then at the end theres is a grand prix freestyle i kid you not, that's what it's called. it costs north of six figures to have a horse and compete with it. the saddles alone are $6,000 a pop. who knows how many of those they go through. the dressage is a competition of the very, very upper crust. >> eliot: there must be a cable channel on dressage.

enough. let's talk gtp a bad number are they going to swing back to economics as quickly as they possibly can and forget this policy tour in the first place? >> without a doubt. the foreign policy tours are extended photopsy, photo ops. you go around to england israel israel, poland. shake hands smile don't make mistakes and maybe collect money along the way as mitt romney will do in israel. this cass a disaster for him even before he got there and i'm sure the campaign is sketching out his message on the sluggish economic numbers as soon as they get back to the country. >> eliot: as son who was in politics in new york, it's ireland, italy that you needed to visit because those were the voting blocks here.

but will that have an impact on jewish voters in the united states? what will romney say that he believes will have an impact on a voting block that is consistency behind the nominee. i think they're completely unsatisfied with president obama. what will he say that will differ materially from what what president obama has said. >> he has already said that president obama has webbed his support for israel. he has cut off funds for the country as promised even though as you explained he was just given an agreement to give tens of thousands of dollars more. he'll say that president obama is anti-israel. this is false. the president has been avowed ally of israel. there's nothing that romney can do to peel off jewish voters in this country. it's something that you have to check off. it's a requirement an

obligation as a candidate. obama did it himself. but to fight for jewish voters in this country so much as there is one, it will be in this country and it will come down to super pacs and the money of sheldon adelson and others. it won't be because mitt romney set foot in israel. >> eliot: thewas as false as the current republican effort to take out of context that you didn't build that phrasing, what the president said and i want to get down in the weeds of the speech two years ago is exactly what has been said by one israeli prime minister after another. it's one of those bizarre moments where fiction became reality. it's simply not the case. will mitt romney, he wishes it was a photo op, and people will hear his gaffes, what is the

itinerary. >> he'll go to jerusalem. he'll go to the biggest holy sites. he's going to have a fundraiser, reportedly sheldoned sheldon adelson the billionaire bankroll something going to be there. obviously romney with meet with his friends members of the knesset. he'll do all the right things. meet the right people. a lot of it will be out in the open in front of the cameras because that's who the trips are supposed to be for. i'm sure his campaign is telling him now don't say anything dumb. don't say anything before vetting with us first. stick to the script. and the mistake in london is one thing around the olympics. the mistake in israel is quite another. there may not be much of an upside there but if he us does have another gaffe another misstep in israel, the lens is even brighter, and the spotlight is even brighter on him and the problems worse. >> eliot: if you do it once, you can be forgiven.

but one in israel and then poland, some would say he really can't get his lines back. thank you for your time tonight. >> thank you. >> eliot: romney seems to have hoped his trip to the london olympics would help him bask in the glory of the olympics that brought minimum to glory. but those olympics may not have been as clean of nepotism than thought. wayne barrett. for a long, long time you said take a look at the salt lake olympics. they are a cesspool. if we look, mitt romney won't look too good in this. >> i wrote two stories on this. and the stories add up to $2 million in contributions and i could do three or four more of these. but i'm at a total of $2 million of contributions that romney has received from three individuals

and their families and business associates who were all implicated in the worst way in the scandal that brought romney there. so really what romney did he did manage the games well. i really think that one of the reasons he made this terrible gaffe in london is he in his own mind is comparing how well he organized things with how the things are the brits are. at any rate, he was a manage managerial success but there is a cloud that hangs over him because he did all these business dealings with the guys who were implicated in the scandals. one of them, he awarded the contract to the guy who was the ticket broke for the olympics. romney gave him the first exclusive contract. he did that knowing full well

that he had paid $131 million in cash bribes to his predecessor. >> eliot: i read your story. you say romney embraced this fellow after the scandal had broken after the feds were looking at it and romney had been told this was a dirty person? >> right. in fact, what he said at the time to the salt lake press, well, i called the federal prosecutors and asked them if they had anyone problems with me giving this contract to this company, which is called jet sports. they said no. i called and they have no knowledge of any such call ever being made. it was well-known. also what they did in this contract which romney himself explained, head they had no without. there is no exit. this is one of the biggest contracts of the games and there was no cancellation clause. there was no way they could get out the contract. >> eliot: that's something you always put into a contract. >> and this guy and his business

associates have given a million dollars to mitt romney. >> eliot: i want to raise this to perhaps one notch higher at a level of abstraction. mitt romney has been saying look what a great private sector guy i am and going after president obama saying you didn't build that statement he's trying to frame an ideological problem. >> they were given federal subsidies. they already had the largest amount. john mccain faulted it as a pork barrel. there was ane an enormous amount of subsidies and yet he continued to working with-- >> eliot: this goes directly to what super bowl was saying. sure you turned a profit. but hey, you got a buffer of over billion and a half public dollars. don't pretend this was something

done in isolation all on the sweat of your blow. we all chipped in and helped. something that mitt romney doesn't want to acknowledge in the sector of the economy. >> and tim gardner literally one of mitt romney's closest friends. he said at the time of the olympics, i talked to him every day. he is the guy who initially called mitt and offered him the salt olympic job. this guy has given his family and business associates $500,000. i looked at the contract without disclosing anything to his board even though his own ethics rules that he introduced, required the disclosure of the relationship. he winds up locating the only olympic legacy plaza in gateway which is this big mall that guardgardner was building at the time. it has made it into a destination for anyone who visits this middle of nowhere

as cameron calls it, this middle of nowhere complex. without any other bids. without opening it up to anyone else to compete he gave it to his good buddy gardner. these are the kinds of things that he did out there in running the olympics. >> eliot: why do you think it is that other than your journalism and one or two others, but the mainstream media has really not focused on what the actual legacy and story is behind the saltsalt lake city olympics. >> one of the reasons why i focused on it was because i knew they wouldn't. he has two pillars to the biography. massachusetts he takes away himself. >> eliot: he doesn't want to talk about healthcare. >> bain has been taken from him. so i think the media has made this subconscious decision we'll give him that one. >> eliot: give him the olympics. >> we'll give him that one. >> eliot: but the three legs to this tripod are all bad. in massachusetts he did something good in healthcare.

>> he reversed his position. how did he become governor of massachusetts by telling the people that he believed in choice, that he supported gay rights, all of these other things. so he reversed himself not-- >> eliot: you're much to hard on him. he's an etch-a-sketch kind of guy. his own words used against him. investigative reporter wayne barrett, good friend great reporter. always wonderful to have you on the program. >> eliot: one place we don't need politics is the libor scandal. but too bad it's getting politicizeed. we have more "viewpoint" coming up. >>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.

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>> eliot: mitt romney's trip to britain, president obama's words out of context when he said, you didn't build that. there is a factor in this presidential election that dwarfs all the jokes and misstatements and it's the number of the day. 1.5. the rate of growth in the economy this year and it's prep tepid. a healthy growth rate is between 2% and 4%. and in the recession it's the number is negative. 1.5% is not a disaster but it's weak and worse yet things do not look like they're going to speed up any time soon. you can plain it on anything, the local economy has been sluggish.

we're on a slow hike back, and jobs moving overseas and any president may not be able to bring things along very quickly. the 1.5% growth figure means less jobs, and life it harder for a lot of americans. when life is hard, you take it out on whoever is in charge. calls out the mainstream media. >>overwhelming majority of the county says: "tax the rich don't go to war." if you have an opinion, you better back it up. >>eliot spitzer takes on politics. >>science and republicans do not mix. online forum with a direct line to eliot spitzer. >>join the debate now.

>> eliot: earlier this week treasury secretary timothy geithner as well as democrats in congress tried to make it seem like geithner had done everything he could while at the new york fed to curb libor manipulation. but as we continue to find out that is not the case. in an op-ed in today's financial times a former invest investment banker says that libor manipulation was a poorly held secret over 20 years ago. and i quote. simply put then, it seems that the misreporting of the libor rates may have been common practice since at least 1991. even worse is the fact that the federal reserve was may aware of the possible manipulation of libor as far as back as 1998. one person who can make sense of all this, the always incisive and metaphorical contributing editor for rolling stone magazine, matt taibbi. this cesspool, this quick stand of a scandal keeps getting wider

and filthier. >> we have a trader, who said this goes back to 1992. i spoke to a couple of people at wall street who said this was a poorly held secret dating back several years, every knew there was something wrong with libor back at the start of the oh crisis. for tim geithner sounding the alarm or that he wasn't aware of it really doesn't hold water. >> eliot: at a bear minimum, we feel what geithner did in '08 was almost brushed under the carpet. but the notion of the fed had a sense of what was going on and was responsive to fraud is blown out of the water these days. >> yes, the most startling thing about what geithner said in the hearings when he was testifying before congress was that he

didn't inform the department of justice about any of this because it was in the press. there were press reports clearly they could have picked it up by reading the newspaper. it want his job to go do that. which is an extraordinary mindset for a regulator to have. >> eliot: remember, this is a guy when he was being confirmed who said i've never been a regulator. he didn't understand his job. that was the first shrieking alarm bell that this guy did not know what his job at the new york fed. were we wrong to view him skeptically? >> absolutely not. he clearly did not view himself in that role. what he has done this week again shows himself--he should be furious, pounding his fists on the table calling for the heads of all the guys who were involved in this activity because it makes the entire industry look bad. he should be defending the industry. instead he's defending the criminals who posed a threat to

the industry. >> eliot: then there is the congress who embraced him gave him a kiss on both cheeks and said you're wonderful. i was down there and entering an alice in wonderland mind in what was going on here. you're out of touch with reality. >> it was totally upside down. the democrats were all defending geithner and it was the republicans who were saying, how come you didn't regulate back in 2008, which was completely crazy. >> eliot: they got their breakfast mixed up. they all went to the wrong cafeteria in the morning. >> bizarre. >> eliot: you're close to the president, we got to protect the president until november, we won't let you take any hard hits. >> i think the democrats generally realized this is potentially an explosive issue for the president heading into the election. otherwise things look pretty good for barack obama. but he's really weak--the book that just came out underscores this. the choice of tim geithner will eventually go down as president

obama's greatest mistakes. he filled to view the market and the bail out problems with any kind of enthusiasm is any-- >> eliot: he was a great check writer but did nothing but shovel money into the bank accounts of the bank and the economy is suffering but talk about basickers and the banking system. sandy wyle goes rove. talk about the guy who ate the wrong thing for breakfast. i almost fell out of my chair when i saw this. >> i thought of you when i saw it for the first time. this moment when even the reporters with the softest touch inin the landscape of journalism say, you created too big to fail. he's surprised by the question. you can see in the clip that it

never occurred to him that he would get that kit simple. it was an incredible, amazing thing to watch. >> eliot: talk about--it's as though galileo said i'm wrong the earth is the center of the universe. he disavowed everything that he stood for for his entire career. >> casually. it reminded me when they said, yeah, i saw a flaw in my banking. he created the citigroup merger before it was legal. they ended up having to have an act of congress. >> eliot: people forget the citigroup travelers merger was done and by the way we'll get congress to pass a law to permit it. what we're doing now is i illegal but we own congress and they did what they were asked to do. >> eliot: you're the lawyer here there was an exception saying that you're allowed to temporarily do this until we get the entire congress make this merger legal. it's an extraordinary

circumstance where we change the entire landscape of the american financial system to make this merger legal. then a decade and a half later he said, we shouldn't have done this. >> eliot: oops, my bad shocking absolutely remarkable. you're the banking guru, but i want to talk politics for the seconds that we have left. what does it do for mitt romney who is defending the structure that even sandy wyle and others are saying we got it wrong. >> everyone else in the civilized world saying too big to fail does not work. now we have the libor scandal where there is rampant price fixing. mitt romney's response is he goes to a fundraiser organized by bob diamond. he has not severed those ties. clearly he does not think this is a serious thing which says a

lot about mitt romney. even sandy wyle makes more sense than he does. >> eliot: cut mitt some slack he goes to london and shows the sensitivity that we want in our next president. >> incredible. his response to this entire crisis has been non-existence. on the libor he has not made comments at all on it really. the only thing he said was that regulations are occasionally necessary. >> eliot: kind of how george w. bush reacted to the meltdown in '08, a blank look as if i should i take note. >> an anomaly but not paying attention. >> eliot: matt taibbi, thank you as always for your time. steven colbert can make mitt romney's trip to israel as successful as his trip to england. view finder up next.

rupert murdoch's phone-hacking scan l. 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

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so the only thing left behind is the shine. jet-dry rinses away residues for a sparkling shine. >> eliot: still to come, syria on the brink. but first barney frank shuts down maria bartiromo and even

fox news is criticizing mitt romney. when it doesn't fit anywhere else, we put it in viewfinder. [ ♪ music ♪ ] >> why isn't suntanning an olympic sport. >> i don't know. >> because the best you can ever get is bronze. >> i think the british press should back off. and so should the officials. this guy could be president. >> let me say, if you ask me, i'll say this to you because i'll really get in trouble if i say it to ally. if you say does that suit makes you look fat i'm not going to say anything. >> it's incomprehensible. i'm out of adjectives. >> your next stop is israel. keep up your charm offensive. open up your speech in the key necessitykeynecessity whip.

>> please let me finish. >> go ahead. >> you're mocking this in an inappropriate way. >> not at all. with all due respect when are the adults going to enter the room. >> i don't take kindly to being called a non-adult. >> it's the last time i listen to my wife when she says go out and watch a movie. >> the movie was it "the firm"." >> no. >> was it "free willie." >> no. >> was it "anna con da." >> no, sadly, it was "get shorty". >> things in the news, have you heard about vampire. >> something about somebody's wife, this one. >> yeah, yeah. >> that's her.

>> yeah. >> it's awful. >> what happened. >> rob patterson moved out. >> no. >> yes? >> come on. >> he moved out. >> is that important? >> yes that is important. i don't care what is going on. >> we know you're working hard. always a pleasure to have you on this program. >> sometimes better than others. >> you know why you shouldn't trust a volleyball player with your drink? they might spike it. that's the worst ever. >> eliot: good thing it's fry. we've heard what romney can do in israel. but what can anyone do in syria? that's next. >> 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.

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ask your doctor if spiriva can help. >> eliot: chaos and carnage continues to spread in syria. fierce clashes between rebels and forces loyal to president bashar al-assad have engulfed the country's largest city of aleppo. activists say the army helicopter fire has killed at least a dozen people. in rebels are bracing for an amplified assault amid reports that the regime is reading columns of tanks just outside of the city in preparation for battle. expressing fears of mass caution ultimate an u.s. state department spokeswoman told reporters today there was concern. that we were going to see a massacre in aleppo and that's what the regime appears to be lining up for: ambassador,

thank you for joining us. >> good to be with you governor. >> eliot: you've been traveling in europe and the middle east recently, you hear this news. how do you assess the current state of play? are the deflections undermining assad's power? >> the longer he's able to hold out and as far as we can tell, he's able to maintain the cohesiveness of large numbers of his own built and unleash the type of attacks in damascus that drove out masses in aleppo, i say as i've said all along. until someone pulls the plugs of all the arms he's receiving from russia, venezuela, he'll continue to keep fighting. >> eliot: the critical question you just raised, how one might succeed in cutting off the flow

of arms, you're saying those defections and the apparently military success of the military rebel putting a bomb in damascus none of that yet suggests to you that his facade is crumbling. >> no, it would be inappropriate to suggest that these significant defections students a fluid that will unleash tens of thousands of soldiers to defect to the other side and cause the regime to crumble including the security forces. those who look for silver linings in clouds--i screwed up that metaphor--the fact of the matter is that we haven't seen anything that resembles the type of magnitude of defection that causes the regime to base a strategic threat. >> eliot: to come back to the

fulcrum issue how does the united states or other nation cut off the flow of arms into assad when russia seems committed to maintaining it's strength. >> after all, governor this is the $64,000 question. and let's be real here. remember the world was no one an outcry over the massacre in bosnia in the early 90s. do you know how many were killed there that caused the world to enter into an uproar in this so-called genocide? 8,000. do you know how many syrians men, women and children only by some estimated count have been killed so far by this butcher of a regime? over 18,000. that's not counting the men, women and children. the fact of the matter is that when this administration keeps coming up with alibis that it doesn't want to pour fuel on the fire, it has not even gun to do what is necessary to put the fire outlet alone think about putting troops on the ground or attacking aircraft in the air.

that's what i'm saying. the russians will get their way, and we thought we would convince the russians to change their mind and haven't and that's the best we can do. that's a hogwash. that's a cop out out of an u.s. policies that has no idea how to deal with the situation. >> eliot: when you say we need a policy to under cut the assad regime. you talked about financial structures block cases international criminal court this is an attack on the legitimacy of the assad regime, but do you think those things now can lead to his crumble. >> no, if we said six months ago, hold it, don't start funneling arms to the rebels, hold it. we're not so sure that we want to get involved in this, the fact of the matter is when our

allies were ready to go the extra mile and basically help to bring about a drop of support to the regime, the fact of the matter is that the administration killed holding up up the yellow flag. that's what i have concern about. it's the political thought of this administration. >> eliot: i think you may have answered this question. you think at this midty timidity comes from the political side. >> i'm not calling for boots on the ground, eliot. i've been consistent with that. but there is no doubt in my mind that when it comes to syria the alfa dog in this situation room has been the political campaign out of chicago. >> eliot: that needs to change if you think we're going to do anything productive. one other argument, i'm not embracing it, but it's out there, the consequences of

upheaval in syria in a way that it's completely you unpredictable and an upheaval could have down side disastrous risks. how do you put a ring fence around that to protect the rest of the region? >> you can't. pandora's box has been opened. i wrote a piece in "huffington post" a few days ago entitled the secret war of syria. you have operatives from iraq. militias being formed by the sectarian groups that are fear fearful for their own lives. you have saudi clerics buying arms. you have the equivalent of a spanish civil war going on in sir are a. lebanon, israel, jordan. the explosion will be monumental because no one has been able to guide this from the exterior. least of all anyone i would call from the administration has done their job to bring cohesive understanding among these rivalries that have exists among the sectarian groups.

>> eliot: a sharp and powerful critique from marc ginsberg. a former u.s. ambassador to morocco. thank you for joining me. >> this court has proven to be the knowing, delighted accomplice in the billionaires' purchase of our nation. >> and you think it doesn't affect you? think again.

it starts at $59 for the entire year for back up. put in code stephanie for your subscription. 18 minutes after the hour.

>> eliot: romney puts the dip if diplomacy and americas that chicken fights over same-sex marriage. we'll have our week review coming up. and stay tuned for "the war

room" with jennifer granholm at the top the hour where jennifer will go in-depth with mitt romney's wave of gaffes on his summer european tour. democratic consultant carl fresh will dissect romney's blunders. and more "viewpoint" coming up next. the irs is going after political groups hiding behind the social welfare label. >> eliot: two things i love got wrapped up in the ugly side of politics this week. first, chick-fil-a. great sandwich and good lemonade. but now we see the bigoted views from the top of the company. time to boycott the company.

sending, the olympics. i love them. the grace the sportsmanship the sports we never totally understood like dressage. and so how has mitt romney the guy who has campaigned on the notion that the president has damaged the international pre-exception of the u.s. performed on his own first trip abroad. on a trip to designed how adept he was to diplomacier no less. monty python could not have scripted a better move. as carl lewis said, some americans should just not leave the country. i wait as he moves east to israel and poland. if mitt can do hammer to the oldest and securist international relationship we have what will he do to the

middle east. mitt's critique of the obama foreign policy has been devoid of an thread of what he would do and do differently. he's surrounded by the folks who brought us fake wmd and the iraq war and his language has the tone to match. but on specifics one is mitt's stand on afghanistan. he said he would listen to the commanders. that means nothing except an abdication of responsibility. the president sets the strategic goals and objectives. he can't just punt by saying i will live to the commanders. but this is typical of his answers. but so far mitt romney's international adventure has been amusing and revealing. once again the vapid mitt has shown his lack of substance and style. mitt, come home. you've already done enough damage. that's my view.

>>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. [ train whistle blows ] [ ball hitting paddle ] [ orbit girl ] don't let food hang around. yeah! [ orbit trumpet ] clean it up with orbit! [ orbit glint ] fabulous! for a good clean feeling. try new orbit micro packs.

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>> eliot: what a week of headlines. the ceo of chick-fil-a publicly states his opposition to same-sex marriage. as a result welcome chick-fil-a is boycotted by puppets and others as well. timothy geithner appears before both houses of congress to explain his failed performance but he's praised for a job well done. but neither of those can hold a candle to what happened when mitt romney took a little trip to england. >> i hear there is a guy--there is a guy called mitt romney who wants to know whether we're ready. he wants to know whether we're

ready. are we ready? [ cheering ] >> eliot: joining me few to take a look at these stories and more, john fugelsang who is in l.a. performing with stephanie miller's sexy liberal come any tour tour. mitt romney diplomat of the year knows how to make friends and influence people wherever he goes. what a buffoon. >> my god govern, i don't know where to begin. mitt romney has been going around falsie accuseing barack obama going across the world apologizing for america. and now america has to go out and apologize for mitt romney. it's incredible. to get british people upset you have to do something crazy like invade poland. >> eliot: i shows you juxtapose it with mitt romney anything seems funny. what was he thinking? is he going to go to the opening

ceremonies and be booed. >> i would hate to have that happen because his horse is doing the electric slide or something in the olympics. mitt romney is traveling in europe with a whole bunch of staff members and advisers. he did not make this gaffe all on his own. he had help helping him make this gaffe. >> eliot: you have to spread the credit. the staffers are saying give me assistance on this one. they deserve a big bonus. they'll get some out of bain--is he running bain or not. >> they're broken up with bain but still friends with benefits. >> eliot: but a retroactive break up so you don't know what will happen. >> i think mitt romney will retroactively not go to great britain. did he salute the country of great britain. seen sarah palin buried her head

in that one. she did make it. >> eliot: at chick-fil-a they pull the muppets and what is going on at chicago. >> their president is a devout christian and they are a christian organization. that's why they're closed on sunday although technically the sabbath is on saturday but we'll let that slide. he came out begins his fellow tax-paying gay and lesbian being able to marry who she want. the muppets pulled their puppets from the the chick-fil-a. >> eliot: those puppets have been a long-time favorite around the world. we've had a good time this week

going after chick-fil-a. i have no problem with the president taking whatever position he wants on there. we don't need to go there. we're never going back to chick-fil-a. >> i have no problem as well. it's a free country. you are allowed to be as homophobic as you want. this is where i draw the line. you don't get to do it in the name of jesus. because jesus is not a homophobe. i know the bible really, really well. jesus never said a damn thing about gay people. he talked about gay people about as much as he talked about monster trucks. st. paul in rome is not talking about homosexual. saddam and gomorrah is about a bunch of guys who want to gang rape angels. what is funny about that, aside from the fact that it's not christian, the same part of leviticus says pork is an abomination and guess what is on chick-fil-a's breakfast menu, the bacon egg and cheese biscuit

which means, if that part of the bible is right you too, will be roasting in helicopter right bean lib rocky liberace and andy dick. we also saw chick-fil-a came out and said that the muppet pulled by chick-fil-a because kids were getting their hands stuck in them. there is no commandment about being gay but there is one about bearing false witness. they're breaking one of the tend commandments by smearing the group that never broke the ten the ten commandments in the name of being christian. >> eliot: you nailed that one. do you have a favorite sport? >> lately its dressage horses. i'll be glued to my set watching mitt romney's pony come out. >> eliot: that's only on a premium channel. you have to pay steep cable fees. >> and get a $77,000 tax write

off. >> eliot: i'm serious. when you watch summer olympics is there one sport? >> gymnastics is just incredible, track and field. i love all the events. after watching president bush cavort around with women's volleyball. that's a favorite of mine, too. i'm waiting for the chinese people beating bongo drums. >> eliot: i have always had a dream of being in the olympics. it was the definition of what you want to do in life. if you get there you've done something real. it is cool. i love watching it. >> it's amazing that you can go to the olympics and achieve incredible greatness and break regards and then one day marry a kardashian woman who berates you in front of cameras. >> eliot: john fugelsang, thank you for your time. that's view "viewpoint" tonight. stay tune to