talk to the banker. >> well, t been a pleasure trying to change your mind. >> thanks for being part of the program. that will do it for us today. i am dylan ratigan. we're back with you tomorrow to do the big to do next week again. some "hardball" starts right now. let's play "hardball." good evening. let me start with today's big stand off. president obama and mitt romney each making his case to lead the county are tri the next four years. obama showed us a choice between his economic policies and romneys. he says his are based on tax fairness and a bigger commitment to education, energy, infrastructure. he wants people trained for jobs, he want it is financial

big shots on wall street regulated in the sbrs of the people. he says his opponent would just give us a rerun of w. tax cuts for the big corporations and wealthy people. the pullback of regulation on wall street. romney's basic argument is that heel do what big business thinks ought to be done. let's hear from ed rendell of pennsylvania, author of a nation of wusses and michael steele. gentlemen, we brought on the heavy weights today. to address this question. today, president obama clearly tried to turn this election, this is the key r word. into a choice. not a referendum on how the economy's doing. a choice between two candidates to lead the country. a choice between his policies that pulled uz us back from the brink. >> romney and republicans believe that if you simply take away regulations and cut taxes,

the market will solve all of our problems on its own. if you agree with that, you should vote for them. i believe we need a plan for better education and training and for energy independence and for new research and innovation. for rebuilding our infrastructure and if you agree with me, if you believe this economy grows best when everybody gets a fair shot. and everybody does their fair share. and everybody plays by the same set of rules. then i ask you to stand with me a second term. >> they want to say what do you think of the two program sns. >> i think it's a smart strategy. i think he did a good job. he went quick through what he narrated and what the economy looked like when he became president. i thought he did a good job in

ohio of emphasizes the manufacturing comeback. half a million manufacturing jobs in the last 27 months. then he went to the future and compared his plan to romneys and i think in the end, that's what the american people are going to car about. presidents failed, romney wasn't a good governor, they're going to be interested in what are the plans of the candidates to get out out of this and i think the president has a more viable plan, a plan that can jump-start the economy more quickly and a plan that has a chance to work. the romney plan, become said it's the bush tax cuts on steroids and i think that's a good, if he can make the election about the contrast for the future. >> i guess the question is if he can win with the argument, i started in a hole, a real mess in 2008, this guy wants to rewrite the same policies of tax cuts for the poll circumstance

getting rid of glass-steagall all that stuff. give me the profound differences between the presidential candidate mitt romney and former president george w. bush when it comes to economic policy. what's the difference? >> chris, that is an irrelevant comparison. >> i'm not answering that question. i know why and everybody watching knows why you won't answer it. >> you're doing what obama wants us to do and you're a good fan for it and that's looking back. >> that's pretty rough. what do you call a guy that refuses to answer a question? is he a sycophant for the other side? but my question, i -- my question to you is give me a differences between w. and romney. >> you give me the differences between mitt romney and barack obama. that's what this is about. this is not about george bush. we're talking about barack obama and his policies that have not

created the jobs. that has kept unemployment stagnant, that still has some 10 to 15 million people looking for work who have given up. what i heard today an the governor's right. the first part of his speech began to set the narrative, but then the latter half or two-thirds of it fell off into defensive mode and that's what the people are going to focus on. that split vision between these two candidates running for the presidency of the united states. >> let me try one more time. if you bought a house and discovered it had termites and the electricity didn't work and every time you plugged the toaster in, it got a short and there was a fire an everything was wrong with that house, wouldn't you blame the guy you bought the house from. >> well, yeah -- >> excuse me, excuse me. >> hold up.

there's a new other than his name is barack obama. >> i'm just moderating this. >> i think michael has a point. but i think you bring up president bush and actually the last 60 years of economic growth in this country. because the prescription romney is bringing forth is the same thing the president bush tried to do. it's just that's the same formula, the formula didn't work. it plunged us into a recession. if you look at the last 60 years, the highest ten year of job growth when the rich was at 50% or more. there's no correlation between that and job growth. >> the suggestions being made over and over, romney suggested he's a -- he's a rerun.

if you keep suggesting -- his plans have been tried. >> i think he does have a prescription that's going to look in a different direction. the one thing that -- the one thing i did not hear from this president today was what he was going to do about spending. he went off on a litany of things we should be investing. we're spending money we do not have. we're mortgaging the future and i think romney has a legitimate prescription for addressing the spending side of this equation. >> let's examine that. >> what's romney going to quut is this has he laid that list out yet? >> there were no specifics from either of these candidates. >> let's be honest. his argument is this president who wants to be president rather

is basically a republican with same supply side attitude as the president we swrus saw four yearses ago. he doesn't have to say how he's different than w. he doesn't have to tell us anything about romney -- >> so is barack obama going to tell us how he's different from bill clinton? because lord knows bill clinton can spend money -- vastly different on how they approach spending. >> two things. the president did say in his speech that he has a plan to cut $4 trillion out of the deficit and that was a big deal he and boehner were trying to put together and we couldn't do it and the president and boehner will admit the president had a $4 trillion deficit reduction plan on the table. number two on the flip side, governor romney cuts all these

taxes which blowins a big hole the deficit. >> here's president obama today saying what romney is offering is nothing more than a republican retread of the fails economic policies of the past. i say rerun. >> the economic vision of mr. romney and his allies in congress was tested just a few years ago. we tried this. their policies did not grow the economy. they did not grow the middle class. they did not reduce our debt. why would we think that they would work better this time? >> how do you think he did today? zpl he did a very good jock in framing everything. but he didn't say -- the job of framing, putting it in context or giving flow to it. >> now, you're with me. i think he has to have a major pitch.

i think michael's going to disagree with this. he thinks spending's the issue. you've got to build. we don't have the highways. >> what are you building with? where's the money coming from? do you know how much it costs to build? >> the business is not making right now. that the consumer's not making. if both of them are not spending, this economy will go stagnant. >> trillions on the shelves because this economy is too weak to grow because the investor class will not invest in the policies this president has put forward. >> michael though, you have to look at the last three republican presidents, president reagan and bush. they both significantly increased government spending. that's a fact. government spending went up and that helped us get out of the

recession. >> and they also cut taxes, which is why we have deficits. >> president obama has said he's got a plan to take 4 trillion out of the deficit. if you take 4 trillion out and invest half a trillion in investment and infrastructure -- >> i'm going to turn to politics for a second. the elephant that hasn't talked yet this this room. i talked to an expert today who told me he has a lot of clients who are ceos who are admitting they're not going to invest until this president's gone. if the consumer doesn't have the confidence that comes with that, the government then pulls back as you advised. we will have a economy which is decided to have an ending recession because if business not spending, we are dying economically and that's what you want us to do. >> it's not. it's not what i want us to do nor is it what republicans want

us to do. >> you said so. >> i'm not bragging -- just stating a fact is not bragging, chris. you said the c eric os you talked to have been saying the same thing. >> it's punitive. >> it's not. would you make a bad investment in you know it's a bad investment? >> no. can i just finish -- >> is business out there taking financial investments to help this president get re-elected? nobody's putting money out. >> and you'd agree warren buffett's a smart guy. he says it's a great time to invest and he's going to increase the money his company is investing. >> because warren buffett's got the leverage to do that, but a small business owner does not. final point -- >> president obama has cut taxes on small businesses 18 times. >> maybe he needs to cut it 19 because no one's feeling or believing it and the other point i think the important to make

for all this blubber we heard today coming out about what he's going to do, he had the opportunity in his grasp and he blink. president gets serious -- >> can't do simpson bowles without the republican -- michael. you know you can't unless the other side agrees to raise revenue. boehner couldn't sell it. >> it's not necessarily what you can do at times, it's what you're willing to do and he wasn't willing. >> thank you, guys. we have an interesting set of vocabulary words. i'm a sycophant. the president speaks in blubber. a bad day for your crowd, michael steele, so i understand why you got a little excited. well done. great new book. we'll never stop talking about it. coming up, dirty, angry money.

sheld sheldon adelson is giving the romney campaign -- i guess the the casino business is doing really good. what's he going to do with this money and why is he giving it? also, some gruesome testimony, more of it must i say, in the sandusky trial. could this have a silver lining? and 40 years after water gate, two of the biggest figures join us live. carl bernstein and john dean, perhaps the most famous whistleblower in history. finally, a new survey tells you you can tell where your politics are by the answers to those g questions. [ female announcer ] neosporin® plus pain relief starts relieving pain faster and kills more types of infectious bacteria. neosporin® plus pain relief. for a two dollar coupon, visit neosporin.com.

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48-42 in nevada. michigan, another poll shows a cloers than expected race. a new poll from the democratic outfit baden foster for presidential preference has obama with a one-point lead. not a big one. we'll be right back.

dirty angry money. if the 2012 election has a slogan, it may turn out to be brought to you by sheldon adelson. he has given $35 million to republican superpacs and is likely to give a lot more. it's called restore our future. people close to adelson say he may give whatever it takes mike shaur that barack obama gets elected. maybe 100 million bucks. unlike you and me, he might have

that capability. he's worth $25 billion. adelson has a lot to give away and romney knows it. last month, he met with adelson for nearly an hourment the question is, what does adelson expect to get? that's the small question compared to the power, they really make effective changes. john raulston is a columnist and rick tower, a former newt gingrich spoke man who acknowledged the superpac winning our future. that group was a major beneficiary of adelson's money. it is amazing if you think about putting these together, republican candidate for president, mitt romney at the alta alter of donald trump, theb you

see him taking money from sheldon adelson. casino jack. it's unbelievable what's going on here. what does that say out in vegas that these guys who make money at the craps table are now running the election of the leading republican of the country? >> i think it's unfair to adelson to compare him to trump. he's worth a lot more and is actually a person of substance. he has a few things he really cares about. israel is one of them and he and newt gingrich got to know each other over that in the mid '90s. oneew casino owners that has fought the unions. he is quite enamored of karl

rove and i bet he has convinced him to give a lot to cross roads. could be $100 million. i love the stories that say close to sheldon adelson, no one knows what he is going to do. a difference with trump, he does not like the attention. he really does not. i think that's one reason why, dehold me weeks ago he was going to give one more contribution. he says it's a small amount of money. maybe not to you. >> what a xwhent. one of our producers figured out for a guy of his wealth, giving away this money is like giving away $30 for a person who makes an average income. it's really just change to him. let me go to rick. you know when a super pac goes to a big one, big game hunting i might call it, getting the big guys to give, what kind of

conversations occur between candidate and giver? >> in the case of super pac, not a lot of conversations. donors and candidates have to find common ground. i know with sheldon adelson, who is a deep believer in very hawkish, stance on israel. that's where he and newt gingrich. watching sheldon adelson, grew up in massachusetts. for 66 years, has built up from nothing. >> well i guess it comes down to fair enough. it's legal. the supreme court, run by conservative republicans now said it's okay. it's legal. my question is this the kind of democracy that people fight for? is it what our founding fathers had in mind? and influence people by the millions just because they've got the money. does it bother you they have so

many more votes than the average citizen? >> no. it does not that you get on television every night and influence people with your opinion. not at all. >> i didn't pay to get on. i'm not running advertisements and people can agree or disagree. these ads are not arguments. they are advertisements. relentless advertising campaigns and you can not escape. >> you can escape and don't have to watch. >> look, you're smart to me. rick, you know this. you run bombing campaigns. you cannot escape. look what happened to your guy newt when that money was turned on by mitt romney. you had him crying out of the campaign tauz because that kind of money talks. tell me it didn't run your candidate out of the race. >> sure it did. >> advertising is very effective. but -- it may have. but what's the alternative? i think the founders were correct in terms of shutting out

political speech. last thing we want to do is regulate political speech. i would say let's have the money go directly to the candidates then get rid of this third party shell game and i think people can be a lot more responsible for the money. >> you know i'm right, too, but we'll have conversations off the air because the power of money to destroy newt gingrich, welcomeback to john who's covering this. what is the sense about adelson? he's pro hawkish on israel. nothing wrong with that. how can you get up and vote? you get out of their house, take a shower, put your clothes on, plan to go vote but all the time you know that the huge amount of money that's going into politics is making us like those old latin american countries where in the old days, about five families that ran in a place. are we going toward that? >> it's right to worry about it, but i'm not so sure that it's

completely wrong in that i think the biggest problem is the transparency issue and that he's contributing so much more to cross roads gps. if i could point out one of the great ironnys going on here, when romney talks about the great threats to america besides a second term for barack obama, a nuclear iran and what? the economic mite of china. where is sheldon adelson gotten all of his money from? >> coming here. >> i think that's suf a great irony. because of what the court decisions say, you can't really stop sheldon adelson from spending the money. but we should know with the internet, realtime reporting, when he gives $10 million to cross roads, we should know it the the day he does it. >> by the way, we just told everybody that.

thank you so much. print isn't as powerful, but we did get the message. i never thought of myself, the head of how this influence people vote. i think people make up their mind, listen to people like me, they argue with the television. thank you so much, rick, for coming on. please come back. up next, do you think there's a gaping hole between republicans and democrats? not just politics, but also, tv, sports, cars, coffee choices. this is fascinating research. it's coming up in the place for politics. [ banker ] mike and brenda found a house that they really wanted.

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>> i am out here for you. you don't know what it's like for me to be out here for you. it is an up at down pride swal whoing siege. god help me. help me, god. help me. help you. help me help you. help me help you. >> help me help you. one republican governor thinks he does a great mcguire. >> i'm coming today because i need your help. anybody watch jerry mcguire? see the movie jerry mcguire? remember that great scene in the locker room, he's talking to his only client he's got left and he looks at him and says help me help you. help me help you. help me help you.

that's what i'm here to say today. help me help -- >> that's a tough audience. looks like he rehearsed that a bit. new jersey has until the end of this month to reach a budget deal. christie has warned his cabinet to start prepping for a government shutdown. next, the white house was quite the love fest going with betty white. earlier this year, the president participated in her 90th birthday celebration with a video message and this week, we got a snapshot at her speech with him at the smithsonian. there's more. now, she's featured in a video for the president's summer jobs initiative. >> well, my first job was actually, i was during a guest shot, talk show on television. on television first started. we did a little interview and it taught me that whatever else i did for the rest of my life, i wanted to stay in that business. i'm 90 and i'm still in that

business and loving it. >> the actress says she very much favors president obama in the up coming election. also, think your go to coffee joint or sport you prefer or the tv show you watch is just a matter of your personal preference? a new poll by the firm biology no. starting with the morning cup f joe. sport, nfl for democrats, major league baseball for republicans and when it's time for a new car, this is interesting. democrats would like to own a jeep. republicans would go for a bmw as their most desired. tv channel democrats chose animal planet. republicans went for the history channel. wow. and one last nugget, hbo and

show time fortime were found to be two of the most polarizing brands with both favored by democrats. up next, the prosecution is getting close to wrapping up against jerry sandusky. lots more graphic information just came in today in that trial. will he take the stand in that's ahead. re consolidates the ratings of up to 10 independent research providers into a single score that's weighted based on how accurate they've been in the past. i'm howard spielberg of fidelity investments. the equity summary score is one more innovative reason serious investors are choosing fidelity. get 200 free trades today and explore your next investing idea. ♪ wait.

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i'm sue herrera with your cnbc market wrap. investors bet on action from the feds sending stocks higher late in the day. the dow surged 155 points, nasdaq up 17. jobless claims rose by 6,000 last week. the fifth gain in six weeks. consumer prices fell .3% in may.

that was the biggest decline since december of 2008. and nokia plans to cut 10,000 jobs globally and warned of a wider than expected loss. that's it from cnbc. back to "hardball" and chris. welcome back to "hardball." the prosecution appears to be close to wrapping up its case in the trial of jerry sandusky today who's denied the 52 criminal counts he faces of sexually abusing young boys over a 15-year period. one at his trial, a mixed media coverage, the importance of spreading light on the stories of sexual child abuse, unveiling not only the heinous details.

wendy murphy's a veteran sex crimes prosecutor and ian simpson is covering this case for reuters. let's get the latest before you hear from wendy. ian, today in the trial, was it just more of this gore of this incredible use of prepubescent young boys for sexual enjoyment or whatever? >> well, today was the last prosecution witness and he gave graphic testimony about sexual abuse at the hands of alleged sexual abuse at the hands of jerry sandusky, mainly in the basement of sandusky's home over a three-year period. and that he had met sandusky through sandusky's charity, the second mile. but in the prosecution's cross-examination, he said that

he admitted he had continued to go to football games with sandusky for years after he had broken off the relationship. >> back to wendy on that question because you're used to these kind of cases. what kind of a defense is that? the kid was afraid to blow the whistle and continue the relationship. he may not have had the lead in. sometimes, kids do what they're told to do. thank you. >> yeah, i mean, not only that, chris, but sometimes, if you're a little kid and this happens and you don't have a context to understand how cruel and abusive it is when you're little, you can develop real affection for your abuser. lots of the victims in this case testified, i liked the guy. he was good to me. i had no father. this guy pegged the kids well. he picked kids he knew would keep quiet because he was grooming them. he was affection to them and they stayed quiet. that's very common. i don't think that's a defense. if anything, it sort of helps

proves the prosecution's case because that's how victims are when they are young and being abuse abused by someone they trust and admire. >> the graphic nature without going all the details, it seems to get worse. the prosecution seems to be setting this up so we hear worse horrors after worse horrors. these were rape srs of every possible way. it's hard to believe that the person would allow things to enter into their heads, this guy was doing it according to the testimony today. >> that's the allegations of the accusers and it's horrific crimes and one of the alleged crimes. the thing that important to remember is that these cases were normally, it's usually a one small child or a small boy against a man and in this case, these are men, ages 18 to 28,

they're eight of them and one after the other, hearing this in this courtroom and often hushed courtroom, the cumulative effect is devastating. >> they were all about 11 or 12 at the time of these incidents. what was sandusky's response when he watches this and hears it? >> well, he sits hunched forward for the most part at the defense table. his back to the spectators. you can't really see his face, but he is focused on the witnesses. today, he was kept his eyes on the last witness, which had very graphic testimony and at the end of the testimony today, the witness was asked to point him out in the courtroom, the witness turned his head away and said i don't want to look at him. >> the witness didn't want to point him out. >> he pointed him out, but said i don't want to look at him. but he wasn't shaking his head in disagreement with the

testimony, was he? >> he did not. >> disagreement? >> no, he has never done that. he has been hunched forward, sometimes chin on hand looking intently at the witnesses or the evidence. never expressing and occasionally turning to his lawyers. >> thanks for coming on. i want you to take a moment, more than a moment. i made it last night, you'll make it better. the one good thing about this coverage is finally we know how horrible this behavior was. for years, the press would write it in the most delicate way. i know maybe i'm grosser than most, when you write molested, i don't know what that meant. now i know exactly which this guy did. what would encourage boys, young girls who's ever been a victim of this, to say yeah, i know that happened and now, i'm going to tell somebody about it

because now i know it's a kim. >> and it makes kids feel comfortable that they're not the only one. millions of kids are sexually violated every year. only a handful come forward because most don't feel powerful enough to speak out. a crime like this, especially with so many victims and on international television, can be very good for all of us. not just the kids who we need to come forward but so the jurors don't feel it's so horrific and disgusting they can't accept the reality of it. i've had a lot of trials where juries told me i almost voted not guilty because i found the behavior so disgusting that i figured it can't be true. we need to be come tortable with our discomfort that means saying outloud, oral rape, analra rape.

this is never sex when it's a child. it is always the language of violence that we should be using. needless makes it harder for us to understand how devastating and vicious this is. >> well said. wendy murphy, a prosecutor who knows what she's talking about. thanks for the reporting today. it's been 40 years since watergate. two figures join us tonight. carl bernstein along with john dean. they're both coming here in a minute. stay tuned. this is "hardball," the place for politics. [ creaking ] [ male announcer ] trophies and awards lift you up. but they can also hold you back. unless you ask, what's next? [ zapping ] [ clang ] this is the next level of performance.

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♪ >>a minute, mom! let's broaden the world's energy mix. let's go. global confidence in president obama has slipped since he fist took office. in europe and japan, confidence in the president remains strong although it has dropped a bit in russia and the muslim countries, confidence in the president has never been high and yet it's down now. six in ten chinese had confidence in obama in 2009. now that is down to four and ten. we'll be right back.

we're back. believe it or not, this sunday, the 17th of this month, is the 40th anniversary of the moment in american history, the break in. there it is in d.c. "the washington post" reporters broke the story with the help of their enormous source, deep throat. they covered the story and made it a major american event. carl bernstein is with us from new york and john dean's probably the most famous whistleblower. he provided key testimony, which was never really challenged. i don't know how you remember all this stuff. carl, thanks for coming on. first of all, we're going to start with john. here's a tape recording of you talking to president nixon and him talking to you, discussing what's famous about the cancer on the presidency.

he was master mining, if you will, the cover up. here he is talking about blackmail and what he's willing to pay to keep them quite. let's listen. >> john, i'm always -- that's a long time ago. but what was the reaction when you heard the president of the united states talk casually about grabbing a million bucks out of a safe somewhere and having it at his disposal. that's going on in politics today in some event. huge bills running in.

>> i'd gone in there to convince him authorize. to warn him we're obstructing justice. hopefully he would end it. i was getting all the wrong reactions includesing when i pulled out of thin air it cost a million dollars. that's $5 million in today's dollars. i learned later and we all know what he did after that conversation was he went to the corner of the oval office where rose woods had the suite. he walked over to the door and picked up on the microphone and asked how much they had in their slush funds. they didn't have it. >> carl bernstein, congratulations on this anniversary. it's not getting married 40 years ago but it's something. you and bob woodward broke this story. you wrote that five part series about the nixon wars going on

against the truth, against the democrats, against everybody. what's it mean today to you? what's the message for people watching this show right now? >> it's important to understand what watergate was. it was not about a burglary. it was not about the watergate. it was from the beginning of the nixon presidency, he directed a political campaign of sabotage against all of his opponents. it was criminal. it was illegal. we hear on his tapes nixon saying he wants to break into the brookings institution in washington, d.c. so he can blackmail his predecessor lyndon johnson. i want the safe cracked, he says. i want a break in so he can blackmail his predecessor. this is a kind of criminality unique to the president of the united states. it marked nixon's presidency from beginning in 1969 when he first used these illegal means

to undermine the anti-war movement. then the democrats, the press, wiretapped the press. then at war against history and against the system of justice, the coverup. there's this line, you know, the coverup is worse than the crime. not in this case. really. these crimes were enormous and egregious. it's why he was removed from office. now we have a much better sense 40 years later from these additional tapes and participants of how brazen and corrupting a democracy this was and this president was. >> john dean, you were on the inside. you weren't corrupted in the end. you were able to break free. why did so many people -- i'm not saying this is nazi behavior or anything like that, but why did so many people go along with nixon. why did so many people go along with this stuff?

i mean, g. gordon libbey was a strange guy. why did they do what he told them to. >> he was president. said i believe the president had this power. today i don't. but he at that point did. when i heard for example about the brookings, i was the one who flew out to california and told them they were insane and to call this thing off. as a result of that, i was never clued in on a lot of these operations. bud and i have talked in the years since. he said you know, i think if we talked it through, we'd have come out at the right place. never discussing it but rather the need to know basis of that white house. so it was -- there were multiple reasons with multiple individuals. >> you're a good story tellers. i appreciate it. >> john dean has just used a really interesting word here. >> yes, carl, quickly. >> it was insane. because it's an insane criminality. and that's really what we hear when we listen to those tapes is

a kind of insane criminality. in nixon's eyes if the president said it's legal, it's legal. >> he said that. we have it on record thanks to you and the washington post. thank you, john dean, i think you are the world's most famous and important whistle blower. when we return, let me finish with a big lesson we haven't learned from watergate. the millions of dollars of dirty angry money flooding into politics at this moment. you're watching "hardball" the place for politics. my cut hurt!

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let me finish tonight with this back wash of watergate. we thought, those of us who lived through this scandal that it was about something bigger. that money was the root of corruption. politics with unlimited trunks of hidden money. unreported and unknown except by a few. that could be used for anything they wanted to. we could get the money. that's what president nixon said during the watergate operation. to keep them from jumping ship and spilling the beans to prosecutors. they were asking for hush money. now four decades from the night of watergate, the break ins anniversary, we're surrounded by unlimited money in politics. we see ourselves in the same world of powerful people giving