numbers game. let's play "hardball." good evening. i'm michael smerconish in for chris matthews. leading off tonight, spin cycle. it's become a monthly ritual. weaker than expected jobs numbers come out, mitt romney says president obama is failing, and the president says he's making progress. so it was today when we learned that only 80,000 jobs were created last month and the unemployment rate held firm at 8.2%. how's it going to play in november? that's our top story. despite the weak jobs numbers,

republicans are increasingly nervous that mitt romney is kicking away a winnable election. it began with a tweet from rupert murdoch and is now spreading throughout his media empire. and now a lot of conservatives who never liked romney are saying, i told you so. also, remember when pennsylvania's republican house majority leader said voter i.d. laws would help mitt romney win the election? here's what he was talking about. a new study shows that three quarters of a million people in the state don't have the proper identification and most of them are likely democratic voters. and not even scarlett o'hara said the aim ashley so much. >> look, ashley. >> ashley. >> ashley. ashley, ashley, ashley. what's not respectful, ashley? ashley -- ashley, ashley, ashley, i'll say it again. >> that's joe wallach -- with ashley ban field trying to defend his position that tammy duckworth is not a hero. duckworth lost both legs

fighting in iraq and she joins us tonight. and our joe walsh highlight reel. exactly how many times did joe walsh say the name ashleigh? stick around for the "sideshow." robert reich was labor secretary during the clinton administration and jared bernstein served as chief economist to vice president biden. secretary, let me start with you before we get to the politics of it. explain to me the substance. what's going on? what does it mean in the big picture? >> essentially, michael, job growth has stalled. it's 8.2% unemployment, same as last month. but we also see that 80,000 jobs were created in june. that's nothing to crow about. the average monthly job growth of the last three months has been about 75,000 jobs. a substantial decline from the job numbers we saw in january, february and march. now, it's a similar slowdown to a slowdown we have seen in previous years. the hope, obviously, is that we

get more job growth later in the year. that's a hope both economically and politically but it's very hard to make good news out of today's job numbers. >> mr. bernstein, where is it headed? i think we're aware of the statistic that says since world war ii no president has been re-elected when the unemployment rate was north of 7.4%. is it likely that 8.2 could get under 7.4 between now and november? >> absolutely not. you never know, but that is way outside anyone's forecast. the most optimistic forecast i've seen to have the unemployment rate trending down a bit below 8% by the end of the year. but frankly between now and then, absent some very important and necessary economic policies to generate more job growth, which gridlock will probably block, it's hard to see things change that much. >> let's talk about politics. this morning governor romney was quick to pounce on the jobs numbers and attack the president and his policies. take a look. >> the president's policies have

not gotten america working again. and the president's going to have stand up and take responsibility for it. i know he's been planning on going across the country and celebrating what he calls forward. well, forward doesn't look a lot like forward to the millions and millions of families that are struggling today in this great country. it doesn't have to be this way. america can do better. >> the president also mentioned the jobs numbers in his speech this morning. in poland, ohio. >> we learned this morning that our business has created 84,000 new jobs last month and that's overall means that businesses have created 4.4 million new jobs over the past 28 months, including 500,000 new manufacturing jobs. that's a step in the right direction. that's a step in the right direction. but we can't be satisfied

because our goal was never to just keep on working to get back to where we were back in 2007. i want to get back to a time when middle class families and those working to get in the middle class, have some basic security. >> mr. secretary, he used a golfing metaphor. is it time for the president to put aside the 9 iron and bring out the driver? does he need to do something more bold relative to the economy? >> i think so, mike. it's hard for the president, obviously. he is correct. he was dealt a terrible hand in the worst economy since the great depression. though i think he is going to have to say something more than we're making progress, it's slow progress. i was dealt a bad hand. he's got to be a bit bolder, i think. >> what might that be? >> well, he could say, you know, -- if i get the votes, because obviously republicans are not going to give him any votes, he can say if and when i do get the votes we're going to have a new works progress administration.

that's civilian conservation corps. we're going to rebuild the nation's infrastructure. we're going to rebuild education. we are going to have a first class nation in every respect. we're going to put people back to work. >> do you agree with the secretary? do you think the president needs to do something more bold than he has done? you look at the polls right now, they're neck and neck. >> i agree with your analysis, and i like bob reich's ideas. i think that's precisely the kind of thing the president should talk about. he doesn't need to introduce necessarily a bunch of new things. he can say absolutely correctly, i've got ideas that i've been trying to promote on capitol hill now for well over a year. and some of them are just really good common sense. >> let me show you a commercial. crossroads gps is out with this new ad today in battleground states going after the president's economic record. >> america's jobless rate is still too high. barack obama has got lots of excuses for the bad economy. >> headswinds coming from europe.

we've had a swing of bad luck. an earthquake in japan. an arab spring. an atm, you don't go to a bank teller. things we cannot control. >> but barack obama never blames washington's wild spending and skyrocketing debt. tell obama for real job growth, cut the debt. support the new majority agenda at newmajorityagenda.org. >> mr. secretary, react to that spot. there is this narrative that the republicans, i think, have effectively woven together of all the debt having been incurred on his watch because of his big spending. >> first of all, it is factually incorrect. we know that a lot of that debt comes from the bush tax cut. a lot of it comes from the medicare drug benefit created by george w. bush. and a lot of it comes from cleaning up the mess the republicans created and wall street created. but beyond that, mitt romney is in absolutely no position to talk about whittling the debt down when he's advocating a gigantic tax cut for the wealthy that is not going to even pay for. he has not shown how he is going to close whatever loopholes he said he's going to close. so it's a both dishonest and

hypocritical message. i think democrats ought to be standing up to it and saying it is dishonest and hypocritical and blaming romney for not having a single new idea for bringing jobs back. not a single idea. >> mr. bernstein what i see feeding that narrative, whether it's fact or fiction we can discuss, but even if it is fiction is the supreme court deskigs having been up yesterday constitutionally as a taxing authority of the congress i can tell you, i answered phone, i host a radio program where i hear from people who say, see that, i knew i was going to get whacked with a tax to pay for obama care. largely the people calling asserting that have health insurance and won't be subjected to a penalty. >> i heard the same thing from a friend of my sister's. look, at this point, you really need to do an information campaign. and just like bob was saying, it's not that we should have a discussion about whether it is fact or fiction, it is fiction. i have crunched the spending numbers myself. the fact is, the congressional budget on this, nonpartisan, very clear on this point that this penalty, it is really a

free-loader penalty for people who can afford to get insurance policy but to therefore shove the costs onto the rest of us is expected to hit 1% of the population. and if you have insurance, it's not going to ding you one bit. >> mr. secretary, the sales job has been terrible by the white house on that point. i don't deny what jared bernstein is saying but i don't think the white house has carried the ball in that regard. >> i don't think so at all. i think that the white house has basically allowed the individual mandate and the supreme court's tax discussion to carry the day. i mean, mitt romney was saying that this is not a tax until very recently. and romney care in massachusetts has exactly the same individual mandate. again, what the white house needs to do, it seems to me, and democrats, elected democrats, others need to do, is call it for what it is. this is about paying your fair share. it's about participating in a national health system. you will get it back.

younger, healthier people have got to pay into it. they are going to get it back when they are older and less healthy. this is all of us in it together rather than the republican view of all of us basically separate and apart. >> i want to show you what the president said in an interview with the nbc affiliate in cincinnati. president obama laid into mitt romney for his health care plan date language flip-flop earlier this week. the president questioned romney's principles. >> the fact that a whole bunch of republicans in washington suddenly said, this is a tax. for six years he said it wasn't. and now he's suddenly reversed himself. and so the question becomes, are you doing that because of politics? are you abandoning a principle you fought for for six years simply because you are getting pressure for two days? >> jared bernstein, quick final thought from you on what you just watched. >> this is -- we are deep into the silly season, my friends. this is one of the most inane debates we've had so far. look, if people who don't pay this penalty, people who can afford to get insurance but don't, are placing an implicit

tax on the rest of us who have to cover their uncompensated costs. romney understands, it was part of romney care and part of the health care plan. so this is very, very simple and it shouldn't be nearly as confusing as it's been. >> thank you. >> with regard to flip-flopping, mitt romney is not just a flip-flopper. he's a double somersault triple-double dip flip-flopper. this guy has been all over the map on every ink s&l issue. and i think that is an important quality to bring out to make people understand, and it is an aspect of character. >> mr. secretary thank you. robert reich, jared bernstein as well. republicans are increasingly worried that mitt romney is blowing what could have been a winnable election. there are a lot of people on the right who never liked romney saying, see, i told you so. that's ahead. this is "hardball," the place for politics. it's time to live wider awake.

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welcome back to "hardball." it began with a few tweets from rupert murdoch advising mitt romney to shake up his staff and also amonishing him over his play it safe campaign approach. yesterday, "the wall street journal" which is owned by murdoch, published a blistering editorial. it said that romney was quote slowly squandering an historic opportunity to unseat obama. given the state of the economy. conservatives like the weekly standard's bill kristol and radio host laura ingram also piled on. here was ingram taking romney to task for his vacation in new hampshire. >> advisers telling him, it's fine, take a week. there's no week to spare. we got a country to save. should romney call the cease-fire or get out there on the trail and get off the jet ski? >> what's going on and how concerned should the republican candidate be? ed rendell was the former governor of pennsylvania and msnbc political analyst and steven more is on "the wall street journal" editorial board. he's the sfr economics writer.

governor, the if the criticism were coming from salon.com and the new republic you and i wouldn't be here having this conversation. >> you're right. no question about it. go ahead, michael. >> i was going to say, of what significance if any is this in showing problems that persist with romney's base? >> i think first of all, we've got to keep things in perspective. in terms of voters, this criticism has no meaning at all. first of all, it's in the dead of the summer when no one's paying attention to politics except all of us. secondly, it's inside baseball. voters will be concerned about how the campaign goes from september on. voters will be concerned about the convention speeches and the free debate performances. those are opportunities where mitt romney, if he does great in his convention speech, does great in the debates, all of this will be a thing of the past. so in terms of voters, it doesn't have any effect. where it could hurt romney is among contributors. particularly conservative based contributors. >> it didn't hurt him last

month. he had a $100 million month high water mark for the republicans. >> no, i agree. but the criticism has really reached an apex right now. that's the only place it could hurt him. i think right now in term of the voters, the outcome all inside baseball. >> stephen, i'm sure you saw today's "new york times," which reported on romney's relationship with rupert murdoch or rather the lack thereof. listen how "the times" describes one of the earliest encounters 2007 when romney met with murdoch and members of "the wall street journal" editorial board. quote, despite being deeply prepared and animated, particularly on his love for data crunching, mr. romney failed to connect with either mr. murdoch or the "journal's" editorial page editor paul gigot. instead of arctticulating a cle and consistent conservative philosophy he dwelled on organizational charts and executive management. at one point mr. romney declared, i would probably bring in mckinsey, the management

consulting firm, to help him set up his presidential cabinet. a comment that seemed to startle the editors and left mr. murdoch visibly taken aback. tell us what the relationship is between the editorial board and governor romney, you would think this is a natural constituency for his campaign. >> well, we've been very tough on mitt romney. i know mitt romney personally, i like him. we found a lot of faults in some of his positions. we didn't like romney care too much, and what you're doing this story on right now is the editorial we had the other day where we basically said, look, governor romney, the game is on. let's get going. it's time to really take the gloves off and start hitting. i think one of the weaknesses of mitt romney's campaign so far has been that he's allowed these attacks against bain capital, against his business acumen and what he did when he was running that company, this should be an asset. this is a guy who created whole new industries. who provided the finances for companies that have created tens of thousands of jobs, unlike the president who's never created

a private sector job. that should be something he should be trumpeting, but he's on the defensive on this. obama's running ads against him and there's been little positive response on that. let me respond to one thing that the governor said. you know, governor, i agree with you that this is kind of a slow season for politics. a lot of people aren't paying attention to this kind of day-to-day combat, but i do think the major issue as you know is going to be jobs. we had a lousy jobs report today. and what mitt romney has to do in my opinion is really go after obama much more aggressively on his miserable jobs record. >> stephen, for those who missed the editorial, let me just show a part of it. this is the criticism from "the wall street journal" yesterday. the romney campaign thinks it can play it safe and coast to the white house by saying the economy stinks and it's mr. obama's fault. we're on its e-mail list and the main daily message from the campaign is that obama isn't working. thanks, guys, but americans already know that. what they want to hear from the challenger is some understanding of why the president's policies

aren't working and how mr. romney's policies will do it better. governor, is there a candidate problem? is there a staff problem? is there neither? how do you assess that? you know, there's now a call for some shake-up in the ranks of the romney campaign. >> well, i can't ever remember being associated with a campaign where there wasn't a call for a shake-up at some time during the campaign. that's the nature of the beast and stephen, no offense, i read "the wall street journal" editorials. but i think the average voter -- >> that's music to my ear. >> you probably goes over their heads, the average voter. >> yeah, but you know what, governor, you read it. you know who else reads it. i think the mitt romney people do. i think we got our message across to them. >> i agree. but guys, remember, you want to save your best bullets for when the nation is focused. and i agree you can't let the summer go by and he certainly can't coast in saying obama has

not done a good job, vote for me. he's got to do more. where i would really start doing more is after the democratic convention. i'd come out with guns blazing for those remaining nine weeks and really hit it hard. >> governor rendell, stephen moore, thank you both. up next, the joe walsh/ashleigh banfield highlight reel. he sure loves saying her name. by the way, you can follow me on twitter so long as you can smell smerconish. this is "hardball," the place for politics. [ male announcer ] we believe small things can make a big difference. like how a little oil from here can be such a big thing in an old friend's life. purina one discovered that by blending enhanced botanical oils into our food, we can help brighten an old dog's mind so he's up to his old tricks. with this kind of thinking going into our food, imagine all the goodness that can come out of it. just one way we're making the world a better place... one pet at a time. vibrant maturity. from purina one smartblend.

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back to "hardball." time for the "sideshow." when you think brad pitt, you probably don't think conservative values. there's a reason. in addition to being a big time hollywood a-lister, pitt has been a big supporter among other things, of gay marriage. but get this. the actor's mother jane pitt wrote a letter to a local

missouri newspaper in response to an op-ed advising christians not to vote for romney because of his mormon religion. mrs. pitt then wrote, quote, any christian who does not vote or writes in a name is casting a vote for romney's opponent, barack, hussein obama. a man who sat in jeremiah wrights church for years, go not hold a public ceremony to mark the national day of prayer and is a liberal who supports the killing of unborn babies and same-sex marriage. i guess that's why it's a good rule of thumb to steer clear of politics at family get-togethers, right? and this one has the added touch of going viral. finally, illinois congressman joe walsh is drawing criticism for blasting tammy duckworth, his democratic challenger in the congressional race for using her military experience as a facet to her campaign. walsh spoke with cnn's ashleigh banfield yesterday and gave new meaning to the concept name dropping. >> because she's a war hero,

ashlee, that demands our respect. but that doesn't demand our vote. ashlee, this wasn't a slip-up. so like i don't know about you ashlee. right now ashlee, i can tell you. i'm not going to back down. no, that's not what i said ashlee. ashlee, no. >> ashlee? >> everybody -- >> ashlee. ashlee -- >> because i am telling you -- >> ashleigh. >> ashleigh. >> by the way, ashleigh. >> that's not for you to say. >> ashleigh. >> in an attempt -- >> ashleigh. ashleigh. ashleigh. >> tammy duck worth. >> ashleigh i'll say it again. ashleigh, look. this is what happens when you've got a congressman that's always out in front of people talking. >> all right the final tally walsh said ashleigh 90 times. but let's flash back to a year ago joe walsh was on "hardball" in the midst of the whole debt ceiling debacle and had quite a strategy for avoiding the specifics about a toy party backed debt plan. you see where this is going? >> chris, let me ask you a question, do you support that? chris? what's the president -- chris? we have to stop that, chris.

>> august -- >> chris. chris matthews. hey, chris. hey, chris. chris, chris, chris, chris, chris, chris, chris. i love it, chris. >> 61. 61 name drops for chris, when walsh was on "hardball." so he broke his own record with yesterday's interview. that's "hardball" for now. coming up next, "your business" with j.j. ramberg. on dining in restaurants with chase sapphire preferred. ♪ [ snoring ] [ male announcer ] introducing zzzquil sleep-aid. [ snoring ] [ snoring ] [ male announcer ] it's not for colds, it's not for pain, it's just for sleep. [ snoring ] [ male announcer ] because sleep is a beautiful thing. [ birds chirping ] introducing zzzquil, the non-habit forming sleep-aid from the makers of nyquil. ♪

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