those three words following the phrase american uniforms created a soft pile of blankets which i want to snuggle up with fox and friends. now it's time for "the last word with lawrence o'donnell." thanks for being with us. >> mitt romney has told more lies than any presidential campaigner i've ever seen, and he's been caught at more lies than any presidential campaigner i've seen, including another big one today. so what did romney decide to do after one of his biggest lies got exposed? he calls president obama a liar. and so tonight, this entire program, every word of "the last word" will be about the lies of mitt romney. oh, and have i mentioned that his first name isn't really

mitt? >> i believe this election will come down to character, conviction, and vision. >> the obama campaign isn't giving up on its narrative that governor romney is a secretive rich guy. >> "the boston globe" is reporting today -- >> new claims over mitt romney's record. >> following up on reporting. >> romney did not leave bain capital when he said. >> was he legally liable for jobs sent overseas? >> team romney denying a report in "the boston globe." >> governor romney will have to defend what he did at bain. >> he's going to have to face up to this. >> i believe this election will come down to character, conviction and vision. >> i've got broad shoulders. >> you just don't have credibility, mitt. >> they apparently looted the companies. >> there's a difference between venture and vulture capitalism. >> he's the worst republican in the country. >> the romney campaign is taking

on some water. >> i've got broad shoulders. i'm able to handle it. >> i believe this election will come down to character, conviction and vision. and i don't think it's even a close call. a page one headline saying "mitt romney stayed at bain capital for three years longer than he said he did." "the boston globe" reports that bain capital continued to list mitt romney as the firm's sole stockholder, chairman of the board, chief executive officer, and president for three years after mitt romney claims he left bain. the date romney left bain is the linchpin of his entire defense against the obama campaign's attacks on romney as a pioneer

of outsourcing. >> i'm barack obama and i approve this message. >> president romney's first 100 days, creating thousands of new jobs. >> but would it? "the washington post" just revealed that romney's companies were pioneers of shipping u.s. jobs overseas. investing in firms that specialized in relocating jobs done by american workers to new facilities in low-wage countries like china and india. does virginia want an outsourcer in chief in the white house? >> mitt romney, who gleefully sends his money offshore to the kaman islands claims he would never send jobs offshore. had nothing to do with sending jobs offshore because he was no longer at bain when they became the pioneers of outsourcing. the proud pioneers of outsourcing. and today, the romney campaign decided to fight the obama campaign charges of outsourcing

with an ad. >> i'm mitt romney and i approve this message. >> when a president doesn't tell the truth, how can we trust him to lead? the obama outsourcing attacks, misleading, unfair and untrue. there was no evidence that mitt romney shipped jobs overseas. candidate obama lied about hillary clinton. >> so shame on you, barack obama. >> but america expects more from a president. obama's dishonest campaign, another reason america has lost confidence in barack obama. >> on a romney campaign conference call monday, they told the press this was coming. the staff said they were fed up with the outsourcing attacks on romney and planned to go on tv to call the president a liar. and as we've just seen, they chose to call the president a

liar by hiding between hillary clinton in the 2008 campaign who never said the president lied. what hillary clinton was talking about in that clip, in the romney ad is the political argument she was then having with candidate obama over, of all things, the individual mandate in her health care reform plan. at that time, candidate obama disagreed with hillary clinton and mitt romney on the need for an individual mandate and since then he adopted the romney/clinton mandate as part of his own approach to health care reform. joining me now, a "boston globe" reporter who wrote this story and for the hour, we're joined by alex wagner, krystal ball, and richard wolf. tell us what you found about mitt romney's exit date from bain. >> well, what we found, lawrence, is that the documents that mitt romney filed with the state ethics commission here in massachusetts, combined with

some s.e.c. filings by bain capital put him as you noted as the sole stockholder, chairman of the board, 100% owner, president, ceo, et cetera of bain capital until 2002, which is later than his stated exit date of february of 1999. >> one of the things in the filings indicate he was getting a salary from bain and the brackets indicated on that form simply indicate that the salary was above $100,000. do you have any idea what the salary actually was? >> we don't. you're only required to report a range, so it says $100,000. it could be any amount beyond that. we know it was more than that in total coming in from bain, because this is separate from the capital gains he earned on the investments. those are passive investments. but what's interesting is that money, the $100,000 was for being an executive at bain. that was in 2001 and 2002.

those are not noted as passive. so that's a big distinction to make. >> the executive salary is for doing a job. >> one thing is the issue of mitt romney's integrity. the other, of course, is the s.e.c. if mitt romney is misleading the s.e.c. in terms of his involvement with the company, what are the repercussion there is? could this be a criminal charge? >> i'm told that's not likely, at least not with the s.e.c. i'm not an attorney, to i'll leave it to them. but one thing you might hear in the next segment is that if an investor looks at those s.e.c. filings and sees mitt romney on there as the man in charge, and they know his reputation as a very good private equity fund manager. let's say they invest because they have confidence and learn after the fact he had nothing to do with what was going on at bain capital at the time, they might be upset with that. they might feel defrauded in a

way and it could believe the source of a civil suit against mitt romney. so that would not be of a criminal nature, but it could get him in trouble. the flip side of that would be possible problems with what he told the office of government ethics on the june 1st filing he filed just this year in which he stated he left bain capital in february of 1999. if some evidence emerges that he was indeed active after february of '99, that could mean that he made a false statement to oge and that could possibly have criminal implications. but it's important to note, there's no firm evidence of that just yet, so we want to be cautious before we make serious allegations like that. >> cal, there is an intriguing quote in your story from an anonymous romney adviser, trying to reconcile the public position of the campaign that romney was some kind of inactive manage we

are the statements that he was ceo and president and chairman and everything else. the quote says something like, this doesn't square with common sense. that seems to me a huge admission. when you were having these conversations, and i understand this was with an anonymous romney adviser, but was the tone there, i cannot fully explain because it's stuff we need to keep out, can you flesh that out a bit more for us? >> no, the tone was in the context of pointing out the documents say what they say and the romney campaign is not disputing the veracity of the documents. the documents indicate that he was the man in charge, but that wasn't the case and that doesn't seem to square with common sense. the argument is that there were some bain capital entities that were formed before february of '99. it would would have been a hassle we're told to restructure those business entities after that. so mitt romney was asked to sign documents on their behalf after

that. the problem with that explanation, however, is we found five bain capital business entities that were not incorporated until january of 2002 and those are mentioned in s.e.c. filings as also being under mitt romney's managerial control. so the legacy signatures could not apply to these later business entities. >> i'm trying to figure out what motive he would have had to list this for those three years. what's occurring is he we back to bain after losing in massachusetts -- >> at that point he claims to take a leave of absence from bain for that campaign. >> but returned afterwards but had the political ambition. then goes after the olympics in 1999. the olympics ended and he ran for governor in massachusetts.

the opportunity to run for governor in massachusetts did not come up to the end of that olympic tenure, because there was a republican governor and james swift didn't implode until the final few months. so is it your impression that romney's plan or the option he wanted was to just finish the olympics and come back to bain and wait till some point in the future and run for office? >> that's not my impress. it was stated by mitt romney in 2002. it was sort of a lost footnote, but when romney ran for governor in 2002, there was some question whether he was el jabl to hold the aus, because he had been living and working in utah for a few years. when he testified, one of the defenses he used was that he had taken a leave of absence from bain capital and intended to return after the olympics. those are his words, that's not an interpretation.

so obviously that didn't end up being the case. he never went back to bane. he ended up running for governor instead. but as late as 2002, he was asserting this was a leave of absence and he had plans to come back. >> was he filing massachusetts tax returns when he was running the olympics? >> he was filing out of utah at the time. that was one of the reasons why there was some dispute whether he should be allowed to run for governor in massachusetts in the first place. i believe the calculation was he had saved $54,000 by filing in utah rather than massachusetts. he agreed to repay that sum and make up the difference. >> how long has mitt romney been asserting he left bain in 1999 and had no further involvement with them? >> it began for that run for governor in 2002. a few weeks before election, his opponent began running a tv commercial.

the argument was, look, this company went under. bain reaped a huge profit, there were layoffs, et cetera. but layoffs and bankruptcy didn't happen until 2001. so the defense was he was not responsible for this, because he was gone. but at least on paper, he was still very much the man in charge. >> your story forced a reaction from bain capital today. i want to read that statement. their statement is, mitt romney left bain capital in february of 1999 to run the olympics and has had no involvement with the management or investment activities of the firm or with any of its portfolio company since the day of his departure due to the sudden nature of his departure, 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. >> there's a lot of material there. it was a very sudden transition. i don't think anybody is suggesting that mitt romney was managing the day-to-day operations of bain while he was running the olympics. but the question is, since he didn't have that severance agreement finalized until 2002, three years after he left, since he told the ballot commission he was only a leave of absence, he retained sole ownership of the country and remained in all of those title positions and continued to draw a salary. is it reasonable to believe he had nothing to do with any bain capital entity after february of 1999? that's the position of bain capital and the romney campaign.

>> we have an official ruling on it. it's just ruled it is unreasonable to believe that. we're going to take a break and come back with more coming up, an exclusive with former s.e.c. commissioner on the bain filings and david corner is here with new information about mitt romney and outsourcing jobs to china. is now in our new starbucks refreshers™ -- a breakthrough in natural energy. made with real fruit, starbucks refreshers™ are delicious low calorie drinks you can feel good about. ♪ rethink how you re-energize. ♪ get a boost of natural energy with a new starbucks refreshers™, in three re-energizing ways. try one on us, only at starbucks.

we have a choice. either mitt romney lied to the american people or bain capital lied to the s.e.c. a former s.e.c. commissioner joins us in a "last word" exclusive next. [ female announcer ] introducing a match made in skin heaven.

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massachusetts disclosure commission as late as january of 2003, mitt romney is describing himself as an exec save of bain capital and then all of a sudden, and this coincides with his political ambitions and pursuits, he tells the federal government in financial disclosure form that he in fact wasn't involved with bain after february of 1999, directly contradicting the certified record before the s.e.c. >> that was obama campaign attorney bob bower on a conference call today, asking how mitt romney can tell the federal government he wasn't involved with bain after 1999 on one form. and when a bain document shows that he was still the ceo on another form. obama deputy campaign manager stephanie cutter went even further, asking if this could amount to a felony. >> 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 investments. if that's the case, if he was lying to the american people, that's a real character and trust issue. >> joining us now is roberta caramel, former commissioner of the s.e.c., and centennial professor of law at brooklyn law school. you're mentioned in "the boston globe" article analyzing these s.e.c. filings. we have one up on the board behind you that you have seen already, indicating that mitt romney is the president and managing director long after mitt romney has claimed he was none of those things. >> right. and i believe it says that was his principal occasion. >> yes. what are we to take of this?

is this something the s.e.c. takes casually? >> no. documents like this that are filed with the s.e.c. are serious documents, and if information in those documents is false or misleading, there are serious consequences. there can be civil cases brought by the s.e.c. and depending on the facts and circumstances, if there's a false filing with the s.e.c., there can even be a criminal prosecution. i'm not saying mitt romney should be criminally prosecuted, but that is a possible consequence of a false filing of a document like this with the s.e.c. >> bain capital is making a big deal about their short statement, the sudden nature of mr. romney's departure. there are sudden departures all the time in business. people get fired. people die. do they not change the s.e.c. filings after sudden departures,

is that common? >> if there is a filing by a company, for example, that shows mr. "x" is the president and ceo and he's fired or died, that company has to make a filing. >> could they have said he's still technically on these forms, is there some intermediate filing? >> not a memo, but what you do is if there's a material change from a form that was filed before, you have to make a new filing. >> so when you are attesting, as mitt romney did, that you are the ceo, the managing director, you're essentially signing up for some sort of responsibility and accountability. what does it actually mean to put that on a statement from the s.e.c.'s perspective? >> well, this document is not a

document -- this document is a document of a portfolio company, and had to do with whether or not mitt romney was a controlling person of that portfolio company. and his position at bain capital. and generally, when a businessman is the chairman, ceo and in this case the sole stockholder, he's accountable for the business and affairs of that company. and even if he's not making day-to-day decisions or managing the investments of a company like this, which was a venture capital company, he's still legally responsible and should believe accountable for the business and affairs of that company.

unfortunately, too many business executives have tried to exculpate themselves from that kind of accountabilities and it's one reason in 2002, congress passed the sarbanes zoxley exact. >> roberto, hello down there. i wanted to ask you to play referee here a little bit, because there's an article in "fortune" that came out that they're saying it exonerates romney from the suggestion he had day-to-day involvement. what they're saying they have found are offering documents for a bain capital fund from 2000 and from 2001 and show in these documents mitt romney is not listed as "a key investment professional." and this establishes that there was not operational input on romney's part in terms of bain's activities, even if there was a legal and financial relationship

still in place. do you think there's anything to that explanation? >> well, somebody who is running a venture capital company may not be making day-to-day decisions as to what portfolio investments that company is going to make. >> especially if the company has a lot of them. those are delegated frequently. >> at least in my experience, it would be unusual for somebody who is 100% owner of a company like that, and is still holding the positions of ceo, chairman of the board, not to pay attention to what kind of investments are being made by the company and not to monitor those investments. >> cal, what do you make of the revelations that "fortune" thinks they've come up with today? >> they make some good points. it's important to note as roberta pointed out, nobody is

suggesting that mitt romney had his hands in the day-to-day operations of bain capital. he had his hands full out in utah running the olympics. but the fact of the matter is, the documents that we reported on this morning show that the buck sort of stops with mitt romney. he still had the titles and drew a paycheck as an executive and it's hard to wash your hands entirely. >> roberta, i worked at the financial times many times. i've never heard of an inactive director or ceo. but let's say there are companies who have people that have a leave absence for many years but still hold the title. by question is, what would that reason be? if you saw a company that had a leave of absence, ceo, for three, four years, why would the company want to do that? what reasons do you imagine would be reasonable for that? >> i don't know. it may be because people thought that mitt romney was a good ceo,

chairman. he had a certain reputation on wall street. >> but he was no longer there. >> but that makes him accountable. >> if he wasn't physically present, why would the company or individual still want to persist with this? >> if he's the 100% owner, he decides who's going to be the ceo. >> that's the thing that didn't change. he owns 100% of it. >> he's the decider. >> the directors and the drek tors pick the ceo. but if he's the 100% shareholder, he can call the shots as to who the executive officers are going to be and obviously he chose himself. >> roberta, i want to telegraph out to the sort of practical realities here. it seems clear if you're running for president, what you want is a compelling narrative and not a who done it, which is what is

happening here to mitt romney's campaign. we are now talking about sort of the ins and outs of s.e.c. filings, "vanity fair" talking about whitewashing money overseas in the kaman islands. this is all highly dubious. what needs to happen before the s.e.c. says, something fishy is going on here, we're going to investigate further? >> well, these documents are from a long time ago. i don't know that the s.e.c. would necessarily be investigating further. i mean, i think it's more a question of really what was said at the very outset here is either the statements in the s.e.c. filings are false, which would be a very serious matter, and i don't think the romney campaign is saying that. and i wouldn't really expect them to be saying that, because that could be a violation of federal law.

or mitt romney, who is running on a campaign of -- well, i was a great businessman and so i'm going to run the country as a business, and if you're someone who thinks that would be a good idea, you have to wonder is what kind of a businessman continues to have the offices of ceo, chairman, take at least $100,000 a year in salary, and may believe to mitt romney that's small change. but any one of my students would love $100,000. >> the filing says above $100,000. he could have been taking $50 million. >> it could have been. he was also taking whatever profits bain capital was making during that time. >> we would find out what he was taking if he would release the tax returns of those years, which he's not doing.

professor, thank you very much for joining me tonight. >> thank you for inviting me. >> alex wagner, thank you for joining us. coming up, david corn has broken another story about bain outsourcing operations. bain invested heavily in a chinese manufacturing company that depended on u.s. outsourcing for its profits. david corn joins us next. male a] it's 9 pm... and the chocolate cravings begin... again. ♪ for nights like these... there's special k chocolatey delight cereal. so you can get your chocolatey fix... without undoing your whole day. ♪ an unguilty pleasure. what will you gain when you lose?

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david corn is going to join us next with his exclusive on bain capital's investments in a chinese company that made its money on u.s. outsourcing. [ male announcer ] wouldn't it be cool

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i'll clamp down on cheaters like china and make sure they play by the rules and don't steal our jobs. >> that's what mitt romney said at the naacp convention yesterday.

something he said many times. and this is what mother jones reported today. exclusive, romney invested millions in chinese firm that profited on u.s. outsourcing. and what is important about this story is the date of that outsourcing, august 19, 1998, when mitt romney was indisputably the head of bain capital. joining me now is david corn, washington bureau chief for motherjones who broke that exclusive. he's also an msnbc political analyst. david, tell us what you found. >> well, as you know from the discussions so far tonight, the sole issue of when romney left bain has been somewhat clouded in murkiness and competing facts and contentions. i worked on this story over a week ago. we talked about that earlier. the story i broke today, there is no-doubt dispute about it.

that's one reason it stands out. in 1998, when mitt romney was fully in command at bain capital, he had a bain entity that he controlled. again, sole owner by up to about 10% in a chinese company called global tech appliances that made household appliances. but what it really did was take outsourcing from u.s. companies and shipping manufacturing and jobs overseas, global tech. their whole business model was to take those jobs and make that equipment. so what they were doing was basically poaching u.s. jobs. the very sort of thing that romney in that clip you showed said he was against. so when he was a private businessman, when it was all about making money, he saw no problem in investing in a chinese firm that was poaching these jobs from american companies.

and in the piece, people can go online, you can post it in yours, we have statements from global tech at the time in 1998 saying indeed their business plan depended on more outsourcing from american companies. so here was a guy, mitt romney, not just investing in companies in the u.s. that might be shipping jobs overseas, he was investing in companies overseas and this one company was benefiting from outsourcing. >> david, my recollection from this period is that companies doing this stuff were at the early wave of outsourcing and dealing with china. in fact, i remember talking to executives in this time period who weren't certain whether they could control their investments and dealing with chinese managers and everything else. do you have a sense of how many companies were in this line of business? were they pioneers at this stage or were there other companies they were copying? >> well, you're right. it was sort of an early wave of

outcoursing when people were starting to talk about it here in the united states. but what i do know about this, and the s.e.c. documents interestingly that romney had to fill out were a certain type of s.e.c. documents, 13-g, which you don't have to put a lot of details. so we don't know a lot of the firm details about this. but it does seem that he bought his initial round of shares, he traded for a year and a half, but he bought his initial round in an ipo. that means getting in on the ground floor and getting sort of a preferential price with this company. this is one of the first chinese companies that i can tell that was doing an ipo of this nature. so it looked like mitt romney was trying to get in on the ground floor of this whole outsourcing and the bloom in china manufacturing wave.

>> steve? >> yeah, i have sort of an observation here, thinking of what alex was saying. we're looking ahead to november and nobody thinks at the end of the day that obama is going to win this big or that romney is going to win big. we're talking about a small pool of voters. i know the central challenge for the obama campaign is to take people's instinctive view that a businessman man knows how to manage an economy because there's a relationship there. we now have a story, thanks to david, about romney having a direct role in outsourcing. we have a story now about bain from "the boston globe" and basically that connects directly to this steel plant in kansas city where romney has been saying i had nothing to do with the closing of that, i was gone from bain. it just seems to me you're talking about appealing to 1% to 2% of the electorate and

convincing him no, he's a rich businessman, but it doesn't mean he knows how to manage an economy. >> and steve, you know, the whole issue of when he left bain and what he did there is rather important. i've been reporting on that. but here this story, i can understand why voters might be confused and not care about the exact day he left bain. but here we have a guy who made a buck, invested millions of bucks in a chinese firm that was competing with america for jobs. to me, when the whole theme of this election is jobs, jobs, jobs, and romney feels he has to go out there and say i'm not going to let china steal our jobs from us, this is kind of a visceral story that shows at the time when he was doing all this great stuff that he says gives him a calling card to become president. he had a different set of priorities than what was best for the united states. >> the other thing that strikes me here is sort of the dumb political strategy. mitt romney's defense previously

has always been i wasn't at bain when that happened, which is sort of an admission that it's problematic and damaging and makes it easy to pick that apart and say here's a company where you were at bain. and oh, guess what? you didn't leave the way you said you had. you still were involved. it reminds me of this claim that he created 100,000 jobs. why did he make that claim when it's not provable and what you're doing at bain is not about job creation? they know all the facts. they have all the facts at their disposal. >> this is the thing. i don't think they know all the facts. there's so much in the bain finances and mitt romney's own personal finances, i don't believe for a minute that people in his campaign fully know or even understand all the details. it took them over a day to get back to me on this global tech deal. i'm positive they had no clue until i told them what i had and they re-researched it themselves.

they don't know what bain and he's done all these years and that makes it hard to sell it to the public. >> david corn, great work and thank you very much for sharing it with us tonight. >> thanks, lawrence. coming up, more on the stunning ease with which mitt romney tells his lies. we will review the lies of mitt romney, including his lie about martin luther king. that's next. [ male announcer ] what if you had thermal night-vision goggles,

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as you experience every moment, every emotion, every four years... for the rest of your life. visa. supporting athletes and the olympic games for 25 years. people everywhere go with visa. the romney lie. the liars at the romney campaign. if there is a pathological liar in the presidential campaign, it is willard romney. liars, like romney, debase our politics. liars, like romney, depress voter turnout. liars, like romney, turn people away from politics. liars, like romney, are pro-foundly bad for this country. >> the romney lie in the romney ad, that's about as ugly a lie as you could possibly do with videotape, isn't it?

>> lying politicians like mitt romney. the one word that best describes that assertion is lie. the lying romney campaign. today, mitt romney staked his campaign on that big lie. mitt romney has left us with a choice. he's either a liar or what george will would call, a bloviating ignoramus. >> tell us what you really mean. >> yesterday, mitt romney closed his speech with a reference to martin luther king jr., which brings up the uncomfortable memory of the 2007 campaign when he was talking about his father and martin luther king jr. let's look at that. >> i saw my father march with martin luther king. >> my dad marched with martin luther king. >> did you actually see your dad march with martin luther king? >> no, i say that in a figurative sense.

i try to be as accurate as i can be, and the -- if you'll look at the literature or the dictionary, the term "saw" includes being aware of inthe sense that i've described. i saw my dad march with marten luther king. i saw him in the sense of being aware of his participation. >> and i saw richard wolf win the super bowl. what the -- richard? >> no wonder he's a fan of bill clinton. >> it's way wilder than clinton. clinton at least understood here's the stuff they can check. okay, i'm not going to say that. >> it's in the dictionary. what do you want?

>> steve, this lying pattern with him, look, i don't like my first name. i'm wicked jealous of my brother who got the good name in my family. but it would be a lie if i just didn't tell you my first name and claimed my first name was mitt when it's willard. it begins there with this guy. >> if anyone on this panel was going to change their name, it would be me. >> we share something. the integrity of what we got stuck with. but i've never seen anything like this in a politician. >> for me, with romney it started way back. i remember this guy in 1994 when he ran for the senate in massachusetts. his position was pro choice. that's well established but it was much more than that. in a debate, he told a story of a family that died from a back alley abortion and that convinced him the government had no business imposing a decision

on a woman ever and says you'll never see me waiver on that. he went from that to a position today which would treat that same woman as a criminal. i don't understand how you can get from there to there and not have any accounting for it. he's never grappled with that transformation. there are people who change from pro life to pro choice and can tell conversion stories. mitt romney invented basically an -- he had a meeting with a stem cell guy in his office as governor. the stem cell specialist disputes the terms that mitt romney used to describe the meeting. beyond there, there was no accounting for that just stunning transformation other than politics. >> you have a candidate that wants it both ways. that's what the bain story is. he wants to be severely progressive and severely conservative. he wants to have everything both

ways. truth and fiction. >> crystal, he has to believe that he can get away with lying. he has to have looked at the political media and said, you know what? i can get away with it and i'll buy so much advertising and make the truth be what the ads say it is. >> that's what is scary. to a large extent, he has gotten away with it. we could spend hours detailing every mitt romney lie. it would be one thing, we could maybe give him the benefit of the doubt if he shifted positions. but it's repetitive and exhausting to keep up with, so he thinks that he can muddy the waters and that we won't call him to account. and to your point, we've talked a lot about the money that's going to be spent in this campaign, which is overwhelming. but i'm less afraid of the money, and more afraid of their willingness to say anything that they think will help mitt romney win this election.

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well, i think he hit a reset button or the fall campaign. it's almost like an etch-a-sketch. change it up and we start all over again. >> richard wolf, they say in business that an organization resembles its head. mitt romney is the head of this organization. why wouldn't you think you could etch-a-sketch everything away? >> they say campaigns are like fish, they rot from the head down. if he wants to clear this up, he can do what candidate obama did when there was a questionable land deal. candidate obama had to sit down with a couple of members of a board and answer every single question.

then it's done. and people can keep talking about it, but you've given your best explanation that felt's what mitt romney needs to do, preferably with the editorial board of "the boston globe." >> candidates say okay, we're going to settle this here and move on with the campaign. >> the most striking thing is you've seen an aggressive pushback from the romney campaign but they have not disputed the basic facts reported today, that he was listed as the president, the ceo, the sole shareholder from 1999 to 2002 of bain capital. all they're saying is something that may be unprovable. yeah, he was listed as all these things, but trust us, he wasn't involved day-to-day. i don't know that you can ever establish that. that's why it's so damning. >> and the bain statement has no legal meaning to it either. >> right. the point is it's not the crime so much as the coverup. the only way to get a handle on this story is to put absolutely everything out there and get it out there and be up front. at this point, they've spun so

many tales it's going to be hard to do that. >> when you're guilty, you must continue to lie. if he really -- if he makes any credible claim about i had nothing to do with bain after a certain date, he would be out there making that claim. it is unmakable with these documents now. >> if you can't sustain the lie, though, you have to get it all out there and be done with it. otherwise, it's going to be death by a thousand cuts. more s.e.c. filings, more companies, and we'll keep doing this from now to november. >> in politics we prefer the sinner, not the saint. let him have his shot at redemption. and he can say, i'm coming clean and it may be the most interesting thing he's ever done. >> can he keep saying i'm going to teach china a lesson after these stories? >> he can say anything he wants. but at the end of the day, this is an even race right now. but obama is ahead by a couple of points and that's how it will