joining me today, the "wall street journal" white house correspondent, the lovely carol lee is here. nbc news political analyst, former pennsylvania governor, ed rendell. the great author, jay macinerney, and buzz feed editor in chief, the always buzzy, never disappointing, ben smith. in the last 24 hours, the investigation into governor mitt romney's time at bain reached a tipping point. >> the date romney left bain is the linchpin. >> it's a very fact-based question. you're either there or you weren't. >> he was getting paid over $100,000 as the president and ceo of bain capital while it was shutting down companies. >> either a lie is being told now, or a lie was told to the s.e.c. >> if there's a false filing with the s.e.c., there can even be a criminal prosecution.

>> surely the romney campaign knew we would get to this juncture. >> this is his achilles heel. >> the achilles heel of mitt romney. >> this goes to the very heart of why you do or do not vote for somebody. >> it appears that the romney campaign could be looking to change the subject. after months of remaining silent on possible running mates, last night, team romney released this e-mail, saying sometime between now and the republican convention, mitt will be announcing his choice for vp. so instead of directly addressing the burning questions about the governor's time at bain, advisors are trumpeting an event that will take place in the next 47 days. governor rendell, i ask you first, how bad is this for mitt romney right now? can he put the genie back in the bottle? >> yeah, he can. this is the summertime. i'd say out of 300 million americans, about six or seven million are paying attention. anything that happens during the summer, you can recover from. but again, this whole

controversy goes to whether mitt romney flip-flops, whether he's trustworthy, whether he tells the truth. it all goes to the character issue. the democrats and some of the media are building up a very good case against him. look, ann romney said in 2000 that mitt splits his time between the olympics and bain. when mitt himself left in 1999, he said i'm going to be part-time and i'm going to have input in investment decisions and h.r. decisions. so if you don't even need the s.e.c. filings, they contradicted the romneys themselves contradicted their own line and why? because they didn't want to be tagged with the outsourcing. the obama campaign hasn't done much right this season so far, but this is one area where i think they have been very effective. >> carol, this is something that the obama re-election campaign has been talking about for awhile but it seems to have hit fever pitch largely i think because the media, there has been a sort of crossing of the roads in terms of media really

picking up on the story. certainly the boston globe investigation -- >> the journal. >> vanity fair also has an in-depth sort of bit of reportage on the offshore cayman islands stuff. the question is, you know, how much of this do you think is being driven by the white house, how much of it is out of their hands at this point and is just sort of in the ether? >> i think they're driving it. the obama campaign has had a plan in place for over a year. they're in the resume portion of the program right now. they're just breaking down mitt romney's resume and you know, this is not over. i was in chicago this week for a few days, and they feel like any day that they're talking about this and about the economy is a great day for them. it's only going to get more intense and it's interesting we are talking about this now. it feels like we're in the fall, not the summer, and it's getting a little nasty. i think the risk comes for both sides with romney, it's what the governor was talking about, it gets at this trust issue and how

long can you sustain these attacks. with the president, it gets that is he at a certain point damaging his own brand by being so negative. >> on that note, i feel like the folks who have been really delivering -- who have really been securing bain on this have been surrogates or campaign spokespeople. the president himself has sort of tried to at least remain above the fray. >> the "journal" absolutely disputed in an editorial romney's claim that he was out of bain when these decisions were made. that's the "wall street journal." >> the white house did not write the "vanity fair" piece. there are extraordinary questions raised in that piece. there's a tremendous amount of obfuscation from the romney side. this is ultimately going to be a bigger question than when he signed off from bain. it's really troubling that this -- not only that romney has outsourced so much of his money,

but that when he's essentially been running for president for eight years, that he hasn't made any attempt to either clean this up or to -- or now to explain it. >> it also goes, then, to the heart of the question about private equity and how poor romney's response has been on this. what i think is amazing is he could have sort of neutralized all of this if he had said look, you know what private equity is, sometimes it involves shuttering plants, sometimes it involves buying businesses, sometimes it involves outsourcing or offshoring or whatever you want to call it but that's business and i understand how business works and sort of nipped it in the bud. instead, he's used this weird timeline of '99 to 2002 when all the bad stuff happened, i wasn't there. >> right. it's a product of the romney campaign's attempt to keep this incredibly simple. in the primary, the same documents were kicking around in the primary and the campaign would never engage in them directly. the republicans opponents were shopping them around but they backgrounded reporters, talked reporters out of writing about it. they kept everything very abstract. there's a saying if you're

explaining, you're losing. they clearly believe it. they have not explained everything. in a presidential campaign that's not an option. the heat sometimes gets so hot, you have to explain, you have to engage. what they have succeeded in doing is pushing all the explanation into the summer and fall, when they could have done it last year. >> now you're starting to see republicans question sort of what's going on and how they are handling this. politico has a fairly extensive roster of prominent republican strategists saying you guys are going to have to tackle this. jonathan bernstein in the "washington post" says did republicans forget to vet romney? i think he's a generic republican candidate and i have no idea whether the media and the obama campaign will learn anything that makes him look worse than that. it's just that we usually have a process that can reassure his party that whatever is out there has probably been uncovered and i'm not sure that's the case this time. carol, what do you make of that? >> i think this is the big question, how long can romney sustain -- he keeps trying to change the subject, obviously, as you mentioned in the beginning with the vp pick, how

long can he sustain not answering these questions, because it's very clear that the obama campaign is not going to let up on them. these stories are being written by various news outlets but the obama campaign seizes on them immediately and holds conference calls and puts out ads and web ads and we had a poll with nbc showing that this issue is gaining some traction and cutting into romney's economic argument in certain key swing states. so there's no reason at all for the white house in their view to let up on it. >> i think it's amazing, i thought this was such a glimpse into the romney hive. a senior unnamed romney advisor says all this hue and cry from the bedwetters who get to sit on the sidelines aren't going to affect what we're going to do and our plan which is what. the talk, the e-mail that was sent to in-boxes last night, governor rendell, about mitt's vp pick seemed to me like a pretty transparent bid to try and change the dialogue. >> no question.

there's no chance condi rice will be the nominee. she's pro choice. you would have an uprising -- >> hue and cry from bedwetters. >> more than bedwetters. i think carol made two very good points. it's not going to stop. you can picture an ad coming up on releasing your taxes with george romney being quoted, that you can't just release one year because it could be a fluke. it's a great ad in the making. but on the other hand, i think carol also made a very good point about all this attack may be hurting the president's brand a little bit, too. i think our supporters went a little bit too far with the felony business. >> glen kesler in the "washington post" says you guys can dither around with s.e.c. filings but he says look, if someone wanted to make a criminal case, why quibble with ancient s.e.c. documents in 2011, romney is a presidential candidate, filed a public financial disclosure form under pain of perjury. if romney lied on this form, that would be a felony.

>> i know, but i'm not sure it does us well to be saying it. it's okay if the press says it, but -- >> what's interesting, they're calling it -- they resurrected this term swift boating. has anybody noticed this? a type of mendacity mongering invented by the right. i'm amazed anybody on the right would want to resurrect this term but i've seen it in connection with these attacks on bain when we are dealing with very legitimate and open questions. >> as paul begala pointed out, and clearly he's from one side of the aisle, but clinton wasn't running on whitewater. barack obama wasn't running on jeremiah wright. romney is running on bain. that is his ace in the hole. >> but the swiftwater analogy is a good one. what john kerry failed to do, mitt romney's got to do. confront it right now, stop the bleeding, do some things decisive to move this issue out.

>> and maybe don't keep mentioning condoleezza rice. capitol hill plays its own version of the hunger games. we will examine the new fight over food stamps when luke russert joins the conversation, next. people have doubts about taking aspirin for pain. but they haven't experienced extra strength bayer advanced aspirin. in fact, in a recent survey, 95% of people who tried it agreed that it relieved their headache fast. visit fastreliefchallenge.com today for a special trial offer.

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the people that we are talking about here, you know, are poor. many of them are working poor. they're trying to put food on the table for their families. these aren't people trying to abuse the system or game the system. these are people who are just trying to get by. >> that was representative jim mcgovern calling on house republicans to stop a plan that would prevent millions of people from getting food stamps.

the proposal couldn't come at a worse time for many of the nation's working poor. since 2007, the number of people receiving food assistance has nearly doubled and now stands at 45 million. that is one out of every seven americans. nbc's luke russert joins us now from washington. luke, it is always great to see you, especially so on a friday, my friend. >> good afternoon, alex. how are you doing? >> i'm good. luke, tell us what's going on. the house bill, a senate bill passed with bipartisan support aims to trim $4.5 billion from the federal food stamp program. the house bill aims to trim a much more sizeable amount, $16.5 billion. tell us a little bit about the political optics of this. >> well, look, agricultural legislation is always interesting on capitol hill because you have a bevy of competing interests. you have dairy farmers, you have syrup farmers, corn farmers, meat farmers, everything in between. however, 80% of the farm bill pertains to food stamps. they fall under the direction of the agriculture department.

in here, you have a lot of conservatives on the right that have said look, these food stamp programs, they are too big, too bloated, they create a culture of dependency, we need to cut them and shrink them. you all have a lot of liberals who say no, you have obviously seen these dire economic times we live in, people are dependent on these food stamps because they are actually in real need of sustenance, we can't cut them. so we have a far right and far left approach. then you have this sort of moderate in the middle which says okay, you know what, perhaps the program's a little too big, we should trim it. that's what you saw in the senate, because that would make it so that the entire bill with all these other important things that pertain to the farming industry can go forward, but it looks like right now, the house gop leadership in order to avoid a contentious floor fight of having all these different regional interests pit against each other as well as looking like they want to take lunches away from school children, are just going to not allow this bill to go to the floor and punt it, essentially punting what you have will be the status quo and another extension like we've seen so much in this congress. another interesting thing here

is this bill is somewhat problematic because it also costs a lot. over a ten year period it costs $969 billion. that's a lot of money for conservatives, who like to be able to say we tried to shrink government to have on their backs going into an election. it's a fascinating sort of dynamic but you see the food stamps front and center of it. it plays to both parties, liberals and conservatives. it's ultimately a fight you probably won't see voiced any longer because the gop leadership does not want any contention on the house floor. >> governor rendell. >> look, i thought it was interesting that the vote on this bill, getting out of committee, was instructive of what has to happen i think if we're going to do simpson-bowles or some form of that. you have the democrats in the middle and the democrats got something. they trimmed away direct subsidies to farmers. there are no direct cash subsidies to farmers anymore. and the republicans got what they wanted, reduction in the food stamp program.

and you had chairman lucas, republican conservative, ranking member petersen, democratic farmer, liberal, coming together and meeting somewhat in the middle and there were democratic folks that did in fact vote for the food stamp trim. there were republican votes that voted for the elimination of the subsidies. that's sort of a prototype if we are ever going to get things done and deal with the deficit. >> the ironic thing about it is when they were discussing this bill, you had both sides giving quotes to the media saying we didn't get everything we wanted but for this to have the best chance of passing the senate, we took -- we made these concessions which is a rarity you see on capitol hill. it points to how unique this type of bill is, because you have so many different regional interests and no matter how conservative or how liberal you are, if you have a district that contains some of these farmers and they're being pinched or hurt, you're going to try and do something that takes care of

them. >> both sides gave something and that's how we're going to move on the important stuff. >> that's a good example. yes. >> at the heart of one of the reasons this is a really interesting i think topic to discuss is attitudes towards the american social compact, the role of government. we are talking about the sort of human impact of cutting the federal food stamp bill -- federal food stamp budget by $16.5 billion, that means 300,000 children lose free lunches, two to three million people would lose benefits. then there's this narrative that is largely bandied about on the right which is these are sort of handouts and we are making americans dependent. well, 41% of food stamp participants live in households with earnings. the american sort of mental picture of what happens when you're on food stamps is something that i think is not frequently unpacked enough. i always go back to this "rolling stone" article from a few weeks ago which talks about what you need to qualify to get on to food stamps. these programs aren't designed to help you get back on your feet. they are programs of last

resort. it was written most of the social service systems in the united states function not to help people like the folks profiled in this story get back to where they were, to a point of productive stability, but simply to keep them from starving or more often, to merely reduce the chances that they will starve. this is the reality of food stamps in america. >> yeah. i think it's very disturbing that so many conservatives seem to object to welfare for poor people and not for sugar companies and agra businesses. this really is the difference between survival and destitution and malnutrition for literally millions of americans. i think it's disgraceful the way in which most of the cuts are being proposed from one side on the backs of these poor people. >> the narrative that has been sort of established although as luke says, house republicans are sort of backing away from having to be the ones that are cutting the food stamp program, it will be interesting to see how it

plays out. of course, the farm bill expires on september 30th so there is more to come. luke russert, thank you for the intel. have a great weekend. >> be well. take care. get your feet in the sand. >> i always do on saturdays and sundays. after the break, outsourcing ain't just a question in the presidential race but also the u.s. olympic committee. the fashion faux pas that is uniting congress, next. [ male announcer ] this is rudy.

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today there are 600,000 vacant manufacturing jobs in this country, and the olympic committee's outsourcing the manufacturing of uniforms to china? that is not just outrageous, it's just plain dumb. it's self-defeating. >> you'd think they would know better. >> finally, something that brings democrats and republicans together. the u.s. olympic team uniforms. members of congress are outraged at american athletes in the 2012 games will be wearing uniforms with a label that reads made in china. we saw a little hits reel from some folks that are outraged. senators gillibrand, israel, brown all wrote letters to the usoc asking them to make sure all future uniforms are made in america. ben, what is your read on this? in 2002, 2004 and 2006, a canadian company made and manufactured 95% of the uniforms in canada. >> if you've got that many members of congress expressing outrage they've got to be doing

something basically right at the olympic committee. normally olympic committees are criticized for being incredibly corrupt. here they are trying to save a buck. the olympics are this festival of camp and they've got these great campy -- >> festival of camp? or the greatest games the world has ever seen. >> these perfectly campy uniforms made in china seems like they're doing it right. >> jay, what is your read on this? >> i agree with ben. the olympic committee must be doing something right. first, has anybody looked in their closets lately? most of our clothes are made in china. i want to stick up for ralph lauren and say i think they're great-looking uniforms. as for the berets, has anybody heard of the green berets? if not for the french, we would all be speaking with english accents. >> you are getting -- >> i'm all in favor of these. >> -- wide afield here. >> ed rendell would never wear a beret. underlying this, i think it's the made in china piece that has become sort of the great uniter here, because you have mitt romney who is a presidential

candidate saying on day one, i'm going to take an aggressive posture with the chinese. china has become this boogeyman for all sorts of things ailing our american economy. >> it's an easy target for everybody. you've got china, you've got outsourcing. the president and governor romney were fighting about this last week when the president made the trade announcement while he was campaigning in ohio. and so it's -- it doesn't cost anything to write a letter to the committee and demand they change this policy. so there's no fight over any funding. interestingly, the white house decided to stay out of the fray and their statement is that this is not a government issue, that the committee's private and the president really believes in american clothes although they couldn't say whether or not his clothes are american-made. >> that is also more than -- >> but governor rendell, worth noting as of 2011, the chinese owned $1.6 trillion of u.s. debt. this is of course the reality of our relationship with china. >> but there's another reality. >> which is? >> we purchase 55% of their

products. >> it's a mutually beneficial relationship. >> we have leverage, they have leverage. have we been wusses about dealing with china? absolutely. as everybody said here, correct, it is except guys, come on, it's the u.s. olympic committee. it's the olympics. you mean we couldn't find one clothes manufacturer in america to make the uniforms? >> that horse left the barn a long time ago. >> there are still clothes manufacturers in the u.s. if it was a festival or something, i can understand. but it's the u.s. olympics. these are our athletes. sherrod brown said there's a place, i think i heard of the clothier that could have made the uniforms in ohio. what were they thinking? >> why doesn't congress talk about getting these jobs back and president obama has already been working -- >> this is typical, congress is outraged about this, yet we have no manufacturing policy, no interest in the infrastructure. they're talking about this. but come on, you're head of the

olympic committee. >> let's revisit the greatest hits of the olympic committee. >> you have to save that money for bribing delegates and the judges. >> absolutely. >> steroids. >> it is worth noting in may 2010 the usoc signed a $24 million sponsorship deal with bmw, gm was a sponsor of the 2008 games. in september 2011 the usoc extended the sponsorship with bp through the 2016 games despite the fact that bp had its hand on the spigot of the worst environmental disaster in u.s. history. >> how about we still make cars in america. didn't they see the chrysler commercial? >> this is a great international thing. in london the scandal is the marketing deal with mcdonald's forbids them from serving chips, anybody else from serving french fries at the olympics unless they're with fish, in the context of fish and chips. >> i think to wrap this segment up -- >> please do. >> we should pledge to only buy american clothes. >> you are making a p.r. nightmare.

here's how we will wrap it up. >> nobody cares what i wear. nobody cares what i wear. >> you are a patriot, though. people want to know -- >> this pin was made in erie, pennsylvania. >> would you wear a beret? >> i would not look good in a beret. >> that's not an answer, sir. >> no, i wouldn't. >> he would take the fifth. no, not the fifth. >> you are going to wear just clothes made in america. >> i'm taking the fifth on that. >> i would wear it. >> here's a live look at virginia beach, virginia, where president obama is expected to speak about the economy and restoring middle class security later this hour. we will bring you his speech live ahead. next on the endangered species list, the american worker, following on our conversation a second ago. we will talk labor pains, next. the medicare debate continues in washington...

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under assault by law makers from across the country, organized labor is fighting back. this year, it's giving politicians an ultimatum. sign what they're calling the second bill of rights or face the consequences in november. the pledge calls for better wages and protections for unionized workers. joining the panel now to talk about the future of labor is daniel katz, dean of the school of labor studies and dean of the school of professional studies at national labor college. also editor of "labor rising." great to have you on the program. we were just debating the made in america scandal engulfing the u.s. olympic team uniforms but it is a good segue to the notion of unions and the power of labor in the u.s. we know now in 1983, there was a 20.1% membership in unions across the country. 2011, that's dropped in half basically to 11.8%. only one in 12 of those age 16 to 34 are in a union. tell us about that decline in

union membership. >> well, decline in union membership over the last 30 years has a number of causes, one of which is the industrialization that begins in the 1960s, 1970s, as the governor alluded to in the discussion earlier, is that you had a number of industries including the garment industry flee the united states and flee unionization for other places around the globe, mexico, the auto industry went to mexico and other places as well. at the same time, you had an assault by the republican right, ronald reagan fired the 11,000 air traffic controllers, 1981. >> a line in the sand, vis a vis the federal government and unionized labor. >> yes, absolutely. so the decline in manufacturing, the assault on unions that begins in the '80s but continues right up to this day with governor scott walker in wisconsin, there's no question that unions have been

retreating, but they have also been fighting back. >> what's interesting is if you look at sort of younger attit e attitudes towards unions, declining unionization rates are a symptom and cause of declining quality of life. youth aren't naturally apathetic. there's no shortage of awareness or anger at every day issues such as income inequality, lack of health care. what's missing is brand recognition. which i thought is very telling. you say unions and people think oh, they were good for my parents' generation but we don't need them now or coupled with the narrative that is very much furthered on the state level which is unions are the root of all of our fiscal problems so when we have to cut, we will cut on the backs of workers. >> that's right. well, that is the narrative that some people are saying but anybody in the earlier conversation who is suffering so badly that they are depending on food stamps for their sustenance knows that the pathway to food

and to a stable life and a middle class life is through unions. in fact, when young people are asked they do participate in and join unions. we have a number of recent exciting examples. occupy wall street was very much a populous movement that involved unions everywhere. right now you have hundreds and hundreds of college students involved in union summer, in unions around the country. when young people are asked to be involved and given the pathway to be involved in unions, they do. but i agree, there is a need for a brand recognition among youth. >> the other interesting thing is if you actually look historically at sort of declining wage rates, you can track the stagnation of middle class wages right alongside declining power of the unions. >> that's correct. there hasn't been really a real increase in wages in 30 years.

>> unless you're talking about the very top 1% or 10% where it's been hundred, sometimes thousand-fold. it is an important subject, a really very interesting read. "labor rising, the past and future of working people in america." thank you for your time. after the break, hot time, summer in the city, and on capitol hill and on the campaign trail. is the heat getting to the heads of politicos? we take a look back at what happened, next.

politics hit a fever pitch this week as a heat wave boiled the country. it's summer in the city and time to look back and ask what just happened. it's july and that means

beaches, clam bakes and summer loving. >> having your grandpop live with you. having your great aunt, your uncle. those walls were often thin. i wonder how the hell my parents did it. >> the heat wave got to everyone, sparking nutty behavior, fever dreams -- >> i can't tell you anything about the vp process. i have to come back to you with my "men in black" flashlight and erase your memory. >> -- and naked honesty. >> have none of that -- >> holyfield hot sauce on the ear. >> that would have been a delicacy. >> the attempts did little to cool heated temperatures and sulky politicians. >> we announced we were going to vote again so of course the media goes why, why, why. you know how they are. why, why. >> when mercury rises, so does indignation. >> i think the olympic committee should be ashamed of themselves. i think they should be embarrassed. i think they should take all the

uniforms, put them in a big pile and burn them. >> extreme heat often forces extreme metaphors. >> the president's laws harming not only the health of the american people but the health of our economy. >> this is nothing short of economic malpractice. >> the truth is chicken noodle soup might be mm-mm-good for lunch. but as a health care policy, it is mm-mm-bad. >> and as they say, one extreme metaphor deserves another. >> why should i continue to allow barack obama to drive the bus? >> when barack obama got the keys to the bus, it was trapped in the ditch with three flat tires. we've changed the tires. we've pulled the bus out of the ditch. mitt romney wants to take that bus, probably a bus made in switzerland or bermuda, he wants to pick up some millionaires and billionaires and shower them with cash. that's exactly what this campaign is about, minus the weird bus analogy. >> the warm weather might encourage the dipping of toes into untested waters.

>> i do love that music. i have to tell you. >> but remember -- >> that includes obama care and i'm going to work to reform and save -- >> you never really know what's lurking beneath the surface. >> it's a shark! >> i do love that music. >> oh, my goodness. shark attacks. shark attacks when you're fishing. carol, you made the point that it's hard to believe we're only in july. >> it is. >> given -- given the campaign cycle, the rhetoric, the campaign attacks, we are further along than we thought we would be. >> we are. i also thought watching the robert gibbs clip that the democrats have gotten rid of the ditch metaphor in 2010 but there it is and it's back. as a white house reporter i should say watching that, bring him back to the podium. >> that's what i'm saying. bobby g. everyone missed him. >> so colorful. >> roll, tide.

no, i can't remember which team. >> auburn. >> right. not alabama. governor rendell, who is winning the week? who has won the week? >> the obama folks won this week, mostly because the other side screwed up. this has been a campaign of who screws up worse. it's like a game show. who can do the poorest job on the campaign trail. but again, the point i made at the beginning, it's july. only the people who really love politics are watching. the average american, i bet you if we went into the streets of philadelphia and stopped the first hundred people and asked what is bain capital, alex, how many would be able to identify bain capital? >> i don't know. i think we're at an inflection point. >> tell me your guess. >> in two weeks, not today, but in two weeks you ask americans about bain capital, i think you will find a lot more penetration on that issue. but i'm not the american people. >> what would you say? >> maybe not in philadelphia. >> forget washington. washington doesn't count. >> i think you're right. i think five. >> i think also, this question

of offshore accounts and the cayman islands and switzerland, i think these will have resonance perhaps beyond the question of what bain is and what it does or what it did. i think a lot of people, a lot of average americans are going to have a hard time understanding why mitt romney has hundreds of millions of dollars offshore. >> also, the term cayman islands and swiss bank accounts, very loaded in the american imagination. you are looking live at virginia beach, virginia, where president obama is set to speak in just a few moments. he's expected to address job creation, tax cuts and his plan to secure middle class -- the middle class. we will bring you his remarks live ahead. ovider is different but centurylink is committed to being a different kind of communications company by continuing to help you do more

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in the next few minutes, president obama will take the stage in virginia beach, which is the first of six campaign stops he'll make in the state today and tomorrow. nbc news white house correspondent micore responsibility joins us -- core spent joins us now. >> it is a very important state, no question about it. i was surprised to learn starting with facts and figures, virginia beach is the largest city in the commonwealth of virginia. we'll start with that and point out that president obama won virginia by six points in 2008, of course, becoming the first democrat to win that state since lbj was wearing hager slacks and ordering by phone in this area behind me in the west wing. there are 13 electoral votes up for grabs. he is in a heavily -- high military area there today for the first part of today, the first two events. people around here and down there call it tidewater,

virginia beach. then he is in hampton, one of the issues you have already talked about is the so-called defense cuts, so-called sequester, the defense cuts under the sequester, under the budget control act, that republicans have been hitting the president on leading up to this trip to this vitally important region in tidewater. notwithstanding the fact that 174 republican members of the house voted in favor of the budget control act, just 66 voting against it about a year and a half ago. democrats were split evenly, 95-95. that one is one of the ones i'm having a hard time understanding today, that line of attack. anyway, later he goes on to western virginia, the roanoke area, perhaps a little bit more red but a lot of people in virginia telling me today it's turning bluer. he comes back to the white house tonight and then tomorrow, it's back out on the road. he's in glenallen, eric cantor territory, in the richmond area. then he's back up here in northern virginia, we all know the story there, demographically turning bluer and bluer,

considered almost solid blue. he's going to be in centerville. >> i want to open this up to the panel. we will get back to mike in a second. in terms of the defense question, governor, governor bob mcdonald said virginia is the home of america's military. the president put our defense budget on course for radical cuts that even his own secretary of defense says will be devastating to u.s. national security, of course referring to a deal made with republicans. >> mike has the answer to that. the republicans are weighted more heavily than the democrats in the congress. the answer is get your rear ends down, let's have a simpson-bowles deal that makes sensible cuts. >> when we talk campaign strategy, there are a couple states that were traditionally red that the obama team turned blue in the last election cycle. they have their eyes on those prizes. in large part because of demographic shifts that have happened, as mike said earlier. virginia obviously is one. colorado is one that we hear about. arizona, they're trying to put

in play as well. >> and north carolina. virginia, though, is particularly important to them because it's harder, much harder for romney to win if obama picks up virginia. when you look at the map and the different states that they're trying to pick up, they think they look strong in ohio. florida seems like much more of a reach and that will go to romney. that just elevates the importance of virginia which is why you see him there today and tomorrow and have seen him there more than anywhere else. >> big free pickups, north carolina, indiana and virginia in '08. >> they wouldn't play in indiana. >> no chance in indiana. uphill fight in north carolina. virginia is the best chance for a hold. >> mike, tell us a little about what the president is expected to discuss in his remarks. >> he's going to continue on the theme on the tax cut theme. 98% tax cut for 98%. he's going to be talking about the assault on the middle class or at least the idea is that he is putting forward that he considers much more beneficial to the middle class.

virginia, there are a lot of wrinkles to virginia. it's got a relatively low unemployment rate, got a conservative governor, conservative legislature, 5.6 i think it was in may, the unemployment rate, obviously almost three points below the national average, a lot of that defense spending, a lot of that federal spending, dependent on federal spending. obviously northern virginia with the pentagon and the federal government right across the river. virginia is to a certain extent dependent on the federal government and federal spending. it's a bit of a wrinkle there, little bit of a conundrum for republicans in this kind of attack. first read, you talk about the vital nature of virginia, first read today said 13 electoral votes so important, a win here plus in colorado enables president obama to surpass 270 electoral votes without winning florida, iowa, ohio and nevada. so there's no question it stands to reason why the president's going to be spending so much time there over the next two days. >> you know, we dissect the president's sort of messaging and campaign strategy.

this seems like as the governor said, a big win week for the re-election campaign, especially given those jobs numbers that came out just a week ago, 80,000 jobs created in the month of june, not good. the narrative has completely shifted on monday, the president started talking about the bush tax cuts. now you have the romney bain attacks which bring in the tax question, the fairness question. it's almost a perfect storm for the president. >> yeah. i think certainly you saw this week that the president's people have been here before and there's a welcome to the nfl quality for the romney campaign, just walking very deliberately right in to this trap the obama campaign set for them around bain, totally changing the subject from the dismal jobs numbers. >> the question is how long can he sustain it. can they carry this through to november. >> i was amazed how quickly the job numbers did seem to fade and that was a tough one. that is really the core of romney's campaign and his attack right now. we haven't been really talking about it all week.

we've been -- you know, the president's campaign is working very well this week. >> also, the romney campaign is doing itself no favors by sort of dithering while they might put a message out there. we'll see. we'll see. there is always next week, governor rendell, when we will presumably have a beret for you. thanks again to everyone here. carol, governor rendell, jay and ben. we'll have the beret for you next time. that's all for now. see you back here monday at noon, 9:00 a.m. eastern. find us at facebook. "andrea mitchell reports" is next. good afternoon to you. good afternoon, have a great weekend. we are waiting for president obama in virginia to take the stage in virginia beach. more back and forth about bain today and joining me, mark murray, major garrett, susan page, jonathan capehart and

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ready to help. it's no wonder so many investors are saying... [ all ] i'm with scottrade. developing right now on "andrea mitchell reports" how important is virginia? you're looking at a live picture, president obama is about to kick off a two-day campaign swing in the state he won last time by a comfortable six points. bain in the neck. today's debate boils down to liar, liar, pants on fire. condi what? just who launched that trial balloon? and new calls for international action in syria after a suspected massacre by government forces that may have taken the lives of 200 people. plus, bush 41 on parade, asking who the hell is grover norquist, anyway. good day. i'm andrea mitchell live in washington. in our daily fix today, moments from now, the president is going to kick off two days of