really voting against that guy in the white house they're hearing these terrible hearing these terrible things. you want to know the nasty thing about the campaign. it's not the peppering shots. it's the relentless un-american campaign of innuendo and xenaphobia against the man who serves us in the white house. "the ed show" starts right now. >> good evening, americans. welcome to "the ed show" from new york. 102 days before the election and the obama campaign has republicans clamoring for mitt romney's tax returns. i'll tell you what i think mitt romney is hiding. >> governor romney's economic plan would in fact create 800,000 jobs. there's only one problem, the jobs wnt be in america. >> the president hit mitt romney hard on jobs and outsourcing and mitt romney hits back at a former candidate's wife. >> john kerry ran for president.

his wife who has hundreds of millions of dollars never released her tax returns. >> just how off target is the romney campaign? richard wolffe and rick tyler on romney's ongoing disaster. >> and we'll look at the real life impact of mitt romney's outsourcing. oh beautiful for spacious skies for amber waves of grain >> the big panel weighs in on one of the toughest ads a democrat has ever produced. >> and the young guns are calling him the backup. >> young guns, a new generation of conservative leaders. >> we'll tell you why billionaire sheldon adelson is dumping piles of cash into eric cantor's super pac. >> good to have you with us tonight.

thanks for watching. it was another weekend of confusion and contradiction for the romney camp after five interviews on friday and a flurry of surrogate appearances, mitt romney still cannot clear up the issues with his bain capital record. romney's people are asking president obama to apologize for raising the issue? president obama gave the romney campaign an answer on the trail. >> no, we won't be apologizing. sometimes these games are played in political campaigns. understand what the issue is here. mr. romney claims that he's mr. fix it for the economy because of his business experience. and so i think voters entirely legitimately want to know, well, what exactly was that business experience. >> for the american people, it comes down to what? responsibility. mitt romney cannot adequately explain his involvement with bain capital between the years 1999 and 2002. the latest line is romney retired retroactively. >> he actually retired retroactively at that point because he ended up not going back to the firm after his time in salt lake city. he was retired from bain.

>> just in case you thought ed gillespie made a mistake, he repeated it on cnn. >> he took a leave of absence and ended up not going back at all and retired retroactively. gr did romney give back the salary he made between 1999 and 2002 when he retired retroactively? look here, folks, here's the bottom line, the s.e.c. filings shows romney made at least dlr $100,000 a year as he was allegedly doing nothing at the ceo of bain. maybe he should have followed the lead of his father, he stepped down of the american motors corporation when he ran for office. it was real simple. a report in the nation said the board elected george romney as vice chairman but granted him an indefinite leave of absence without pay. mitt romney chose to retroactively retire. he was double dipping.

but more importantly, the romney campaign still cannot say who was running bain capital during the time in question. >> does the governor think that those are good deals for bain? >> those deals were made by -- those decisions were made by folks that were running the company differently, so i don't have the details of what the decision making went into it. >> they don't have the tails. that's a key word, key phrase, they don't have the details. have you noticed ow the romney camp is short on details. eric fehrnstrom was asked who was running bain between 1999 and 2002? his response, you should check with bain, but it wasn't romney. the huffington post checked with the security and exchange commission in six different filings between april of 2000 and may of 2001. mitt romney was listed as a member of the management committee at bain. the committee was responsible, key word there, for day to day operations of bain. in one filing, romney was listed as president and managing director. no one can have titles like this in the business world and not have any responsibilities to accompany.

romney's answers are clouding the issue, no doubt. it's getting so bad for mitt romney, even conservative pundits are urging him to release his tax returns to get everything out in the open. >> mitt romney is losing at this point in a big way. if something is going to come out, get it out in a hurry. >> he should release the tax returns tomorrow. you have to release six, eight years of tax returns. >> there's obviously something there. if there was nothing there, he would say have at it. there's something that compromises what he said in the past about something. i think the bigger thing is it's arrogance. >> romney and his campaign insist they will only release this year's and last year's returns. they're even resorting to fake examples, fake examples to make their case. >> senator mccain is republican nominee in the last election, was the relevant start, a standard that senator john kerry said was the standard. >> hang on a second here. john kerry, you know what he did? he released way more than two

years of tax returns because he was running in the senate numerous years, in fact, by the time he was running for president in 2004, john kerry had released 20 years of tax returns. mitt romney tried to correct the campaign's mistake when he was on fox and friends this morning. >> john kerry ran for president, you know, his wife, who has hundreds of millions of dollars, she never released her tax returns. somehow this wasn't an issue. >> maybe it wasn't an issue because theresa heinz kerry, she wasn't running for president of the united states. romney and his campaign, you know what they are, they're really boxed in on this issue and they don't have an answer. conservative columnist george will identified his main issue. >> the cost of not releasing the returns are clear. therefore, he must have calculated there are higher costs in releasing them. >> and hes rr going to tough it out. >> the consequences for releasing the tax returns must be pretty bad for mitt romney if he would rather get raked over the coals by conservative talkers for not releasing them. rahm emanuel had a better

explanation. >> the mccain campaign, he released 23 years. and he's telling the american people, i'm not going to give you what i have given john mccain's people in 2008. when he gave them 23 years, john mccain's people looked at it and said let's go with sarah palin. >> the tax returns are essential to everything mitt romney is running on. they explain his real achievements in business. they show how he would try to run the country. they give us a look at what his tax policy would really be and what he believes in. mitt romney, i don't think, is making the case to the american people he would be a president americans can trust. it's all about the tax return. number one, i would like to know how is he listed? general partner, president, owner, ceo? then he signed it, i assume he signed his own tax return, even if he had someone else put it together. and i'm sure he did if it's 500 pages. and the business deductions, did he have any write-offs or any business deductions that dealt with bain capital.

if it did, he's flat out lying to the american people who he said he had no involvement. the irs think it's involvement. and also, maybe mitt romney has made the political calculation that its jr. ostheck of a lot safer and a hell of a lot easier to lie to the american people than it is to the internal revenue service. i want to know what you think. tonight's question, this is a good one, what will do more damage to mitt romney's campaign, releasing his tax returns or not releasing his tax returns? text a for releasing his returns, text b for not releasing his returns. 622639. our blog is oith there for you. we'll bring you the results later on in the show. i'm joined tonight by msnbc political analyst richard wolffe and rick tyler, republican strategist and former communications director for newt gingrich. great to have you with us

tonight. richard, you first, what is his avenue out of this mess? out of this maze? you do five interviews to try to clear things up. it only made things worse, and they're having a hard time explaining all of this. what is the avenue of relief? >> the easy answer is to say release the tax returns. actually, there's a step or five before that, which is first of all, decide which avenue you're going to take. one of the problems mitt romney has right now is indecision. it's that his story keeps changing. first of all, they said, well, you know, everyone else has done this. that's not true. then you end up talking about john kerry's wife, which is ridiculous. you say the obama people will never be satisfied. you say it's a complete dodge. they said all of these things and it's a bit like his response on the bain question. the story keeps changing. if you think about what happened to john der kerry, the swift boat thing was terrible, but the weakness you're broadcasting about your own character as a leader is just as damaging. >> so he didn't solve anything on friday, and as we move

forward in this campaign, they don't seem to have any clear cut answers, at least it's been 36, 72 hours that goes on and on. how do they fix it? what would they come out and say to fix it? >> he has take the hit. i would argue friday's comments made it worse. in trying to project strength and say i'm punching back, he overstepped the mark. he said i had no active role in bain, but he said i have no responsibility. that was his word, and nen you get into the buck passing thing described so well. >> your campaign raised these issues in the primary. did the gop miss it? wasn't anybody in the gop beyond newt gingrich taking this more seriously? why weren't they? >> if you remember, we did release these, all these s.e.c. tuments we had in january of this year, six months ago. the media wasn't very interested in our side. frankly, the romney campaign did a good job. they won the debate with us,

which was they had reframed this to an attack on free enterprise and all of the conservative commentators bought that. it wasn't an attack on free enterprise, but that's what happened. mitt romney might do well to go back and try to claim the mantel of free enterprise verses obama's statism, but at this point, he had opportunities in 2008 during the primary to clear this up. he decided to delineate a bright line in 1999 about going to the olympics. and documentation and salaries as you have pointed out, are inconsistent with that. he's going to have to explain it. at this point, the best thing for him to do is full transparency and get it out here. not just the obama campaign who by the way i think that would be the thing they don't want to happen, have him release everything, have everybody pore through it because i suspect this is a lot to do about nothing. i don't think there was anything illegal. >> it's not a question of whether it's illegal. it's a question of what he was doing and what the company was doing that he was a head of in 1999 to 2003 because that's when

they were outsourcing jobs. >> i disagree with your research. we'll find out what the tax policy is by looking at his tax return. we'll find out what he made, who he filed with, and what interest he has. i think the american public has some interest in it. >> i think we would find out what his tax policy would be because there's an awful lot of write-ups he would continue to support or he wouldn't have taken them, and obviously, he is not releasing it for everybody to see. the point i made earlier is that if he took business write-offs with bain, with you consider that a connection to the company? >> if he could legally take write-offs, he should. everybody should take the write-offs you're entitled to. >> on friday, he said he had no connection to the company. >> that's a political problem. he said he didn't have decision making capacity at bain. they said he took a leave of absence and then decided not to go back to the company, this

retroactive thing. while it's true the way they did that, it doesn't play politically well, back in 1999 when he left for the olympics, he should have been thinking about this. the only way this is a problem is if you run for president. otherwise, none of this is a problem. >> he's running for president and the american people want some answers on this. richard, when you take a look at how he's handling this, how long will it be before the republican party steps out? not the people on tv on sunday. i mean, i'm talking about when does newt gingrich step up, rick santorum, how can they be silent on this? >> maybe that's a question for rick. >> i'm going to get it from you first. >> i think he's the presumptive nominee at this point, and he's there's a window for things to go spectacularly wrong for him. as long as the polls are closed and he can string this along, he's okay.

there could be a moment of peril, a few more weeks of this where you get people who suspended quote/unquote suspended their campaign. >> herman cain, how can he be quiet? how long is newt going to be quiet on this, three, four weeks? what is the date he's going to say we have to challenge candidate here? >> well, that could happen. if the campaign cannot figure out a way to dispense with these types of issues. now we know how the obama campaign tends to operate. they're going to obfiskate his record for as long as they can. there was some memo out by newman released a memo i think earlier today that talked about how great it was they were a parody because he spent $51 million and only a parity. i would argue he spend $51 to be a parody, that's a good thing because this is the worst economy, the worst debt, the worst deficit spending. >> he sure inherited. you're right about that. >> romney should be far ahead and he has to fix the political

party and then we'll return to the economy. >> thanks for joining us. remember to answer tonight's question at the bottom of the screen. share you thoughts on twitter at ed show and on facebook. >> president obama is going directly after romney's business experience and what it would mean for america. chuck joins me for the discussion. stay with us.

coming up, the president went to the jug general on mitt romney's outsourcing. we'll show you why his missing years at bain are critical to voters in the country. >> the right wing smear machine does a hatchet job on obama's remarks on government and small business. van jones knows what that's all about and he's here to weigh in later opportunities. while senate leader harry reid warnsuble the influence of big money in the election cycle, sheldon adelson makes a multimillion donation to a

republican super pac. we'll tell you who it's probably going to be going to with all of the details. share your thoughts with us on twitter and on facebook using the hash tag ed show. we're coming right back. come in the water! somebody didn't book with travelocity, with 24/7 customer support to help move them to the pool daddy promised! look at me, i'm swimming! somebody, get her a pony! [ female announcer ] the travelocity guarantee. from the price to the room to the trip you'll never roam alone. from the price to the room to the trip like, keep one of these over your head. well, i wasn't "supposed" to need flood insurance, but i have it. fred over here chose not to have it. ♪ me, i've got a plan. fred he uh... fred what is your plan? do i look like i have a plan? not really. [ female announcer ] only flood insurance covers floods. for a free brochure, call the number on your screen.

welcome back to "the ed show." president obama's campaign is hitting its stride. and explaining why mitt romney's business experience is bad for this country. this new ad is a big part of the obama offensive. oh beautiful for spacious skies for amber waves of grain for purple mountains majesty above the fruited plain america america god shed his grace on

thee and crown thy good >> mitt romney's not the solution. he's the problem. it's the ultimate statement about mitt romney not being for the middle class in this country. the ad will run in nine swing states. today, president obama shows more than ever he is prepared to personally take this fight to the american people and let them decide. here he is in cincinnati, ohio today. >> today, we found out there's a new study out by nonpartisan economists that says governor romney's economic plan would in fact create 800,000 jobs. there's only one problem.

the jobs wouldn't be in america. they would be in other countries. by eliminating taxes on corporations' foreign income, governor romney's plan would encourage companies to shift more of their operations to foreign tax havens, creating 800,000 jobs in those other countries. >> president obama linked this directly to romney's experience at bain capital. >> this shouldn't be a surprise because governor romney's experience has been investing in what were called pioneers of the business of outsourcing. now, he wants to give more tax breaks to companies that are shipping jobs overseas. >> and a new poll commissioned by the nonpartisan alliance for american manufacturing finds that 83% have an unfavorable opinion of companies that outsource. 97% hold a favorable view of goods made right here in the u.s. of a.

let's turn to chuck, a democratic strategist. good to have you with us tonight. >> thanks for having me. >> is it effective for president obama to make this direct link between mitt romney's business experience and what he would do if he were president of the united states? is there a connection? >> i couldn't agree with you more. that may be one of the best ads i have ever seen in my entire political career. here's why. as you know, i grew up in east texas and was fortunate to go to work in a factory when i was 19 years old. there were 1,000 men and women including my father, my uncles and a a lot of kids i grew up with. in 1962, they opened the factory there. five years ago, they shut the factory down. when they walked through the factory handing out pink slips, they didn't ask if you were a democrat or republican, they said this tire production isn't going to be here and it sits in china. think about the middle-class voter sitting at home watching the commercial. no matter if they're democrat or republican thinking that's not

right. that could be my job overseas. >> this is president obama running on the compassionate sensibilities of the american people that a lot of americans will put themselves in the place of that displaced worker. then mitt romney of course has a record of showing a very callous attitude towards shipping jobs overseas. is this going to be the winning formula to win the middle class? >> there are a lot of middle class voters just like you said, ed, that are hurting. the whole fact of this entire election is who can you best relate with? mitt romney is a good looking guy. his hair is always a perfect shape, but he looks like your boss. he looks like the boss you always said he lived in a different part of town, his kids going to a different school, he shops at a different place. he can't relate to someone in the factory whose job was overseas. when mom and pop are at the dining room table and have the paycheck and bills, their hoping they have enough money to have dinner on saturday night. >> he's been able to take a news story about romney and twist a positive. today, the president, he just didn't go after romney. he turned this whole thing into a positive message about himself and america.

here it is. >> i want to give tax breaks to companies that are investing right here in ohio. that are investing in cincinnati. that are investing in hamilton county. i want to give incentives to companies that are investing in you, the american people. to create american jobs, making american goods that we're selling around the world, stamped with three proud words, made in america. >> i mean, chuck, if you take that comment right there and match it up with what the republicans have done in the senate and all of the obstruction, how can the president lose any of the rust belt states? >> he needs to be repeating this message over and over and over again. and every campaign i'm working in, the made in america is over 98% positive no matter if it's coming from a democrat or a republican. but the difference here is this, is that barack obama has a record to stand on, and so does mitt romney. barack obama made it very clear today or a couple days ago that there's a true difference between this campaign. mitt romney can wear all of the flannel shirts he want to and go to all of the wirt sites and try

to relate to the workers, but at the end of the day, the american people will realize he's all flannel and no calluses. >> great to have you on the show. >> the right wing freaks out over comments made by president obama. van jones will join me to discuss the conservative hysteria. >> and the obama campaign is out with a devastating new commercial slamming mitt romney on his bogus record. some are kaling it the best political ad of 2012. our panel is going to weigh in on it. how effective is it?

and thanks for watching "the ed show." the right wing, they are trying to find anything, i mean anything they can, to help them distract folks from mitt romney romney's bain debacle. here is the latest in selective editing from fox news. >> hey, small business owners, your hard work, you 100 hours a week didn't get you where you are, take a listen. >> if you have a business, you didn't build that. somebody else made that happen. the point is that when we succeed, we succeed because of our individual initiative but also because we do things together. >> now, if you only watch fox news, you might think the president was minimizing the hard work it takes to run a small business in america, but in fact, president obama was giving small business owners a lot of credit.

he also pointed out that business folks need infrastructure and opportunity to succeed. here's what the president said in context. >> somebody helped to create this unbelievable american system that we have that allowed you to thrive. somebody invested in roads and bridges. if you have a business, you didn't build that. somebody else made that happen. the internet didn't get invented on its own. government research created the internet so that all of the companies could make moneys off the internet. the point is that when we succeed, we succeed because of our individual initiative but also because we do things together. >> a little different, isn't it? never ones to let facts get in the way of a good story, the right wing talkers, they jumped on the president's comments. >> i have to tell you that of all of the sunday talk shows and everything else that happened over the last three days, that particular piece of sound from the president is most startling to me. >> i thought of this as the john

kerry moment of the '04 campaign. >> that man is a statist. he believes the only reason america is where we are is because of government, and he's flat out wrong. >> i think it can now be said without equivocation, without equivocation equivocation, this man hates this country. >> sounds like he's running for president of venezuela. >> you agree with me? i mean, they're desperate. joining me now is van jones, president and cofounder of rebuild the dream, and the author of the book "rebuild the dream." has desperation set in yet? i mean, they're grabbing at anything they possibly can. and after everything you went through, van, this has to be somewhat comical. >> well, listen, you know, whenever they start ringing the fire alarm in the middle of the conversation, stop the tape, rewind, what was being said right before? this is the deepest form of patriotism. here you have the president of the united states saying something that is absolutely obvious to the whole world and

everybody in this country. america's government has been a partner to america's business community. that's a part of the beauty of america. it's deep patriotism to point that out. it's a lot harder to make a lot of money in other countries. in our country, you have roads, bridges, the rule of law. all that fine print in your contracts, you don't have to bribe a judge somewhere to enforce them. you can make your company work here. that's the beauty of america. for him to stick up for that and for them to say he hates america, that is their tactic. when you start showing the most love and enthusiasm for the country, that's when they go after him. >> the heritage foundidation called the president's remarks a slap in the face to hard working americans. the romney campaign called them insulting. they're doing everything they can to get rid of the bain story, no question about that. >> but let's be clear here. you know, our parents and our grandparents had something that was called the social contract. if you do well in america, then you do well by america. of course you have to have that

individual initiative and climb that ladder, but once you climb that ladder, you did well in america, you do well by america. what does that mean? pay your taxes and goent complain about it like our parents and grand parjts did. you create good jobs here. the reason they go crazy when people point out the basic people point out the basic facts is they have created a mythology that said the only way we got to be great is we were the wild, wild west. people did whatever they wanted to do. when somebody starts pointing out the basic facts, no, no, we made massive investments together in infrastructure, in education. we educated a whole generation of americans to outcompete the world. we did that together through america's government. it knocks down the whole house of cards. so they have to attack. even when the president says something purely patriotic like he did, says america's government is a partner to america's business community, they have to go crazy because he's talking about facts. they're talking about mythology. >> the best way to combat this is come right back at them.

and don't let them edit the tape, and come at them with clarity. and from your experience, what was the biggest hurdle you faced when the right wing was attacking you and can you relate it to what they're trying to gin up now? >> well, you have to remember that was almost three years ago when people were shocked. there was a time where people had a sled hred of hope that fox news or those folks would have a shred of truth on their side. after what happened to me and shirley sherrod and acorn they said they're a pure propaganda machine. let's be clear what they're up to. they want to stop the conversation prom being any way prauzative about anything. right now, the president has a proposal he's pushing forward that would eliminate some of the overcharging by banks for home mortgages. now, that's something that red states and blue states could come together, talk about. republican, democrats know that the interest rate is too high on the houses. real issues we're working on at

rebuild the dream and other places, but they don't want to have any substancive discussion about what might relieve some of the pain for the american people because they can only win. they need american pain to get political gain. >> and that is the bottom line. >> that's the whole strategy. >> great to have you us. thanks a lot. lots more coming up in the next half hour of "the ed show." stay with us. america america god shed his grace on thee >> it's one of the most effective campaign ads in recent history. and righties can't get over it. >> mocking him for singing a patriotic song. >> the big panel weighs in next. tea partiers sent to washington to control government spending. get busted driving expensive taxpayer funded cars. we'll expose the hypocrisy ahead. and why is billionaire sheldon adelson dumping $5 million into eric cantor's pac?

i'll ask former virginia congressman tom perriello. >> they are the young guns.

welcome back to "the ed show." the obama campaign is hitting mitt romney i think where it hurts. they're out with a new commercial that some are calling the most effective political ad of 2012. it hits romney on everything from his outsourcing of jobs to his offshore bank accounts. take a look. oh beautiful for spacious skies for amber waves of grain for purple mountains majesty above the fruited plain america america god shed his grace on thee and crown thy good with brotherhood

>> let's bring in new jersey republican assembly leader john bram bramnick and catherine crier and keith boykin with us tonight, who just published an article called the swissboating of mitt romney. pretty good. and leader bramnick, i have to ask you first, have you ever seen a belter ad? how in the world would you counter that? >> stipulating he won't be on the idol and he's not got a great singing voice, but at the end of day this is a guy who created johns at staples, at dominos, at the sports authority. at the end of the day when people go in and vote, they don't care if he can sing like the idol. they care if he can create jobs. >> create jobs, that terminology in and of itself, the bain people themselves when all of this started said we're not in this to create jobs. we're in it to make money for our investors. as sort of an aside effect, you get a few jobs. that's great. he didn't create jobs and 4 of the 10 big success stories for bain in his tenure all resulted

in bankruptcy when they went down the pike. >> you have people on the republican side who are saying the exact same thing the democrats are saying now. you have people like rick perry who said in the primary that mitt romney is a vulture capitalist who is killing jobs. you have at the same time newt gingrich who was going around saying he has never heard of a president who had a swiss bank account before. when the republicans get upset about a democrat making an attack, they're not used to democrats fighting back. >> when you have 8% unemployment, who do you want in charge of the economy? do you want barack obama or mitt romney? >> it's a distraction to say a document that he's outsourced jobs? >> you can find all kinds of details when someone is a businessman. you can find all details to focus on. but the voter wants to focus in on the big picture. that's what people do when they go into the voting booth.

>> the big picture is this guy gets investors together, buys a troubled company and either borrows money, pays them back in enormous dividends and watches it go into bankruptcy, or as luck would have it, maybe the company turns around. the point is he's saying he has the prescription for an economy, and what he has the prescription for is an investor class, a bit of venture capitalism which doesn't at all apply to a nation's accounting. >> katherine didn't go to the heart of it. they're focusing primarily on mitt romney's business experience because that's what he says we should focus on. nobody is talking about his experience as governor because he doesn't want to talk about that because massachusetts ranked 47th of 50 states in job creation, when he came in, the unemployment was below the national average and when he left, it was above the average. >> this goes along with the daisy ad or the willy horton ad. this is one of the most effective ads.

>> it's been around for a second, a day, two days, three days. >> this is the way american politics are. this is the good ad today. how long will that ad be shown? another 24 hours? >> it cuts right to his record about where his money is, where the jobs went, and what they're all about. >> democrats' perspective of his money. >> john, you show me a republican who had his job shipped overseas and i'll show you a real unhappy worker. come on. >> i was telling these gentlemen back, what i want to do from a sort of math and political standpoint, if you took away all of the tax breaks, all of the federal loans they were able to use, all of the bankruptcy laws that have been skewed to benefit the investor class, the carried interest that allowed him to treat his income as investment dollars s dollars, not wage income, take all of that away and see how well he would have done.

it would be a very different picture. and all of that is federal government tax laws. >> you're getting at the heart of it. what the problem is that the ad illustrates and demonstrator exactly the problem that mitt romney is engaging in business practices that encourage the current crisis we have right now. so it creates the narrative, it fits into the narrative. it's exactly hot the republicans don't want to do. i'm really proud of the democrats. they finally got some b-a-l-l-s to fight for this. >> the romney camp tried to roll out a new commercial criticizing obama for rewarding democratic campaign donors. it has president obama singing al green's "let's stay together." it was taking down for a copyright infringement. he refuses to name his top fund-raiser fund-raisers. how can he go after president obama while protecting the campaign from similar criticism?

>> president obama has a better voice than mitt romney. i'll stipulate to that. i can agree. he's got a really good voice. but he has absolutely no experience, none whatsoever, in managing an economy before he became president. don't you think inherent -- dent you think it's inherent for a person to be president and to be successful at managing an economy to have some experience? >> the last two bezman we had as president were george w. bush and herbert hoover. one led us into the great recession, the other led us into the great depression. >> catherine crier, keith boykin, john bramnick, great to have you with us. >> coming up, the tea party iers say they hate government spending, but they're spending lots of your tax money to ride in style. hypocrisy on wheels when we come back. we know a place where tossing and turning

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up next, the tea party, they rode into office by promising to cut spending. now, find out how much taxpayer cash they're pend spending to ride in brand new vehicles. we'll be right back. has a facebook page these days. but where's the relationship status? well, esurance is now in a relationship...with allstate. and it looks pretty serious. esurance. click or call.

welcome back to the ed show. let's remember how the tea party, the tea party republicans, they just love to preach about cutting back on spending. they don't want to spend a dime for anything, but tonight, we're learning how hypocritical they really are. seven tea party freshman are spending big bucks on car leases. minnesota representative chip cravic is the biggest spender of them all. >> we're basically broke. we are broke, and i need to understand why people keep on spending money. >> think progress charges taxpayers more than $1,000 a month to lease a chevy equinox. the congressman's office told us the lease costs more because the

direct is so big, but the democrat in the neighboring district is driving three ford focuses for less money. democrat collin peterson is spending fewer taxpayer dollars for three cars and he's getting better gas mileage. wisconsin senator shaun duffy is another of the tea party's big spenders. he makes a big deal about driving a used minivan. >> i pay my mortgage, i have a used minivan. if you think i'm living high on the hog, i've got one paycheck. >> his office said he still drived the used minivan. but this is his mobile office. his staffers sent us the picture today. your tax dollars pay for the lease on this van. think progress found duffy has spent more than $24,000 on auto leases over the last year and a half. a lot of money, isn't it? pretty good travel. and finally, colorado's fourth district congressman won votes

with speeches like this. >> the bottom line is the american people whether they're democrats or republicans want this government to cut spending. >> corey gardner has spent almost $21,000 leasing a brand new ford escape. tea party freshman have spent more than $106,000 of your money on auto leases. it will be interesting to see if the tea party hypocrisy matters to voters in their districts this november. tonight in our survey, i asked what will do more damage to mitt romney's campaign, 65% of you say releasing his tax returns. 35%, not releasing his tax returns. thanks for the response. up next, sugar daddies strike again. find out why republicans voted tonight to protect. they voted tonight to protect a handful of billionaires. i have the story next. those surprising little things she does

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help cover what medicare doesn't pay. and could save you thousands a year in out-of-pocket costs. call now to request your free decision guide. and learn more about the kinds of plans that will be here for you now -- and down the road. i have a lifetime of experience. so i know how important that is. and in the big finish tonight, you know, they just don't stop, do they? the republicans, tonight, kill the disclose act with another filibuster. the democrats were, what? seven votes short. the bill would have required groups to release the names of anyone who contributes more than $10,000. it would have applied to both parties. both parties. senate majority leader harry reid said the vast majority of donations are coming from about a dozen huge donors. >> if this flood of outside

money continues, a day after the election, 17 angry old white men will wake up and realize they just bought the country. >> sheldon adelson is one of those 17 so-called angry white men. who are trying to buy the country. ad adelson is a gop who is trying to fund the races. now he and his wife have reportedly dropped $5 million into the yg action fund. young guns. the fund started this year with with about $ 55,000. it was created to help young guns like paul ryan and kevin mccarthy. but it will probably go to this young gun, house majority leader eric cantor could really use the help in the first place. the latest poll shows that he could have a fight on his hands this november. 43% of the likely voters in cantor's district said he should be replaced. 41% want to send him back to washington.

that's well within the margin of error. $5 million could swing the vote in cantor's favor, but his buddies in the senate killed the disclose act, so we'll never know if adelson bought the leadership in congress or not. i'm joined tonight by tom perriello, former congressman from vergeverge, now the president and ve ceo for the american progress fund. $5 million in a congressional race is a heck of a lot of money, isn't it? >> a heck of a lot of money just about any way you slice it. to not even know who is trying to buy elections, who is trying to sway elections is an insult to the american people. particularly those in the working and middle class who are struggling to get by. >> doesn't this just play to the sensibilities, the common sense of american people? why are the republicans trying to just kill this disclose act and anything to move forward? >> it's a little like mitt romney and his taxes. the question is, is the pain they get for not disclosing to the american people worse than

actually what would be disclosed? in this case, these are people giving money because they want something in return. mitt romney put out a tax proposal recently that rewards companies for sending american jobs overseas. we're not talking about what he did in the past. we're talk about his current proposals, reward company, and you see sheldon adelson making the money overseas and we're talking about billions in tax returns that makes a $5 million check to them just a good investment, and the politicians and what they expect to get from them in return and the middle class will get stuck with the bill. >> do you think today that the republicans probably lived up to a promise? i can imagine these people going to these billionaires saying, look, give us a bunch of money. you're never going to have your name put on it. there's going to be no disclosure of any of this at all. was this a payback vote? >> these are republicans that just ten years ago were saying all we need is disclosure and that's enough to let people decide from that. we don't need caps. they won that decision in a bad supreme court decision, and now

they're saying forget disclosure. we don't even want to give voters the right to know who it is that's buying up the republican politicians. have not a single republican, not a scott brown, not a snowe or a collins cross the aisle to say that citizens have a right to know who is buying their elections is an outrageous thing. >> could this help democrats? you mentioned scott brown's name, elizabeth warren and scott brown are neck and neck. could this be a real key moment in that campaign? >> i know there are a lot of working middle class folks who may have been leaning republicans. when they're seeing what is happening here with folks writing $100 million checks or $100 million pledges, they know the folks don't care a whit about the working and middle class. in a place like massachusetts, this could be a big factor. someone who ran saying they wanted to clean up washington, then they come and get a sweetheart deal for wall street