and the worst thing here is they're quality workers, they're productive workers, they're educated and they're smart and they have great workette. >> mayor gaulapp and cheryl randecker, thank you all for joining me tonight and good luck. >> the heat rises on romney. let's play "hardball." good evening. let me start with mitt romney's tax policy. don't pay it. that's one way to get rich. don't pay taxes. any for years at a time. here's one big fat reason he's not going to tell you about those tax returns. he's not going to tell you anything about those years he was building up his wealth. instead, he's going to unleash his dogs to bark that obama, a

guy who released all his returns, doesn't know how to be an american. again and again and romney's right wing allies, limbaugh, he hates america. bachmann, we've got the muslim brotherhood sneaking around the government. demint, the most anti-american administration in history. what a horror show. a candidate who hides who he is sends out his wolfpack. say the other guy is the enemy within. creepy is too nice a word. and guy wants to suggest in lincoln's chair. robert costas and maggie haberman. i want to go to bob. thank you for joining us. bob, you've had a unique experience sitting with mitt romney talking about something he'd least of all want to talk about which is his tax returns. give us the tick-tock. >> so, i spoke to romney this morning, chris, and he's digging in, he's sick and tired of talking about his tax returns. talking about his offshore investments. he wants to move on. i'm not sure if he's going to be successful, but his whole strategy today was to push back

against obama, show some spine and say he's going to play a little hardball with obama's allies and he's not going to give in and release anything pre 2010. >> why not? does he give you any sense in his denial -- what's he so sensitive about? can you tell? >> he's sensitive because he says to me today that he's already released hundred of pages and he said to national review today, i don't want to release hundreds more, thousands more, to let the obama people quote lie about these thousands of other pages in his pre 2010 returns. he i think is not nervous about what's in the returns, but about the political consequences. making his tax documents dom mate the conversation. >> what did his previous returns, he's given us one year, what in those returns has been distorted? what's his claim to be a victim here? of his own limited tax disclosures. >> i don't think it's so much of being a victim. he just does not want this dominating the conversation. romney's whole campaign is

pegged to being former ceo of bain capital. he's running on his success. so he's just playing a political strategy here. nothing else. not really complaining, but rather just trying to change this whole nature of the campaign. >> i think he's hiding something. in pennsylvania today where mitt romney's campaigning, the obama campaign is running a tv ad that zeros in on romney's tax returns and asks what i'm asking. what's he hiding? let's listen to it. >> tax havens, offshore accounts, carried interest. mitt romney has used every trick in the book. romney admits over the past would years he paid less than 15% in taxes on $43 million in income. makes you wonder if he pays any taxes at all. won't release anything before 2010. >> you know what? i've put out as much as we're going to put out. >> what is mitt romney hiding? >> let's go to maggie. i have great confidence in your ability to track this baby down. my question is this.

did my way of measuring this, studying politicians, if it's better than it looks they will tell you. if this looks like there's something he's hiding, he have to deal with that effectively by telling us what pea want to know which is it is not as bad as it looks. if it isn't as bad as it looks, why won't he show us his tax returns? >> i think you have a point in terms of things could look worse, he is concerned. even if it is not bad it will be made to look bad. the problem is that he is a very wealthy guy. he is earning investment income, which is a little different than the way most people make their money. >> explain. >> things are going to show up differently. instead of a yearly salary, because he has not been an bain for a long time. he is making money off of investments. >> which means he's paying what? >> 15%, i believe. i might be off by a point or two. but that was a controversy and during the primaries and that's where the whole tax return thing snowballed and became an issue

in january. i think he is concerned even if it's not you know hiding, not specific details, i think he is concerned about trying to explain to people what this all means for something who is wealthy and making his money in a different way than many americans do. in terms of the swiss bank thing, that's the one piece they feel, or at least one of the pieces that the campaign thinks has been distorted. their argument was the swiss account showed up because he reported it on his tax return. he paid taxes on it. the obama campaign said he didn't. again, this is not something average voters have. and requires a lot of eggs plaining. >> it's also because he wants to lower the tax rate for corporations and shift the burden to more humble people. this morning on the romney campaign conference call, john sununu brought out the big battery attack against obama. let's listen to how they're trying to shift this away from what seems to be the serious embarrassment of the taxes not

paid to something more ethic. if you don't hear it here, i hear it. let's listen. >> the president clearly demonstrated that he has absolutely no idea how the american economy functions. the men and women all over america who have worked hard to build these businesses, their businesses, from the ground up, is how our economy became the envy of the world. it is the american way and i wish this president would learn how to be an american. >> i wish this president would learn how to be an american. well, that's an odd thing to say about a guy who's basically a stellar american and went to the best schools, worked his way up, won at political offices time and time again. while minutes later, a reporter on this call asked sununu to clarify his comment about the need for the opponent, president obama, to learn how to be an american. let's watch. >> what i thought i said, but i

guess i didn't say, is that the president has to learn the american formula for creating business. the american formula for creating business is not to have government create business. the american formula for creating business that i wish he would get comfortable with is to create a climate which entrepreneurs can thrive. if i didn't give all that detail, i apologize. >> it wasn't about a lack of detail. again and again, they keep pounding this. american politics where one runs against the other and says you are not really one of us. you're not really in this campaign because you're not a part of this country. liz smith fired out this response. the romney campaign is officially gone off the deep end. the question is what else they'll pull to avoid answering serious questions about romney 's tenure at bain and capital and investments in foreign tax havens and accounts. once again, from the debate

issues about how romney made his money and claim to greatness as a business expert and economic expert to the old i -- i would call it the ethnic factor. he's not one of us. what do they mean by learn how to be an american? >> i disagree respectfully that it's an ethnic play here. i think it's a poor choice of words by john sununu. what i'm more interested is the role of john sununu, this former white house chief of staff, he's been romney's biggest attack dog in this campaign. he's giving romney an edge in a week when he needs an edge, a change in the topic. have sununu out there trying to push that obama's dishonest. that obama's a liar. he's throwing around these phrases. this captures reporters' attention. i think it is a play by the romney campaign to get something else on the radar beside romney's tax returns. i do not thick it was an ethnic play there. >> stop there. assume i said to you, learn how to be an american. >> it's a poor phrase. >> what does it mean? is it a poor choice of words?

why don't you learn to be an american, costa? >> i think it means you made a mistake in that phrase. >> what do you mean? i considered it a serious slur against somebody, a fellow american to say they're not really an american. >> if you meant that in a direct way, it would be a mistake. >> want me to play it again? >> no. i'm not disagreeing with you, a bad phrase and sununu meant it directly, it was a poor choice of words and a mistake. chris, chris, i was on the call and it was an economic argument he was making. i was listening to the whole call. >> you know, if that won't so harmonious with the stuff limbaugh put out today, he hates america, the stuff bachmann's been putting out, over and over again, this sense and it feeds into that 48% of american people in our latest poll that are not going to say this guy's a religion he is. i've never seen this in politics, where people have a mistrust of his national identity, his religious statements.

they keep going back to this learn how to be an american. stop hating america. we got the muslim brotherhood running around. this government. demint of south carolina saying this is the most anti-american administration in history. what's going on here, maggie? >> look, i think that as you said, there are people who think this was deliberate. as bob said, there are people who think it was accidental. there was a reason it blew up on twitter while the call was going on, which is there has been by some on the right, a move to sort of paint the president has as other. the romney campaign has publicly rejected that in the past. i know sununu apologized on the call, but there has been this sort of whether it is about race or not, it is a way of making him seem sort of not one of us or suspicious and i think that you know, this plays into that. again, i think as bob said, this was an effort to try to get mitt romney back on offense, whether it was an intentional statement

or not, that is now the result of it and this is what is breaking through. countering the noise about bain. >> bob, let me get back to your magazine. one thing i liked about buckley is that he took the -- aspect out of the movement. he said, it is not fair to be anti-semitic and anti-foreign. we are going to talk ideology. you're not suspecting here that maybe sununu's playing that game the dirty old game of the hard right of making people's nationality and their loyalty suspect as part of winning the argument? >> i couldn't agree more about buckley's leadership and i think we still try to follow it today at national review, when i was on that call, chris, in all honesty, i did not hear sununu trying to make some kind of covert argument about ethnicity. i heard him making a mistake and fumble on an economic argument trying to paint obama as a lefty in economics. i'm not saying it was well phrased. i did not hear suspicious game going on. maybe i'm wrong. but i did not hear that.

>> let me correct you, sir. you can be on the left on economics and still be a good american. you just made that mistake again. you can't say you're not american if you're what you just called a lefty. people keynesian economics is considered lefty by some on the right. they don't believe the government should compensate. when consumers stops spending. i happen to disagree. i went to grad school in economics. that's what keynesians believe, but you can't just call that anti-american. >> i was just trying to report what i heard on sununu's call. >> you said sununu was trying to say he's a lefty by not saying he's an american. >> that's what he was trying to say. that's what sununu was trying to say. >> you can't call someone who disagrees with you some kind of foreigner. >> couldn't agree more. >> thank you. we are on the same page, maybe. yesterday was rush limbaugh that said president obama hates this country. john sununu said the president needs to learn how to be an american. why does the right hate president obama so much?

sit as much about who he is, his back ground, about what he does? dirty angry money. anonymous donors popping up spending millions to defeat democrats, then disappearing. is this sneaky business any way to run a democracy and wait until democrats remind everyone that this protector of the rich supports paul ryan's budget plan. to cut the health of the poor. let me finish with obama's duty to sell so that anybody out there all voters can understand it. this is "hardball." the place for politics. you tell us what you want to pay, and we give you a range of coverages to choose from. who is she? that's flobot. she's this new robot we're trying out, mostly for, like, small stuff. wow! look at her go! she's pretty good. she's pretty good. hey, flobot, great job. oops. [ powers down ] uh-oh, flobot is broken. the "name your price" tool, only from progressive. call or click today.

how do people feel about president obama's proposal to end the bush tax cuts for the wealthy? not too badly. a new poll finds that 44% believe that raising taxes on people making more than $250,000 a year would help the economy while 22% say it would hurt. 2-1 margin. 24% say it would make no difference. looks like the president's done the calculation, at least politically. also, americans say a tax hike for the wealthy would make the

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as you just heard john sununu today said he wished the president would learn how to be an american. romney today said he calls obama extraordinarily foreign in his economic policy. foreign again. just the latest example of a conservative including the president questioning the president's patriotism. yesterday rush limbaugh suggested obama was indoctrinated in his youth to hate this country. take a listen to rushbo. >> this man hates this country. he was indoctrinated as a child. his father was a communist. mother was a leftist. sent to prep ivy league schools where his contempt for the country was reenforced. he moved to chicago, it was the home of the radical left movement. this is what we have as a president.

a radical ruthless politician who despises the country and the way it was founded and the way in which it became great. >> the walrus speaks. michele bachmann, of course, called obama the most dangerous president in history. let's listen to the congresswoman. >> remember, this is the same president who whispered to the russian communist president that he would be more flexible in his second term, so he sees himself as a law unto himself rather than a man bound by the constitution. that's why i say he is the most dangerous president we have had in the history of the united states. >> and hear what senator jim demint last year. >> it has been the most anti-business and i consider anti-american administration of my lifetime. >> and newt gingrich, of course.

>> the president of the united states, the most radical president in american history. >> of course, he talked about his colonial attitudes based upon a relic, you'd think the president was a radical lefty and he actually is based on the record, but then do people care on the right about reality? eugene robinson, columnist for "the washington post." an msnbc analyst. congressman ellison. you're a victim yourself of some of this, but this crazy yahoo talk, do you think the people who push this stuff over and over again, this guy's done everything right. he raised his family right. fought his way all the way to the top in a blind test, becomes head of the review. top editor there. everything he has done is clean as as whistle. he's never done anything wrong. the perfect father, husband, the perfect american and all they do is trash the guy and it's impossible for me to believe they would have said the same about a walter mondale or jimmy

carter or bill clinton. there's an ethnic piece to this, it is very hard to nail it down. i've never call anybody in this country all his opponent nonamerican. or anti-american. >> chris, there are a group of people in our country who have a very rigid idea of who belongs and who doesn't and in their mind, you know, what economic class you come from matters, what color you are matters, what your sexual orientation matters. there is a set of criteria they will use to decide who is included in the american dream and if you don't meet those criteria, you are excluded. >> well, can i help you a lot here? can i, i think you're being too technical here. black americans were here in this country before like 90% of us white guys, okay. we're the immigrants. we came in the last 150 years, most of us. irish italians. jewish people. everybody. most of us came -- your crowd,

to be honest about it, has been here since the beginning, okay? this idea that you're not an american is absurd. now, you may not like somebody, but the idea they're not american is crap. your thoughts. >> i'll agree. it is, it's not -- >> as you should. >> it should be roundly objected to and but you know like right now, we're dealing with a controversy where you know, mrs. bachmann has written letters to various agencies saying that there's deep penetration of the muslim brotherhood and is pointing it at a specific member working in this administration. you know, so it's not -- >> based upon what? >> upon nothing. nothing, just bald allegation. we've challenged her on it. we wrote a letter saying this is wrong and untrue and prove it. and she has just regurgitated the same old stuff. this is not only the president. it is a prevailing attitude of trying to kick some people out of what it means to be an american. this is an ongoing, recurrent

theme and we need to stand up against it. >> let me bring the my friend eugene. houma, who is married to a fellow who happens to be jewish. has been through hard times, brought on by himself. but she's stuck with him. i would call her a loyalist. and as for her working with hillary clinton hand in glove, whatever you think of hillary clinton, most of us think a lot of her, she would be able to suspect someone trying to influence her. don't you think she political and would know if someone is trying to persia muslim brotherhood line on her? it is so absurd. >> she knows a lot about the middle east. look, that's absurd. i think you have to, you have to tease all of this apart and you have to separate out those who might sincerely have these crazy views and those who pick their shots and who come out with this stuff. strategically or tactically. i think right now, frankly to change the subject from bain and mitt romney's tax returns.

i think john sununu and rush limbaugh would love us to talk about anything but those subjects. so they come up with eruptions to try to change the subject. >> it is not all -- i'm not going to say this is some brilliant choreography but here's mitt romney, the candidate himself today, describing obama's economic program as extraordinarily foreign. let's watch the candidate. >> it is changing the nature of america. changing the nature of what democrats have fought for and republicans have fought for. in the past, people of both parties understood that encouraging achievement and encouraging people to lift themselves as high as they can. encouraging entrepreneurs, celebrating success instead of attacking it makes america strong. that's the right course for this country. his course is extraordinarily foreign. >> he snuck it in there through the applause there. extraordinarily foreign.

if i were romney, his money in the swiss bank accounts, and his money in the caymans, wouldn't be talking about foreign economics because that's what he might be accused of. but here he is once again playing the ethnic card. foreign, anti-american. it never stops. again, nobody accused walter mondale or jimmy carter or bill clinton of being a foreigner. in their thinking. >> what i want to say, chris, is that yes, it does have some political utility. it works now because it strikes a deeper cord. but it is not only ethnic. i think this is cane to what senator mccarthy was trying to do. trying to whip up and make people alien, foreign, and then make them radioactive so you can do anything you want to them. >> well, mccarthy was drunk most of the time and wrong all the time.

before he became elected, a couple of communists they did find, but i want to thank you guys. eugene robinson, great to have you on as always. keep it up. up next, the first couple on the kiss cam. we're going to lighten things up. why it took them two efforts to get this right here. romeo. there he is. thanks. this is "hardball." stay with us. the place for politics. ♪ hello...rings ♪ what the... what the... what the... ♪ are you seein' this? ♪

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obama is now attacking romney's record. it's like he is hell bent on making the word bain synonymous with the a source of harm or ruin. >> i had no role whatsoever in the management of bain capital after february of 1999. he took a leave of absence and ended up not going back and retired retroactively to

february of 1999. >> in 2002, he retired retroactively back to 1999. if mitt wins in november, he's beaten obama and if obama wins in november, mitt can just say he retroactively retired from the race in 2009. >> back to "hardball." this is the "sideshow." love is on the jumbotron. here is a fun one. the president and first lady were court side as a u.s. versus brazil basketball game last night with their daughter, malia, and joe biden. let's see what happened when they showed up on kiss cam, the first time, that is. >> we got president obama on the ever popular in house arena kiss cam. >> he blew it. >> he didn't? >> i don't think he saw it. >> so, he missed that first love shot.

the two got another shot later in the game. >> boy, malia's cute. how many people get a second try on the kiss cam? according to the white house, the president and first lady didn't know they were on the camera the first time. next, there's been some buzz about the uniforms team u.s.a. will be wearing at the opening ceremony for the olympics. the ralph lauren uniforms were made in china. some calling for a complete do over of the uniforms. mitt romney headed up the salt lake city olympics in 2002. as for the current made in the usa brouhaha, romney was evasive last week when he was asked about it by abc's jonathan carl. >> should those uniforms be made in the u.s.a.? >> i'm not going to weigh in on that. the olympic games are about the

athletes and we're going to watch the athletes perfect form and these other matters are extraneous, i think. >> of course, he says ouch when outsourcing is an issue, but it was also an issue in 2002. human rights groups protested they learned the torch bearer uniforms were made in burma. a country ruled by a brutal military regime. while asked about it, the committee said the torch relay clothes were not made in burma. they were manufactured in myanmar. myanmar, not burma. the fact is, myanmar is burma. just shows the dangers of a too quick denial. two nights from now, jeff daniels start of "the newsroom" will be our guest here on "hardball." thursday night on "hardball." up next, more dirty, angry money. $14 million of outside money raised so far to defeat our next guest, bill nelson of florida. where is all that dirty money coming from? watching "hardball." place for politics.

back to "hardball."

welcome back to "hardball." dirty, angry money is flowing down to florida. karl rove and all the usual suspects are trying to influence the senate race down there and using big dollar amounts to do so. the goal to oust senator bill nelson who is facing off against republican challenger connie mack jr. not his father, he is the kid senator bill nelson is with us now. why would a guy named sheldon adelson who's made his money in china, apparently, he makes more money every night in his casinos in china than they make in vegas overall. why does he want to nail you? >> chris, i don't think he cares about florida. i think he is just -- of the

similar topic -- symptomatic of the others because they want to influence elections and have the policy enacted by what they dictate. i think it is pretty clear. we are seeing the influence of money coming in but at the end of the day, i don't think it's going to be successful. i think the american people are going to really stand up on this one. >> well, it's this funny money. count here, $15 million. let's look at the figures. karl rove super pac announced last week they had reserved over $6 million in air time this fall to run against you, then sheldon adelson has given a million dollars to a pro connie mac super pac. the koch brothers, prosperity, their prosperity speptd $1 million. outside conservative groups are spending nearly $15 million. it is not even part of the official campaign.

you're very pro israeli. sheldon adelson is hawkish on israel. you're pretty hawkish. what has he got? has he raised any issue with you on foreign policy? anything that would justify a voter switching sides down there? >> the short answer is no. and at least we know who sheldon adelson is because he's not hiding behind these irs c4 organizations that don't have to disclose their donors. that's why we have the legislation trying to get it considered. it was blocked with a filibuster. in order to disclose the names, just like all the rest of us have to disclose our contributors, why should they? but it's because they can hide behind that masquerade and therefore, they can give their billions of dollars and not be known.

if you required a lot of those donors to put their names out there like everybody else has to, they wouldn't do it. >> in pennsylvania and other states now, you can't vote if you are a little person, a regular person, a regular human being in this country as an american, and you want to vote, you have to get a photo i.z. card and issued by the government and you have to walk in with that photo i.d. these people can walk in with millions of dollars and never show their faces. >> that's correct. by the way, to add insult to injury, in the state of florida the legislature has passed what in effect is a voter suppression law specifically to cut down on the number of minorities, specifically hispanics and african-americans, so they're really stacking the deck here. if you take those kind of efforts that make it harder to vote and then add that with this avalanche of tv advertising that is attack and by the way, all

the stuff's been run against me, the fact checkers like politifact, they said it's not only false, it's pants on fire false and yet, that's what the public is being dished. now, chris, you and i know, you put enough tv advertising, you can sell a box of soap. and so, that's what we're up against and that's what i'm fighting. >> and they're also trying to confuse connie mac with his father. thank you very much. senator nelson. a moderate democrat. turning now to jonathan, thank you for telling us about how this works, where people go in almost like a hit squad. they go into a state like south carolina, go after a guy like john spratt. again, clean as a whistle. budget chair. budget hawk. no liberal. and they kill the guy and you still don't know even know who put the $4 million check on the table. >> yeah, john spratt has no idea. this is a group called the commission for hope committee.

hope growth and opportunity. founded in 2010. scott reed was the campaign manager for bob dole. he announces this organization. says it's going to be a $25 million organization. it's going to have the backing of all these different industries, but they go to the irs and they say we want to be a non profit social welfare organization, we're not going to be involved in electoral politics. don't worry. they get that, that designation from the irs. therefore, they don't have to divulge the names of their donors. they quickly get one $4 million donation from one ammon muss donor and immediately go on the air against 11 democrats with just brutal ads. their real focus was john spratt, one of only three committee chairmen taken out in 2010. you know, they accumulate all of these different complaints to

the fec, the irs, saying these guys are just breaking the law, breaking the law and then what happens? 2011, they just go out of business and there's nobody to go after anymore. >> so there's nobody coming on the air saying my name is this, and i paid for this ad. they simply learned all these terrible things about a good guy like john spratt and i mean that. i don't think -- he was a moderate democrat. budget hawk. fit the district pretty well for a democrat. to have somebody come in and basically just -- do we even know if this person had a particular knowledge of john separate? why did they pick him? >> when i asked him that, he didn't really know. his idea was look, if you take out the budget committee chairman, you going to undermine the entire fiscal policy of the entire democratic policy, especially the president, president obama. he thought it came down simply to that. it was obviously a big trophy in 2010. >> the funny thing is, i'd say funny in the worst way. spratt made sure there was a

budget every year in the house. he came through. unlike the senate, he actually delivered on the job even though it was tough to do it. he has always been a moderate and smart guy. this is a real loss. it's really political terrorism, this kind of money going in with no name on it. any way, thank you. from "the new york times". up next, if you think mitt romney's getting hurt on bain capital, just wait until the democrats start hitting him for supporting paul ryan's budget plan. there's stuff in this plan that he's going to have to pay for like cutting medicare and medicaid while protecting the wealthy on taxes, so in other words, every dollar that doesn't go to somebody that needs an operation, sits in the pocket of somebody with a lot of money. is this the way we want to run this country? i've been coloring liz's hair for years. but lately she's been coming in with less gray than usual. what's she up to? [ female announcer ] root touch-up by nice'n easy has the most shade choices, designed to match even salon color in just 10 minutes. with root touch-up, all they see is you.

president obama put iowa back in the democratic column in 2008, but this year, the race has been nip and tuck. we've got a new poll from iowa. let's check the "hardball" scoreboard. the ppp poll shows the president with a five-point lead. other polls have called iowa a toss-up, so this could be good news. the ppp tends to skew slightly democratic. we know a place where tossing and turning have given way to sleeping. where sleepless nights yield to restful sleep. and lunesta can help you get there,

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don't tell me that you value and are deeply concerned about

senior it is you eviscerate the things that you know that rely on. not only for their well-being, but for their dignity. for their dignity. and their pride. they made a clear choice. lower the standard of living for those on medicare and medicaid rather than ask anything of the wealthiest. >> there you have it. we are back. that was vice president joe biden yesterday at the white house in a briefing for senior citizen's issues with a critique of the paul ryan budget, which republicans, including mitt romney, do support. democrats are convinced that the budget will become toxic once the public understands how harsh it is. the biden speech will be a harbinger in many kass of attacks that could come this fall. with me now, chris cillizza and author of "the gospel." erin mcpike. real clear politics.

chris, you're the great political watcher. moment by moment. hour by hour. you know what's going on. this biden attack on the cuts medicaid, medicare, which affect not just poor people, but in the case of middle class people, medicare operation, procedures you won't be able to get, whatever goes on, it's going to hurt people at the same time, this fella, paul ryan, who advertised the fact he's a fair budget cutter is protecting the rich while he hurts the poor. obama never endorsed ryan. but the other guy has. is this going to be an issue? >> well, democrats think so and i would say this is you mentioned biden made these comments to a group of seniors. i think this is an attack or a point that democrats think wings wins them the most points, most credibility. really cuts against romney the most against the 60-plus voters. talking about cutting medicare and social security, we refer to it it is a third rail of american politics for a reason. back in 2005, george bush tried

to do something with social security. we know how that wound up. that's the danger with paul ryan about fundamentally re-imagining medicare, turning it into a voucher program. i will point this out, chris. in both 2004 and 2008, 60 plus-year-old voters made up about a quarter of the presidential electorate. about a quarter of the presidential electorate. mccain won them by four. george w. bush won they by eight. he wants to narrow the gap or not lose badly. he wants to keep the narrow among seniors. they think this is certainly a way to do that. >> you know, erin, my dad was a pretty conservative republican, but the one thing he liked was medicare. he worked all his life and he said finally i get something for all the money i paid into the government. medicare is really popular among people over 65. they really, really like it. and now to come along and threaten to cut it or turn it into a voucher program could be political suicide for the republicans. do you sense biden is out there

sort of like advertising what is to come, a preview of a movie coming? >> absolutely. and president obama is going to florida on thursday and friday for a couple events, and i expect that he'll talk about it then. look, as chris mentioned, this is an important thing with senior citizens and as you mentioned as well, in florida, and i think that's the reason paul ryan is not as hot a commodity in terms of the veep stakes because so many republicans i have spoken to said if he is mitt romney's running mate in florida, it would damage the republican ticket with senior citizens. >> today, on morning joe, john talked about a newly released survey by democracy core saying mitt romney is vulnerable to attacks for his support of ryan. let's watch. >> they go around to independent voters, swing voters, and explain to them what's in the ryan budget on the repealing the child tax credit, on education

cuts, on medicare, some of the stuff you talked about. it's one of the things where mitt romney is most vulnerable. the vice president is a leading indicator of where the campaign is going now. they think with swing voters, if you spell out the implications of the ryan budge, it's horrible for romney. >> if there's going to be pain all around, even seniors would understand that. they don't want to screw the young people. when they see that romney or when they're told romney wants to protect the tax breaks for the very rich people, make sure nobody pays even 39% of their income, will they wonder, why are we getting cut medicaid? and medicare? >> you know, chris, i think that's certainly was obama and democrats hope to see. you heard biden in the clip say they have shown what they care about. they have shown what their values are. i continue to this, that presidential elections are very rarely decided by -- undecided voters going to the websites, looking at where they stand on

every issue, checking the boxes, counting up the checks and voting for the guy you have more checks with. it winds up about being about values. it's a feel vote, a heart vote. who understands me better. who empathized, who sympathizes? that's what biden is trying to use the ryan budget to say. they have laid out their priorities and it shows they don't have your values, senior citizens. that's the broader context of the argument the obama campaign is going to put forward. >> erin, your last word. people hate the word socialism, but when it comes to people in their 60s, 70s, and 80s who have paid for a program their whole life, they don't consider it socialism, medicare. >> it's going to be a bigger issue in october as we're going into the debates. we'll hear about it a lot in the debates. i talked to some of the super pacs supporting the president.

>> ryan is not on the ticket, do you agree with that chris cillizza? >> i do agree because i don't think mitt romney wants to double down on a plan he had nothing to do with the writing of, chris, and tie himself very closely to house republicans who are not popular. >> okay, the plan not the man. >> i mean, i think ryan without the plan is appealing, but ryan without the plan isn't ryan. >> he's going to be ryan all over the ticket if the other side has anything to do with it. anyway, thank you chris, thank you erin. >> when we return, let me finish with obama's duty to sell what he has done so anybody, 2-year-olds can understand. he's got to do some explaining. he certainly has the ability to do it. he has four months to do it. he should. you're watching "hardball," place for politics. [ male announcer ] if you had a dollar for every dollar

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let me finish tonight with this. i want president obama to focus on something between now and november. what i would like him to do is speak simply and clearly to this country about what he's accomplished. i said simply and clearly. remember denzel washington in the movie "philadelphia." he played the lawyer said told perspective clients to explain it to me like i'm a 2-year-old. no fancy words, no jargon, just clear and basic and real. obama rescued the american car industry. we're back where we were proud of. we got back, and the biggest reason is this president did

what was necessary. he rescued the industry. it wasn't a bailout. it was a rescue. call it that. we, this country, rescued our auto industry. second, they pulled themselves back from the economic abyss. they used it by using the smartest state of the art capabilities. a huge pull back in investment, and we countered with a giant commitment in the jobs act, just when we needed it to prevent a second great depression, third, the health care bill. we agreed every american has to take personal and family responsibility for their health needs. we agreed to meet our duty on health. we agreed every american should meet their own health duty. it's the president's duty now to tell people this country's middle class that has health insurance, and people who have health challenges, how this act will make things better for them.