gwen: taxes, healthcare, jobs, a special politics roundtable on the issues that will define the 2012 election. tonight on "washington week." joining the fight over healthcare. >> the supreme court has the final word and their final word is that obamacare is a tax. i agreed with the dissent. i would have taken a different course but the dissent wasn't the majority. >> the supreme court has spoken. the law we pads is here to stay. i make no apologies for it. it was the right thing to do and we're going to keep moving forward. >> and joining the fight over the struggling economy. >> we have seen the jobs report this morning. and it is another kick in the gut to middle class families. >> businesses created 84,000 new jobs last month.

but we can't be satisfied because our goal was never to just keep on working to get back to where we were in 2007. >> americans may be on vacation if they can afford it, but the presidential campaign is coming into sharp focus. >> the president's policies have not gotten america working again and the president's going to have to stand up and take responsibility for it. >> i believe what's stopping us is not our capacity to meet our challenges but our politics. gwen: we peer through the lens with a special political roundtable, chuck babington of the associated press, dan balz of the "washington post," jan crawford of cbs news and amy walter from abc news. >> award winning reporting and analysis covering history as it happens.

live from our nation's capitol, this is washington week with gwen ifill, produced in association with national journal. corporate funding for washington week is provided by >> one line helps communities turn plans into reality, helps shippers forge a path to prosper ity, helps workers get back to work. one line is is an engine for the economy and the future. norfolk southern, one line, infinite possibilities. >> we know why we're here, to chart a greener path in the air and in our factoryies. >> to find cleaner, more efficient ways to power flight. >> and harness our technology

for new energy solutions. >> around the globe, the people of boeing are working together to build a better tomorrow. >> that's why we're here. >> corporate funding is also provided by: prudential financial. additional funding is also provided by the annenberg foundation, the corporation for public broadcasting and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. once again, live from washington, moderator again ifill. gwen: good evening. this fourth of july holiday week one here in more ways than one. it was a week for political fallout from today's anemic jobs numbers, from frantic fundraising in both camps and from last week's pivotal supreme court healthcare ruling. the questions --

how did the court reach its conclusion that the health care mandate should be treated as a tax? and what do the candidates think about that? jan crawford made waves reporting on both questions this week. here's what mitt romney told her. >> i agreed with the dissent. and the dissent made it very clear that they thought it was unconstitutional. but the dissent lost. it's in the minority. and so now the supreme court has spoken. they concluded it was a tax, that is what it is and the american people know that president obama has broken the pledge he made. he said he wouldn't raise taxes on middle income americans. gwen:and here is what barack obama said to supporters in ohio today. >> when you hear all these folks saying, oh, no, no, this is a tax, this is a burden on middle-class families, let me tell you, we know because the guy i'm running against tried this in massachusetts and it's working just fine -- [laughter] -- even though now he denies it. basically, what we say is, you know what, if you have health insurance you're all good. if you don't have health

insurance, we'll help you get it. gwen: both candidates seem to want to keep moving away from health care, but for different reasons, that didn't happen this week. jan, why did romney weigh in and on this issue this week, especially since he seemed to be contradicting his senior adviser who said exactly the opposite of what he told you? >> i think he had no choice and let's think back to what the supreme court did last thursday. that was a big legal victory for the president, the supreme court upholding his signature achievement but the reasoning of that decision gave republicans some hope, they thought there was a silver lining to the legal loss the republicans suffered because the supreme court said that conditioning could pass that individual mandate requiring all americans to have health insurance under its power to tax, that the individual mandate actually was a tax so that was something republicans jumped all over, you know, it was the president, you know, raising taxes on the

american people and everyone across -- the spectrum, every republican, and even the house and senate candidates, that was going to be a big issue for the paul fall and then of course we saw his senior adviser come out on monday and say actually, governor romney stands alone among republicans that was is not a tax, it's just a penalty. so that caused an enormous uproar and quite a lot of criticism rained down on governor romney and he had to get himself back in alignment with the republican party because they believe this is an issue, certainly some of the house and senate races in november, they'll they'll echo the drum beat, president obama is secretly raising your taxes. >> do they have you on speed dial, jan? come on out to the house? >> you want to talk about fortuitous timing because we had been talking about the interview. it had been in the works since may so we were going to have the interview with governor and mrs. romney. it was one of these situations

where the timing worked out where you get to sit down with the governor and actually be able to ask the questions everybody wants to know. are you going to keep saying this is a penalty? and he's threading a very fine line here. the clip that you showed, he's saying, personally, i really do think it's a penalty. because he has a similar penalty in massachusetts. gwen: what i did in massachusetts. >> but the court says it's a tax. >> he didn't say it was a tax in massachusetts, right, a penalty in massachusetts, he will stand by that. >> absolutely because he doesn't want to be -- part of his mantra is that as governor of massachusetts, he didn't raise taxes. so these are these technical definitions. the bottom line is, whatever you call it, a tax or a penalty, it's still people will pay if they don't have insurance. >> but the astonishing thing was that eric fernstrom, as close to governor romney as any of his advisers, has been with him a long time, would have gone out there and free lanced that, that it doesn't seem as though that's

the way eric would do it so either he made a big mistake or he was on the right page and then they realized they were in an untenable position. gwen: what they ended up doing, chuck, confusing themselves more so that the conservatives they are trying to appease got even more angry at the look of the thing. >> really, romney can't really square this circle because the problem he was trying to address as governor of massachusetts is the same problem president obama is trying to address and that's the problem of free riders, people who don't get health and if they want to, they can get very sick and at the last minute get health insurance. as you allow that, it's impossible to go to insurance companies and say you can't deny someone because of pre-existing conditions so both were trying to deal with free riders and dealt with it in the same way. everybody has to have skin in the game or money into the system. you refuse to buy the policy, we'll charge you, you can call it a fee or a tax but it's the

same thing for the same reason and that's why no matter how many ways governor romney tries to dance around it and for that manner, president obama, his lawyers said it was a tax. gwen: one of the reasons you think they would want to move on. >> and voters clearly have moved on. that's what's interesting about this, we've had this whole discussion about the semantics of penalty tax. there was a poll that came out right after the supreme court decision that showed 60% of people said a penalty is a tax. but more important, how voters feel about the healthcare law today is no different than how they felt about it when it was passed in 2010 so nothing has changed since the supreme court decision which i think is important. the other piece and going to jan's point about house and senate races, i still think mitt romney benefits from the fact these house and senate candidates will run on this obamacare tax from here until november and if you're in a

swing state or a viewer watching television, you'll hear ad after ad talking about obamacare tax. you don't know where it's coming from but it will be out there in the ether and voters will pick it up. >> the interesting thing, i was with president obama on the bus tour in ohio and pennsylvania this week and he is talking about it. i think a lot of people thought he would move on after he got the decision. gwen: he's saying it was the right thing to do. >> right thing to do, as the clip showed, the law i passed is not going away and he's also, i think, trying, for the first time in a long time, to actually sell people on the act, which they failed to do from the time they passed it on, and he seems to be now making the case, it's going to be here, if there's problems, we can fix it, but it's not going away and here are the good things that are there and trying to remind people of it. gwen: here's another complicated part of this whole thing and jan played a role in this, too,

reporting on what chief justice roberts did, when he changed his mind, as your sources tell you, and vote with the liberal wing. that has also caused great consternation among people supporting mitt romney, especially among conservatives. >> this was a huge shock and disappointment. who would have thought when george w. bush nominated john roberts to the supreme court back in 2005 that he would provide the key fifth vote with the court for liberals to uphold president obama's massive signature achievement, the healthcare reform act. so when the decision came down, people were outraged. but then when it became clear that john roberts, the chief justice, originally sided with the conservatives to strike down the heart of the law, the individual mandate, then, i think, the outrage became much, much more pronounced. gwen: i think bill galston who worked - i think it was your story i read in which he said winners celebrate and looses

mobilize. what happens when it's not clear who lost and who won? >> they're all mobilizing. really, probably the base of both parties, the liberals for the democrats and conservatives for the republicans, can find plenty to get fired up. clearly the conservatives hate obamacare and they'll say we have to -- but romney says if you want to get rid of obamacare, you have to vote out president obama. it would have been bad for president obama if this was struck down because the liberals can say you wasted your first term so they've got something to be fired up and fight for. amy makes good points about the general public wanting to move on but i was interested in what dan was saying because all of us at this table covered parts of the 2008 campaign and the biggest applause line for every obama speech was we're going to change healthcare because people weren't happy. gwen: that and withdraw from iraq. >> when you look over the course of this healthcare polling, you'll see that democrats have

never been as happy about it as republicans have been upset about it so what we saw right after the supreme court decision, democratic intensity did bounce back up but not to the place where republicans are and to dan's point, i think that's where the president realizes he is right now. i don't know that he can sell it anymore. i think, again, independents have made their decision about the healthcare law and they don't really like it but he rec nice you're going into a campaign where it's about mobilizing the base and we have a polarized climate and we have to show our guys that there's a reason to get excited. gwen: one of the big problems for both of them, they really don't want to talk about healthcare and they want to talk about the economy, a day like today, first friday in the month, in which it turns out the economy is as stalled as it's been, you could see them both trying to make that pivot and it didn't take. >> the president does not want to talk about monthly job numbers. polling in ohio this morning, he

made a passing reference to this. the press corps was there waiting to see -- >> 13 minutes into the speech. >> right. >> to see what he was going to do and basically said, today's numbers are a reminder that it's still tough out there and then pretty much moved on from there. their view is, one monthly number is a monthly number. most people aren't going to follow it that closely. are other indicators they think people care about more. but he's very uncomfortable drawing any attention to it or trying to talk about the things he's able to do. listen to what both candidates had to say this week trying to make this pivot they struggled to right themselves with messages designed to rally the troops. >> the president's policies have not gotten america working again, and the president's going to have to stand up and take responsibility for it. i know he's been planning on going across the country and celebrating what he calls forward. well forward doesn't look a lot like forward to the millions and millions of families that are

struggling today in this great country. it doesn't have to be this way. >> from now until november, the other side is going to spend more money than we've ever seen before, and they will be raining ads down on your head. and they'll tell you it's all my fault, i can't fix it because i think government is the answer to everything or because i haven't made a lot of money in the private sector. or, you know, i think everything's going just fine. that's what all the scary voices in the ads will tell you. that's what mitt romney will say. that's what republicans in congress will say. gwen:let's talk about the scary voices in the ads. who are these two candidates targeting their messages at? >> i had the pleasure of sitting in and listening to a focus group in denver, colorado. and these were swing voters in real battleground state, many of them voted for barack obama in 2008. a lot of them now are hesitant for him again and

the moderator asked them to think about the economy in terms of the weather. meteorological reference. it was really cold in 2009, i was wearing a parka and hat and gloves and 2010 maybe got a little bit better but then, they said, now, i have a light jacket on. i'm wearing shorts but i still have a sweatshirt on. so, ok, they're serious in these focus groups about you ask me to do something, i will tell you how i feel. so the moderator said, ok, well, given that, you voted for obama in 2008, you said you don't know if you're going to vote for him again. you were wearing a parka a couple of years ago. now you're in a sweatshirt and shorts, what's the problem? he said, well, based on his campaign in 2008, i should be in a bathing suit right now. and that's where -- gwen: that's the global warming argument. >> i think that goes to the it which is you have voters who recognize this is a president who inherited a mess. we hear that from voters a lot.

and they didn't think he would have a magic wand and fix it in a minute, but it was going to be better than this and there's another group of voters, those same voters, actually, are saying, we don't know a thing about mitt romney. he's a businessman, we don't know if that's good or bad. >> that's what we're seeing now. the obama campaign is well aware that there are a lot of people who don't know about mitt romney so you're seeing both sides trying to define who is mitt romney and we've seen a lot of attack ads. >> and you have conservative activists who feel romney's not being aggressive enough and assertive enough in spelling out -- some feel he's playing it too safe in sitting back, hoping obama will slide. >> why are they having this conversation now? >> i think what we saw, one of the things that governor romney said in our interview this week, which was striking because i don't hear him talk like this as forthfully. he lookedad me and he said, if i

keep talking about the economy, i'm going to win, just like that and that is what you have seen, the campaign believes this election from the beginning it's about the economy and they people don't think their lives are as good now as they were four years ago and they're not going to be any better four years from now. gwen: the one thing we know about this campaign is they can never stay on the topic they want to stay on but something else always comes along and distracts them whether it's the president or mitt romney. >> but look what happened today. mitt romney on his family vacation is talking about the economy. >> there will be distractions and we've talked about that, that issues kind of come and go. but every first friday of the month between now and november we're going to get another jobs report and it puts back into perspective all of the other issues because it does remind everybody of what the basic issue is.

you talk about what the audience is for these messages. i was struck both by watching the president this week and then listening to governor romney this focus on middle class economics. the president has worked up a whole riff about the middle class and his connection to the middle class through his own life and his own family and governor romney, who, as we know -- >> know -- gwen: i look at your children and i see mine. >> i look at your parents, i see mine. and governor romney knowing the questions about his personal wealth and business background leave him some distance from that middle class, trying to make the point that he, in fact, would do more for them than obama has been able to do. gwen: how much do those attacks stick? the attacks the obama campaign has been making about outsourcing, whether he outsourced jobs, at stewardship

at bain capital. is that sticking? >> there are plenty of people who think recent poll numbers suggest they are working, you look at the battleground states like ohio where the president's numbers have jumped up a bit. and another focus group, people off the top of their head said, i don't know, i have been seeing these ads where mitt romney, he closed a factory or something. so it's clear that they're picking something up in the ether but what they want to do which is why i don't think the polls will change much between now and the time we're through conventions and debates, they want to get a measure of who mitt romney is and they really want to figure out who this guy is and what he stands for and the ads certainly i think are helping the president define him, as jan said, but they, i think, want to see him in his own words and see him matched up just one-on-one with

the president. gwen: let me askia-all about this because i wonder as we watch these candidates try to sort this out whether they've figured it out, whether the insularity that the romney campaign or obama campaigns have been accused of, makes it possible for them to come up with a message that sticks. >> both these campaigns have a lot of money and can afford polling and focus groups but at the same time they seem to be feeling their way. am struck by how romney does seem to be playing somewhat a safe or cautious game to be sure. he told jan if i keep talking about the economy, i'll win, but what he didn't say is i have to have dramatic new proposals. what he seems to be saying, the economy is not going well, everybody knows it, and i just have to be the alternative to barack obama. gwen: $100 million they raised

in the last month won't hurt. >> picking up on what chuck was saying earlier, you're seeing a lot of conservatives -- the washington journal editorial page, expressing frustration that the governor is not having a more forceful message, he needs a bolder message. gwen: squandering historic opportunity. as we seeright and this discontent growing, there's the fundraising numbers. $100 million. >> these campaigns, though, the obama campaign has been through exactly what the romney campaign is going through. they refer to it as being put in the stupid barrel which is to say, the world at large or all the smart people think we're stupid because we're blowing this campaign so they recognize right now the romney campaign has been put in the stupid and they recognize at some point they'll be put back into it. the real issue is, both of these are tightly run campaigns with a

relatively small inner circle, well trusted by the candidate. that helps in a difficult moment to kind of weather it but the other question is, are they so insular that they're unable to adjust when they should adjust and that's one of the questions republicans have about mitt romney right now. should there be some adjustment, what should it be? are they capable of doing it? >> at the same time, voters don't have any appetite for big, bold plans, because they don't believe them. when you're talking to real voters now, they've been sold, they feel they've been sold a bill of goods election after election. election 2006, 2008, 2010. and nothing has changed so i think both of these candidates, we keep saying this time and time again, but they keep putting small plans forward which we say shouldn't they be bolder, we want to see that, but voters don't believe it's going to happen and i talked to

democratic ad maker doing stuff for house and senate races, he said i tell my candidates, do not go out and say i have a plan to fix this thing because nobody will believe you. >> what started off our conversation, the healthcare law. polls leading up to the supreme court decision, 68% of the american people said they wanted the supreme court to strike down the heart of that law, the requirement that everyone have or pay a penalty. it's always been unpopular and one of those massive laws people say they want but they don't. >> you have to remember how it passed. it was such a bitterly partisan process and that hurt it a lot so one problem with big, bold plans in a divided conditioning, which we're destined to have for a long, long time, they're very hard to pass. gwen: thank you all very much. the broadcast unfortunately has to end now but our conversation won't. it continues online on the

"washington week" webcast extra where we'll talk about ann romney's role in the campaign and it continues next week on asnghi halls,our special online focusing on battleground voters. keep up with daily developments every night with me on the pbs news hour. >> funding for "washington week" is provided by -- >> this rock has never stood still. since 1875, we have been there

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