a.b. stoddard, from the hill. and syndicated columnist charles krauthammer. charles?romney is right when he says i would have done it. nobody would not have done it, other than by his own admission the man heart beat away from the president, joe biden. of course, everybody would say romney is right. jimmy carter would have done it. jimmy carter did something harder that he had mo success at. extraction operation and he had a failure on his hands. >> bret: in iran. >> where the helicopters crashed into each other. that is an open and shut case. there is a case to be made that obama attacks are inaccurate because romney talking about the larger context with a war on terror. second, in 2008 you don't announce going into pakistan because you don't want to poison relations but you do it. obama himself did not announce he was going in public. he didn't tell the pakistanis privately until it was over. that at no time matter. this is unseemly because killing of bin laden is catharsis for the united states. obama, you are right, can say i did it to immunize himself against the

a.b. stoddard associate editor of the hill. and syndicated columnist krout krout krout. -- charles krauthammer. a.b., there is a lot pending. it doesn't seem like action prior to the election. >> right. >> this is truly everyone is calling at it fiscal storm. it's no joke. it is going to take place after the election. that is the problem. the same time that the tax cuts expire, the unemployment insurance, the medicare doc fix, all the things, the spending cuts that were decided by the debt deal of august of 2011 will also kick in. and part and republicans in particular seeking to stop or change these very deep pentagon pending cuts. two tracks of fighting. one on the tax policy and one on, you know, how to change the cuts that we already promised we would make. >> bret: potential is if you wait until what is called lame duck congress, that have to deal with the issues. >> both parties are hoping that the political leverage they win the election will determine the outcome. the problem for that, save for house republicans to their credit are trying to draw up some kind of

a.b. stoddard and syndicated columnist charles krauthammer. what do you think?the dark clouds are italy and spain. and they have blown through a lot of money. they -- today spain did put out a bond offering and it did pretty well, but it had to pay more to get that money. to get that. but look at spain as an example. spain, the toxic assets on spain's banks are worth more than the good assets. the housing market is still plummeting. unemployment is 25% and 50% if you just look at young people. it's projected that the economy of spain will be about like, lose 1.7% in gdp this year. things aren't looking good for spain. even if it,sh -- spain and italy. even if it avoids another big bail-out, i think it is going to be a drag on the euro zone. it will be a drag on our economy. >> bret: a.b., spain, every analyst is saying spain is not greece but it is the fourth largest economy in europe. the 12th largest economy in the world. and essentially, as nina points out, it's in europe's eye too big to fail. >> i think it has some time. but it doesn't look good for the lon

a.b. stoddard of the hill. syndicated columnist charles krauthammer.the president really two days of nonstop campaigning in different college campuses, really going after the youth vote. what about this back and forth? >> well, i would say he has been nonstop campaigning since labor day. a little more obvious this time and moves on. the supposed policy trip are all campaign rally. we are aware, it makes sense. we are in a dead heat. republicans are demoralizing because they had a big lead a year ago, six months ago. when you blow a nine run lead. you feel that you will lose and the score is tied and going in extra innings. they are evenly matched. obama has problems. his record. romney has a problem, less attractive personality than obama is. if you look at numbers, gender gap of 5%. republicans are on the short end with women. and i think as predicted i'm not sure there surprises here. the one thing i would say is that on both sides of the decline is enthusiasm. obama is not going to have the young people coming out as they did in 2008. i think romney

a.b. stoddard, associate editor of fair hill. indicatehill -- editor of the hill.columnist, charles krauthammer. >> in the speech today, rick santorum said it was one of the most improbable runs for president in history. he's right. think where he was. before the iowa caucuses he wasn't registering on polls. i heard you and megyn kelly talk there was a question whether he would be involved in the fox news debates. he had no money. didn't have much name i.d. he had spent time on the ground in iowa going from coun toy to coun i can with his friend chuck wagner, political activist in iowa, built up a base of support there. had an improbable win, it was a win in the iowa caucuses. and then rode that to become the front runner for some time. it's really an incredible story. i think we haven't probably sent as much time, we collectively as a media community, haven't spent as much time looking at how he did the mechanics how he did some of this. chuck wagner who joined up with santorum in iowa. then went forward to the other primary states and caucus states. a week before

a.b. stoddard, ted strickland, and susan delpurso. great to have all three of us with me. ben labolt responded to the information that we're getting now about mitt romney and what he had to say, but here is his response no chris jansing. >> the fact is that governor romney has a very specific plan, that he has not unveiled to the american people, but he's unveiled to high dollar donors. and there really is a secre sec trend here. >> so what i say in private is not what i say in public. what's to be taken away from this? >> just like president obama may be having some secret negotiations with the russians over what they're going to do over missile defense. but the real thing that we can take away from this is i don't know if mitt romney, who is so disciplined, was upset no those things came out in that meeting. i think he's very disciplined and in a he stathat he started broach issues that will come up. >> when we talk about the cuts, the proposals morphing the department of education, getting rid of hud, what's your reaction? >> well, my reaction is you really can't believ

a.b. stoddard and chip with us again, republican strategist. chip, i will start off with you. as point out it will be a meeting. this is not a formal investigation if you will. as you know, mitt romney is being criticized for not coming out and having that moment and speaking more harshly against the harsh words that were presented by nugent. >> yeah. well, i think governor romney has come out and distanced himself and i have listened to the comment several times. i still don't have a clue what he is trying to say. i know he has a meeting with the secret service tomorrow and he seems to be thinking it will be fine. the whole thing was just odd to me. i didn't understand the comments. i don't understand what's happened since then. it was an odd comment. obviously you don't like the supporters to make those personal type comments against your opponent and it happened and the secret service has taken appropriate action and we'll go from there tomorrow. >> what's hard to understand when nugent says if barack obama is elected in november i will either be in jail or divestituredead.

a.b. stoddard of the hill. and syndicated columnist, charles krauthammer. charles?ber. in part you can explain it away saying that january and february were artificially high because the weather was warm. so you got higher, the higher, the more hiring in the winter months than you ordinarily have. but the result is that you get less in the month of march as a result of the fact normally with good weather you would get a lot of employment. if you afternoon it out, it's slightly down. the number at the root of the problems is growth rate. economy is growing at 1.7% rate in 2011. a rate that unemployment will go up. not enough to sustain the same level of unemployment. you can get a birth of unemployment here and there. but in the end, unemployment will go up as a result of the fact it's sluggish economy, weakest recovery since the great depression. as you mentioned earlier on the show, the first time since the great depression we have unemployment over 8% for as long as we have. longest stretch. this is about growth. introduced by obamacare and unlike canadians for ex

a.b. stoddard is associate editor of the hill, aaron mcpike is with real clear politics. ks very much for being here. a.b., who are these voters, and what do they want? is? >> well, most of them are a group of voters that historically president obama has not done well, many of them are non-college educated white voters, they've turned against this president, but they might be open to an argument about economic and tax fairness, so the team obama hopes. in contrast to mitt romney who is such an incredibly wealthy man, such an other, unlike no one that they know, um, and there's also a group of voters that the romney campaign is targeting, voters that are more affluent and higher, have more educated, live in suburbs, probably voted for president obama but are deeply disappointed in him, and they are going to try to peel him away. so it's an interesting mix of people that are in each other's traditional camps, and both are going to try to steal them away in what is expected to be a very close election. rick: so, erin, these are people that may not have much to do with each ot