that night later on the person working for him, eric fehrnstrom, came out and put the real statement. here it comes. he admitted that romney's plan to the cover everyone with pre-existing conditions wasn't as cult and dried as romney suggested. he said with respect to pre-existing conditions, what governor romney has said is for those with continuous coverage, he would tonight to make sure they continue to receive their coverage. we would like to see whstates d what massachusetts does. here's the story, he lied. he said it on one of the weekend shows, i think it was "meet the press" that might the guy who works for him said it's not true. he must know he can continue to say things on national television that aren't true. >> this is the problem in terms of president obama and his supporters having said the fault was jim lehrer. obama is going to have to if he feels mitt romney is saying things that are not right or not true or misrepresentative of his positions, it's the candidate's job to make that case. i know you talked about therlier in the show. that is going to be something i su

. >> eliot: eric fehrnstrom seems to think even less. ann romney and tag staged an intervention to help save mitt romney's campaign. but fehrnstrom would have none of it. >> i saw the story. it's a silly little story. there's no truth to it. we're focused on big things. >> eliot: for more let's go to ken voguer and tricia rose. ken, i have just got to start with you, your big scoop here. called meaningless, picky, small, petty. somebody changed mitt romney for the better at least politically. why are they diminishing it so much. >> they don't want to acknowledge they were on the wrong course and clearly they were. there is a little bit of irony as to what got them to the wrong course and that is going against the very core instincts of mitt romney who after all made his mark as a consultant and then made his wealth as a private equity guy, a business where the type of very careful consulting and planning that we saw running his campaign arguably running his campaign into the ground is highly valued, and this idea that his family had to i

>> eric fehrnstrom, thank you for coming in. >> thank you, wolf. >> thank kate, too. >> thanks, eric.. >> thanks very much. >>> a new danger for americans right now is the secret mission begins to investigate the september 11th attack on the u.s. consulate in benghazi. yummy, scrumptious bars. hmm? i just wanted you to eat more fiber. chewy, oatie, gooeyness... and fraudulence. i'm in deep, babe. you certainly are. [ male announcer ] fiber one. >>> all right, this just coming in. cnn has learned u.s. special operation forces are in libya and in nearby countries that are helping collect intelligence about who took part in that september 11th attack on the u.s. consulate in benghazi that resulted in the killing of the american ambassador and three other americans. our pentagon correspondent barbara starr is standing by. what are you learning, barbara? >> wolf, think of this as very small, very elite, very secret. small numbers of u.s. operation forces working with intelligence operatives and other members of the federal government working in libya and working in nearby countries going i

just to pick up on what brit said about the economy i was interested to hear eric fehrnstrom decide thection twice as a choice. used to be that was supposed to be the way the obama campaign wanted to frame this thing. now that romney has embraced that, as opposed to the referendum thing, it does raise a little bit of self-imposed pressure on him to come up with as we were saying before the specifics about what it is that you would be choosing. if you were choosing and voting for romney. >> bret: john? >> yeah, i think there is, i think absolutely ohio, and all the groups that romney needs to do better with. but he needs to be more stark point out that obama is a liberal guy. only recently in one ad the romney campaign is willing to use words like "liberal" and "conservative." 40% of the people call themselves conservative and only 20% call themselves "liberal" pointing out to people this guy has not run as a centrist or moderate but to the left of the democratic party, and that he has been too liberal for too long, a message that romney would help himself a lot with if he could stick it

me to discuss governor romney's strategy one of his top advisors, been with him the longest, eric fehrnstrom joining me from boston. good to see you, eric. >> thank you. >> talk about first of all, the polls. your take on the polls? you've now pushed ahead certainly in pew. >> well, look, our view is it's going to be a close contest up until november 6th. a view that's shared by the obama campaign. i know that a week ago, when polls were showing a different result, we were being questioned about the state of the race and our advice was to simply caution everybody to be patient, that there's going to be a lot of ups and downs in this campaign, but it's going to be tight right until the end and we believe that to be the case and i believe the president and his campaign share that view. >> the governor is going to be in ohio tonight. what is your sense now about ohio and whether you have a chance at ohio, which is so important? no republican has won the presidency without winning ohio. >> ohio is in play. it's an important battleground state. the politics of that state are almost evenly divided

. >> jennifer: then after the debate his top deputy eric fehrnstrom, the guy who said that the campaign away its positions. fehrnstrom -- clarified mitt romney's position saying... >> jennifer: in other words mitt romney will not guarantee coverage for pre-existing conditions and you better hope that you live in the right state or that you're lucky enough to already have insurance. in fact, romney admitted the very same thing back in march to jay leno. >> romney: people with pre-existing conditions as long as they've been insured before, they will continue -- >> suppose they were never insured. >> if they're 45 years old and i need insurance because i have a heart disease. hey, guys, we can't play the game like that. >> jennifer: we can't play the game like that. by making sure everybody has adequate coverage, that wouldn't be fair. so does mitt romney's strategy of saying one thing and then right afterward have his campaign walk it back actually work? alan schroeder is a professor at northeastern university, the author of presidential debates 50 years of high-risk tv. professor, glad t

. >> today a reporter asked romney campaign senior adviser eric fehrnstrom why the campaign has not asked mourdock to pull the television ad. he said that's his decision. today in wisconsin vice president joe biden had to say about mitt romney and paul ryan. >> they can't even get up the gumption to condemn the statements made by two of their candidates in the united states senate. it's not enough to tell me you don't agree. it's not to stand up to say what they said was wrong. simply wrong. >> today mitt romney did not address what his campaign national cochair john sununu said last night about colin powell's endorsement of president obama. >> we have to wonder whether that's an endorsement based on issues or whether he's got a slightly different reason for preferring president obama. >> what reason would that be? >> well, i think when you have somebody of your own race that you're proud of being president of the united states, i applaud colin for standing with him. >> what reason would that be was the question and john sununu issued this lie today. colin powell is a friend and i respect

in this campaign that i haven't seen in several weeks and in talking to senior romney advisor eric fehrnstrom, he said to me if this was a prize fight, they would have stopped the fight. that's how well they think mitt romney did. they're not going to be taking their foot off the gas pedal, i can tell you that the romney campaign came to the back of the plane just as it was landing here in virginia earlier this afternoon. they were starting to sense that the story, the narrative was starting to change from sort of a post-debate high for mitt romney to this new counter-offensive from the president going after some of the statements that mitt romney made during this debate. they came back to the back of the plane as the plane was landing and i asked ed gillespie, a senior romney advisor, what about this new ad from the obama campaign saying if you can't trust mitt romney on the debate stage, how can you trust him in the oval office and he said it's the obama ads that can't be trusted. so i think there was a sign there that the romney campaign was getting a sense that the obama campaign was comi

in fact, today romney's senior adviser eric fehrnstrom would not interfere with mourdock's advertisinghether the campaign wants mourdock to remove the ads. he added that romney feels he's addressed the matter and doesn't plan to discuss it further. this is an issue of leadership and of character, no question about it. vice president biden spoke about that on the campaign trail earlier, tying both mourdock and todd akin to the republican ticket. >> they made it very, very clear, made it very clear they do not believe a woman has a right to control her own body. they can't even -- they can't even get up the gumption to condemn the statements made by two of their candidates for the united states senate. it's not enough to tell me you don't agree. it's have the moral courage to stand up and say what they said was wrong, simply wrong. >> i'm joined by terri o'neill, tonight, president of the national organization for women. terry, great to have you with us. you know, the ad has not been taken down. governor romney says that, you know, he's properly addressed all of this. does it matter at t

and then his press person, eric fehrnstrom the next day said, no that's not true.is he says what he needs to stay in the debate to score the point and he is quite articulate when he says it. and it sounds real. >> it kind of reminds me what todd akin recently said to claire mccaskill, saying that she wasn't acting like a lady. >> well, i think we have seen this with a number of republican candidates. and we're seeing it happen in massachusetts with elizabeth warren. they're trying to make her look elite and out of touch and mean. and frankly, in my last debate, the biggest mistake that i made is that i probably was too aggressive and did come across not as nice as i could be. and they ran with that and they pushed it a lot. i think you see a model for running against a woman candidate is to try to make them look mean or aggressive or unlady like. it actually works. it's a tactic that can work. >> all right. here is a headline from "the new york times" today. romney claims a bipartisanship as governor face challenge. here is the quote. bipartisanship was in short su

i think it was because eric fehrnstrom made the comment that he made -- >> stephanie: john fugelsang

friend hannity is right in complaining because obama's got stephanie cutter and romney's got eric fehrnstromant? >> caller: i was just curious how it is going to feel to go down in history as the first presidential candidate to lose four states in massachusetts hirsch and virginia. -- michigan and virginia. >> look at the time. >> stephanie: okay. must take interviews. >> >> stephanie: david in colorado. >> just the right height. >> hi, how are you? >> stephanie: hi david welcome. >> caller: i want to make a comment on -- when obama said the private sector is doing fine well, the jobs may not have been doing fine but profits of corporations are higher than ever. >> stephanie: yep. >> caller: corporate welfare. >> stephanie: the stock market has doubled under obama. >> he got a $4 billion refund. no complaints about that. when i was younger and i grew up -- >> they're job creators. >> healthcare and we had a 401(k) to put money in. not likely to get all much back. they were like oh, well, we're losing profits. so we're going to make the most money we can. they ship 70,000 jobs of manufacturer

. >> not only that but eric fehrnstrom went into the spin room after the debate and admitted it doesn'tan it is a voucher plan. here we go again like there's two sides to an issue, when there isn't. >> it doesn't become less of a voucher plan when you call it premium support. >> stephanie: right. >> you are giving them a voucher not a premium support. >> stephanie: right. and as you say lost in all of this organized hot flash, was the fact that madeline had not given any evidence to the contrary. >> and then you can't come on afterwards and say what a great debate it was. because it wasn't a debate. it was here are the facts. you are a liar, basically. >> stephanie: big gaps in romney's preexisting conditions. >> exactly. the problem is america didn't get to know it at the time because the president was asleep. >> stephanie: yeah. we were saying, here is one of the other big -- you mentioned chuck todd talking about it, we have come to a place where for the first time at least that i can remember the bureau of labor job statistics -- >> yeah. this is what they did to exit polling in the

spin room of which there are many people flooding that room, governor romney's senior advisor eric fehrnstrom. the governor addressed libya in many forms and there were no other areas to cover. in 30 minutes we'll talk to senator robb portman of ohio. he was his, his sparring partner in these debates. what was the strategy on libya? did you have a line of attack and did you decide to put that on the shelf. i thought what chris wallace reported last night after the debate woos over was very interesting. the romney team told wallace, governor romney laid out the strategy and form and fashion for how he would carry things out. portman coming up. martha: left a lot of people in the twitter up verse suggesting lines all the time for comebacks, who felt he wasn't strong enough or missing opportunities that he could have used to really come back. we'll see if the strategy worked for him in the end. that is clearly what seems to have been at play here. we also heard from the undecided voter who touched off the firestorm from the last debate when he did ask president obama about the response in libya.

to the right against gingrich and santorum to get the nomination, to steam roll them and when eric fehrnstromnn, he was widely mocked. that's why we saw mitt romney stay to the right longer than expected because he didn't want to be seen as an etch-a-sketch. but now that we're out of the convention time, mitt's pretty much doing anything he can to appeal to as many voters as possible. does he run the risk of alienating the base even more? >> i think he does. and i think one of the things that we've seen is people haven't gotten excited about him. still. you know. and i think where that causes a problem for him is not so much that republicans aren't going to support him because i think they are and i think the polls reflect that he does get the republicans. but he's not given the freedom to run his own campaign because you still have kind of the conservative contary pounding him again and again and again every time you have a misstep. and i think that boxes him in quite a bit. and i think that probably was one of the things that influenced him to pick paul ryan who i don't think has brought mu

>> eric fehrnstrom who has been with him forever, said now that the primary is over this is etch-a-sketch. it's when you miss the walking back to the real position that you realize he says anything to get elected, but governs in a very different way. and the most important fact that listeners from across the country can take is he will say anything but how does he govern and here in massachusetts people know how he governs, and only 35% of the people of massachusetts have a positive perception of him. and barack obama is on track to beat him here in massachusetts by 20 points. >> stephanie: i know. maybe it was because it was the end of the debate but you must have been saying the same thing i was when mitt romney was talking about his record in massachusetts. >> yes. >> stephanie: i wish the president would have been able to say, why am i ahead by 20 points then? >> yeah. >> stephanie: and how about his whole -- like -- i govern in such a bipartisan fashion. .00 or 8800 vetoes or something. >> stephanie: 800 vetoes and something like 770 overrides. and some of these things were like -- l

later reports say that translation was somewhat incorrect but senior advisor eric fehrnstrom backed upst would remove one of the most anti-jewish progenocide members of tehran and he's absolutely hoping ahmadinejad would be indicted. but that could only escalate the situation in iran. former nato commander wesley clark said charges like that would cut off any possibility of a nonmilitary solution. more bill press coming up after the break. stay with us. people when i'm upset. do you share the sense of outrage that they're doing this, this corruption based on corruption based on corruption. >>i think that's an understatement, eliot. u>> i'm not prone tot. understatement, so explain to me why that is. i think the mob learned from wall st., not vice versa. [ ryan ] it doesn't get any better than endless shrimp at red lobster. you can mix and match all day! [ male announcer ] don't miss red lobster's endless shrimp just $14.99! try as much as you like, any way you like! like parmesan crusted shrimp. hurry in, offer ends soon! i'm ryan isabell and i see food differently. >> announcer: broad

when eric fehrnstrom made the etch-a-sketch comment on cnn of course, that signaled he was going to have conservative for that much longer. after he pretty much came out and said yeah, we don't mean it and when the general election comes along everyone flipped out. the pressure was on mitt romney to prove he wasn't a fake conservative so he stayed a fake conservative through the entire convention and came out and sold himself as this right wing sort of compassionate conservative, compassionate in his personal life clearly. deeply the opposite when it came to policy. so i think that barack obama went into the first debate expecting he was going to be facing the right wing mitt and instead, the etch-a-sketch ification took place the night before the debate and suddenly the massachusetts moderate was back. that fake conservative mitt that all the ron paul people hate so much was back in full force. i don't think the president was prepped to compete against that guy. it caught him off-guard and it caught all of us off-guard. one can presume the president is planning on going up against the c