. >> romney's senior adviser, eric fernstrom -- >> eric fernstrom -- >> eric fernstrom -- >> mr. etch a sketch himself -- >> calls it a penalty, not a tax. >> were you calling it a tax or penalty? >> it was a penalty. >> mr. romney's own people -- >> undercutting the whole argument. >> it was a penalty. >> what is their strategy? >> there's this big split between the congressional republicans and this guy called mitt romney. >> the chief justice has made it clear, it's a tax. >> a new report takes us inside the inner workings of the supreme court's health care ruling. >> chief justice roberts. >> chief justices john roberts initially planned to strike down the mandate, but switched his vote. >> j. rob. >> how could you? i trusted you. >> the chief justice had to contort logic to come up with this ruling. >> we've passed plenty of laws around here that the court finds unconstitutional. >> where's the man who voted against equal pay for women? i don't even know who you are anymore! >>> today, mitt romney and republicans couldn't agree on whether the individual mandate includes a ta

>> eric fernstrom's incompetence must have come as less of a surprise to eric bowling's owner. rupert murdoch tweeted on sunday, "met romney last week, tough obama chicago prose will be hard to beat unless he drops old friends from team and hires some real pros." doubtful. joining me no are some real pros. the co-host of msnbc's "the cycle," krystal ball and steve kornacki. so eric fernstrom has been with romney for a long time. i think that's who rupert's talking about. >> it seems likely, given the way things have happened. i wonder who rupert's talking about, that guy. yeah. of course the irony here, i had a friend in town this weekend from canada, who doesn't follow the american political system closely. and when i explained to him that mitt romney had imposed the exact same health care law in massachusetts that he's now railing against across the country, he founded just the most absurdly insane thing. and this situation where he's having to talk about, okay, it's not a tax, it's penalty, because this is what i did in massachusetts, and i campaigned on the fact that i didn

. >> romney's senior adviser, eric fernstrom -- >> eric fernstrom -- >> eric fernstrom -- >> mr.a sketch himself -- >> calls it a penalty, not a tax. >> were you calling it a tax or penalty? >> it was a penalty. >> mr. romney's own people -- >> undercutting the whole argument. >> it was a penalty. >> what is their strategy? >> there's this big split between the congressional republicans and this guy called mitt romney. >> the chief justice has made it clear, it's a tax. >> a new report takes us inside the inner workings of the supreme court's health care ruling.

he's called it and there, he said it's not a tax but he has called it a tax penalty so eric fernstrom did what he had to do. thiss a penalty, this is not a tax being leveled across the board. keep in mind, the penalty in massachusetts is bigger than the penalty that will be administered under obamacare. it's almost not quite twice but could be twice for some families so they have a real problem. i think fernstrom did what he can do, saying listen, it's not a tax, otherwise we raise taxes by double the amount obama did. >> the other question, margaret, is how much the word tax is a boogeyman for the american public right now. i just think, maybe i'm naive. but i'm of the mind that once the american public sort of sees and sort of concrete form, the affordable care act enacted either in the coming months or by 2014, they will be more sort of warmed to the notion of a national health care plan and the notion that somehow a $90 tax which is effectively wha this is, is so detrimental to the future of our country, i think you lose a lot of steam in that argument. >> well, messaging has alwa

and you saw romney yesterday take pains -- he didn't really disagree with what eric fernstrom said to me but what he was trying to say is, look, i agreed with the dissent, the dissent said the mandate was not a tax, it said the mandate was not unconstitutional, i agree with the highest court in the land, i'll say what they say. he seems to be struggling with it. it's the most animated issue in the base of the republican party. this goes back to what some conservatives would argue has been the fundamental flaw of mitt romney from the get-go. >> so can mitt romney go out on the campaign and use this on the campaign and say this is a tax, given the fact he had something very similar in massachusetts? >> no, i don't think he will but i didn't think he was going to before. the only way he was going to successfully be able to use health care was if there was an overturn. because of the awkward relationship between the massachusetts health plan and president obama's health plan, he just can't campaign on it in the same way. now, he's got something he can rely on now, which is the rest of the

. >> chris christie was asked about this on cnbc this morning, asked about eric fernstrom's comments to chuck todd yesterday. >> listen, let's not focus on what spokespeople are saying, okay? spokespeople get in and fill in space on the cable stations, no offense. i care about what the candidate says and governor romney has been very clear about what this election should be about. it's about reinvigorating our economy, it's about releasing entrepreneurial spirit. those are the things this election's going to be decided on, not what a spokesperson says on a cable news station in july. >> also, the romney campaign put out this statement from the governor. the supreme court left president obama with two choices, the federal individual mandate and obamacare is either a constitutional tax or an unconstitutional penalty. governor romney thinks it is an unconstitutional penalty. what is president obama's position? we kind of know president obama's position in terms of that, although as we have been pointing out, he did say that it was, you know, a tax that, he was against taxes before and n

why would eric fernstrom say that? that means romney raised taxes with his health care plan in massachusetts. this is why rick santorum said romney would be the worst republican to carry the anti-health care reform message into the fall. also we're hearing that chief justice roberts initially planned to strike down the mandate but switched his vote. a look at the inner workers of the supreme court. >>> plus count on seeing the obama campaign keep up their attacks on bain capital. both campaigns admitting the attacks on the business experience is working. >>> and newly uncovered e-mails show that joe paterno was more involved in protecting sandusky from authorities than he admitted. >>> and finally yet another reporter learns the hard way, don't mess with chris christie. >>> we begin with the debate over the tax or penalty. mark halperin is senior political analyst at the washington post and also an msnbc analyst. the supreme court gave republicans one major gift on thursday suggesting the mandate was a tax. there's onl

wanted to show a little bit of eric fernstrom, the top advisor from the romney campaign, talking to chuck todd on the daily rundown this morning. >> the governor believes that what we put in place in massachusetts was a penalty and he disagrees with the court's ruling that the mandate was a tax. but again -- >> so he agrees with the president? he agrees with the president that it is not -- he believes that you shouldn't call the tax penalty a tax, you should call it a penalty or a fee or a fine? >> that's correct. >> so how does this play out politically, chris? >> well, andrea, look, this was i think part of the reason that some republicans, establishment republicans, people who tried to get people like mitch daniel, governor of indiana, haley barbour, chris christie, other people in the race, was because they were worried that ultimately, mitt romney's experience in massachusetts on health care would take away a big hit on president obama. now, we kind of went away from that because we have been so focused on the economy, but look, the reality of the situation is if it's a tax in massac

we saw what eric fernstrom said earlier this day. he was author of the etch-a-sketch comment. what is the likelihood there is recalibration? >> depends how these next months go, obviously. we in the media tend to put too much into who the advisors are and we don't really -- more so than what the conditions of the economy are, what the conditions of some of the policy debates are. the advisors can bring you so far. a good ad can be made by many advisors and certainly, better ad can be made by a better advisor. i'm struck -- >> thank you for that pearl of wisdom. >> you can quote that, everyone. maybe i should just stop there. that was pretty good. what i'm struck by is the choice to go after obama as someone who never lived up to his post-partisan credentials because i feel at this juncture, we all know that. he's been president for three years now. he's been mired in these terrible debates with congressional republicans. he's clearly not the post-partisan president who will bring in this era of civility so i'm not sure why of all the themes to start with, that's the one they d

while at a fund-raiser in louisiana yesterday senior romney adviser eric fernstrom told reporters hes hasn't finalized it. if so, it would be an unusually early announcement for the second spot on the ticket. >>> federal reserve chairman ben bernanke will testify before congress today. the chairman will give his semi annual report today and tomorrow. could offer some hint on whether the fed plans on responding to the recent string of poor economic reports, including june's disappointing jobs numbers. >>> surprising allegations against treasury department employ we's this morning. a watchdog says a number of workers are being investigating for unethical and perhaps illegal behavior. they solicited prostitutes, broke conflict of interest rules and accepted giftses from bank execs. most of the employees do act ethically and they will address these promptly. >>> 4:36. a new call for d.c. mayor vincent gray to take action over the 2010 election. council member jim graham told news4 it's time for gray to explain and answer questions. three other council members say gray should resign. graha

today romney contradicted his top campaign adviser eric fernstrom and called it a tax. >> supreme court is the final word, right? they said it was a tax. so it's a tax, of course. >> reporter: earlier this week he called it and a similar fee in romney's massachusetts health care reform a penalty. >> the governor believes what we put in place in massachusetts was a penalty, and he disagrees with the court's ruling that the mandate was a tax. >> reporter: the obama campaign accused romney of contradicting his own campaign and himself. >> we believe in america. >> reporter: but romney aides say the two views of consistent. the war of words comes as the president prepares for a campaign bus tour of ohio and pennsylvania where he'll have some unwelcome company, former minnesota governor tim pawlenty and louisiana governor bobby jindal, both possible romney vp picks will shadow the president. the trip could be overshadowed by the jobs report. the last report showed the unemployment ticked up. the president really can't afford that trend to continue with the election just four months away. kat

. >> 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

why would eric fernstrom say that?t means romney raised taxes with his health care plan in massachusetts. this is why rick santorum said romney would be the worst republican to carry the anti-health care reform message into the fall. also we're hearing that chf justice roberts initially planned to strike down the mandate but switched his vote. a look at the inner workers of the supreme court. >>> plus count o

the problem was illustrated this morning when eric fernstrom went on msnbc and chuck todd asks if romney agreed that the mandate is a tax. >> the governor believes what we put in place in massachusetts was a penalty and he disagrees with the court's ruling that the mandate was a tax. >> so he agrees with the president -- but he agrees with the president that it is not -- and he believes you shouldn't call the tax penalty a tax. you should call it a penalty or a fee or a fine? >> that's correct. but the president also needs to be held accountable for his hypocritical statements. >> that's not in line with republican talking points on the issue. mitch mcconnell was talked about the box romney finds himself in. >> if the obama mandate is a tax on the middle class, isn't the romney mandate a tax on the middle class? >> i think governor romney will have to speak for himself what he did in massachusetts. >> there's more to play through election day. on "meet the press" in 2006 mitt romney had trouble explaining why the fees he raised in massachusetts was not a tax. >> if it were a tax it'd be

. >> yeah, but "the journal" writes about that switch from monday to wednesday, to what eric fernstromd on monday to what mitt romney said wednesday. and they said it underwrites a bigger problem for mitt romney that his staff is simply not up to it. they need some better staff work. you've heard the same criticism from rupert murdoch, from jack welsh, from bill kristol of the "weekly standard." and a you're a pro on this. is the romney campaign staff weak? >> no, i think it's a good staff and i think they've demonstrated that in the primaries. they not only can get a message across, but they're pretty tough when they have to respond. and her going to have to respond. in the last day or two, president obama or his surrogates have been all over the place, trying to claim that this is not a tax and that they want to go back to their original dishonest claim that it's not a tax. and you have them out there, trying to confuse the american public. and i think the romney campaign understands this. they're going to make sure people understand how dishonest that is. and they're going to emphas

and so he saw some of that yesterday with adviser eric fernstrom saying the decision could come this week. >> they also have as part of the calculation, jonathan, thought that no matter what they do, it's not going to be enough. they said that repeatedly. for example, about the tax returns. stephanie cutter was asked very pointedly about it this morning. how many years of tax returns would be enough? and she wouldn't say. >> well, yeah. of course she's not going to say. this is working for them. the problem that governor romney has even on the tax return issue is that he is flouting a tradition that all presidential candidates have fulfilled which is putting forth their tax returns so that the american people can see and be reasonably assured that, you know, how the person who hopes to lead them has made their money. and what's so ironic here is the person who set this tradition and a very good tradition was mitt romney's father george romney who released not one year or two years of tax returns, but 12 years because he wanted to make sure that people understood that his wealth was n

as we all know and saw, eric fernstrom came out and said, it's not a tax.s a penalty. >> it has to be a tax or it's unconstitutional. >> but with all due respect, jen, why don't you answer the question? you all campaigned and said it's not a tax, not a tax. the president sent the solicitor general to the supreme court and said, in order to get around the commerce clause it is a tax. the only reason it was deemed constitutional is because the argument was it was a tax. >> we're out of time. quick response, jen? >> look, i will say this. the penalty that's in the affordable care act. >> tax. >> was put in there because we know millions of people have been covering free loaders for decades based on mitt romney's own plan. >> you can't read it well. >> jen, thank you. sean, thank you. we appreciate it. we've always got somewhere to go and more to do. thank you, guys. >> thank you. >> that's it for tonight's show. special thanks to my guest for the evening dan senor's book is great. "start-up nation." chris christie is on "squawk box" tomorrow. >> he read the bo

yeah, you know, if this isn't going well for mitt romney, the interesting thing for him is that eric fernstromobably the guy from massachusetts who may need to go. but i'm a little bit shocked by the obama campaign really pushing this out to the media today. because i lived down in georgia. we call those the red neck version of the ski boat. we all have them, and none of us are in the 1%. >> i'm saying, to be fair, the comparison with the wind surfing was mine. i was unable to resist that. but, all right, so you're saying jet skis are not wind surfing. but still, lake winnipisaki, fancy new hampshire. >> this is the same thing, mitt romney going to new hampshire and barack obama going to martha's vineyard. neither want to relate to the rest of america. it's a problem both campaigns have. >> it's true, they both go to very lovely new england lookouts. >> quite notably, president obama is not going to martha's vineyard, that vacation plan called off. the reason this video popped is it does recall the wind surfing moment. and just having fun with it, maybe the message is not nominate folks from m

eric fernstrom who advises mitt romney said no we any it is a penalty.he governor came out and said no it's a tax. so what happened in there. >> this was a terrible mess. i think romney lost in several different ways. i think fehrnstrom was speak for romney and the campaign that was quite clear. where romney didn't want to have to admit that he raised a tax in massachusetts. so romney was defending his own position. meanwhile republicans are out there calling it a tax and they say to romney you can't take this position. you got to go with us on this. so a couple days later romney switches. sow gets stuck with the flip-flop. he looks like he is caving to pressure from congressional republicans and the right wing of the party and it looks like the campaign is not competent. because you would have thought t was known for a long time that the supreme court was coming down with a decision. there were a lot of different possibilities. would you have thought they would have worked this out in advance. i think it was a loser a crossing the board for him. >> whic

eric fernstrom this morning seemed to take it off the table entirely to chuck todd this morning. >> really interesting. that's why that interview was -- is getting so much play and was such a big signal of where they're heading next. chris cillizza, thanks so much. see you later towards the end of the show. >>> for more on just where the presidential campaign stands, as we kick off a very busy holiday week, i'm joined by the best of the best, e.j. deion, msnbc contributor and columnist for "washington post" and charlie cook, msnbc political analyst and editor of the cook political report. you both have been going around in aspen and talking to people all weekend about a lot of different things. charlie, first of all to you, the attacks on bain, working, not working? e.j., i think you wrote about this as well today. >> i think that the romney campaign is paying a price for never having gone out and laid out a positive narrative of who their guy is, flesh him out as a three-dimensional human being. as a result, these bain attacks, outsourcing, layoffs, people, they're willing to say okay, he

campaign senior advisor eric fernstrom tells reporters an announcement could be made this week but so far, he hasn't made up his mind on who that will be. they have two windows left to make the announcement, sometime before next friday when he leaves for the olympics, or two weeks before the convention in the second half of august. karen, there seems to be some clear strategy here. we'll talk about sununu in a second. in terms of the veep-stakes, as the proverbial whatever it is hitting the fan, i'm not going to say, because what we're seeing here is some version of an offensive strategy, right? >> no answer interestingly enough. >> no answers on any of the things we were talking about before, but the question of sununu did clarify it's the president who has to learn the american formula for creating business. i don't know if that counts as a walk-back. >> this goes to something we were just talking about in terms of romney doesn't have a narrative or an answer to explain that form of business. that's how he sees the american business climate. remember that we're talking about the tim

romney adviser eric fernstrom was asked, who was running bain between 1999 and 2002?esponse, "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's losing at this point, in a big way. if something's going to come out, get it out in a hurry. >> we should release the tax returns tomorrow. it's crazy. you've got to release six, eight, ten years of back tax returns. take the hit for a day or two. >> there's obviou