. >> ♪ the maryland lottery, let yourself play ♪ >> i am sarah fleischer from 98 rock. play your pick 3 numbers. we will get to your pick four in just a moment, but first, play now through august 12 for a chance to wind up to $250,000. free playslso winfre on your favorite games. here we go with your pick four. the maryland lottery -- let yourself play. >> cooler temps. >> still some rain in the forecast from frederick west word. rain tonight, thunderstorms, may be heavy. maybe some rain early saturday. latter half of the weekend looks dry. >> i like it. thank you for joining us for 11 news at noon. >> have a great#f#f#f#f#f#f#f#ff

joining us now, ari fleischer, cnn political contributor and former white house press secretary for george w. bush. all, bill burton, senior strategist for the top pro-obama super pac and senior legal analyst for cnn jeffrey toobin. jeff, let me begin with you. it's a simple question but not a simple answer. tax or penalty? >> john roberts' opinion said that this penalty, tax, whatever you want to call it, this punishment, this payment, was justified under the taxing power of the constitution. that was why he approved the whole plan. that's what he said. what a bunch of politicians want to call it is the fight we're having now. >> to be really clear, if you parse the opinion, it suggests that those who don't go out and get the insurance under the new law will be punished with a tax. >> correct. that's exactly what the opinion holds. it's not a lot of people. if massachusetts is the example we're talking about, it's about 1% of the population refused to get health insurance and can afford it, those people will be punished under this law and chief justice roberts' opinion says the payment th

and if you're in publisher editor and publisher way cool well now you've got us the book at ari fleischer is increasing out of it romney to release his tax returns now eighteen these are not democrats these are republicans george will michael steele bill kristol dick durbin meanwhile to stick the knife and he of course being the democratic party is promoting his financial disclosure to reduce taxes even abuse act which says that anybody who wants to run for public office and has a foreign swiss bank account basically has to disclose the financial information turns out in iran these two thousand and ten tax returns that he released he didn't release the swiss bank account parts of that he referenced them but he didn't release them so we don't actually know what happened so dick durbin's as my research suggests mitt romney is the first presidential candidate american history with a swiss bank account so it once you try to hide it's becoming fairly obvious shouldn't you release his tax returns i mean gave them to where maybe you shouldn't give a john mccain mccain pick paling. but i think th

let's talk about the raw politics with ari fleischer. an unpaid occasional adviser to the romney campaign. and also with us cornell belcher, a pollster for the obama 2012 campaign. do you think romney did what he needed to do overseas? >> in israel, he certainly did. even though i think it's been exaggerated, he did commit a mistake in england and it cost him the opportunity to bask in the glow of the olympics. but if he was running for prime minister, it might hurt him. he's running for president. in israel, i think he knocked it out of the ballpark. i think if the issue there is the impact this trip will have on the jewish community in the united states, calling jerusalem the capital is what those american jews who vote on the basis of foreign policy and defense will remember from this trip and also today of course giving him a virtual endorsement. that's the power of the trip for him. >> cornell, one of your campaign surrogates, former ambassador questioned romney's ability to be commander in chief. saying if he can't engage our allie

there was a great article in the wall street journal yesterday, the day before, by my friend ari fleischer using a new cbo study that uh shows, in fact, this is a progressive tax system. the top 1% pay 30%. the top 20% pay 23%. the middle pays only 15% and the bottom pay virtually nothing. this is the part i don't understand. there is a class warfare going on that the statistics coming out of the congressional budget office and elsewhere proves are untrue. the rich not only pay their fair share, they pay more. >> that's exactly right. they do pay an enormous amount. much more than the numbers reflect. this is part of the left's campaign to divide americans, to try to pit one group against another. you know, we deserve better than that, particularly at a time when we are suffering as a result of washington's failure. its refusal to do the right thing. >> jeb, is this going to be part of this whole milieu for the election that we want to tax the rich rather than promote economic growth instead of growing the pie we want to tax the rich? if you start your own business you really didn't create

i'll be joined by ari fleischer, bill burton and cnn legal strategist, jeffrey toobin.hey'll have some answers for you. >>> also tonight, the tiger has been caged but that door is still wide open. that's open. that's how one official in the battle to contain the waldo canyon fire in colorado is describing it. we have an exclusive look on the men and women who risk their lives to predict where these fires are going and then how to shut them down when they find where they're going. those stories and the staff picking the best rediculist of the year so even though anderson is off, rediculist is on. it's at the top of the hour. >> we'll be watching. our fifth story "outfront" tonight. abraham lincoln as a vampire hunter. let's take a look. >> presume you know what i can do with this? >> i know what you can do against one vampire. but against 20? >> it's part of what appears to be a trend of a reverent but heartfelt takes on american history. now a writer has taken it upon himself to rewrite the constitution. in his new book, "me the people one man's selfless quest to rewrit

bush adviser, ari fleischer and also joining us, gloria borger p.m.ot of republicans think romney should release his tax returns and the campaign is saying fairly or unfairly, releasing more returns would be like handing more ammunition to the obama campaign. do you buy it? >> i absolutely buy that. i don't think we're going to see any. i don't think any of the republicans think there is anything wrong that mitt romney has done. what we want is for the distraction to be over so we can get to the real issues, the big issues that the american people are interested in. this has become a ridiculous distraction and i do think it's taking a toll. again, i tell you i think there is absolutely nothing illegal or inappropriate that mitt romney has done. we're not going to learn anything new. he is a wealthy man who has been very successful. and he should embrace that. and we should get this over with, take the band aid off, let's move on and let's start talking about the economy and jobs. we've been talking about this now for days and days and days. >> ari, wh

joining us is jim godfrey and david fleischer. gema, leets get to you.hink 20% of the s&p coming out with the numbers. i was reading your notes though saying that market elation at the moment has been misguided and i was like, market elation. where's the elation? we are down for the seventh straight monday and feels like the market doesn't have any mojo at all. >> that's a reaction to the rallies we have seen in between the pullbacks. again, against a backdrop of disappointing data and what's happening is the markets are rallying and used as a profit taking opportunity and crucially central bank action is cosmetic and not medicinal. within europe, the ecb actually for the first time ever cut rates below the 1% level. however, that was more of a reassurance to the market rather than actually any change structurally and likewise, all the indicators of operation twist continuing in america is beco being appreciated and the markets looking for straight asset purchases. >> very good way of putting it. central bank action is cosmetic. nonetheless we all want o

. >>> ari fleischer was white house press secretary for president george w. bush. we're pleased to have him here this morning. >> good morning. >> as a republican, how do you measure, if any, the defining of mitt romney during this period by these attacks? >> there's an easy way to measure it, and that's polls. what we know is since mitt romney won the nomination, despite almost $100 million of ads thrown at him by the obama campaign, he has cut the gap in half. he is down two points in the average polls, which really means that the race is neck and neck. >> does the candidate, assumed to be candidate after the nominating conventions, plan to at some point begin to do something different than what he's doing now? >> well, doing something different, i think if you look again at the polls, charlie, that's of registered voters. when you go to the likely voters, he's winning. so i think mitt romney is actually getting no credit for running what's been a very smart, sensible campaign, trying to keep the focus on the economy, when you have an incumbent that will do every