times fish with joe klein.people really care about what mitt romney did in 1999 or are they trying to figu figure what the guys did over the next four years. when they go into the voting booth so much of this will be irrelevant. >> i think the big thing here is that these events of the last few days are part of a much larger paint job and, you know, i've seen this happen twice before in the ten presidential campaigns i've covered. the first was the bush campaign's paint job on michael dukakis in the summer of 1988 and the second the paint job on john kerry in the summer -- the swift boat paint job in 2004. and, you know, the question isn't the specific accusations. it's the bigger picture. what george h.w. bush was trying -- i remember lee atwater, you remember lee atwater, came up to me in june of 1988 and said we have dukakis said. i said what do you got? he didn't require that the kids say the pledge of allegiance in schools. i'm thinking, that's what this campaign is going to be about? but it was part of a

. >>> coming up next, "time's" joe klein. are the bain attacks working?mitt romney ready to announce his running mate? [ kimi ] atti and i had always called oregon home. until i got a job in the big apple. adjusting to city life was hard for me. and becoming a fulltime indoor cat wasn't easy for atti. but we had each other and he had purina cat chow indoor. he absolutely loved it. and i knew he was getting everything he needed to stay healthy indoors. and after a couple of weeks, i knew we were finally home! [ female announcer ] purina cat chow indoor. always there for you. to deposit checks at the nearest citibank branch. ♪ like this one. ♪ or this one. ♪ or, maybe this one. ♪ but when it's this easy to use citibank mobile check deposit at home...why would he? ♪ woooo! [ male announcer ] citibank mobile check deposit. easier banking. every step of the way. with features like scanning a barcode to get detailed stock quotes to voice recognition. e-trade leads the way in wherever, whenever investing. download the ultimate in mobile investing apps, free, at

cupp and joe klein. first up, the election will turn on the economy, of course, more on that later in the show. but also in play is how voters size up their comfort level with romney and obama. enough were decided to be comfortable with a president barack obama. they will face that decision again this november. on the same comfort scale, if you will, they size up mitt romney. one factor for some voters is romney's mormon religion, 36% of voters say the mormon religion is not christian. and pollsters say that probably indicates a bias against voting for a mormon. in polls this spring, about 15% of voters said they would definitely rule out voting for him because he is a mormon. back in 1928, of course, the first catholic running for president, new york governor al smith, was soundly defeated. cartoons like this, there it is, showing him bowing to the pope were considered acceptable. well, jack kennedy's religion was much discussed when he considered running for president, but kennedy was optimistic that t

joe klein. former pennsylvania governor ed rendell. and our own cokie roshts. george, these rituals have become all too familiar. i think the wall street journal may have posed the question going forward best, how does a fair society protect its from a twisted mind? >> by recognizing that this is the problem, an individual's twisted mind. there's a normal human instinct to try and explain things like that. in the modern age, we try to explain these outcroppings of evil in terms of some defect in the social system. by some prompting of society. which once isolated could be corrected. we wouldn't have these things anymore. what makes these things scary, columbine, virginia tech and this, is precisely the fact that there is no social motive whatever, discernible. the great killers of the 20th century, lenin, stalin, hitler, told us in excruciating details why they were doing it. they had theories. the unabomber had a theory. he wrote it out, that's how he got caught. they have a political motive of some part. the beginning of wisdom about this is to understand the

check should get thisuch bigger ts brndec t >>t: yt ba isd and raise her a visit to the liberal and joe klein who uses cliches you feel e lazy. who would be the worstffde gh kia g: cle ki n'o on ink the ones that bother me maybe aren't the examples a liberal woulde looking for. th os atot t cof budmtrn. h cpana nsvatism. as i like to joke i am an old guy, i like my conservatism more sghty bl womssna cova - h trgt tis y asto win. a new sort of repubican. >> guest: there's aeally bad tecyot thouefdole rianod wnd ao made great politics. andrew sullivan made a point out gay marriage that was a winner that would get republicans -y ve. ir mliel 02lde t nd il t place. people think that because they think the policy is a great idea great politic and i don't inatit be ce tot l asatnstiay ven ha this argument with the national review a lot. look at the demographics and what is going on in politics you need someone to read b cova. petlligu i wig dete. ghomne inmsa bl a greaofde cli himself a conservative is i would rather move the country to a place where even the republican party has to move toy potith

however, joe klein points out in this article, when he was the governor of massachusetts, he extendedte as law there. so what happened? i believe joe used the word chameleon? >> this is an uncomfortable issue for romney, because it is one of several cases where he moved to the right when they developed national ambitions and no longer had to appeal to a fairly liberal electorate in massachusetts. but i think it's just a tough spot for any politician, and, you know, i was struck, actually, by some other comments i heard romney make, trying to brought it back to the issue of the economy. romney's default position on everything seems to be to go back and talk about the economy. what he seemed to be saying is that the country needs some spiritual healing. and one way to do that is to lift the lot of americans. it's almost a way of saying, more jobs will lead to less gun violence. that's one way to handle it. i don't think anyone has a good answer. you get the sense that both sides are feeling a little timid about the issue. >> it's clear, the typical republican response, but quickly you b

. >> i want to bring this question to joe klein, let me put on this poll, a gallup poll the support for gun laws over the last two decades. they have gone steadily down. should gun laws be more strict, joe, how do you explain that even though we have had all of those mass killings. >> politicians because stopped talking about this, in 1994, the democrats lost the house, the mythology that evolved from that was that, the national rifle association picked various congressional districts and defeated democrats who supported gun control. i don't know if that's entirely true. but democrats have checked out of this debate ever since, including the president of the united states, so there hasn't been a debate about gun control since then. >> the truth is on assault weapons ban, it was republican women who got that through congress. the republican men voted for it, 23%. >> george that poll is a little askewed right after gabby giffords. the poll on limiting magazines to ten bullets in a clip -- let me say, what joe said is correct. the nra, part of it is, e pennsylvania, the second biggest nra.

michael steele and joe klein writes about the -- full journalistic integrity here, absolute.he point romney played in outsourcing? >> no, we don't and it really doesn't matter. in the end. what the obama campaign is doing is building this giant box that they're locking mitt romney in. and the lock on top of that box is his tax returns. in boxing, they call this kind of thing a paint job. it's when a fast, really dexterous fighter is fighting against the slow, plodding guy and he keeps on jabbing and jabbing him in the face and starts opening up cuts all over the face and he starts bleeding. painting him. that's what's been happening the last couple of weeks. >> are they getting him into a situation where he has to release something he knows will hurt him? >> i suspect he is and chairman steele has been among the republicans who have said he should. this ain't going to go away. >> what do you make of this? i keep hearing your colleagues on the conservative side of things, people like what's his name? matt dowd. these guys are all pushing on television what he clearly doesn't w

mckinnon, yesterday we were fascinated, i was fascinated by the pact that you had a "time" magazine joe klein comparing this obama campaign to the 1988 willie horton campaign that george h.w. bush put on and also about a campaign of 2004 where we're talking about mitt romney and him being a millionaire and outsourcing jobs. they are creating a narrative. the one thing flpolitically you have to give them credit for is they're getting the president out there and keeping him going pretty darn well in july. >> they are, joe. those past campaigns in the presidency that were really aggressive in the early months in the last several cycles in june, july, may, set the cement on the picture in framing the election early on were the campaigns that went on to win. democrats look back at the kerrey campaign and say we're not going to do that again, we're going to be aggressive and put the pedal to the metal and not let up. >> john heilemann, craig shirley yesterday e-mailed me and said when he played basketball in college a million years ago, he said his coach always told him that november games were won

. >> and joe klein's primary colors. >> guest: the one i would love to talk about is richard van cramer's book, it was about the '98 campaign, it's about 1000 campaign, it's not an easy undertaking but this is a book that for me was genuine inspiration as to why i wanted to cover and write about politics and politicians. richard van cramer, the title is meant to signify what it means for a person to run for president. i think people don't understand how incredibly taxing, how incredibly difficult it is to do this thing and who are the people that out of this whole country, decide you know what, i think i would be the best person to represent them. ben cramer, i had the chance to meet him a while back with several of my colleagues, i went back to the eastern shore, because literally the first thing i did when i went on book leave is visit him. i wanted to talk to him about writing books but i also wanted to talk to him about what it makes in the '88 campaign and just a fascinating individual. he went on to write a well reviewed book about joe dimaggio, if you care about baseball and even i

"time" magazine joe klein talks about his article "how to die." sports writer frank deford. tiger woods looks like a tiger and why he may still be the best in the world. but first here is bill karins. >> all good news. amazing weekend. we're just kind of finishing up what is going to go down as one of the hottest heat waves in our country. we broke record highs in many cities. we broke all time highs. we broke all time june highs. it was hot. it was plain and simple. yesterday it was 100 plus from st. louis all the way down through the southeast. we're 106 in columbia, south carolina. over the weekendux there was on temperature of 113 in south carolina. could have been the hottest temperature ever recorded in the state. so today what will change? there are more clouds in the southeast. we have a couple of showers and thunderstorms. that will cool you off a couple of degrees. but there's no significant relief from this incredible heat.ç we may have dropped at it couple of degrees but still very hot. let me take you to the next three days. still 10

. >> it's a fantastic cover story by joe klein called "how guns won" and basically how the republicanhe democratic party have advocating their responsibility ever since the assault weapon ban in 1994 on doing anything reasonable or common sensecle about gun regulation and joe, traces it back to that vote and back to the fact that bill clinton attributed his losses in that midterm election to the assault weapons ban that was part of the crime bill which also added 100,000 cops on the street and that the democrats and republicans learned the lessons of that and as a result you have -- you let president obama, until last night, had not talked about any kind of gun restrictions even though when he campaigned last time he talked about reinvoking the assault weapons ban. mitt romney signed a bill when he was governor of massachusetts which banned assault weapons and then now, nobody talks about it. nobody talks about it in the wake of such a grizzly and horrible shooting in aurora and that's a problem in our politics. i'm glad that the president brought it up last night. >> joe talk about w

>> well, the bottom line, wolf, is it's a great story by joe klein.alks about why there is this consensus among democrats and republicans to basically do nothing about guns and it comes from the semi-automatic weapons ban part of bill clinton's crime bill in 1994. both sides in effect we say overlearned the lessons of that bill. a lot of democrats lost the seats and republicans thought this is necessary for our fund raising and for winning in the future. that's why nothing has been done since and probably nothing is going to be done now. >> and you listen to the precise words how the president framed his position on guns before the national urban league last night. it was very, very specific. when you heard that, what did you think? >> well, i thought, it's a good question. i thought he wanted to talk to both sides. he wanted to talk to conservatives afraid of the government taking their guns away by saying, look, the second amendment is part of law and people believe it's part of our dna and then speaking to those that need of regulation of guns, the

david brooks and joe klein are both attempting to bail mitt romney out on this whole thing, saying howout of the work force. >> oh -- >> this to me makes him a bit of a social you path, but i don't want for the "new york times." but anyway there is a little bit of a pushback -- wait he is acting like he wants to get reelected, how dare he! [ laughter ] >> yeah, exactly. [♪ "world news tonight" theme ♪] >> by the -- >> breaking news -- >> yes. >> mitt romney -- i mean, really they should just tell him to stop. stop trying to make it seem like you are connecting with actual humans. he held up the waiters and waitresses at the fund raiser last night saying the people serving refreshments aren't having a good year. >> throw them a copper or two. [ laughter ] >> yeah. >> oh, shoe shine boy -- [ laughter ]. >> who calls dinner refreshments? >> if you are paying $50,000 a plate, i think you should get more than cocktail weannys. >> that's a good point. you should get dinner and dessert, not just refreshments. i have this vision of one of the concession stands at fenway park. >> yeah, those ar

joe klein even had an article where he called himself his father's on a death panel -- own death panelere do you see the aggravation in the public about the debt and d.b. bombers stressing our -- and baby boomer stresss and out about life services? guest: well, i -- boy, that is a complicated question. i am actually a three-time cancer survivor. look, i think the question is tied with our problem in health care. some of the things we now -- one is that one out of every $3 we spend on health care is totally wasted. there is 5 the studies, the last was a thomson reuters study, as demint $350 billion a year -- estimating $350 billion a year. why is that? most of it is because most of the health care purchased in this country, we all think somebody else is paying the bill. i assume you have a health insurance policy. i have a health insurance policy. once we got our deductible done, hey, it doesn't cost anything. what is the busiest operating room date in the united states? the day before the end of the year could everybody has their .eductible -- let's get it done what is the slowest? the

. >> it is so close, and john heilemann, you know, joe klein back in maybe it was '99, back in 2000 wrote a book called "the natural." when it comes to politics, bill clinton is the natural. let's face it, barack obama is many things, but he's not a natural politician. sometimes you get the idea he doesn't even like politics. perhaps he doesn't even like being in his job, and bill clinton it seems to me, and i'm sure you'd agree, will bring a certain joy to that convention that right now even the incumbent may have a hard time stirring up. >> well, joe, i only take ix seption exception to the one thing. barack obama is a pretty good politician. he can do certain things extraordinarily well, including give -- >> right. >> his mastery of big skill j oratory is unparallels. a big speech on a big stage that will have everyone swooning. bill clinton, even though he has lost a step for sure, a still better than anybody in the democratic party. talking about the economy, the struggle of real lives and real people, talking about how to -- how a democratic vision of the future is compelling to the

. >> and joe klein's primary colors. >> guest: the one i would love to talk about is richard van cramer's book, it was about the '98 campaign, it's about 1000 campaign, it's not an easy undertaking but this is a book that for me was genuine inspiration as to why i wanted to cover and write about politics and politicians. richard van cramer, the title is meant to signify what it means for a person to run for president. i think people don't understand how incredibly taxing, how incredibly difficult it is to do this thing and who are the people that out of this whole country, decide you know what, i think i would be the best person to represent them. ben cramer, i had the chance to meet him a while back with several of my colleagues, i went back to the eastern shore, because literally the first thing i did when i went on book leave is visit him. i wanted to talk to him about writing books but i also wanted to talk to him about what it makes in the '88 campaign and just a fascinating individual. he went on to write a well reviewed book about joe dimaggio, if you care about baseball and even i

ezra klein, karen finney and i will all try to count mitt rom flee's money. and crazy joe walsh is back in the rewrite tonight. since crazy joe never found the time or courage to serve in the military, he now considers it unfa that his opponent actually did. and he is attacking iraq war vet and double amputee tammy duckworth for not trying to hide the fact from voters that she served in the military. i know this sounds crazy. but this is crazy joe walsh we're talking about here. crazy joe is back in the rewrite tonight. nnounc er ] think your kids are getting a dependable clean in the bathroom? [ gasps ] think again. try charmin ultra strong for a clean with fewer pieces left behind. its diamondweave texture is soft and more durable so it holds up better for a more dependable clean. fewer pieces left behind. charmin ultra strong. lookin' good, flo! feelin' good! feelin' real good! [ engine revs ] boat protection people love. now, that's progressive. call or click today. >>> the obama battleground bus rolled into ohio where unemployment is going down and the obama poll numb

ezra klein, karen finney and i will all try to count mitt rom flee's money. and crazy joe walsh is back in the rewrite tonight. since crazy joe never found the time or courage to serve in the military, he now considers it unfair that his opponent actually did. and he is attacking iraq war vet and double amputee tammy duckworth for not trying to hide the fact from voters that she served in the military. i know this sounds crazy. but this is crazy joe walsh we're talking about here. crazy joe is back in the rewrite tonight. the postal service is critical to our economy, delivering mail, medicine and packages. yet the house is considering a bill to close thousands of offices, slash service and layoff over 100,000 workers. the postal service is recording financial losses, but not for reasons you might think. the problem ? a burden no other agency or company bears. a 2006 law that drains $5 billion a year from post office revenue while the postal service is forced to overpay billions more into federal accounts. house bill 2309 is not the answe zagat just gave hertz its top rati

joe you are sipping on. it's the largest health care fraud settlement glass goe smith -- glax co smith glass co smith shrine will pay a fine -- klein will pay a fine. they -- the fda says people under the age of 18 shunned takes paxil. prosecutors mismarketed drugs. >> one of the things that struck me one of the drugs they were cited for is actually dangerous. and there's a warning on the label. and the company knew about it years before they told food and drug administration. >> the three billion dollar penalty will be divvied up onebillion covering fines and two billion will settle civil suits with massachusetts and colorado. >>> news time 4:57. gas prices dipping. retailers are hoping consumers will spend extra cash on school supplies. it's hard to believe we are talking about school supplies. but retailers say back to school sayson -- season the shopping begins june 10th. so the school supplies are on the shelves and they are on sale at place like staple and toys r us. they are touting the biggest ever backpack sale. experts say used to it. after a sale slump in april and may they are going after to back to school shoppers earl

joe paterno for hiding child sex abuse. what's going to happen to the football program? will this very to pay? tom kleinl association governors meeting gets under way, martin o mally and teri branstad and bob mcdonnell all my guests this mother. >> busy show. we'll watch. we'll see you then. plenty of danger lurks on the average big city street but you don't expect wild animals to attack in broad daylight. what we can learn from yesterday's bizarre chimp attack in las vegas. we'll talk with jeff corwin next. i don't spend money on gasoline. i don't have to use gas. i am probably going to the gas station about once a month. drive around town all the time doing errands and never ever have to fill up gas in the city. i very rarely put gas in my chevy volt. last time i was at a gas station was about...i would say... two months ago. the last time i went to the gas station must have been about three months ago. i go to the gas station such a small amount that i forget how to put gas in my car. ♪ >>> welcome back, terror in las veg vegas, two chimpanzees escaped from their home and went wild and pounding on ca

klein will join us next. and mr. chuck todd who got this whole penalty versus tax thing going. you're watching "morning joe," brewed by starbucks. with the spark cash card from capital one, olaf's pizza palace gets the most rewards of any small business credit card! pizza!!!!! [ garth ] olaf's small business earns 2% cash back on every purchase, every day! put it on my spark card! [ high-pitched ] nice doin' business with you! [ garth ] why settle for less? great businesses deserve the most rewards! awesome!!! [ male announcer ] the spark business card from capital one. choose unlimited rewards with 2% cash back or double miles on every purchase, every day! what's in your wallet? >>> whatever the politics, today's decision was a victory for people all over this country whose lives will be more secure because of this law and the supreme court's decision to uphold it. >> it was a victory for people all over this country who are a little more secure because of this law. >> when the bill com into effect, being a woman will no longer be a preexisting medical condition. victory for woman. >> today is not a victo