you were suggesting to john heilemann the democrats have actually defined this man.s defined himself and now what are we supposed to do, wake up and say for the next two weeks, we're going to get to know this man. we know this man already. we know what he's like. he's a plutocrat, very, very wealthy, he actually isn't particularly compassionate and he's extremely awkward. that's the kind of man he is. what are they going to do, dress him up as some guy who is really getting down with the folks and really relaxed? i find this whole, i'm sorry, to be slightly contemptuoous. it's ridiculous to impose on the american people the idea we're supposed to learn about this guy. we know him. we know who he is. >> don't you think, aside from loving those vintage popeye cartoon clips which i know you guys were entertained by, the "i am what i am" line is -- i guess that's mitt romney trying to say i'm going to try and own it. >> well, look, i'm in the unlikely position of sticking up for mitt romney here. couple things. one, conventions are traditionally the point at which they t

. >> rose: joining us now from convention center, mark halperin and john heilemann. there is still noise in the background but both give me your impressions. you've been following this campaign more intently than most people of this night for mitt romney. did he help his case? >> charlie, i think that he helped his case but only modestly. i thought there were effective parts of the speech tonight. i thought there were some mediocre parts of the speech tonight. i thought it was fine and i think you're hearing that from a lot of republicans in reaction. you're hearing a lot of it was good enough. he did what he had to do. he didn't soar over the bar and you're hearing a lot more people saying thing like marco rubio was the better speaker tonight and that clint eastwood will be the bigger story tomorrow. that's sort of a joke but not insubstantial distraction. and these going to be a lot of news coverage around the weirdness of that event that will take away to some extent what romney did. i think about biography, talking about his family and his father, talk big his re

thank you, bob shrum and john heilemann. >>> coming up, ryan's hope. the latest buzz that paul ryan does have a chance to be named mitt romney's number two. can he really pick a guy who wants to replace medicare with a voucher system and bumps the cost of health care to the retirees? that's going to sell. >>> also the hostile tea party takeover. the gop gained more last night. now the senate may be about to fall to them. republican party is going through a met mamorphosi moamor telelight. >>> and you don't pull the mask off that old lone ranger. and you don't mess around with bill. bill clinton, that is. the romney campaign's dishonest ad about welfare reform has stirred the big dog into action just weeks before the democratic convention. i love it. i love that bill's coming into this thing. >>> and is mitt romney trying to take the words out of this guy's mouth so he could do a better job of pandering to him? look at this. the answer in the sideshow. this is "hardball," the place for politics. i look at her, and i just want to give her everything. yea

want to commend you john heilemann. >> the putin story?ing. >> the rioting. >> kitty cats. >> the band that is the name that a lot of punk groups today are waking up and saying -- >> going to start a band called -- >> why didn't i come up with that. >> i heard you're going to do a revival of josey and the cats. >> we're not going to do that. >> welcome back to "morning joe." mika -- this is a big day. >> john heilemann as you can hear and see is still here. >> joining the set public radio host, studio 360 it's called, kurt andersen author of the novel "true believers". >> great to be here. >> at the table with us. >> omaha's favorite son and apparently omaha wants to adopt a daughter. >> omaha, i went to do aen event for this book in omaha and went to my high school reunion. >> "true believers". >> 94th i think. and two different members of my high school class said to me, tell me -- make sure next you're on "morning joe"," mika brzezinski is the greatest -- >> seriously -- >> what about joe? >> no. dog meat. >> he's perfect. >> willie gei

john heilemann, thank you so much. michael gerson.ek, we'll all be together at the democratic convention. they will rebut the charge that the president's time in charge is running out. >> america's been patient. americans have supported this president in good faith. but today, the time has come to turn the page. today the time has come for us to put the disappointments of the last four years behind us, to put aside the divisiveness and the recriminations, to forget about what might have been and to look ahead to what can be. now is the time to restore the promise of america. >> patrick gaspard is executive director for the democratic national committee, just taking the chair. he joins me now. thank you very much for rushing over here. everybody is freshly off a plane. we were a little haphazard today. >> good to be with you in tampa as well. >> great to have you there. now your challenge is to counteract the arguments that were made in tampa. what do you say to the argument that people are not better off than they were four years ago?

john heilemann, i wanted to ask you about that. been talking about the three ms, the three things that romney doesn't want to talk about, mormonism, money specifically bain, and the third massachusetts. i think he's going to start talking about massachusetts. he'll probably get more comfortable with money as we move forward. sounds like he was in this interview. but can you explain, can mark explain why he and his campaign still believe that mormonism, a faith that i see as a positive, because there are so many leaders that come out of this faith, who are good, strong, decent people. >> yep. >> good, decent people, why is it that they seem to see mormonism as a third rail for this campaign? >> i think there's personal and political issues in play, joe. i think one is, there are people, you know, in the world who are uncomfortable talking about deeply personal matters to them. it's clear that mormonism is a really important part, mitt romney is not just an average mormon. he's a very important figure in the modern mormonism and held

>> governor, john heilemann here. question about the coming straight out of what you've just been saying. i'm going to read you a tweet from byron york, a well known conservative journalist -- the gop's now caught up in the thrill of the fight over medicare when the country's overwhelmingly their top concern is jobs, obama's huge failure. talk about the politics of this, whether it actually makes sense. one of the problems it seems to me with the selection of governor ryan, just as a political matter, we're now having a debate that is much more on terms -- that favors democrats rather than -- and distracts away from the thing that is the president's biggest weakness which is the unemployment picture. >> of course, john, these things are all interconnected. jobs and the economy remain the highest priority and area of focus for voters all across this country but it is not unrelated to health care and getting health care costs under control and the system reformed. it is not unrelated to energy, it is not unrelated to en

national affairs editor for "new york" magazine and msnbc political analyst john heilemann and contributorice chair of the consulting firm hill and notten, good to have you on board this morning. think we may have started a firestorm yesterday. hello, joe. >> how are you doing? it is a mess throughout. >> yeah. >> in citizens united land. what a mess. >> deserve the firestorm. >> it deserves a firestorm. everyone is shooting themselves in the foot so to speak. why don't we say it. >> stepping on their own tails. yes. say it. what is going on there. this guy, we don't -- we don't know this guy. wait a second. we did the briefing three months ago with a guy on the phone. it's just a mess and then the romney people, they have the chance to -- and then they and it's just -- >> painful. >> what do we say was like a fourth grade student council contest. >> no that would be more interesting. >> i think that den grates fourth graders from across america so i apologize, i apologize. >> let's lay this out for folks. the controversy that we're talking about is from the political ad from the pro obama

john heilemann. i have to ask you about some questions and challenges facing mr. romney tonight. let's go to the advantages and disadvantages starting with the disadvantages, the character questions. let's look at this. it's evident in these nbc wall street journal polls he has some problems. obama beats him by 45 points on the question of likable and easy going. this is more important. caring about average people, obama beats romney by 12 points, more than double digits. on being honest, straightforward, obama is ahead of romney by 11 points. i don't think the the performance by ryan last night helped the honesty factor either at all. we'll be getting to that later to show. howard, you're shaking your head. the honesty thing. i didn't think that would show up that high. >> i didn't either. i think he can forget about the likability number. mitt romney is not overnight or in the last two months of this campaign going to come anywhere close to barack obama as a likable guy you'd want to sit here and c

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. >> but hold on a second, john heilemann. it's not just that they aren't denouncing the ad that says mitt romney killed a woman when, in fact, there was no direct nexus between him losing his job and her losing her insurance and cancer and everything else, there's a serious problem about the obama white house saying they knew nothing about this guy, they don't know his story, when, in fact, three months ago he was on their own ad and while we're talking about it for people out in, you know, middle america who don't know how close bill burton was and is to robert gibbs and to barack obama and the obama white house, this is an absolute farce. this is like mitt romney running all of those super pacs during the republican primary saying oh i've got nothing to do with that and, in fact, it was all of his former associates running those super pac ads. this is a scam and i can't believe the white house is allowing themselves to be lowered into this arena. >> they certainly don't need to. sort of depressing. >> it certainly is a -- c

so i don't know what the distraction was, john heilemann, but i don't get it. i mean, i've been over there a number of times, i've been a trip sponsored by a pro-israeli group, jewish group like many people, they are very educational trips. they do show you a lot about the geography of the land over there, what they are facing in terms of the situation with palestinians. but i don't get it here exactly. what do you think is the story here, what could be? >> well, i think a couple of things, chris. one is, obviously, one of the reasons that cantor is upset because for some religious people, christian and jewish alike, that the sea of galilee has a certain religious significance and importance to them, where jesus was to have walked on the water, for congressmen to go splashing around, is disrespectful. joe scarborough, who has a lot of connections in the south, says this kind of thing will be passed around from pastor to pastor and will have a real affect. i think at a broader level, you've got a bunch of freshman congressmen who came into the republican party i

. >> rose: joining us now from convention center, mark halperin and john heilemann.th give me your impressions. you've been following this campaign more intently than most people of this night for mitt romney. did he help his case? >> charlie, i think that he helped his case but only modestly. i thought there were effective parts of the speech tonight. i thought there were some mediocre parts of the speech tonight. i thought it was fine and i think you're hearing that from a lot of republicans in reaction. you're hearing a lot of it was good enough. he did what he had to do. he didn't soar over the bar and you're hearing a lot more people saying thing like marco rubio was the better speaker tonight and that clint eastwood will be the bigger story tomorrow. that's sort of a joke but not insubstantial distraction. and these going to be a lot of news coverage around the weirdness of that event that will take away to some extent what romney did. i think about biography, talking about his family and his father, talk big his relationship with ann was all very effective. i

john heilemann, a lot of evidence pointing towards this being a stance, a policy position, if you will, in the republican party, a theory circulated in republican corners for some time now. is the question of todd akin and his career exposing a major issue for the gop? >> that's a big question after a long lead-in. you know, the examples that you gave which are all legitimate examples go back a long way so there's obviously a long genesis of this line of thinking. there's been reporting in the last couple days that there are a surprising number of voters in the world, people in the world, who have views that are similar to congressman akin's, who believe these obviously abberant and wrong unscientific facts. i think that this clearly, i have been saying for the last two days the fact that the running mate, paul ryan, is a co-sponsor of that bill that talks about forcible rape is obviously a political problem for the romney/ryan ticket, one the obama campaign was planning to try to exploit even before congressman akin said this insane thing two days ago. the republican party has been on

joining me now are john heilemann, national affairs editor for "new york" magazine and an msnbc political analyst, john podesta, a former white house chief of staff to president clinton, and callen borchers, political correspondent for the "boston globe." thank you all for joining me. john, i want to go to you first. the hill reports this is the fourth time the romney campaign or its allies have name checked president clinton and tried to show some difference between president clinton and president obama. what does bill clinton think of this latest line of romney attack? >> i think he thinks it's unplugged from reality. we're in the kind of silly season of negative ads, but this one has no basis in fact. one of the things, alex, you did a pretty good job of stating what this waiver authority is all about, but one of the requirements in the waiver possibility that secretary sebelius put forward is that you have to show that you're going to increase employment by 20%, or you don't get the waiver. so unless a state comes in and says that we have a strategy that's more efficient, that's more

well, joining me right now is "new york" magazine's john heilemann.s also an msnbc analyst and also wrote "game change," and melissa harris-perry is host of msnbc's weekend show, "melissa harris-perry." good title. i think the question i want to ask you about is this "game change" question, is it? >> i think it is, in this sense. it's not a hail mary pass to the way that palin was, but to the point that chuck made on the show. there were two different frames for this election. the frame for the romney campaign is, there's a pure referendum on obama, all about his economic stewardship, jobs, growth, wages, all that stuff. that's what they wanted to run on. the obama campaign said, no, this is a choice election. it's going to be about two contrasting sets of values and visions. what the romney campaign is admitting here tacitly is their strategy isn't working. if their strategy was working, they would see rob portman or tim pawlenty. they have tacitly accepted it's a choice election, and they have doubled down, okay, let's do a big contrast here to one

thank you, bob shrum and john heilemann. >>> coming up, ryan's hope. the latest buzz is that paul ryan really does have a chance to be named mitt romney's number two. conservatives hunger for him. but can mitt really pick a guy who wants to replace medicare with a means-tested voucher system and bumps the cost of health care it's retirees? that's going to sell. >>> also the hostile tea party takeover of the gop gained more momentum last night. the house is already occupied territory by the tea party. now the senate may be about to fall to them. the republican party is going through a metamorphosis to the hard right. and to paraphrase jim croce, you don't tug on superman's cape, you don't spit into the wind and you don't pull the mask off that old lone ranger. and you don't mess around with bill. bill clinton, that is. the romney campaign's dishonest ad about welfare reform has stirred the big dog into action just weeks before the democratic contention. that's a bad move, and i love it. i love that bill's coming into this thing. >>> finally cherks this

they are maggie haberman of "politico", mark halperin of time, joe klein of time, and john heilemann of new york. >> most people in this country do not know what is in the affordable care act, obamacare. practically no one including wall street knows what's in dodd frank, the financial regulatory reform. most people didn't know it was in the stimulus. this is a guy who gives people tax breaks and doesn't tell them about it i've never met a politician like that before. and so from his, from the obama side of the equation it has been really disappointing because there is no substance there. you know, romney had an opportunity to be the man of substance and he's chosen not to be. it's one of-- i've done ten of these this is as vac youous a campaign as mark said as i've ever covered. >> politics moves into high gear with the republican convention followed by the democratic convention, next. >> funding for charlie rose was provided by the following. >> rose: additional funding provided by these funders. >> and by bloomberg, a provider of multimedia news and information services worldwide.

analyst mark halperin, national affairs editor for "new york" magazine and msnbc political analyst john heilemann"morning joe" economic analyst steve rattner, and willie is in london still. look how cute he is, his little jacket. >> that fetching sort of, i don't know, what kind of jacket is that? i don't know. >> it's a bruce jenner look. >> a club -- >> bruce jenner at 76. >> very good. >> well -- >> willie, i know this is an especially difficult morning for you to be on the show and i want to just thank you this morning because a lot of people who saw the world record broken last night, would not have the strength to come on this morning and just wake up and do the job but you are now the second fastest man in the world. >> yeah. i know. i think i talked too much trash before the race. unbelievable what happened here last night. this is it time --

analyst mark halperin, national affairs editor for "new york" magazine and msnbc political analyst john heilemann and former treasury official and "morning joe" economic analyst steve rattner, and willie is in london still. look how cute he is, his little jacket. >> that fetching sort of, i don't know, what kind of jacket is that? i don't know. >> it's a bruce jenner look. >> a club -- >> bruce jenner at 76. >> very good. >> well -- >> willie, i know this is an especially difficult morning for you to be on the show and i want to just thank you this morning because a lot of people who saw the world record broken last night, would not have the strength to come on this morning and just wake up and do the job but you are now the second fastest man in the world. >> yeah. i know. i think i talked too much trash before the race. unbelievable what happened here last night. this is it time -- >> were you whispering to bolt going, you have weights on your shoulders? what were you doing to trash talk? >> you know, a lot of people were -- a lot of people were saying that to him before the race. he'd heard he

with us we have political analyst john heilemann. weren't you here yesterday? >> i was. >> i asked him to come back. >> why? >> i told you him and brian sullivan are not a good mix. it's way too much. >> who do we bring? >> chief correspondent of cnbc, it's okay, you can walk in front of the shot. it's no big deal. it's all about you anyway. >> a leveling wind, brian sullivan complete with tie out of his engelbert humperdinck outfit. >> i was impressed with mitch mcconnell. i thought the entire republican establishment got suitably aggressive for once. >> they geared up in a big hurry. there's some worry they won't have him out of the race by 5:00 today. they've done a good job of trying to get the party on record against what congressman akin said that was song wrong and inappropriate and offensive to people. there's still the challenge to get him out. heap has a new ad he's going to put on the air to try to save himself. some republicans think he's still in denial. for governor romney, for the national party, they did move pretty quick. >> congressman akin, y

. >> the national affairs editor for "new york" magazine and msnbc political analyst john heilemann. >> willie wants to know what that means. >> we have pictures. >> we're going to show you what that means later. >> okay. also, also with us, msnbc political analyst and former chairman of the republican national committee, and the man who can explain why we are in florida in august during hurricane season. >> seriously. >> michael steele. >> welcome to florida, baby. good to be in your backyard. >> good to be here. >> you saw this coming, didn't you? >> yeah. >> michael steele. >> oh, yeah. two years ago. i'm that way, you know. >> you know, it's one of those things that willie and i were talking about earlier we played the odds and the odds were this is a great spot to have a convention, i think the delegates and everyone will have a great time. so you get a little wet. >> look at the hearty souls that are here. >> a bar and three people. thank you. so -- >> and we have a lot of florida people as well. >> it will be fun. listen, there's a bar, i'm happy. >> exactly. and really quickl