Transcripts For MSNBCW Morning Joe 20120716

like freedom, to finish the greatest rock and roll shows of all time. you deserve better but welcome back to the free shores of america. thanks, john. "morning joe" starts now. i'll be back on "daily rundown" see you at 9:00. first of all you're not going to apologize. >> we won't be apologizing and i don't -- sometimes these games are played during political campaigns. understand what issue is here. mr. romney claims he's mr. fix-it for the economy because of the -- his business experience and so i think voters entirely and legitimately want to know what was that business experience. and as the head of a private equity firm his job was to maximize profits and help wealthy investors. nothing wrong with that. that company also was investing in companies "the washington post" calls pioneers of outsourcing and he's now claiming i wasn't there at the time, except he files an s.e.c. listing that says he was the ceo, chairman and president of the company. so, you know, as president of the united states one of the things i've learned, and we talked about, anything that happens on my watch is my responsibility. that's what people expect. harry truman said the buck stops with me. and i think understandably, people are going to be interested in, you know, are in, in fact, responsible for this company that you say is one of your primary calling cards for wanting to be president? >> okay. don't think they're holding back on this. good morning, everybody. it is monday, july 16th. welcome to "morning joe." with joe and me on set, former foreign policy adviser to the bush administration, adviser now to the romney administration, dan senor, good luck this morning. >> good luck. >> i'm scared for you, actually. >> you are? as opposed to every other day i come on. >> i'm scared of me for you. >> visiting professor at nyu, former democratic congressman harold ford jr. >> good morning. >> the host of cnbc's "street signs" brian sullivan here on the set. hello. >> it's early. >> what do you think of this schedule? isn't it fantastic? >> you get a lot of reading in, mostly last night's news from british papers. >> yeah. >> "the guardian" that's where i get all my stuff. ready to go. >> try this for a few days and tell me how you feel. >> you're done early enough you can go take the kids to school, you know. >> right. >> get a whole day in. >> you get to do that, right? >> i'm still doing my 2:00 show. >> you're such good dads. that's amazing, isn't it? i'm sorry. sore about that too. are you going to try for a few days? >> i'm going to do this show today. i think every other guest was on vacation. >> really? >> probably in some island in like the upper northeast or something. you scraped the bottom of the barrel but i'm happy to be here. >> i hear you. that's how i ended up here. so in washington we have political editor and white house correspondent for "the huffington post" sam stein. good to have you on board as well this morning. >> thank you. appreciate it. >> i thought joe was the only person, little unfair because we're trying to get his shot right now so he can't talk, i thought he was the only person who retroactively retired, but apparently someone else retroactively -- what does retroactively retired mean, dan senor? >> it means -- >> it means he decided to retire after he retired when he decided it might be politically good to use the word. >> in february of 1999 mitt romney left bain capital, went to go run the olympics. they had a gradual process to build an interim management committee. >> right. >> he was gone those couple years. everyone who has looked closely at this, independent, not one of the campaigns, the "washington post," has called the attacks against romney that he was actually there, called the attacks, unfair, untrue, misleading. fact check.org has given it four pinocchios. today's "new york times" a well reported article by nick and michael, a-10 of the "new york times" reads no evidence has yet emerged that mr. romney exercised his powers at bain after february 1999 or directed the funds investments after he left. so, the reality is, he wasn't there. he had no practical involvement in the firm during those couple years. and the obama campaign is trying to make something out of nothing. >> well no, i think -- >> we should have a discussion about what's going on in the economy than this side show. >> what this plays into, the fact that you kind of don't know who mitt romney is and this is helping people feel like oh, maybe that's what he's like. why won't he release his tax returns, why won't he tell us what went down at bain. retroactively retired. the narrative that is going to stick if he's not careful. >> let's be very specific about the attack that they are focusing on, that the president himself doubled down on that clip you played at the opening of the show. he is saying, the president and advisers are saying, mitt romney was working somewhere and involved in the company's decisions at a time that everyone who was involved in the company, every independent group who looked at that period say wasn't true and the president is continuing to run ads on that. that tells me they're being dishonest and doing so to create a distraction and gone so far as to accuse him of a possible felony. this is like crazy land. >> let's get to that. today president obama will hold a town hall meeting in cincinnati where he will continue to push the narrative that a vote for mitt romney is a vote for outsourcing, pointing to a new report that estimates mitt romney's tax policy will result in more american jobs moving overseas. need to ask ryan about that. standby. president obama said this week there will be no apologies after a member of his campaign suggested that the republican contender may have broken the law by misrepresenting his role with bain capital after 1999. now yesterday, on "meet the press," senior campaign adviser ed gillespie defended his candidate explaining romney had retired retroactively from the firm. >> he was still ceo and had shares, but he wasn't responsible for management and that's the, you know, that's the bottom line. >> even when he was on leave does he stand by business decisions that were made by the firm he created? >> he actually retired retroactively at that point, david. he ended up not going back to the firm after his time in salt lake city. so he was actually retired from bain, but look, bain's a good company, been very successful, helped create a lot of jobs, and the fact is, private sector experience is a beneficial thing, would be beneficial in the white house and, you know, the obama campaign and the president. >> he stands behind decisions the company made about call centers or outsourcing which in a lot of circles is considered good business. >> in terms of stands by them, i don't know what you mean. they weren't his decisions. he wasn't there when those decisions were made. bain is a good company. >> have you ever retired retroactively? >> no, but i hope to. >> yeah. i hope to the way mitt romney did too. explain the attacks on his tax policy and outsourcing, does this have any, i guess, president in terms of looking back at mitt romney's career? is it fair? >> is it -- depends on what side you're on if you define it as fair. look at the attacks -- >> could it be seen as fair? sure, of course, by the majority of the americans because the majority of america is not wealthy so you say private equity, right, kind of a scary -- bain itself, the name sounds scary, right? let's raise taxes on the top 2%. right? because they can help. if you look at that policy, the top 2% pay, well, if we raise taxes about $100 billion a year, let's call that generous. the u.s. government makes $125 billion a year in erroneous or fraudulent payments to dead people and the wrong people. >> that's a problem. >> right. clean your own house up first. if romney was smart that's where he would go. obama's team is taking romney to the bank because romney's team is back on its heels doing this. we have 8.2% unemployment. what's the solution here. >> harold ford jr.? >> look, i think that probably the more potent line of attack for the president right now is you look at this, the questions around bain, bain is a successful franchise. they invested money on behalf of unions, colleges and universities. i think the bigger question for mitt romney is, are the tax returns, what may be in there. i know there was a discussion last week between dan and my friend robert gibbs about this. it will be clear -- be made clear to a lot of americans what bain is, what he did and how much money he made there. i like what the president is going to do more than anything. he talks about the policy that romney is proposing as he travels to battleground states and begins to talk more specifically about how the romney tax plan, how the romney spending plan, i think -- >> it's a bad place to go for him today. cincinnati is a bad place for the president today because two months ago, harold, procter & gamble, biggest company in cincinnati, agreed to move 20 of its top executives, essentially the headquarters of the division to sin ga pour. >> all right. >> that's a better place for barack obama largely because he will continue to make the case that the policies and ideas and recommendations made by governor romney, if elected president, might cause all 50 to be reloca relocated. i love the fact when the president is out talking specifically about, whether you agree with him or not, talking specifically about the paul ryan plan, talking specifically about how mitt romney would not agree to a 10 to 1 disparity between spending cuts and tax increases to lower our federal -- our trajectory in terms of spending that's where the president wants to be because that's where we are. that's talking about the future and giving the american people a real sense of where he will take us over the next four years. >> i want to get joe to weigh in on this. i was trying to tell people here that you retired retroactively but nobody believed me. why don't you weigh in? >> i retired retroactively got involved with the nantucket relief fund and i was doing it for the kids. they won't believe me. got a call five years ago, come to nantucket. dan senor, nobody believes me and you know what else, nobody seems to believe mitt romney. what -- what does retiring retroactively mean? when you're signing forms that you're still working at bain. can you explain this for us? >> sure, joe. i think i know -- >> this is his second whirl at this, the problem that you have to -- >> no. >> the problem is, that there's a lot of big issues in this campaign, all right. president obama does not have an explanation for what happened in his first term, doesn't have a rationale for why he needs a second term so they're throwing up a lot of dust and we are discussing that dust right now. but to answer joe's question, mitt romney was at bain capital, he left to go do the olympics. he, i think, thought he could still somewhat be involved in bain capital when he left but clear he couldn't. he couldn't even get back in time for meetings he was consumed. working 16 to 18 hours a day saving the olympics. he was basically gone from bain capital beginning february of '99 and never came back. by the way, joe, everybody is saying that. "the new york times" is saying that today, "the washington post" fact checkers are saying that, factcheck.org. the guy running bain capital at the same is running that. >> joe, bring in sam stein as well. go ahead. >> no. i was saying, sam, yeah, there are people that are lining things up here. i'm not -- i'm not suggesting that the not be telling the truth four or five days later. but it's been a long, bumpy road to get here from just the out and out denials to now saying he retroactively retired, to -- it seems in dan senor, for once we won't say dan senor runs the mitt romney campaign, but other than dan senor, there's been some sloppy campaign work coming out of boston, hasn't there? >> yeah. i think it reflects the complexity of the financial world in which mitt romney lived for a while. i sort of see dan's point in a respect that he went to -- mitt romney went to the olympics, it was an all-consuming job, he couldn't be there at bain, make the managerial decisions he made and yes, he set up a managing committee and there he retired a couple years later from. but you know, it's interesting to me and i've been off and had to go back and look at this, it'sing it to me -- interesting to me we're ignoring the fact everyone at bain left with mitt romney. these were the people that he put in place, this was the culture he put in place. the decisions that bain made after mitt romney left in those years were basically part of the culture that he had established going from the founding of the firm. so for them to like run away interest these decisions as if they're covered in the ebola virus is confusing to me because this is bain, this what is they did. i think it's totally legitimate for the obama campaign to say if this is your primary reason for saying you would be a good president let's look at what that actually would result in. let's look at the actual policy implications of that. i don't see how that's unfair or in dan's words how that's dust. >> joe, take a look at this. former white house chief of staff rahm emanuel weighed in yesterday morning with advice for mitt romney. >> give it up about stephanie. don't worry about that. what will you do when the chinese leader says something to you or putin, whine your way. you cannot do that. as mitt romney says once to his republican colleagues stop whining. give him his own advice, stop whining, if you want to claim bain capital is your calling card to the white house, then defend what happened to bain capital and what happened to those jobs that went overseas, those jobs that were actually cut and eliminating and the companies that went into bankruptcy. >> he sounds like ari, really does. >> he sounds just like ari and he sounds like zeke. these are the crazy emanuel brothers seriously they should go out on the road. >> stop whining. >> but -- dan senor, how do you respond, how does your campaign respond to the rahm challenge, stop whining and just embrace that record and when you embrace the record, you have to embrace the full record? >> this is honestly how we've responded. let's start having a discussion about what happened over the last few years, about president obama's big plans, big promises for what he would do for the economy, very few, if any have come through, let's have a discussion about what he intends to do going forward. there's serious issues going on here right now. i mean, look, the campaign this week is going to be focusing on these -- the green energy programs. the grants, the loans. hundreds and hundreds of -- >> worked out well, solyndra worked out well. >> billions out to campaign contributors. >> this is what the romney is going to focus on this week. >> these are huge amounts of money have come out of the federal government, have gone abroad, you know, to -- >> but -- >> deals at home and abroad. taxpayer money we're talking about, bain capital. it's an amazing thing. >> dan, if you do that, you open up the criticism that from the obama campaign about the investments made by bain capital, the good ones, bad ones. i would hope the campaign would move to a higher level and talk about the budget, talk about how we're going to reform our tax code, how we're going to reform entitlements and grow jobs. >> harold, come on. >> hey, harold. harold we keepearing this, harold, but i mean as -- >> keep hearing what? >> as james carville said, barack obama's hoping the campaign of 2008 is turned into an attack campaign of 2012 as ed -- look when you start having people like james carville saying that the candidate that talks about the next four years instead of the last four years is the candidate that's going to win over voters, harold, the fact is, neither of these candidates are talking about the next four years. >> i'm agreeing with you. >> they're attacking. and the problem with barack obama is, he's president of the united states and he's talking about what happened on -- s.e.c. filings back in 1999. i just -- i understand and i said myself, mitt romney needs to explain this, but they're not talking about the future. they're talking about the past. what is barack obama's plan for the next four years? all i hear are a bunch of attacks. >> so -- >> i don't disagree with you. i was amplifying a point. only that if the romney campaign wants the obama campaign to do that, they, too, shouldn't go back in be retroactive -- >> the criticisms the romney campaign are making are about major policy decisions by president obama. when president obama says we're going to put in a big green energy support program, and the grants from that program will go to major donors who have conflicts of interest, who are -- >> that's not true. >> affiliated with people in the administration, that's policy. that's billions of taxpayer dollars going overseas. that's not what did you do 15, 20 years ago when you may or may not have been charge of a particular company. this is real policy that the administration is implemented. >> let's take a look at the other thing we're talking about -- >> need to defend the administration. that's not fully true. >> yeah. >> i'm happy to get into it. i think there's a lot of meat there. >> there is. although -- >> solyndra. >> what do you do with this? the growing number of influential republicans who are calling on mitt romney to make more of his tax returns available to the public. listen. >> he should release the tax returns tomorrow. it's crazy. you've got to release six, eight, ten years, take the hit for a day or two and give a serious speech on thursday which he says okay, we've had this ridiculous debate about when i took my leave from bain and when i didn't, now let's have a debate about capitalism, business, and debate about jobs. >> if something's going to come out, get it out in a hurry. i do not know why, given that mr. romney knew the day that mccain lost in 2008, that he was going to run for president again, that he didn't get all of this out and tidy up some of his offshore accounts and all the rest. he's done nothing illegal, nothing unseemly, nothing unproper but lots that in politic and he's now in the politics business. >> and joe, then there was this from alabama's republican governor robert bentley who is quoted by the associated press saying this -- if you have things to hide, then maybe you're doing things wrong. i think you ought to be willing to release everything to the american people. after the comments went viral, governor bentley quickly backtracked saying he was taken out of context. joe? >> yeah. brian sullivan, there are extraordinary complexities to somebody like mitt romney, when you run bain capital, when you as many holdings that mitt romney has had and there are going to be some things that may be a little bit ugly out there, but at the same time, don't you think that if you're running for president of the united states, and if you're talking about businesses, the centerpiece of your campaign, doesn't mitt romney need to release the records and if there are problems with it, he's -- >> what could be in them? >> what could be in them is, brian, let's talk about what could be in them, brian. the fact is there are a couple years he may not have paid any taxes at all. maybe he's concerned about that. maybe he's concerned about offshore accounts. but if it's going to come out he needs to get them out now so he has a couple months to explain them before the election. >> i agree. listen, mitt romney has got to go on the offensive here. all right. what's going to come out is mitt romney is a rich guy. what else is going to come out is that mitt romney took advantage of all the legally allowable tax deductions provided him by years of congressional wheeling and dealing over the last 30, 40, 50 years, with regard to income tax rates and deductions. what mitt romney needs to say is, you know what america, i'm not going to apologize for being successful. i'm also not going to apologize for taking advantage of all the deductions provided for me, which is exactly the reason why tax preparers exist. to make sure that every family no matter what they make, receives every deduction they can. mitt romney should then, though, let me add this, joe, and respond as this, i support higher tax rates at a certain level because we're not going to solve our problems, let's end the debate. he needs to go on the offensive that way and not apologize for being a rich guy. >> yeah. i don't -- >> back to you. >> that's probably not going to happen, is it, as far as -- >> why is he making it so hard for himself, dan senor? >> let's put brian on the road for mitt. that's a good riff. >> mitt and i don't see eye to eye on a lot of things. >> does it make sense what brian said? why is this so hard? and looking at the republican presidential candidate, i know you're frustrated a little bit with the party, what do you think of how he's handling this? is there an easier way? >> well, you know, obviously when brian can sit there and wheel off what we'd down, but let's face it, mitt romney from the beginning, of even the republican primary, couldn't hit fastballs down the middle of the plate. he is not what pat buchanan would call a great political athlete. on days it seems he's not even a good political athlete. and there is no doubt the obama people have polled and they've focused grouped it and class warfare works. there's no doubt there are political bombs that would explode in the campaign if you had somebody as ar tick clue queue late as about brown or mitt romney's campaign chairman, dan senor, it might be all right. i think, though, for mitt romney, this could be -- there could be information in there -- >> he's sorely outnumbered. >> that could cost him the election. the guy is not nimble on his feet. >> he's not. because he's sorely outnumbered here and giving dan senor ten seconds. >> a week ago friday we got a terrible jobs report. 41 months of unemployment above 8%. here we are talking about all these issue. it's a total distraction. >> okay. >> coming up, we're going to bring in congressman jim clyburn, "time" magazine's joe klein and in a few minutes democratic governor of delaware, jack markell. up next an exclusive first look in the politico playbook. first bill karins with a check on the forecast. bill? >> hi, mika. hope you and everyone else had a wonderful weekend. the heat is going to be turned on once again. we're going to look at another heat wave gripping the nation, started yesterday in the middle of the country and will spread to the east coast. this will not be as extreme as the last one we got done with about two weeks ago. this has a little more humidity to it. the heat is really building, though, in the northern plains. thunderstorm roll through the northeast last night, those are gone, so expect chelear sighs. some arriving in hartford, new york city, d.c., yesterday 96, we'll do it again today. it's a three-day heat wave. the worst is around minneapolis. it's going to be 100 degrees. chicago at 96, then we're continuing to be very dry from kansas city to st. louis all the way toward indianapolis and it looks like the hot weather pattern continues into tuesday. the break from this heat wave will occur as we go through wednesday and thursday. but that's only the northern half of the country. washington, d.c., after 96 yesterday, 96 today, you're going to come close to 100 tomorrow. there's the sun rising. not a cloud in sight. you're watching "morning joe" brewed by starbucks. [ cellphone rings ] the wife. hey, babe. got the jetta. i wiped the floor with the guy! not really. i would've been fine with 0% for 36 months, but i demanded 60. no...i didn't do that. it was like taking candy from a baby. you're a grown man. alright, see you at home. [ male announcer ] the volkswagen autobahn for all event. we good? we're good. [ male announcer ] at 0% apr for 60 months, no one needs to know how easy it was to get your new volkswagen. that's the power of german engineering. and you are me if you want it, you just got to believe. weight watchers i believe strength [ jennifer ] confidence beautiful amazing [ emily ] this goes way beyond happiness weight watchers i believe. because it works. [ female announcer ] weight watchers -- rated number one best plan for weight loss by u.s. news and world report, again. [ jennifer ] join for $1. weight watchers. believe. because it works. blast of cold feels nice. why don't you use bengay zero degrees? it's the one you store in the freezer. same medicated pain reliever used by physical therapists. that's chilly. [ male announcer ] new bengazero degrees. t there. that's chilly. - one serving of cheese is the size of four dice. one serving of cereal, a baseball. and one serving of fruit, a tennis ball. - you know, both parties agree. our kids can be healthier... the more you know. time now to take a look at the morning papers at 27 past the hour. we'll start with "the new york times." former new york congressman anthony weiner is considering a return to politipolitics. now, boys. according to former staffer and friends it's been more than a year since he was forced to resign from the house of representatives over an on-line scandal. weiner still has a reported $4.5 million in the bank for a possible run. he has to figure out what to do with that money before he can't use it anymore. >> what a country. >> no comment, thank you. brian sullivan, next paper. >> the "san francisco chronicle," secretary of state hillary clinton had a difficult trip to egypt. her first since the election of president mohamed morsi. the head of egypt's military says he will not let the muslim brotherhood dominate the country hours afters clinton asked him to work with the party. they pel letted her motorcade with shoes, bottles all while chanting "monica monica." guess what that is in reference too. >> screaming at the wrong person. "the los angeles times" reports of the 2.6 million jobs that have been created since 2009, 80% have gone to men. >> yes. >> what's wrong with you? the newspaper attributes the numbers to growth in manufacturing which tends to be dominated by men. federal data shows men are starting to take jobs in industries like retail which have traditionally had more women. a lot of shifts in the job market. remember the man session? let's go to politico. senior political reporter jonathan martin here with the morning playbook. >> good morning. >> you wrote the lead story this morning on politico.com. can the gop manage the mike in tampa. what's the story? >> there are a group of folks in the gop that the romney campaign is going to have to consider whether or not they're going to give them the opportunity to speak in tampa. like folks like george w. bush and dick cheney, sarah palin, donald trump, herman cain and newt gingrich and rick santorum. what will romney do with these folks who have a following in the gop but for swing voters may be somewhat provocative or even toxic. so they got to consider that. some of the options being thought about are video tributes, stuff that is offsite, but not prime time convention speeches. that's what they're trying to avoid is, giving some of the folks sort of mike in prime time. this is one of the challenges the party is dealing with. they want to keep the focus on romney and his running mate, whoever that will be, but a lot of folks in the party who have a following who will want to have some kind of spotlight down there in tampa. >> sam stein. >> it's a great piece and i'm wondering what behind the scenes is happening between the romney campaign and the faction, the leadership, whatever it is for the senator rand paul and ron paul who had been promising to have a sharp influence on the convention including on the platform process? >> i think there's going to be some attempt to mullify the paul folks when it comes to the platform. i've heard talk about giving them language about auditing the federal reserve which is an important issue for the pauls. look, i think what ron paul has said so far has been, in the eyes of a lot of establishment folks on the party, pretty good. he has encouraged his folks to have a positive tone. there's a video on-line that ron paul has posted promoting a rally he's having the night before the convention starts where he emphasizes the fact he wants his folks to stay positive. so that's being duly noted by a lot of folks at that national party in the romney campaign. >> all right. politico's jonathan martin, thank you very much. >> thanks, mika. >> up next on "morning joe," just months after lin sanity swept the big apple appears the new york knicks may be ready to let their young point guard walk. the latest on jeremy lin's future and an update on another star nick who found himself in cuffs over the weekend. oh, god. sports with brian sullivan, can you do sports for us? >> i can do anything for you, mika. >>ic that hey, i can do sports now kind of thing. >> he's got reign. >> hosting a show on msnbc sports thursday night. it's a natural segway. i'm all over the dial. >> "morning joe" is back in a moment. this happy couple used capital one venture miles for their "destination wedding." double miles you can "actually" use. but with those single mile travel cards... [ bridesmaid ] blacked out... but i'm a bridesmaid. oh! "x" marks the spot she'll never sit. but i bought a dress! a toast... ...to the capital one venture card. fly any airline, any flight, anytime. double miles you can actually use. what a coincidence? what's in your wallet? [ all screaming ] watch the elbows ladies. there it is ! there it is ! where ? where ? it's getting away ! where is it ? it's gone. we'll find it. any day can be an adventure. that's why we got a subaru. love wherever the road takes you. wow, there iis. so, what, now you're going to put on your sports guy tone? >> they just said basically that everybody else was on vacation, can you read the sports? i'm a friendly team oriented kind of guy. sure enough. >> oh, god. okay. we have another one here. we have a live one, dan senor. >> i don't think his tone will change at all. >> it will. he'll have to do that whole hey thing. i know it. just watch. >> lot of fist pump. >> can't play it straight. >> you know it. >> how confident are you? >> i'm pretty confident. >> want to lay money down on it? >> let's do it. >> oh, lord. >> less than 48 hours from now we may find out if lin sanity could possibly be larger in texasp you're right i can't. espn reports the new york knicks do not -- $3.25 million offer, jeremy lin, until 11:59 on tuesday to make a move. the structure of the offer which would pay would put him over the knicks luxury tax holder. anthony struck a critical tone when asked if he thouglin would back, saying it's not up to me, it's up to the organization to say they want to match that ridiculous contract. knicks would not be short on point guards if they decide to let lingo. acquired raymond felton and jason kidd. kidd's stay in new york got off to a rocky and dangerous start over the weekend. he was arrested early sunday morning and charged with a dwi after driving his cadillac escalade into a telephone pole near his home in the hamptons. to baseball now, where bryce harper found himself in a little dust up with marlins manager ozzy guillen on sunday. guillen questioned the achlts pine tar on harper's bat in the first inning and continued to raise concerns when harper came to bat in the fourth causing harper to point his bat at the marlins bench. this prompted strong words from guillen and a trip out to speaks to the umpire. harper did switch bats during the course of the game. finished the day 0 for 4. the nationals went on to win 4-0. and the yankees hosting the suddenly hot angels in the bronx in the first inning, mark teixeira accidentally threw his bat into the crowd. catch who comes up with it. director spike lee, can't believe it, showing off a swing to the crowd. later tweeted special shout out to my man mark te sheer that for signing the bat that flew into the stands at yankee stadium. here's a tip when the bat is headed for you, run/duck. deep fly ball to left center curtis granderson, look at this, amazing catch at the wall. top of the ninth, trumbo sends a line drive shot for a solo homer, angels up 10-5 on the 24th home run of the season. the yankees came back. i watched it because i'm an angels fan. they had a chance to win with two outs and bases loaded. a-rod pops up and albert pujols under it final out of the game. angels win it 10-8. >> i need more energy if you could. >> it's tough here. i'm not a sports guy. >> the philadelphia phillys are having a rough season so far but a play by one of their minor leaguers should be caught for at least optimism. james of the phillies aa team tracks down what looks like a sure home run climbs the wall and somehow comes down with the ball in his bare hand despite losing his glove over the fence. managed to switch the ball to his other hand when the glove started to come off. >> that's pretty clever. >> that is cool. >> sadly the play still was not enough to give the redding phillies the win. i know you'll be making an appearance at the redding phillies game this season. >> i'm going to throw out the first pitch. >> very first sports read in 16 years of on air. >> that was good. i could do it but they won't let me. do you think it's discrimination. >> no. >> all right. you're doing a triple play yourself this week triple duty. brian hosting "sports business" on thursday at 7:30 on sports. >> nbc is struggling. they have to mire hire more people. >> i threw you off. you have to admit it. >> i threw you off? >> with the sports. >> did you like the first voice my soft reading to my daughter tone. >> you were uncomfortable with yourself. >> good night, moon. >> remember "good, moon." do you know the words by heart. >> i still read it. >> say the words to me. >> i'm not going to do it. it's weird to do it early in the morning. >> you need to soften up your image given all this mitt romney stuff. >> good night moon, good night stars. >> you're the giving tree. >> i like it. when we come back we'll bring in the newly named chairman of the national govern's association. we're back in a moment with more "morning joe." down here, folks measure commitment by what's getting done. the twenty billion dollars bp committed has helped fund economic and environmental recovery. long-term, bp's made a five hundred million dollar commitment to support scientists studying the environment. and the gulf is open for business - the beaches are beautiful, the seafood is delicious. last year, many areas even reported record tourism seasons. the progress continues... but that doesn't mean our job is done. we're still committed to seeing this through. to your kids' wet skin. neutrogena® wet skin kids. ordinary sunblock drips and whitens. neutrogena® wet skin cuts through water. forms a broad spectrum barrier for full strength sun protection. wet skin. neutrogena®. ...more talk on social security... ...but washington isn't talking to the american people. [ female announcer ] when it comes to the future of medicare and social security, you've earned the right to know. ♪ ...so what does it mean for you and your family? [ female announcer ] you've earned the facts. ♪ washington may not like straight talk, but i do. [ female announcer ] and you've earned a say. get the facts and make your voice heard on medicare and social security at earnedasay.org. i just came back from bus tour in ohio and now starting to get into the campaign swing. i tell people this campaign still is about hope. if somebody asks you it's still about change. washington feels as broken as it did four years ago. and, you know, if you ask me what is the one thing that has frustrated me most over the last four years, it's not the hard work, it's not, you know, the enormity of the decisions, it's not the pace. >> 44 past the hour. welcome back to "morning joe." with us now from capitol hill, we have the democratic governor of delaware, jack markell, also the newly minted chairman of the national governors association. congratulations, governor. >> thank you. good morning. >> good to have you on the show. we have been just painfully picking on dan senor who, of course, represents the romney campaign. >> coming here is like stockholm -- >> i know it's going to be tough for you. you're going to have a tough week. i have to let you have the first question. >> hey, governor. >> good morning. >> basic question, you have a successful business background, you're now engaged in public service, if you were running against president obama, given the economic record of the last 41 months, would you be focusing this election on economy? would you be making the case on the economy the same way governor romney is? >> i think the president has taken some incredibly important steps in terms of making the economy better. if you look at it, 28, 29 months in a row of job growth across the country. recently signed the jobs act, which was terrific and makes it easier for companies to go public because so many companies create jobs after they go public. focused on export promotion, on foreign direct investments. i think -- i'm not sure i'm the best one to give that advice. >> unemployment above 8%. >> yeah. >> for 41 months. half a million net job losses since he's been president. he hasn't talked about obama care. he's talked little about the stimulus. why isn't he focusing on these great successes, if he's trying to make the case that you're trying to make which is the economy is doing better than the numbers point to? >> i think he realizes there's a lot more to be done. he's the first one to realize it. nobody is satisfied with unemployment where it is, but clearly stepped in and inherited an economy in freefall. i remember the first national governors association meeting i went to a couple years ago, in february of 2009, it was probably the most sobering meetings i've ever sat through. we met with the head of omb, secretary of treasury, head of the federal reserve, and at the sime, they really were not certain what was -- we were at in the abyss with the freezing of the financial markets, weren't sure what was on the other end, and while it's not as good as any of us would want it to be, i thank god we stepped back from something so awful at the time. >> joe scarborough, listening to the governor and dan talk about these very important extremely legitimate questions, isn't it also not only easier, but effective, to be taking the attack that obama campaign is taking on romney's record, his tax returns as well as his history with bain? >> right. you're not going to hear barack obama, you're not going to hear joe biden, the obama campaign talking about what the governor has to talk about every day in delaware and what governors across america have to talk about and that is, how are they going to get people back to work over the next four years? how are they going to balance their budget? how are they going to take care of shortfalls. governor with all due respect, you may be talking about these things in your home state and may be talking about what barack obama has done over the past four years, but their focus, if you look at where they're investing their money and time, is class warfare against mitt romney. what he did at bain capital in the 1990s, what he did on his own tax returns. when will he start talking about what governors have to talk about every day, and that is telling the voters how the next four years are going to be better. >> first of all, i think if you're mitt romney and you're running based on your experience in the private sector, that experience is absolutely fair game. i also as you mentioned i have a private sector background and we have learned very different things from our backgrounds. i mean i think private equity can be very, very benefited in . at the same time if you're a private equity ceo your constituency are your shareholders. your constituency it's not your neighbors, not teachers, it's all about the bottom line and if that -- and if the meantime it's good for the community, so be it, but as you can tell from some of the decisions that mitt romney made at bain with some of the companies and? of the decisions they made, he realized looking out for neighbors and teachers was not really his job. one of the things as governor, you've really got to figure out how you'll build a strong middle class. this election poses an unbelievable choice where, you know, the president is focused how do we continue to improve schools, how do we focus on job training to make sure there's still workers available. >> i have to cut you off governor. i don't see an unbelievable choice between barack obama and mitt romney. as jon meacham said on friday, i see it a pressing choice at times by two different campaigns running two very cynical campaigns where they're spending millions and millions of dollars on 30-second ads and just keep attacking each other. are you -- what campaign are you listening to? i'm not hearing about ideas about what we do over the next four years to make america better. i'm looking at two candidates attacking each other about what they did in the past. >> listen, i think that's what gets a lot of the media attention but that being said i think they've laid out two very different platforms. i think for me the defining moment on the presidential and republican side was when mitt romney joined seven other leaders of running for president last august in iowa, none of them would take the 10 to 1 spending to revenue deal. and at the same time, the president is focusing on a strategy that will build a strong middle class. i think it's quite different, even if that's not getting what is most of the attention from the press. >> wait. governor even if -- let's talk about fiscal responsibility. i'm so glad you brought it up because none of the republican candidates would raise their hands when given a ten to one spending opportunity. everybody laughed and said, god, they are fiscally reckless. well, barack obama said in february of 2009, one month after getting into office, social security was going to go bankrupt. that medicare was a major crisis waiting to happen and we couldn't, quote, kick the can down the road. well, he's kicked the can down the road for four years. he had a presidential debt commission. they got thrown under the bus. if you want to talk about mitt romney's recklessness and irresponsibility that's fine, but [ inaudible ] shouldn't the president of the united states have done something to save social security, save medicare? shouldn't he have embraced simpson-bowles? >> my sense first of all, i think that last year when the debt limit was getting so much attention, he tried to make something work. obviously that fell apart with the speaker. also's no question ef we've got a lot of work to do in that area and we have to make sure we're putting people back to work. i think he would be the first one to say, i've heard him say it, we have to continue to do better, continue to make the economic climate better so we're putting more people back to work and i absolutely believe he's laid -- he has laid out a strategy to do just that. >> governor jack markell, thank you so much. >> thanks. >> still ahead, "time" magazine's joe klein, also senior adviser to the romney campaign kevin madden. "morning joe" in just a moment. this is new york state. we built the first railway, the first trade route to the west, the greatest empires. then, some said, we lost our edge. well today, there's a new new york state. one that's working to attract businesses and create jobs. a place where innovation meets determination... and businesses lead the world. the new new york works for business. find out how it can work for yours at thenewny.com. the wife. hey, babe. got the jetta. i wiped the floor with the guy! not really. i would've been fine with 0% for 36 months, but i demanded 60. no...i didn't do that. it was like taking candy from a baby. you're a grown man. alright, see you at home. [ male announcer ] the volkswagen autobahn for all event. we good? we're good. 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[ jennifer ] join for $1. weight watchers. believe. because it works. he was still ceo and had shares but he wasn't responsible for management and that's the bottom line. >> even when he was on leave does he stand by business decisions made by the firm he created? >> he actually retired retroactively at that point because he ended up not going back to the firm after his time in salt lake city. he was actually retired from bain. look, bain is a good company, been very successful, helped create a lot of jobs and the fact is private sector experience is a beneficial thing, it would be beneficial in the white house and, you know, the obama campaign and the president -- >> he stands behind decisions the company has made about call centers or about outsourcing, which in a lot of circles is considered good business? >> in terms of stands by them i don't know what you mean. they weren't his decisions. he wasn't there when those decisions were made. bain is a good company. >> give it up about stephanie. what will you do when the chinese or putin says something to you? whine your way. you cannot do that. as mitt romney said once to his republican colleagues stop whining. give him his own advice, stop whining. if you want to claim bain capital is your calling card to the white house defend what happened to bain capital and those jobs that went overseas, those jobs that were cut and eliminated and the companies that went into bankruptcy. >> welcome back to "morning joe." dan senor, in fits here. harold ford jr. and brian sullivan are still with us along with sam stein in washington and joining us on the set political columnist for "time" magazine, joe klein. so dan senor, when ed gillespie said that mitt romney retired retroactively, did you just hunch over like this is or put your head in your hands and start shaking your head? >> let's have a new discussion. mitt romney was gone from bain capital during the two years that obama campaign wants to focus on. this campaign has evolved into silly land. >> joe, help me out here. i'm sure joe scarborough, i'm sure that dan senor put his head in his hands and started to cry and weep like a baby, don't you think? >> i don't know. i am trying to figure out why dan senor comes on our show he's always outnumbered like 20 to 1 every time he comes on. it's like 20 to 1. it's unbelievable. i feel like -- i feel like we're in gladiator and let the lions go on the chains and pull them back a little and dan has to like -- yeah, joe klein, though, the important question right now as we sit here and look forward to fall campaign, is whether all this bain talk by the white house is sinking through to the american people or not because as you know, you've been out there, you did the joe klein tour, you do more than the grateful did apparently. >> exactly. >> it's unbelievable. times fish with joe klein. do the american 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 much larger thing and the biggest part was willie horton, which sent the message that democrats were soft on crime. >> okay. >> and here, what obama and the obama campaign is doing is sending the message that mitt romney has practiced a form of capitalism that isn't good for this country. >> joe, let me -- >> so mika, before you do that, let us record though, i know dan senor has recorded this as a good republican, that joe klein has compared the obama campaign to lee atwater's willie horton smear campaign. >> absolutely. >> i'm sorry, go ahead, mika. >> absolutely. i have. >> and used the term swift boating. >> swift boating. >> this is swift baining. >> yes. let me help you all. joe, i'm going to read from joe klein's piece in "time" magazine entitled "bained." mitt romney is experiencing a dukakis like summer playing defense. the obama campaign has also constructed a brilliant coffin custom made for a turnaround artist. the current controversy over whether romney was or was not running bain capital from the years 1999 to 2002 is a relatively minor nail. the is will make the obama campaign larger point, the republicans defending an economy distorted by financial games playing over the past 30 years in which the rich make deals, not products, and pay very little taxes on their curiously gotten gains. the argument may well prove to be an effective one, especially if romney continues to behave as dukakis did, refusing to respond to the large esh issues raised by the well constructed demolition job that has been visited upon him. joe scarborough, take it to the panel. >> yeah. i want to start with sam stein. do you agree that this has all the makings of a 1988 dukakis, willie horton campaign or a 2004 swift boating campaign against mitt romney. >> is there some curse for massachusetts politician running for president? why is always massachusetts politicians that get the treatment. the willie horton had racial components to it. the swift boating was a different beast in part because it had to deal with john kerry's war record. but in the respect of taking someone's perceived strength, in this case mitt romney's business background and turning it into weakness, yes, i think there are similarities, obviously. and you know, to the larger point of whether this is breaking through to the public, you know, it's -- the debate over when he was at bain and left bain, no one actually cares about it. what we're arguing is whether or not the obama campaign can legitimately air ads accusing mitt romney of overseeing or being a part or benefitting from outsourcing. we've talked about the deals and whether or not he was at bain was sort of irrelevant because these were his people, this was his culture. i've yet to hear the romney campaign or romney say whether or not he approved of those deals that took place in '99 through 2002, not signing off on the deal itself, but conceptual, whether he thought they were bad things. that's the key issue here. >> yeah. but ryan sullivan, this is part of a much bigger campaign and, as joe klein said, a brush job, they're painting with a broadest of brush and it's got class warfare all over it and there are a lot of democrats and james carville was one of them, he came on last week saying, class warfare works and it's going to work against mitt romney. is that what we're watching? >> look at the undertones what we're talking about here. what's the dirty word in all this? rich. he's a rich guy. he's one of the rich guys. >> no, no, no, no. no, no, no. he's a rich guy who doesn't pay taxes. >> okay. first -- joe, joe, can i ask you -- >> what rich guy does? >> no, that's -- >> do you pay more than you have to in taxes? >> i pay -- >> do you pay what your accountant says you have to pay, right? you send him extra money? >> of course not. >> all mitt romney likely did was pay what he had to. >> this is a phony argument you're making. >> why? >> mitt romney doesn't set tax rates. >> the problem isn't mitt romney. the problem he is an honorable guy. i think that the problem is the tax structure -- >> i agree with that. >> that rewards making deals instead of making products. >> i can agree with that. i wrote an article about a month ago saying the gop should support the buffet rule, raise taxes on those who make more than $1 million a year. >> not the buffet rule. >> change the capital gains taxation structure. the amount of money they're going to raise is so insignificant that it shouldn't even enter our dialog but yet -- >> you're raising the wrong taxes. >> the political dialog. >> the government makes more in erroneous payments a year than raising taxes on the rich. >> whenever you're done let me know so i can tell you what to do. >> you know this is a perfect time for? >> a break. >> no. >> what's that? >> it's time to bring? senior -- >> a drink. >> romney campaign -- does he need a drink or was that sam stein? >> that was me. >> kevin madden. he's good. he's not sweating a bit. he's smiling, he's happy. you understand the point here. >> i didn't even need caffeine this morning. >> here is the argument. listen to this argument and there's this tax return issue. where do we begin? i'll let you start. go ahead. make a choice. tax returns, bain, all these questions, rich guy. you got a problem, do you not? >> no. because i think right now what you're looking at is an american public that wants to see the candidates talk about the iss s issues. they want to hear from energy to health care to trade to even to brian's point they want to hear about comprehensive tax reform. there's only one candidate talking about that and that's governor romney. also only one candidate talking about the future, president obama who ran on all this hope and change and talk about changing washington in 2008, failed to change washington and has totally obsessed with talking about the past and actually seeded the argument of what we're going to do to fix our economy in the future. how we'll have more jobs, greater prosperity in the future. so we've aligned ourselves with the american public. the persuadable voter out there is not interested in hearing about s.e.c. or 1999. they're much more interested in hearing about what we're going to do to bring down 8.2% unemployment, what we're going to do to create jobs for the 23 million americans right now that are struggling to find jobs. so -- >> but you know -- >> joe scarborough here -- >> this opportunity to align ourselves with the american public sentiment. >> joe? >> well, you talk about aligning yourself with the american public. you have to admit we republicans chose a curious candidate four years after lehman brothers, four years after the biggest wall street scandal of all times, four years after the big bust on wall street, in september of 2008. and it seems like the obama campaign, whether they're being cynical about it or not, are playing it very smart and understand that the american public has no problem with rich guys. the american public does have a problem with rich guys who pay lower tax rates than the secretaries who work for them. isn't that where the obama campaign's going? joe klein said, this is a rich guy that doesn't pay taxes. >> it's where they're going. there's no doubt. i mean they have decided -- i mean they are betting that this is a campaign about what is in governor romney's financial disclosures. we're betting that this is a campaign, we are interested in making this a campaign, about whether or not we're going to be able to manage america's finances better, whether or not yerp we're going to be able to create jobs, whether the person sitting at home watching this right now who doesn't have a job, can find one or the person that has one isn't worried about losing it. you know, i agree with you. i concede the fact that the obama campaign is going to make this a campaign about distractions and we're going to see that as an opportunity and governor romney has done that throughout this entire campaign to talk about the issues that matter. >> harold ford jr. >> kevin, good morning. quickly. >> good morning. >> brian said a while ago talking about taxes he and joe were having this conversation back and forth -- >> i was yelling at joe. >> it wasn't a conversation because i never got my -- >> i never said what i was going to say. >> it sounded like the irish household i grew up in. >> no american will pay more in taxes than he or she has to. we pay what we're asked to pay. mitt romney in the last few years at least, i guess the last return we saw, paid somewhere between 12% and 13% or maybe a tenth of a percent more plus or minus. largely because he followed the rules. is it not fair, just you and i talking and thinking about the campaign, is it not fair for americans to believe that someone who earns 10 to $12 million a year, no matter how they earn it, should at least be paying what the second or highest tax bracket is, meaning the buffet rule the president came up with, which i'm not crazy about, i don't see how you implement it, but there's ledge placey to it, a guy making $12 million ought to at least pay what a guy is making $250,000 a year? >> congressman, thank you for your first point which was that he has paid all his taxes in full. >> okay. >> legally. he's followed the rules. >> wait until see we the rest of the returns we'll have a better sense. should he be paying more? >> the taxes that were released 2010 and 2011, they showed that the governor paid about $6 million in taxes. that was on the dividends. the most important thing to remember is that these -- that those taxes were already taxed before. they're taxed at the corporate rate when -- as corporate profits and then they're taxed when they're taxed as dividends when reported an those tax returns. that's the important thing for people to remember. not only have these profits been taxed once but another time. the public is entitled to a larger discussion about tax reform, comprehensive tax reform, what we'll do to even reform our corporate tax rates so american businesses both big and small are much more competitive in a global economy. >> so, i saved this for you, kevin. because i think dan senor needs a break. >> i'm just having my coffee here. i'm glad kevin is on the show. >> here's this ad, it was released on saturday accusing your candidate mitt romney of shipping american jobs overseas. take a look. >> i'm barack obama. i approve this message. >>. ♪ oh beautiful for spacious skies for waves of gray ♪ ♪ for purple mountains majesty above the fruited plains ♪ ♪ america ♪ god shed his grace on thee ♪ ♪ and crown thy good with brotherhood ♪ >> wow. joe, i don't know. you can take it to kevin. i just -- that's a good ad. >> i think mocking them -- are they mocking him for singing -- >> he does not sing well. >> yeah. i was just going to say, kevin madden, it makes me sad that the obama campaign hates that song. >> right. >> i mean it's -- that's where senor was going with that, wasn't he? >> yeah. >> no, they're mocking him for singing patriotic songs. >> oh come on. >> patriotic songs while -- >> they're going to burn the american flag next, right? joe klein, it's 1988 all over again. no, actually, kevin, though, that's a pretty darn impressive ad. use a guy's own voice, you use an a tactic that he runs around singing patriotic songs and then put up those headlines that's fairly effective stuff. how do you answer it? >> can't hear. >> it's easy to put together ads like that. time and time again, fact check after fact check has shown that the president and his campaign are being misleading when making these charges. most importantly, look, there are middle class workers across this country out of work in the obama economy yet barack obama in his stimulus bill, he outsourced millions of dollars overseas. of taxpayer dollars while people are out of work. he also gave millions of dollars, billions of dollars to those -- to companies that were his political benefactors. i american public that looks at that ad recognizes the charges are false but in the stimulus bill there were billions going overseas, the president was outsourcing of taxpayer dollars and there were billions of dollars going to the president's political benefactors that is a much more important issue to the voters that are going to be making up their mind in november. >> hey -- >> joe klein, wanted to ask if that ad fits in in the column you wrote. >> you wrote about -- >> oh, yeah. that's true. can i ask kevin something? >> yeah. >> there's a way you guys can get out of this. it is by making a bold proposal, by actually proposing something. in this week's weekly standard, which is a conservative magazine, ear win stelzer an economist proposes you guys really get tough and specific on wall street reform. we have the situation of moral hazard, we're five banks control about 80% of the assets in this country. why doesn't romney propose breaking up those banks or doing something along those lines? the problem with your campaign is you propose tax reform but you don't tell us how you're going to pay for it. there haven't been any specifics. why not get -- start getting specific now to get yourself out of this rut? >> you're absolutely wrong about the governor not being specific. the governor romney at the beginning of this campaign put together 160 page book -- >> i read it. there's nothing in it. >> well there's nothing in it. 59 points. you don't happen to agree with them. >> 59 points or 59 platitudes. >> there's not 59 platitudes. 59 important points that will help move the american economy forward. look you have to contrast that joe, with your candidate, president obama -- >> listen, president obama w who -- as well, this has been a nothing campaign on both sides. both president obama and governor romney should be getting specific, but the fact is, that it's on you guys now because you're playing defense. >> and most importantly i think the governor doesn't have a tax plan or a spending plan that's going to be punitive toward the american public and businesses both big and small. that's what you have from president obama. what why you have from governor romney as a 59-point plan that's going to address the american public's number one issue, number one anxiety, which is the economy. how do we bring down spending, have comprehensive tax reform have trade, policies, energy policies and health care policies that will fix the economy. those are the specifics they want to hear. you look at our ads -- >> hold on. >> our ads contrasted with president obama's, he talks about on day one exactly what he would do to start moving the american economy forward. president obama just attacks. >> okay. sam stein, now you want to get a question in. jump in. >> same question i've been trying to get an answer to for a while now. grant for a second that mitt romney had no control or say over these controversial deals that occurred between 1999 and 2002. let's grant that. does he, however, looking back at what his former associates and his former company, does he agree with those deals? what does he think about those deals in which jobs were either outsourced or offshored depending on the terminolo you to use. >> the terminology isn't sourcing. what is it we're going to be doing to create an economic environment here where those decisions are made to bring jobs here in the united states. >> that's not even close to addressing my question. >> it's absolutely close. it's not the answer that you want, sam. but it's the answer -- >> about the deals specifically. >> pardon me? >> i want to know about those deals specifically, does the governor think that those were good deals for bain? >> those deals were made by -- those decisions made folks running the company differently. i don't have the details of what the decision making went into it. often times what happens with those decisions is you software companies, you have different types of companies that have to go out and have manufacturing needs and when they go to look for companies that have manufacturing needs that they don't have, they often times those are manufacturing outposts around the globe. but the most important thing that we can answer, what is we're going to do to create more jobs here in the country and that's where governor romney has a much superior plan than president obama. >> okay. brian sullivan. >> steaming a little bit here. we always talk about on this network we don't do anything big anything more in america. apparently we don't talk about anything big in america. look at the nuances in the language and dialog we're having here. you have 15 million unemployed people, every year more than 1 million kids dropping out of high school or economic future is really clouded. joe in your blog this weekend you pointed to an article from "the new york times" about the struggles of single mothers and how their economic prospects are just basically almost, if not bleak, nearly bleak. all these major issues in the country and yet housing crisis, and yet we're digging in to what mitt romney may or may not have done as the ceo of a private equity firm 13 years ago when if you were the ceo of that firm, you probably would have acted the same way that he acted because i guarantee you knowing a lot of these guys they're doing what their lawyers and accountants tell them to do. not saying let's do this. where are the big picture dialog we're going to have in this country. the discussion about why a million drop out of high school every year. >> i don't have a candidate, i have issues. and in fact, i've had the same issue with president obama when it comes to moral hazard. to the fact that you have these five big banks who are too big to fail. >> bigger now than precrisis. >> bigger now than precrisis. >> okay. >> and this is a major problem that america has that neither candidate is addressing. >> here's the question, though, kevin, because part of the problem is, the mystery involved here. i just -- give me a list, brian, just objectively, what potentially is worse case scenario that could be in mitt romney's tax returns? i'll explain why i'm getting to this? what's the worse case scenario. >> he paid zero a couple years. >> yeah. >> kevin -- >> both my parents are accountants. >> can we just -- isn't part of wiping the slate clean just kind of erasing the mystery and bringing some transparency to the table? much like mitt romney's father did when he was running? >> well, governor romney has gone above and beyond the law when it comes to disclosing tax returns. he's disclosed 2010 and 2011 and showed that he paid approximately about $6 million in taxes, $7 million on top of that was given to charity which is about 16% of his income. that's on top, mika, of the hundreds of pages that are turned over as part of financial disclosures with the s.e.c. that was a process that the governor went through comprehensively in 2012, as well as in 2008. the reason that you're even seeing any of these charges from the obama campaign is because they're talking about things that are in the governor's financial disclosure requirements. >> yeah. but you know -- >> one year, 7%? >> $7 million was about 16% of his pay, kevin? >> that's right. >> so he made about $85 million 37. >> right? >> and it's -- if he paid $6 million in taxes he paid about an 8% tax rate. >> well no. the tax rate that the governor paid was already disclosed and actually higher than that. >> okay. >> the numbers do the math. >> he's released what mccain released, release the number of returns that john kerry released. three years, should do four years. they just want to have a discussion about tax returns for the next 4 1/2 months. it will never end. >> it won't end until he releases them. that's the way the game works. >> okay. . >> as opposed to talking about 41 months north of 8% unemployment. >> kevin madden, thank you. you're a good sport. >> great to be with you. >> thank you. i know. come back. be be on the set with us. >> joe klein, thank you as well. coming up, from gray to green, our next guest looks at how new york city is transforming its concrete image. "the new york times" columnist bruni on fire. you're watching "morning joe," he's on fire, brewed by starbucks. >> he's on fire? >> his columns are so good. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ not in this economy. we also have zero free time, and my dad moving in. so we went to fidelity. we looked at our family's goals and some ways to help us get there. they helped me fix my economy, the one in my house. now they're managing my investments for me. and with fidelity, getting back on track was easier than i thought. call or come in today to take control of your personal economy. get one-on-one help from america's retirement leader. to your kids' wet skin. neutrogena® wet skin kids. ordinary sunblock drips and whitens. neutrogena® wet skin cuts through water. forms a broad spectrum barrier for full strength sun protection. wet skin. neutrogena®. we are having a public forum tomorrow night and it would be great if you could come voice your strong support. >> tomorrow? i can't. i'm busy. sorry. >> we understand people are busy but we would love for you to come to the meeting. >> sorry. good luck. >> would it change your mind if we told you? >> she's gone. >> park, sounds like a good idea. >> would you be willing to come to a town meeting and show your support? >> absolutely. is this park going to have a playground or pool for the kids? >> how old are your kids? >> no kids. >> put him down as a yes. >> don't do that. >> i think this is a great idea but i can't make any forum. i would have to get a babysitter. >> how old are your kids? >> 4 and 2. >> could the 4-year-old watch the 2-year-old. >> okay. >> i like that show. she's funny. >> from nbc's "parks and recreation" a comedy that pokes fun at the battles that government officials often face in a local community, and here with us now columnist for "the new york times" frank bruni who gives an example of city officials here in new york who are actually winning the battle to promote parks. in his latest column frank writes in part, whenever you doubt that the future can improve upon the past or that government can play a pivotal role in that, consider and revel in the extraordinary greening of new york. this city looks nothing, nothing like it did just a decade and a half ago. it's a place of newly gorgeous waterfront promenades of trees, tall grasses and blooming flowers on patches of land and peninsulas of concrete and even stretches of rail tracks that were blithed or blank before. it's a lush retort to the pessimism of this era, burden proof that growth remains probable at least with the requisite will and right strategies. the highline is cool. >> the highline is awesome. >> it's the coolest thing. >> the high hooin is awesome. don't know if you've been in the west 60s to the waterfront there, that's just as awesome. mind blowing when you bike or walk around the city and look at what's happened to glean spaces. >> up on high floors see it on rooftops little patches everywhere. beautifully write about. and is there sort of a bigger lesson to be learned in terms of political will? i hate you have to write another love letter to mike bloomberg after what you wrote yesterday, i don't agree with the third term but a lot of what he said. >> i don't agree with a third term, but he has been a mayor dedicated to quality of life. he's often transcended partisanship. new york is different than washington, d.c. a lot that can be learned from mike bloomberg. he's had a bunch of nurse. education remains a disaster in the city and the police force has a lot to answer for, but brian, before him, said we talk about not big things not getting done anymore in this country and that was right and here in new york, something big has happened over the last decade in particular under the bloomberg administration, our city has gotten greener, more beautiful, you see that spurring businesses all around the highline. i think it's boosted tourism and just it's a happy story at a time when we all feel pessimistic. >> and angry at politicians, brian. >> it might pay for itself. study after study shows that when you have quality of life, you have trains close to you, right, when you have parks that are close to you, housing prices go up, new york city doesn't have property taxes in a way that many of the rest of america has, but there are fees associated maintenance whatever. these types of quality of life improvements i would imagine, frank, are going to elevate the city economically because more people want to move into the city. >> absolutely. >> right? which will drive up demand, drive up property. you know, there's benefits to spending this money. >> but you mentioned finances and we should talk about something too, how creatively these parks have been funded. another good story here, this isn't just about government, this is about government, private partnerships. >> the highline is privately maintained. >> privately maintained by donations and concessions, brooklyn bridge park even more magnificent than the highline is going to be maintained mostly through assessments on the real estate developed around it. this is government finding ways not only to do things but to get the private sector to pay for a fair share. >> harold? >> on education and crime which i think bloomberg has done a phenomenal job and will be missed in ways we can't appreciate your article touches on much of it, but education and crime what can -- you've written about but on education he's trying and i give credit to any politician who continues to make investments, continue to try different strad strategies and if they work the ones that work you try to replicate. klein sometimes gets a bad rep but he tried and for that matter showed positive results. what more can they be doing. how more creative can they be in brooklyn and the bronx. talk about the great stuff in brooklyn in terms of the transformation. i would agree with you. what's happening in brooklyn is greater than manhattan in terms greek of the city. what can be done around schools and education. >> i'm not sure but one thing he tried and failed do and butted his head against is the teacher unions. we knows there needs to be more give and cooperation from the teacher union. i don't know if any city, new york or elsewhere, how much we can accomplish if we don't get more flexibility. >> i can tell you. i had a conversation about this last week with the commercial real estate developer friend of mine, needs to be more schools in new york, period. 100 kids apply for every one private school spot. >> so sad. >> public school is struggling. there's a lot of zoning issues that go along so this guy is a friend of mine and a great idea, tell developers you want to build a 50 story building, you can build a 70 story building but the first ten floors have to be a school. right. use the private demand and sort of capitalist instinct to build public spaces on the first few floors because more schools reduce overcrowding. >> in great locations. >> yeah. >> the whole issue -- >> seems simple to me. >> when we talk about as we are a lot in this presidential campaign disparities in american life there's no disparity as great as the education that has gotten by children of parents of means who will pay soaring costs for private schools -- >> front page of your paper yesterday. >> right. >> about single moms. >> i see parents making extraordinary sacrifices to send their kids to the best schools when they can, but parents who don't have that ability, are sending their kids to public schools and -- >> losing all around. >> the decline in this country. >> that's our new future. >> 20 years of the city of giuliani and bloomberg. giuliani did important work, changes in times square, broken windows policy. bloomberg maintains a lot and did a lot more. we're about to head into a zone of a mayor most new yorkers have never heard of, whoever the next mayor. the candidates running most have no idea who they are. most are career politicians. >> who's running? >> i don't even know. >> christine quinn, bill deblaz yo, scott stringer. >> you make it -- >> do you think we take this for granted? new yorkers are starting to take this city for granted all the great work done through the two decades of bloomberg and giuliani. it's going to continue -- >> not going to go for a fourth term is he? >> no. i think he's pretty much -- >> it's going to continue and reality things can turn sideways quickly. >> you raise a great point. we've had very aggressive ass t asserted mayors and the next person has big shoes to fill and once we do turn our attention to that campaign, i think people need to pay careful attention. >> mayor of the most important city of the world. >> frank bruney, thank you so much. your work is amazing. we love reading it. >> huge fan of your column. >> it's so beautiful. beautiful reads. standing by in the green room congressman jim clyburn of south carolina. first the quiet police trying in london. where the plug is pulled on a concert featuring none other than the boss. >> amazing. >> and paul mccartney. hello? that's not good. you don't do that. we'll tell you why that epic music duo was pushed off stage. more "morning joe" in just a moment. 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nbc's duncan gillstani has the story. ♪ two, three, four >> reporter: two music legends one incredible finale. ♪ >> reporter: until, that is, someone cut the microphones. springsteen's good-bye silent to the crowd, just left the sound of booing. among the 65,000 fans, was nbc's keir simmons. >> people didn't seem to know what was going on. you have mccartney, springsteen, they're playing beatles numbers. it's amazing. people are dancing. and then suddenly silence. they're still singing the band still playing, but you can't hear it. >> reporter: just minutes earlier, it had been so different. springsteen is renowned for giving his fans more. head he'd already played for three hours when sir paul mccartney surprised the crowd by joining him performing beatles hits like "twist and shout." but residents in the affluent neighborhood surrounding hyde park have demanded a noise curfew and the concert was already over the limit when it was suddenly shut down. angry guitarist steven van zands took to twitter saying english cops may be the only individual left on earth that wouldn't want to hear another. >> when i'm jamming with mccartney don't bug me. neither local authority nor concert organizers are saying who stopped the music. >> a bit of confusion and a bit of a shame, i guess. is. >> reporter: london's mayor says the stars should have been allowed to play on. this performance will be remember as the day the boss broke curfew. and the plugs got pulled. >> just don't do that. even i know that. that doesn't happen. >> it's not cool. >> someone blew up on stage. this guy got angry. >> imagine if they just pulled like your and joe's plug one morning. >> oh, no. i couldn't imagine that. >> the "morning joe" audience, i think, based on twitter might want to pull the plug when you or i are speaking. >> we retired retroactively. >> the same guy from london to come and -- >> up next, jim clyburn. keep it here on "morning joe." this is new york state. we built the first railway, the first trade route to the west, the greatest empires. then, some said, we lost our edge. well today, there's a new new york state. one that's working to attract businesses and create jobs. a place where innovation meets determination... and businesses lead the world. the new new york works for business. find out how it can work for yours at thenewny.com. 45 past the hour. welcome back to "morning joe." joining us now on set, democratic congressman from south carolina, jim clyburn. i sense we're going to be going back to lizards thickets. >> oh. >> i hope you meet us there. i think looking at you you probably will make very good choices there. >> thank you. >> yes. you look very good, sir. >> i'm on the reservoir plate now. >> good. >> let's start with your approval ratings in congress how you are doing. they're up. >> well -- >> to 16%. they're not too good. what's going on? why can't we affect some change here and make people feel like something is getting done in maybe because nothing is getting done. >> that's quite true. nothing is getting done and i don't think it's designed to get anything done between now and the elections. we're going to tread water and wait on the -- what i've been calling the mother of all lame ducks. >> really? >> i don't think we'll get much done before november. >> what about on the tax issue with trying from $250,000 on up, make them stay in place as well as two others? is that argument -- is there going to be any compromise? >> we're trying to keep in place all income up to $250,000. >> and here's a poll on it in terms of who is for extending the tax cuts for everyone, 52%, for those only making under $250,000 which the president wants, 43%. >> you know, me kashgs timika, we're having people are explaining it wrong. it's not on the person. all income under $250,000 which means that if you're making $1 million a year, you still get the tax cut on your first 250. the tax will only apply on income above 250. >> right. >> so every single american will be subjected to this tax cut. >> and republicans will say that hurts businesses. that hurts job growth. that really hurts the very companies that are trying to get people back to work. >> and i'm -- >> job creators. >> i think that most people, including small businesses, want to see us get this deficit under control and for us to do that, i think the people with income above $250,000 a year ought to really help us pay this deficit down. >> harold, jump in. >> good morning. always good to see you. a movement aing among some democrats if you raise the number to $1 million to 250, first of all politically and optically might be easy to understand except someone making million is wealthy, people pointed out you can find in some cities, a family of four, both parents working, both school teachers and they make a quarter of a million dollars a year or a little more and may be subjected to the higher taxes. is there a possibility that number can jump to a millen. >> you said perhaps the most pressing for me, you don't think anything will happen before the lame duck. what set of events could cause congress to maybe want to act before the election? republicans and democrats, particularly the republican leadership, to bring something to the floor, be it on avoiding the fiscal cliff, avoiding sequestration. these are issues the business community is deeply concerned about as well. >> most experts, at least the ones that i have been paying attention to, do not believe we're going to a cliff. it's more of a slide. they think we have time beyond december 31st in order to get some things done. so if you are looking at a sort of an economic slide, rather than a cliff, then i think it's okay for us to spend too much, during the lame duck, really doing maybe a one-year fix until such time we can have public hearings. i believe we ought not go into tax reform without having some real significant input from the american people. i think so much of what has happened in washington is because we have not been listening to the american people. we have not engaged them in this process. we go into these committee rooms and come out with these platitudes. people want to be involved in this process and let's go forward working together. if we were to do that, be take a year, maybe 2013, and really have significant input from the american people, then they'll buy in to whatever it is we're doing. why are our ratings so low? people don't feel they have to buy in. >> congressman and sam stein, harold talks about letting that number go up to a million dollars. a number of senate democrats, eight by my last count, that think $250,000 cutoff is too low a threshold. so where are they coming from? i mean, you know, they're not just doing the bidding as you would agree is too low a threshold. these are democratic senators who care about thriving small businesses in their states and they think $250,000 is too punitive and too distorting and stifling for our economy right now. >> the question is, let's have that debate. >> let's go into basic numbers. the president's tax plan on the top 2%, estimated to raise between 60 and $100 billion. the american public as evidenced by that graphic, 48% basically said let it go up on everybody. they know taxes have to go up on everybody or services have to be cut on everybody. true or false? >> that's quite true. >> so, why are we having this debate about the top 2%? why don't they say we raise taxes on everybody or have to cut because the -- >> because they have to deal with the disparity out there. >> we'll talk about the ten-year plan. let's look at the balanced approach to this. look, i sat on this so-called super committee. we had a lot of meetings. i'm telling you, the numbers you're using are not the numbers that we are getting from cbo when we sit down to talk about how to project out for the next ten years. i think having this $250,000 exception is a good way to start paying down the debt. if you create the growth, the number, just as they appear today, not taking into account any growth that takes place in the economy when you're doing this, then you're correct. but if you start looking at what will the growth be after 28 months and 48 months. >> i agree. >> absolutely. and that's what we're working hard to do. >> there's a book coming out tomorrow in dallas. jim clyburn, thank you very much. still ahead, good to see you by the way. see you in south carolina. sports illustrated is out with its fortunate 50 list of america's top earning athletes. are the best of the best of the best. they don't get any bester than this! omg it's kosher. with no fillers, by-products, artificial flavors or colors. hebrew national. the better-than-a-hot dog- hot dog. 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[ male announcer ] new bengay zero degrees. freeze and move on. not in this economy. we also have zero free time, and my dad moving in. so we went to fidelity. we looked at our family's goals and some ways to help us get there. they helped me fix my economy, the one in my house. now they're managing my investments for me. and with fidelity, getting back on track was easier than i thought. call or come in today to take control of your personal economy. get one-on-one help from america's retirement leader. is now in our new starbucks refreshers™ -- a breakthrough in natural energy. made with real fruit, starbucks refreshers™ are delicious low calorie drinks you can feel good about. ♪ rethink how you re-energize. ♪ get a boost of natural energy with a new starbucks refreshers™, in three ways. natural energy from green coffee extract, only from starbucks. there it is ! there it is ! where ? where ? it's getting away ! where is it ? it's gone. we'll find it. any day can be an adventure. that's why we got a subaru. love wherever the road takes you. wow, there it is. first of all, you're not going to apologize. >> sometimes, these games are played during political campaigns. mr. romney claims he's mr. fix it for the economy because of the, of his business experience. and so, i think voters entirely legitimately want to know well, what exactly was that business experience. >> good morning, it's 8:00 on the east coast, 5:00 a.m. on the west coast as you take a live look at new york city. joe and i are back along with former foreign policy policy to the bush campaign, msnbc political analyst, former democratic congressman, harold ford jr. we also have the host of street signs and sam stein. what is retroactively retired mean, dan? >> it means -- >> it means he decided to retire after he retired -- >> in february of '99, mitt romney left bain capital, went to go run the olympics. they had a gradual process to build an interim management community. ed the attacks untrue and misleading. today's "new york times" and very well reported article by nick huff man and michael shear read reads no evidence has emerged that mr. romney exercised his powers at bain after 1999. so, the reality is he wasn't there. he had not practical involvement in the firm and the obama campaign's trying to make something out of nothing. >> i think what they're doing is the fact that you don't feel like you know who mitt romney is and this is helping people feel like oh, maybe that's what he's like. why won't we release his tax returns? it's narrative that is going to stick. he's not careful. >> let's be very specific about the attack that they are focusing on that the the president himself doubled down on. he is saying, the president and his advisers, that mitt romney was working somewhere and involved with the company's decision at the time everyone was involved in the company. the president's just continuing to run ads on that. that tells me they're being dishonest to create a distraction. they've gone so far as to accuse him of a felony. >> today, president obama will hold a town hall meeting in cincinnati where he will continue to push the narrative that a vote for mitt romney is a vote for out sourcing according to a new report that mitt romney's tax policy will result in more jobs moving overseas. president obama this weekend said there would be no apologies after a member of his campaign sukted that the republican contender may have broken the law by misrepresenting his role with bain. yesterday on "meet the press," ed gillespie defended his campaign. >> he was still ceo and had shares, but wasn't reasonable for management and that's the, you know, the bottom line. >> even when he was on leave, does he stand by business decisions created by the firm he created? >> he actually retired retroactively because he ended up not going back to the firm after his time in salt lake c y city. but bain's a good company. private sector experience is a good thing -- >> he stands behind decisions that bain's made about call centers or outsourcing, which is considered good business. >> he wasn't there at the time those decisions were made. bain is a good company. >> all right, brian sullivan, have you ever retired retroactively? >> no, but i hope to. >> and explain the attacks on his tax policy and outsourcing. does this have any precedent in term of looking back at mitt romney's career? is it fair? >> depends on what side you're on. >> look at the attacks -- >> could it be seen as fair? >> sure. the majority of america is not wealthy. you say private equity. bain itself, the name sounds scary. right? let's raise taxes on the top 2%. because they can help. if you look at that policy, the top two percent pay, if we raise taxes, about 100 billion a year. let's call that generous. the u.s. government makes $125 billion a year to dead people and the wrong people. clean your own house up first. if romney was smart, that's where he would go. obama's team is taking romney's to the bank. >> harold ford jr.? >> i think probably the r more potent line of attack for the president now as you look at this, the questions around bain. bain is a successful franchise. they invested money on behalf of unions, colleges and universities. i think the bigger question for romney, the tax return, what may be in there. there was a discussion last week about this. you made clear a lot of americans what bain is, what he did there, how much money we made there. i like what the president's going to do today more than anything as he talks about the policy's romney's proposing as he travels to battleground states and talks and the plan. >> two months ago, harold, proctor and gamble, the biggest company in cincinnati, agreed to move 20 of its top executives, the headquarters of the division to singapore. >> that's a better place for barack obama because he will continue to make the case that the policies, ideas and recommendations made by governor romney if he were elected might cause all 50 of them to be relocated. if the president's talking specifically about the paul ryan plan, about how mitt romney would not agree to a 10-1 disparity between spending cuts and tax increases, that's what the president wants to be because that's where we are. that's talking about the future and giving the american people a real sense of where he will take us. >> joe, i was trying to tell people here that you retired retroactively, but nobody believed me, so why don't you weigh in. >> i retired retroactively, doing it for the kids. just won't believe me. i got a call like five years ago. come to nantucket and dan, nobody believes me and you know what else? nobody seems to believe mitt romney. what does retiring retroactively mean when you're signing forms saying you're still working at bain. can you explain? >> this is his second whirl at this. >> no, the problem is that there's a lot of big issues in this campaign, all right. president obama does not have an explanation for what happened in his first term, doesn't have a rationale for why he needs a second term. throwing up a lot of dust and we are discussing that now. mitt romney was at bain capital. he left to go do the olympics. he thought he could somewhat be involved, but it was clear he couldn't. he couldn't even get back in time for meetings he was so consumed. he was working 16, 18 hours a day saving the olympics and was basically gone from bain february 1999 and never came back. everybody's saying that. t "the new york times," "washington post" fact checkers -- >> who's a big democrat. >> and bring in sam stein as well. go ahead. >> saying sam, there are people that are lining things up here. i'm not suggesting that romney campaign or mitt romney may not be telling the truth four, five days later. but it's been a long, bumpy road to get here. just the out and out denials to now saying that he retroactively retired. it seems dan, for once we won't say he runs the mitt romney campaign, but other than dan, there's been some sloppy campaign work coming out of boston, hasn't there? >> yeah, and i think it reflects the complexity of the financial world. mitt romney went to the olympics. it was an all consuming job. he can't make managerial decisions, so he set up a managing committee and retired a couple of years later. i'd been off and had to go back and look at this. we're sort of ignoring the fact it's not like everyone as bain left with mitt romney. these were the people he put in place. the culture he put in place. the decisions bain made after mitt romney left in those years were basically part of the culture he had established going forward from the founding of the firm. for them to run away from these decisions is sort of confusing to me because this is bain. what they did and i think it's totally legitimate for the obama campaign to say if this is your primary reason for saying you'd be a good president, let's look at what that would result in. the actual policy implications of that. i don't see how that's unfair or dust. >> and joe, take a look at this. rahm emanuel weighed in yesterday morning with some advice for mitt romney. >> give it up about stephanie. what are you going to do when the chinese leader or putin says something? you going to whine? you cannot do that. as mitt romney says once, stop whining. if you want to claim bain capital as your calling card to the white house, then defend what happened to bain capital and what happened to those jobs that went overseas, those jobs that were cut and eliminated the companies that went to bankruptcy. >> he sounds like ari. >> he sounds just like ari and zeke. >> stop whining. >> should go out on the road. >> dan, how do you respond? how does your campaign respond to the rahm challenge? stop whining and just embrace that record and embrace the full record. >> let's start having a discussion about what happened ore the last few years. about president obama's big plans, big promises for what he'd do for the economy. very few of any had come through. >> i want to know what you do with this. the growing number of influential republicans calling on mitt romney to make more of his tax returns available to the public. listen. >> he should release the tax returns tomorrow. it's crazy, you've got to release six, eight, ten years, then give a serious speech on thursday in which he says okay, we've had this ridiculous debate, now, let's have a debate about capitalism, business, jobs. >> if something's going to come out, get it out in a hurry. i do not know why, given the day mccain lost in 2008, that he was going to run for president again that he didn't get this out and tidy up his offshore accounts. he's done nothing illegal, improper, but lots that's inpolitic. >> then there was this from alabama's republican governor robert bentley saying this. if you have things to hide, then maybe you're doing things wrong. i think you ought to be willing to release everything to the american people. after the comments went viral, he backtracked, saying he was taken out of context. >> there are extraordinary complexities to somebody like romney. when you run bain, have as many holdings as romney has had, there are going to be some things that are a little bit ugly out there, but at the same time, don't you think if you're running for president of the united states and talking about business as the center piece of your campaign, doesn't mitt romney need to are release the records and if there are problems with it, i mean, let's talk about what could be. the fact is, there r are a couple of years he may not have paid any taxes. maybe he's concerned about that. but if it's going to come out, he needs to get it out now so he has a couple of months to explain it. >> i agree. mitt romney has got to go on the offensive. what's going to come out is that mitt romney is a rich guy. also that mitt romney took advantage of all the legally allowable tax deductions provided him by years of congressional wheeling and dealing with regard to income tax rates and deductions. what he needs to say is you know what, america, i'm not going to apologize for being successful or taking advantage of the deductions provided for me, which is why tax preparers exist, to make sure every family, no matter what they make, receives every deduction they can. mitt romney should then, and then you can respond, i support higher tax rates at a certain level. let's end the debate. he needs to not apologize for being a rich guy. >> yeah. i don't -- dan, that's probably not going to happen. >> why is he making it so hard for himself? >> let's put brian on the road for mitt. >> that's a good riff. >> mitt and i don't see eye to eye. >> joe, does it make since? why is this so hard? and look iing at the republican presidential candidate, i know you're frustrated a little bit with the party, what do you think of how he's handling this? is there an easier way? >> obviously, when brian can sit there and reel off what he'd do, it's easy, but let's face it. mitt romney from the beginning, even from the republican primary, couldn't hit fastballs down the middle of the plate. he is not what pat buchanan would call a great political athlete. on days, it seems he's not even a good political athlete. the obama people have polled and focus grouped it and class warfare works and there's no doubt there are political bombs that would explode in a campaign if you had somebody as arcticlative as brian or dan, it might be all right. i think though for mitt romney, this could be, there could be information -- >> sorely out numbered. >> could cost him the election because the guy's not nimble on his feet. >> he's not. ten seconds. >> a week ago friday, we got a terrible jobs report. so here we are talking about all these issues. >> coming up next, new embarrassing allegations within another government agency this time involving officials within the treasury department. bob cusask has the story next on "morning joe." and sports illustrated is out with its annual list of america's top earning athletes and tiger woods is not in the top spot. but first, bill karins with a check on the forecast. >> we're now halfway through july, which means we're halfway through summer. got a couple of cities that are just off the charts with temperatures. just got an e-mail from one of my friends at the weather channel. they're saying that chicago, washington, d.c., st. louis, indianapolis and denver are all on pace for the hottest month ever. that's ever in their history. and now, we have another heat wave building right over the top of just about all of those cities. those numbers aren't going down anytime soon. today, it could be 100 in minneapolis, 99 in green bay, wisconsin. st. louis at 97. d.c. was 96 yesterday. we'll do that again today and note some of that heat really peaks on tuesday as d.c. is going to be near 100. easily near 100 near st. louis and looks like the last day of the heat wave will be on wednesday, 100 degrees in areas from indy to st. louis. washington, d.c., as i mentioned, on pace for your hottest month ever recorded. amazing stuff this summer. 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[ male announcer ] at 0% apr for 60 months, no one needs to know how easy it was to get your new volkswagen. that's the power of german engineering. to your kids' wet skin. neutrogena® wet skin kids. ordinary sunblock drips and whitens. neutrogena® wet skin cuts through water. forms a broad spectrum barrier for full strength sun protection. wet skin. neutrogena®. welcome back and joining us now from washington, bob cusask, who has an exclusive new story with allegations of unethical conduct at the treasury department. according to reports on a government watchdog site, a report found that an employee used government reports to so lis it prostitutes on craigslist in 2010 and meals for executives. and the acceptance of flowers, meals and at least one limo ride. according to the hill, the identities are unknown, their names were redacted from the documents released under the freedom of information act. hey, bob, don't you love filing a freedom of information request and getting stuff back? there's black all over it. you're thinking, where's my freedom and my information? >> that's why this is so interesting. and these are explosive. u.s. attorneys offices, they were not prosecuted, but could have been because this is obviously criminal conduct. now, treasury says wait a minute, this is only a few isolated incidents in a department that has over 100,000 employees. but still with a gsa and secret service scandals, this is going to be another one that the obama administration is put on the defensive on. >> i'll open up the table in just a minute, but besides names, what else was redacted? >> the names and companies, we don't get to see, but we get to see all the activities, another incident was a treasury employee being intoxicated at a college football game. he was almost arrested, found to be in violation of treasury policy and other than the person seeking prostitutes, it's unclear whether these treasury employees are still employed. >> here's st statement, quote, treasury has a strong ethics policy that we expect all employees to follow and the majority do. occasions of misconduct arise. when that happens, we act promptly and decisively to address them. the oig moved aggressively to investigate the isolated instances of misconduct referenced, most of which were brought to the oig's attention by bureau management. in terms of perspective, is it a small number of cases in term of the investigation? >> it is. if you compare it to the amount of treasury employees, there are over 107,000. people expect more from their government, especially when the role of government is playing such an intense role in the presidential debate. but they say hey, this is the process that works. the inspector general looks into these things. we rooted out the problem, found it. i spoke to the inspector general over the weekend. they say senior level people encourage me to investigate and go where the investigations take me. is this as bad as gsa and secret service scandals? >> sam stein in washington, jump in. >> what is the big deal with getting a prostitute on craigslist? i'm actually more curious to figure out how often do these investigations happen and how do they get started? is it a whistleblower who said i've seen these activities, but what is the process by which you start the discovery? >> it's a combination, sam, both of tips from government employees. there's an anonymous hot line within all government agencies. also, the government agency in a lot of these cases, refers it. that was what was done in several of these cases. something that treasury department officials pointed out over the weekend. >> bob, how systemic do you think this could be? i get it's an isolated thing, that it's not as big at the gsa or secret service scandals, but isn't there a sense there could be a closer look at the under of other agencies and how forthcoming was treasury with statement and administration? >> they want to talk about it after this report became public. in other government agencies and other private sector organizations, these problems happen. wait a minute, i don't seek prostitutes on time as far as working and one of the bank examers was doing inspections of the bank and during the workweek, he was golfing with the people he was regulating. so, these are not just low level people. there's no indication these are political appointees, it's hard to tell. >> you can read the entire piece at thehill.com. are you tweeting? >> i was reading the story. i was going to tweet it out, but couldn't get the copy and paste thing to work and the bitly. >> bitly? >> i'm on the information new jersey turnpike, which is about as far from a super highway. i prepped. s.e.c. porn, secret service agents. >> up next, sports illustrated and the list of top earning athletes and for the first time in years, there's a new name at number one. "morning joe" in just a moment. this is new york state. we built the first railway, the first trade route to the west, the greatest empires. then, some said, we lost our edge. well today, there's a new new york state. one that's working to attract businesses and create jobs. a place where innovation meets determination... and businesses lead the world. the new new york works for business. find out how it can work for yours at thenewny.com. brian, take it. >> the picture we teased in of you sprinting across the coney island beach to get to nathan's, you're like, nathan's is closing -- >> in a cocktail dress. >> i need those two hot dogs for 99 cents. joining us now, jon wertheim. here to look at the list of top earning athletes for past year. they say boxing is dead. kicks in the head, mma, but actually a boxer that is no jail, how did floyd maywet make $85 million last year? >> he was very smart. he takes a cut of the pay per view fights, very high on the list, but after that -- >> you know his nickname? money. >> a lot of it goes to casinos, apparently. i would not extrapolate from this. >> but the difference in the numbers the way people earn is fascinating, right, so money mayweather number one at 85. all from pay per view and the fights. number two and three, phil mickelson and tiger woods, 97% is endorsements. the world of golf and boxing couldn't be further apart. >> mirrors society. if you draw a check every other week, you can do quite well if you're at the top of the week. if you're an entrepreneur, sort of this eat what you kill world, you can make a lot of money. so the individuals at the top after tiger and phil, then you have the kobe bryants and alex rodriguez' with these guaranteed contracts. a lot of that is pr pre thanksgiving contracts. >> is he still on the list? >> third. about 5% is unforced earnings. >> if you go international, it's federer, then three soccer players. >> then you've got lionel messi. >> fernando alonso. >> premier league soccer is a different model. but roger federer is a perfect example of a guy who will make a few million dollars playing tennis, but he'll make ten times that being a corporate spokesman. >> on average, how long do these runs go in term of these huge earnings? >> that's a really good point that i think a lot of people don't krr when they decide what sport to go into that these football careers are very short. football players, because they're obscured by helmets, on the other hand it's the biggest sport. some sports, golfer could have a 20-year career. >> the advisers to these guys, long after they get out of the business. >> harold would say -- >> financial adviser. >> he's ready to go through this list and he said he's checking tax rates. >> you look at football, you've got larry fitzgerald, peyton manning, jeter, a-rod and two golfers and boxer. if someone is staying at home saying what sport should i go into, tennis or soccer. >> good offensive line. >> the other thing you should do is play for the yankees. four out of top 21 earners played for the yankees. >> mark didn't make the list. >> drew brees. he'll be on the list next year. five years, $100 million. >> and he's an endorsement guy, too. >> so, no women on this list. >> maria sharapova, the top woman -- >> is serena on it? neither one of them made it this year? >> no women. none. >> why is that? >> i think some of this is just a market for women's sports isn't what the market for men's sports. i think women are definitely making waves in the endorsement. >> it just seeps like -- >> with the limb p picolympic, there's a star to emerge. floyd mayweather may not be on the top 25 next year. >> real quick question. are the knicks making the right decision around jeremy lin? >> i hate to say it. >> as kid signed his deal yet? the knicks could be like -- if not. >> he really needs security in that building. >> it's a lot of money. >> you think it's too much money, the luxury tax and all the things the knicks have to pay to keep him. >> you know, it's going to be an unpopular move. >> he's not on the market. >> it's not true. >> you like -- i've heard from joe off the air, you like the dudes that are all inked up, the mu mullets with the mustache. somebody's ears are too small. if they were larger, he'd be even more handsome. >> he's working in front of the mirror a lot. it's fine. i don't really have anything. i'm just saying that i don't understand women? is it made up by marketers? >> i think we're dealing with an image of ten years ago, but he's a married father. jon wertheim, thank you so much. coming up next, we're hearing a lot these days about the looming fiscal clip, but are there signs it's already here? business before the bell next on "morning joe." [ male announcer ] this is the land of giants. ♪ home of the brave. ♪ it's where fear goes unwelcomed... ♪ and certain men... find a way to rise above. this is the land of giants. ♪ guts. glory. ram. i knew it'd be tough on our retirement savings, especially in this economy. but with three kids, being home more really helped. man: so we went to fidelity. we talked about where we were and what we could do. we changed our plan and did something about our economy. now we know where to go for help if things change again. call or come in today to take control of your personal economy. get free one-on-one help from america's retirement leader. it's 42 past the hour. we're going to move the debate into the business realm and leave david beckham behind us. brian sullivan's here. he's made himself known and would like to talk about fiscal cliff, which you say we've jumped off it. have we? >> there's the risk, right? the economy is us. everybody in america spending money is the economy and it's becoming clear with some of the excuse me, you got me all choked up thinking about beckham. with all the data we've had recently, housing is good. the risk congress faces is families watching "morning joe" will say we need a new car, but they'll say well, i don't know what our tax rate's going to be. not sure who's going to win the election, let's hold off. if everybody holds off until the end of the year, things are going to get really ugly really fast. so the fear is growing that the impact may already be upon us because we are the economy. congress needs to be aware of this. they can't wait until december 31st. what is the good housing news? i'm curious. >> housing has shown signs of life in most of the metro areas, prices are up. lending activity is up year over year in terms of purchases and refis. almost everything else seems negative. europe has caused a big fear. the fiscal cliff. housing kind of quietly has been getting better in most parts of the u.s. and housing probably alone probably isn't enough to save us if you will, but it's a big dog gone help. i think the last data i read is that every time a house is sold, 58 grand goes into the economy for reality fees, furniture buys, landscaping. 58,000. >> but isn't it two parts to the story on housing? number two, the amount of equity, amount of money, middle class families whose single biggest investment they'll ever make in their home and you have many people who are under water? aren't there two stories and sides to that? >> aye got a bigger fear. all these refis are great in the short-term. your monthly payments going down. here's my fear, when interest rates go back up, who's going to move? if you're sitting on a 4.5% mortgage, that low and rates go back to 6.5, 7% and you're thinking of upgrading your home because maybe you added a kid and you're looking at the higher payment, i just hope these low rates don't come back to bite us. >> they're really low. >> maybe there's growth and the economy is growing again, so perhaps people will find ourselves -- >> congressman clyburn and i disagreed on the numbers a little bit this morning on what the tax hike might do. let's not forget growth can solve a lot of our problems. if we can get 4 to 5% economic growth in our country, that will fick a lot of our issues. we talk about the clinton economy. i know you guys do a lot. the highest rate of people paying corporate gains, the 15% or whatever it was back then, slightly higher, 18%, was in 1999, during the height of the internet bubble. we've had a capital gains led success story economy, but it was 13 years ago. on the fiscal cliff. it's not just small businesses making decisions. big companies, defense contractors have to make decisions in the next couple of months on layoffs. >> they just sit on their hands. >> under federal law, these contractors have to actually give their employees 60 to 90 days notice to alert them that there may be major layoffs, there's a dramatic change in defense spending. >> that means october 1st if there's no action. >> so, maybe october 1st is a i mini fiscal cliff. >> imagine they have to send notices to all employees they may be laid off. >> straight point to congress, get to work on this. we can't wait until midnight december 31st. nobody's going to be partying. everybody's going to be bunkering down. >> they watch in the gym in congress. >> they watch when brian's on. >> all right, so brian's got this thing. he has a show. it's street signs, but he is hosting sports biz this thursday at 7:00 p.m. where? >> it's on the nbc sports network. another fine comcast property. 7:00 p.m. thursday night. we got mike lee, the boxer. >> is that live? >> the sports business show? >> i just worry because you were thrown off today in sports. >> i like sport, i'm a business guy that likes sports. i'm not really a sports guy. the show will be good. we got boxer mike lee on, a top graduate of notre dame in defense and an undefeated lightweight boxer. >> that's kind of cool. thank you very much. >> thanks for the plugs. >> did we get the time right? time and date? little bit of a diva, brian sullivan. yeah, exactly. up next, some of the headlines from the west coast papers. the medicare debate continues in washington... ...more talk on social security... ...but washington isn't talking to the american people. 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[ female announcer ] if you can't afford your medication, hey america, even though slisa rinna is wearing the new depend silhouette briefs for charity to prove how great the fit is even under a fantastic dress. the best protection now looks, fits and feels just like underwear. we invite you to get a free sample and try one on too. i approve this message. ♪ ♪ america america god shed his grace on thee ♪ ♪ and crowned thy good >> i would say you know what, man? i wasn't feeling it. i'm sorry. i'm sorry. >> that's not a bad ad. >> it's a patriotic song. >> no, they're mocking his singing because it's bad. >> they're mocking the fact he sings and invests -- >> i sing all the time and people make fun of my voice. >> let's not start now. morning papers. president obama goes to ohio today to hold a town hall meeting. he's expected to attack mitt romney for his record on outsourcing during his time at bain capital. hamilton county is seen as a bellwether for the election. president obama won there in 2008. first time the county had gone democratic since 1964. >> hillary clinton had a rather tough trip to egypt. her first since the election of president mohamed morsi. the head of egypt's military said he will not let the muslim brotherhood dominate the country just hours after clinton asked him to wrk with the new islamist party. get this. protesters pelted clinton's motorcade with shoe, which is a great insult, water bottles and tomatoes while shouting monica. >> what are they doing? got the wrong clinton in the car. all right, "the new york times," anthony weiner is considering a return to politics. it's been more than year since he was forced to resign over an online scandal. weiner still has $4.5 million in the bank for a possible run. >> "the wall street journal" reports that buying items online without paying state taxes could be coming to an end. many online retailers do not charge tax, but many are hungry for revenue, case in point, new jersey. chris christie recently decided to collect tax from people in new jersey that they buy on amazon.com. more states may follow his lead. >> "the los angeles times" reports the 2.6 million jobs that have been created since 2009, 80% have gone to men. the newspaper attributes the numbers to grow in manufacturing, growth in manufacturing, which tends to be dominated by men, b. all right. up next. what, if anything, did we learn today? you guys get ready to think about that. we'll be right back. now you can apply sunblock to your kids' wet skin. neutrogena® wet skin kids. ordinary sunblock drips and whitens. neutrogena® wet skin cuts through water. forms a broad spectrum barrier for full strength sun protection. wet skin. neutrogena®. and you are me if you want it, you just got to believe. weight watchers i believe strength [ jennifer ] confidence beautiful amazing [ emily ] this goes way beyond happiness weight watchers i believe. because it works. 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[ male announcer ] at 0% apr for 60 months, no one needs to know how easy it was to get your new volkswagen. that's the power of german engineering. to get your new volkswagen. stayfocus lolo, focus.ya. let's do this. i am from baltimore. south carolina... bloomington, california... austin, texas... we are all here to represent the country we love. this is for everyone back home. it's go time. across america, we're all committed to team usa. dan, what did you learn today? >> that brian sullivan can co-host "morning joe" and if you didn't see the promos, he has a show thursday night on nbc sports. three shows, three networks, one week. >> you wouldn't know that by watching -- >> you're awesome. >> brian, what did you learn? >> dan's a.wesome. you took a lot of heat today, my friend. >> you did well with a volume thing. >> harold? >> that what he does better than anything, he gives a better defense of mitt romney than his tax plan. >> you're done. you can go now, okay? thank you very much. turn and walk away. no, it never well. okay.

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