yesterday with teams obama and romney trying to convince voters young and old that their plan is the most financially fit. meanwhile a mitt romney bombshell about his personal tax rate has sparked fresh controversy. nbc s claire leka joins us from washington with more on all of this. claire, good morning. good morning to you, lynn. yes, mitt romney called the interest in his personal tax returns, quote, small-minded, but it looks like it s been an issue that s dogged him all summer long, and if the obama campaign has its way, they want to keep his millions front and center. you could call it taxgate. republican presidential hopeful mitt romney says he won t release more tax returns. but while explaining how his medicare plan would work using a whiteboard in south carolina yesterday, he did give his clearest explanation yet of what he s paid to uncle sam. i did go back and look at my taxes and over the past ten years, i never paid less than 13%. i think the most recent yea
but first, as we do every morning, we begin with a look at today s eye opener, your world in 90 seconds. no air conditioning. no electricity. and we can t get out. nearly two million americans face a fourth day without power in the midst of an historic heat wave. utility crews from as far away as quebec are pitching in to restore electricity. sizeable tree that has fallen has not been removed. typical of what we have been seeing. states of emergency have been declared. another scorcher today from the plains to the east coast. this action constitutes the largest health care settlement in the u.s. history. glaxosmithkline will have to pay almost $3 billion. marketing drugs for unapproved usage. and not telling the fda about two studies related to avandia. we are determined to bring them to a stop. iran is flexing its muscles with bar games. anderson cooper has revealed that he had gay. cooper says he, quote, couldn t be any more happy, comfortable wi
president obama raised some money last night here in new york at the home of actress sarah jessica parker. wealthy celebrities from film, fashion and music paid $40,000 each to attend the exclusive get together. earlier in the day, the president and mitt romney were both in ohio and both more down to earth talking about the economy and middle class. steve handelsman reports. reporter: for the first time on the same day, the president and the challenger went to ohio for dueling speeches. barack obama with students, worried about the economy on his watch. we re all just trying to get a job, we re all just trying to get a future. let s put some folks to work right here at home. reporter: no major new initiatives, but a passionate repeat of main obama themes. taxing the rich more. not cutting key spending. in an age where we know good jobs depend on high skills, how is not the time to scale back our commitment to education. reporter: he warned a romney win would mean
politicians and political leaders act irrationally when it comes to war. they re so afraid to be called wimps that they make decisions which are incredibly destructive for the country. willy geist brought up that here you have a democrat who is seen in strong on foreign policy which in our life times we ve never seen. this was always the ball that could be carried by republicans. is she right? i don t know if she is right or wrong. here s what i ll say about arianna. i respect her and i like her very much. i happen to disagree wholeheartedly. i think when you re the president of the united states and you go in and you take out the number one terrorist in the world and 27 others, you decimate al qaeda all across this world, you ought to be able to rest on those laurels, talk about that and be proud of that. i m an american and if it had been george bush who would have done, that i would have supported him 1,000%. john mccain, vietnam war hero, spent time in the prison camp.
few days after a much debated web ad was released, that features bin laden touting the decision to take out the al qaeda leader, romney is responding to sharp words from obama campaign adviser robert gibbs who appeared on meet the press sunday. osama bin laden no longer walks on this planet because of the bravest decision and the brave men and women in our military. and mitt romney said it was a foolish thing to do a few years ago. even jimmy carter would have given that order. we ll talk about that. much is being said and written about former president clinton narrating that ad and about he and president obama teaming up. joining me, jimmy williams, and erin, let me get your take on mitt romney s response and why he felt even the need to bring up jimmy carter in this flip way. why not take it head on? gibbs was very strong on meet the press. what do you make of his reaction in. i think it is what we re hearing from a lot of people. that maybe it wasn t appropriat