i know miles romney. and miles park romney. these are the folks that came and helped settle the west. but it's -- i didn't realize i was more english than you are. >> do you feel partly english? >> well, i'm married to a girl from wales and i'm a guy from great britain so i feel like this is home too i guess. >> i saw a good oman as we were driving in. the road in front of the horse park where we're sitting in front of is romney road. >> is it really? isn't that extraordinary? >> i thought it was quite interesting. >> on the salt lake, you've used this as an example of your business skills being able to turn things around. and that's been a theme when it comes to bain capital and that later. why do you think the particular skill set that you had to deploy at the salt lake olympics, which by common consent was a triumphant turnaround, why would that work with america incorporated? >> well, of course, the olympics, that's very different than a country. a business is very different than the country. but people who learn the experience of leadership, whether in their homes, in their community, in their business or in something like the olympics, those lessons of leadership can be applied to other circumstances. in our case at the olympics we faced tough times. we built a strong team. i was able to establish with them a clear vision of what we needed to do. we tackled a budget crisis that we faced. and we were able to together in a way through unity that produced an extraordinary success. the country is in need of a turnaround. the olympics was a turnaround. there are businesses i've been associated with that needed a turnaround. that kind of experience, of focusing on the most critical issue, building the most effective team possible, creating a common vision, unifying around that vision, and then delivering results, is something i think the american people would like to see in our economy right now. >> ann, you were heavily involved at the time. and it seemed to most people there were two reasons that you both felt compelled to get involved in it. one, you just lost an election. maybe had a point to prove. something to do. and in your case, you were just recovering from this devastating news about being diagnosed with m.s. it kind of gave you a common purpose. it was a very poignant moment when you were asked to allow someone who was your hero to hold the torch and you chose your wife. tell me about that. >> well, ann had been diagnosed with m.s. in about 1998, and she was going downhill fast. her right side was numb. she was having a hard time getting up stairs. we were looking at potentially seeing a wheelchair in her future. and so as we got closer to the olympics, she got stronger and stronger, we were hopeful that ann might be someone who could carry the torch in to salt lake city. she made the kind of progress that suggested to the people who knew her that she was a hero. and the people we selected for torch bearers in our games were people who inspired us. i noticed here in great britain the theme in the games is "inspire a generation." inspiration was really the heart of our torch bearers as well. and for me there was no one who had inspired me more than ann. so i nominated her to be a torch bearer. as a donor to the games, i got to choose one. i chose ann. it was an emotional moment for my family. as she got the torch. and ran it the quarter mile or so that she had the torch. >> for you, people i don't think have fully grasped just how sick you were or how sick you certainly felt at the time. what did that moment do for you? >> it was just so symbolic. because i was barely -- i was struggling with even walking as we came to salt lake three years before the game started. and then to know that -- i don't know, that everything had come together and that there was -- my life was going to be okay. and that i was getting my strength back. it was as though you recognize blessings in your life and there's markers sometimes that are put down where you stop and pause and say, wow, look, look where i've come, look where i was, and look where i am now. and it was -- it was so significant for me to know that i was going to be okay. and that through all the things i was doing, part of it, the most important part of my recovery was really the guy sitting next to me. he was the one when i was in my really, really darkest place gave me hope and said it's going to be okay, we're going to be okay. >> you're a man known for compromise. for doing deals. getting stuff done. not getting overly irrational about issues. you've done it in your business career. you've done it in your political career. the big issue in america right now is guns. we had this appalling shooting on friday. aurora, colorado. the worst single shooting in the history of the united states. and the usual debate, the one i've heard since i've been in america, flare up every time these things happen. there should be tighter laws. i'll be honest with you. i'm disappointed when nothing happens each time. you know, as i think mayor bloomberg put it to me, what does it take to change things? you've had a congresswoman shot in the head and nearly assassinated. 70 people killed in a movie theater. hit and wounded and killed in a movie theater. terrible things happen. what does it take to change the gun culture? to mean a change in the law isn't a contentious issue? >> well, i think the idea that somehow if you had a law saying that guns were going to be regulated in some way that that would end gun violence, why, there might be some merit to having that discussion. but the truth is, there's no particular change in law that's going to keep people who are intent on doing harm from doing harm. the governor of colorado who's a democrat said, look, gun laws aren't going to keep evil people from doing evil things. >> shouldn't a political leader be the one that says actually we're going to do whatever it takes to make it as difficult as possible? that's what we do with terrorism. the whole fight against terrorism. it's waged on making it as hard as possible for terrorists to do anything. you just try to cut the loopholes down. here we are in britain. i can talk about this without feeling it's not my country. and we have very strict gun laws here. and we have very few gun murders. 50 maybe on average a year. japan has almost no guns and has almost no gun murders. america now has 300 million guns in circulation. and has the highest murder rate with guns of any of the so-called rich civilized countries. the reaction on friday was no politician called for stricter laws. but 43% spike in colorado in local people wanting to arm themselves with more weapons. can't go on like that, can it? >> well, we do have a second amendment. i respect the right of people to bear arms for any legal purpose. you say that we have 300 million guns. saying somehow guns are illegal and try to collect 300 million guns would be lunacy, fallacy, a fally. that's not going to happen. that's not going to happen to our country. people have a right to be able to bear arms. real question is, what things can we do, to do as you say, prevent the kinds of tragedy from occurring that we saw? the answer there is find people who are distressed and deranged and evil and do our very best to find them, to cure them, to keep them from doing harm to one another -- >> this guy, james holmes, the shooter in aurora, he wouldn't have been picked up by anything. he had no history of mental illness. he had no history of criminality. i think a driving offense of some sort. four weapons, including this assault rifle. then on the internet, thousands of rounds of ammunition. and a gun cartridge which could hold 100 bullets. which enabled him to fire at 70 people in a matter of a minute or two. and i say, where is the movement now by political leaders in america to mean that there can't be another guy who can do that as easily? >> piers, there was a guy in norway that went up and shot how many students, 70 students. they have very strict gun laws in norway. that doesn't keep the person from doing what happened in norway. saying to a deranged person "you're breaking the law" isn't going to stop them from doing terrible things and hurting people. we of course have all sorts of laws against bombs and making bombs. but this individual had bombs in his apartment. if he didn't have a gun, he'd have used a bomb. the idea that somehow the instrument of violence, if we can make it illegal, would keep a person from doing something illegal, i just don't think is a policy that actually will be successful. >> the final point i make on this is when you're governor of massachusetts, you did extend a ban on these kind of assault weapons. because you did feel there was a qualitative difference between shooting and hunting and the guns you need for that and having guns where the only capability appears to be mass killing. >> actually in massachusetts we had the pro-gun lobby and the anti-gun lobby come together and fashion a bill that both thought was an advance. it provided more rights for hunters and the capacity for them to carry out hunting throughout the state. so it was supported by both sides of the debate. that's one reason why i was able to support that. >> but president obama last night in a speech made a big speech which looked on the face of it, and he's getting credit for this, looks like he was moving to change things. when you study the detail, hard to find a specific "we should change this law." if he called you up and said, look, we need to get together in the wake of this, as i say, the worst ever shooting, we need to get together, do a compromised deal that just makes it more difficult for people like this to evade the system. would you at least, in principle, be happy to have that conversation? >> piers, i don't support new gun laws in our country. we have a lot of gun laws now. we have background checks and other restrictions on gun ownership in our country. as you say, we have 300 million guns in america. we have a second amendment that protects the right of people to bear arms. i support that. i think that the effort to continue to look for some law, to somehow make violence go away, is missing the point. the real point has to relate to individuals that are deranged, distressed, to find them, to keep them from carrying out terrible acts. timothy mcveigh. how many people did he kill? with fertilizer? with a -- with products that can be purchased legally anywhere in the world? he was able to carry out vast mayhem. somehow thinking that laws against the instruments of violence would make violence go away i think is misguided. >> when we come back, we'll talk about the forthcoming election and about the opinion polls. i want to ask mitt romney why is it that more people trust him with the economy than obama? but they don't find him anywhere near as likable? siri, what's my day look like? 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>> i don't know about that one. but, you know, the 51% we need to obviously get that to about 78%. i think at the end of the day that is what people are going to really feel confident about. because this economy is just sputtering along. we're even worried it's going to go into another recession right now. they're going to have to trust and believe this is the guy who is going to get the job done. now, i'll work as hard as i can on the likability piece. because that's wrong too. you know, he -- >> he seems a perfectly likable chap to me. i don't understand it. >> we'll get over that one. >> on the economy, clearly barack obama has decided your weakness, your vulnerability, is your record at bain capital. it's a very divisive issue. quite a fascinating issue. when i look at some of these attack ads, it's almost like he's attacking you for being successful and rich. which is not a traditional area of battleground to an american. because america was founded on working hard, achievement, success, making money. how do you feel about the way you're being attacked in that way? >> well, i think there are attacks coming for being successful. their efforts to try and minimize people who have been able to build businesses and be successful. i think we as a society have long encouraged our kids to do well in school. we've encouraged people to get promotions at work. to work harder and do better and better. we value people who take an individual initiative to start a business and build it. and i'm proud of the fact that at bain the consulting firm, which i helped lead in a time of trouble, and also bain capital, which i helped found and helped build. i'm proud of the fact we were able to strengthen enterprises that now employ a lot of people. we were able to invest the money of pension funds and charities. that's what bain capital did. it wasn't our money. it was other people's money. we were hired to invest. we invested it well. and we were able to invest in some businesses which grew and thrived. some of which have thousands upon thousands of employees. this is a very exciting thing. really at this stage, the key is who can get the economy going. who knows something -- >> do you accept that when you're running a company like bain that was hugely successful, no one disputes that, you're going in, taking over companies, either you're investing in them as start-ups or as it turned out to be a more leveraged buyout situation. you go in and you give them your expertise. think your preferred way was to keep the existing ceos and incentivize them to do better with your help. some succeeded. some failed. people try to portray you as a kind of ruthless money machine who some failed, some succeeded, you didn't care, you still got your fees. a lot of people lost their jobs. their livelihoods. they lost money. to me, the key question is, do you know instinctively from your recollections how many of those companies that you went into would have failed anyway if you hadn't? >> well, there's no question but that a number of places where we went in and invested we were investing in enterprise that was in trouble. that -- where the future was very much in doubt for it. and we invested in one business. i think it lost 50 or 60 or more million dollars the year before we invested. a lot of people didn't want to touch it. we were able to go in there with the current management team. help get the business back on track. the managers really ran it. they were able to turn it around and see a real success. it's still around today, doing quite well. provides jobs for a lot of people. the idea that somehow making a business profitable is different than helping people is really a foreign idea. because the whole american free enterprise system is associated with created success, making businesses profitable. that means they can hire more people and grow. and every investment that i made while i was responsible for an investment firm, every investment was designed to try and help the business grow and to become more successful. it killed us if something was not successful. if a business we started, for instance, couldn't make it, and there were several like that, but there were several that took off in ways we never would have imagined. there were other businesses that were existing businesses. we wanted to make better. most of them we did make better. those that we didn't, we felt terrible about. we lost money. investors money. we became investors ultimately in our career. we lost our own money in some of these cases. but the key was we wanted all them to be successful. that's the nature of the free enterprise system. not everything you invest in is successful. hopefully most are. as the people who invested with us, the pensions and charities and college endowments and investors with us know most of our work was successful. >> how do you feel about being married to a man who is clearly very successful, made a lot money for the family, things that normally are applauded in america by other americans. they say good, good on him. but trying to position this now as a negative against him. trying to position you and your family as too rich, out of touch with the average americans. ruthless businessman. all that kind of thing. you've lived and worked alongside mitt all that time. how do you feel about that? >> well, i think the whole piece that is missing is, again where mitt is coming from and what motivates him and what really drives him. and if you look at what really drives him, it's compassion. it's caring for others. and for me it's an irony that they're trying to attack him in an area where he's actually shined the brightest. i don't think that's an area where people would ever understand that. i don't think there are many people that would have been in mitt's position having been a very successful company making a lot of money and really walked away from it and gone and done something as risky as running the salt lake games and taking no salary for three years. i don't think there are many people who would sign up for that. >> presumably, he could have made a lot more money if he just stayed at bain, right? >> absolutely, would