mitt romney campaign is never going to cut and run from mitt romney. but couldn't the superpacs at some point if the polls stay the way they are just decide mitt romney is running an unwinnable campaign, their money might be better spent in down-ballot campaigns? when the superpacs do their political triage there's an option to cut mitt romney loose. joining us now for "the interview," an evil dark money overlord named bill burton, a senior strategist for the pro-obama superpac, priorities usa action. bill, it's good to have you here. >> overlord is such a dirty word. >> it sounds better than it looks. it looks nice. then you say it out loud. >> i don't think it looks nice, either. >> did i get the basic point right there about, about the money -- money outside the campaigns, money you've been raising and spending. it's at a disadvantage. you have to pay more for your ad time? >> the campaigns pay a much cheaper rate than the superpacs are able to pay. on the republican side, karl rove and the koch brothers have hundreds of millions of dollars so can p

mitt romney is not a good candidate. but potentially even bigger problem is that the electorate does not seem to be buying what the republicans are offering. when romney picked ryan as vice president, i said to my wife, i think romney may have lost the election here. the reason i said that was because by picking paul ryan, it opened up that argument of the republican party as extreme and the democrats just pounced on that as you would expect them to do. and the country does not want those extreme aspects of the republican party, those extreme right wing policies. they do realize that's what got us into this trouble both overseas with the war in iraq and also with the economy. and they are not going for it anymore. the republic no longer believes that the way to help middle class and low-income families is to give more money to the rich. so i thought that mitt romney would pivot to the middle. he decided not to do that. >> i feel like the country republicans people in the middle and on the left want a republican party tha

mitt romney says that mitt romney is not qualified to be president. this has been a weird week, a lot of fast moving developments in the presidential campaign, but i don't think anybody could have predicted the week was going to end like this. you may remember back in july during mr. romney's big overseas trip to europe and the middle east, mr. romney sat down with abc news and spoke with them in part about his tax returns, talked with them about why we the people have not been allowed to see many of his tax returns, despite the fact he's been going around the country telling everybody a lot of things of what's in those returns, he said he's paid all of his taxes, we have to trust him, take his word on that but we're not going to be allowed to see the evidence. here what he told abc news at the time. >> i have paid all the taxes required by law. i don't pay more than are legally due. frankly, if i had paid more than are legally due, i don't think i'd be qualified to become president. >> if i had paid more than are legally due, i don't think i'd be qua

thank you, mitt romney. now you know why scott brown was racing back to try to be a senator for one more day in washington, d.c., instead of competing for his senate seat at home. where the latest poll says president obama is leading mitt romney by 28 points. democratic congressman barney frank of massachusetts joins us next for "the interview." stay with us. >>> professor warren claimed that she was a native american, a person of color. as you can see, she's not. that being said, she checked the box, and she had an opportunity actually to make a decision throughout her career when she applied to penn and harvard, she checked the box claiming she's a native american. and clearly she's not. that being said, i don't know, and neither do the viewers know whether, in fact, she got ahead as a result of that checking of the box. >> when i was growing up, these were the stories i knew about my heritage. i believed my mother and my father and my aunts and my uncles and i never asked anybody for any documentation. i

thank you, mitt romney. now you know why scott brown was racing back to try to be a senator for one more day in washington, d.c., instead of competing for his senate seat at home. where the latest poll says president obama is leading mitt romney by 28 points. democratic congressman barney frank of massachusetts joins us next for "the interview." stay with us. i didn't think it was anything. i had pain in my abdomen... it just wouldn't go away. i was spotting, but i had already gone through menopause. these symptoms may be nothing... but they could be early warning signs of a gynecologic cancer, such as cervical, ovarian, or uterine cancer. feeling bloated for no reason. that's what i remember. seeing my doctor probably saved my life. warning signs are not the same for everyone. if you think something's wrong... see your doctor. ask about gynecologic cancer. and get the inside knowledge. and those well grounded. for what's around this corner... and the next. there's cash flow options from pnc. solutions to he

thank you, mitt romney. now you know why scott brown was racing back to try to be a senator for one more day in washington, d.c., instead of competing for his senate seat at home. where the latest poll says president obama is leading mitt romney by 28 points. democratic congressman barney frank of massachusetts joins us next for "the interview." stay with us. [ horse neighs ] look! she wears the scarlet markings! [ man ] out! your kind is not welcome here! nor your odd predilections! miracle whip is tangy and sweet, not odd. [ man ] it's evil! if you'd try it, you'd know. she speaketh the truth! [ crowd gasps ] [ woman ] reverend? ♪ can i have some? ♪ to compete on the global stage. what we need are people prepared for the careers of our new economy. by 2025 we could have 20 million jobs without enough college graduates to fill them. that's why at devry university, we're teaming up with companies like cisco to help make sure everyone's ready with the know how we need for a new tomorrow. [ male announcer

he's also an advisor to mitt romney. who according to the folks at politico serves as liaison between romney and movement conservatives. you remember john bolten as the ambassador to the u.n. remember him from the george bush years? he has a gig on fox news. you can see here he's explaining how the attack on the u.s. embassy how that was caused by the weakness and fecklessness of the obama administration. but john bolten is not just a fox news tv guy. he's also a romney campaign foreign policy advisor. so he gets to work for the romney campaign while he works on fox news. in fact, mr. bolten announced his endorsement of mitt romney during an appearance on fox news. the folks at media matters have been tracking the overlap of the analysts. a spokesperson said his joint role as a fox news contributor and advisor is totally okay and super ethical because mr. bolten is not paid by the campaign and he gives foreign policy advice to lots of people. the most amazing example making efficient use of air time is carl rove. he does

mitt romney abruptly shifts strategy. blogs bounce on mitt romney's stumbles. the washington post, the romney campaign is in trouble. it's not like the mitt romney campaign didn't look like it was in trouble before today but what's driving this overwhelmly vicious news cycle for them is now people who work on the campaign are talking to reporters most notably in that politico story. they are talking about each other and about mitt romney explaining who it is that they pl blame for the fact they are losing now. one saying. i also have this impression stewart must save his best stuff for meetings i'm not important enough to attend. the campaign is filled with people who spend their time avoiding him or resisting him. then there's the criticism of the candidate. they are baffled that a successful corporate leader has created a team with so few lines of authority or accountability. you expect a little of this from political professionals when their campaign is running behind but you do not expect the candidate himself to get attacked by his staffers who are still w

i cannot vote for mitt romney. i cannot vote for paul ryan. we have a senate race, i cannot vote for george allen because he, too, clings to these extreme social agendas that are over to the right. >> the reproductive health issue came to national -- in virginia came to national prominence around governor bob mcdonnell signing the law forcing women to have medically unnecessary ultrasounds even if it was against their doctor's orders. forcing them to pay for that privilege. when you are hearing people talk about presidential politics in the state of virginia, is it widely known that the vice presidential nominee on the republican ticket paul ryan proposed a forced ultrasound bill just like virginia's for the whole country? is that connection being made by people in the state? >> it is. i think voters are starting to focus and the republicans keep just delivering gifts to us democrats because they keep going to this extreme agenda and people are digging a little bit farther. they know that paul ryan has had a history of extreme agenda. that's a

president obama's beating mitt romney among virginia women by 14 points right now. and it was in this political environment that something happened in the state of virginia today. that is not necessarily being billed as relevant to the presidential race, but boy, howdy, is it relevant to the presidential race. virginia governor bob mcdonnell who spent a lifetime as an antiabortion activist and his attorney general who also spent a lifetime as an antiabortion activist, these two aggressively have engineered a meeting of the state's health board that happened today. they aggressively engineered that meeting toward a decision that could have the effect of shutting down most of the abortion clinics in virginia. last year, bob mcdonnell signed a new law calling for special regulations just for abortion clinics. targeted regulations designed to make it economically impossible to operate an abortion clinic in the state of virginia. it's the same thing the republicans did in mississippi this year. these are called trap laws. targeted regulations. these do not apply to any o

mitt romney's attack on the u.s. embassy as their own. and that's forever. joining us now is bob herbert, distinguished senior fellow at dimos advocacy center and contributor at policyshop.net. am i being unfair to mr. portman? >> not at all. that's outrageous. you know, the republican party has become a party without scruples. it's really amazing now. they'll just lie at a level in this campaign that i really haven't seen, you know, politicians have distorted the truth since time immemorial. i understand that, but kind of the lies that are coming out of this campaign are really amazing. and then the level of irresponsibility. i mean, this is a really -- this is a tragic situation. it is still unbelievably dangerous. and these comments coming out from mitt romney and others in the party are undermining the president at a time when the united states really needs to be putting its best minds together to defuse the situation if it's all all possible. >> i felt like there was an outbreak of scrupulousness, outbreak of sc

mitt romney hasn't served in any capacity that would give him experience. but he's been advised by a campaign that has a lot of old hands. that's why this seems surprising to me. i don't know whether to see this as an attempt at political boldness or aggression or whether this was something screwed up. whether this was a product of in inexperience day. what do you think? >> a couple of cross currents here. first of all, it came right after laura ingraham, rush limbaugh and others had criticized him for being too weak and not being aggressive enough. so i think they were looking for an opportunity. they certainly had to be defensive for having failed to mention afghanistan in their convention speech and they had been trying to defend themselves against that attack on foreign policy, so perhaps that weighed into it. but there's also something in the air here. a minute does not pass where either campaign, both campaigns, aren't putting out a press release on something or another. it's not just the social media. it's, you know, old fashioned press releases. and

in response to mitt romney this afternoon. mr. burns, in that place that he saw him there was being interviewed by the host of en masse and pc's andrea mitchell reports. it was so riveting it was like time stopped. thank you for being here. it has been a long day. >> such an interesting day because it was revealing. it was one of those moments where the character and policy were both revealed. >> let me ask you about the timing. as far as i understand it, you were trying to get confirmation on what happened in that in gauzy last night when this statement got e-mailed out. it is that unusual. what is important about that? >> i thought it was extraordinary. things have changed in a very strange way. we were trying to get confirmation. we were told we could not tell you whether or not the american diplomat was one of the people killed and that when we do know we are going to have to notify next of kin before we tell anybody. we would not broadcast that in any case. you were on the air, i was trying to get a report together. the next

they don't seem to really care about foreign policy in terms of the mitt romney campaign. they just don't want to be asked about it. because the republican party is essentially forfeited on this issue, because on this issue there are not two plausible sides fighting it out in the election, there's the democrats and sort of a right wing fee pooe nut gallery that pops up. foreign policy and the wars are being handled in our political system differently than any other thing being fought over in this election. you can see that in the polling. look at where the american public is 11 years after 9/11 on the major issues of foreign policy. the proportion of the american public that want troops out of afghanistan either by the time that president obama wants them out or sooner than that, when you combine those numbers, it's 82%. on iraq, the proportion of americans who say it was not worth it is two-thirds of the american public. the portion who say the iraq war was worth it is just one-third of the american public. that's the highest ever number that said the iraq war wasn't wort

it was a video to get us psyched about mitt romney. it was a good ten-minute introduction video for mitt romney that was really well done. really might make you like him even if you didn't like him already or haven't been paying attention and fell asleep for a second at the end of "rookie blue." they had this done, ten-minute film, but they did not air it during network coverage, so most people did not see it. it was done by the time the networks started covering the convention. they had scheduled it to run before the networks were switching over to convention coverage. for a specific reason. they did that in order to make room in the golden hour, in the network coverage hour for this instead. look. to be announced. their big surprise. a to be announced speaker. a surprise, wow, and then of course, they blew the surprise. word about who it was going to be leaked out a day early so there was no suspense at all about who the suspenseful speaker would be, but apparently they thought it was going to be so good, this speaker was going to be

this is what greeted mitt romney today as he campaigned. fight big banks, not big bird. 99% of cookies are e eaten by 1% of monsters. make wall street pay, not sesame striet. members of an iowa citizens group dressed in sesame street costumes. they were there to laugh at his suggestion that his plan to cut the deficit is to cut off funding for pbs. this has become a full-fledged thing in the campaign now. the obama campaign today releasing this 30-second ad specifically on the issue of big bird. it's a sarcastic ad hitting mitt romney for being tough enough to take on this yellow-feathered fellow. and president obama has now fully incorporated the big bird line into his stump speech. >> for all you moms and kids out there, you should have confidence that finally somebody is cracking down on big bird. elmo has been seen in a white suburban. he's driving for the border. oscar is hiding out in his trash can. we're cracking down on um. g governor romney's plan is to let wall street run wild again, but he's going to bring the hammer down on "ses

romney, to vote for mitt romney. regardless of voters say how they feel about individual candidates, voters this year do not like the idea of the republican party. the republican party is not selling right now. more people dislike the republican party than like it. and so now into that political reality, what we're going to do is we're going to take alabama republicans and spread them out around the country. send them out to meet undecided voters in ohio, to remind those undecided or independent voters what republicanism is all about. hi, we're from alabama and we're here to help. hey, ohio, when you're thinking about voting for mitt romney, think alabama republicans. on the day of his inauguration, alabama's current republican governor robert bentley said, quote, so anybody here today who has not accepted jesus christ as your savior, i'm telling you, you're not my brother and you're not my sister. inauguration day. the last time we had a senator who wrote and did a speech about how slavery was not only justified by

mitt romney will fight for every american job. >>> i'm mitt romney and i approved this message. >> mitt romney did actually say he'd let detroit go bankrupt and he opposed the bailout and said if we did it it you could kiss the automotive industry good-bye and that didn't really work out. when they endorsed him, they said in spite of him screwing up so badly. the point where they say barack obama sold gm to italians who are going to build jooirps in china. this appears to be a spin on this ad from ohio last week. >> i saw a store today, one of the great manufacturers in this state, jeep. now owned by the italians, thinking of moving all production to china. i will fight for every good job in america and i'm going to fight to make sure trade is fair and if it's fair america will win. >> that line about jeep moving american jobs to china? moving all production to china? that is not true. chrysler is not moving its production to china. that is not at all true. that is not true. that is a lie. chrysler itself had to come out publicly and say, what mitt romney just said, that is not true. an

yesterday in defiance, ohio, mitt romney gave that obama administration success story a little mitt romney esque tickle. >> i saw a story today that one of the great manufacturers in this state, now owned by the italians, is thinking of moving all production to china. >> wow. mr. romney saying, hey, don't get too comfy there, ohio, with the obama rescue of the automotive industry. i know it's been better. he saved everything here and that's why you have jobs and everything, but don't get too comfy, ohio, i read that they're moving all the jobs working for jeep. they're moving all the jeep jobs to china. he said that in ohio on the campaign trail 12 days before the election. and it is not true at all. the real jeep news that day was actually that chrysler announced it was adding 1100 new jobs in the u.s. here. making jeeps in detroit. jeep grand cherokees. and chrysler says it could hire almost as many people at another plant in warren, michigan. in ohio crisler is investing half a billion dollars in its toledo plant and hiring 1100 workers. but mitt romney got up that said defiance, ohio,

but this year, a pro-mitt romney super pac is buying a nice chunk of airtime in maine for pro-mitt romney ads, including, in the one congressional district in the state, where mitt romney might, maybe, conceivably have a chance. and yeah, maybe the romney super pac is really buying ads in maine so they'll get seen next door in swing state, new hampshire, but maybe the race is so close that a single red dot in maine could make a difference for mitt romney. maybe this election will be historically close, one electoral vote close, epically close. so close that we have to dive way down into the nebraska and maine congressional district maps. so close that we have to memorize the innards and the sub-innards of the 12th amendment of the constitution to figure out who wins. the polls are close enough that campaigning for individual electoral votes is now happening. and there's a lot of money behind it. and the surprising news of what happens if there is a tie is all of a sudden very relevant to those of us who are paying close attention to this election. the news about the potential tie is comin

so it is just unconscionable that mitt romney can kind unco that mitt romney can with a wivern and a nod, oh, well i don't agree with him on that, but nonetheless i'm still going to support -- the american public is not stupid and i think they're going to see through that and understand there's only one person that supports a woman's right to choose and that is president barack obama. and we've got our work to do these next 13 days. >> at the top of the show we talked about how it is sort of the legacy of the 2010 elections that the republican party came up with a new normal that was far to the right of the old normal. is there anything that pro choice republicans or democrats who did support the women's right to choose could move where it automatic to be. >> i think that, i have always said choice is a winning issue. because women fundamentally believe this is about their life and their health. when you talk to the women in this country, you can win on this issue. after you talk about the economy and taxes and wars, there's one basic fundamental value they come back to, and that is

senator acting as a surrogate for mitt romney. what she just described there is not what the blunt amendment is. mitt romney really does support a policy that's not just about religious employers, not just about catholic hospitals. it's about any employer anywhere in the country being able to block their employees from getting birth control through their health insurance. sounds awful, right? that's why it keeps coming up. picture your boss. does your boss want you to have the pill? do you not know? do you want to find out? because that is is actually one of the choices you have in this election between your boss deciding whether you get the pill under your health insurance or that not being your boss' business. that really is the choice. because mitt romney really does support the blunt amendment and the blunt amendment really does give your boss the choice about whether or not your contraception is covered by your insurance. and the romney campaign and the romney campaign surrogates, including u.s. senators and the candidate, hi

maybe mitt romney ha a hard time in the primaries in 2012. he did great in 2008. people will remember him. half of what the colorado party has spent on this election it's spent on that voter registration contract with this bogus company that's now been fired and can do no work in the last home stretch of the campaign. there's a basic competence issue in terms of what it means to run a party here. i feel like the rank and file voters must be -- but they must be enraged. >> you have seen some real money management issues. remember all the stories that mitt romney was going to outspend barack obama by vast sums of money. and then we learned that the campaign didn't have quite as much money as we thought they had. and so maybe it's about competence. >> e.j., let me ask you one more question. you saw ed shultz broadcasting from denver tonight. i'm jealous he's having a post-show party in a bar with people. the romney campaign is telegraphing they need to have a clean win, that they need to absolutely turn the momentum around. they are not trying to lower expectations b

barack obama and mitt romney will be speaking there tonight. we'll carry them live and uninterrupted unless the interruption is from chris matthews, directly behind the president. he could spill a drink on him. if he does something to interrupt the proceedings, we'll interrupt everything. other than that, we will bring you president obama and mitt romney, you can see there on the right side of your screen along with his wife. we'll bring you those remarks as they deliver them. for what might be a preview of the president tonight, here is how then-candidate barack obama did in 2008. that same night with john mccain. >> there is no other crowd in america that i'd rather be palling around with right now. john mccain is on to something. there was a point in my life when i started palling around with a pretty ugly crowd. i've got to be honest. these guys were serious deadbeats. they were low lives. they were unrepentant. no good punks. that's right. i've been a member of the u.s. senate. some of the rumors out there are getting a bit crazy. fox news

they are fact check videos about mitt romney. they are doing them in conjunction with a democratic-leaning pac. >> my dad, you probably know, was the governor of michigan and the head of a car company. but he was born in mexico. had he been born of mexican parents, i'd have a better shot of winning this. >> actually mitt that is so true. the advantage is obvious. think of all of our hispanic-american presidents from jorge washington to jorge bush. >> that's part of the first video from actually.org which stars rosie perez. she's here next. hold on. >>> rosie perez will be here >>> rosie perez will be here next. sleep train's best rest event is ending soon. don't miss your chance to get sleep train's very best mattresses at the guaranteed lowest price. plus, pay no interest for 3 years on beautyrest black, stearns & foster, serta icomfort, even tempur-pedic. and rest even better with sleep train's risk-free 100-day money back guarantee. but the best rest event ends soon at sleep train. superior service best selection, lowest price

they are fact check videos about mitt romney. they are doing them in conjunction with a democratic-leaning pac. >> my dad, you probably know, was the governor of michigan and the head of a car company. but he was born in mexico. had he been born of mexican parents, i'd have a better shot of winning this. >> actually mitt that is so true. the advantage is obvious. think of all of our hispanic-american presidents from jorge washington to jorge bush. >> that's part of the first video from actually.org which stars rosie perez. she's here next. hold on. our new economy. by 2025 we could have 20 million jobs without enough college graduates to fill them. that's why at devry university, we're teaming up with companies like cisco to help make sure everyone's ready with the know how we need for a new tomorrow. [ male announcer ] make sure america's ready. make sure you're ready. at devry.edu/knowhow. ♪ yeah. then how'd i get this... [ voice of dennis ] ...safe driving bonus check? every six months without an accident, allstate sends a c

they are fact check videos about mitt romney. they are doing them in conjunction with a democratic-leaning pac. >> my dad, you probably know, was the governor of michigan and the head of a car company. but he was born in mexico. had he been born of mexican parents, i'd have a better shot of winning this. >> actually mitt that is so true. the advantage is obvious. think of all of our hispanic-american presidents from george washington to george bush. >> that's part of the first video from actually.org which stars rosie perez. she's here next. hold on. ♪ [ slap! ] [ slap! slap! slap! slap! ] ow! [ male announcer ] when your favorite foods fight you, fight back fast with tums smoothies. so fast and smooth, you'll forget you had heartburn. ♪ tum tum tum tum tums [ male announcer ] tums smoothies. he loves risk. but whether he's climbing everest, scuba diving the great barrier reef with sharks, or jumping into the market, he goes with people he trusts, which is why he trades with a company that doesn't nickel and dime him with hid

that's not what mitt romney's proposing. what we're saying is no changes for anybody 55 and above. >> when charlie pierce from boston wrote up that moment from the debate at "esquire" magazine today he wrote this. "you could hear the screams from romney headquarters all the way up the charles to where i was watching." democrats have so far been keeping their powder dry on this very, very potent issue. on the republicans wanting to privatize social security. not just privatizing medicare, and thereby getting rid of it, which has been an issue in this campaign, but privatizing social security and thereby getting rid of it. before last night, that was paul ryan's record and it was george w. bush's record. but nobody knew if romney and ryan were going to try to drag that old disastrous idea over the threshold of the white house with them. now we know they are dragging it with them. which is amazing. when i said there were two points from last night, and one last thing i think needs to be mentioned that i think changed the race l

what mitt romney and paul ryan were saying. the point mitt romney interrupted paul ryan is when he was saying, he was just acting so -- romney jumped in, careful, careful. ixnay on the talking. vice president joe biden took the final topic of last night's debate, issue of abortion rights and hit paul ryan with it pretty forcefully. >> if anyone had a doubt about what's at state in this election, when it comes to women's rights, and the supreme court, i'm sure they were said last night. it was made clear last night that they don't believe in protecting a woman's access to health care. it was made very clear that they do not believe a woman has a right to control her own body. these guys have a social policy out of the '50s. >> that was joe biden's first major campaign appearance today after last night's big event with paul ryan. now, paul ryan's first public appearance after last night's debate was not that moment on the tarmac with mitt romney with the funny microphone, it was actually this. his campaign did one of those odd wa