>> in mark murray from our team before we get to the panel. mark, romney 's effective tax rate 2011 , 14%. that's about what he said, but that's obviously lower than many americans who make far less. back to the timing here. is this an attempt to change this subject? does this help us understand? usually as you well know people don't sound out a blast e-mail on a friday at 3:00 p.m . if they want something to be highly talked about that they see as beneficial to them.
>> that's right. i mean, you always have fridays the times to have a news dump that people aren't paying as much attention. you want to put bad news out there. tamron , the big context as peter was talking about, this is perhaps the roughest three-week stretch in mitt romney 's presidential campaign . and certainly topped off by that controversial 47% video that came out earlier this week. you end up seeing them trying to get out as much tax returns as possible to completely change the page. if the romney campaign wants to start changing the conversation, they want to get everything behind them. that includes these tax records. i will say, however, it is really interesting they provided this 20-year summation on mitt romney 's tax returns from 1990 to 2009 . really, when you see the effective tax rates , they say there was an average tax rate of 20%, the lowest ever 13%, which is similar to this 2011 tax return . if it was just that, you would think they would have released this a long time ago so they wouldn't have the problems, the political problems that they have now. what we don't have only because we get this summary, we don't get the individual things in these tax returns . some in some ways with the romney campaign aren't necessarily the tax rates but what's in the tax returns over the last 20 years.
>> which means they aren't revealing a full transparency when it comes to his tax returns ?
>> that's right. mitt romney was only about a month ago where he said i think the tax rate i paid was about 13%. this could actually be correct, but it's what is in those tax returns that they seem very hesitant and reluctant to give up.
>> let me bring in danny vargas. let me get your reaction. you heard mark say that the cam faine or blind trust will release a summary from 1990 to 2009 . still not a clear picture of the governor's tax returns in that period. does that benefit the campaign at all when you have kind this half- open door even still?
>> i do think that at the end of the day we're really not talking about anything that's newsworthy here. everybody knows he's a wealthy man. everybody knows that most of the money he'd made is through investment activities, which means risk capital . everybody knows he's a generous man in terms of charities. he gives a lot of money to charity. there's not much newsworthy here. it's good to get some information out there from the last 20 years it to show he has paid taxes and has made a lot of money.
>> danny , the way you put it, very lackadaisical, there's no big deal there, which makes this all the mother curious that governor romney would not have released this information prior to today. why hold onto it if what you say is true? there's nothing there. what's the big deal ? it brings back to the question his critics have offered up. what are you hiding, if it was not or is not a big deal ?
>> well, if you recall, tamron , i was one of the people that said he should have released more earlier on to get it behind us. there's nothing newsworthy there. i think their concern in the campaign was that you would have folks from the opposition going through every possible detail with a fine-toothed comb to find anything to use against the governor. but i think it -- had it been released sooner, we would have put this behind us and moved on to the more important issues at hand.
>> let me bring you into what danny said. anything ushg use. they're talking about the romney campaign seemingly following the news cycle of the day. perusing anything from the obama campaign looking for that opening in the last several weeks here, including this line about the president saying you can't change washington from the inside out. the same line or very similar line was uttered by mitt romney when he ran for president the last time. what you do you think of this noex that they're looking for anything. you have a tape? i've got a tape. darn, my tape doesn't get traction. i'll look at a comment you made about the change in washington .
>> it's curious you would criticize obama for wanting to play the outsider role, when that's what mitt romney wanted to play. so your larger question about the message of the day is an interesting one. i mean, they really -- every campaign has to balance between responding, between pivoting very quickly when there's a newsworthy event and sticking to the larger strategy. what we've seen with the romney campaign is uncertainty about whether they want to be the larger message, as they did for so many weeks and months. even when other things seemed important to where we are today, which is it seems almost a different message every couple days. we haven't heard -- either you didn't build that since the convention when, of course, we thought that was the message going forward. we've had a couple different messages in the last few weeks. it seems they're attempting to be more nimble, but it raises the question of whether they're losing sight of the bigger picture. they, obviously, think this is working and they're doing it for a reason.
>> this is how they put it. referring to the romney campaign. they're stuck chasing news cycles. it's tough to get out of especially late in the campaign. we're late in the campaign, and there's a move by the romney group to release his tax returns . as danny pointed out as highlighted by the romney folks in the note they sent out. they want to let people know that the governor gave an incredible amount of money, $4 million, 30% of their income to charity, donations and charitable contributions are amazing and perhaps we should hope that we have enough cash to donate. the bottom line , he had a 14.1% effective tax rate . does the releasing of the information take some of the steam out of senator harry reid and other republicans who said he didn't pay any taxes at all?
>> absolutely not. this doesn't answer any questions, tamron . first of all, we haven't seen it. they're drip, dripping it out because they want you to tell the story about the 4 million, but they don't tell you the rest of the story that comes at 3:00. we don't know a lot of information about the 20 years. they give us a summary of 20 years. why not release the tax returns if they're that noxious? they're not willing to show the american people what they have a right to see. we don't know anything about the $101 million he has in his i.r.a., which it's impossible to accumulate that much money with the annual contribution limit or about his swiss bank account or the contributions in the cayman islands or the offshore accounts in the bermuda shell company . we don't know any information because romney is selective about the information he's releasing, and it will raise more questions than it answers.
>> let me bring you back in, danny , regarding this comment made by ann romney . i want to read what peggy noonan wrote in the " wall street journal ." she said the romney campaign has to get turned around. this week i called it incompetent, but only because i was being polite. i really meant rolling calamity. let me play what ann romney said in the radio interview where she took it to some of the conservatives in the party.
>> stop it. this is hard. you want to try it? get in the ring. this is hard, and, you know, it's an important thing that we're doing right now, and it's an important election. it is time for all americans to realize how significant this election is and how lucky we are to have someone with mitt's qualifications and experience and know-how to be able to have the opportunity to run this country.
>> so, danny , you mentioned that you were one of the ones that criticized the governor for not releasing those tax returns . ann romney says stop it to you. is that harsh, or is she right on the money here? not to you personally, but to obviously all the republicans out there? she was very strong. stop it. you could tell she raised boys for sure.
>> that's true. that's a good point. all of us on the republican side that really want to see mitt romney in the white house , our message to the campaign frankly and my message is, the main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing. we have to focus on jobs and the economy. i care much less about mitt romney 's tax returns over the last 20 years than president obama 's record over the last three and a half americans . we have 1 in 6 americans living in poverty right now. 40 million americans receive food stamps right now. we have 43 straight months of unemployment of over 8%. obama 's record is one of disappointment at the best and failure at worst. we have to focus on being able to turn around the economy. there's one person running for president right now who has a record of working on both sides of aisle to get things done and move the process forward. working whether it's inside washington or outside washington , because you have to do both to change washington . only one person has been able to achieve that, and that's mitt romney .
>> he doesn't talk about his own state. he was a governor in the state that ranked 45th for job creation . he doesn't talk about all the issues about his own state, because he's aafraid of his record. he's afraid of romney care. he's afraid of the connection to health care . he doesn't want to talk about it.
>> he's no longer afraid of romney care, because he says that's a compliment that he's considered the grandfather of quote-unquote obama care. at least that is undecided. nevertheless, i want to talk about real quick with you ann romney 's tone and stop it she said it in a very scolding way. she also said that people should be lucky that someone with governor romney 's experience, her husband's experience, would be on the forefront of this race for his party. what are we seeing in her reaction and even in her tone in that interview?
>> look, it's no surprise that a spouse would at this juncture, given the week mitt romney has had, be very frustrated with the coverage and critics and want to lash out a little bit. asking critics to stop it, i don't know if that's a effective strategy. i think it opens you up to criticism about not being able to take the heat. certainly given the performance, the very sunny, cheerful, optimistic performance she had at the republican convention , i would have to assume that that would be the image that they would prefer to be the lasting one. it's no surprise. she's only human, and quite frankly she's showing who she really is. i think that's part of her appeal, too.
>> she's seeing the toll it's taking on her husband as the nominee. no nonetheless if you can't take the heat, urn the saying. thank you all of you. have a great weekend.
Source: http://video.msnbc.msn.com/newsnation/49122807/
m i a mia super bowl tom coughlin wes welker eli manning eli manning kelly clarkson national anthem
No comments:
Post a Comment