Ricketts Plan News Today

Dollars that are going into these corporations as the direct result of citizens united that are going into these pacs and that these pacs have no accountability to anybody. they can distort the facts, they can -- they can essentially lie, have candidates be off message. and the worst case scenario have increasing racial anxiety like we saw in the -- >> arthel: increasing what? >> racial anxiety like we saw in the ricketts plan, the potential to increase racial anxiety and other kinds of fears. s...

Gotten this aggressive this early? >> im not. i think we all pretty much saw this coming. and i dont know if you all saw this today, but joe ricketts whos now become infamous because of the ricketts plan, now hes decided launch attacks on reverend wright, he decided to do attacks on obama as an anti-colonial tribes smith. >> mitt romney is denouncing he has no connections. im not sure where that plays in. >> it plays in because hes putting up millions of dollars and will be part of the campaign....

Fiscal conservative and an out spoken critic of the obama administration. he is not an author or funder of the ricketts plan. his proposal was one of the several submitted, but an approach to politics that mr. ricketts never suggests. it should be noted that on page 46 of the proposal, with your preliminary approval in the new york meeting. so ricketts apparently presented some kind of preliminary proposal. we have not yet received a response. meanwhile, mitt romney denounced a plan after a camp...

>> as you know, you need more than good tv ads, you need pollsters and different vendors. we talked different vendors and asked for recommendations of who we would work with. i understand she never discussed the plan with them. they never discussed the plan and was not aware of it at all. im not trying to be critical of it. im trying to make sure people understand we didnt request the plan, we didnt approve it. we had nothing to do with the suggestion of reverend wright. we are interested in wor...

Not anything based on these types of matters. so, im not going to judge "the new york times." i will say, i feel like it was a bad idea. to call it the ricketts plan is unfair. the family is an open and welcoming family and committed to responsible, honest dialogue. they are incredibly generous. its deeply hurtful and unfair to the family to have anybody suggest they want to do or support anything like this. its just not try. >> brian, its willie geist. good to have you on this morning. i want t...

>> sure. in the spending action fund requested proposals from media vendors. fred is one who was asked to present a proposal. we never asked for a proposal based on reverend wright, however. >> when you got the proposal, what was the reaction of the family members and yours? was it immediate? >> i was immediately troubled by the proposal. it surprised me. we run an organization based on fiscal responsibility. they know we asked for a document based on ending spending, fiscal responsibility and j...

Possible direction to take. the president of the super pac says he was not the funder of the plan and he is focused entirely on questions of fiscal policy, not attacks that seek to divide us socially or culturally. romney distanced himself speaking to reporters at a news conference in florida. >> i read an article on the aircraft. i reputeuate that effort. i think its the wrong course for a pac or campaign. i hope our campaigns can be about the future and issues and a vision for america. i have ...

Defeat of barack hussein obama. the ricketts plan to end his spending for good. thats the title of hit. the ricketts plan was to be funded by a crazy billionaire named joe ricketts. the founder of td emeritrade. and the owner of the chicago cubs if you feel like canceling season tickets, go ahead. the attack on president obama was to center on his past relationship with the reverend jeremiah wright. the plan describes wrights preaching as black liberation theology and calls president obama a met...

I did not think it was worth consideration. joe was not at the meeting. i never spoke to him about it. what i said was it was so far afield to what we wanted. i pointed him to i know you wanted something related to spending and we are giving you something related to character. its one of many proposals. i meant we would not be doing it. i could have been clearer, yes. when i said no decision has been made, that meant we are not moving forward. >> you communicated no decision was made about what ...

Campaign. we have 4 hours of breathless news coverage fueled by the "times." its an issue. >> mark halperin, they stand by their story. your thoughts in terms of the coverage. >> well, i said earlier in the program i thought it was too big given the circumstances. i want to ask about the coverage, brian. the times, very important sentence in their story today says on wednesday you were asked in an interview whether he rejected the advertising proposal. they quote you saying no decision had been ...