he talked with cnn's national political correspondent jim acosta this evening. >> governor, thanks for joining us. let's talk first about this controversy over when you left bain capital. i'll put one of the documents in question up on screen. their sec filing stating that you were ceo at bain capital past 1999. when you say you left bain to run the olympics. why was your name still on these documents? and why didn't you clear this up sooner? >> well, i was the owner of an entity that is filing that information. but i had no role whatsoever in the management of bain capital after february of 1999. not that that would have been a problem to have said i was with the firm beyond that but i simply wasn't. i left to go out and run the olympics. i did that full-time. relinquished all management authority and role in bain capital after february 1999. >> how do you explain that discrepancy? you said publicly you left the firm in 1999. weren't you concerned at some point these filings might become public and people would see your name was still on these filings? >> well, there's nothing wrong with being associated with bain capital, of course. but the truth is that i left any role at bain capital in february of '99. that's known and said by the people at the firm. it's said by the documents, offering documents that the firm made subsequently about people investing in the firm. and i think anybody who knows that i was out full time running the olympics would understand that's where i was. i spent three years running the olympic games. and after that was over, we worked out our retirement program, our departure official program, for bain capital and hand the over the shares i had. there's a difference between being a shareholder, an owner, if you will, and being a person who's running an entity. and i had no role whatsoever in managing bain capital after february 1999. by the way, this is all an effort on the part of the president's campaign to divert attention from the fact that the president has been a failure when it comes to reigniting america's economy. we have had, now, 41 straight months with unemployment above 8%. and so he continues to try to find some way to attack me other than to talk about policy. and it's time to talk about what it will take to get america working again. >> you mentioned the president's campaign and what they've been saying about you. >> yeah, i mean, i know there's going to be every effort to try and find some ki of attack piece on the part of the obama campaign. but interestingly, every independent fact checker that's looked at this in depth, not just taken a quick interview, but look at it in great depth, has said that the president's claims are false, misleading, wrong headed. it got multiple pinocchios from one reviewer. what he's doing is doing everything in his power to try to divert attention from the fact that his policies have failed the american people. these kinds of attacks from his campaign are simply out of character, from what we'd expect from the president. it's beneath his dignity. >> as you know, president obama's deputy campaign manager stephanie cutter was very harsh on a conference call on thursday. listen to what she said. then we'll get your response afterwards. >> either mitt romney, through his own words and his own signature, was misrepresenting his position at bain to the sec, which is a felony. or, he was misrepresenting his position at bain to the american people to avoid responsibility for some of the consequences of his investments. >> miss cutter suggested you might be guilty of a felony, governor romney. what is your response to that? >> is that really what's expected from the campaign of the sitting president of the united states? of the republican nominee of his party? i mean, is this the level that the obama campaign is willing to stoop to? is this up to the standards expected of the presidency of the united states? i don't think the american people think so. i certainly don't think so. >> do you believe -- >> they announced early on -- one of their insiders said their campaign was going to be based on the strategy of "kill romney." that's what they're doing. it's disgusting. it's demeaning. i something i think the president should take responsibility for and stop. >> do you believe you're being swiftboated in this campaign? >> i hadn't heard that term but i'll give it some thought. i think what the president is doing is terribly destructive to the political process and beneath what the people of america expected from someone who said he was going to rise above partisan politics and bring a new era of change to washington. we're not seeing that in this campaign so far. >> because both campaigns on thursday, governor romney, were basically calling each other liars. is that the kind of campaign the american people should expect? and shouldn't your campaign take some responsibility for calling the president's campaign and their people liars? >> you know what, the president's campaign has done so far is run advertisement after advertisement. which is then shown by independent fact checkers to be wrong, false, misleading. and yet they keep running them. they hold press conferences continuing to speak about them. at some point, you have to respond. you can't just have the air waves covered with these adds day in and day out without saying, look those are false. >> so is the president lying about your record -- >> -- is doing is false. >> is the president lying about your record then, governor romney? >> there's no question but that his campaign is putting out information which is false and deceptive and dishonest and they know it and they ought to stop. >> they've called on you to release more of your tax returns. you've released your 2010 tax return. bill clinton was on the "today" show today saying you should release more. during the republican primary, newt gingrich, rick santorum and rick perry all called on you to release your taxes. those are leaders from both parties saying you should release more taxes. when are you going to release more of your taxes and how many years? >> i've indicated that -- well, first of all, we've colied with the law. the law requires us to put out a full financial disclosure. that i've done. in addition to that, i've already put out one year tax returns. we'll put out the next year of tax returns as soon as the accountants have that ready. i know there will always be calls for more. people always want to get more. we're putting out what is required, plus more that is not required. and those are the two years that people are going to have. that's all that's necessary for people to understand something about my finances. and, look, if people believe this should be a campaign about attacking one another on a personal basis and go back to the kinds of attacks that were suggested in some campaigns in the past, i don't want to go there. i want this to be a campaign about the direction for america. and about who can get america working again. and who can rein in the excessive deficits that you're seeing in washington. >> all right, governor romney, thanks very much for your time, we appreciate it. >> thanks, guys. >> cnn's jim acosta, who conducted that interview, joins me. along with cnn's chief political analyst gloria borger. there's clearly a strategy here. your interview, other network interviews as well, part of the strategy by the romney campaign. would you say the takeaway is that the campaign is very worried about this bain story and how it's unfolding? >> i think so, soledad. we got very late notice about this interview possibility. heard about it, about 1:00 this afternoon, and found out the governor was doing a round robin of interviews. because of the fact he said almost the same thing to all of us is an indication that, yes, they were working on this message and they wanted to get it out there. >> gloria, you were in boston. you just got back from the romney headquarters in boston. give us a sense of how the campaign is handling this and what changing they're making to deal with some of this. >> i can tell you, as jim said, that romney was outraged, the campaign was pretty outraged. it's clear, though, they believe, by setting up all these interviews today, they had not put this story to rest yesterday. and so, you know, bain has been an issue that dogged them in their senate race in 1994. again when he ran for governor in 2002. what they're trying to do here is essentially turn the tables on the obama campaign and say this is beneath the dignity of the president's office, to have someone in his campaign use the word "felony" and their charge is that you should understand that president obama is willing to say or do anything to become president. and so that is a line that you're going to be hearing over and over again. and they are clearly using it in this particular case. >> would you say, jim, that the campaign seems particularly tense? i mean, obviously you spent a lot of time covering this campaign. how would you describe it? >> oh, yes. yesterday, when both campaigns were going back and forth calling each other liars, i mean, that is not something we've seen so far in the course of the general election campaign. it sort of went on during the primaries but not to this level of tension. i do think -- and i try to ask mitt romney about that because he was leveling these charges against the president. i went back to mitt romney and said, wait, your campaign is calling the president's campaign and your people liars. he basically directed his comments back to the president. so i think he realizes that this is how the game is played and how this election is going to play out. >> so gloria, do you think this series of interviews that mitt romney has now done will end it, put the issue to rest, everybody will move on? >> no, i don't think it will. i think this is part of a real strategy by the obama campaign to paint a portrait of mitt romney as somebody who's sort of a mystery, who's out of touch, who's secretive. so bain fits into that narrative very well. because he's very secretive about what happened. was he working for bain from 1999 on or was he really at the olympics? why won't he release his tax returns? this is a man of great wealth and he's not like you. so i think this fits into their whole strategy of the portrait they're painting of mitt romney. and then in the fall, they're going to start talking about social security and medicare. and it's really going to get nasty, soledad. >> yeah. can't wait for that. jim, let me you a question which i thought was a really interesting moment in your interview. you talked to him about swiftboating. and he sort of stopped and said he hadn't heard that term before. i was trying to figure out, did he mean he hadn't heard the term swiftboating or did he mean in the context of his campaign? >> i think what he said was he hadn't thought about that term in the context of what's happening now in this campaign. later on in the interview, he sort of went back to that train of thought and said, well, if we're going to go back to the way campaigns were waged in years past, i don't want to go there, is what mitt romney had to say. and so i think that's -- i think that is something that he does worry about and that his campaign worried about. and we're not the first ones to draw this analogy. people have been saying that this is what the obama campaign is up to, that this is a skiptboating of mitt romney. not on a vietnam war record, but on a swift boat record. >> we're on facebook and twitter, @ac360. coming up next, the raw politics of obama's offensive. plus, we're keeping them honest. all this talk about bain may be much ado about nothing. she loves to shop online with her debit card, and so does bill, an identity thief who stole mary's identity, took over her bank accounts and stole her hard-earned money. now meet jack. after 40 years, he finally saved enough to enjoy retirement. angie, the waitress at jack's favorite diner, is also enjoying his retirement. with just a little information, she's opened up a credit line, draining the equity in jack's home. unfortunately, millions of americans just like you learn all it may take is a little misplaced information to wreak havoc on your life. this is identity theft, and no one helps stop it better than lifelock. see, ordinary credit monitoring services tell you after your identity has been stolen. they may take up to 60 days to alert you-- too late for jack. lifelock has the most comprehensive identity theft protection available. if mary had lifelock's bank account alertsshe may have been notified in time to help stop it. if jack had lifelock's 24/7 proactive protection, he could have been alerted by phone or e-mail as soon as they noticed an attack on their network, before it was too late. lifelock has the most comprehensive identity theft protection available, guarding your social security number, your money, your credit, even the equity in your home. while identity theft can't be completely stopped, no one works harder to protect you than lifelock. you even get a $1 million service guarantee. that's security no one can beat. you have so much to protect and nothing to lose when you call lifelock right now and get 60 days of identity theft protection risk free-- that's right, 60 days risk free-- use promo code "not me". order now and get this document shredder to keep sensitive documents out of the wrong hands-- a $29 value, free. [click-click] [♪...] keeping them honest tonight. more on the battle over bain. mitt romney launching a counterattack. a full-fledged media blitz tonight. trying to stop the obama camp from controlling the message. it's been rough. as we said, team obama is accusing team romney of lying. and even criminal action. it all has to do with questions about when romney left bain capital. democrats say romney should release more of his tax records to clarify his departure. mr. romney figured it would get this ugly. again, here's what he told cnn's jim acosta just a short time ago. >> they announced early on, one of their insiders said their campaign was going to be based upon the strategy of, quote, kill romney, end of quote. that's what they're doing. it's disgusting. it's demeaning. it's something which i think the president should take responsibility for and stop. >> well, insiders say don't expect that anytime soon. in just a moment, we're going to take a look at how president obama's offensive is right out a powerful political play book. first, keeping them honest, obama's pushback on bain may be all about nothing. cnn's john king spoke with four sources, all who have firsthand knowledge of bain's operations after february of 1999 when romney insists he left the firm. all four told king that romney is telling the truth. including steve pacluca, a bain executive who's also a democrat. he says mitt romney left bain capital in february 1999 to run the olympics. and has had absolutely no involvement with the management or investment activities of the firm or any of its portfolio companies since the day of his departure. now, to the raw politics of this all. the obama offensive. the rhetoric. nothing new. it's out a familiar political playbook. with that, here's tom foreman. >> reporter: when a president doesn't tell the truth, how can we trust him to lead? >> romney's companies were pioneers of shipping u.s. jobs overseas. >> reporter: even in the flood of negative ads pouring out of each side of this race, democrats are hitting one target again and again and again. >> bain capital. >> bain capital. >> bain capital. >> bain capital. >> bain capital. >> bain capital walked away with a lot of money that they made off of this plant. >> reporter: the white house clearly wants to portray mitt romney's time at the helm of bain capital as a weak spot. in ad after ad, democrats are suggesting romney is a fat cat job outsourcer. an opportunistic financial predator. keep in mind that many of those claims appear to be backed with little or no evidence. >> the obama campaign is absolutely doubling down on the bain attack, no doubt about it. if the word triple down existed, they would be doing that as well. >> reporter: this political media analyst believes president obama was at one point looking to steal a page from reagan's playbook. planning an optimistic positive re-election campaign. till economic troubles and weak poll numbers hit hard. >> i think the obama folks were hoping to run a campaign like "morning in america" in 1984. but the campaign i think they're look at is much more the george w. bush campaign in 2004. >> the accusations that john kerry -- >> reporter: he's talking about the swiftboat campaign. in which john kerry was demonized over what his campaign considered an attribute. his decorated service as a soldier in vietnam. the swiftboat ads, backed by a group of pro-bush veterans, questioned the democratic challenger's conduct in the war, his anti-war activities later and his patriotism. kerry was slow to respond and never very effective in refuting their claims. even though his critics offered little in the way of proof. he lost the election of course. for many democrats, swiftboating became a catch-all term for any unfair, untrue, personal assault on a candidate. >> romney's companies -- >> reporter: but if the president is troubled by the comparison of his bain attacks to the republican swiftboating, he's not showing it. >> when you're president, everything is called into question. >> reporter: romney has been spurred to hit back fast. >> as much as a presidential election is a referendum on the incumbent, the cllenger still needs to reach that threshold level of credibility. >> i need you guys to work. >> reporter: if he doesn't, some republican analysts fear mitt romney could become the second politician from massachusetts swiftboated out of the presidency. tom foreman, cnn, washington. >> time to dig deeper. two of our political contributors. ari fleisher, former white house press secretary for president george w. bush. paul begala is a democratic strategist and adviser to a pro-obama super pac. paul, let's begin with you. as you've heard, the obama campaign was basically saying mitt romney is either a criminal or he's a liar. and romney's campaign is calling on the obama campaign to apologize. saying it's demeaning to the office of the president. do you think, in fact, an apology is necessary, paul? >> no, toughen up, mitt. this is campaigns. this is politics. politics ain't bean bag. here's what thomas jefferson campaign said about john adams. they called him a hideous character that has not the sensibility of a woman. if you're not tough enough to stand up to stephanie cutter, how are you going to stand up to vladimir putin? i mean, come on. >> even if it turns out to be completely untrue, what they say. >> no, this is completely true. there are signed documents that list him as the ceo. there are other documents that he signed that are sworn that said he had nothing to do with the company at the time. his public financial disclosure documents. one of them is wrong. either he was the ceo and running it as the sec documents say. or he had nothing to do with bain capital, which is what his personal financi disclosures say. they both can't be true. i think cutter has sort of an inarguably good case that one of those two statements is false. >> ari, you were helping the bush campaign in 2004. of course you remember the swifolt ads used the strength of john kerry really against him. called the strength of his service in vietnam against him. some have said this is what's happening. he's a bush adviser, as you well know. this is what we're seeing happen right now to mitt romney. he's being swiftboated. would you say that's true? >> look, i'm sort of in paul's camp on this. in this instance, i