chief of staff. implying she may somehow be working on behalf of the muslim brotherhood. now, you would think to make a charge like that for sitting members of congress to make a charge like that, that they would have some actual evidence, right? you would think that. but the truth is they don't have any direct evidence. what they have are allegations of past connections of relatives of hers that are tenuous best. has called for bachmann to produce credible evidence. so bachmann produced a 16 page letter she sent to the congressman. we're going to walk you through the lonngic she lays out in thi particular case. mother, brother and late father are connected to the muslim brotherhood. let's start with abadin's father, who's dead, by the way. a professor of social science. now, bachmann attributes this information to 2002 law review article out of brickham young university. according to that article, professor abetin's institute had the support of another man who was a former general secretary of another group called the muslim world league. bachmann says according to the pew forum the muslim world league has a history of, quote, being closely aligned and partnering with the muslim brotherhood. so that's how many degrees of separation bachmann's claim is based on. huma abetin's deceased father had the support of a guy who had another organization who might have had the support of another organization, the muslim brother hood. and because of that, huma abedin might be some sort of spy and deserves to be investigated. bachmann never gives any evidence of their alleged link, to the muslim brotherhood. repeatedly cites as their source. pretty serious sounding name. its website is muslim brotherhood in america.com. the man who runs the group is frank gaffney who says the muslim brotherhood is infiltrating every aspect in american life in order to impose sharia law. calls gaffney, i quote, the anti-muslim's movement most paranoid prop grandist. he was pointi ining fingers of suspicious april norquist. gaf ni was actually not allowed to go to cpac one year because of these allegations. this is not the first time bachmann has relied on questionable sources. you may remember two years ago, right here on this program, congresswoman backman made some pretty outrageous claims. saying it would cost taxpayers $200 million a day. and it turned out the source of her unsubstantiated claim was an indian news report that quoted an anonymous indian source allegedly in indian government. how an official would even know how much the president of the united states trip costs doesn't make sense. among this cast here, all of whom we've asked to come on the program, bachmann is not the only one who has the history of making unsupported claims. one of the four other congressmen is louie gohmert from texas. this is not the first time that congressman gohmert has spoken about dangerous conspiracies without providing concrete evidence. he was sounding alarm -- excuse me, 2010, he was sounding alarm over what we termed terror babies. making this explosive claim that pregnant foreigners were coming to america to give birth to future terrorists. babies with u.s. citizenship under the 14th amendment who would then be taken back to the middle east, raised for about 20 years, trained overseas as terrorists, and then be able to come back to the united states because they had u.s. passports. insidious, right? the in a speech on the house floor, congressman gohmert presented all this as fact. say a former fbi agent told him the fbi had been looking into this problem. he cited a second source. a hamas-loving grandmother on a plane in the middle east. naturally, i had a lot of questions for the congressman. did you bring it to the attention of the fbi -- >> -- on the -- she brought it to my attention on an airplane -- having flown together and she brought that to my attention. that's why i was talking to the retired fbi agent about it, and so having talked to him, no, i didn't talk to them, because the point is, when we did the research, we found the hole existed -- >> wait what research? could you tell us about the research? >> you're attacking the messenger. anderson, you're better than this. you used to be good. you used to find there was a problem -- >> sir, i'm just asking you for evidence of something you said on the floor of the house -- >> speak with a southern accent -- i did. this is the problem. if you spend as much time looking into the problem as you have been trying to belittle me this week -- >> sir, do you want to offer any evidence? i'm giving you the opportunity to offer what evidence you have. you've offered none, other than yelling. he never offered any evidence. you'd think if this was a real plot, you'd think he'd pick up the phone and call the fbi, right? we actually did that. we talked with the fbi. they told us there was absolutely no credible evidence of a terror baby conspiracy. they had no idea what he was talking about. it's not surprising, i should point out, he declined our invitation to come back on the program as he was once on in 2010. back to this current conspiracy theory. we received a statement from abedin's office. saying, quote, they are nothing but vicious lies that have no place in reasonable political discourse. anyone who traffics in them should be ashamed of themselves. democratic congressman keith ellison, the first muslim elected to congress, has taken the lead in demanding proof of these claim also about muslim extremists infiltrating the government. he joins me. congressman, do you have any doubt in your mind what congresswoman bachmann and the others are doing is simply scare mongering? they're casting doubt on basically anyone who's muslim and working for the u.s. government. >> i have no doubt that it's simply scare mongering. but i think it has a long historic route. we've seen this kind of thing before. when edward r. murrow challenged joe mccarthy, he wasn't standing up for communism, he was standing up for american values. i'm not standing up for any particular religious group. i'm standing up for america's freedom of thought in america today. just simply being a member of a particular religious group does not make you radioactive. >> you asked for a full accounting of the evidence these members of congress were using to make their claims. you got a 16-page letter back. does their evidence hold up? >> no, it's 16 pages worth of nothing. it's 16 pages worth of repeated false allegations. just regurgitated nonsense. 16 pages doesn't take nothing and turn it into something. it's still nothing. the fact is i would hope that we would just let our saner more courageous spirit prevail. and say look, you know, in america, everybody counts. everybody matters. people can be included. people can be a part our american political scene without fear. that's what i'm standing up against here. >> have you seen any evidence of deep penetration, the words bachmann used. into the security apparatus of the united states? >> no, it's not true. it doesn't exist. it's a phantom. and but look, let me also assert that if there's any, any source of threat to the united states, legitimate, you know, then i want them to be fully investigated, whatever source. i don't care what religion, what race, whoever they are. if they're a legitimate threat to the u.s., by all means investigate them. in this case, there is none that i've ever seen. >> bachmann in particular raises questions about hillary clinton's, one of her top aides, huma abedin who's muslim. married to congressman anthony wiener. they're saying her father headed a group decades ago. and one of the people who supposedly supported that group headed another group that was supposedly connected to the muslim brotherhood. i mean, does that make any sense to you? that she shouldn't have got be a security clearance because of that? >> i think it just is the worst of guilt by association. it is a stark affront to american values about treating people for what they did and how they behave themselves. not try to attribute some other people's behavior to the individual. i think israel reprehensible. i do hope that there is -- that people stand up to it. because let me tell you, anderson, you know this, good people were afraid to question joe mccarthy because they thought he would be their target. this is an occasion where good people have to stand up and say we've seen this before. we're not going to let this happen again. >> if you really believed there is this insidious security threat into the highest reaches of government, is that really something as a congress person you make public? you go on some conservative radio show? or is that something you actually contact, you know, homeland security and fbi and ask for a secret investigation by which congress people can do, if you really believe there's en this infilinfiltration, do y alert the people you're allegedly concerned about? to me it seems this could be more about politics and about kind of making a stand, very public stand, for political reasons, than the about genius security concerns. >> you know, anderson, i made this very point. i said, look if she really believes this, why is she broadcasting it? she should go to the responsibility authorities to investigate it. she made sure the public got a full viewing of her behavior. she thinks it's going to be popular and she's going to make herself look like some sort of a hero and this may benefit her in her election. i don't know what's in the mind of michele bachmann. i can tell you it's not only about the election. it's deeper than that. it's about some people in our country thinking that if you're not in the quote/unquote mainstream, then you have no place. that you have to be a certain color, certain race, certain religion. if you're not the right ones, then you're not okay. but we've got to stand up for this idea that we all count in this america. we're going to stick with this idea. we're not going to back down. >> grover norquist when he was being attacked by frank gaffney on this without any evidence said this is about religious liberty. >> yes, he's right. >> -- to practice in this country. congressman keith ellison, thank you. >> thank you. >> again, we continue to extend an invitation to congresswoman bachmann or any of the other congresspeople making these allegations. we're talking about this right now on twitter. @andersoncooper. next, raw politics. it all has to do with what the president said on the campaign trail. trail. we'll play that for you. i bought the car because i could eliminate gas from my budget. i don't spend money on gasoline. it's been 4,000 miles since my last trip to the gas station. it's pretty great. i get a bunch of kids waving at me... giving me the thumbs up. it's always a gratifying experience. it makes me feel good about my car. i absolutely love my chevy volt. ♪ i absolutely love my chevy volt. this is new york state. we built the first railway, the first trade route to the west, the greatest empires. then, some said, we lost our edge. well today, there's a new new york state. one that's working to attract businesses and create jobs. a place where innovation meets determination... and businesses lead the world. the new new york works for business. find out how it can work for yours at thenewny.com. raw politics tonight. after taking a beating for weeks on the bain record, likely gop presidential nominee mitt romney has launched a new offensive. he's accusing president obama of being anti-business. he's pointing his evidence to these comments the president made on the campaign trial friday in virginia. >> if you are successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. there was a great teacher somewhere in your life. somebody helped to create this unbelievable american system we have that allowed you to thrive. someone invested in roads and bridges. if you've got a business, you didn't build that. somebody else made that happen. the internet didn't get invented on its own. government research created the internet so that all the companies could make money off the internet. the point is, is that when we succeed, we succeed because of our individual initiative but also because we do things together. >> now, we wanted to play a good chunk of it there so you got the full context of what he was saying. the part the romney campaign has seized on is when the president said, quote, if you've got a business, you didn't build that. today in a conference call organized by the romney campaign, john sununu launched a pretty tough attack against president obama. >> the president clearly demonstrated that he has absolutely no idea how the american economy functions. the men and women all over america who have worked hard to build these businesses, their businesses, from the ground up, is how our economy became the envy of the world. it is the american way. and i wish this president would learn how to be an american. >> moments later, the same call, sununu backtracked. apologizing for some of the language he used. he also said the president has to learn the american formula to creating business. now, if you thought it would end there, it didn't. sununu went back on the attack. watch. >> he has no idea how the american system functions. we shouldn't be surprised about that. because he spent his early years in hawaii smoking something. spent the next set of years in indonesia. and another set of years in indonesia. and, frankly, when he came to the u.s., he worked as a community organizer, which is a socialized structure, and then got into politics in chicago. >> well, senator sununu isn't the only romney supporter speaking out. paul ryan is firing back as well. blasted president obama in an interview with the american enterprise institute monday. the idea that these entrepreneurs owe all their success to some government bureaucrat or some centralized planner just defies reality. he's usually pretty coy about his ideology but he lets the veil slip from time to time. now what candidate romney has to say. here's what romney told supporters during a campaign stop in pennsylvania today. >> to say something like that is not just foolishness, it's insulting to every intrepreneur, every innovator in america. our economy is driven by free people pursuing their ideas and their dream. it is not driven by government. what the president's doing is crushing economic freedom. i do not give government credit for having built that. i give free people credit for having built that business. >> that's mitt romney on the attack today. joining me now, erick erickson. red state.com . and van voejones. co-founder of rebuild the dream. erick, do you believe this was the president kind of giving a peak behind the veil of what he really thinks? or was this a misstatement like romney had said corporationings are people too? >> you know, i think the white house realizes it was a damaging statement. because now they're trying to focus on, oh, he meant the roads and bridges to the business. this is consistent to what he was saying going back to his kansas speech last year. the president believes the more successful you are, the more you owe to the federal government. the most successful people are successful in spite of government not because of government. the most successful people happen to be the lease t dependt on government. >> van, the president has adjusted his language on this since friday. this isn't he used that sort of populist tone to criticize business leaders. do you think this was a slipping of the vail or a misstatement? how do you read it? >> this is just silly season. the president said what anybody would say if you look at america. what he said is america's government essentially has been a partner to america business. that is, in fact, true. it's a lot easier to be a business owner here in america and do well. why? we've got rule of law here. we've got roads, bridges, schools. we've got the internet. erick erickson on this program, one of our best business media interpra anywheres in the world right now, he's doing incredibly well. he built redstate.com on top of the internet. the idea this is somehow some horrible -- the president of the united states sticking up for america's government and what we have done as the american people through the auspices of business, that's patriotic. i don't understand how you get out of that statement any insult. he is a balanced president. he he says the entrepreneur has to work well. let's all be in this together. >> erick, what about that? effective corporate tax rates are near record lows. corporate profits are near record highs right now. what do you make of what van just said? >> that's the most articulate version of what the president said but i don't think it's true. starting out in kansas, i'm not even going to say the name of the city, i'm afraid, because i can't pronounce it. it's the city in kansas where he gave his economic kickoff speech earlier this year. it coincides with what eliz beth warren has set up. the more successful you are, the more you owe to the government. the government talks about paying their fair share. i don't want romney or obama being the arbiter of what my fair share should be. the fact of the matter is the more successful you are, the more you pay in x thats. the more you have the opportunity to get back not just through government but you give back other ways. through charity, through hiring people, employing people. paying into local and state taxes. the president's walkback and what van jones is walking back the president's saying. ness whole context of his remarks over the past year, that's not true it the president is saying the more successful you are the more you owe the government. >> well, i'd like to challenge you on that, sir. i think what we've got to understand here is this is a balanced president. i just don't understand. from my point of view, the reason that small businesses -- no small business in america would leave america and go to any other country because we have done a great deal to create an infrastructure for our small businesses to do well. this president has created 4 million private sector jobs. that's more than george bush did. he had a much better economy. this president has been there for the american people across the board. i think what we have right now is an attempt to change the channel. this whole bain situation is terrible. when i worked with the government, i had to disclose everything about myself back to the third grade. you got somebody who wants to be president who doesn't even want to show you his income taxes. this is a big channel changer moment. i don't think mitt romney can escape by doing this type of stuff. misquoting the president. taking him out of context. somebody saying businesses and people can work together. that's not anti-patriotism. >> he's focusing on the president's context. when you look at the president's context instead of one little snippet it looks much worse for the president. to say somehow successful people owe things to others. the basic part of that, everye agrees with that. i owe my third grade writing teacher for my ability to write. at the same time, i don't need to pay extra into the government because of what my third grade writing teacher in a foreign country taught me. that's what the president has consistently been saying on the campaign trail for a year. given rise to roanoke. i think he's walking it back now because i think he's absolutely wrong. >> i want to get your comments on what governor sununu said earlier told. the campaign, the obama campaign, has said, quote, about the comments. the romney campaign has officially gone off the deep end. and investments in foreign tax havens and offshore accounts. this meltdown and over the top rhetoric won't make things better. van, are they --