report facts. we begin tonight with the new mitt romney ad. >> in 1996, president clinton and a bipartisan congress helped end welfare as we know it. but on july 12th president obama announced a program to gut welfare. under obama's plan you wouldn't have to work or train for a job. they just send you your check. >> in a moment you'll hear from newt gingrich to defend the ad. but first, i want to show you how mitt romney is campaigning on the claims made in that very ad. >> with a very careful compuexee action, he removed the requirement of work from welfare. it is wrong to make any change that would make america a nation of government dependency. we must restore and i will restore work into welfare. >> listening to that and watching the ad you would think that the white house somehow managed to undo what the elected representatives accomplished on welfare reform. you get the obama administration wants an america where hard working americans pay taxes and lazy ones sit around collecting welfare. newt gingrich spelled it out all. >> i think on the hard left, there is an unending desire to create a dependent america. it's not just obama's a radical, but the people appointed are more radical. >> the white house disagree and they're not alone. a string of fact checkers blast it as false. what in fact the white house department of health and human services proposed doing was give govern ors more flexibility to tailor programs to their own states. these are changes requested by republican governors of utah and nevada. but what about this claim? >> if president obama didn't want people to think that he was going to wave the central work requirement and welfare reform, his administration shouldn't have written a memo saying it was going to waive the work requirements and welfare reform. >> i quote, hhs will only consider aproviding waefrs related to the work participation requirements that make changes intended to lead to more effective means of meeting the work goals. the administration is insisting that aren't trying to waive the work requirement they're trying to make it more effective, precisely what the republican state governors have asked for. newt gingrich has defended the ad but as you'll see later on in this intersue, speaker gingrich makes aurprising admission. i spoke with him just a short time ago. mr. speaker, this ad says you wouldn't have to work or train for a job. they would just send you your welfare check. according to pretty much every fact checking organization that's not true. president clinton signed the law and says it's not true. even ron haskins said, quote, there's no plausible scenario under which this new policy constitutes a serious attack on reform. are they all wrong? >> the original developer of welfare reform worked with governor and then president rag on. he was the first person who come out agessively and say look, this one in the end got welfare reform. his reasoning is straightforward. once you start allowing states -- this is why, by the way, the law itself does not permit waivers. the president couldn't waive section 407, so he fudge nd and found a way to get around it which i suspect will turn out to be illegal. governor from virginia says he thinks this is clearly gutting welfare reform. the two governors that the obama administration is hiding behind, utah and nevada have both come out and said this is not what they wanted or the flexibility they asked for. and i think that this is going to become a genuine argument. those of us who favored welfare reform and who worked hard to get it felt deeply, particularly in liberal states, if you didn't have some kind of strong requirement, they used to have things like getting a massage counted. going through drug rehab counted as a work program. it's amazing the range of things prior to 1995, or 1996, that you could do and pretend they were work. >> but i mean this ad said under obama's plan you wouldn't have to, would, you wouldn't have to train for a job. they just send you your welfare check. there's no evidence of that at all. >> given that this is an administration which h maximid the increase in dependency, maximized the number of people on food stamps, maximized the effort of people relying on the government, there's also no evidence that once the weaver sim is in place that you could rely on this administration -- >> it would be up to govern orss as you ju said and that is not their intention. you talked about utah governor and they said utah's request for a waiver stems for a desire to maximize welfare -- that's almost word for word what the hhs is saying. the hhs acting assistant secretary of hhs said that this is all about trying to create innovative strategies, flexibility, policies and procedures designed to improve employment outcomes for needy families. they're basically saying the same thing, no? >> sure. and the question you have to ask yourself, given the track record, given the general between liberalism and radicalism of the appointees and remember part of what led to the strong reaction was this came out in the same 48-hoor period as the president's famous speech that you didn't build it. that you weren't responsible as a small business owner for what you acheechd. it's almost as though he was psychologically attacking work and achievement at the same time. and candidly this is not an administration that i think you're going to find a conservative give the benefit of the doubt to. >> but, isn't this in line, isn't this waiver idea in line with what you have proposed about solutions at the state level? basically decentralizing power, put can it back in the hands of governors and the states. >> this is one of the rare areas where frankly the reason we wrote in it could not be waved is when you allow liberals to do it they will wave the work. you just go back and look at the kind of things really starting with lyndon johnson and jimmy carter and expanding. the kind of things that state welfare departments and liberal states were doing were absurdities. and the whole stress to the welfare reform was a function of the failure of those kinds of states as contrasted with the governors of wisconsin who had done a great job despite the federal bias. >> i've got to come back to the wording of this ad. it's under obama's plan, you wouldn't have to work, you wouldn't have to train for a job. they just send you your welfare check. that's not saying we assume this, or we think this it's saying as a fact this will happen. and that's just not supported by evidence. >> i think if the ad makers had asked me, i would have said this makes it possible. would have been a good way top entder -- >> so you think the wording of the ad is not actually accurate. that it is too straightforward. >> i think the ad does assert -- this is a political ad. in 30 seconds, you tend not to get all the various amendments nd things. >> but accuracy is important. >> i'm here tonight supporting the idea. i believe absolutely that this, the obama administration is filled with people who do not believe in the work requirement. and this is, as you yourself pointed out, even when bill clinton agreed to sign the bill, half the democrats in the house, 101 representatives voted no. barrack obama himself was opposed to it. so when you say to me do i think all the people who opposed the bill would probably try to gut it if they get a chance? of course i do. >> if you were running this ad, you would change the wording to say i worry about this or based on what i believe about the president, i think he will do this. if i were running the ad, it would be a much tougher ad because i would start by saying, as the leading food stamp president in american history and the person who has increased american dependency, and a guy who has increased child poverty. the largest decline in child pafrty was because we had a work requirement and their lives got better. my ad would have been tougher than this ad in setting up the conditions you're looking for but then it would have been a 60-second ad and i don't know if we could have afforded it. >> i think you could have afforded it. but i've got to come back to it because it did sound like you were saying earlier and i want to try to clarify this. you do think that the actual wording under obama's plan, you wouldn't have to, would, you wouldn't have to train for a job, they just send you a welfare check. that is not factually correct? >> we have not proof today, i would say to you under obama's ideology, it is absolutely true that he would be comfortable sending people doing checks for nothing. i believe that totally. >> i appreciate you being on. i should point out that's an assumption, he says he has no facts today. let us know what you think on twitter and facebook. up nex the inaccurate pro president obama ad, we'll talk to one of the people for that. also to talk more about the strategy and calculation behind these commercials. managing expenses seems to... get in the way. i not anymore. ink, the small business card from chase introduces jot an on-the-go expense app made exclusively for ink customers. custom categorize your expenses anywhere. save time and get back to what you love. the latest innovation. only for ink customers. learn more at chase.com/ink who dreamed she could fly. like others who braved the sky before her, it took a mighty machine, and plain old ingenuity to go where no fifth grader had gone before. ♪ and she flew and she flew, into the sky and beyond. my name is annie and i'm the girl who dreamed she could fly. powered by intel core processors. ♪ begins with back pain and a choice. take advil, and maybe have to take up to four in a day. or take aleve, which can relieve pain all day with just two pills. good eye. which can relieve pain all day with just two pills. so, why are we up here? 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[ announcer ] we are insurance. ♪ we are farmers bum-pa-dum, bum-bum-bum-bum ♪ the campaign trail first on a factually bogus romney ad, now a ad from the leading obama super pac that's expected to run in battle ground states across the country. it features a laid off steel worker. >> when mitt romney closed the plant i lost health care. and my family lost health care. and a short time after that, my wife become ill. i don't know how long she was sick, and i think maybe she didn't say anything because she knew that we couldn't afford the insurance. and then one day she became ill and i took her to the jackson county hospital and admitted her for pneumonia and that's when they found the cancer. by then it was stage 4. there was nothing she they could do for her and she passed away in 22 days. >> it's obviously a very sad story. keeping them honest, virtually nothing about the story fits the timeline or the facts. mr. romney was still on the books as being ceo when the steel mill had shut down. he was still listed as ceo and had a hand in how the company was handled. but in the ad mr. sop tick says his wife became ill a short time. it turns out it was five years after that. in 2006 his wife unfortunately died. his wife actually had other health insurance, actually her primary insurance was from her own job and she still had that when he lost his health insurance. as with the romney ad, we talked about it before the break, the fact checkers are not smiling on this one either. "the washington post" giving the same of romneys. on just every level this ad stretches the bounds of common sense and desencency. >> i don't speak for a third party group i speak for thement and adnistration. >> the campaign and spoex we have nothing, no involvement with any ads that are done by priorities usa. we don't have any knowledge of the story or family. the campaign should have some knowledge of him and his family because they used him in one of their own campaign ads earlier. >> i was a steel worker for 30 years. we had a reputation for quality products. it was something that was american made. and we weren't rich and i was able to put my daughter through college. >> that was joe soptic in an earlier ad for the obama 2012 campaign. bill, let's talk about this. "the washington post" says about your ad, it stretches the bounds of decency. how can you imply that mitt romney and bain are somehow to blame for that poor woman dying of cancer. >> we don't and we're not. those facts checks presuppose that's what we're trying to do. the point of the ad is to tell the story of the sbablth that he had on thousands of people. and that impact is felt still today in those communities. >> but you spent, i mean, you're a smart guy, you have a lot of smart ad people in the group that you're working with. half the ad is him talking about his wife's demise. and it ends with him saying i do not think that mitt romney realizes what he's done to anyone. the implication is clearly that he is responsible or what the actions he took led to his wife's death. >> you know, the story is a very sad one. and the truth is that there are thousands of stories that are, that happened as a result of mitt romney and his time at bain. and some of them are really tragic. but just because they're sad or tragic doesn't mean they should be off limits. we think it's important to tell the stories of these folks and how they were impacted by mitt romney. >> how is a woman dying -- she had health insurance from her job after this man last his job and then she got an injury years later and lost her insurance. >> right. to say that presupposes that we're trying to link mitt romney with her tragedy. >> you are. you've made a commercial about mitt romney and it's all about this woman's tragedy. if if you're not trying to link it, why are you even talking about her? >> but anderson, if we were making that point, that means if she hadn't had another job in the intervening time, if it happened sooner, that somehow mitt romney would be more responsible. that's not what we're saying. at a moment of true concern and anxiety in a family, when joe soptic needed health insurance for his family, he didn't have it. that's the point here. he was promised health care benefits and he lost them. >> you really claim, you really want people to believe you're not trying to link in any way, even just subtly or not subtly, that there's some linkage between mitt romney, bain capital, business decisions he made and this woman's death. >> anderson, it would defy logic to do so. the point is even today that community is completely worn day. the factory is abandoned. people still don't have jobs in some cases. many folks don't have health insurance. people who do have jobsz are getting paid less. and mitt romney's business experience had a profound effect on the lives of thousands of people and that effect is still being felt and that's what this ad tells the story of. that's what al our ads tell the story of. >> this ad tells us a very specific story. more than half of the ad is him talking very detailed about his wife -- it's a very sad story. >> it is, but it also trun kats time in a way that makes it seem like he got fired, she didn't have health insurance, which she did from her oth job, her primary insurance, in fact. >> not at the time that she died, though. she had health insurance for a short time. >> because she lost her other job. >> but ultimately when joe soptic needed help insurance to his family, that had been promised to him by a contract that mitt romney helped to negotiate, he didn't have the health insurance. >> because under bankruptcy protection they were able to do with the day -- >> they were able to void a contract that they had with workers. >> that's bankruptcy law. >> they made plenty of money. all those workers got screwed again. >> you can make an ad all about that. you're implying, i think any rational or certainly nonpartisan observers look at this and say you are linking this otherwise you would not put this in an ad. >> i think just the opposite. i think the rational thing to take away here is how on earth could you possibly imply that. what we're saying is at a moment of true anxiety. >> how can you imply that? it's totally disinjen with us. come on. >> i don't think that's true. you think that mitt romney had an effect on these people's lives and to talk about it is an important part of his story. he want the american people to make a decision on whether or not he should be president based on his business experience. and his business experience, when people take a look at it, when they hear the stories of these folks, they say i don't want that guy to be president of the united states. >> well, bill, i appreciate you come on to talk about the ad. thanks bill. >> tnks. >> let's bring in senior political analyst for his take. what do you make of this? >> well, anderson both sides are boiling mad tonight at the other because they each one thinks the other has been dishonest in a fairway and frankly they're both right. >> you're saying they're both dishonest. >> it's very striking. this outside group checks these things carefully and they give pinocchios when they think something is wrong and they give four to both the obama teams' ad and to the romney team's ad. >> when bill burtton says how can you link this death, do you buy that? >> no. of course not. it's plain on its face. i like bill burton but he's engaged in double speak. but of course the point of the ad is to make the point that mitt romney was responsible for this woman's death because she did not have health insurance. over time they've called mitt romney a felon or suggested it. they said he didn't pay his taxes for ten years. now his business practice, he k caused the death of a woman. and on the other side, obama is saying a birther movement. he was born outside the united states. that he's a muslim which is wrong. both sides are playing dirty. >> in the romney campaign ad they're saying president obama is trying to gut welfare reform, that under his plan you wouldn't have to work. you'll just be sent a check which is just factually not at all what they were proposing. it was interesting to hear newt gingrich tonight we don't have any facts today. >> in their heart we know. >> he's assuming this. >> newt himself basically said i wouldn't have written it this way, but we all know in their hearts what they believe, they're closet socialists or whatever. >> does it matter? there's always factual inaccuracies in ads and that's part of our job to point them out. but do you think it matters or do you think the fact that bill burton and newt comes on and just repeats it over and over again, does that help their cause even though it may be factually incorrect to just repeat the idea over and over again? >> i think it undermines confidence and trust in the president as well as in romney to have these kinds of campaigns. i think it ultimately is going to make it much more difficult for the winner to govern of the they're not going to have the public support you need to govern well and there's going to be so much anger on the losing side when this is over. having said that, does it help? clearly the obama people feel that having a campaign based on this -- this is a different campaign that they conduct four years ago, is helping them. if you look over the last few weeks, it was a close race and president obama has opened up a lead. so i think it actually right now is generally speaking working in obama's favor. he's discrediting mitt romney in a way that people say i really don't like obama is doing but i can't vote for romney. i guess i've got to vote for obama. >> appreciate it. >> thank you. >> a lot more happening tonight. in s