not the best of weeks for the romney campaign. it was already under fire from friendly sources as not ready for primetime when a senior adviser said that obama care is fine for when buying insurance is a penalty, not a tax. a big oops in the political world because the republicans have used the supreme court decision to say it is a tax. reset. >> the supreme court said it is a tax, didn't they. so it's a tax, of course. >> too late for the conservative "wall street journal" who blistered the romney campaign for looking confused and politically dumb. mr. romney, it read, promised republicans he was the best man to make the case against president obama who they desperately want to defeat. and so far, mr. romney is letting them down. joining me is senate republican leader mitch mcconnell. there are few people in washington with a larger stake in seeing that mitt romney does well, than you do, because you want to go from the minority leader in the senate to majority. how do you think he's been doing? >> well, the race is very, very close. i think the best evidence of that is a gallup tracking poll which has it consistently close that the people are unhappy with the economy and they know that mitt romney is a job creator and he has a great chance of being elected. >> but his campaign has come under fire from republicans. first as being not ready for primetime, as we said, that he needs a steady sort of more national hand in this. do you have any complaints first of all about how they handled this whole supreme court tax issue, which is a major issue for you all? >> well, i think a better use of my time is to criticize the guys we are running against. i'm not here to critique the romney campaign. i do think that we've got plenty to run against. the president has a very, very poor record and that is why he does not want to talk about it. take friday's job figure for example and go back two years ago and the job figure was better and the president said we are turning the -- we're turning it around. clearly what they're doing is not working. and i think that's what this campaign needs to be about. >> and yet, we did look at the figures for this year, and you know that there were great advances in job creation in the first quarter. it's been minimal in the second quarter. nonetheless, still job creation. when you average out the first six months, it is something like 125,000 or 130,000 jobs have been created, on average. that's not too bad considering where we came from, is it? >> it's terrible. we have 41 straight months now of unemployment above 8%. 41 straight months. candy, this is the most tepid recovery, if it is a recovery, from a deep recession in american history. the economy is just sputtering along and the reason for that in my judgment is because of what the administration chose to do. spend, borrow, pass this new obamacare law with its penalty tax in it, its mandate tax, all of this is slowing the economy down. >> let me ask you about the president's jobs plan that was introduced last september, i think. and something -- this is what he's saying on the campaign trail. this was in columbus, ohio, in an interview with wbns. >> making sure that we're rebuilding our infrastructure, our roads, bridges and runways, all those things that could put construction workers back to work right now and would lift the entire economy. and then as i said, refocusing on manufacturing. that's the recipe for growth over the long term. >> so what's wrong with any of that? shouldn't congress at this point be saying the american people want this economy to be better? isn't it incumbent on you all to find something you can agree on in the long list of things that the president put in the jobs package and move it forward? >> well, we just passed the transportation bill so we are addressing an issue that we have brought agreement on. transportation is important to our economy. but look, the way we're going to get the private sector going again is to change the way that the government is treating the private sector. things like obamacare, things like overregulation are causing companies not to hire. and we have got the fiscal cliff coming at the end of the year. you know, what we ought to be doing is to extend the current tax rates for another year with a hard requirement to get through the comprehensive tax reform one more time. i negotiated with vice president biden, the two-year extension of the current tax rates that we're in right now. the president signed it because he argued that the taxes going up would make the economy worse. we have a slower growth rate today than we had then. that would settle at least part of the problem. >> let me ask you, though, because they are doing nothing because you are all at odds over what you should do. is, in fact, a lot of people argue slowing the growth of the economy here in the u.s. and adding to the jobless rate which is pretty tepid. i want to play you something that is from the managing director of the imf. >> the threat, only the threat of the delay in raising the debt ceiling and of the fiscal cliff could weaken growth already later this year, and should they materialize because no agreement can be reached, the domestic effects would be severe with negative spillovers to the rest of the world. >> so basically imf is saying that if you don't come off of this fiscal cliff and by you i mean congress, it is going to add to uncertainty, and there are certain things like obama care, you've mentioned it, regulations, not going to get the democrats to agree on it, but something that congress could do is something about this oncoming train which everyone sees coming. and yet there's no action. >> well, what we could do, what they're going to do this week, i believe, is extend the current tax rates this year, which deals with part of the problem. >> the president said he would veto it. >> but he shouldn't veto it, because he signed it two years ago saying that it would make the economy worse. i mean, look. the principle reason that we're having this economic trough is what the government is doing to the private sector. the president keeps talking about public sector employees. unemployment in the public sector is 4.2%. we've got to get the private sector going. that's the only way you have job growth which creates revenue for the government. everything that the administration has done, candy, has taken us in the wrong direction. >> they would argue that the stimulus plan and everything that they have done since and investing in the infrastructure and getting the construction jobs done and hiring the teachers and policemen have kept this economy from being even worse over a longer period of time, and i think that, you know, again, we are seeing the same arguments that we have seen now for a year and a half. i sense out there in the country and now seeing from the imf what is really worrying people is that you do nothing. it is almost not the something that you do, but it is that you look up to capitol hill for some guidance and when is the last time that you sat down with the senate majority leader and said how can we do this? >> we have passed 11 different things that the president has asked us to pass in the last six months. the point is this. for two years, the administration was able to do everything they wanted to. they borrowed. they spent. they had the government take over american health care all in place, and the question the american people should be asking is how is that working? now the president would like to do more of the same. we don't think that makes sense. why don't we try doing things that get the private sector which is the only way we will ever get out of the economic trough going again. >> we don't try, because you are in the majority and not in the majority of the senate, and yet the minority in the senate can stop things. and the fact of the matter is that don't you and senator reid need to sit down and say, this is how we can help the economy? here's what we can agree on? have you all done that? >> well, i have just indicated that we have passed a number of things the president has asked for. >> have you sat down with senator reid? >> every day we talk about the way forward and passed a number of pieces of legislation that are important and helpful, but the primary problem is that the president would like for us to keep doing more of what he was able to do in the first two years when he had total control of congress and the american people have looked at the result of that. it clearly has not worked. >> let me turn you to the senate races that are out there. sitting here today, and looking at the landscape, do you believe that you will be the majority leader next year? >> 50-50. i think it's going to be a very close, competitive election. there are a number of places where we have opportunities for pickups. not many places where we have much chance of losing a seat. i think that at the end of the day, we will have a very narrow senate one way or the other. >> and looking at the virginia race and the massachusetts race. >> two close races. good candidates in both parties. >> you could lose as easily as you could win? >> i'm sorry? >> you could lose as easily as you could win? >> well, they're close races. we expect to win them both, but they are close races. >> as you look at the supreme court decision over the past week and the reaction to it. and you read, i'm assuming chief justice roberts' opinion on that, are you sorry you voted for him? >> no, i'm not, but i was extremely disappointed. the chief justice however did make it clear that the mandate is a tax and if i may make an observation about that, candy, the mandate tax, and 77% of it will be levied on people making $120,000 and less and interestingly enough, that produces more tax revenue for the government than the so-called buffett tax that the president tried to get us to pass to raise taxes on high income people. >> and yet there's 330 million-plus population in the u.s. or around in there, we're talking maybe about 3 million people, at least according to the cbo -- i mean the congressional folks, according to them, this would affect maybe 3 million people. that is not that much to get 30 million people covered, is it? >> well, look, the question is the law in its entirety. the president said it would not raise taxes. it is raising taxes. >> on very few people, you would concede that. >> well, it is important to those people, and they are middle-income people. and more tax revenue raised from the income people, and more buffett taxes from the president who promised not to raise taxes on anyone. and it is driving up premiums and the cost of health insurance is going up and cut medicare over half a trillion over the next ten years. nothing that was inside in connection with passing this health care bill is working out. >> senator, thank you for joining us this morning. i hope you'll come back. >> i will. jobs and the president's plan for winning the battleground states with obama campaign senior adviser robert gibbs when we come back. no! but, i'm about to change that. ♪ every little baby wants 50% more cash... ♪ phhht! fine, you try. 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[ female announcer ] neosporin® plus pain relief starts relieving pain faster and kills more types of infectious bacteria. neosporin® plus pain relief. for a two dollar coupon, visit neosporin.com. the calcium they take because they don't take it with food. switch to citracal maximum plus d. it's the only calcium supplement that can be taken with or without food. that's why my doctor recommends citracal maximum. it's all about absorption. that's why my doctor recommends citracal maximum. focus lolo, focust sanya let's do this i am from baltimore south carolina... bloomington, california... austin, texas... we are all here to represent the country we love this is for everyone back home it's go time. across america, we're all committed to team usa. i'm joined by obama campaign senior adviser robert gibbs. good to see you, robert. >> glad to be here. >> i want to run you through a series of economic figures and polls and then get your comment at the end. first of all, when you ask folks what are economic conditions like today. good, 27%. poor, 73%. when you say, how important is the economy to your vote, 92% say it is either very or extremely important to their vote. >> who are the other 8%? >> exactly. exactly. to their vote. and then finally, who would better handle the economy? romney 48% and obama 47%. if the economy is doing better, as the president argues, not as good as you want, but better, why are those numbers like that? >> well, look, i think we are coming out of the hardest economic time in our history. >> which we have been for four years. >> and typically coming out of the recession and the depth that we were in that's caused by a financial crisis which is what happened, it takes a while to dig out of that hole. we saw on friday that our economy is growing and we are adding jobs. the president believes that -- >> not enough jobs. >> we are not growing fast enough and we're not adding enough jobs. >> so what is the argument after four years, what is then the argument that re-elect me? >> well, candy, we have made progress, but we have a long way to go and this is going to be an election about two different visions, and you heard part of it here with senator mcconnell and you hear it with mitt romney every day. the best way to create jobs is to provide the millionaires and the billionaires with better tax cuts and take the regulations off of banks and wall street, and somehow we will see the jobs flourish for years and years to come. the problem with that, candy, is that it is not a theory, and we tried it for eight years and it ended in this huge economic calamity and this financial mess. >> but the jobs are not flourishing now, and folks don't actually seem to think that the president would handle it better than mitt romney, and i'm trying to figure out what the sales pitch is here. >> well, the other vision is we have to grow this economy like we did for years and years and decades from the middle class out. let's add -- continue to add opportunity. let's bring this american dream back. let's guarantee that if you work hard and play by the rules, you'll have a chance to get ahead. that your children will have a chance to get ahead. and again, we've tried these different philosophies before. and we know what tax breaks and tax cuts for the wealthy and the financial regulations off of wall street mean. they mean economic calamity and what we are dealing with now, and versus a vision where we add jobs and build out of the middle class. people take responsibility. they work hard, but they get ahead. that is what we need to do. >> even the republicans would, you know, that you think have this different version would say, we need to grow the middle class. that's where our aim is. >> that is not the primary aim, their primary aim is to give tax breaks to the very wealthy. >> that's what you think their primary aim is. >> let's look at the central plank in mitt romney's so-called economic plan. and granted, this is -- most of his economic plans and most of his plans are secret, but the one thing that he has flushed out is to take the bush tax cuts which disproportionately impact millionaires and billionaires and add to them. i mean, candy, do you think we're a bush tax cut for a millionaire away from a flourishing economy, or should we protect and keep taxes low or middle-class families and give them a chance? >> do you think the president will do anything other than veto a bill that would keep those bush tax cuts for everyone intact? >> we should protect the tax cuts for the middle class, and we should let tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires to expire. >> even though the recovery support that great. people say don't take the money out of the economy and have a tax hike, you would do it for those making $250,000 and above. >> we ought to do something about this dech sficit, and we t to protect those middle-class tax cuts. and the best way is to let the upper level tax cuts expire, and let the wealthy begin to pay their fair share and make sure that we protect the tax rate that middle-class families have had for the past many years. >> so the president's totally committed to getting rid of the tax cut for those making $250,000 and above? >> let's make progress on spending by doing away with tax cuts for people that quite frankly don't need them, tax cuts that haven't worked and have them pay their fair share. >> so is that a yes or a no? the president it completely committed to this? he won't allow it to happen? >> he is 100% committed to it. >> i want to play an ad that you have been running and ask you about it. >> running for governor, mitt romney campaigned as a job creator. >> i know how jobs are created. >> but as a corporate raider, he shipped jobs to china and mexico. as governor, he did the same thing, outsourcing state jobs to india. now he's making the exact same pitch. >> i know why the jobs come and why they go. >> outsourcing jobs, romney economics. it didn't work then, and it won't work now. >> you all have invested heavily in the bain capital element of trying to convince people of what mitt romney is about. and yet, this particular ad got four pinocchios for the "washington post," which is not true. and this is what fact check.org had to say. we found no evidence to support the claim that romney, while he was still running bain capital, shipped american jobs overseas. you now have a similar ad out. why do you keep with that? >> i would say that factcheck.org ought to read "the washington post," which is the one that came up with the report that said looking at s.e.c. filings, that romney and bain capital were pioneers in outsourcing. they shipped jobs all over the world that should have been -- >> but their point is that, in fact, mitt romney was not running bain. he had cut ties and gone on. >> that is also not true, because mitt romney was the head and sole owner of bain. but understand this, because we saw it a little bit again this week. we have a guy who believes and has been a pioneer in outsourcing jobs, and quite frankly, he offshores most of his own personal investments, presumably to shield them from taxes. candy, i don't know about you, i pick a bank because there is an atm near my home, but mitt roichl romney had a bank account in switzerland -- >> and nothing illegal, right? >> well, i don't know. >> you are not charging that he has done anything illegal with this? >> candy, nobody knows why he has a corporation in bermuda, and why he failed to disclose that on seven different financial disclosures and why he transferred it to somebody else's purview the day before he became governor of massachusetts. the one thing he could do, candy, to clear up whether or not he's done anything illegal, whether he's shielding his income from taxes in bermuda or switzerland is to do what every other presidential candidate's done, and that's release a series of years of their own tax returns. mitt romney's father was the pioneer of releasing a series of tax returns. the best way to figure it out if he is complying with the american tax law is to have him release more of the tax returns. this is a guy whose slogan is to believe in america, and it should be business in bermuda and that's what mitt romney is all about. >> which is a great line, but again, there's no evidence here that any of the fact check organizations have found that "a," he outsourced jobs or was president at bain when that happ