his wife who has hundreds of millions of dollars never released her tax returns. >> just how off target is the romney campaign? richard wolffe and rick tyler on romney's ongoing disaster. >> and we'll look at the real life impact of mitt romney's outsourcing. oh beautiful for spacious skies for amber waves of grain >> the big panel weighs in on one of the toughest ads a democrat has ever produced. >> and the young guns are calling him the backup. >> young guns, a new generation of conservative leaders. >> we'll tell you why billionaire sheldon adelson is dumping piles of cash into eric cantor's super pac. >> good to have you with us tonight. thanks for watching. it was another weekend of confusion and contradiction for the romney camp after five interviews on friday and a flurry of surrogate appearances, mitt romney still cannot clear up the issues with his bain capital record. romney's people are asking president obama to apologize for raising the issue? president obama gave the romney campaign an answer on the trail. >> no, we won't be apologizing. sometimes these games are played in political campaigns. understand what the issue is here. mr. romney claims that he's mr. fix it for the economy because of his business experience. and so i think voters entirely legitimately want to know, well, what exactly was that business experience. >> for the american people, it comes down to what? responsibility. mitt romney cannot adequately explain his involvement with bain capital between the years 1999 and 2002. the latest line is romney retired retroactively. >> he actually retired retroactively at that point because he ended up not going back to the firm after his time in salt lake city. he was retired from bain. >> just in case you thought ed gillespie made a mistake, he repeated it on cnn. >> he took a leave of absence and ended up not going back at all and retired retroactively. gr did romney give back the salary he made between 1999 and 2002 when he retired retroactively? look here, folks, here's the bottom line, the s.e.c. filings shows romney made at least dlr $100,000 a year as he was allegedly doing nothing at the ceo of bain. maybe he should have followed the lead of his father, he stepped down of the american motors corporation when he ran for office. it was real simple. a report in the nation said the board elected george romney as vice chairman but granted him an indefinite leave of absence without pay. mitt romney chose to retroactively retire. he was double dipping. but more importantly, the romney campaign still cannot say who was running bain capital during the time in question. >> does the governor think that those are good deals for bain? >> those deals were made by -- those decisions were made by folks that were running the company differently, so i don't have the details of what the decision making went into it. >> they don't have the tails. that's a key word, key phrase, they don't have the details. have you noticed ow the romney camp is short on details. eric fehrnstrom was asked who was running bain between 1999 and 2002? his response, you should check with bain, but it wasn't romney. the huffington post checked with the security and exchange commission in six different filings between april of 2000 and may of 2001. mitt romney was listed as a member of the management committee at bain. the committee was responsible, key word there, for day to day operations of bain. in one filing, romney was listed as president and managing director. no one can have titles like this in the business world and not have any responsibilities to accompany. romney's answers are clouding the issue, no doubt. it's getting so bad for mitt romney, even conservative pundits are urging him to release his tax returns to get everything out in the open. >> mitt romney is losing at this point in a big way. if something is going to come out, get it out in a hurry. >> he should release the tax returns tomorrow. you have to release six, eight years of tax returns. >> there's obviously something there. if there was nothing there, he would say have at it. there's something that compromises what he said in the past about something. i think the bigger thing is it's arrogance. >> romney and his campaign insist they will only release this year's and last year's returns. they're even resorting to fake examples, fake examples to make their case. >> senator mccain is republican nominee in the last election, was the relevant start, a standard that senator john kerry said was the standard. >> hang on a second here. john kerry, you know what he did? he released way more than two years of tax returns because he was running in the senate numerous years, in fact, by the time he was running for president in 2004, john kerry had released 20 years of tax returns. mitt romney tried to correct the campaign's mistake when he was on fox and friends this morning. >> john kerry ran for president, you know, his wife, who has hundreds of millions of dollars, she never released her tax returns. somehow this wasn't an issue. >> maybe it wasn't an issue because theresa heinz kerry, she wasn't running for president of the united states. romney and his campaign, you know what they are, they're really boxed in on this issue and they don't have an answer. conservative columnist george will identified his main issue. >> the cost of not releasing the returns are clear. therefore, he must have calculated there are higher costs in releasing them. >> and hes rr going to tough it out. >> the consequences for releasing the tax returns must be pretty bad for mitt romney if he would rather get raked over the coals by conservative talkers for not releasing them. rahm emanuel had a better explanation. >> the mccain campaign, he released 23 years. and he's telling the american people, i'm not going to give you what i have given john mccain's people in 2008. when he gave them 23 years, john mccain's people looked at it and said let's go with sarah palin. >> the tax returns are essential to everything mitt romney is running on. they explain his real achievements in business. they show how he would try to run the country. they give us a look at what his tax policy would really be and what he believes in. mitt romney, i don't think, is making the case to the american people he would be a president americans can trust. it's all about the tax return. number one, i would like to know how is he listed? general partner, president, owner, ceo? then he signed it, i assume he signed his own tax return, even if he had someone else put it together. and i'm sure he did if it's 500 pages. and the business deductions, did he have any write-offs or any business deductions that dealt with bain capital. if it did, he's flat out lying to the american people who he said he had no involvement. the irs think it's involvement. and also, maybe mitt romney has made the political calculation that its jr. ostheck of a lot safer and a hell of a lot easier to lie to the american people than it is to the internal revenue service. i want to know what you think. tonight's question, this is a good one, what will do more damage to mitt romney's campaign, releasing his tax returns or not releasing his tax returns? text a for releasing his returns, text b for not releasing his returns. 622639. our blog is oith there for you. we'll bring you the results later on in the show. i'm joined tonight by msnbc political analyst richard wolffe and rick tyler, republican strategist and former communications director for newt gingrich. great to have you with us tonight. richard, you first, what is his avenue out of this mess? out of this maze? you do five interviews to try to clear things up. it only made things worse, and they're having a hard time explaining all of this. what is the avenue of relief? >> the easy answer is to say release the tax returns. actually, there's a step or five before that, which is first of all, decide which avenue you're going to take. one of the problems mitt romney has right now is indecision. it's that his story keeps changing. first of all, they said, well, you know, everyone else has done this. that's not true. then you end up talking about john kerry's wife, which is ridiculous. you say the obama people will never be satisfied. you say it's a complete dodge. they said all of these things and it's a bit like his response on the bain question. the story keeps changing. if you think about what happened to john der kerry, the swift boat thing was terrible, but the weakness you're broadcasting about your own character as a leader is just as damaging. >> so he didn't solve anything on friday, and as we move forward in this campaign, they don't seem to have any clear cut answers, at least it's been 36, 72 hours that goes on and on. how do they fix it? what would they come out and say to fix it? >> he has take the hit. i would argue friday's comments made it worse. in trying to project strength and say i'm punching back, he overstepped the mark. he said i had no active role in bain, but he said i have no responsibility. that was his word, and nen you get into the buck passing thing described so well. >> your campaign raised these issues in the primary. did the gop miss it? wasn't anybody in the gop beyond newt gingrich taking this more seriously? why weren't they? >> if you remember, we did release these, all these s.e.c. tuments we had in january of this year, six months ago. the media wasn't very interested in our side. frankly, the romney campaign did a good job. they won the debate with us, which was they had reframed this to an attack on free enterprise and all of the conservative commentators bought that. it wasn't an attack on free enterprise, but that's what happened. mitt romney might do well to go back and try to claim the mantel of free enterprise verses obama's statism, but at this point, he had opportunities in 2008 during the primary to clear this up. he decided to delineate a bright line in 1999 about going to the olympics. and documentation and salaries as you have pointed out, are inconsistent with that. he's going to have to explain it. at this point, the best thing for him to do is full transparency and get it out here. not just the obama campaign who by the way i think that would be the thing they don't want to happen, have him release everything, have everybody pore through it because i suspect this is a lot to do about nothing. i don't think there was anything illegal. >> it's not a question of whether it's illegal. it's a question of what he was doing and what the company was doing that he was a head of in 1999 to 2003 because that's when they were outsourcing jobs. >> i disagree with your research. we'll find out what the tax policy is by looking at his tax return. we'll find out what he made, who he filed with, and what interest he has. i think the american public has some interest in it. >> i think we would find out what his tax policy would be because there's an awful lot of write-ups he would continue to support or he wouldn't have taken them, and obviously, he is not releasing it for everybody to see. the point i made earlier is that if he took business write-offs with bain, with you consider that a connection to the company? >> if he could legally take write-offs, he should. everybody should take the write-offs you're entitled to. >> on friday, he said he had no connection to the company. >> that's a political problem. he said he didn't have decision making capacity at bain. they said he took a leave of absence and then decided not to go back to the company, this retroactive thing. while it's true the way they did that, it doesn't play politically well, back in 1999 when he left for the olympics, he should have been thinking about this. the only way this is a problem is if you run for president. otherwise, none of this is a problem. >> he's running for president and the american people want some answers on this. richard, when you take a look at how he's handling this, how long will it be before the republican party steps out? not the people on tv on sunday. i mean, i'm talking about when does newt gingrich step up, rick santorum, how can they be silent on this? >> maybe that's a question for rick. >> i'm going to get it from you first. >> i think he's the presumptive nominee at this point, and he's there's a window for things to go spectacularly wrong for him. as long as the polls are closed and he can string this along, he's okay. there could be a moment of peril, a few more weeks of this where you get people who suspended quote/unquote suspended their campaign. >> herman cain, how can he be quiet? how long is newt going to be quiet on this, three, four weeks? what is the date he's going to say we have to challenge candidate here? >> well, that could happen. if the campaign cannot figure out a way to dispense with these types of issues. now we know how the obama campaign tends to operate. they're going to obfiskate his record for as long as they can. there was some memo out by newman released a memo i think earlier today that talked about how great it was they were a parody because he spent $51 million and only a parity. i would argue he spend $51 to be a parody, that's a good thing because this is the worst economy, the worst debt, the worst deficit spending. >> he sure inherited. you're right about that. >> romney should be far ahead and he has to fix the political party and then we'll return to the economy. >> thanks for joining us. remember to answer tonight's question at the bottom of the screen. share you thoughts on twitter at ed show and on facebook. >> president obama is going directly after romney's business experience and what it would mean for america. chuck joins me for the discussion. stay with us. coming up, the president went to the jug general on mitt romney's outsourcing. we'll show you why his missing years at bain are critical to voters in the country. >> the right wing smear machine does a hatchet job on obama's remarks on government and small business. van jones knows what that's all about and he's here to weigh in later opportunities. while senate leader harry reid warnsuble the influence of big money in the election cycle, sheldon adelson makes a multimillion donation to a republican super pac. we'll tell you who it's probably going to be going to with all of the details. share your thoughts with us on twitter and on facebook using the hash tag ed show. we're coming right back. come in the water! somebody didn't book with travelocity, with 24/7 customer support to help move them to the pool daddy promised! look at me, i'm swimming! somebody, get her a pony! 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[ female announcer ] only flood insurance covers floods. for a free brochure, call the number on your screen. welcome back to "the ed show." president obama's campaign is hitting its stride. and explaining why mitt romney's business experience is bad for this country. this new ad is a big part of the obama offensive. oh beautiful for spacious skies for amber waves of grain for purple mountains majesty above the fruited plain america america god shed his grace on thee and crown thy good >> mitt romney's not the solution. he's the problem. it's the ultimate statement about mitt romney not being for the middle class in this country. the ad will run in nine swing states. today, president obama shows more than ever he is prepared to personally take this fight to the american people and let them decide. here he is in cincinnati, ohio today. >> today, we found out there's a new study out by nonpartisan economists that says governor romney's economic plan would in fact create 800,000 jobs. there's only one problem. the jobs wouldn't be in america. they would be in other countries. by eliminating taxes on corporations' foreign income, governor romney's plan would encourage companies to shift more of their operations to foreign tax havens, creating 800,000 jobs in those other countries. >> president obama linked this directly to romney's experience at bain capital. >> this shouldn't be a surprise because governor romney's experience has been investing in what were called pioneers of the business of outsourcing. now, he wants to give more tax breaks to companies that are shipping jobs overseas. >> and a new poll commissioned by the nonpartisan alliance for american manufacturing finds that 83% have an unfavorable opinion of companies that outsource. 97% hold a favorable view of goods made right here in the u.s. of a. let's turn to chuck, a democratic strategist. good to have you with us tonight. >> thanks for having me. >> is it effective for president obama to make this direct link between mitt romney's business experience and what he would do if he were president of the united states? is there a connection? >> i couldn't agree with you more. that may be one of the best ads i have ever seen in my entire political career. here's why. as you know, i grew up in east texas and was fortunate to go to work in a factory when i was 19 years old. there were 1,000 men and women including my father, my uncles and a a lot of kids i grew up with. in 1962, they opened the factory there. five years ago, they shut the factory down. when they walked through the factory handing out pink slips, they didn't ask if you were a democrat or republican, they said this tire production isn't going to be here and it sits in china. think about the middle-class voter sitting at home watching the commercial. no matter if they're democrat or republican thinking that's not right. that could be my job overseas. >> this is president obama running on the compassionate sensibilities of the american people that a lot of americans will put themselves in the place of that displaced worker. then mitt romney of course has a record of showing a very callous attitude towards shipping jobs overseas. is this going to be the winning formula to win the middle class? >> there are a lot of middle class voters just like you said, ed, that are hurting. the whole fact of this entire election is who can you best relate with? mitt romney is a good looking guy. his hair is always a perfect shape, but he looks like your boss. he looks like the boss you always said he lived in a different part of town, his kids going to a different school, he shops at a different place. he can't relate to someone in the factory whose job was overseas. when mom and pop are at the dining room table and have the paycheck and bills, their hoping they have enough money to have dinner on saturday night. >> he's been able to take a news story about romney and twist a positive. today, the president, he just didn't go after romney. he turned this whole thing into a positive message about himself and america. here it is. >> i want to give tax breaks to companies that are investing right here in ohio. that are investing in cincinnati. that are investing in hamilton county. i want to give incentives to companies that are investing in you, the american people. to create american jobs, making american goods that we're selling around the world, stamped with three proud words, made in america. >> i mean, chuck, if you take that comment right there and match it up with what the republicans have done in the senate and all of the obstruction, how can the president lose any of the rust belt states? >> he needs to be repeating this message over and over and over again. and every campaign i'm working in, the made in america is over 98% positive no matter if it's coming from a democrat o