so clinton did. and when he died, clinton actually says, you know, there are days when i miss him the same way i miss my mother. chris: i wonder if nixon said you're the kind of son i wanted. i wonder. that's an interesting relationship. >> my point is that he felt like a be sieged outsider himself. he's had the legal problems and there was a strange kinship between the two. chris: what about obama today? he's getting these interesting new uncles coming up, helping him out. what's going on with them? >> well, sure, he met with all of them in the oval office very early on in 2009. you know, he's been very grateful how the bushes have been. president george w. bush have stayed largely on the sidelines. i don't need to play the critic. i think he struck up a pretty good relationship with george h. w. bush. so the relationship with clinton is prickly and complicated. chris: it is an interesting friendship-rivalry. before we break, the famously close relationship between the bush and bill clinton didn't s

a signed picture for clinton of lbj. that is as close as clinton got two leading lbj. what is great about the american presidency is that we all remember a motorcade going by. ronald reagan, on the back of the train somewhere in iowa -- i think it was the morning. i would not count on it. everybody has their creation stories that clinton never met lbj. he told us that he thought, as all presidents do, because history will be kinder to him. [laughter] >> that is what they all hope for, right? [laughter] >> so the presidents club, it is involved with with american democracy. are there some all models? >> yes, i think what is amazing about the presidents club in america -- i read a story in "the new york times" yesterday about how, you know, it was inevitable that sarkozy would be defeated. he was not a typically bad president. sarkozy was none of those things. that reminds me when we get back to the big picture -- there is nothing in common about any of these guys. they are all different. it is a classic american story. we have president that don't begin to fit in the sa

i love he has to go back and tap in to bill clinton. there is no comparison between bill clinton, this guy, and the one we have in office that tanked the numbers. as a matter of fact, what were we thinking? can we have a do-over, mulligan and put hillary in instead? please! >> eric: really? >> kimberly: yes! >> greg: you are so bigoted! >> bob: the most important comparison is between bill clinton and mitt romney. talk about someone that shines and somebody who is dull. there you go. you said comparison, that's the comparison -- >> kimberly: the democratic convention. hello. >> bob: at a democratic convention you put your best foot forward. he is their best foot. >> greg: the best foot with mirrors on the top. >> bob: that is not fair. >> eric: it took me a while but i got it. senator clinton said of barack obama mccain would be a better choice for president than obama. >> bob: your point they have been feuding. the feud has gone down and down and down. >> eric: robert! are you going to tell me they're not feuding now? >> bob: i don't t

talk about the clintons, think about the clintons, guess about them, wonder about them. count on things to go smoothly at your own risk. know this, they will be among us living rent free in our political souls. listen now, somewhere high in manhattan, you can hear the bark, loud, clear and happy. the big dog has gotten his bone. that's "hardball" for now. thanks for being with us. don't forget, tomorrow on "hardball," will "the ed show" starts right now. >>> good evening, americans. twok "the ed show." i'm michael eric dyson in for ed schultz. the miss adventures for mitt romney continues. he froofl traveled to israel this weekend. we'll have all of the details. this is "the ed show" and as ed would say, let's get to work. >> somebody who spent most of his life in business, i'm particularly impressed with israel's cutting-edge technology and thriving economy. >> mitt romney thinks that israel's economy is based on culture and the hands of providence. >> you export technology, not tyranny or terrorism. >> dnc chair, debbie wasserman schultz will weigh in on mitt's lack of

who can make a better case for clinton economics than bill clinton himself? and that's the other constituency. upper middle class people who may not want to pay the clinton rates sure have fond memories of the economy in the clinton years. >> whatever you said about him, at least your pocketbook was in good shape and the bottom line was being observed. >> clinton measures, is that effective or very, very effective? >> i think the second. bill clinton had something in common with ronald reagan. the two of them both knew how to make an argument. i think a the lo of times we underestimate how important it is for a politician to make an argument to the voters and keep making it. here's why i'm doing what i'm doing. here's why it makes sense. here's why what the other guy wants to do doesn't make sense. bill clinton is one of the best people we have in politics and even though i didn't agree with him, ronald reagan was good at doing that, too. why not haul out your best argument maker and i think that's what they are doing here, too. >> they are political sermoniz

that's what bill clinton is the master of. even off the cuff. >> michael waldman, then when he went on to say, look, what i want is more prosperity, distributed more fairly, so we hear that from president barack obama a lot. then president bill clinton says that americans like millionaires and they like billionaires and they don't have any problem with them. they just want to be able to become them. how come we don't have that sort of rhetoric from barack obama? >> well, this is geographic proof it's not because he has speechwriters. president clinton is very distinct in being able to make arguments about policy in values terms. when he talks about economics, yes, he usings the statistics and he uses the facts, but he roots it in a kind of core sense of opportunity for all and responsibility from all. as he said when he ran for president. president obama has been brilliant as a communicator in many ways about larger american themes. about the country's history. about his own history. but has often fallen flat when he comes to

talk about the clintons, think about the clintons, guess about them, wonder about them. count on things to go smoothly at your own risk. know this, they will be among us living rent free in our political souls.

president bill clinton "outfront." let's go. >>> good evening, everyone, i'm erin burnett live tonight from rwanda where i spent the day with former president bill clinton. we talked about a lot of things. he spent some time visiting some projects. some farms and some factories where he had spent a lot of time over the past few years. with the likes, in fact, of nascar famous driver jeff gordon. also i saw the president at a soy factory he's bringing in the countryside. he arrived with his daughter chelsea. shaking everybody's hand and taking pictures with everybody who asked. and he asked a lot of questions himself. >> whenever i hear somebody say oh, these small farmers, they're just inefficient, they can't generate income, i just decided to see if that was not necessarily true. and so we get 'em cheaper and better seed and fertilizer, get their crops to market so they don't lose half their income taking it to market. >> reporter: the president told me that he blew it here. nearly 1 million people died in a horrific

they have a different perspective than i think classic clinton and dmocrats. and who are these people? well, people like dennis mcdonough, who's now the deputy national secury adviser, who has been over the last three years the guy who sees through out the administration what obama wants, obama gets. ben rose, the speechwriter wordsmith for the administration whose job it is to figure out obama's message. some and the power who jokingly calls herself the conscience mascot. she's in charge, has been the main person for human-rights, multilateralism, and then i would include someone who did in fact served in the clinton administration but was younger than most others. she served under clinton and was fer obama all the way through the bitter primaries of 07 and 08. just as a mix sample of the kind of generational tensions from day to day, i'm going to read a couple passages for you, but this is in 2,009 within a couple of months after obama takes office and he's decided he wants to give a major speech to the muslim world in cairo and it is up to been rhodes to dr

best thing for hillary clinton and bill clinton and the best thing for president obama. i think bill clinton will be reminding, he is good housekeeping seal of approval for the wavering democrats. reminding the democrats and independents watching that his record paired historic deficit reduction with 20 million new jobs and he will critique romney's approach to the economy and the republican economic policies. i think he is the best spoke spokesman that obama could have put forward at the convention, especially on a big sports night that threatens their viewership. i think it's a win-win for all three of them. >> bret: charles, does this indicate a weakness with perhaps middle class white voters with the obama campaign? and remember, last time former president clinton went out he started by saying we should keep going with all of the bush tax cuts. >> right. it's a sign of weakness. he wouldn't be calling on the old heavyweight to come out of retirement unless obama thought if he was ahead by ten points or five, having successful economy. he wouldn't ask them to come out

i wasn't around in the clinton impeachment. listen to me there would be no clinton impeachment. but i wasn't around. the answer is probably not. but i don't know for sure. >> did you know that bert marshall opposed article 3? >> no. i did not know that. he did? that's interesting. >> he and owen fist had a debate about it. owen did support it. >> that was important. see, he -- i was a strong supporter of article 3. and i did know that dorr reached out to other people such as fist and marshall. he didn't rely on my judgment solely. he looked to me for advice and -- but he was looking to other people as well. so if i argued strongly as i did for article 3 i knew he would go to other -- like he should. that's the right thing. just because i say there should be article 3 doesn't mean there must be article 3. it was part of my -- even article 3, he was part -- the reason i wanted article 3 is because we had to sit down to the president's -- the executive branch is obligated, i'm always thinking trial in the senate. the ultimate trial and they don't give us the material, it makes the

the answer is clinton. it's not surprising that democrats pull clinton out and i guess the republicans want president bush to cut some more brush down on his ranch in texas. but i think what's really interesting here is how prominent a role the obama team decided to give bill clinton. i for one think this is a very shrewd move politically because bill clinton can reach precisely the voters that barack obama is having some trouble reaching. particularly white working class voters. if romney doesn't have a margin around 25% in this group, he's in trouble. if obama can only lose that group by 15%, he's in good shape. bill clinton can reach those voters. and the second thing is that whose tax rates is barack obama trying to restore. he's trying to restore the clinton rates. who can make a better case for clinton economics than bill clinton himself? and that's the other constituency. upper middle class people who may not want to pay those clinton rates sure have some pretty fond memories of the economy in the cl

so again, there's no surprise that barack obama would reach out to bill clinton or cite bill clint clinton. what barack obama is actually doing is similar to what mitt romney is doing with bill clinton is giving kudos to people like john mccain, though. he's doing the same thing that romney is doing in the opposite way. he's saying look, i, barack obama, am a reasonable guy who has tried to reach out to republicans like john mccain. hey, i agree with john mccain, my erstwhile opponent, on a lot of things. this mitt romney guy, on the other hand, is so far to the right that he's leaving john mccain in his dust. >> you know, before we go, the speech that mitt romney had just given to the naacp, i want to get your view on this. he had outlined five points on his getting america back to work plan and this of course is a fight for the middle. one of which was taking full advantage of the united states energy resources, expanding trade, reducing government spending, just three of the five areas that he outlined. what's your thought on that? will that work to get the middle? >> he is not going to

to raise some money and one of the guys says who is bill clinton? at this meeting. governor of arkansas. he's -- may run for president. he said i'm a republican. he's a democrat? and then somebody says, this is like five or six weeks -- somebody says i'm listening to this, somebody says what, this is crazy he says. nobody ever heard of this guy. i mean, how are we going to raise money for this guy. this is nuts. only because the goldman partner asked him to come. some governor from arkansas. and i get agitated at this point. i say, this is what you're going to tell people. this is how you're going to raise money for the governor of arkansas. go out and tell people when they see him, and when they meet him and when they hear him speak and when they see the quality of his mind, charisma n tell against, his good looks even, you are going to tell people this guy is going to be president of the united states. they are contributing early to somebody as president of the united states. all they have to do is see it and come into contact and he's going to wi

latinos love bill clinton. african-americans love bill clinton. young people love bill clinton. he'll help with independence and working class voters. also on policy. bill clinton was basically the architect of the biggest economic expansion in a generation, and one of the reasons he did that was by implementing the same policies that president obama wants to do. >> here is a statement that the romney campaign put out. i'll read it to you this is from the romney campaign. after four years of trillion dollar deficits and anemic economic growth, it's clear president obama would love to run on president clinton's record in office, but no amount of showmanship can paper over the differences between these two presidents. america deserves a president willing to run on his own record, not the record he wishes he had. the question to you is what do you think about all of this? what do you think about bill clinton coming to the convention and really going to try to energize the democratic base to get president obama reelected? >> first of all, bill clinton is a very popular president. he

on monday, president clinton visited a health clinic in mozambique, partly funded by his clinton foundation. the work their offers one of the first early tests using technology that gives a judge be results in less than an hour. >> i want you to help us totally eliminate the transmission of hiv. >> clinton's health access initiative, which works across the continent, has also helped to reduce the cost of drugs by up to 90%. the clinton foundations ambitions extend beyond health care to climate change and removing barriers to economic development. mr. clinton cut the ribbon on a new library in a south african village. it is nelson mandela's ancestral village. on his birthday, it was not the former u.s. president who was the star of the show. >> you have just met nelson mandela and he is celebrating his 94th birthday. we do not often see him in public. how is his health? >> he seemed quite healthy to me. he actually has gained some weight. he looked stronger. his color was better than it was two years ago when i came for the world cup. i felt good about that. you know, he is 94. he is not her

the clintons, think about the clintons, guess about them, wonder at them. bet against them? at your peril. count on things to go smoothly at your own risk. know this, they will be among us living rent free in our political souls. listen even now. somewhere high in manhattan above park and the trees. you can hear the bark loud, clear, and happy. the big dog has gotten his bone. that's "hardball" for now. thanks for being with us. tomorrow on "hardball," will ferrell and zach gal funocs will be with us. "the ed show" with michael eric dyson starts now. >>> good evening, americans. welcome to "the ed show." i'm michael eric dyson in for ed schultz. mitt romney's overseas misadventures continue. he traveled to israel to win over jewish voters but only managed to court criticism about their management of the economy. this is "the ed show," and as ed would say, let's go to work. >> someone who spent most of his life in business, i'm particularly impressed with israel's cutting edge technologies and thriving economy. >> mitt romney thinks israel's bustling economy is based on cultu

to point out that barack obama is no bill clinton. >> white house officials and former clinton aides beg to differ and say perhaps nobody in the democratic party is better at framing the arguments. >> i think it's a shrewd move by the obama campaign to tee up their convention. they will come out of the republican convention and president clinton will draw clear contrast. >> regardless of who is making that case, the biglicious be a sluggish economy. which top obama aides now admit the president owns. >> he understands where the buck stops. we also understand what we inherited. and what we can't go back to, which are the tried and tested ideas of four years ago which got us into this. >> clinton could help with the white working class voters in battleground like ohio, that obama visits wednesday. that may explain why romney camp is targeting the buckeye ste e with a web video to continue to exploit the "you didn't build that" flap. >> you have to be kidding me. he was trying to say hey, you didn't build that business on your own. the government helped you build it. that's what ticked

. >> president obama and bill clinton. one campaign decision could have everyone fold. [ breathes deeply ] ♪ this is where the dream begins ♪ ♪ i want to grow ♪ i want to try ♪ i can almost touch the sky [ male announcer ] even the planet has an olympic dream. dow is proud to support that dream by helping provide greener, more sustainable solutions from the olympic village to the stadium. solutionism. the new optimism.™ ♪ this dream solutionism. the new optimism.™ how do you know which ones to follow? the equity summary score consolidates the ratings of up to 10 independent research providers into a single score that's weighted based on how accurate they've been in the past. i'm howard spielberg of fidelity investments. the equity summary score is one more innovative reason serious investors are choosing fidelity. get 200 free trades today and explore your next investing idea. >>eric: former president clinton will give the key note speech at the democratic national convention. the topic by president obama d

the president wants and needs president clinton's support but what does clinton want out of this? with me tonight with the reporters covering this campaign. jeff zellni who broke this story last night and dan bolts. gentlemen, i want to ask about the clinton thing. let's look at a fund raising appearance in june. here's clinton stumping for barack obama and showing how good he can be when he's on your side. listen to him take on mitt romney like nobody can do it. >> his opponent who says that he's got a better idea was the governor of the state that was 47th in the country in job growth. he promised that if elected he would grow the economy and reduce the debt. when he left office, the debt of the state was going up. and his plan, his plan is to go back to the bush program. except on steroids. >> that's charlotte the democrats are going to. congratulations on breaking this story. tell me what this means. what is an auger for this country in terms of down the road and near term politics? >> i think it means that president obama realizes that he's in trouble and needs help from whoe

clinton herself. we will do what we have done for a quarter century, talk about the clintons, think about the clintons, guess about them, woer at them. bet against them? at your peril. count on things to go smoothly at your own risk. know this, they will be among us living rent free in our political souls. listen even now. somewhere high in manhattan above park and the trees. you can hear the bark loud, clear, and happy. the big dog has gotten his bone. that's "hardball" for now. thanks for being with us. tomorrow on "hardball," will ferrell and zach gal funocs will be with us. "the ed show" with michael eric dyson starts now. >>> good evening, americans. welcome to "the ed show." i'm michael eric dyson in for ed schultz. mitt romney's overseas misadventures continue. he traveled to israel to win over jewish voters but only managed to court criticism about their management of the economy. this is "the ed show," and as ed would say, let's go to work. >> someone who spent most of his life in business, i

bill clinton may be -- may be -- i put bill clinton close. but lbj and fdr, right at the top of the list. and bill clinton -- >> i put bill clinton up against them. >> batting third. what do you think? >> have we forgotten richard nixen who held on to power through thick and thin. he would be the top of the list for me. >> and actually, by the way, that's a great point, sigourney, who got her start -- she actually worked on capitol hill. >> not for nixon. >> not for nixon. >> but for rockefeller. >> okay there you go. but jon meacham, nobody gets more votes than richard milhous nixon. >> he and franklin roosevelt were the only men to be on five national tickets in the 20th century. it is remarkable when you think about a man from hyde park and a man from yorba linda. there is something wonderful in a way about that. i think you're right, we were chatting beforehand, actually, with the very tall women who are he here, greg and i are sort of scared. usually it is just when mika is here we're scared. >> we're being very kind to you. >> you have

calling out with mrs clinton and grew fatal. just briefly professor i meant we talked about geneva ending in support of both sides having to answer for the conflict but also the first step kofi annan says also a place for both the government and rebels to have to be blamed for the violence are we back to step one here with these comments coming out of this friends of syria meeting. i think unfortunately we seem to be around in a circle yes. the response from both sides because this is an apology and people once they've started killing us to keep again it's hardly my stuff and the question is all the allegations against russia so they're supplying weapons to assad really a smokescreen for what the west may be doing on the radical groups repeating the afghan experiment of the one thousand nine hundred eighty nine syria. i wonder whether we may not find years down the line we were terribly happy about the consequences even if the regime in syria as in afghanistan has felt many professor mark almond of international relations at bil

business taxes, president clinton dropped business taxes. president obama wants to raise business taxes for all middle-income and small businesses. food stamp, under bill clinton, $2 billion dropped in food stamp usage. under president obama $40 billion increase. disbas prices under clinton were flat. under obama, up 91%. up since he came to office. but here's the big one. wealth, under president clinton, wealth went up 40% in the 8 years, 3 1/2 years under president obama, it has dropped 35%. >> sean:an i give you an observation? this is a great chart. but my political observation is that this president had two years and nancy pelosi as speaker, harry reid as senate majority leader -- stimulus, health care, son of stimulus, trillion-dollar budgets. he got everything he wanted. bill clinton, when he had to work with newt gingrich, first time in 40 years, republicans took over. that at that time, it was big government's over. end of welfare as we know it. i think that's why the results are so dramatically different. >> they are dramatically d

secondly, were i barack obama, i might not bring up bill clinton and tax cuts because bill clinton is, of course, a guy that said, we need to cut corporate taxes, bill clinton's a guy that says, we don't need to raise taxes on anybody. i think he said that to harvey on cnn. that's a tougher -- it's a tougher pull for him. >> i wonder what bill clinton would think of what the president is proposing right now and perhaps it's a good idea -- >> i think he already said he's against it. >> say nice thing about bill clinton right now. talk about how much he loves bill clinton and then tell him to keep his mouth shut. michael steele. >> i think that's a fair point. i'm intrigued by the whole idea of this conversation to begin with. this invocation of bill clinton is nice, but what they fail to acknowledge is that what spurred that growth that they're talking about was not the tax rates that the top earners were paying, was the cut in capital gains that spurred those owners of industry and small businesses to go and invest in that economy that was being created and supported by welfare reform

why bill clinton? why bill clinton now? they are miles apart. >>guest: it shows that obama thinks he has a problem with swing voters and independents and moderates. why become friends with someone who is in the your ally? and invite them to speak. if you look, bill clinton is actually more popular than obama. he, 66 percent of americans view him favorably and he has wide support among independents and moderates. obama is trying to tap into that and he swallowed his pride. >>eric: i am in the sure it is accurate, what i read, but they will show football rather than the speeches; that right? >>guest: i am actually not sure. i have not heard about that. >>eric: if that were the case, if i were president clinton i would say, wait, you wanted me to speak to you but the football game will be on, is that right? dallas and giants will be airing instead of the speech to i am in the mistaken. >>guest: i don't know. i don't watch football. i am all politics of the why like sports. >>eric: the white house calling tax cuts for the rich a $1 trillion give awa

secretary general hillary clinton saying that russia and china will have to pay a price for what she sees as their support of the assad regime no this wasn't the only thing that hillary clinton not to say he said that russian helicopters were being used to kill civilians on the ground in syria now if we look closer at this there are some really inconsistency between where we were a week ago following the conference in geneva of international partners looking to you to find a peaceful solution to syria and what we're hearing this weekend now last weekend in geneva the u.s. seemed to be on side with the kofi annan but police plan would see it would keep plan which would see both sides both the opposition on the government forces lay down their weapons and trying to come to the table to find a solution now then what we've heard from russia with regards to these statements we've heard from hillary clinton today is the foreign ministry slamming in the secretary of state saying that under no circumstances one hundred russia ever supported or continue to support the assad government during

a bill clinton democrat. >> bill clinton called himself a new democrat. he put that behind him. he believed in smaller government, reformed welfare as we knew it, and tried to get the economy going with trade and other provisions, lowered taxes. look, new democrats have done some good things. >> and with that statement, mitt romney has left us with a choice. he is either a liar or what george will would call a bloviating ignoramus. he actually said that bill clinton lowered taxes. that's it. that's his statement about bill clinton and taxes. bill clinton not only raised taxes, he signed the biggest tax increase in history. he didn't just raise taxes on the rich, he signed the biggest tax increase -- he raised gasoline taxes, he raised taxes on social security benefits. it's not what clinton wanted to do, raising taxes. in fact, he had campaigned for president on a middle class tax cut, a proposal he abandoned when he was faced with the awesome responsibility of governing. bill clinton did the right thing. he abandoned his campaign pandering on tax cuts, reversed his position, an

of course it happened the year the clinton impeachment in 1998. but we really, it works to be accepted by the country, by history, for the good of the country. we really felt we drilled so hard. to achieved bipartisanship in this thing. and i give a lot of credit. bill said two key figures. just handle it right. it was useful to have me, aggressive. i wanted to you know, to go hard and once i was convince there had was a case to be made. but their balance, their judgment i think really kept this process going along the right direction. and i'm very proud. not only we reached southern democrats which were important, the conservative democrats, and also the republicans. all of a sudden we started reaching some of the republicans. bill cohen and tom rails back and people like that who then spoke really from the heart. it was a moving thing to see that. then of course after the smoking gun tape came out, the june 18th tape, that's when the president had to resign. the whole committee sort of, i mean, the whole committee decided impeachment was appropr

he got very nostalgic about the policies of president bill clinton. >> bill clinton called himself a new democrat. he put that behind him. he believed in smaller government, reformed welfare as we knew it and try today get the economy going with trade and other provisions, lowered taxes. new democrats have done some good things. a lot of republicans have done some good things, but this old style liberalism of bigger and bigger government and bigger and bigger taxes has gault to end and we will end it in november. >> that's right. you just heard the republican nominee for president talking about the glory days of president bill clinton. funny thing, though, romney got his facts wrong. taxes were higher under president clinton compared to president obama. not lower. that's why president obama always makes this point. >> anybody making over $250,000 a year, including me, we go back to the tax rates that we were paying under bill clinton. which, by the way, was a time when our economy created nearly 23 million new jobs, the biggest budget surplus in history, and created plenty of million