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>>> welcome to "the ed show." thank you for joining us. we have breaking news off the top tonight. i think this may be one of the biggest turns of the campaign. today a recording of mitt romney at a private fundraiser has surfaced. it reveals his frank, candid opinion of nearly half of the american population. it was recorded without romney's knowledge. and it was provided to a magazine as well as nbc news's own michael iz calf. here's part of the tape.
>> romney didn't know that was being recorded. he was speaking to donors. the romney as the governor has made clear all year he's concerned about the growing number of people who are dependent on the federal government including the record number of people on food stamps. nearly one in six americans in poverty and 23 million americans struggling to find work. mitt romney's plan creates 12 million new jobs in four years, grows the economy, and moves americans off of government dependency and into jobs. folks, this is an admission as far as mitt romney is concerned. there are two americas and he only cares about one of them. does mitt romney really think that people in this country want to be on medicare and want to be poor, want to be disabled, want to have assistance? is that really the path that he thinks that americans want to take? and most americans i believe tonight, especially liberals, will be offended by the comment. personal responsibility. personal responsibility. those of you in nursing homes, those in wheelchairs, those who depend on assistance by the government because we're a government of compassion, we have always been a country of compassion. but the republicans are putting up a candidate who wants to wipe away that because we want to privatize everything. the obama campaign has also responded. it's shocking that a candidate for president of the united states would go behind closed doors and declare to a group of wealthy donors that half the american people view themselves as victims sbientitled to handouts and are unwilling to take personal responsibility for their own lives. it's hard to serve as president for all americans when i have disdainfully written off half of the nation. that's exactly what mitt romney has done here with this statement behind closed doors. for months on this program, i have asked, will the real mitt romney stand up? we saw the real mitt romney. he did behind closed doors. he doesn't give a damn about those who needs assistance in this country and that we are a society, we are a country of compassion. we want to help people who are downtrodden. we want to help those who were dealt a tough deck of cards, whether it be in the economy, or whether it be health care, as of no fault of their own, or circumstances put on families that are totally out of their control. mitt romney wants to do away with those. he views those people as basically road kill. he's not going to communicate to them and he's not going to offer up a better plan to make their lives better. he just says they should be personally responsible for who they are and where they are in america. i think that this is a blow for the republican party. it's a low for the conservative movement. if it's all about the money and if it's all about privatization, then truly this country will change if this man is elected president of the united states. get your cell phones out. i want to know what you think. is this video proof of what mitt romney really believes about the poor in this country? text "aq for yes and "b" for no. you can always go to our blog. we'll bring you results later on in the show. earlier in an interview with george stephanopoulos, he made the comment about the middle class being around $250,000 in income. this man has no clue where america is. he hasn't walked the walk with any american who has struggled whatsoever. he was born with not only a silver spoon in his mouth, but a silver foot as well. joining me now is former ohio governor ted strickland, co-chair for the obama 2012 campai campaign. great to have you with us tonight. this is clearly a shot over the bow when it comes to class warfare. that he's willing to pick and choose americans as to who he is going to serve if he's president of the yiet. that's how i view this. your take?
>> these are the most despicable words that i have ever heard come out of a candidate's mouth. i think this should disqualify him of ever being the president of our country. 47% of us, he says, really don't count. we're free loaders, we consider ourselves victims. think about this. 47% of the people who voted for barack obama, that's who he's talking about, some of those people are serving us in afghanistan right now, risking their lives for mitt romney, for me, for you, for all americans. but apparently he considers them to be freeloaders. perhaps that's why he didn't bother to mention their sacrifice at the republican convention. this statement really, really, really shows his character and he's got a major character flaw. anyone who would talk about 47% of americans with the kind of disdain that he used with his words simply -- i mean, why does he want to be the president of america? how can he possibly pull us together if he at the get go has said that 47% of us are unworthy.
>> it's a snapshot quickly of what we have suspected of mitt romney all along. i think this is the key part in his comment. he says, my job is not to worry about those people. i'll never convince them that they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives. this is a damning comment by a candidate who seems to have no concept of what people are going through in this country. it's almost as if i don't give a damn about them. i just got to get 10% of the the independents and we're going to be okay and get the kind of country we want.
>> it's so sad. this man, who was born into wealth, who's never had to worry about whether his family had access to health care, whether his kids could afford to go to college, he's never had an economic worry in his life. yet he can speak with such disdain, almost in a mocking way, about 47% of americans. and i would just ask the independents who may be watching, please watch this complete video and then ask yourselves, is this the kind of man that we want to be the president of our country? this should disqualify mitt romney from the presidency. and i believe if more and more americans see this, they will reach that conclusion as well.
>> former governor of ohio, ted strickland, thank you for your time. let's turn now to e.j.dionne. i want to play this tape one more time. let's take a look and talk about it afterwards. here it is.
>> e.j., the comment, they believe they are victims. what do you think about that?
>> i thought the whole thing was astonishing because the implication is that anyone who ever gets help from the government is dependent and a victim. by the way, i did the math. romney has set a daunting standard for himself. if he's right, that 47% is ruled out for him, that means he needs 94.5% of that 53% to win the election. so it's a very odd standard. but let's analyze, who is he talking about here? seniors on medicare and social security, well they depend upon the government. are they part of that class? what about people on veterans benefits? what about students who want to work hard in their lives and get student loans to go to college. what about low-income people who get help for their children? are all these people lazy? no.
>> all of those things you're mentioning, this is an endorsement of the ryan plan. this sound byte that we have gotten from mitt romney behind closed doors is a full throttle endorsement of the ryan plan. this is where they want to go. they are willing to have people in our society fall by the wayside.
>> the suggestion is that somehow our country, the richest country in the world, a very hard-working country. we have short vacation times compared to a lot of the other wealthy countries. this is a hard-working country. to imply that somehow half of us are dependent is a real problem. the other is the definition on taxes. he mentions income taxes. that does that mean sales taxes, property taxes, are they dependent because they don't pay income tax? it does raise an unfortunate set of questions for him tomorrow. he paid, according to one tax return, 13% of his income. that's a lot less than upper middle class people, lawyers, doctors, pay because the government favors capital over labor. does that make capital dependent on government? i hope he's asked about it.
>> this is how it's going to play on the right wing, i believe. they have started praising his rema remarks. romney was on message according to some. in some strange way, could this help romney with his base?
>> i don't know. i think the folks who are going to respond positively it to this were already voting against president obama. few people will turn out. but i just don't see how this statement helps him. there's so many people he is putting in that dependent category who think of themselves as hardworking republicans. so i don't see how this helps.
>> social security, medicare, i don't think he was talking about that. i think he was talking about medicaid. no fault of their own, the elderly don't want to be there. no one wants to be in poor circumstances. is he talking about unemployment benefitswell? i think this is a definition that we have heard in the past of two americas and he doesn't want to care about a portion of our society, which i find absolutely amazing.
>> i do too. but to get to 47% of all of us, you've got to get up into the middle class. so he's talking about a vast swath of people. it's not even just the poorest people in our society. and i agree, the implication that a lot of these folks don't want to work. a lot of them do work and need extra help from government just to put food on the table for the kids.
>> not that the obama campaign needed a game changer, but let's call this a major eye opener. if you weren't following the campaign, they found out tonight. e.j., thank you for joining us. remember to answer tonight's question at the bottom of the screen. share your thoughts on twitter and facebook. we want to know what you think.
>>> 50 days until the election and the romney campaign is scrambling to change course. what is happening to the romney campaign? can they recover? that's next. stay with us.