"Face the Nation" transcripts, May 27: Gibbs, Gillespie and Senator Lugar

BOB SCHIEFFER: Why-- why, then, are some Republicans seem to be so concerned about it? Like Cory Booker, the, you know, the mayor of Newark? They say it's painting the President as being anti-business, I mean, Chuck Schumer and-- and Senator Gillibrand, the two senators from New York--

ROBERT GIBBS (voice overlapping): Yeah.

BOB SCHIEFFER: --have declined to even comment on these ads.

ROBERT GIBBS: Well, this-- this is nothing to do with being anti-business. This is a-- a criticism and a good criticism, quite honestly of Mitt Romney's only thesis for being President of the United States, that he is some kind of economic savior. He is very good at making money for his partners. He is not so good at creating jobs. We have seen that time and time again and I think the American people and voters deserve to understand what Mitt Romney means when he says he has the keys to being--

BOB SCHIEFFER (voice overlapping): Well--

ROBERT GIBBS: --an economic savior.

BOB SCHIEFFER: You know one of the refreshing changes when-- when the President was elected, he talked about hope and change. Whatever happened to hope and change? Now, it seems he is just coming right out of the box with these old-fashioned negative ads. That all campaigns seem to think are the basis of all campaigns now.

ROBERT GIBBS: No, no, Bob, look, there's going to be a choice in this election. Mitt Romney has been running for President for, well, many years of his life, and has been very critical of-- of this President's tenure of this President's policies, and we're certainly happy to talk a little bit about Mitt Romney and his record of not creating jobs in virtually every step of his life. That's what this campaign is going to be about. Are you going to be better-- who are you going to be better off with in the next four years? And I don't think there's any doubt that when this election is said and done, it will be close. But people of this country will reject the sort of speculation-type economic gains that Mitt Romney is quite good at for himself and for his investors and instead look for an economy that is growing, that is built to last, that continues the job creation we have seen and not quite frankly return to the failed policies of the past.

BOB SCHIEFFER: Let me read you something that Tom Friedman wrote in The New York Times this morning. He said, and I, quote, "Barack Obama is a orator, but he is the worst President I've ever seen when it comes to explaining his achievements, putting them in context, connecting with people on a gut level through repetition and thereby defining how the public views an issue." Is he right about that?

ROBERT GIBBS: No. I-- I appreciate Mister Friedman's free advice, but, look, if you look at the ad that we have got running in-- in battleground states right now it talks about exactly what this President inherited and-- and what he's achieved in saving an auto industry that Mitt Romney wanted to go bankrupt and have a million jobs leave with it, in creating twenty-five consecutive months of private sector job growth, making sure that financial reform is instituted so we don't go back to the time in which Wall Street was writing its own rules. All of those things, that's what Mitt Romney wants to do. Mitt Romney wants to go back to fail-- the failed economic policies of 2007 and 2008, explode our debt with these huge tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires that didn't work the first time. That-- that theory failed, it-- it crashed right on the middle class. It was the worst economic crisis that I think most people in this country will ever live through and Mitt Romney wants to use his speculation background at-- at offshoring and outsourcing and-- and go back to those times. And the American people don't want that.

BOB SCHIEFFER: Let me ask you this: Want do you think will be the impact, if the Supreme Court throws out the health care law?

ROBERT GIBBS: You know, Bob, I-- I don't know what the impact would be on-- on either side of that. I think that if one listens to the full argument that was made in front of the Supreme Court that they are likely to uphold the health care law and I-- I think it's important for million-- millions of Americans who have things like preexisting conditions, who now can get health insurance and can't be told by an insurance company, that, for instance, they are no longer-- they can't be covered because they have some sort of preexisting condition.

BOB SCHIEFFER: All right. Mister Gibbs, thank you.

And now, as Paul Harvey used to say, here is the other side of the story. Here is Ed Gillespie. So what's your side of it, Mister Gillespie?

ED GILLESPIE (Romney Campaign Senior Advisor): So lot of different things to-- to talk about there, Bob. But, number one, let's start with the attack on Governor Romney as, you know, in terms of his experience in the private sector. The-- the fact is that Bain Capital--there were a number of investments that didn't perform well. In-- in the case of Bain, it was less than five percent of the investments that ended up in bankruptcy, the fact is eighty percent of the companies he invested in grew. And that means that jobs were created if you look, for example, at Sports Authority, fifteen thousand jobs; if you look at Brighter Horizons, nineteen thousand jobs; if you look at STAPLES, nearly ninety thousand jobs created.

This is a reflection of the fact and I think what you alluded to there with Mayor Booker, Governor Rendell and others, a legitimate concern that the President's hostile rhetoric to private investment and job creators is highlighting the fact that his policies are hostile to private investment and job creators. That's why we have been at eight percent unemployment or higher for the past thirty-nine months. That's why there are twenty-three million Americans today who are either unemployed or underemployed or have left the workforce entirely. That's why millions of people have lost their homes and have ended up on food stamps and in poverty because this President is hostile to job creators. We see it in his policies not just his rhetoric. If you look at the Obamacare Bill that he passed--the Congressional Budget Office says that cost our economy over eight hundred thousand jobs. If you look at the punitive taxes he wants to impose on small business owners who generate two out of every three new jobs in our economy historically. And if you look at his decision on the Keystone Pipeline to stop that from going forward, thousands of jobs almost immediately. That's the problem that I think Mayor Booker and Governor Rendell were trying to warn them about.