Romney takes swipe at Obama over bin Laden mission

>>> may 1st . this is "the daily rundown." i'm chuck todd . today's anniversary of the successful capture and killing of osama bin laden has become a war of words. mitt romney trying to neutralize obama 's signature foreign policy accomplishment. on the trail in new hampshire romney took a cheap swipe at the president trying to minimize his role in the mission.

>> you wouldn't have given the order?

>> even jimmy carter would have given that order.

>> the president defended his campaign's web video narrated by bill clinton which suggests romney would not have made the call.

>> i recommend that everybody take a look at people's previous statements in terms of whether they thought it was appropriate to go into pakistan and take out osama bin laden . i assume that people meant what they said when they said it.

>> of course, doing the jimmy carter line is why the president said that at that joint press conference a couple of hours later. what was the president referring to? these romney comments from 2009 the first time candidate obama advocated this policy in pakistan .

>> if we have actionable intelligence about high valued terrorist targets and president will not act, we will.

>> remember at the time obama 's democratic rivals jumped on the comments and then senator joe biden said it's a naive way of going about conducting the policy. mitt romney had this to say to reporters.

>> i do not concur in the words of barack obama in a plan to enter an ally of ours and their country in a manner complete with bombings and forth. i think his comments were ill timed and ill considered.

>> both of these guys having run four years ago. there is a lot of stuff in the archive. there is a big caveat here about what mitt romney has said and what barack obama has said. romney and obama have had surrogates who were formerly opponents. today romney will try to neutralize by campaigning in new york city with america's mayor rudy giuliani . giuliani was on the opposite side of the issue in 2007 .

>> i would take that option if i felt there was no other way to crush al qaeda and no other way to capture bin laden . i think pakistan has not been making the efforts that they should be making.

>> i think barack obama is confused as to who are our friends and who are our enemies. he wants to potentially bomb a nation which is our friend.

>> there you go the 2007 debate where rudy giuliani was taking bomb's side. this morning on cbs romney left the carter language in new hampshire but said any thinking american would order the decision.

>> and the idea to try to politicize this and say i'm president obama and would have done it one way and mitt romney would have done it another is really disappointing. let's not make the capture and killing of osama bin laden a political device and event.

>> the president took issue with the criticism that his campaign has been using the bin laden anniversary for political campaign .

>> i hardly think you have seen excessive celebration taking place here. i think that people, the american people rightly remember what we as a country accomplished in bringing to justice somebody who killed over 3,000 of our citizens.

>> the obama campaign is more than happy to have this political fight front and center and this morning romney did his best to walk the fine line of trying not to be the guy who minimizes the bin laden take down while making the obama campaign look small.

>> i think them taking credit for the right decision is appropriate but i think trying to attack me on the basis is disappointing and the wrong course.

>> moments ago romney released a statement. romney may not want to go after the president too aggressively. listen to this tough language from the man who has turned himself into the surrogate for the republican party . john mccain .

>> to now take credit for something that any president would do is indicative of the kind of campaign we are seeing and i have had the great honor of serving in the company of heroes . you know the thing about heroes, they don't brag.

>> for what it's worth the advice you are going to hear more about this on wednesday vice president biden, defense secretary gates were advising against doing this mission so this was not a clear cut piece of advice the president was given. one of those advisors retired mike mullen . had thoughts on the way the politics are playing out in this issue and shared them with brian williams .

>> i do worry a great deal that this time of year that somehow this gets spun into election politics. i can assure you that those individuals who risked their lives, the last thing in the world they would want is to be spun into that. i am hoping that that doesn't happen.

>> you can see more of that interview tomorrow in our hour long special documentary inside the situation room at 9:00 eastern on your local nbc station.

>>> for all the grief the obama campaign is getting for whether they are politicizing the issue. the campaign is up with an ad that they are calling swift bank account which is going to run beginning today in ohio, iowa and virginia. according to nbc's ad trackers the campaign has over $500,000 in ohio and iowa and also bought time in richmond. it's the third ad that is both a response ad and an attack which seems to tie romney to an outside group. in this case it's americans for prosperity which made a $6 million buy last week.

>> half a billion to an electric car company that created hundreds of jobs in finland and tens of millions of dollars to build traffic lights in china.

>> independent fact checkers have had big problems with this ad. the washington post glen keszler gave it four pi noekios. this morning the obama campaign responded.

>> over the top , erroneous, out of context. president obama 's clean energy initiatives have helped create jobs for projects across america and not overseas. as a corporate ceo he shipped american places like mexico and china. he is still pushing tax breaks for companies that ship jobs overseas just what you expect from a guy who had a swiss bank account .

>> the ad really had nothing to do with swiss bank accounts . it appears to be an attempt to get the phrase swiss bank account into the campaign stream. the battle between both campaigns. obama campaign trying to define him as out of touch. responded by saying -- what's interesting here is the romney campaign has not responded to these obama