Romney campaign reacts to staff changes, jobs report

>>> given its potential impact on the 2012 election, today's jobs report is as much of a political document as it is an economic one. eric lindstrom, senior adviser to the obama campaign joins me with the numbers. good morning.

>> good morning, john. let me read you how bloomberg news is framing this jobs report. they note that with the additional job gains this month plus with the revisions in february and march, that for the first time president obama can now say he has created net plus jobs, meaning 5 million jobs that were lost during the bush/cheney years, have been put back. how do you react to that?

>> well, i have a different perspective, chuck. i think i the obama campaign should thank its slogan from forward to backward. this is an extraordinarily weak monthly jobs report. the president promised in this single term of his he would turn around the economy. he has failed to do that. his policies have not made things better. the fact that the unemployment rate ticked down is not because we have robust jobs growth. we have very weak jobs growth. the reason the rate ticked down by 0.1 of a point, people are so discouraged they are dropping out of the workforce all together.

>> how do you respond to the fact that all the jobs lost have been replaced? we are basically back to even considering the hole that he began with?

>> i don't think americans feel that way, chuck. i think americans are still coping with a very bad economy. this is just latest in a string of bad economic data that has come out, whether we are talking about gdp growth or jobs. the numbers are not there. we still have 23 million americans that are unemployed or underemployed. i can't think of a more fitting back drop to the kickoff of the pre president's re- election campaign than yet another dreary economic report. we got word out of great britain , the u.k., that they are now in a double dip recession. the policies that cameron put forward are similar to what governor romney is endorsing, cut cap and balance. are you concerned, is governor romney rethinking this idea of contracting the size of government given what that that has done in europe, in particular, great britain ?

>> one thing we can say for certainty, we don't have to look to other countries as a measuring stick, one thing we can say for certain president obama 's plans haven't worked. mitt romney has put together 59 specific proposals covering regulation, fiscal tax policy . people can go to mittromney.com and learn more about that. it wasn't too long ago that the president said he measures progress in this country by how many good jobs we create, jobs that pay good wages so people can buy cars and pay the mortgage. by his own measurement, about i his own standard, he hasn't lived up to that promise. his policies aren't working. i think americans are going to deliver their verdict on the economy in november.

>> so no rethinking as far as cut cap and balance is concerned given the impact on great britain .

>> no. we have two challenges, chuck, that confront us. one, of course, is turning around this economy and mitt romney has experience in turning around broken enterprises. the second challenge is putting it on sound financial footing. this is the first president that has ever given us a $1 trillion deficit. he has done it three times and is on track to do it a fourth time. we need a change in our fiscal policies and economic policies . i want to talk about richard grinnell. i know where you were on him. i know you hired him an were trying to keep him, have him stay on the campaign but things he was disappointed in is that his job description had shrank? was he told he was not to speak on the call.

>> i have a lot of respect and admiration for rick grenell. he was supremely qualified to be the foreign policy spokesman. he did decide for his own reasons that his effectiveness was going to be compromised. he made a decision to resign. as far as that conference call , we featured our foreign policy advisers. it was not a call where the staff was encouraged to be speaking with reporters but where we wanted to put the focus on our foreign policy team. let me say this about mitt romney when it comes to hiring, he looks at the qualifications but does not consider race, ethnicity or sexual orientation. if you are curious about his hiring record, go back and look at his four years where he spend as governor. the hallmark of his appointment process was bringing in the best and most qualified people.

>> you said he resigned because he thought his effectiveness had been compromised. is this having to do with the fact that some social conservatives appeared to publicly be going after him?

>> i don't want to speak for rick. i will say that, of course, there were voices of intolerance that expressed themselves during this debate. that was unfortunate. mitt romney has confronted those voices of intolerance. he did it last october on stage at the value voters summit and denounced some of the poisonous language that is being used by some of the same people that had criticized rick gren nel's appointment. he has a record of taking on intolerant voices. it led to the resignation of a person we thought would have been a fine foreign policy spokesman for us.

>> eric fehrnstrom coming here from boston. thanks for coming up.

>> thank you, chuck.