Tamron Hall In Heated Exchange With Republican Guest Over Romney’s Medicare Plan, Tax Returns
In her first day back in the anchor’s chair at MSNBC’s News Nation after spending the last two weeks overseas covering the Olympics, Tamron Hall engaged in a heated argument with her Republican guest over the issues of Mitt Romney’s tax returns and his specific plans for reining in unfunded liabilities associated with America’s entitlement programs.
Hall wrangled with her guest, American Spectator columnist J.P. Freire, first over the issues raised in Thursday press availability by Mitt Romney as he used a whiteboard to attack the changes to Medicare made by President Barack Obama.
Hall noted that Romney claims to be offering specific reforms to Medicare, but on the whiteboard he declined to write down any numbers.
“I think it’s fine that he doesn’t’ have any specifics yet, because I think it is a good idea to work with Congress and work out some kind of deal – the way that Obama didn’t actually do it when he went about setting up the Affordable Care Act,” said Freire.
Hall replied that conservative radio host Laura Ingraham criticized Romney for not being specific on policy. Freire replied that he thinks voters are more concerned with how the ACA will impact their lives than Romney’s proposed changes to Medicare.
“Is that just your opinion that more people are concerned with that and not Medicare,” Hall fired back, noting that Medicare is of major importance to voters in swing states like Florida and Iowa.
Later in the interview, Hall returned to the issue of Romney’s tax returns. Romney answered questions by the press on Thursday as to when or if he planned to release more tax returns. Romney said that he went back and looked at his past tax filings and claimed he never paid less than 13 percent of his annual income in taxes.
“We still don’t have proof of that,” said Hall. “Is this answer working, J.P.?”
“I don’t care what Mitt Romney is doing with his taxes, I care what Obama is doing with our taxes,” Freire replied.
Hall shook her head and laughed at that response before interrupting Bloomberg columnist Jonathan Alter. “I think you would care if President Obama had not done that,” said Hall, noting that she thinks some people find convenient ways of dismissing the tax returns issue.
Freire replied to Hall that the Internal Revenue Service would be the best institution to answer Sen. Harry Reid’s charge that Romney paid nothing in taxes for 10 years. He added that he does not believe the tax returns issue is important to voters.
Hall concluded by noting that the tax returns issue won’t go away, despite her having been away for two weeks. “And it’s not being drummed up by the media, as some have alleged,” Hall concluded.
Watch two clips of the segment below via MSNBC:
