David Axelrod, senior adviser to the Obama campaign, was on the defense the morning after the first presidential debate in which most pundits seem to agree that Mitt Romney turned in a better performance than President Obama.

“He delivered his lines well,” Axelrod said of Romney before charging the Republican candidate with lying.

“The problem isn’t with his performance. The problem is with his underlying theories and some fundamental dishonesty that we saw last night,” Axelrod said on Morning Joe Thursday. "I give him an F for being honest with the American people."

Axelrod, a longtime adviser to the president, said the Obama re-election campaign would “continue to prosecute this case,” over the next 30 days before the election, but also called on the media to fact check some of Romney’s comments last night, particularly on his tax, education, and health care plans (some of which is already happening.)

“You guys have an obligation as well to check some of these allegations,” he said. “Everyone was very dazzled by the fact that Mitt Romney came in with some well-rehearsed lines, but now we have to sit back and say, 'What exactly is it that he said and was it true?'”

Asked by host Joe Scarborough why the president didn’t make that case if that’s what he believed, Axelrod tried to take the high road.

“I understand there was a hunger for us to attack Romney more personally than the president did last night,” he allowed. “The president was talking to the American people…treating the American people like adults.”

Axelrod said the president would “review” his performance and “if he wants to make some changes in the next debate he will do so.”

There are more debates to come, he argued.

Senator Claire McCaskill had a few words for her Republican challenger in the Missouri Senate race after he called her less than “ladylike.”

“This is somebody who kind of makes Michele Bachmann look like a hippie,” McCaskill said in describing Rep. Todd Akin on Morning Joe Friday. “He is very much in the group who would never be part of the compromise that we need to find to address the fiscal cliff. He would never be a part of the group in the middle that figures out ways to solve these problems, that works across the aisle.”

Akin, who stirred up controversy and provoked the ire of his own party last month by making false statements about female biology and using terms like “legitimate rape,” complained to reporters on Thursday that McCaskill was “much more sort of ladylike” during her 2006 campaign.

“In the debate we had Friday, she came out swinging, and I think that’s because she was threatened,” Akin told a Bloomberg reporter.

“I’m at a loss. I don’t know exactly what his accusation that I’m not ladylike means,” McCaskill said. “I try to be strong and informed, and I think the debate was tough for Todd.”

Following his “legitimate rape” comments, McCaskill a moderate Democratic has sought to highlight Akin as a “fringe” candidate with extremist views.

“I hope this motivates my supporters even more,” she said. “It seems to have.”

Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images

Producer Steven Shareshian, director Jay Roach, writer Danny Strong, producer Gary Goetzman, actress Julianne Moore, and producer Tom Hanks, winners Outstanding Miniseries or TV Movie for "Game Change," pose in the press room during the 64th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards at Nokia Theatre L.A. Live on September 23, 2012, in Los Angeles, Calif.

HBO's political drama Game Change earned several Emmys Sunday night during the 64th Emmy Awards, including the top award in its category: outstanding miniseries or movie. The awards program honors the best in television.

The movie is based on the book by the same name, which was authored by political journalists and MSNBC contributors Mark Halperin and John Heilemann. While the book chronicles the 2008 presidential race, the movie focused on Sen. John McCain's campaign, including his controversial vice presidential running mate Sarah Palin.

Julianne Moore who played Sarah Palin in the HBO movie won outstanding lead actress in a miniseries or a movie. "I feel so validated because Sarah Palin gave me a big thumbs down," Moore quipped on stage.

The film also won for outstanding directing of a miniseries, movie, or dramatic special, outstanding writing, and casting. The movie's writer, Danny Strong, and director Jay Roach, thanked Halperin and Heilemann from stage (watch the clip below).

Another political win for HBO included Julia Louis-Dreyfus' outstanding lead actress in a comedy series Emmy for her portrayal of Selina Meyer in Veep, which follows a fictional female vice president of the United States.

With six weeks to go until election day, it's perhaps no surprise that politics crept into the Emmys dialogue. Host Jimmy Kimmel joked about the lack of Republicans in the audience and President Obama's support for Showtime's dramatic Washington-D.C.-based series Homeland (which won several categories, including best dramatic series), while comedian Stephen Colbert used his on-stage time to address the "war on women."

Homeland, which combines politics, national security, and a love triangle to depict a post-9/11 CIA, won not only best drama series but lead actor (Damian Lewis), lead actress (Claire Danes), and best writing, casting, and single-camera picture editing in its category. 

Joe Klein, Time's political columnist and author of six books, said the war talk coming from Israel's leadership, in which the country's prime minister appeared to be pushing the United States toward military action was "absolutely outrageous and disgusting."

On Tuesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu publicly criticized the United States for not doing more to thwart Iran from developing nuclear weapons.

"The world tells Israel 'Wait, there's still time'. And I say, 'Wait for what? Wait until when?'" Netanyahu said Tuesday, speaking in English.

 "Those in the international community who refuse to put red lines before Iran don't have a moral right to place a red light before Israel," he added, addressing a news conference with Bulgaria's prime minister.

"I don’t think I’ve ever, in the 40 years I’ve been doing this, have heard of another example of an American ally trying to push us into war as blatantly and trying to influence an American election as blatantly as Bibi Netanyahu and the Likud party in Israel is doing right now," Klein said during Morning Joe Wednesday. "I think it’s absolutely outrageous and disgusting. It’s not a way that friends treat each other. It’s cynical and brazen."

While the United States and Israel continue to argue over what diplomatic steps are necessary prior to any military action, Klein called war with the country, "a fool’s errand." "It would be a ridiculous war," he said.

Klein suggested that U.S. sanctions against the country are hurting not only the people of Iran, but also its business class and the Revolutionary Guards.

"The Revolutionary Guards, the most powerful force in the country, control 30% to 40% of the economy and these sanctions are really biting them," he said. "Very soon they’re going to start hampering the Revolutionary Guards ability to buy weapons and to pay their members."

He also suggested that should Iran develop a nuclear weapon the policy already in place for nuclear armed countries, containment, could work.

Moreover, though, Klein, who has visited Iran, said the leadership "do not want to have their country destroyed by American weaponry or Israeli weaponry," and will try to avoid war.

The United States added 96,000 jobs last month, less than what many analysts expected, but the unemployment rate ticked down to 8.1%, according to a Labor Department report released Friday. Unemployment stood at 8.3% in July when the economy added 141,000 jobs.

U.S. job growth is averaging 139,000 each month this year, compared with 153,000 in 2011.

Many in the political sphere had questioned the impact the announcement the monthly jobs report would have on the presidential race with President Obama closing out the two weeks of conventions with his acceptance speech coming the night before.

"I think it's a wash," John Heilemann, national affairs editor at New York Magazine, said on Morning Joe in describing the report's mixed results, less than a 100,000 jobs but a lower unemployment rate.

Mark Halperin, senior political analyst for Time magazine, disagreed, saying "going from 8.3% to 8.1%" unemployment will have a positive impact on the president's campaign because of the downward trend while making it more difficult for Mitt Romney.

The polish of the Democratic National Convention and caliber of speeches, though, convinced much of Morning Joe panel, which was broadcasting live from Charlotte, N.C., where the Democratic National Convention was held, that Obama's campaign would "move the needle," on polling several points, as put by host Joe Scarborough.

While much has been made about former President Bill Clinton's support for President Obama, another Clinton-era leader, Madeleine Albright, is turning out to be a strong surrogate for President Obama's re-election campaign.

Albright, who served as the country's first woman Secretary of State under former President Bill Clinton, has laughed at Republican Mitt Romney's foreign policy credentials and on Monday questioned "why any woman would want to vote for Mitt Romney."

The former secretary, author, and Democrat, who is well-respected in foreign policy circles, praised President Obama's foreign policy record Tuesday in Charlotte, N.C., opening day of the Democratic National Convention. 

"I think he’s doing really really well," she said on the Morning Joe set in Charlotte. "He has really regained America’s reputation abroad, made very clear where we stand and that we need partners in terms of taking care of the issues and been very decisive—commander-in-chief."

Albright also echoed a line that Vice President Joe Biden recently used in regards to the president's national security achievements. It's sure to be featured again during the Democratic convention.

"And Osama bin Laden is dead and I think that is a very important step forward," she said.

Asked what she thought of a statement from Romney earlier in the campaign in which the candidate called Russia the "No. 1 geopolitical foe" of the United States, Albright chuckled. "Well if you live in the 20^th century you might believe that, but the bottom line is we’re living in the 21^st century," she said. "He’s just wrong."   

She also argued it was "strange" that "Gov. Romney didn’t even mention Afghanistan in his [RNC acceptance] speech while I read how many people were dying in the course of the Republican convention in Afghanistan." 

Albright will speak at the National Democratic Institute's International Leaders Forum during the convention. The group, which Albright is chairman of, holds session for foreign leaders who are visiting the convention.

Although the Republicans' Florida convention is on hold due to weather, the debates are moving forward starting with MSNBC host Chris Matthews and the chair of the Republican National Committee Reince Priebus. The pair got into it Monday morning on the set of Morning Joe, which is broadcasting live from Tampa.

Matthews accused the Romney campaign of taking a "cheap shot" and "playing the race card" with Mitt Romney's comment last week that no one has ever asked to see his birth certificate. The campaign has defended it as a harmless joke, not directed at the president, but simply an acknowledgement of where Mitt and his wife Ann were born.

Matthews, to Preibus:

I have to call you on this Mr. Chairman. You’ve been suggesting that somehow Obama has been running a negative campaign and your guy is running a positive campaign, but that’s not accurate. They’ve both been negative. That cheap shot about 'I don’t have a problem with my birth certificate [from Romney] was awful. It is an embarrassment to your party to play that card. This part about getting rid of the work requirement for welfare is dishonest. You are playing that ethnic card there.

You can play your games and giggle about it, but the fact is your side is playing that card. When you start talking about work requirements, you know what game you’re playing, and everybody knows what game you’re playing. It’s the race card. Yeah, if your name is Romney, yeah you were well-born, you went to prep school. Yeah, brag about it. Yeah, this guy [Obama] has an African name and he has to live with it.

Morning Joe host Joe Scarborough asked Matthews to clarify. "You think Mitt Romney’s playing the race card?" 

"There’s no doubt he did on the birth certificate," Matthews said. "Why would he bring it up?...And I think the work requirement fits right into it."

Priebus disputed Matthews' accusation.

"You got your monologue in, so congratulations," Priebus said. "The fact of the matter is he’s from Michigan, he was born in Michigan. He’s making the point that 'I was born in Michigan.' We’ve gotten to a place in politics where any moment of levity is totally frowned upon by guys like you just so you can push your brand. It’s a moment of levity. Everybody gets it." 

"What's the joke?" Matthews asked. "I don't get it."

Scarborough and co-host Mika Brzezinksi suggested it was an ill-timed, ill-written joke on the Republican candidate's part. "He misfired badly on the joke," said Scarborough.

"Mitt Romney has continuously said the president was born in this country. It's a non-starter, it's a dumb issue, it's a distraction," Priebus added.

They continued like this for a while.

"Garbage, garbage," Priebus said, shaking his head.

"It's your garbage," Matthews fired back.

"We went from a tropical storm to Hurricane 3," joked guest Tom Brokaw.

Cue commercial break. 

Watch the clip above.

Courtesy Morning Joe

The Romney family sat down with Parade magazine, which appears in many Sunday newspapers across the country as an insert, to discuss his candidacy for presidency.

Mitt Romney, speaking from his New Hampshire home revealed another reason for not releasing additional tax returns: he doesn't want people to know how much he donates to his church. He also shared his view on who is more generous in terms of philanthropy, liberals or conservatives.

MR:  I think you'll find that conservatives are more generous philanthropically than people who are not conservatives. People who are in favor of small government are very much in favor of personal action to help other people in need. 

But it seems Parade readers are actually quite interested in how his wealth and ability to connect with regular, middle class Americans will impact the way a President Romney would govern. 

One reader asked about his banking plans:

Excerpt from Parade:

There were a number of questions about your financial wealth. New Jersey resident Harry H. asked if you would make this pledge: If elected, do you promise to bank in the United States?
MR: My investments have been managed for almost the last 10 years by a blind trust. A trustee decides where to put our money. If I am president, my understanding is the same principle applies, that I may not direct any of my investments. I can't tell you what my investments might be because I won't make them. But I am happy to have every investment in the United States.

 

Governor, your campaign speeches talk about the middle class, but the vast majority of the questions we received from readers asked about your ability to relate to their struggles. In essence, how do you know what it's like to be someone without means, someone, as one reader puts it, trying to scrape by, living on food stamps?
Governor Mitt Romney: Each of us faces struggles of one kind or another. Our life was not characterized by financial stress as much as it was by health issues. I served as a pastor of a congregation and saw people with various challenges and did my best to help them. I believe my experience in the private sector, the voluntary sector, and government has helped teach me what it takes to help people with different types of challenges.

Maggie Murphy, editor-in-chief of Parade, joined Morning Joe Friday to describe the magazine's second interview with Romney (interview below).

"The family was there full-on. They served lobster and corn, a sort of New England boil," Murphy said. "It'svery free-for-all. Lots of kids and lots of family. The governor is looser and more comfortable when Ann Romney is around."

The Obamas will grace the cover of Parade the following week, just in time for the Democratic National Convention.

Sen. Claire McCaskill said she hopes her Republican challenger's comments on rape and pregnancy serve as a "gut check" for Missourians come November.

"For most Missourians, I hope this is one of those gut check moments where they realize this is not somebody we want speaking for us and our values on the floor of the United States Senate," she said on Morning Joe Monday.

Rep. Todd Akin suggested over the weekend that women are able to "shut down" their bodies during rape to prevent pregnancy. He has since said he misspoke (though he does not specify which part). 

"For the state I love, I hope this is a moment where everyone who hasn’t been paying close attention—this statement is kind of a window into Todd Akin’s mind," McCaskill said.

When asked whether or not she believed Akin should step down or be removed as the GOP candidate in this race, McCaskill demurred a bit. 

"It's not my place to decide," she said. "I think the people of Missouri have to make this decision." 

Pointing out that Akin won the Republican primary by a "comfortable margin" earlier this month (36% in a three-way race), McCaskill said she believed it would be "pretty radical" for the national Republican Party to try to forcibly remove him given the voters had selected him.

Cynics will point out that if Akin stays in the race, this could make what was supposed to be a tough re-election for the Democratic Sen. McCaskill a bit easier. MSNBC host Joe Scarborough, for instance, jokingly introduced her to the show Monday morning as "Let’s bring in right now the woman re-elected last night from St. Louis."

McCaskill, a former prosecutor, sought to put it into other terms.

"I spent 10 years as a prosecutor in the courtroom and did hundreds and hundreds of rape cases, held their hands, cried with them," she said. "That’s why for me this is incredibly painful, because it shows how many people are out there sometimes in very important positions that just don’t understand the trauma and don’t’ understand what it means." 

"This is a very, very, very, very, very, very conservative person," she later added.

Meanwhile, several Republican officials sought to distance themselves from Akin's ignorant remark.

Republican candidate for president Mitt Romney: "Congressman’s Akin comments on rape are insulting, inexcusable, and, frankly, wrong."

Republican congressman Scott Brown: I found Todd Akin’s comments about rape victims outrageous and way over the line. He needs to apologize.

George Allen, Virginia GOP candidate for Senate: While Congressman Akin may have addressed his statement, like many men and women I strongly disapprove of his original comments — and the sentiments behind them.

Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas) on NOW with Alex Wagner: It was outrageous. I don't think he represents the party in any way...He has a lot of apologizing to do.

Despite consistently leading Romney in national polls, the president's re-election campaign has not been shy about pointing out that it is getting beat in fundraising. Instead, it has used that fact as a message to donors as to why they should "step it up"—and now.

In an email to supporters Monday night after the July fundraising totals were released, the campaign wrote: 

If you're one of the 761,546 people who donated in July, thanks. And High Five! But we got beat three months in a row. If we don't step it up, we're in trouble, because we're up against billionaires and super PACs that are funneling unprecedented amounts of money to defeat President Obama in this election.

The email included an infographic showing that 188,679 donors with an average contribution of $53 equals just one Sheldon Adelson, the casino mogul who is the largest donor to the Romney super PAC Restore Our Future.

"There's a lot of resistance among Democratic fat cats to give big money," Al Hunt, executive editor of Bloomberg News in Washington, noted on Morning Joe Tuesday. "They don’t like super PACs; he hasn’t courted them the way [former President Bill] Clinton did; and some of them don’t believe the sky is falling…He finds it hard to court anyone. He doesn’t court members of Congress, fellow politicians. It’s just not his style."

Others on the show, including host Joe Scarborough, deposited that Democrats aren't donating as much because they can't fathom President Obama losing the election in the fall. "Democrats just don’t believe that Barack Obama can lose to a guy like Mitt Romney, just like we Republicans in 1992 did not believe that George H.W. Bush would ever lose to a guy like Bill Clinton."

There's no doubt that getting past and new donors to open their wallets wider will take on an even stronger urgency as summer fades away.

"What the White House is going to have to do in September-October is if the polls start showing in some of the swing states that it’s going the other way and Romney is starting to edge up, they’re going to have to after those donors much harder," Katty Kay of BBC World News said during Morning Joe. "Now, maybe four years of not courting donors isn’t going to open purse strings with a few poll numbers, but they’re going to have to bank on it."

New York Senator Chuck Schumer called the controversy around the comment his colleague Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid made on Mitt Romney's unreleased tax returns a distraction from the real issue at hand.

Reid said a source at Bain Capital (the firm Romney founded) told him the GOP presidential candidate did not pay taxes for 10 years. A charge that Romney denied.

Is Reid "off the reservation," or the "best weapon the Democrats have right now?" guest Donny Deutsch asked the senator on Morning Joe Friday.

"Please. Every day Mitt Romney has to talk about tax returns is a bad day for him and a good day for the Democrats," Schumer said. "They’re trying to focus this on Harry Reid. There’s an 800-pound elephant in the room. It’s called unreleased taxes. No president can run and not release their taxes. And guess what? The few things we know about Mitt Romney’s taxes—Cayman Islands, Swiss bank accounts—raise more questions than they answer.

"He should rip off the Band-Aid now," Schumer continued. "He should have done it two years ago."

Romney has said he won't release more of his tax information (he released one return and one estimate), because he fears Democrats will just twist the results, but others have suggested the candidate and his campaign might be hiding something more.

"They focus-grouped this already," said Morning Joe guest Van Jones, former President Obama adviser and author of Rebuild the Dream. "They know for sure that when they release these returns that it’s a disaster for him. They have made a bet…that no matter how much damage they pick up for not giving these returns over, they are going to be better off than they would be telling the truth. Otherwise they would have done it."

The director of political comedy The Campaign, starring Will Ferrell and Zach Galifianakis, said the Republican primaries gave the whole crew “a lot to work with,” when he joined Morning Joe Friday with Ferrell.

“We were shooting during the primaries, so sometimes we’d say, ‘Oh man, we gotta step it up,” director Jay Roach said.

But it wasn’t only this year’s primary that inspired the director and actors in this film where two southern men face off  in a North Carolina Congressional race in only the ridiculous way that Ferrell and Galifianakis can together. They fight over kissing babies and compete to see who can be the very best pander-er of all as incumbent Cam Brady (Ferrell) defends his seat from newcomer Marty Huggins (Galifianakis).

(Watch the trailer here.)

Ferrell kicked it off Friday by poking fun of one of Mitt Romney's flubs in London where the Republican candidate seemed to question whether or not local officials had sufficiently prepared for the games.

“Can I start by saying the Olympics are going to run perfectly,” Ferrell said in his deadpan style. “I stand by my statements.”

The demon sheep ad, the duo of John Edwards and Rick Perry’s “strong hair,” and Herman Cain’s smoking campaign manager all helped with inspiration, Roach said.

“Comedy is a great vehicle to get into all of that,” added Ferrell. “Cam Brady, a four-time incumbent is pretty un-self-aware… It’s very fun to play that kind of character.”

True to his bumbling, political character, Ferrell ended his turn on Morning Joe by turning the conversation to what’s really on everyone’s mind.

“Have you heard about Tramp-ire?” he asked. “I don’t care about Syria. This is what’s going on in the world. Great segment everyone; we nailed it.”

The movie will be released in theaters August 10.