Top Democrats distance themselves from Hilary Rosen

>> democrats meanwhile have been quick to distance themselves politically from hilary rosen denying she has any relationship with the dnc .

>> we have an obligation. politics and public life when someone even friends say things that are inappropriate to say so and she actually is your employee, not ours. she's works for cnn i think cnn would not allow her to be an operative for our campaign or the dnc . she's not, she never has been.

>> david axelrod , of course, on cnn . florida congresswoman debbie wasserman-schultz chairs the democratic national committee . thank you very much for joining us.

>> you're welcome.

>> let's put a certain matter to rest what is your take away from the whole flap over hilary rosen and what she said and what she meant?

>> well, as a mom, and hilary rosen is a mom as well, i think we all agree that being a mom is hard work. and hilary rosen knows that, i know that. i think the important thing here is that the policies that mitt romney has desperately been trying to distract attention away from his policy of support for the blunt rubio amendment which would have allowed bosses to decide for their female employees what kinds of access who health care they could get, the fact that his campaign couldn't the other day come out in the support and say whether or not he would have signed the lily leadbetter fair pay acting into law if he were president or vetoed it in the fact that he supports tax policy that would make it much harder for women to be able to balance work and family and make ends meet. they are desperately trying to deflect attention away from that. it the fact that be mitt romney opposes the buffett rule and thinks it's okay and this would be important for women because so many women work for men who make far more than them. the buff fell rule says if you make more than $1 million, then you should pay a higher tax rate than your secretary or someone who works for you that makes less than you. mitt romney opposes that.

>> congresswoman.

>> that's the larger point that hillary was making.

>> >> it would be harder for women economically.

>> i understand the larger point. she spoke inartfully and apologized for it. "the wall street journal " on february 16th did an article about you and said that you had occasionally turned to hilary rosen and to anita dunn, a former white house official, for political and media advice. and that has caused a stir among republicans claiming that she is connected to the dnc . can you set the record straight on that?

>> hilary rosen does not now nor has she ever worked during my tenure for the democratic national committee and does not work for the campaign, does not have a contract with either the campaign or the committee. and as david ached rod pointed out, she has a contract with cnn as a contributor and they actually released a statement yesterday saying they prohibit their contributors from having formal relationships, contractual relationships with campaigns.

>> well, if that's the case, i mean, she's clearly a supporter. she was a guest at the state dinner . we just saw pictures of that. did the white house throw her under the bus? i mean a lot of people are questioning the loyalty factor the way david axelrod immediately tweeted, the way the president spoke out as if he didn't even know her, when people are commenting on tv. i mean, people in this town know hilary rosen . she is a very well-known successful well liked figure in democratic politics.

>> she is, and she's my friend. and i'm happy to say that she is, but hilary rosen would be the first to say that she's a big girl . she has a thick skin . you know, she like me has grown the skin of an alligator and this is politics on a national stage, and when you make an unfortunate comment, which she acknowledged she made, sometimes it's going to come back to bite you and you're going to have to do some backpedaling but what hillary and what we would like to underscore coming from the democratic national committee 's perspective as well as the campaign is that women in this country, there's a reason there's a 23-point gender gap right now that mitt romney is losing to the president by 23 points among women because he is so dramatically wrong on issues that are important to women . even lisa murkowski , the u.s. senator from alaska who is a republican said in alaska in her district last week when asked whether there is an attack on women coming from the republican party on the issues that matter to women , that if women -- if people don't think that there is, they have only to ask their wives and their daughters about that. because making sure that we have affordable access 0 birth control is important to women . the republicans opposed that. making sure that women have teeth behind the notion that we could have equal pay for equal work and not continue to earn 77 cents on the dollar for every dollar a man makes for the same job. those are things that the republicans led by mitt romney have overwhelmingly opposed. that is going to be the issues that are important to women in this campaign.

>> let me show you that some things don't change. flashing back to 1992 , it was the day before the illinois primary and bill clinton then a candidate had just had a very contentious argument with jesse jackson in a debate on a sunday night about his wife hillary rodham 's work for the rose law firm . and i went to a lunch counter the next morning during rush hour to ask her a question about that debate. and i want to play that response for you.

>> sure.

>> i could have stayed home and baked cookies and had teas but what i decided to do was to fulfill my profession before i which i entered before my husband was in public life .

>> hillary clinton had was facing those questions and she was slammed for the way she answered it. in fact, the clinton aides, the campaign aides took her outside and she immediately did a news conference with us on a street corner to try to say she was not demeaning people who worked outside the home. there you are.

>> thank you.

>> thank you, but you know, the mommy wars really i think have been so overblown. i think women who work outside the home, women who stay at home , they all have hard jobs and we need to make sure we respect the priorities of women , barack obama does. mitt romney does not.

>> thank you for that perspective, debbie wasserman-schultz.

>> thank you.

>> and nbc news chief white house correspondent and host of the daily rundown chuck todd joins me now. i know you feel strongly that the issue, the mommy war issue is really not in play here or shouldn't have been in play because that's not what hilary rosen was talking about.

>> i think what's been fascinating is the other part of the story we haven't covered, this is always a -- this is one of those it's easy to have this conversation and have this debate because people do have strong opinions about it. but let's also look at tactically what happened here. this was a manufactured controversy. now the dissimilar sketch, war on cater pillars if you recall, this is something.

>> this is the silly season.

>> both political parties are very effective at doing this in a way that we've not seen. it's faster and quicker than ever to distract us. it's twitter and it's because there are so many more what i would call advocacy media outlets able to fast track the stuff.

>> it's the velocity i'm wondering why aren't we having the conversation and you've been trying to have this, we tried to have this about, this is about -- there's actually a middle ground here called workplace flexibility, things like that. there are other parts of this conversation that it didn't spark the debate i think a lot of working mothers would like to have.

>> how about paying women who work in the home or making sure that they get some social security benefits for the years that they put in raising children.

>> that's been an issue for a lot of stay at home mothers for a long time.

>> there's a lot of issues we are not debating while we're going off the track.

>> we learned that conservatives will quickly rally around mitt romney in a way. any doubting that, watch how quickly they rallied around that. and secondly, they are nervous go about the gender gap . that gap in places like suburban colorado, suburban philadelphia and the suburbs of florida, virginia, they can't be down double digits.

>> interesting stuff. thank you very much, my friend. chuck todd .