On Friday, July 13, 2012, presumptive GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney sat down for interviews with all five networks following several days of heightened criticisms over his time at the private equity firm Bain Capital. Romney defended his work there to CBS News chief political correspondent Jan Crawford, and said the president owes him an apology for his campaign’s “reckless and absurd” accusations. Below is a transcript of the full interview. Video clips are also available at CBSNews.com.
JAN CRAWFORD: Governor Romney, the Obama campaign is saying that you either committed a felony by lying to the SEC or you are lying to the American people about when you left Bain capital. What do you say to that?
GOV. MITT ROMNEY: Well, I think this kind of statement from the Obama team is really shocking, it’s, it’s ridiculous, and it’s beneath the dignity of the presidency. Look we just had a report come out that millions of Americans remain unemployed. We have 8.2 percent unemployment. That’s the 41st straight month we’re above eight percent and the president’s campaign comes out with these ridiculous charges that obviously every fact checker that looked at it has said it’s absurd. And yet they keep on pushing it. I simply – I simply think the president has to recognize that this should be a campaign about the direction of the country, and these personal attacks have to stop.
CRAWFORD: But you say it’s ridiculous. But why is there this discrepancy? You said you left Bain in 1999 yet Bain is listing you as CEO up until 2002, so why were you listed as CEO until 2002?
GOV. ROMNEY: The documents show that there’s a difference between ownership, which is I owned shares in Bain, but I did not manage Bain. I left as everyone knows to go out and run the Olympics in February of 1999. I was full-time running the Olympics. I had no role whatsoever in the management of Bain after I went off to the Olympics. And that’s been demonstrated by people who work at Bain, by all of the documents, but I still retained an ownership interest, I had the capacity if I were not on leave, if I were actually wanting to run the business to do so, but I did not. I left. And that’s been demonstrated time and time again.
Photo Credit : Gage Skidmore (Creative Commons)
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I can’t believe that Berry would make such ludicrous comments…well, yes I can!! Mitt Romney missed a GREAT opportunity to mention some of the outright lies that BHO has made. And the lack of “transparency” over ALL of his records that he has spent millions of $$ covering up. Why in the World would ANYBODY fault Romney for making money??? At least HE has had a real J-O-B in his Life. Let’s see…Berry has worked in an ice cream parlor, went to college where he hung out with terrorists and, smoked dope and took drugs, worked as a “community organizer…somehow got elected as a Senator where he rarely participated…and got elected as US President on a pack of LIES and no real Birth Certificate and has done a miserable Job as President…unless you count trashing the Constitution…not working with our elected officials… by -passing them and just releasing “ezxecutive orders and mandates”…managed to put this Country into trillions of dollars of debt and severly high unemployment rates…plus Stealing almost ALL of our Constitutional Rights. WOW, what a job record!!! And he has the b**ls to inquire about Bain???
Romney needs to speak up more on THOSE topics!! America already KNOWS how well the economy is doing!! According to Berry, it’s doing “just fine”.
If Romney HAD mentioned ANY of those subjects, you can bet the MSM would have blocked anything he said, or just “trashed” the interview. I guess that he can only talk about “safe” topics when America is listening to their favorite NON-NEWS channels!!
Time to get meaner or BHO is going to burry you in sh*t!! It’s difficult to go from dealing with church members to Chicago thugs!!.