Romney: Obama owes me an apology
Presumptive GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney joined CBS News in a series of interviews with all five networks Friday.
/ CBS News(CBS News) President Obama should apologize for his campaign's suggestion that Mitt Romney is either a criminal or a liar, the presumptive GOP nominee told CBS News' Jan Crawford in an interview Friday.
The president "ought to apologize for what he's doing," Romney told Crawford. The former Massachusetts governor sat down with all five networks one day after Mr. Obama's deputy campaign manager Stephanie Cutter posed two damning outcomes for the former Massachusetts governor from Thursday's Boston Globe story, which alleged that Romney continued to head the private equity firm Bain Capital three years after he claimed to have left.
Cutter said in a conference call Thursday with reporters that if the allegations are true, then Romney is either a felon for "misrepresenting his position at Bain" to the Securities and Exchange Commission, or "he was lying to the American people."
Asked by Crawford whether he believes Mr. Obama owes him an apology for Cutter's remarks, Romney said, "Absolutely - my goodness!
"What kind of president would have a campaign that says something like that about the nominee of another party?" Romney said. "This is reckless and absurd on his part, and it's something that's beneath his dignity. I hope he recognizes that even fellow Democrats have said that.
"Look - the president needs to talk about the direction he'd take the country, and stop these kinds of ads and attacks that are so disparate from what the American people want to talk about," Romney concluded, adding later that the president "has demeaned the leadership which he should be bringing to this country."
Romney's history at Bain has long plagued his presidential ambitions; on Friday, pressure began to mount for him to release his tax returns for a closer look into his assets and professional history with the firm. In an interview with CBS News on Thursday, the president argued such questions were appropriate, and merely "the nature of runnin' for president."
Read the transcript from the full interview here.
Popular in Politics
- Obama prom pictures surface 119 Comments
- Is President Obama ending the war on terror? 252 Comments
- Now, some unions upset over Obamacare
- IRS' Lerner was asked to resign, refused: GOP Sen.
- IRS official Lois Lerner placed on leave 130 Comments
- Rand Paul uses 2016 bully pulpit to push Obama on drones
- GOP Rep.: Obama elected because of Reagan's immigration reforms
- Obama forgets to salute while boarding Marine One Play Video
And Normy, you just need to get over that Fox is fair and balanced, not communism like what you watch and read.
Again I say...Good Day !
Romney 2012: Count on it!
Again I say Good Day !
To you I say..Good day !
WASHINGTON - Some Republicans are actually agreeing with the Obama campaign on one issue: the need for presumptive GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney to release additional tax returns.
"He should release the tax returns tomorrow. It's crazy," The Weekly Standard's Bill Kristol asserted on "Fox News Sunday." "You gotta release six, eight, 10 years of back tax returns. Take the hit for a day or two."
"There's obviously something there, because if there was nothing there, he would say, 'Have at it,"' observed ABC News Political Analyst and former George W. Bush political strategist Matthew Dowd on "ABC This Week."
Republicans want Romney to disclose more tax records in order to make the issue to go away.
Can you not read? Romney is very very wealthy man. He can do whatever he wants to do with his money, and he doesn't have to give to you. He can have Swiss bank accounts. Who cares. This is a free country.
------------------------------------------------
Hi, yes, he can do what he wants with his money, and he is probably within the law since he also probably pays hundreds of thousands each year to tax lawyers and accountants to make sure he does not skate over the line.
BUT, he is not any American. He is running for President of the United States. We have to be able to trust him with our lives, all of our 330,000,000 lives. I am going to simply quote from the eloquent op-ed piece from yesterdays New York Times by Robert Blow, entitled "What a Tangled Web":
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/14/opinion/blow-what-a-tangled-web.html
-------------------------------------
Romney has only released a complete return for 2010 and an unfinished estimate for 2011. This is less than any other presidential candidate in recent history. As The Times put it in a scathing editorial this week, "what information he did release provides a fuzzy glimpse at a concerted effort to park much of his wealth in overseas tax shelters, suggesting a widespread pattern of tax avoidance unlike that of any previous candidate."
Blind trusts, Swiss bank accounts and Bermuda accounts designed to shield your money from the taxing agency of the country you want to lead just doesn't sound right. And Romney's reluctance to reveal more suggests that there is more that's distasteful.
-------------------------------------------
WILLIAMSBURG, Va. -- Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley, called on presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney to release his tax returns in order to show voters that he has "nothing to hide." "I just believe in total transparency," said Bentley.
Some of the governors did say they would like to see more specificity from the Romney campaign as the election cycle moves toward the conventions. "It is not just enough to say repeal Obamacare, it's repeal and replace it with what?" Utah Gov. Richard Herbert said.
"Voters were just beginning to receive a clearer economic message from him," Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker said. "Now, they need more details on the budgetary end".
"If you have things to hide, then maybe you're doing things wrong. I think you ought to be willing to release everything to the American people." -- Alabama's Republican governor, Robert Bentley