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Obama campaign says Romney lacks ‘backbone’ and ‘moral leadership’
President Obama’s deputy campaign manager, Stephanie Cutter, called Mitt Romney surrogate Donald Trump a “charlatan” and said Romney “lacks the backbone” and “moral leadership” to stand up against the extreme voices within the Republican Party that question the president's place of birth.
“If Mitt Romney lacks the backbone to stand up to a charlatan like Donald Trump because he's so concerned about lining his campaign's pockets, what does that say about the kind of president he would be?” Cutter said in a statement on Tuesday.
While Romney says he believes Obama was born in the United States, he hasn’t denounced Trump’s views because he says he and his supporters don’t have to agree on all of the issues.
The Obama campaign is actively working to tie Romney to Trump's active questioning of Obama's birthplace.
“Mitt Romney’s continued embrace of Donald Trump and refusal to condemn his disgraceful conspiracy theories demonstrates his complete lack of moral leadership,” Cutter continued. “Now he’s even standing by silently as Trump assails John McCain’s courage in standing up to the most extreme and hateful voices in the Republican Party — all in order to raise money for himself.”
An Obama campaign Web ad released Tuesday, titled “Two Republican nominees,” shows presidential candidate Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) rebuffing statements from those who questioned then-Illinois Sen. Barack Obama’s citizenship while on the campaign trail in 2008.
“As the Republican nominee, John McCain stood up to the voices of extremism in his own party,” text from the ad reads.
“Why won’t Mitt Romney do the same?” the ad says, before launching into a montage of Trump questioning the president’s birthplace and citizenship.
On Tuesday, Trump tweeted that Obama “is afraid” of people raising the “birther” issue, and spoke at length about it in an interview on CNBC interview.
Obama was born in Hawaii in 1961.
The Romney campaign says Democrats are talking about Trump’s remarks to distract voters from the real issues, and that it will continue to focus on jobs and the economy.
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