One of Mitt Romney's sons joked about President Obama releasing his birth certificate while campaigning for his father in New Hampshire on Friday morning.
When asked whether his father would release his tax returns, Matt Romney tried to make light of the question.
"He has not said that he will not do it, he has also not said that he will. I think it's a matter of time until that issue comes up because I think everybody has to get a chance to do that. And so I don't know the answer to that, I'm not sure if he knows the answer to that," Matt Romney said.
"But he'll do everything that he needs to. He's certainly not afraid of anything, not hiding anything — you know, I heard someone suggest the other day that as soon as President Obama releases his grades and birth certificate and sort of a long list of things, then maybe he'd do it."
Tagg Romney quickly interrupted his brother: "That was not my dad saying that."
After Matt agreed, Tagg gave a more typical answer for a campaign surrogate. "When you're a candidate there's extensive financial disclosure forms that you do disclose quite a bit of information on, and so anything that the government or people think is important to know has been released," he said.
Presidential nominees traditionally release their tax returns, but Mitt Romney has said he is unlikely to do so.
A bit later Matt Romney apologized for his joke on Twitter. "I repeated a bad joke. My bad," he tweeted. It appeared to be his first ever tweet on the social messaging service.
Some still believe Obama is not an American citizen and that he has not
released his birth certificate, although he has done so and it shows he
was born in Hawaii.
Watch the video at the ConcordPatch here.
— This post was posted at 11:10 a.m. and updated at 1:20 p.m.
