Former White House Press Secretary and Obama adviser Robert Gibbs dismissed Mitt Romney as no "economic savior" Sunday.
Top advisers to both the president and his GOP challenger sparred on CBS's "Face the Nation," continuing the argument over how voters should judge Romney's long tenure at private-equity firm Bain Capital.
Gibbs kept up the president's line of attack, arguing that Romney's time investing in companies, some of which ended up failing, does not qualify him to claim a profound understanding of what the struggling economy needs.
Gibbs said the presumptive GOP nominee's time at Bain is "the central and only point that Romney brings up… that would make him an economic savior."
"What Bain Capital never did was focus on job creation, that’s not what Bain Capital does. It loads up companies with debt, it takes money out of those companies and pays those investors," he added. "It’s not about job creation, and that is what Mitt Romney is running on."
Romney advisor Ed Gillespie dismissed those attacks as more of an indictment on the president than anything else.
The attacks represent "a legitimate concern that the president’s hostile rhetoric… is highlighting the fact that his policies are hostile to private investment and job creators," he said.
Gillespie added that less than five percent of the companies Bain invested in went bankrupt, while 80 percent grew after being taken over by the firm.
Meanwhile, host Bob Schieffer threw his own critiques at both men. Discussing the negative Bain attacks, he asked Gibbs, "Whatever happened to 'hope and change?'"
He also pressed Gillespie on Romney's reticence to appear on the Washington Sunday talk shows as a candidate. The adviser responded that the campaign was considering "a number of options" on communicating with voters.
