President Obama's comment that the private sector is doing fine shows he's completey out of touch with the middle class, Mitt Romney's campaign argues in a television ad released Monday.
The video titled, "Jolt," mixes television news clips about the dismal May jobs report with Obama's comment at a White House press conference Friday that "the private sector is doing fine."
"These comments show that President Obama is completely out of touch with the middle class," said a statement released with the Web video.
Obama made the remarks, which he tried to walk back just hours later, as part of an argument that the private sector has added workers for 26 months in a row, even as the public sector has shed jobs.
He also called on Congress to move parts of a jobs package he unveiled last year.
But Obama's criticism of Congress and larger argument were lost in the tempest over his remark that the private sector was doing fine.
"He said the private sector is doing fine. Is he really that out of touch?" Romney said at an event Friday in Council Bluffs, Iowa. "I think he's defining what it means to be out of touch with the American people."
Senior Obama campaign manager David Axelrod on Monday sought to downplay Obama's original comments, saying voters knew Republicans were using the remark out of context and that the controversy would be forgotten by November.
“In the minds of most Americans, there’s no confusion about this,” said Axelrod on CBS's "This Morning.”
