Remarks begin at 1:37.
Obama deputy campaign manager Stephanie Cutter on Sunday blasted last week’s GOP convention, saying that it had left voters with the impression that Republicans believe “lying is a virtue.”
“It was a week of personal attacks, empty platitudes and where the one thing that you were left with is they really think that lying is a virtue,” Cutter said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” “I think the American people disagree with that.”
Pressed by host Bob Schieffer if she believed Republicans were “just a bunch of liars,” Cutter said that was not what she had said.
“Well, I heard a lot of things that weren't true last week. I think we can all agree with that. I think we can all agree that, you know, they blamed the president for not — for closing an auto plant in Janesville, Wis., that closed under President Bush,” said Cutter.
During his speech before the Republican National Convention, GOP vice presidential pick Rep. Paul Ryan (Wis.) cited the closure of a General Motors assembly plant in his hometown of Janesville, suggesting that President Obama had failed to honor a promise to help keep the plant open if elected. In fact, the plant closed down in late 2008, before Obama assumed office.
Cutter also accused Republicans of being dishonest about the president’s Medicare reforms.
“They blamed the president for cutting Medicare, when Paul Ryan included those same savings in his budget,” she said. “The difference is the president put that money back into Medicare, but Paul Ryan used it for tax cuts for the rich.”
Republicans have hit Obama for $716 billion in reductions to Medicare over the next decade, but Democrats say the cuts targeted waste and fraud and did not harm seniors’ benefits.
The Romney campaign accused the president's team of "using dirty political tactics because the truth about his abysmal record hurts."
“It is laughably ridiculous that President Obama is deploying a campaign aide who has been caught lying about her involvement with the false and discredited attacks launched by President Obama’s super-PAC to lecture people about the truth,” said the Romney camp in a statement, referencing Cutter’s claims that she did not know the facts of a Priorities USA video last month that linked Romney to the death of a woman from cancer.
This story was updated at 3:52 p.m.
