Mitt Romney sought Monday night to limit the damage to his campaign from a leaked video of him speaking in May at a closed-door private fundraiser, saying his comments were "not elegantly stated" and that he was "speaking off the cuff."
"I'm sure I could state it more clearly in a more effective way than I did in a setting like that," Romney said at a hastily arranged press conference in Orange County, Calif.
The video, released Monday by the liberal magazine Mother Jones, was surreptitiously recorded at a closed-door fundraiser at the Boca Raton, Fla., home of private equity banker Marc Leder. Romney is shown saying that many Americans are "dependent upon government" and "believe they are victims."
"There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what," Romney is shown saying. "All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to healthcare, to food, to housing, to you name it."
For more on Romney's comments, click here.
