The White House slammed Mitt Romney Tuesday over a leaked video in which the Republican presidential nominee says 47 percent of the country’s population is “dependent upon government” and believes “they are victims.”
“When you're president of the United States, you're president of all the people, not just the people who voted for you,” White House press secretary Jay Carney said.
Carney said Obama's broader message in the campaign is that “We're all in this together, all of us.
“His message has been about what unites us is far greater than what divides us,” Carney said.
“The way you have to approach the job is with the keen understanding that you're out there fighting for every American,” Carney said. “We need to come together as a country.”
Carney said he hasn't asked Obama about the Romney video and wouldn't discuss any internal conversations about it.
Carney also rebuffed suggestions that the incident was similar to a moment during the 2008 campaign when Obama said some Midwest voters "cling to guns or religion.”
The White House spokesman said there was a big difference between what Romney said, and added the incident “happened four years ago and was discussed in abundance at time.”
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.
For more on Carney's comments, click here.
