Former President Bill Clinton says a lot of wealthy people say things similar to Mitt Romney’s remarks about the “47 percent.”
Asked in an interview on CBS’s “Face the Nation” about Romney’s remarks that 47 percent of the population is dependent on government and see themselves as “victims,” Clinton says he knows a lot of high-income people and “a lot of people say things like that.”
He also suggested the GOP primary pushed Romney to offer the remarks at a closed-door fundraising event in May, which became public this week after the were leaked to the liberal magazine Mother Jones.
“The primary they ran kept pushing them all to the right,” Clinton said. “You don’t purge all of that out of your system when you start running in the general election.”
Democrats have sought to portray Romney as out of touch with the middle class, and Clinton’s remarks reflect the party’s strategy of emphasizing the GOP nominee’s wealth.
Asked about the Republicans’ argument that government has become too big, Clinton said, “we have to wait until normal growth resumes” to decide.
Clinton said the administration and lawmakers have to avoid the “fiscal cliff” and make a long-term deal. He said he understands the president’s reluctance to extend Bush-era tax cuts, “It has a lot to do with the calendar, the timing.”
For more on Clinton's comments, click here.
