Robert Gibbs, a senior adviser to President Obama, refused to criticize an ad by a pro-Obama super PAC that suggested Mitt Romney was responsible in part for a woman’s death.
On Tuesday, Priorities USA Action released an ad that showed a man who lost his health insurance after Bain Capital, then led by Romney, closed a plant where he was employed. With no health insurance, he said, his wife died of cancer and he partly blames Romney.
“She passed away in 22 days,” the man said. “I do not think Mitt Romney realizes what he’s done to anyone, and furthermore, I do not think Mitt Romney is concerned.”
Gibbs, said on Wednesday on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, said, "This is an ad by an entity that’s not controlled by the campaign. I certainly don't know the specifics of this man's case.”
Gibbs, though, did not back down from the claims made in the ad, saying Bain was responsible for laying workers off, who then lost their health coverage.
“Bain always got paid,” he said. “Bain got paid hundreds of millions of dollars in many instances, and these companies went bankrupt. And when a company goes bankrupt like that, somebody gives you a piece of paper that says you've lost your job, you've lost your health care, you've lost your retirement.”
Republicans have blasted the ad as derisive and unfair. When pressed, Gibbs said that if the ad was inaccurate, it should not run in the first place.
“I think people will decide whether it's factual, fact checkers will decide whether or not it's factual,” he said. “I'm saying if the ad is not true, then … it's not going to be effective, and if there's an ad that's not true, it shouldn't be running.”
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