>> just the other day, you said the president has been trying to fool people with his ads and his speeches about your record. but fact checkers have also taken issue with your ads. haven't you also played fast and loose with the facts from time to time?
>> we've been absolutely spot-on. and anytime there's anything that's been a miss, we correct it or remove it.
>> hmm. what he's describing there, removing or correcting false claims made by the campaign once you realize they are false, that is a process that a normal campaign does follow. that's what makes this statement so newsworthy. because the romney campaign hasn't been doing that. they haven't been removing their false claims from the record once they're proven to be false. which is a strange decision for a campaign operating at the presidential election. look at one of the first general election ads released by the romney campaign. this was released back in november of last year.
>> provide relief for homeowners. it's going to take a new direction. if we keep talking about the economy, we're going to lose.
>> "if we keep talking about the economy, we're going to lose, lose, lose." that is how mitt romney's ad quoted president obama. here's what president obama actually said.
>> senator mccain's campaign actually said, and i quote, "if we keep talking about the economy, we're going to lose."
>> so the romney ad tried to make it sound like president obama said this thing that he was quoting someone else saying, and he was quoting it to say that he disagreed with that statement. i mean, there are lots of little lies in politics, little exaggerations, but that's really big, really bad lie. and it was their first ad against president obama. and so, naturally, mitt romney got skewered for this, for building his first general election ad on a really obviously blunt lie. what did the romney campaign do about the whopper in that ad? did they correct it or remove as mitt romney now says has always been his campaign policy? no, they didn't it. that ad is still up on his campaign web page. not only did the romney campaign did not remove or correct that ad, romney defended it just as it was getting all attention for being a lie, remember?
>> there was no hidden effort on the part of our campaign. it was instead to point out what's sauce for the goose is now sauce for the gander.
>> sauces and gooses, whatever. but mitt romney didn't correct or remove the ad that had the lie in it about what president obama said about the economy. he said, essentially, i mean, what are you going to do about it. also, geese. he used the same dynamic at work with the other romney political ad looking to make political hay out of the solyndra bankruptcy. this is from may.
>> the inspector general said contracts were steered to friends and family.
>> that is not true. point of fact, the inspector general did not say that. that is an empirical claim. it is empirically false. you can check stuff like that. which again the press was quick to point out. so has the solyndra ad with this whopper about the inspector general been corrected or removed? no. it has not. it is still right there on mitt romney's campaign web page. and then there's the now-infamous welfare ad from the republican ann romney campaign last month.
>> president obama quietly ended the work requirement, gutting welfare reform.
>> that is not true. that did not happen. president obama did not strip the work requirement out of welfare quietly or otherwise. quite the opposite, in fact. which, again, has been pointed out ad nauseam by political reporters. but the romney campaign's response about getting caught lying about president obama's welfare policies was not to correct or remove the ad, correct or rem ove the ad like mitt romney said has always been done, that ad is still there on their campaign web page. in fact the campaign responded by telling we're not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact checkers. when he was asked about the untrue welfare ad.
>> any time there's anything that's been amiss we correct it or remove it. the president on the other and.
>> even the welfare ad?
>> absolutely. it has been shown time and again that the president's effort to take work requirement out of welfare is a calculated move.
>> the president has made no effort to take work requirements out of welfarement so even as he's claiming that the campaign corrects the record when it gets caught getting the facts wrong, mitt romney is repeating the exact falsehood that got him in so much trouble in the first place. campaigns get stuff wrong. campaigns make claims in the heat of the moment get overstated or maybe they say things they know are wrong but then they get called on them and they have to apologize. that's normal. that's politics. what's strange here is not that the romney campaign has made some false claims in the campaign, right? what is strange here is when they have gotten things wrong, when they've been called out for getting things wrong, they have not tried to fix it. when they have been shown to be making false claims. it doesn't cause them any stress. but even within the romney campaign, i have to say there is another model for dealing with problems like this. this may come from the way mr. romney was beaten in 2008. it may have left his campaign determined that he not get stuck with the flip flopper label again. even though they leave the ads with the lies in them up and sometimes mr. romney goes on tv invents a brand new policy position he's never had before. after he does that, his staff follows behind him and quietly releasing statements faeg back his quotes. when mr. romney was asked in an interview last week about one of his immigration advisers. he said he could not confirm whether kris kobch was part of his team. and they yes, he's a romney campaign adviser. so he tells an interview he's never met with him but his campaign says what he said was not true. same thing happened last month when mr. romney came out with a whole new policy position on abortion rights.
>> i'm in favor of abortion being legal in the case of rape and incest in the health of the life of the mother.
>> he says he believes abortion should be allowed to protect a woman's health. afterwards the campaign said that's not what he believes. he doesn't actually support the legal right to have an abortion if you need one to protect your health as a woman. the same thing happened earlier this month when mr. romney came out with a whole new take of obama care.
>> i'm not getting rid of all of health care reform. there are a number of things that i like that i'm going to put in place. one is to make sure that those with preexisting conditions can get coverage.
>> i'm not getting rid of all of health reform. he says he wants to cover people with preexisting conditions and his campaign came out afterwards and said he does not mean that. saying that mr. romney was not in favor of a law requiring that coverage. the same thing happened just a week ago when he suddenly, surprisingly said his red line of keeping iran from going nuclear is the same as president obama's red line. after mitt romney said that on tape that he believes his red line is the same as president obama's, his campaign quietly he doesn't really believe that. they said maybe it was the guy who was asking the question was wrong and suggesting that it was the same p. and when mitt romney said yeah that was in fact the case he was just being agreeable or something. same thing happened again this week. mitt romney conceded another one of his frequent attacks on the president. he's been charging for months that president obama has raised taxes on middle class americans. but then he admitted on tape that president obama has not raised taxes.
>> he's got one new idea, one thing he did not do in his first four years which is to raise taxes.
>> so mitt romney admits that president obama has not raised taxes during his first term as department. he says that on tape and his campaign says afterwards, what he said he does not believe that. they're not admitting that he misspoke. they're not saying that he said the wrong word. they're saying he didn't mean what he clearly said. what seems to be happening here is that in the moment, when he's talking to an interviewer or speaking to an audience, he just says what they want to hear, even if it's not really his position or can't remember what his position is supposed to be or if it not really what he believes. but his campaign can't have the flip flop be on the record. they're so sensitive to that label from 2008. so quietly they just erase the quote. they take it back. they say he never said that. they never admit that he might have said the wrong thing. they just try to erase from the record the wrong thing that he said. so it's two strategies. with the ads they just leave the false ads up. but when the candidate himself says it, they let him say whatever seems right to that audience right in front of him. they never say he apologizes or mix spoke but the campaign tries to change the record later. whatever you heard him say, he didn't really say that. so with this campaign you really do have a choice. which of these two ways of lying is a better way to lie? they've got a lot of practice at both.