CNN

July 15th, 2012

Gillespie, Axelrod duel over Romney’s tenure at Bain Capital on State of the Union

Today on CNN’s State of the Union with Candy Crowley, senior adviser to the Romney campaign Ed Gillespie andObama campaign senior adviser David Axelrod spoke in separate interviews about Mitt Romney’s record while at Bain Capital.

Gillespie described the candidate’s appearances on five major broadcasters Friday as an effort to clear his name, saying Romney  wanted to “make sure people understood that he’s not a felon.” He further explained Romney’s role in Bain Capital after 1999 saying Romney “took a leave of absence and, in fact, Candy, he ended up not going back at all and retired retroactively to February of 1999 as a result.”

Axelrod told Crowley that Romney is “very willing to take credit for everything good that he thinks happened after that point that Bain Capital was involved in, but he’s not willing to take responsibility for [outsourcing].” Axelrod also suggested that Romney’s offshore financial accounts could cloud his decision-making on reforming the tax code saying Romney has “taken advantage of every single conceivable tax shelter and loophole that we can see.”

A full transcript of both interviews may be found here.