Biden: Romney is a job creator in India, China
Waterloo, Iowa (CNN) – Vice President Joe Biden took Mitt Romney's central weapon in his White House bid – his time as a businessman – and used it as political ammunition against Romney on Tuesday.
"You got to give Romney credit," Biden said. "He's a job creator - in Singapore, China, India. He's been very good at creating jobs, overseas."
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The vice president spoke in Waterloo, Iowa, as part of a two-day swing that will also put him in Dubuque, Iowa, on Wednesday. The campaign has billed it as part of a "Strengthening the Middle Class" tour.
A local United Auto Workers headquarters hosted Biden and over 400 people. One person in attendance: David Axelrod, squirreled away behind the scenes – a rare sighting of the Obama campaign senior strategist at a Biden event.
The vice president repeatedly used a recent Washington Post story to pummel Romney. The Friday report said Bain Capital - Romney's former private equity firm – owned companies that were "pioneers" in outsourcing U.S. jobs to countries like China and India.
Biden also used Romney's own words against him.
Citing recent speeches in the Ohio cities of Cincinnati and Toledo, Biden said: "He said his experience as a businessman is what gives him a great understanding of what it takes to bring jobs back to the United States of America. That's his premise."
Biden continued: "[Romney] said, that outsourcers have, quote, 'Been able to put American businesses out of business and kill American jobs.' He went on to say if he were president, he was going to end that outsourcing. That's what he tells you."
"There's a huge disconnect between what he says, and what he means, and what he's done."
Claiming that Bain previously helped companies like Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard "outsource their manufacturing from the United States of America," Biden added, "This is totally consistent with Mitt Romney's economic policies."
The Obama campaign's focus on Bain has had mixed success. Some supporters have said it helps to undermine Romney's highlighting of his time in the private sector. Yet others have accused the president of attacking free enterprise – a claim the president denies.
What's clear is that the Obama campaign is not backing down from using Romney's tenure at Bain for political purposes. Also Tuesday, the campaign released new television ads – for Iowa, Virginia and Ohio - playing up the Washington Post report.
On Tuesday, Obama told supporters in Atlanta, Georgia, "We don't need somebody who's a pioneer in offshoring or outsourcing. We need a president in the White House who's going to, every single day, be fighting to bring jobs back to the United States, do some in-sourcing."
The Romney campaign has cried foul.
Responding to the Washington Post report last week, Romney's campaign called the article a "fundamentally flawed story," arguing it fails to point out the difference between "domestic outsourcing versus offshoring."
Outsourcing, the campaign argued, is a common practice and can occur domestically without sending jobs overseas. Offshoring, on the other hand, involves shifting work out of house and overseas.
And on Tuesday, the Romney campaign lashed out with its own assertion about how the president's policies have benefited foreign companies.
"Vice President Biden today doubled down on the Obama campaign's same misleading attacks in an effort to distract voters from the President's disastrous economic record," campaign spokeswoman Andrea Saul wrote in a response to reporters. "President Obama thinks that economic development means sending billions of taxpayer dollars to foreign-owned companies and rewarding donors with money from his failed stimulus program."
"President Obama has failed to meet his own standard for lowering unemployment because he has no idea what it takes to get our economy moving again. On Day One, Mitt Romney will take action to jumpstart our economy and give job creators the incentives they need to thrive here in America."
Yet the Obama campaign is not backing down from discussing Romney's business experience – and even his vast wealth.
"When the president encouraged young people to get manufacturing jobs [Romney] said [the president was] out of touch," Biden told the Waterloo rally. "Out of touch? A prospective president with a Swiss bank account and retirement investments in the Cayman Islands?"
"Did you ever think you'd be choosing between two people running for president one of whom had a Swiss bank account?"
- CNN's Ashley Killough contributed to this report
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Give 'em Hell, Joe!
The Fox trolls hate the truth!
O Oh, who let the dog out! Get him Joe! Tell it as it is.... I just get so irritated when a politician tries to wizzle his way into office. The only thing I trust from Romoney is his actions. His words change from minute to minute and place to place. What a crook. Look close at his eyes and you know a snake when you see one. Let's make this country great again. Bush did some damage, but this is Amaerica, we are resilient and will rise under Obama's leadership. We have turned the tide and should not go back where we came from. Ask Romoney the next time he is in your town the difference between his policies and president GWB?
Wow Joe, you just show what a dingus you are more and more. Your boss has done his part. So has both parties. Mittens has created jobs in this country, too. But both parties have sold USA jobs down the river. Your statement here rings very hollow.
Right on Joe, gonna be a hit on poor Robmey 🙁
No one in the world has sent more jobs overseas than Obama has. The GM bailout has allowed GM to invest and loose BILLIONS in Europe, Build many factories and business partnerships in China and Mexico and India. Biden is a total hypocrite since Obama is the major cause of companies going over seas.
What's all the big deal about jobs??? Didn't Obama tell Crazy Joe that the private sector is doing just fine? Didn't he get the news? This is Recovery Summer #4.
We just need more government union jobs and all will be well. That 8.2% unemployment is just a number, no big deal. It's the new norm under Obama. Pay no attention. People will be just fine on their welfare and food stamps. Don't worry, be happy, drink the koolaide.
Ask Bill Clinton. He made the Democrats look like fools with their marginal lies against Romney. Obama is a job creator.......for illegals.
Etch-A-Sketch Mitt RobMe is an OUTSOURCER & OFFSHORER all ROLLED into ONE!
Flip and Flop it whichever way you want...it's still about Etch-A-Sketch Mitt RobMe sending American JOBS to CHINA & INDIA!!!
Etch-A-Sketch Mitt RobMe is a VULTURE CAPITALIST who raids corporations for profits and ship whatever job is left to MEXICO!...and stashing your his TAX-CUTS wealth in SWISS BANK Accounts and the CAYMEN ISLAND!!!
Why not a US Bank and why are none of Etch-A-Sketch Mitt RobMe kids serving in the military if they loved this country so much just as they claimed?!!!! NOPE. NEVER GONNA HAPPPEN...THEY WOULD RATHER DODGE SERVING AMERICA TO GO PREACH THE MORMON DOCTRINE OF MANY WIVES IN FRANCE!!!!!
Romney will send all american jobs to overseas..Romney fire middle class people and sent there jobs to China and india.
@Dave – It only rings hollow if you have empty space in your head. Joe is dead on. Mitt Romney is a crook and a liar; a pioneer in "Outsourcing" jobs and an animal abuser to boot. If elected, Mitt will do VERY bad things to this country.
So the bipolar, anti-social Biden who makes clear he's no member of the middle class and says someone acts like he crawled out of a mine with a lunch bucket has the nerve to complain about Romney who actually created jobs in this country and even in others? Even as this country loses jobs, the jobs that are left are anemic, and the power of wages has reduced, and their attempts to raise taxes on the few left working? Biden is a MORON.
There is a difference between outsourcing and offshoring. Of course, only if you don't outsource those jobs offshore.
Etch-A-Sketch Mitt RobMe OUTSOURCED even state goverment jobs to INDIA & MEXICO....and ended up 47th in the whole Uniteds States in JOB CREATION!!!
GW BUSH has a MASTERS DEGREE in ECONOMICS and he CRASHED THE US ECONOMY!!!....
Etch-A-Sketch Mitt RobMe is claiming he is a business man, but he is VULTURE CAPITALIST who believes, "corporations are people, my friend!" and that OFFSHORING your TAX-CUTs RICHES in SWISS BANK Accounts and the CAYMEN ISLAND should be a model for the UNITED STATES!!!
Hey, Mr. Veep, you forgot to mention all the jobs Willard created in Mexico, Indonesia, Thailand and Myanmar (even though we had no official manufacturing presence in that country).
Gingrich, Santorum, Perry, Bachmann and Paul, all Republicans, gave us a history lesson on Romney's outsourcing of jobs, so don't get mad at Joe, he's only repeating what the Republicans have already said.
"You're the best Alice(Joe)" !-Ralph Cramden
Here so much about Illigal taken job When grown up as a kid that same label were level at me and all poor farm labor from the south as far West New York state.,,yet those those same people would not do the work.