Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum is denying that he ever said he didn’t want to give welfare to “black people.” In fact, he says he doesn’t even use the term “black.”

Earlier this week, the former Pennsylvania senator was caught on video telling a crowd in Iowa that he didn’t “want to make black people’s lives better by giving them other people’s money.”

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In an interview on Fox News Wednesday, Santorum told Bill O’Reilly that everyone just misheard what he said.

“I looked at that and I didn’t say that,” the candidate asserted. “What I started to say was a word and then it sort of changed and ‘bluh’ came out. And people said I said ‘black’ and I didn’t.”

“We looked at it and it is a little blurry,” O’Reilly explained. “I’m going to take you on your word.”

“I don’t use the term ‘black’ very often,” Santorum insisted. “I use the term ‘African American’ more than I use ‘black.’ And I as someone who did more work for historically black colleges, I used to — every year I used to bring all the historically black colleges into Washington, D.C. to try to help them.”

“You don’t have to convince me, senator,” O’Reilly replied. “I don’t think you’re a bigot.”

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Watch this video from Fox News’ The O’Reilly Factor, uploaded Jan. 4, 2012.

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(H/T: Talking Points Memo)