POLITICO Screen grab Obama: Mitt should answer on Bain

President Barack Obama said Mitt Romney should answer questions about his ties to Bain Capital — and soon — in an interview taped Friday with WJLA.

The interview came as a series of Romney interviews were set to air Friday evening, following days of attention to questions about when the Republican candidate exited the venture capital firm and stopped leading day-to-day operations.


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“My understanding is that Mr. Romney attested to the SEC, multiple times, that he was the chairman, CEO and president of Bain Capital and I think most Americans figure if you are the chairman, CEO and president of a company that you are responsible for what that company does,” Obama said.

Obama told Scott Thuman of WJLA, the ABC affiliate in the Washington, D.C., area, that Romney “absolutely” must answer questions about his tenure at Bain and whether it continued past 1999 — when Romney has said in the past he left — to 2002, as Securities and Exchange Commission documents suggest.

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“If he aspires to being president, one of the things you learn is, you are ultimately responsible for the conduct of your operations, that’s probably a question that he’s going to have to answer, and I think that’s a legitimate part of the campaign,” Obama said in the interview, which was conducted earlier Friday in Virginia Beach, Va.

The coverage area of WJLA — which shares a corporate parent, Allbritton Communications, with POLITICO — includes Northern Virginia, a key region of the state that pushed Obama to victory in 2008. The election in Virginia is again expected to be close and hard-fought this year.

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The president suggested Romney had ultimate responsibility over the company.

“As president of the United States, it’s pretty clear to me that I’m responsible for folks who are working in the federal government and you know, Harry Truman said the buck stops with you,” he said.

The rest of the interview will air Sunday at 6 p.m.