Stephanie Cutter Fact-Checks CNN On SuperPAC Ad Blaming Mitt Romney For Death Of Steelworker's Wife

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On day two of the controversy surrounding the curb-stomping ad from pro-Obama SuperPAC Priorities USA Action suggesting that Mitt Romney shares some blame for the death of former steelworker Joe Soptic's wife, the Obama campaign has taken a step closer to forming a response. On CNN's Starting Point, Deputy Campaign Manager Stephanie Cutter wouldn't endorse the ad, but corrected fill-in host John Berman on a key fact in the ad.

The ad, from former White House spokesman Bill Burton's Priorities USA Action, is unquestionably brutal, portraying Romney as an inhuman corporate raider who shares moral culpability for the death of former steelworker Joe Soptic's wife. The ad features Soptic telling the story of how, following the closure of the Kansas City GST Steel plant, he was unable to provide health insurance for his family. 'When Mitt Romney and Bain closed the plant,' Soptic says, 'I lost my healthcare, and my family lost their healthcare. And a short time after that my wife became ill.

'I don't know how long she was sick and I think maybe she didn't say anything because she knew that we couldn't afford the insurance,' he continued, 'and then one day she became ill and I took her up to the Jackson County Hospital and admitted her for pneumonia and that's when they found the cancer and by then it was stage four. It was, there was nothing they could do for her. And she passed away in 22 days.'

On CNN's The Situation Room Tuesday afternoon, Wolf Blitzer and Brianna Keilar performed a fact-check on the ad, and found that it omitted several key details from Soptic's story, details which, in my view, did little to change the premise of the ad. Soptic told Keilar that when his plant closed in 2001, his wife still had insurance through her own job, which she then lost in 2002 or 2003 when an injury forced her to leave the job.

As the ad states, he didn't know how long she had been sick, but by the time she finally sought medical attention for pneumonia in 2006, she was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer, and died within weeks. It's fair to argue just how many details you can pack into a 60 second ad, versus whether those omissions were misleading, and you can certainly argue the fairness of leading a policy debate with such a charged anecdote, but nothing in the ad was outright false.

The Obama campaign and the White House were caught flat-footed yesterday, responding to the ad by strenuously not responding. White House Press Secretary Jay Carney refused to comment because he hadn't seen it, but later told Keilar that once he's had a chance to see it, he still won't comment. In an appearance on The Situation Room, Obama campaign Press Secretary Jen Psaki refused to weigh in on the ad, and actively sought to distance themselves from it, telling Wolf Blitzer 'As you know, we have about as much to do with Priorities' ads as we do with Michael Phelps winning gold medals.'

That's all well and good, but Psaki's refusal to engage on the ad meant that she couldn't challenge Blitzer's characterization that the ad was 'full of falsehoods.'

Even Priorities USA seemed to be backing away from the ad. When I interviewed Wolf Blitzer Tuesday afternoon, he told me they were doing a fact-check for The Situation Room, and that he planned to have on Bill Burton and CNN contributor Paul Begala, who is also a member of Priorities. By the time the show aired, they were both unavailable.

However, on Wednesday morning's Starting Point, Stephanie Cutter appeared to indicate a new direction on the ad. While still reminding host John Berman that the campaign had nothing to do with the production of the ad, and without endorsing the notion that Romney was responsible in some way for the death of Soptic's wife, she did defend the ad from a factual error by Berman, and reinforced one of the key points of the ad.

Berman played a clip from the ad, then said 'There are plenty of questions about the timeline of this. This man obviously, and we are sorry he lost his wife, you know, is suggesting that she died because of action that Mitt Romney took. He, of course, had left Bain years before Bain took over this company'

'That's not true.,' Cutter interrupted.

'Is this ad accurate? Is it fair?' Berman continued,

'I don't know the facts about when his wife got sick, or the facts about his health insurance,' Cutter replied, 'but what I do know is that Mitt Romney personally handled the deal to take over GS Steel, and personally handled some of the decisions made to load that company up with debt so much that it went underwater, it went bankrupt. And you just said that he left the company before the deal was made. that's not true. Mitt Romney made that deal.'

To be clear, the deal to acquire GS Steel, and the massive debt the company incurred so that Bain could extract tens of millions of dollars, all occurred before Romney 'left Bain Capital' to run the Winter Olympics in 1999, a point which Cutter may have muddied by renewing the dispute over whether Romney can be held responsible for the company he owned.

'You know, he says that he left Bain Capital in 1999 to go run the Olympics,' Cutter said, 'But if you remember, according to the SEC forms that he filed, he was still president and CEO of that firm. He was still taking a salary, and I guarantee you that when GS Steel went bankrupt that Mitt Romney personally walked away with a significant profit, while Joe lost his job. So that's what really that story is about.'

She added, 'I do think that most people think that if you're still CEO that you're in charge.'

Most significantly, though, Cutter continued to defend aspects of the ad, even when confronted with the premise that 'this ad basically accuses Mitt Romney of basically killing her.'

Cutter reminded Berman that the campaign doesn't, and by law can't, have anything to do with Priorities, but added, 'I don't know the facts of when Joe's wife got sick or when she died, but as I said before, I do know the facts of what Mitt Romney did with GS Steel. I do know the facts of how Joe lost his job, lost his health care. The entire company went bankrupt. But Mitt Romney walked away with a pretty hefty profit.'

Bain also walked away from the company's pension obligations, leaving the federal government to bail them out to the tune of $44 million.

Berman's thumbnail characterization of the ad, that it 'accuses Mitt Romney of basically killing' Joe Soptic's wife, isn't entirely fair, either. That's the most extreme interpretation possible, one which has permeated the media conversation of the spot, but that's not really what it says. Even within Joe Soptic's narration, there are several self-evident factors which led to his wife's death, and his conclusion isn't that Mitt Romney is at fault, but that he 'doesn't realize' and 'is not concerned' with the human fallout from his business deals.

On that score, I haven't heard anyone, even Mitt Romney, ever argue that Bain Capital did everything possible to avoid layoffs. His one and only job was to make maximum profits, even if that meant peddling R-rated movies. That's a perfectly defensible position, and it would be nice if Romney would defend it, rather than simply complaining about how mean Bill Burton is.

There are fair criticisms to be made of this ad, principally that its inflammatory premise overshadows the legitimate points it raises, but Cutter took the bold (and risky) step of not running away from the facts in the ad. Time will tell if Team Obama continues to try and thread that needle.

Here's the clip, from Starting Point:

Affordable Care Act, Bain Capital, Bill Burton, Brianna Keilar, GST Steel, Health Care, Jay Carney, Joe Soptic, John Berman, Mitt Romney, Paul Begala, Priorities USA Action, Starting Point, Stephanie Cutter, The Situation Room, Wolf Blitzer

• Yeah, I think the message is less 'Mitt Romney: Murderer' and more 'Mitt Romney: Doesn't Really Care About What His Actions Do To Everyday People'. As long as money flows in, who cares what people get screwed over?

• Something squirley about ol Romney !

  Romney = SNAKE IN THE GRASS !

• What a nasty woman.

• Mitt Romney really doesn't care about his actions and how they affect  other people is what I took away from the ad.. He is a bottom dollar man, and the hell with what happens to others'Just another fact about Romney..No one believes he murdered Joes wife, but his actions set into play what happened to these people..I'm sure there are many more out there, that could say the same thing'

• Even Burton is backing away from the ad.

  Too late. He's cooked.

  Obama would have been fired long ago if the US was a company.

  He has no case for staying, so he must 'kill' Romney and make him a monster.

  But Obama needs to look in the mirror.

  I'll bet he has plenty of mirrors.

•  Exactly.  The response that 'he was overseeing the Olympics,' in some ways, simply reinforces the point of the ad.  He was indifferent.  He simply profited from their decisions. 

  Still, I don't understand why this site's fixated on this ad and not on Romney's 'Obama Gutted Welfare' ad.  That thing is repulsive in its level of dishonesty and hypocrisy. 

• 'On CNN's The Situation Room Tuesday afternoon, Wolf Blitzer and Brianna Keilar performed a fact-check on the ad, and found that it omitted several key details from Soptic's story, details which, in my view, did little to change the premise of the ad.'

  That's because extremists like you don't care about facts Tommy

•  Someone whose avatar is 'Breitbart_Lives' shouldn't criticize others about their indifference to facts. 

  The omitted facts only matter if you think the point of the ad is that Romney killed the guy's wife.  As Tommy wrote, that's a rather extreme read of the ad.  It seems to me that the ad is simply pointing out that Bain's business practices were not interested in helping middle class workers but in generating profits for investors.  They did that well.  But there were consequences.  This man's story demonstrates those consequences.  The wife's insurance plan, her injury don't change that.  They don't make Bain seem any more concerned for the welfare of the people who lost their jobs.

• I wonder if this ad actually won Romney more Republican supporters. My reasoning:

  Republicans WANT women like Soptic's wife to die this way. They WANT to give businesses the right to drop employee health insurance. They WANT insurance companies to be able to turn away people who need help. They WANT working class citizens to do their job, and when they can't, get out of the way and die. Those are intrinsic Republican values, the only thing that defines them. Why would any Republican be turned away by this ad?

  Don't you remember the debates? When Wolf Blitzer asked about a man who could not afford health insurance 'Who pays for his coverage? Are you saying society should just let him die?' THE CROWD ERUPTS WITH CHEERS OF YES YES LET HIM DIE.

• That is Mitt Romney's primary ethos, that the 'creative destruction' of capitalism in a free market is far superior to all others. His company looks for efficiencies and is completely unconcerned with labor upheaval. That's kind of a central tenet of capitalism anyway. Romney goes further though, believing that such radical restructurings are not only beneficial during crisis but at any time, even if a company is doing well. Which is why he and others like him have no qualms whatsoever with shipping jobs offshore.

• I'v never seen so much desperation on the part of the current administration and it's media flunkies. 

  'I don't know how long she was sick and I think maybe she didn't say anything because she knew that we couldn't afford the insurance,'

  I don't know'I think maybe. She died died 4 years later. This is the most pathetic and dishonest crap I have ever read.  A real and ethical journalist would never print or endorse this. Wouldn't it be fair to look at all the companies Bain invested in. Are you telling me that not one of the companies they invested in would have gone bankrupt without thier capital/managment infusion and perhaps another worker was able to keep his insurance.

  Sorry if this gets me banned but tommy Christopher is a dishonest hack. .  Everything you write has a slimey feel. Your self righteousnous and elitist beliefs are really sad. Do you think the real 'elites' out thier would ever accept you as being on thier level?  I think you know the answer'which is why you keep slithering around the great media giants like Bill Press and Current TV. 

   

• 'curb stomping'?  Tommy, no joke, that's a little bit racist

• Hey Steffi. Heard of perjury?

  Some questions for Obama's boss:

  'On Tuesday, President Barack Obama's senior adviser Valerie Jarrett dodged questions about the Department of Treasury's decision-making behind terminating 20,000 non-union Delphi salaried retirees' pensions during the 2009 auto bailout.Jarrett also refused to answer why she has Secret Service agents assigned to her personally to protect her.

  Emails the DC obtained and first published on Tuesday show senior White House and Treasury officials were behind the termination of pensions for 20,000 non-union Delphi salaried retirees.

  Those emails show that the Treasury Department, led by Secretary Timothy Geithner, was the driving force behind terminating those pensions ' a move made in 2009 while the Obama administration implemented its auto bailout plan.

  The emails contradict sworn testimony in which several Obama administration figures have consistently said that the decision to terminate the pensions came from the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC). The PBGC is a federal agency that handles private sector pension benefits issues. Its charter calls for independent representation of pension beneficiaries' interests.'

  Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2012/08/07/jarrett-ignores-questions-on-terminated-non-union-delphi-pensions-video/#ixzz22y5A5dpy

• 'Deputy Campaign Manager Stephanie Cutter wouldn't endorse the ad,'

  Nor condemn it.  Let it play and see where it goes, that it is false is irrelevant.

  'Romney as an inhuman corporate raider who shares moral culpability for the death'

  Lovely, why not call him a murderer?  Is this a 'some people say'?

  'I don't know how long she was sick'  '  so a clueless husband is not at fault in any way.

  'in my view, did little to change the premise of the ad'  ' because it doesn't fit the narrative.

  'but nothing in the ad was outright false.' well except the fact that the woman had the last job in family. Oops, that an omission, quite acceptable on the left.

• Dishonesty is accusing a man of contributing to the death of this woman. WHo by the way did have health insurance from her own job. But you won't see that on NBC News.

• He provided health care for an entire state moron.

• The media carries the water for Willard and GOP and I am getting tried of them refusing to do their job.

• Shipping jobs offshore has been taking place since at least the 70's.
  If the government would get out of the way maybe we could get some of these jobs back.

• These comments are why liberals are so ignorant.

• You do know that the wife had health insurance from her job. You do know that, right?

• Fact: Obama kills hundreds of innocent people with drone attacks.

  Fantasy: Romney is accused of letting a woman die of cancer.

• Well that certainly doesn't make sense. Unless you're suggesting that liberals read these comments and these comments cause ignorance. Because that's what the word 'why' implies in the sentence you so' artfully crafted.

  If you are perhaps suggesting that these comments are an indicator of the ignorance of liberals, perhaps you should have said that. Your ignorance of the English language makes discussion difficult.

• 'and stop calling me squirley'

  - willard mitt romney

• The same government that brought us NAFTA and other free trade agreements? Those jobs are never coming back so long as labor and transportation costs from other countries are absurdly low.

• Or, perhaps, the government could get further in the way and not make offshore work so profitable for corporations. Instead of letting companies hoard money tax-free in other countries, perhaps they should start taxing ALL the money they earn. As long as it's cheaper to work out of the country than in it, companies will do that. And as long as the American government holds businesses to a certain standard, such as no child labor, 40 hour work weeks, safe working environments, no uses of dangerous materials, etc., work will be cheaper in other countries. So, either the government can leave and businesses can go back to lowering standards, or the government can make incentives for companies to stay.

• So, Tommy, let me understand your mindset properly'it is Romney's fault that the husband lost his job, and thus, insurance to cover his wife's health.  However, somehow, it is NOT his wife's company's fault ' which still have insurance for her, as you've noted when the husband lost his job ' NOT, by NO means, his wife's company holds absolutely no culpribility in this debacle'none; zelch'Romney is the evil one'

  If this is not political, I don't know what is'

• In what way?

  To curb stomp is to put someone's upper teeth on a paved cement sidewalk and proceed to kick into the back of the person's neck, forcing their neck to break and upper teeth to lodge upward into their brains. Despite the fact that 'curb stomping' made its way into popular culture via the film American History X, there's really no racial connotation to the term. And, it's debated whether 'curb stomping' actually existed prior to American History X, as there really aren't records of something like this happening too often.

•  Well when ObamaRxCare is in full swing, will Obama be responsible for any cancer deaths?  Will Obama cure cancer ?

•  That planet you live on sure must have some powerful narcotics.

• remember the President telling a woman to just give her mother a pain killer because it made no sense to give her a pacemaker at her advanced age?
  http://youtu.be/U-dQfb8WQvo

•  So HanoiJane implore your representatives to push for the re-enactment of Smoot-Hawley Tariff that will fix things, no?

•  Romney didn't run that company.  Didn't you get the memo?

•   So now the MSM is racist too?  Part of the VRWC?

• Even Bill Clinton is thinking about Obama,'This guy is sleazy.'

  ''we're dealing with something in the Obama campaign that we haven't seen much at the top of American life, except in the worst moments of the Clinton era.

   We're dealing with a president who i entirely without any sense of ethics, honor or morals. He has lived a lie for most if not all of his life, hiding his true political convictions in gauzy language that makes him appear reasonable and moderate.

  Having lived a lie, what's one more lie, in the service of keeping himself in power? What's one more lie if, in Obama's mind, it accomplishes the 'good' of keeping Romney out of power?

  The Obama campaign has gone from accusing Romney of boyhood bullying to adulthood felony, to being a murderer in all but name.
   What accusation is left to throw at him? There aren't many, but rest assured that the Obama campaign and its allies will find one'

  http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2012/08/08/why-team-obama-ran-with-the-dishonest-mitt-killed-my-wife-ad/

•  Tell that to the workers at Delphi that lost their pensions because of Barry.

•  That is just the start. They have plans to go after 401ks as well.

• The worst sort of lie is that welfare ad. Blatantly, in your face, outright lying. Pure Nixon.

• I think Little Man Tate doesn't understand causation at all well.

• Bain ran the company for 9 years. Joe soptic worked there for 30 years with a 401 K and pension fund, his wife had a job and her own insurance. My bet is she kept her own insurance because it was cheaper than adding herself to her husbands steel company policy. Personal decision to stay at GTC steel. Personal decision to not use Bain insurance. Personal decision to smoke cigarettes her whole life. Personal decision not to use 401K or pension money to go to the doctor if she knew she was sick. Conclusion, it's either Romney or Bush's fault. We can't expect a democrat to take responsibility for their own shortcoming, idiot. But nice try, glad to be able to gheck.

• We all remember the Republican audience cheering on the death of someone in a similar situation. The party of life. Until you're born.

•  Morning Joe, Mark Halperin and Sam Stein ALL totally trashed the ad (and Bill Burton) on MSNBC this morning, supplying all the missing facts.

  You need to get out of your FOX bubble.

• Yet, Romney's brilliant mouthpiece just made a wonderful argument for the validity of the ad for Romneycare and the ACA. Go figure!

• That's the ticket. Tax them some more.How about taxing them less. How about doing away with stupid and onerous regulations.

• So nice of you to think about folks not American.

  Where was all this sympathy when Dubya and Cheny hoodwinked the nation about Iraq? How many innocent people were killed there, sport? 

• When I listen to this debate, it seems to me the press(who have the responsibility to inform us) has taken the position that If Mit Said he left Bain, then he left bain regardless of what the evidence and document shows.

  No wonder CNN is failing in ratings.   It is a fact that the business of Bain was to buy companies ladden them with debt and close them out' that is their business model, they shouldn't run from it if they believe in capitalism

• So, what are you whining about?

• Nice to see you didn't refute Obama's killing of innocent people.

  Any sympathy for the death of this American that the Obama administration organized?

  http://abcnews.go.com/topics/news/us/brian-terry-border-patrol-agent.htm

• Well Tommy was the ad 'fair' and 'accurate'?    a simple yes or no'..

• Taxing less is exactly why they're in other countries. And which regulations would you get rid of? The ones that keep lead out of our children's toys? The ones that limit employers to working their employees only 40 hours a week? The ones that require a minimum pay? Those are the more 'costly' ones. And they keep workers safe.

  Besides, there are corporations who literally pay nothing in taxes every year. How is taxing them less solving anything?

• Vote Obama 2012. Just Because.

• deflection #1

• deflection #2

• deflection #3

• Maybe you should ask yourself that question'

• deflection #4

• In the lib world, no one is ever responsible for their own lives or luck.

• Remember'according to Obama, business owners didn't build their
  business..so by Obama logic, how could Romney have culpability for this
  woman's death.

• I don't understand mitt always getting away with 'i left to run the Olympics', and 'i ran the Olympics', when he did neither. 

  - 'suddenly', 
  utah private capital media was running stories on how the salt lake city games steering committee was worried about the outcome of its ONGOING efforts to lobby U.S. Congress to give the games an increase in its local area development grant, plus an increase and more public, and so theoretically more credible, federal government loan guarantee to secure third party vendors' carried operating debt,

  'suddenly' 
  utah private capital media attacks swing in like a vulture and got all personal in the games' financing committee's business ' note, financing, not steering, steering was the fake-out, the always intended prey was the supposedly junior financing ' saying its membership didn't have the necessary pull to secure the urgently needed grants and guarantees. 

  'suddenly' 
  utah private capital media were all 'here he comes to save the day', as mini-romney flew in on a media blitz saying he'd 'reluctantly' respond to this call to duty' 

  tho ' no one had asked him

  when the dust settled, the games financing committee chair stepped down, mittens very publicly declared he'd save the day, and mittens led a noisy blustery media blitz to storm washington, and '.

  'somehow ' somehow ' bain and mitt ended up making gamillions on controlling local area development deals, including exclusive awards

  mitt NEVER 'ran the Olympics' - he carried the figurative flag in an ongoing expected games' lobby job on Congress, then proceeded to run the SLC games' local area development fund like a Bain-owned asset

  romney is, always been, a public relations invention, front man in a giant rolling grift 
  in the 1950s, it was 'The Music Man'.
  since the 1990s, it's been 'The Re-Mittens Man'.

• That never happened.

• Just think if he did it for the whole country'Then he would be a great man, by  your very own reasoning'.

• Who doesn't? She lost it. Too bad Joe couldn't afford to pay for her healthcare, because Romney liquidated his job.

• Considering healthcare would seem to mitigate cancer deaths, it would be the opposite.

• Are you able to say anything that is not an obvious straw man?

• I guess you missed it. This is not about blame, this is about Romney profiting while being indifferent to the effects of his actions. Mr. Aloof.

• So Obama really will cure cancer.

• Yes, for the Romneybots, the truth is always a deflection.

•  How about the omitted fact that the woman already had insurance after her husband lost his job?  How about the omitted fact that she died 5 years after he lost his job?  How about the omitted fact that Romney was running the Olympics and completely out of a managerial role at Bain when the man was fired?  How about the omitted fact that the man had 5 years to find a new job that provided insurance?  This ad is a disgrace, not only for what it implies, but also because it is so factually misleading/innacurate

• Yes, the stupidity of Romney surrogates is always a deflection for the Romneybots.

• deflection #5'.still not willing to comment on the article at hand  lol

•  Yes, the mean-spiritedness of Romney and the Republicans is always a deflection for the Romneybots.

• 'The media carries the water for Willard and GOP '

  Spare me the BS, who put the straw man up for ridicule?

  Is MSLSD part of the MSM? Does it carry water for the GOP?

  That comment is open ridicule, plain and simple.

•  Yes, as we previously learned, the truth is always a deflection for the Romneybots.

• Your post has Romney edits.

  The first paragraph has to do with Clinton addressing a reporter that way.

  Your second paragraph are the words of what-his-name at at PJ Media. 

  Must be bad in the Romneyhood. 

• deflection #6, still not taking or commenting on the article

• Couldn't afford or wouldn't pay?  You act as though insurance is a magical force field protecting you from any unforeseen event.

  You also appear oblivious to the fact she could have gone to the hospital and received treatment.  Would it have saved her life?  Who knows, but don't pretend insurance is a cure-all.

• deflection #7, and no comment related to the article, you are on a roll RRE

• Agree with every thing except the end. The ad is a friggin' lie.

• deflection #8'.nothing so far about the article in question 

• That's not what was said. Businesses owners build their businesses. They don't do it alone. They depend upon an educated workforce, which almost always falls to the states. They depend upon airports they didn't build, roadways they didn't build, electrical and communication grids and systems they didn't build. A host of other forms of government programs and aid. Just because your candidate is the biggest liar to run for office since Richard M. ('Mitt') Nixon, don't become one yourself.

• Two weeks ago:  Romney is a felon
  One week ago:  Romney is a tax cheater
  This week:  Romney is a murderer

  What BS will the Obama campaign be pushing next week?   Obama has never yet had a campaign that didn't go as low as its possible to go.  

• Reality Check.

  Business and people can and have survived without a government'Government CAN NOT survive with out Business and people.

• Believe me'Obama and his minions have many unethical tricks in their bag.

  To the libs, being deceitful is a way of life and the wear it like a badge of honor. 

• Ah, very good, keep to the script ' the narrative is Romney is aloof.  Got it. 

  As though anyone knows his mindset.  Knows he isn't concerned. Nice speculation.

  Here's some too.Would it have mattered if he interviewed every single employee and  offered solace?  The woman would still have contracted cancer, no?