President Obama’s senior campaign adviser laughed off a question about Obama’s remarks last week that the private sector is “doing fine.”
“Oh, that again?” Axelrod said today on CBS’ “This Morning.”
“He called a press conference to say — to suggest urgent actions that we should take to undergird the economy against the clouds that are rolling in from Europe. He’s said repeatedly we need to do more to accelerate job creation,” Axelrod said. “So I don’t think there’s — in the minds of most Americans, there’s no confusion about this. This is the kind of thing that we do in campaigns, your community and my community. We get all excited about it.”
“The question is what it means. Is there transcendent meaning to it in November? Will people be making judgments on this? No. They’re going to judge what the president’s done,” he added.
Axelrod, who served as Obama’s senior adviser in the White House before leaving to work on the campaign, also said that the intelligence leaks being probed by Congress were “absolutely not” from the White House.
“I don’t know where they came from,” Axelrod said. “…And as you well know, we’ve been attacked for being too hard on leaks, for going after leakers too hard. This administration has been tougher on that than anyone. So this is, you know, a bit of folderol of the election season.”
When asked if the leaks came from the broader national security apparatus at the White House, Axelrod reiterated “absolutely not.”
“You know, we’re as interested as anybody to see,” he added.
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