--- title: The Page Romney Interview: MRIs of the Soul and Bain Capital | TIME description: See Mark Halperin’s colloquy with Mitt Romney on how he feels about David Axelrod’s view of presidential campaigns, the workers who lost their jobs at companies Bain invested in and the attacks he expects from the Obama campaign. canonical: https://time.com/video/cNVGGIlI/ og:title: The Page Romney Interview: MRIs of the Soul and Bain Capital og:description: See Mark Halperin’s colloquy with Mitt Romney on how he feels about David Axelrod’s view of presidential campaigns, the workers who lost their jobs at companies Bain invested in and the attacks he expects from the Obama campaign. og:url: https://time.com/video/cNVGGIlI/ og:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/cNVGGIlI/poster.jpg?width=720 og:type: video.other twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: The Page Romney Interview: MRIs of the Soul and Bain Capital twitter:description: See Mark Halperin’s colloquy with Mitt Romney on how he feels about David Axelrod’s view of presidential campaigns, the workers who lost their jobs at companies Bain invested in and the attacks he expects from the Obama campaign. twitter:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/cNVGGIlI/poster.jpg?width=720 --- # The Page Romney Interview: MRIs of the Soul and Bain Capital > Sponsored content. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. ## Video: The Page Romney Interview: MRIs of the Soul and Bain Capital [Watch (HLS stream): The Page Romney Interview: MRIs of the Soul and Bain Capital](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/cNVGGIlI.m3u8) (7:52)  _Published 2011-12-22. See Mark Halperin’s colloquy with Mitt Romney on how he feels about David Axelrod’s view of presidential campaigns, the workers who lost their jobs at companies Bain invested in and the attacks he expects from the Obama campaign._ --- Jul 27, 2023 3:20 PM UTC --- ## More From This Series [All Videos](https://time.com/video/) [Governor Mitt Romney Talks to TIME](/video/po4Vt6Mf/) ### Governor Mitt Romney Talks to TIME [Mitt Romney on Bain Capital](/video/I5kXlj1x/) ### Mitt Romney on Bain Capital [TIME Interviews Mitt Romney in New Hampshire](/video/Wb59iXPu/) ### TIME Interviews Mitt Romney in New Hampshire --- ## Transcript I wanna talk a fair amount of time about something that came up in the last town meeting and I think is gonna be one of the biggest issues in the general election if you're the nominee. David Axelrod, who, as you know, works for the President, says that presidential elections are MRIs of the soul. That over time, in the course, particularly of the general election, the country gets to know the candidates through everything that the, back and forth of the campaign. Do you agree with that? That, over time, the country will know the Republican nominee? Will know the President? Their soul? What they really are all about? Well, I, I think they'll know something about the people. and in some depth although I think there's a lot about the President we're still learning. So I'm not sure we, we fully understood who Barack Obama was before he became the, the President of the United States. I think we're still learning that. I also think that a campaign is about an MRI of the economy and the record of the incumbent, and I know the President will try and do everything that he can, he can to try and kill our nominee, to brutalize them, to distort their life and their record. But what he can't hide, no matter all the, despite all the money that he'll amass, he can't hide his record, and the fact that he's been President at a time when American's have suffered and he hasn't turned this economy around. At the last stop, you got a question about Bain Capital, and you get asked about it all the time. And as you've said over the last A few weeks. If you're the nominee, there's no doubt that the White House will come after you, the Obama campaign, harder than Speaker Gingrish did when he raised the same type of issues. I've read a lot about what you said over the years about the and I don't want to have a debate with you, discussion with you about capitalism and about the fact that of course, in capitalism sometimes jobs are gonna be lost and companies that can't survive and thrive are gonna go out of business. But I wanna talk about how you feel about, about what happened on your watch. In one interview this has come up in your campaigns before, came up when you ran against Senator Kennedy, came up when you ran for Governor. And in those races the campaigns of the Democrats brought forward people who'd lost their jobs, and you'd been asked about that over the years. First of all, what would you say to, tho, those workers now. Just personally about, not about your role, but about how you feel, responsible, not responsible, that they're losing their jobs in part based on the actions. Sometimes if you, of your company. I, I don't think anyone could be anything other than terribly sad when an individual loses a job. In any case, where, where I was involved, in an investment in a company that was not successful? One would have to feel terrible about someone losing their job. My role in the three, excuse me, the four enterprises I ran, is that we were able to add employment and grow those enterprises. We also invested in well over a hundred different businesses, and some of those jobs were lost. I, I feel terrible when that happens you want, you want an enterprise to be successful and in every case where I invested, our intent and our hope was to try and make the business better and grow and ultimately see more employment. Your critics say that even that answer is a relatively clinical answer. That it's more about your theories of capitalism rather than a true feeling about the people who lost their jobs. That again, that's a little too clinical. In 2007, you said the experience of For the last eight years, running the Olympics. Was made you feel that you might have done things differently. And might have handled things differently. What did you mean by that? How would you've done things differently at Bane in in, hindsight, in order to more effectively be concerned about or concerned with people who lost their jobs? I, I think it's. A factor and a truth that I was always concerned and would be concerned of any time the business is failed it is going to fail or somebody can loose the job. Like I, I have experienced first hand the change in people's lives as they loose employment. I, I have described those circumstances. It's, I understand that in the way, I think a lot of People in my circumstances do not understand it. Because I, I've served as a pastor in my church and worked with people who are out of work. I know the huge human cost that's associated with an enterprise going out of business. You, with, without question that's an awful and terrible human cost. And you do everything in your power to maintain the growth and success of enterprises. But sometimes that's simply not possible. And I'm, in every circumstance I can recall, where we invested, we tried to make the business more successful and add jobs. And I, I know the President's gonna go after me on that. Eh, you know, they went after me on that when I ran for governor. And people said, when I ran for governor, you know what, we want somebody who understands the economy, who understands business, and who will do his very best to bring good jobs to our State. So when you said, again, in this quote that you'd, you'd be even more sensitive, you'd take an even more sensitive look at the impact of business decisions on the lives of employees and others who are involved, what did you mean? How would you have been more sensitive to it? Well, I think, one of the areas that, that perhaps by the benefit of hindsight you look at is making sure that, that as, as we as an investor group receive rewards is to make sure that we don't do anything that would put in jeopardy the future of the company. One, one of the benefits That you get by hindsight is seeing an enterprise where it was originally successful and then became less successful, and we had profited early, and then later the business wasn't successful; that's something you, you would hope would never happen. When uh, in both races in Massachusetts when this was brought up as an issue in the case of your Senate race and workers came to Boston to try and meet with you and you declined to meet with them. There were workers who were brought forward. They'll be workers, if you're the nominee... The interview this time. How do you feel about those people being interviewed becoming part of a Democrats campaign against you. Of course that's the process. Look I understand that the nature of the Obama administrations effort, will be to try and demonize people who work in the private sector. If you invest as we did in over a hundred different businesses there's no one in America that will have had a record where all of them are successful. Successful. Where none of them shrink and none went out of business. And so they'll, they'll bring forward those, those stories. And people in America are smart enough to look through that. Just as the people of Massachusetts did when they elected me governor. They tried the same adds, they brought the same people forward, they tried the same thing and people said, you know what, we've learned better. We understand that the nature of oh Mitt Romney's experience. And by the way, having worked at the Olympics. Having gone out there and helped to put those Olympic games on the world stage I think communicated to people myuh, concern and care for others as well as my service as governor of Massachusetts. Let's I know that the democrats will try and make this a campaign about being capital. In my view it ought to be a campaign about America and about the record of this president with regards to our economy and the people in this, in this country. 25 million people Are out of work because of Barrack Obama. And so I'll compare my experience in the private sector where net, net we created over a 100, 000 jobs. We created over a 100, 000 jobs. I'll compare that record with his record where he has not created any new jobs. This president has seen a reduction in jobs. 25 million people out of work or stopped looking for work or in part time jobs needing full time employ. So we'll have that debate. We'll look at his record. We'll compare mine. My record. I want to ask you one more about this and then move on. At the time when these, when these decisions were being made, yet not always your direct decisions when people were being laid off, when jobs were being eliminated did you feel bad at the time? Can you describe how you felt and how that went into the calculations you made about what to do with investments? Well in the great majority of businesses we were invested in, the Management of the company was the, that the group were making decisions about the growth of the business and decisions of that nature with investors, and of very active in the investment process but there is no question any time I heard about an individual that was going to be laid off for a business that was going to be in trouble. 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