Mitt Romney rips Obama, tells Fox it ‘kills’ him to not be in the White House
Republican candidate Mitt Romney, meanwhile, conceded defeat at the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center in Massachusetts, the state he once governed. Last night the state voted for Obama.
Mitt Romney expressed his disappointment at losing the 2012 election in his first sit-down interview since his candidacy ended.
"It kills me not to be there, not to be in the White House doing what needs to be done," Romney told Fox News Sunday. "It’s hard."
Romney and his wife Ann may have lost their 2012 bid for the White House but they're not holding back criticism for President Obama's performance during the sequester debate.
"Nero is fiddling," Romney said, referring to the Roman emperor who played his fiddle as Rome burned.
"No one can think" that the fight over the sequester "has been a success for the president," Romney said, according to CBS News.
"He didn't think the sequester would happen. It is happening, but to date, what we've seen is the president out campaigning to the American people, doing rallies around the country, flying around the country, and berating Republicans," he added.
"The hardest thing about losing is watching this critical moment, this golden moment slip away with politics."
Romney, who has remained mostly secluded at his California home since November, also opened up about his own failures during the campaign.
Romney called his inability to appeal to minorities including Hispanics "a real mistake."
He also expressed regret for his infamous "47 percent" comment where he seemed to say that 47 percent of the country would never vote for him because they were dependent on government aid.
"It's not what I meant. I didn't express myself as I wished I would have," Romney said, according to Reuters.
"When you speak in private you don't spend as much time thinking about how something could be twisted and distorted, and it could come out wrong and be used," he said.
"That hurt. There's no question that hurt and did real damage to my campaign."
Romney also told Fox that he was convinced he and running mate Paul Ryan were winning up until "disappointing" results from Florida and Ohio started to roll in.
"It's hard. It's emotional," he said. "I mean, there was such passion in the people who were helping us. I just felt, you know, we have really let them down."