At a campaign event on Wednesday, President Barack Obama latched onto remarks made by Neil Newhouse, a pollster for Mitt Romney, who said this week the Republican presidential candidate's campaign would not "be dictated by fact-checkers."
Speaking to a crowd in Virginia, Obama brought up the Romney camp's sustained attacks on his welfare waiver policy. The ads have been widely panned for being factually inaccurate.
"I mean, somebody was challenging one of their ads -- they made it up -- about work and welfare. And every outlet said, this is just not true. And they were asked about it and they said -- one of their campaign people said, we won't have the fact-checkers dictate our campaign," Obama said. "We will not let the truth get in the way."
Obama was referencing comments Newhouse made at a panel organized by ABC News on Tuesday.
Romney's campaign has said that its ads attacking Obama over welfare have been its most effective to date. Whether they are truthful is another matter. Romney insists they are.
On Monday, Obama addressed Romney's claim that he had "gutted" work requirements for welfare recipients in a surprise appearance in the White House Briefing Room.
"Everybody who's looked at this says what Gov. Romney's saying is absolutely wrong," Obama said. "They can run the campaign that they want, but the truth of the matter is you can't just make stuff up."
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