The man who helped crush Mitt Romney’s White House bid by filming his infamous “47 percent’’ remarks has emerged from hiding and says he received death threats, but felt an “obligation’’ to expose what the former Massachusetts governor had said.
The identity of the man — a bartender who was working the closed fundraising event where Romney was addressing supporters — will be revealed Wednesday night on
MSNBC’s “The Ed Show.’’
“It was tough,” he tells Ed Schultz of his decision to leak the video. “And I debated for a little while, but in the end I really felt it had to be put out. I felt I owed it to the people who couldn’t afford to be there themselves to hear what he really thought.
“I simply wanted his words to go out, ” he continued in comments released prior to the show's airing. “And everybody could make a judgment based on his words and his words alone. The guy was running for the presidency and these were his core beliefs.’’
But after leaking the video, he says he feared for his life.
“I was up against the most powerful, the richest people in the country and the stakes were pretty high and you never know what could happen,” the man says. “There’s nuts out there. You just don’t know. I’ve certainly had threats.”
During the infamous May 2012 speech that was secretly taped, Romney said: “There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what . . . who are dependent on government, who believe they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them . . . ”