Man who recorded ‘47 percent’ remarks speaks out

WASHINGTON — The bartender working the private fundraiser where Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney made his comments about “47 percent” of Americans says he didn’t make the secret recording as a political partisan.

In his first public interview, Scott Prouty tells MSNBC’s Ed Schultz that he lost sleep and struggled for weeks before deciding to release the recording to the magazine Mother Jones. But Prouty says he thought it was important that people heard Romney and knew what he was really thinking.

In the video, Romney tells donors paying $50,000 apiece that 47 percent of Americans are dependent on government, see themselves as victims and believe the government has a responsibility to care for them.

Romney’s critics used the video to argue that he was out of touch with average Americans.