Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel (D) on Sunday advised presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney to "stop whining" about suggestions that he broke the law or lied to voters by saying he had "retired" from Bain Capital, even though Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) documents show that he was in charge of the company.
After The Boston Globe revealed on Thursday that Romney was listed as the "sole stockholder, chairman of the board, chief executive officer, and president" of Bain even after he claimed he had retired in 1999, Obama deputy campaign manager Stephanie Cutter noted that lying on SEC filings was a felony.
On Friday, Romney scheduled last-minute interviews on five television networks to demand an apology from President Barack Obama.
"He sure as heck ought to say that he’s sorry for the kinds of attacks that are coming from his team," the former Massachusetts governor complained to ABC News. "If I were president of the United States, I would put a stop to it and apologize to my campaign for what has been done by his."
"What kind of a president would have a campaign that says something like that about the nominee of another party?" Romney asked during an interview with CBS News.
During an interview with ABC News' George Stephanopoulos on Sunday, Emanuel pointed out that Romney's protests made him look less than presidential.
"Stephanie cited the law and it's very clear," Emanuel explained. "Either the filing with the SEC is accurate and his personal financial disclosure is not honest or that's honest and the SEC [filing] isn't. Both can't be accurate."
"Give it up about Stephanie," he continued. "Don't worry about that. What are you going to do when the Chinese leader says something or Putin says [something] to you? Are you going to whine as your way? You cannot do that."
"As Mitt Romney said once to his own Republican colleagues, stop whining. I give him his own advice: Stop whining."
Emanuel added: "If you want to claim Bain Capital as your calling card to the White House then defend what happened to Bain Capital and what happened to those jobs that went overseas, those jobs that were actually cut and eliminated and the companies that went into bankruptcy. And the very companies that went into bankruptcy while Bain was still getting paid, same philosophy that led to him advocating that the auto industry go bankrupt."