Obama's campaign was hit Friday by news that the unemployment rate last month rose to 8.2 percent from 8.1 percent, as employers added 69,000 jobs - the fewest in a year and less than the most pessimistic forecast in a Bloomberg News economists' survey. Manufacturing maintained its expansion and consumers stepped up spending. Construction companies cut 28,000 jobs, the most in two years, according to the report.
Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus called the Obama campaign's efforts to discredit Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney's jobs record as governor of Massachusetts "amusing," and said Romney has spelled out in detail policies to help the economy expand.
"They want us to believe that we're not living on Earth and that the president isn't the president and all of these things that are going wrong have nothing to do with Barack Obama," Priebus said later on Face the Nation.
Axelrod also denied a New York Times report May 29 and a recently published book on foreign policy saying he was present at national security meetings at which the president made decisions on which terrorists were eligible for lethal attacks by U.S. drones.
"I'm flat out asserting that that is not true," Axelrod told Face the Nation host Bob Schieffer. "There were meetings - I know there were weekly meetings dealing with terrorist threats and planning around it, but I did not attend those meetings."
Axelrod defended Obama's efforts to revive the economy and contended that while Romney may have been a good businessman, his strategies at Bain Capital are not ones that would move the economy forward. Axelrod referred to a Kansas City steel company bought out by the private equity firm when it was run by Romney.
"The company ultimately went bankrupt, workers lost their benefits, creditors lost out, and they walked away with millions of dollars," Axelrod said. "That's not an economic strategy that's going to rebuild the middle class in this country, that's going to grow our economy in the long run."
