Romney Wishes for White House
By: NBC News
Updated: March 4, 2013
In his first interview since losing the 2012 presidential election, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney criticized President Obama's early second-term performance and told Fox News Sunday that he's still very much stung by his defeat.
"I look at what's happening right now -- I wish I were there," Romney told Chris Wallace, in a taping conducted last week in California. "It kills me not to be there, not to be in the White House doing what needs to be done."
Romney criticized President Obama's handling of the budget showdown engulfing Washington, saying, "We don't have to have gridlock settings one after the other, on issue after issue."
Romney, who campaigned largely on a promise that he would cut the debt and federal spending, said that the current debate over the nation's fiscal course, including the so-called "sequester" cuts, represents a missed opportunity. "I see this as this huge opportunity, and it's being squandered by politics, by people who are more interested in a political victory than they are in doing what's right for the country. And it's very frustrating."
His wife, Ann Romney, conceded that she was not fully over the election defeat. "It would have been much better for America, I believe, in my heart if he had been there right now."
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