As Susie already noted here, Ed Schultz got the scoop and for the first time, interviewed Scott Prouty, the man who filmed Mitt Romney's now infamous "47 percent" video. And for anyone who did not catch it this Wednesday evening, I really recommend watching the entire hour he talked to Schultz.
I wanted to highlight a bit more of the beginning of the interview here: Revealed: The 'blue collar' bartender who secretly filmed Romney making infamous 47 percent remarks to wealthy donors:
The man who secretly filmed the infamous ’47 percent’ video of Mitt Romney has finally come forward and explained why he decided to wade into the presidential dogfight.
Scott Prouty publicly admitted that he was the bartender who released the footage of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney speaking at a private fundraiser and he said that the motivating reason behind the move was so that all Americans could see the ‘true’ Romney.
‘Frankly, the people that were there that night, they paid $50,000 per person for a dinner. I grew up in a blue collar area of Boston,’ Mr Prouty said in an interview with MSNBC’s Ed Schultz.
‘There's a lot of people who can’t afford to pay $50,000 for one night, for one dinner… I felt an obligation for all of the people who can't afford to be there.
‘I knew where he came from, he was born with all of the advantages- he was the son of a Governor, a CFO, went to prep school and Harvard- and I don’t think he has any clue what a regular American goes through on a daily basis. The day in, day out struggles of regular Americans --that guy has no idea and I don’t think he will ever have any idea,’ he said. [...]
His attention was piqued when Romney walked into the room and quickly began ordering staff members around. Even though his comments that the workers should speed up their service was likely in jest, that still rubbed Mr Prouty the wrong way.
‘I can’t imagine demanding to be fed faster, to be served faster,’ Mr Prouty said in an interview for The Ed Show.
After that, Romney began talking about the military-style organization of a factory in China where one of his companies had outsourced some of its work. The former governor went on to describe how 12 young women were living in each of the small boarding rooms, in three-tiered bunk beds.
‘At this point I realized this was not your typical speech,’ Mr Prouty said.
Mr Prouty thought that Romney’s views on the factory were the most outlandish, and reflective of what the candidate thought of practical work environments.
‘He just wandered through this horrendous place, and he thinks this is pretty good,’ Mr Prouty said.
Lots more there, so go read the rest of the recap by the Daily Mail. I'm waiting to see how long it takes those on the right to start gunning for him -- which is something he discussed during the interview.
