Santorum Donor Hopes Obama’s ‘Teleprompters Are Bulletproof’
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Andrew Goodman/Getty Images for Celebrity Fight Night(WASHINGTON) — Foster Friess, the multi-millionaire who bankrolled a large portion of Rick Santorum’s failed presidential bid, walked back another ill-advised statement this week after he said he hopes President Obama’s “teleprompters are bulletproof.”
“There’s a lot of things that haven’t been hammered at because Rick and Mitt [Romney] have been kind of going at each other,” Friess told Fox Business News’ Lou Dobbs on Wednesday. “Now that they’ve kind of trained their barrels on President Obama I’m afraid his, I hope his teleprompters are bulletproof.”
“I mean that figuratively,” Friess added after a short moment of total silence.
As soon as the words were out of his mouth, Friess seemed to realize his mistake.
“I’m sorry. I probably shouldn’t have said that,” the wealthy Santorum donor said, chuckling with what appeared to be embarrassment.
“No, you should not have said it,” Dobbs immediately responded before clarifying his guest’s comments. “We understand it’s a metaphor.”
Friess, who poured close to $1.7 million into the pro-Santorum Super PAC, found himself in the hot seat of the contraception debate in February when he suggested women put aspirin between their knees instead of using expensive contraception.
“Back in my days, they used Bayer aspirin for contraceptives,” Friess said to a visibly surprised Andrea Mitchell on MSNBC. “The gals put it between their knees, and it wasn’t that costly.”
With Santorum now out of the GOP race, Friess said he will shift his support to Romney and back him financially when needed. While Friess was front-and-center in the Santorum campaign, often standing behind the candidate in his telltale cowboy hat at campaign events, he may be less visible as a Romney supporter.
Friess, a retired mutual fund manager with a net worth estimated at about $500 million, told ABC News on Wednesday that with Santorum out of the race, he is now hoping to “fade back into obscurity.”
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