Obama's spokesman Jay Carney responded to the Republican nominee's comments in a secretly filmed video taken at a fundraiser for rich donors in which he said 47 percent of Americans backed the president because they see themselves as victims.

"When you're president of the United States, you are president of all the people, not just the people who voted for you," Carney said.

"You've heard the president say so many times, because he deeply believes it, that we're in this together, all of us.

"From the time he began his career in public service his message has been about the fact that what unites us as Americans is far greater than the things that divide us."

Romney said in the excerpts of the video published by "Mother Jones" magazine that 47 percent of people were with Obama, "who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it."

"These are people who pay no income tax so our message of low taxes doesn't connect," he said. "My job is is not to worry about those people. I'll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives."