Biden: 'Don't know' whether Romney would have approved bin Laden raid

Vice President Biden said Sunday he doesn't actually know whether Mitt Romney would have pulled the trigger on the Usama bin Laden raid, as he sought to clarify recent Obama campaign rhetoric.

The Obama campaign recently released a web video questioning whether Romney would have green-lighted the 2011 mission that resulted in bin Laden's death. Biden himself said last month that under Obama, "bin Laden is dead and General Motors is alive" -- and then asked whether Romney could have used that slogan "in reverse" if he were president.

Biden, speaking Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press," said he was not trying to pass judgment on whether Romney might have made that call.

"I don't know what Gov. Romney would have done" if given the same information as Obama, Biden said.

However, Biden argued, "I know he wouldn't have gotten the same information."

Biden reasoned that Obama made finding bin Laden his top priority when he came into office. By contrast, Biden suggested Romney would not have been given the same choice on the bin Laden raid because he would not have prioritized it -- invoking a now-famous 2007 quote from Romney in which he said the U.S. should not move "heaven and earth" just to find one person. Romney, though, walked back that comment shortly after making it in 2007.

Obama's campaign has taken criticism from both sides of the aisle for its treatment of the bin Laden raid.

Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., who is thought to be a contender to be Mitt Romney's running mate, said Sunday that Obama made a "wise" call in approving the raid but accused the president of taking the issue too far in the campaign.

Obama has "turned it into a weapon for political warfare," Rubio said on "Fox News Sunday."

Obama campaign adviser David Axelrod, though, defended the handling of the mission and said the campaign would continue to discuss it.

"The Usama bin Laden mission was certainly part of the president's record," he said on ABC's "This Week."