“I’ll look at what’s happening right now, I wish I were there,” Mitt Romney said. “It kills me not to be there, not to be in the White House doing what needs to be done. The president is the leader of the nation. The president brings people together, does the deals, does the trades, knocks the heads together; the president leads. And – and I don’t see that kind of – of leadership happening right now”

Romney, as have congressional Republicans, accused Obama of “campaigning” rather than governing as the sequester loomed. That, Romney said, has been counterproductive.

“Well, no one can think that that’s been a success for the president,” Romney said. “He didn’t think the sequester would happen. It is happening. To date, what we’ve seen is a — the president out campaigning to the American people, doing rallies around the country, flying around the country and berating Republicans and blaming and pointing. Now, what does that do? That causes the Republicans to — to retrench and to put up a wall and to fight back. It’s a very natural human emotion.”