47 Percent Video Source Unmasked In MSNBC Exclusive

The 47 percent video’s source will go public this week in an MSNBC exclusive, after potentially putting the final nail in the coffin of Mitt Romney’s candidacy in 2012.

While Jimmy Carter’s grandson has been widely credited with putting the video in the correct hands to ensure visibility, the younger Carter did not himself film the controversial and influential secret video, filmed at a $50,000 a plate fundraiser back in May.

It wasn’t until later in the campaign that Carter’s grandson hooked Mother Jones, a progressive publication, and writer David Corn up with the camera phone clip surreptitiously shot during the swank event. In it, Romney famously states that 47 percent of Americans “will vote for the president no matter what,” adding that “there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims.”

Thanks to the 47 percent video’s source, all Americans were able to hear Romney say he believed nearly half of citizens “believe the government has a responsibility to care for them … believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it.” Romney called it “an entitlement,” adding “these are people who pay no income tax.”

The 47 percent video undoubtedly turned the tide to some degree in Romney’s campaign, laying bare a divide in how we consider the reasons behind America’s financial woes. And while corn knew the 47 percent video source’s identity, he did not reveal that information. (In an episode of Bill Maher’s Real Time, the host and a guest speculated rather assuredly that the clip had been shot “by a bartender.”)

Tonight on MSNBC’s The Ed Show, the 47 percent video source plans to go public and discuss the clip without the cloak of anonymity. In the past, the man has spoken to press on the condition his identity is not revealed, and has disclosed why he shot the video and why he felt he needed to let it be seen.

The 47 percent video filmer was indeed a bartender at the event, and the Huffington Post notes that the man had in the past seen Bill Clinton speak at events. While Clinton made an effort to meet and greet everyone, Romney was not available to interact.

But the man says that he had no intent to film Romney’s damning words about the 47 percent — he simply hoped that like with Clinton, he’d be able to pose for a pic. But what he saw when Romney spoke stunned him, and the 47 percent video was, he felt “a civic duty” to expose.

He added, “I couldn’t sleep after I watched it … I felt like I had a duty to expose it.”

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