Fact-checking Obama about Romney and Bain Capital

Months after Newt Gingrich raised Mitt Romney’s record at the private equity firm Bain Capital as an election issue, Barack Obama has taken up the narrative.

In an ad playing in battleground states, the Obama team paints Romney as a predatory capitalist who saw an opportunity for profit at a long-running Kansas City steel mill, which he bought, squeezed money out of and ultimately closed down, putting 750 people out of work. Several former steelworkers help tell the story, with one calling Romney a “vampire who came in and sucked the life out of us.”

The ad makes a slew of charges against Romney. We checked out a claim from a press release announcing the ad, that wraps the attacks up into one statement: “Mitt Romney and his partners loaded it with debt, closed the Kansas City plant and walked away with a healthy profit, leaving hundreds of employees out of work with their pensions in jeopardy.”

We rated the claim Mostly True.