Obama senior campaign adviser David Axelrod and White House senior adviser Valerie Jarrett said Thursday that President Obama was unaware of the removal of language declaring Jerusalem the capital of Israel from the Democratic Party platform until Wednesday.
ROSE: Why was it necessary for the president to have to make a phone call to change what the platform said about Jerusalem?
JARRETT: He just thought it was important to put back in the platform Jerusalem being the capital, and so he put it back in.
ROSE: He didn't know it was not in?
JARRETT: He was not --
AXELROD: Charlie, he was counting on others -- he has some other duties and responsibilities and so when he learned that -- what had been in the platform had been taken out, he said put it back in.
ROSE: He learned yesterday?
AXELROD: Yes.
The Obama campaign first said Wednesday evening that the president had seen the language before the convention.
An Obama campaign source told Politico that "Obama had seen the language prior to the convention," but that he "did not seek to change it until after Republicans jumped on the omissions of God and Jerusalem."
But the campaign later revised that position to Politico, and said Obama did not hear of the omission until Wednesday morning.