Obama in 2006: I've 'liberally' stolen ideas from Gruber

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President Obama said in 2006 that he had stolen ideas "liberally" from the professor under fire for saying voter “stupidity” aided ObamaCare’s passage.

Video unearthed by the conservative Washington Free Beacon Monday showed Obama praising Jonathan Gruber and other liberal policy experts as some of the "brightest minds" in academia.

"Many of them I have stolen ideas from liberally, people ranging from [economist] Robert Gordon to [economist] Austan Goolsbee [to] Jon Gruber," Obama said in the clip.

Gruber is a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology whose past criticism of voters has gone viral in the last week. He served as a consultant during the passage of the healthcare law and its counterpart in the Bay State under former Gov. Mitt Romney (R).

The Obama administration and congressional Democrats are trying to distance themselves from Gruber as more videos emerge.

Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell said Monday that she was "extremely offended" by his comments, and House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said last week she doesn't know "who he is."

The latest video was filmed at an event held by the Brookings Institution in 2006 to mark the launch of a policy initiative known as the Hamilton Project.

"I know that there are going to be wonderful ideas that are generated as a consequence of this project," Obama said.

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