According to news reports, President Obama surprised the White House Press Corps to respond to Republican Tea Party (GOTP) Presidential wannabe Willard Mitt Romney’s newest claim the President’s “gutted” work requirements for welfare recipients; the President said Willard’s charge was “absolutely wrong.”

The President said this wasn’t the first time Romney had endorsed attack ads that had been rated false by a plethora of newspapers and fact-checkers.

“Now, Romney’s creating as a centerpiece of his campaign this notion that we’re taking the work requirement out of welfare, which every single person here who’s looked at it says is patently false,” the President said. “What he’s arguing is somehow we have changed the welfare requirement, the work requirement in our welfare laws. And, in fact, what’s happened was that my administration, responding to the requests of five governors, including two Republican governors, agreed to approve giving them, those states, some flexibility in how they manage their welfare rolls as long as it produced 20 percent increases in the number of people who are getting work.”

According to the Huffington Post, the five states, including Nevada and Utah were “interested in greater flexibility in the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program, better known as welfare,” but the Obama administration hasn’t announced any of the requested waivers have gone out.

“Everybody who’s looked at this says what Gov. Romney’s saying is absolutely wrong,” the President continued. “Not only are his super PACs running millions of dollars worth of ads making this claim, Gov. Romney himself is approving this and saying it on the stump. So the contrast, I think, is pretty stark. They can run the campaign that they want, but the truth of the matter is you can’t just make stuff up.”

Unless of course you’re Willard Mitt Romney, Mr. President, and then it’s just the way you do business, if you can’t beat them on the legitimate issues, then just make up some issues that you can, that’s Willard’s motto.