FORTUNE — Steve Pagliuca is a Democrat, having run for U.S. Senate in a 2009 Massachusetts race that ultimately led to the election of Scott Brown (R-MA). He also is a managing director of Bain Capital, whose run as Democratic Party punching bag as been extended through to November 6.
Like most Bain Capital executives, Pagliuca has stayed fairly quiet during the presidential campaign. But he did appear this past weekend to defend his firm’s reputation.
Zakaria began by asking Pagliuca to respond to Joe Biden’s convention comment that “the Bain way may bring your firm the highest profits, but it’s not the way to lead our country from the highest office.”
Here was how Pagliuca responded:
Well, look. hyperbole has been part of elections sense the days of John Adams and there’s nobody better than Joe Biden to give us a little hyperbole as we all know. So, I think from Bain Capital’s perspective, people discount that hyperbole. They know it’s hyperbole. We really wake up every day trying to build businesses. That is the goal of private equity. It’s a misnomer out there that private equity profits by shrinking companies. In fact, it’s just the opposite. Private equity creates value by growing great companies.
Zakaria also pressed Pagliuca on carried interest, profiting off of bankrupted companies and his thoughts about Mitt Romney. View the entire interview below:
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