AP Photo/Charles Dharapak

FISHERSVILLE, Va - Mitt Romney for the first time characterized his comments during a fundraiser that were surreptitiously filmed and caught the candidate essentially writing off 47 percent of Americans as "completely wrong."

"Clearly in a campaign with hundreds if not thousands of speeches and question and answer sessions, now and then you're gonna say something that doesn't come out right," Romney said in an interview Wednesday night with Fox News' Sean Hannity. "In this case I said something that's just completely wrong."

Romney went on to say that his life has shown he cares about "100 percent and that's been demonstrated through my life and this whole campaign is about the 100 percent."

"When I become president it will be about helping the 100 percent," Romney told Hannity.

This is the first time Romney has described what he said in those leaked video tapes from a closed-press Florida fundraiser as "wrong."

The night the videos emerged Romney stood behind his statements, only going as far as to say that they had not been "elegantly" stated.

"It's not elegantly stated let me put it that way I'm speaking off the cuff in response to a question," Romney said last month.

Since then, Romney has sought to clarify that what he really meant was that he didn't expect to garner the votes from 47 percent of Americans. He went on in the video to describe the group as some who are overly dependent on government handouts and who consider themselves to be "victims."

Romney's 47 percent comment did not come up in the presidential debate earlier this week in Denver, despite advisers having said Romney was prepared for the question.