Romney tapes' two missing minutes

TRENDING: #missing2min: The Romney tapes' two missing minutes

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CNN Political Unit

(CNN) – The secretly recorded tapes of Mitt Romney speaking at a fund-raiser in May were released first in clips on Monday, and later in their full form on Tuesday.

At least what appeared to be their full form: David Corn, the Washington bureau chief for Mother Jones, the magazine that first posted the tapes, says "one to two minutes" of the fund-raiser were never captured, according to the person who recorded it.

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"The source says that recording inadvertently switched off in the middle of the fundraiser and that the source turned it back on as soon as s/he noticed this," Corn said Tuesday. "The source estimates that one to two minutes were missed, adding it might have been less time than that."

The video of Romney, which went viral and allowed Democrats to blast their rival as out of touch with struggling Americas, contained several nuggets from the GOP presidential nominee, including a remark that Americans dependent on government support were "victims," and comments casting doubt on the prospect for peace between Israelis and Palestinians.

The missing portion was not immediately apparent in the video posted on Mother Jones' website, since the full video was posted in two separate YouTube clips. The first ends with Romney discussing the "47% of the people who will vote for the president," and the second begins with Romney discussing trade with China.

Reaction online to the missing two minutes was both serious and irreverent.

Conservatives questioned why it was billed as the "full video" if a portion was missing. The Blaze, a website run by former Fox News host Glenn Beck, asked, "why did the video cut out at such a crucial part? Where is the missing video? And why is this being advertised as the 'uncut' footage?"

But on Twitter, reaction was lighter, with people filling in what they thought could be missing in the tapes.