>> jon: that's our show. so listen, i had a nice conversation with herman cain on the show and then we had another one that went to the web. you know i normally don't ask you to watch the interviews on the web. i don't even like the internet, quite frankly. i'm afraid of it. but this time i really think you should watch it. do you think they should watch it? (cheers and applause) you really should watch this. you know, you've got, i don't

know, dialup, whatever it is, you should get on the web. here it is, your moment of zen. >> attention, ready to roll? we're rolling.

>> i think i can get america back from those that want to change this country. (cheers and applause) >> stephen: welcome to the

"report,"! welcome, ladies and gentlemen! thank you! (cheers and applause) (audience chanting "stephen"). >> stephen: welcome to "the report." good to have you with us! please! thank you. nation, folks, tonight... tonight is, of course, the second-ish night of the republican national convention in tampa, florida and, folks, i am jacked! and not just because i've been playing this drinking game where i take a shot of jack every time i see an old white man. (laughter) i'll just put a nipple on that, save that for later. okay. now, technically it's night three of the convention but because of hurricane isaac monday night was very short. just enough time for r.n.c.

chairman reince priebus to start the national debt clock which i believe also tracks mitt romney's net worth. (laughter) monday night, the whole thing was over in ten minutes, but last night more than made up for that by going on forever. (laughter) oh, the speeches! the pageantry! the fun! it was like christmas morning... (laughter). it was like christmas morning if santa kept all the gifts for himself and filled stockings with clean coal. (laughter) now, every night this week has a different theme. last night's theme was "we built it." "it," being, i assume mitt romney. (laughter) i always wondered who assembled him because that is quality work. but, of course, there's really only one mission for this entire week. >> i think a big part of this week is telling the mitt romney story of... about a good and decent man that knows how to fix

things. >> we're going to tell the mitt romney story, which is a story about the american dream. >> this week is about telling the mitt romney story. >> we have to tell the mitt romney story. >> we need to tell the mitt romney story. >> we have to tell the mitt romney story. >> it's also telling the mitt romney story. (laughter). >> stephen: sounds good! looking forward to it. meanwhile, have you heard the reince priebus story? it's a heartbreaking tale of a broken record who chairs the r.n.c. (laughter) in the movie he'll be played by dustin hoffman from "rain man." definitely. definitely gonna tell the mitt romney story. definiteliment definitely got to tell it. (laughter) oscar, please! oscar! (laughter) of course, who better than mitt romney's wife ann to tell the mitt romney story? or, as she calls mitt romney. mitt romney. mitt romney. mitt romney. his name is mitt romney! >> stephen: it's a pet name. it's a pet name.

all couples have them. i'm sure behind closed doors mitt calls her "mrs. mitt romney." (laughter) now, right away ann addressed the myth that they lived a life of privilege. >> we got married and moved into a basement apartment, ate a lot of pasta and tuna fish. our desk was a door cropped up on saw horses. our dining room table was a fold down ironing board in the kitchen. >> stephen: can you imagine? it must have been so awkward when the maid interrupted their dinner to iron. (cheers and applause) and, hey, not easy. (cheers and applause) and, hey, unemployed people out there, we already know that there were years when the romneys didn't work-- because they didn't need to. (laughter) as ann told the "boston globe" "neither one of us had a job because mitt had enough of an investment from stock that we could sell off a little at a

time." so hard. (laughter) they were living hand-to-phone-to-stockbroker-to- mouth. (laughter) and after... ha tough, tough, tough. after telling mitt's story, ann then connected with a small group of forgotten voters. >> we're the mothers. we're the wives. we're the grandmothers. we're the big sisters. we're the little sisters. and we are the daughters. you know it's true, don't you? (cheers and applause) i love you women! >> stephen: and we love you back! (laughter) i mean, they! i mean they! they love you back! i certainly hope mitt opens his speech with "i love you, men!" (laughter) anyway, the speech was a complete triumph with ann setting the theme of the entire

night. >> i want to talk to you tonight not about politics and not about party. tonight i want to talk to you about love. love, love, love. >> stephen: yes. love. a message that the next speaker, governor chris christie brought home. (laughter) >> tonight we're going to choose respect over love. (cheers and applause) >> stephen: well, he's the governor of new jersey. he... um... he brought it home, shot in the the head and dumped in the the meadowlands. (laughter) not... not pretty. not pretty, folks, but it's the truth. and that's what we need from a leader! >> tonight our duty is to tell the american people the truth. our problems are big and the solutions will not be painless. we all must share in the

sacrifice and any leader that tells us differently is simply not telling the truth. >> yes. true respect means telling people some harsh truths! for instance, you're fat. (laughter) we're worried about you. please, eat a vegetable. a salad. (laughter) we want you to live a long time. (cheers and applause) that's respect. that's from a place of respect. (laughter) and republicans especially understand the need to tell hard truths. after all, this convention is full of people who never wanted to hear that the nominee was mitt romney! (laughter) and, of course, folks, we don't need this convention to tell us what a mitt romney presidency will be like. we can learn that straight from the horse-owner's mouthpiece. (laughter) romney campaign manager mat roads, seen here contemplating

murder. (laughter) roads told the huffington post that mitt would model his leadership on superstar president james k. polk. (laughter) good-bye, boring mitt romney! hello polk-mania! james k. poke! come on! one of america's 44 best-known presidents! (cheers and applause) there's polk fever here tonight. (laughter) i mean, you probably know him best as the man who invented the mullet. (laughter) and mitt's campaign manager isn't the only one pointing out mitt's polk-ritude. >> he will be like polk. here's a guy who ran and said he would do four things: he was going to reform the treasury, he was going to lower the tariffs, he was going to resolve the

oregon border dispute and he was going to admit texas. and he did these four things, served one term and got out. >> stephen: it's a perfect comparison! because mitt romney has also said he'd do four things as president: "you'll find out later." (cheers and applause) well, like polk... (laughter). (cheers and applause) now, like polk romney will continue the priorities of the polk administration. like slashing the bloated tariff of 1842! or, as it was called, "van buren care." i'm sorry, folks, i don't want some government bureaucrat coming between me and my whale tallow and hoop iron! plus, polk invaded mexico to annex texas, making him almost as unpopular with hispanics as

romney! (laughter) so, folks, i am pumped about a mitt k. polkney presidency. except the comparison may not do mitt justice because polk was president in the 1840s. and romney and ryan's positions are a little bit older than that. (laughter) we'll be right back. (cheers and applause) b b ♪ b

(cheers and applause) hey, everybody, welcome back! thank you so much. thank you, everybody. folks, folks, we taped this show at 7:30 so i have not seen any of the convention but tonight in tampa the libertarians are having their moment. we will hear from great political there i philosophers e senator rand paul and see an inspiring tribute to his dad ron. so sad ron paul isn't around anymore to speak for himself. (laughter) i'm sure he's in a better place-- like orlando. (laughter) now, more importantly tonight is the vice correlation of vice presidential nominee paul ryan, the man who has electrified the party base with his hometown down-to-earth way of telling the poor to suck it up. (laughter) now one of the key figures who unites these small government crusaders is libertarian philosopher and lost adams

family cousin ayn rand. (laughter) rand is the mother of objectivism, the philosophy of rational self-interest which, according to your college roommate means in order for man to achieve his highest potential through reason he must lead his (bleep) all over the common room. (laughter) but ayn rand saw her mission as something much deeper. >> i'm challenging the moral cause of altruism. >> every important moral leader in man's history has taught us we should love one another. why, then, is this kind of love in your mind immoral? >> it is immoral if it is a love placed above one's self. >> if a man is weak or a woman is weak then she is beyond, he is beyond love? >> he certainly does not deserve it. >> stephen: sorry, fellas, she's taken. (laughter) now, the popularity of rand's novels like the fountain head

and atlas shrugged has surged recently with sales of her book skyrocketing since paul ryan joined the tick. just like mitt romney's nomination boosted sales of the book he based his career on "he's just not that into you." (laughter) and paul ryan is a true believer. here's how he celebrated rand on her 100th birthday. >> the reason i got involved... (laughter). by and large is i had to think of one person it would be ayn rand. i grew up reading ayn rand and it taught me quite a bit about who i am and what my value systems are and what my beliefs are. it's inspired me so much that i... it's required reading in my office for all my interns. >> now requiring ayn rand for interns fits perfectly with her message that you should work for free and think exactly the way your boss tells you to. (laughter) and you can see the randan influence in paul ryan's own work of ion ran fan fiction, the

republican budget. (laughter) it's just as readable as atlas slugged. (applause) just as good as another las shrugged. he rewards job creators by cutting their taxes and teaches society's parasites self-reliance by cutting health insurance that would treat their parasites. but just because paul ryan got into politics because of ayn rand requires his staff to read her and uses her philosophy in his budget doesn't mean he likes her. >> what is your view of io ayn rand? are you an ayn rand dissign? >> i enjoyed her books, it triggered my interest in economics. later i learned about objectivism. i completely disagree with it. it's an atistic philosophy. her philosophy is something i don't agree with. >> see? he loved the economic ideas in atlas shrugged but it wasn't

until later that he found out about the book's subtle antireligious messages. i mean, who could see the atheism buried in such coded language as "that dark incoherent passion within you which you take as the voice of god is nothing more than the corpse of your mind." (laughter) i mean... i mean, i'm pretty sure. i mean, she could be a lutheran. (laughter) so how important is ayn rand's philosophy so the republican party? when we return, i'll ask author and rand expert jennifer burns and, in keeping with rand philosophy i will be a complete jerk to her. (laughter) we'll be right back.

(cheers and applause). >> stephen: welcome back, everybody. my guest tonight is a stanford professor and the author of an acclaimed book about ayn rand. i'll ask her if it's pronounced ien, ann, orannnn. please welcome jennifer burns. (cheers and applause) thanks so much for coming on! all right, all right, let's get right down to it, this ayn... is it ayn? >> it's ayn. you got it. >> this ayn rand philosopher, this is her time now for the republican party. in some ways more than ever. you've got rising stars like

rand paul. you've got paul ryan. all these guys look to her for their guidance. you're the author of "goddess of the market: ayn rand and the american right." what do i need to know about her to be in step with the modern republican party? >> well, this is her moment right now, but she's kind of always had her moment when we talk about the modern right. so she has been for generations what i call the gateway drug to life on the right. >> stephen: really? (laughter) who is the pusher and... (laughter). is he going onto playgrounds? >> people get ahold of her, they love her so much, they turn their friend on, they start reading it, it goes from there. so she has been a word of mouth favorite among conservatives for literally decades. now, with the rise of the tea party in 2008/2009 she really came into the limelight and that has made her much more mainstream as we see with paul ryan's endorsement of her

philosophy. >> stephen: now let's talk about that philosophy for just a second. objectivism and rational self-interest. if i may summarize, it's "i got mine, jack." (laughter) did i miss anything? (laughter) >> well, rand would say a lot comes from the philosophy of objectivism she advanced. so there's the idea of objective reality. there's the idea of reason. >> stephen: wait, what's this objective reality you're talking about? >> she believed that objective reality was what you found through use of human reason. so you could not use faith, you could not use religious logic, only reason. >> stephen: okay, but why... if the republican party is the party of god-- which we know it is-- (laughter) if that's the party of god how do these guys then use rand as their philosophical example? >> because of the other two parts of objectivism. what rand called the virtue of selfishness and then the

politics which follow from that which is absolute unregularred laissez-faire capitalism. and that is what really appeals to today's modern right. >> stephen: okay. so let's say these one at a time. so the virtue of selfishness. i love the sound of that. (laughter) what does that mean? what can i get away with. out of this philosophy, what used to be the wrong thing to do that would be the right thing to do under, say, president paul ryan? >> let's see. so when rand talked about the virtue of selfishness she was opposing what she called altruism which was traditional christian values. >> stephen: like charity. >> yes. >> stephen: okay. i agree with that because i get so little back when i give a bum a quarter. (laughter) i'm just asking him to break it for me so i can hit the gum ball machine and i don't get two dimes and a nickel. >> charity was fine. >> stephen: charity's okay? >> it's not what makes you a moral person. what makes you a moral person is being independent, being

self-reliant, taking responsibility for yourself and pursuing your own self-interest and self-development. >> stephen: so who was a parasite? there were producers and moochers. who were the moochers in n this philosophy? >> the moochers would be people who use government favors to advance their careers. >> stephen: so politicians? (laughter) >> in a lot of cases yes. (cheers and applause) >> stephen: anybody else? >> there were very few politician it is that rand liked. she was very critical of most of the one she knew. >> alan greenspan spat was a disciple of hers. >> yes, he was. >> stephen: and my understanding is there was a little (whistling) between her and greenspan. did that happen? did she rock his balls? did that happen? (laughter) >> rand called greenspan the undertaker. >> stephen: what do you mean? >> she thought he was very dour and serious. >> stephen: i don't see that at all. >> strange, righting? over time he became one of her favorites and when he was sworn in to the council of economic advisors in the white house he

invited his mom and ayn rand. >> stephen: wow. >> yes. >> stephen: does andrea mitchell know? (laughter) >> way before her time. way before her time. >> stephen: what would she think, do you think, of the romney/ryan ticket? >> here's the thing. the last thing she ever published was a denunciation of ronald reagan. she said "don't vote for him, don't support him, he combines relidge i don't know and politics, he's a very dangerous figure." hshe was opposed to his stance n abortion because she was pro choice. staoup so she went senile in her old age. what a sad story. (laughter) >> i think she would probably say the same thing about ryan and romney that she said about reagan unless she changed her mind after her death. >> well, that's kind of an endorsement for romney then. (laughter) thank you so much for joining me. (cheers and applause) jennifer burns "the goddess of the market." we'e'

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