>> good evening. we're live here in current tv's studio the home of viewpoint with eliot spitzer and the future home of say anything with joy behar. we're going to give you live coverage tonight of the republican convention in tampa and i am very pleased to be here with a terrific panel. to my left is governor eliot spitzer, our resident new yorker. to my right, chenk uygur the host of young turks and jennifer

granholm and finally political commentator, the newest member of current tv. welcome. later, we're going to be joined by joy behar. we are looking forward to a very exciting week. we're going to try to make it very interesting for you. chenk, along those lines, can you tell us how the social media coverage is going to work. >> the great thing is you don't have to go anywhere else. we're going to have mainstream media, so if you want to watch at any point what everybody is saying, well this is the place. as you can see there it is, the mainstream media has popped up their tweets. they're doing it right now the entire coverage of the convention and we've got all these different things you can check out.

we have pundits right wing just to laugh at them or maybe that's just my reaction, and then you've got people who are supporting ron paul, talking about ron paul, what in the world is ron paul doing why is he still fighting? i've got news for you ron you lost. so, of course, all that will be here tonight and then obviously we'll be covering all the speeches tonight, as well. we will be talking about john boehner in just a little bit governor scat walker is going to be speaking, governor kasick from ohio, rick santorum, will he stay on script or go off script. what the romney campaign is excited about is ann romney later in the night. she will be giving a speech trying to humanize mitt romney to which i wish her good luck and chris christie will be giving the key note speech, he is of course the governor of new jersey. new jersey has put romney over

to want. he is the official nominee but new jersey, my home state is unfortunately the one that put him over the top. paul ryan is also the official a.p. nominee. that happened earlier today. i want to talk about what we can expect from these conventions what do the parties want from the conventions. vice president gore, tell us what the republicans want to do here most of all. >> they want to, as they said, but this is par for the course, they want to reintroduce mitt romney to the american people, and do it in prime time, and they want his wife to as you said humanize him and they want to give him a good, solid chunk of time to speak directly to the american people, with a lot of very carefully written language to kick off the fall campaign. >> so, governor, let me go to you next, do you think they're

going to be able to pull it off. they want to do it with do-over basically. team obama devastated them with a two minute add about how funny it is that they have to ask ask for a do-over. >> they are calling it the reinvention convention. the worst thing the romney campaign would do is try to make him something he is not. he is not a soft, wall, fuzzy guy, not a total connector. if they try to make him that, it would be a disaster. we would be able to see how inauthentic that is. ann will rehumanize him from the family side, he is going to see i may not be soft and fuzzy but i'm going to fix your problems. >> he said we shop at costco. >> didn't he say we own costco? >> that would be more accurate.

>> what he said about nascar teams, everybody has got to own one. he can't pretend to be warm and fuzzy. everything in politics is a contrast to what came before you. home and change will be their reference point. he's going to say hope and change didn't work four, i'm not hope and change, i'm not warm and fuzzy, i can fix it. mr. fix-it is i think what they will aspire to with ann romney saying he's my husband i love him. that will work to some extent. they have reinvented mitt romney, the etch-a-sketch but the public hasn't yet turned on him for that. i keep waiting for that moment when people say enough. it hasn't happened. >> the thing that kills me is that the reinvention this time has him moving further to the right as opposed to moving to the center which is what you would expect to do in a general election. that to me is an inauthentic

creation of what he has been, but shows you how desperate he is to win this race. >> it's an interesting point you bring up, eliot, there was a recent study just came out and they said they don't mind rich people. in fact, the american people think that which people are on average slightly more intelligent or hard-working, also slightly more greedy. that's the perception, right or wrong. it's just that they mind the republican party and romney seem like they're going to give extra benefits to the rich and that tests really poorly. >> they are. that's their proposal. >> literally their proposal, that's right. but at the same time, when they, you know, that thing about him being a flip-flopper, i have not seen polling where it has hurt him. i'm surprised by that. he seems so inauthentic. >> the cynicism in politics, it is expected even on fundamental issues. i am waiting for the moment,

jennifer is right, they veered to the right with paul ryan, this is the akin platform, insanely far right. i keep waiting for the moment romney says the convention is done i have to move back to the middle. he's going to have to do it. >> john, i love your pointed about this. one of things that is truly him is his face, his mormon face. everybody who knows him it is that. he has steered away from touching because mormonism is seen as something different. does he touch it tonight? >> he won't be there tonight, i believe. i'm calling tonight the vietnam night, because bush, cheney and romney will not be there. >> he might be in the crowd watching ann romney. there is a surprise. >> it should be interesting because in lieu of being likable, telling people how likable he is. unlike other campaigns i think we're seeing the parties trying

to resell their candidate to the very party that hasn't liked him so far. barack obama may be the guy they love to hate but romney is the guy they really hate to love. >> the boehner statement a month ago, he said look, nobody is going to follow up with mitt romney except he has the core support of his family and co religionists. i thought it was extraordinary. chenk, you were talking about being on-script and off-script. it's significant that they tried to force ron paul to use their script and he chose not to speak because of that, and then, he had this very elaborate stroll through the convention floor and there was a shouting match between his supporters and romney supporters and then he announced that he is an undecided voter and you know, i think that that could in a close race make a difference. >> when we come back, i got to leave it right there for now.

when we come back, i want to talk about ron paul a little more. what's the point of trying to get delegates or something to the platform. it's something that a lot of people are curious about we want to talk more about and romney. we'll come back with that and speech when is we return. >> ladies and gentlemen, please take your seats. (vo) this politically direct special event is brought to you by spiriva handihaler. if you have copd like i do you know how hard it can be to breathe and what that feels like. copd includes chronic bronchitis and emphysema. spiriva helps control my copd symptoms by keeping my airways open a full 24 hours. plus, it reduces copd flare-ups. spiriva is the only once-daily inhaled copd maintenance treatment that does both. and it's steroid-free. spiriva does not replace fast-acting inhalers for sudden symptoms. tell your doctor if you have kidney problems glaucoma, trouble urinating, or an enlarged prostate. these may worsen with spiriva.

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(vo) this is joy. >>who the heck does mitt romney think he is? (vo) this is joy on current tv. >>if mitt romney treats his magic underwear the same way as his tax returns, then he's been going commando for the past 10 years. >> all right, we're back on politically direct coverage of the republican convention, and as you can see there on my right, we've got all the different buckets of tweets that we will be rolling on throughout the night so you can keep track of what is going on at the convention minute by minute, and we're showing you people tweeting about ron paul, because we were just having a conversation about ron paul. i'm curious what everybody else

is thinking about it as well as. mr. vice president, we were talking about why they care so much about the minutiae about the delegates from maine and getting more than they earned in the election and they come here and want to get things on the platform. he walked around today and they started chancing let him speak let him speak. why? why does it matter how many delegates he has? he lost. >> the republican party is a divided party these days to some extent. all parties have some divisions but it's unusual to have these between the libertarian group headed by ron paul and tea party group and evangelical group and the ron paul group. they put in the platform this plank that points in the

direction of going back to a gold standard, which mitt romney with his business experience surely knows is nuts, but that's part of the platform. >> yeah, and you would think that he could retire off that, he got the gold standard in the platform! >> i think you're right. i call it sex and the single gop, because it is all the different factions warring. the platform had some breadcrumbs for all the different sects. now they want to audit the fed for the ron paul folks. they are trying to find a way to bring all those warring factions together, who better than the charm of john boehner to make that happen. [ laughter ] >> exactly. let's listen to john boehner here. >> we begin tonight with a fundamental question. can we do better? >> yes!

>> the answer is obvious you bet we can. you know the american people are still asking the question where are the jobs. president obama only offers excuses instead of answers. his record is a shadow of his rhetoric, yet he has the nerve to say that he's moving us forward and the audacity ho hope that we're going to believe him. allow me to illustrate. you know, i'm what you call a regular guy with a big job. i've got 11 brothers and sisters, my dad and uncles owned a bar in cincinnati. i worked there growing up, mopping floors, waiting tables, tending bar. so believe me when i say i learned how to deal with every character who walked in the door. so let's say right now some guy walked into our bar full of guys looking for work having a tough go of it and the guy said well the private sector's doing fine. you know what we'd do?

that's right we'd throw him out. think about this, a guy walks into our bar full of people paying more for health care, paying more for gas paying more for everything, and this guy would say well, we're better off than what we would have been. well, you know what we'd do, we'd throw him out. >> boehner giving a speech here. we'll do instant analysis. so far i'm surprised he mentioned the bar and has not started crying yet. [ laughter ] >> let me tell you what my reaction is. he made the point that he learned how to deal with all kinds of people, but as we all know, he was not able to deal with the tea party wing of his caucus, and they pushed the country toward a default pushed it had the credit rating lowered. here's the thing about the selection of congressman ryan to be on this ticket. the single most unpopular group in the country is the congress,

the republican members of congress and within that group the tea party leaders of that faction, and ryan is right in the middle of that circle. speaker boehner i think to his credit was willing to talk with president obama about a genuine bipartisan approach to the fiscal challenge that we have and it was ryan and the tea party folks that pushed away from that. >> and mr. cantor, as wellle. >> one of the things we shouldn't forget, obviously we're focused on the presidential campaign, control of the senate hinges in this november's elections, as well. what happened in the house could very well happen in the senate with mitch mcconnell becoming the majority leader and he is held hostage by the tea party as well. the president hopefully reelected looking at this crazy alliance of tea party and the

senate. that drew congress to new depths over the past couple of years. >> going back to boehner we've got the tweets up from the state of ho i how where boehner is from. someone mentioned you can't just trot someone out with a brown face and pretend they are four latinos, but they have tried someone out with an orange face. >> oh! >> he is not crying, he is secreting fanta. >> he is fond of the old saying that when things are at their worst, that's just the place and the time that the tide will turn. well delegates, this is that time and this is that place. [ cheers and applause ] >> we're here to preserve this country the same way we built it, by exercising our god-given right to set a new course, so who better to turn this tide than the man who has dedicated

his career to doing that, for businesses, for the olympic games, president romney -- boy i like the sounds of that. [ cheers and applause ] >> president romney will keep his word and his courage too. he'll keep faith with the idea that governor exists to serve the people and that people who built this economy. he will build a stronger middle class, schools for our kids, not the teachers unions come first. free trading the balanced budget and to answer the uncertainty and tax hikes that threaten small businesses. it's a big job so we're fortunate that mitt has chosen his running mate as a leader second to none when it comes to rooting out and fixing washington's worst habits. >> when i met paul ryan 23 years ago, he was a student at miami of ohio volunteering on my first campaign for congress.

soon he'll be our party's nominee for vice president of the united states. who says this isn't the greatest country on earth? [ cheers and applause ] >> you know they call this america's comeback team. well, i need some true believers. if you believe that we can do better, if you want your children and our children to have a stronger, more prosperous america, than mitt romney and paul ryan need your help. >> all right. we're going to dip out of john boehner again. i like the attack on teachers unions. that's got to be really popular hit the teachers, hit them hard. what's happened to our politics. i remember the days when teachers were popular people, that it was a terrible political mistake to hit. they do it all the time here. we've put up a new bucket of tweets here. r.n.c. power grab that's trending now it's fascinating

a way of keeping up with all the coverage for the entire convention and what everybody's saying about it and on current.com, you can see all the difference conversations happening, as well. we're going to take a quick break and we'll come back with this coverage, so stay right with us. cover the convention. but only current coverage will put you at the collision of tv and social media. we'll provide unsurpassed insight into the most buzz worthy tweets, posts and pontifications, from the entire social stratosphere including you. join in, tweet us, and you could be a part of our on-air and online coverage. >>now that is politically direct.

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it's like chicken and crunchy stuff got married! i only use french's french fried onions on my crunchy onion chicken because it's america's number one brand. just minutes to make, then bake! >> welcome back to the politically direct coverage of the republican convention here at current. of course, we're all here, vice president al gore, governor

spitzer, we've got a social media crack team out there jackie schechner shaneer jackie, let me start with you. what's going on over there? >> you can see on the side of your screen, there is a hash tag trending r.n.c. power grab. we talked about ron paul. the supporters are not happy about how the convention has gone so far but this power grab has to do with tea party activists. shana will tell you when it happened. >> we saw it on blogs in the last couple of days. this morning, it became a trending topic. as they went to the roll call vote, it got bigger and bigger. now you are seeing the wave of coverage out of the first day all over blogs and political mainstream sites. we've seen it grow. even though they had a very scripted show, the cracks and

facade of start to go show. >> it's disappointment not only from the ron paul support wishes but conservatives and the base. we'll talk about how john boehner is not winning any fans today. >> this is by far my favorite part of the convention. there was a fight today about the maine delegation with ron paul. seems like a big story everybody will i'm sure forget about it within a few hours. boehner calls for a voice vote with the ayes and nays against the rules people. they tamp down an grassroots activism. he calls for the vote here. >> the question is on the adoption of the resolution. all those in favor signify by august aye. all those opposed no. >> no! >> the ayes have it. the resolution is adopted.

>> was that clear to you? >> the ayes don't have it. at best, that was a tie. >> but obviously in speaker boehner's world. >> and then following that, just real quick there was the again, the thing i love, many of the paul supporters, some of the maine delegation wearing baseball caps. they are easily identifiable, they are all yelling point of order, point of order, point of order, which makes me want to be there really badly. >> we are going to keep an eye on this. join us on line at politicallydirect.com. and #tag current 2012. >> i'm so fascinated, especially, mr. vice president how much the candidate himself and his team have control over the convention, especially the platform, as we know, room

knee's trying to separate himself from the gop platform but also the rules and the way things are run. you can see this power grab is the effort to ram rod over those ron paul supporters. how much good will can come out of something like that when those supporters feel completely alienated. >> they have apparently failed to create enough good will to get ron paul onboard. he's clearly not onboard. i don't know what the consequences might be, but chenk, you were talking earlier about the things they did in maine. that is precisely because what jennifer is saying is so important. they have to get control of the rules, of the platform, and they didn't get everything they wanted on the platform, but they are in total control of the convention. >> but now they are separating themselves. >> the ron paul people are not happy about it. i have to say it's absolutely fascinating to watch these tweets on the screen, and you do

see these strands from people who are just really upset about what's been going on there. >> there's a great irony there. when we did iowa and new hampshire together, we had a discussion and we had a bit of debate on that. but on this, they're cheating. he didn't win iowa and wound up with more delegates even though he didn't win the count. how do you cry injustice when you're wrong on the facts. >> here's the thing we have to remember. the ron paul team does not run a critical calculus like most other people. they are not worrying about jobs in a romney presidency or 16. they think in terms of decades. they are planting the seeds of a libertarian vision. they are using the republican party as a vehicle. >> exactly. >> they don't care about the relationship with everybody else there. most of the people in politics are relationship builders and worry about the next year. they don't. >> are they going to vote for

romney in the end if they are that indifferent. >> if they vote for romney, they are all phony libertarians, but it's worth remembering that the entire tea party was started by the true believer ron paul guys, disgusted that george bush was spending money like lindsey lohan in amsterdam. i think a lot of ron paul's gain here is all about where he positions his son to run for 2016 and chris christie about 2016. i think we are seeing a lot of guys exclusively guys positioning themselves for their run in four years. >> a lot of these speaker have an opportunity to do that, but this gets back to the control of the convention by the candidate because chris christie's speech tonight will have been thoroughly vetted, the question is does he stay on script. >> again ron paul doesn't worry

so much about the next campaign as he does about the idealogy. that gives him a purity that gives him permission to play games others won't do. he says i'm going to tow the line what i believe. dislike his idealogy as much as we all do except chenk i to have discuss this with you. >> you agree with the defense. >> ron paul has run for president twice as the libertarian nominee. it's worth pointing out that the first time a third party candidate got the white house it was a republican with 38% of the vote, it was lincoln. >> when we come back, david shuster in the convention hall will tell us why there's nobody there. but only current coverage will put you at the collision of tv and social media. we'll provide unsurpassed insight into the most buzz worthy tweets, posts and pontifications, from the entire social stratosphere

including you. join in, tweet us, and you could be a part of our on-air and online coverage. >>now that is politically direct.

enttv

lican national convention. we've been enjoying the proceedings in tampa and we're thrilled to be joined now by joy behar who's new show on current

"say anything" previews next week. >> thank you very much. you are all very scintillating. you said no one was watching boehner. i was watching. you, i saw the other day was fabulous, like joan crawford and betty davis, i loved it. >> [ laughter ] >> you were fabulous with her. you, i know. [ laughter ] >> mr. vice president, i don't know you very well, this is the first time i'm actually meeting you. i feel a governor or vice president, i was president of my

sorority, though. >> john boehner was saying that this president has done nothing to help with jobs, although we've had 28% of private sector job growth. this is like lucy accusing charlie brown of not wanting to take the football. president obama submitted a jobs bill that was 30% tax cuts. i called it the boo rad bley bill because it was never getting out of the house. >> who is this speaking? ann romney? >> john, why does that surprise you. they have been hypocrisy wise since john boehner took over at speaker. >> this is. >> janine turner. an actress. >> talking about constitutional.

>> and i hate to say she's charming, she didn't have the foggiest idea what was going on, it was like talking into an empty room. >> she wasn't blonde. >> i had the pleasure of being with her when she was brunette. it's these republicans trotting out he's hollywood celebrities. >> like the democrats don't have any? >> janine turner and chuck norris talk about how these celebrities need to shut up about politics. >> they are always crying about hollywood liberals, the minute they have one they put them on stage, three and a half people in the country recognize her and they're all on set. >> of course before her was mayor mia love, now mayor in

utah. >> she's a mormon. >> they put her up thinking african-americans are on their side. we just showed a poll, 0% among african-americans. >> the most recent game here is they want states to determine where federal lands could be drilled for oil. this is going to completely destroy any federal environmental standards control, emissions climate control gone, am i right it would destroy any possible effort. >> teddy roosevelt has long since been turning over in his grave, but the protection of the environment had to be accompanied by a federal role, for sure. they won't mention the phrase climate change or global warming in this convention, but it really should be front and center in this campaign, just this morning the national snow and ice data center announced

that the north polar ice cap reached the all time record low in all the years they've been measuring it. this is really a serious issue but it's connected to the protection of our precious public lands. you turn them over to the governor of wyoming or the governor of texas or the state legislature there what kind of standards will there be for protection? none. >> it's all about drilling, of course. you turn it over to the governors, might as well turn it over to the coch brothers. >> it's two days before mitt romney announced his energy policy, he met with oil executives. he's not hiding it anymore. give me money and i'll do whatever you want. >> he says you're going to like my energy plan, wink, wink. >> he announced a plan that was all oil and carbons. >> comes back to the meaning they love about independence, individualism, we have to do it on our own, oil industry

receiving 10s of billions of dollars in subsidies. somehow individualism and doing it on your own is good. >> i call the romney campaign shill baby shill. this marks the anniversary of quitting the republican party to run as a progressive. i think the best part about being a climate change denier is the fact that you're not going to be around to be proven wrong. i would like to let our viewers at home know if you look to the side of the screen, current tv is running tweets from comedians. there is brett erlich who is a regular on your show, governor granholm. they are showing us some choice ones. they're all funny, but it's great when you see professional comedians, there is dennis

miller, who's job now is having his punch line stepped on by bill o'reilly. >> they do crony capitalism to be back to the energy issue, we are against it, i can't believe they would do it and they turn around the next day and say whatever the oil companies want, we're going to give it to them because they donate to us. they are the kings of crony capitalism. >> i was on the phone the other day doing a little debate with ron johnson the senator from wisconsin. his view an global warming, it is sun spots causing this to happen. they are still rejecting science, facts they don't care. >> rush limbaugh is the one, the worst of it. millions of scientists say we have global warming but rush says we don't so people listen to him. >> do you know what they said about hurricane irene? he said obama created it, saying obama's the government, he

doesn't really exist he's just pretending so the republicans get scared and cancel the first day. monday, he says what are we talking about? obama lied and said it was going to tampa and it went to new orleans, it was part of his strategy. it's not even tongue in cheek anymore, it's pushing out this unbelievable lie. >> i saw there are pictures in the new york times today of the polar ice cap, what it used to be 20 years ago and what it is today. if you ever wanted to see a visual sort of databased proof that this is real, just look at those two pictures. >> and let me add one point. people think, you know, you talk about something like that, it's remote, that affects where the jetstream goes, where the storm tracks go, what affects what kinds of storms hit the places in our country where people live. look at the drought this year, look at the all time record temperatures. this is real, and we're going to have to face up to it and putting our heads in the sand as this republican party platform

advises is really irresponsible. >> there's a professor out of berkeley just put out a paper saying this year's weather systems and extremes of drought and major storms are in fact directly attributable to the global warming. we used to say individual events may not be. >> i read this past july was the hottest month in the history of the united states. >> yes, that's right. >> wow. >> nine of the 10 hottest years globally have been within the last 10 years. 327 months in a row above the 20th century average. this is real as rain, unfortunately. >> so many rich people in the ham tons should come out. >> we are going to break here. you are seeing the delegates on the screen. they should have some choice words. we'll check that out. they are on the floor that are tweeting right there. they should be concentrating on

the speeches. all right we'll come right back. but only current coverage will put you at the collision of tv and social media. we'll provide unsurpassed insight into the most buzz worthy tweets, posts and pontifications, from the entire social stratosphere including you. join in, tweet us, and you could be a part of our on-air and online coverage. >>now that is politically direct.

>> we're back on politically direct he here on current. vice president al gore is here, governor spitzer, joy behar governor granholm, john fuselsag. the surprise speaker has not come up. can you imagine if ann romney came in on rofalka. >> she said they shop at costco. do they selessage equipment there? >> he was talking about we're supposed to get, you know, she's going to humanize romney, we're supposed to have empathy. her hobby is making horses dance. who can relate to that hobby?

you know that they have those horses, they have four of them. >> the horse earned them a $77,000 tax credit. how do you get that no. >> which is more than the average family makes in a single year, but that's how much they spent on the horse. current.com did a great break youdown about how they outspend the average american family in almost every category, transportation shelter he crushes on those. >> it would be great to teach a horse how to do the electric slide. i don't want to take anything away from ann romney, i think she's a terrific stay at home mom. the challenge is going to see how well she can humanize a man who seemingly just had the bolts taken out of his neck.

>> i think she'll help him. i think she comes across as a really warm person. >> she does? >> i think people like her. >> you people, you people keep asking me, you people are the american people. who are the people she keeps talking about? >> i think she might have meant the media there. i think she comes across as incredibly wealthy and look, again, f.d.r. was incredibly wealthy and teddy roosevelt. >> i've got to disagree. >> f.d.r. was a traitor to his class, and they are not. she's going to be good. >> you think a mom sitting home thinks i can relate to her. she looks just like her. >> the ones that relate to her will relate to her. >> she's had cancer, she's raised five sons. she's a worm and inviting person. you know, she was a nice person in person, she's a good speaker. i think people are going to really like her. >> i'm with jennifer. the media is going to be good

with her. you don't go after a spouse male or female. i think that's out of bounds and i think she has a genuine story and i think some of the things said about her were wrong and unfair. >> what examples can you give about people going after a male spouse eliot? >> todd palin. >> jackie schechner is in l.a., she has more on ann romney. jackie, what do you ever for us? >> we know she started off this morning with this warm and inviting sense of anne romney on the plane. she passed out homemade welsh cakes, a mix of shortbread and scone, a little dry, probably but she was warming up to reporters talking about how she was looking forward to the speech tonight, how it would be heart felt and trending on twitter is conversation about what ann romney's role is going to be. it's not necessarily a great

thing to have ann romney out there in the twitter universe as the one person to warm people up to mitt. >> i think what governor spitzer said earlier about how the media shouldn't be as hard on her doesn't extend to twitter. what we've seen is that over the last couple of months, her negatives have only gone up and positives have only gone down. the end of july, she was at about 30% positive tweets about her, measuring overall tweets. >> her negative spikes on the day they made the announcement on paul ryan. >> linked to 89 rumors that she had something to do with that? >> i don't know. that crystallized about how people were thinking about women not race. maybe it had to do with something about that. >> we are having chatter about costco because mitt romney supposedly buys his shirts from costco. i don't buy the news that he

irons them himself. we are learning that there is a little twist to the costco story. >> yes that's that costco c.e.o. is going to be speaking at the d.n.c. next week. >> he is a big donor. >> we'll also see costco and that whole conversation of ann saying that, that they buy shirts there retweeted all the way through long after she has spoken. >> it's being used as something making romney more approachable, and the more it's bringing her negatives up and positives down. we'll see what the reaction is to her speech tonight. we're going to continue to watch that happens on the floor and on line. go to politicallydirect.com. the #is current2012. we've got everyone here on it.

>> i had a youngster come up to me here last week and say i saw a clip of mitt romney doing his laundry and i thought this is the fakiest guy i've ever seen. it really bothered her. people know if you have a quarter of a billion dollars you don't have to do your own laundry. >> going to the hardware store these are all photo ops which do not seem authentic. back to costco again. >> i've been to their headquarters a number of times. jim senegal is really a terrific guy. here's the significance of him speaking next week at the democratic convention. he is an extremely successful big businessman unionized his operation. his salary as c.e.o. has been way down compared to what, you know the excesses have been. he really serves the employees and the customers puts them

first in everything. it's a great operation. people who shop there really know it's a fantastic operation. >> i love it. >> can i ask you you really think he went to costco? >> i think he did. >> you think it's the first time? >> you think ann romney and mitt romney. >> i'm sure they did if they said they did. >> do you think they go there regularly? i think that's a flat out lie. >> you only have to go once, because you buy so much stuff. [ laughter ] >> 1995, i'm still using it. didn't bane open staples? >> yes. i think he's gone to costco to see what the competition's doing. i think this is a guy who genuinely is intrigued and wants to go see a business operation and how they run it. that's his mindset. >> it's possible. ann romney, i find it offensive

that you have to bring out your wife to say ok, you're ok on women's rights when your policies are not ok on women's rights. >> oh, women look at my wife. >> she won't be talking policy at all. >> that's the whole point. they are not good on policy but bring out a woman saying look, here's this lovely woman we must be good to women. >> she is only there to humanize them. she's going to talk about their love story that's it, their family and their love story. >> can they bring out one person to talk positively about women's rights in terms of republicans? >> we were just watching a whole bunch of women speaking. >> they were making points. now we're taking away reproductive rights. >> they've got the sonogram king coming on, the guy from virginia. >> that's right. >> in fairness, mitt romney did make history this week when yesterday he became the first man ever to say he supports a

full repeal of roe v. wade and thinks rape victims should have access to abortion. no one has held both those positions at the same time, because it's impossible to. >> until mitt romney did it. we're going to take a quick break here. governor kasick of ohio might be speaking. we'll have instant analysis of that and that ought to be good, so come right back. (vo) this is joy on current tv. >>if mitt romney treats his magic underwear the same way as his tax returns, then he's been going commando for the past 10 years.

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v >> we're back on politically direct here on current. vice president gore is here, governor spitzer governor granholm john fuselsang. joy behar. >> governor of virginia's coming up, john kasich, governor of ohio is coming up. we talked about the theme of this convention, we built it, which is amazing because it's base said on a lie. president obama didn't say to the small business owners you didn't build your business. he said you didn't build the roads and bridges. has politics changed mr. vice president so that you can lie

more and say hey because i don't remember the campaigns being base said on such fewer fabrications before. >> yeah, well, i don't think that's an entirely new phenomenon in politics, but i do think that it is much bigger now, and i think it has changed yes, the dominance of the 30 second t.v. commercials and the advantage to those who have huge amounts of money and are willing to raise huge amounts of money by giving the billionaires and super pac people whatever policy they want convince themselves that they can bull their way through with whatever alternative reality they want to create and they don't feel they are going to be held accountable in the same way. >> they are not held accountable. in the old days, we used to hire lawyers and say pull those ads down, because here are the facts and it's not true. today, the poll at her for mitt romney was on a panel neil new

house and said "we are not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact checkers." in other words, anything goes, and that well fair ad, of course is one of the ones they were talking about. >> disgraceful. >> it's completely disgraceful. >> it's not about words, it's about a number, 50.1, that's all mitt romney is focused on is 50.1% of the vote. if all the lies in the world come into play, it doesn't matter. mitt romney's gaps and lies, he has advises that are helping him, he didn't build those lies on their own. the fact that they are calling them we built this is shooting themselves in the foot, we built it. they are not saying i built it. they are the gaining that couldn't smear straight, blew it with their own motto. >> in a convention hall built 60% by public dollars. >> it is isn't it scary, the

voter suppression going on. that's the number one issue no matter what you do or say you're going to lose on that basis. that's the number one thing to me. that should be discussed on all the networks and nobody talks about it. >> it's racist. >> in some districts, you can vote with an n.r.a. i.d. but not a college i.d. we are going back to the speaker, but they are sup prettying up to 900,000 votes. >> unbelievable that that could happen. >> senator speaking now from new harsh shire. >> as has generations of americans before us, like most americans, our lives changed after 9/11. my husband joe who was on track to be a commercial pilot

instead served our great country flying combat missions in iraq. [ applause ] >> and when joe returned home from the war he found himself in the same position as so many americans, he needed a job, so he started a family business, a landscaping and snowplowing company, and when i say he, i mean we, because i spent many a sleepless night shoveling snow, and i'm proud of the fact that in addition to being a united states senator i'm also pretty good with a snowplow. [ cheers and applause ] >> we are no different from most

families who take risks starting their own business. we borrowed money to pursue our dreams, and believe me, there was no guarantee of success. we were certainly not too big to fail. we had to make it work, yet through all the hard work and sacrifice, we pulled together as a family, and as a business group, so did our extended family. and i speak to you tonight with great concern for our employees their families, my family and your family. my concern is that president obama is making it very difficult for small businesses to get started to create jobs and to survive. [ applause ]

>> you know what i hear all the time from small business owners that i speak with? they want to focus on their business. the obama administration wants to bury them with rules regulations, and red tape. from the national labor relations board to the department of labor to the e.p.a., under this administration, the regulations are up and the job creation is down. president obama's view is clear he actually believes that as a small business gross the federal government should take a larger and larger share of its earnings. that's punishment for expanding and creating more jobs.

i call it a success tax. [ applause ] >> and you know, the very best example is obamacare. and let me tell you what i hear in the real world about obamacare. just a couple of months ago a successful restaurant owner in concorde, new hampshire told me about his dilemma. he wanted to open up a second restaurant and hire more employees, but you know what? he realized that if he did, he would trigger penalties under obamacare, and he couldn't afford it, so he never opened up that restaurant. is that what we want for small businesses in america? >> no! >> no! to be afraid to grow because of the government? to face penalties when you

create more jobs? >> no! >> to be told your earning too much? >> no! >> isn't you the time that we had a leader who believes that creating jobs ought to be celebrated not penalized. >> i want to jump in here because this is a lot of nonsense. two things about this. number one, president obama has created over 4 million jobs he's been given credit for since bush's recession. they started it, you want to talk about we built it, you built the recession. you built the unemployment then in the first place. since then, president obama has built 4 million jobs. by the way she mentioned 9/11 in the beginning. now, that was in september of the first year of bush's term. they said it wasn't his fault. it was too early in his term. how about all the job losses that happened until september in president obama's term? right, oh, that's him that's

him, it's a lie. it's nonsense. >> it's the stimulus that stopped it. we were losing over 750,000 jobs per month when w. left office. if you care about job creation, you have no business voting for the republican party when you look at the last 20 years cumulatively. this guy has created more jobs in a short period of tile. if you created george w. bush twice, you don't get to complain about deficits for the rest of your life. >> 29 straight months of job creation, 4.5 million jobs creation. the obama administration has signed into law 18 tax cuts for small businesses. what she's talking about here just is not accurate. >> one last thing before we go to the break. look, i'm a small business owner, on line company is a small business, my dad is a small business owner. he built our family based on that, and i went to school based on that. i know a lot of small business owners. nobody thinks you know what, i'm not going to make more money

because somebody raised my taxes by a couple of percentage points or i'm not bog to make extra money because we've got to pay health care. as a small business owner you're desperate to make as much as you can to stay afloat. you don't say i'm not going to start a second business. that's not true. >> she left out the fact that the affordable care act will cover young people until age 26, which has been a huge incentive for businesses to hire young people. >> we've got to go to a break here. when we come back, we will pick up the politically direct coverage of the republican coverage. governor kasick will be speaking, governor mcdonald will be speaking. we will also instantly analyze them. it should be fun.

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of sununu, you're wrong. mitt romney, you're wrong. we need more teachers, not fewer teachers and more cops and more firefighters that support our >> we're back on politically direct covering the republican convention here on current. governor john kasich of ohio,

let's listen. >> i don't like the black eyed peas, i got a feeling that we're about to elect a new president of the united states of america. [ cheers and applause ] >> let me tell you why it matters, because it really matters. we need a president who restores the strength and power of the american people so we, the people can rebuild our economy and so we the people can rebuild the united states of america. plain and simple. [ cheers and applause ] >> you know, we've i had real progress in ohio in restoring confidence because that's what so much of life is about. and we are setting people free in order to build success. we need a new partner in washington. this relationship is just not working, it is holding us back. i'm going to tell you our story.

i'm going to tell you the story of ohio, and the story of lessons learned. i took office in 2011 and when i came in to office, we were 48th in the nation in job creation, 48th. we had an $8 billion budget deficit, the largest in the history of great state of ohio and we had 89 cents in our rainy day fund. most toddlers have more than 89 cents in their little piggy banks, let alone what was in our treasury. our credit rating was headed down the drain and we were -- we had suffered a loss of 400,000 jobs. ladies and gentlemen tonight the greatest moral issue in america today is job creation. we have lost 400,000 jobs. our people were hurting and our families were hurting as a result of the recession.

in ohio, we were following the policy of tax spend and duck. that's too much of what politicians do 37 they want to avoid the tough issues, but when we came to power. >> i now support voter suppression in the state of ohio. i'm waiting for him to start fracking on stage. mr. vice president, you actually have a history with him. >> we were friends in the house of representatives. those were the days when there were many more bipartisan friendships. we had a bipartisan basketball caucus and we had some great games in the house gym. i wanted to ask jennifer about this extraordinary methods that governor kasick is delivering. if i hear him correctly he's saying that during the recession, they had lost 400,000 jobs in ohio, and in the last few years they've come back

strong. and we've been hearing a lot of the republican governors be a little bit at odds with the romney message. >> well, and a lot of the republican governors are now taking credit for the fact that the obama administration intervened to save the auto industry which is clearly by ohio is doing better. it's why michigan is doing better. if the president had not saved the american auto industry, we would see 1 million people more out of work. ohio would be in the valley, and not rising up. the fact that he cannot bring himself to acknowledge the fact that we now have a manufacturing industry, which is the heart and soul of the states drives of me crazy. it is not you, it is the president! >> governor romney had the famous op ed, let detroit go bankrupt. there have been a lot of miniature controversies between the romney campaign and republican governor of states when he visits the campaign when

they're telling him don't talk about how good things are going and how you're receiving. >> it's nothing appeals causing these states to come back. the republican governors want to take credit for that. they should be thanking president obama but of course, they can't. >> there's a deeper issue which is the republican party cannot deal with the economic facts of the past decade or the last 25 years, because every policy they want us to once again embrace led us into the cataclysm. >> why does anyone want to vote for them? if we've gotten to this point because of reregulation and tax cuts for the rich, and now they want to continue that. why do the american people not see through that? >> the modern gop is like the dumb girl at the frat party that wants to be lied to. >> there are now and this comes

back to something we talked about an hour ago. >> there are a lot of people. >> you've got to look at the media and how the message is being transmitted. when you look at fax and you hear what people listen to and you watch the message that is prom you will gated by them, they are factually deluding the american public. >> they have not been nearly aggressive enough in challenging these positions. i agree with governor spitzer but i would say they call everything even. we know fox is on the right. cnn says it's even, but they are not, they are lying about welfare, about we built it. they are lying at governor granholm pointed it out. when you tell people, you say oh i guess i'll vote for him. >> the media is to blame somewhat but the most blame

goats to citizens united and ads that are lying to people. these are pants on fire lies, and they run them with impunity and people listen to them. >> can that decision ever be rolled back, citizens united? >> you need a constitutional amendment. >> i'm going to be the skunk at the garden party. >> don't say it! >> i'm with the aclu on this one with that the first amendment isn't the problem here. the problem is the lack of disclosure about where the money's coming from. >> i disagree. >> we've lost the democracy. the people who win have more money 93% of the time in congress. we've got to go to the break. >> the republican voters, governor romney is proof to citizens united hurts them too. you wrote the best piece in the world about the bailout. >> before the break joy's leaving us. >> i have to go to costco.

[ laughter ] >> andive, i really must get out of here. i'm sorry. fascinating line. i'll be back next week on current at 6:00. >> looking forward to it. >> you'll be my first guest. ok thanks, guys. >> thank you joy. >> when we come back, we will have live reporting from the convention michael will join us with the latest updates from the convention and john kasich will do more of this when we return. special event is brought to you america. bringing jobs home now.

his is joy on current tv. >>if mitt romney treats his magic underwear the same way as his tax returns, then he's been going commando for the past 10 years.

>> we are back on politically direct here on current television, covering the republican convention, of course, vice president gore, governor spitzer governor granholm john, all my rowdy friends are here tonight. let's go to epics politics man who is at the convention on the floor there, kind of, kind of high up on the seats there. michael, tell us what's happening at the convention. >> well, it's great to be part of such elite coverage and john, so i'm really happy. the news that was made on the floor was really made by ron paul. ron paul supporters actually walked out in what i think was the first act of voter suppression by republicans this year. not only did they walk out when john boehner came up to introduce him they booed the speaker of the house.

these delegates, 20 dell gets, but the contest committee and credentials committee of the platform committee said we're only going to seat half of you. the main delegation didn't like that. it wouldn't have made a difference, but teed them off. they walked off the floor the booing ensued. they did announce the delegation at 14-10 in favor of romney, but it didn't make ron paul happy. ron paul today who had a prime time speaking spot said no, i'm not going to speak because the romney people wanted to vet my speech and wanted to make sure that i'm going to endorse him so he is not going to speak. >> ironically we found voter fraud, this is the thing they used on voter i.d. they took the voters in iowa and pretended that they voted for ron paul. they bring in the delegates there. they don't seem to have a logical leg to stand on, which

hasn't stopped them before. michael, as you're there and you talk to the ron paul supporters, what's the next step. so they're angry, are they going to vote for romney, not vote for him, walk out of the convention? what's next for them? >> i think they're a little bit disappointed that ron paul is not going to speak. this was his retirement and passing of the torch. a lot of these supporters, you don't get the feeling any will vote for mitt romney. they are hear to be heard and they are not heard. today would have been the day that that would happen and they walked out when that didn't happen. supporters aren't happy with barack obama. a lot of them are going to say they are going to stay home and vote. they are not going otherwise vote for democrats. they are not going to vote or write ron paul in. >> michael, one more question for you. how big a contention are they there? so, you know, we see them on

t.v. and that great thing with the ayes and nays and seem to be outshouting the others. is it a third of the convention? what's the number? >> chenk it's not even close. i wouldn't put it at 10%. i would put it at a small%. they are outshouting a quiet convention, when there aren't a lot of people on the flower. the reason it was quiet at the time the name came up, everyone was waiting to say what happened. they screamed, they left and that was the end of that. the reason we're hearing their voices is otherwise as david shuster said, it's otherwise a very quiet convention. today, i went to the alternate convention the justice party candidate speaking, talked to him, saw the protestors, they are very, very far away. i don't know if you all have heard about the security here. i've never seen anything like it. david shuster said even in the green zone in baghdad he hadn't seen anything like it, it is

that deep and that thick. they are so far away, so their impact on the convention is not felt certainly inside at all. >> when the cheering i guess not louder than it is for the tampa bay lightning you've got issues. >> of course, i'm probably the only person here wishes there was a hockey game going on behind me, but that's an entirely different story. >> mike a long time hockey fan. thank you for the reporting. we appreciate it. we've got to take a break then governor mcdonnell is coming up from virginia and later in the night, ann romney and chris christie. that ought to be interesting. coming right back. by communications workers of america.

>> welcome back to current's coverage of the republican national convention. we are watching a series of speaker here tonight, five of them interestingly enough are women and it's going to culminate in the speech of ann romney. there's another issue happening and that's the hurricane. we want to go to los angeles right now. we know we have a series of people who are on the ground with comments about what's happening in louisiana. jackie, are you monitoring it? >> we are, jennifer. thank you. you can monitor with us on line at politicallydirect.com. you'll see big bubbles and generating the most conversation on twitter. obviously the republican convention is one. the other is going to be a split screen moment, is hurricane isaac. we are going to talk about what specifically we're seeing with regard to isaac on line on twitter. >> sure, the last few days, we've seen r.n.c. and isaac

related tweets dominating the conversation on line. news organizations have tried to figure out which to cover. in the last hour we've been tracking, if you go to politicallydirect.com they are measuring these trending topics with tweets per minute. r.n.c. is at 270 and hurricane isaac at 180. we've seen both of them at times isaac has been double the volume. >> these is bringing an interesting juxtaposition into play. we are bringing in anna da arian right now to talk about this. >> you see the hurricane hitting the r.n.c. is interesting. some of these emergency response organizations have experienced significant cuts. just to give you an example in

2011 noa experienced cuts of $453.4 million to cuts to operations research and facilities, $126 million in cuts to the national weather service. that is a significant amount of money. at the same time, the fema budget has also been cut. in 2013, they're going to basically receive $13.5 billion or their going to request $13.5 billion, however, that is $364.2 million below the 2012 budget. >> louisiana governor jindal didn't go to the convention because he is at his state they declared a state of emergency to put things into effect. obviously, we'll keep an eye on both as the night moves ahead. back to new york, guys. >> great, thank you so much, jackie and shana. really appreciate it. there are a lot of people praying for folks in new orleans. we want to listen for a moment

to governor bob mcdonnell because he has been obviously the source of great controversy. let's listen right now and we'll comment after just a minute. >> this is a tough economy. we all have friends and family and neighbors who have lost their jobs and their homes. worse, they've lost their hope. and their lost hope is why we need a big change this november. [ applause ] >> this election is about restoring the american dream. that dream led my grandfather a poor farm boy to leave ireland 100 years ago and come to ellis island to begin his journey of freedom in america. my grandfather could ever never guessed that his son would fight for this nation in world war ii, that this is great granddaughter would lead a platoon in iraq, and his grandson would grow up a

middle class kid in fairfax county, serve in the army and now hold the same job as thomas jefferson and patrick henry. what an incredible country we call home here in the united states of america. this nation is powered and defined by the great idea of the american dream. that's an idea that says if you work hard, if you dream big if you follow the rules and pursue opportunity, the sky is the limit in the united states of america. we cannot lose that dream. [ cheers and applause ] now unfortunately, many americans are now hurting very badly. too many americans are looking for work because this president's policies simply haven't worked. washington's day has a surplus

of rhetoric and a deficit of leadership and results. [ applause ] >> and you know the problems, unemployment over 8% for 42 straight months, the national debt immoral at $16 trillion and growing. new business start ups at the lowest level in 30 years. and now the e.p.a. is the employment prevention agency. >> these times call for new leadership to get this great country out of debt and back to work, and the choice is very clear, the status quo of the entitlement society versus a dynamic change to an opportunity society. that's what we need in america. >> we need a president who will

say to a small business woman congratulations, we applaud your success, you did make that happen. you did build that in america. the government didn't build america, you built america. small businesses don't come out of washington, d.c. premade on flat bed trucks. >> now we're going to discuss this speech a little bit because they are all chomping at the bit. the last time governor mcdonnell's hair moved was in 1982. when he said his great granddaughter was leading a platoon and he was proud of that, it's in the gop platform that they do not want women in combat. >> on the front line. >> and this guy's been responsible for the platform.

this is governor transvaginal ultrasound. the embodiment of the war on women happening across the country. that is the reason he was not selected to be vice president. >> can we come back to what they want us to talk about the economy, which is why we had the greatest cataclysm in 2008 when it comes to the bush policies. people should read the new new deal. it is hundreds of pages but goes through how the stimulus and the investment of government actually have transferred our economy, have created the jobs. there's going to be so much rhetoric so many false claims of causation over the next couple weeks on both sides you've got to look at data. there are more lies, more absolute distortions of the truth in the republican party platform and their economic platform than i've ever seen in history. it drives my blood pressure nuts. he talks about an entitlement society, nobody is more entitled

than the wall street crooks who have stole money from the middle class and gave it to the richest who need it the least. >> there's one other important thing from this and i saw you writing this down, mr. vice president, when he calls the e.p.a. the employment prevention agency. the guy is off his rocker. >> well, we mentioned teddy roosevelt before, but richard nixon was president when the e.p.a. was created when the clean air act was passed, the clean water act drinking water act. it used to be a bipartisan issue. my, one of my predecessors in tennessee, howard banker was instrumental in passing some of those laws. somehow when the oil and coal companies got control of the republican party to the extent that they have, they just began to completely switch and now they're anti environment in the

extreme. >> it all comes back to that, money in politics. once that money poured in, they didn't give a damn about the environment, the voters, the guys who pay me are the oil companies, the coal companies. i'm going to do what they tell me to do. mitt romney is now that on steroids when he says as we talked about earlier in the show hey you guys give me $10 million, here's the energy policy you love. >> not just money and politics. we all agree with that. it's about politicians who have no backbone or spine. we've got one that attitude up on the issues that were tough told the truth and were willing to take the political heat. these guys can't do it. they are weak, and can't call themselves leaders of this country. >> i'd love to hear them stop calling them entitlements and call them earned benefits. >> we paid into them our whole us lives. we'll hear from mother speaker from the convention as we straighten out. they lie and then we give you

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(vo) this is joy. >>who the heck does mitt romney think he is? (vo) this is joy on current tv. >>if mitt romney treats his magic underwear the same way as his tax returns, then he's been going commando for the past 10 years. >> welcome back to current tv coverage. your seeing all of the tweets on the right side of your screen from the mainstream media reporting what they see on the floor. we've got delegates hurricane updates. we were in the middle of evaluating these speeches. the person speaking now was apparently attached to governor bob mcdonnell, but coming up in scott walker of wisconsin, where

a lot of the coch brothers. what do you think scott walker's going to say. >> i want to talk about the washington connection. did you see roger stone a long time republican operative with nixon, et cetera saying the koch brothers offered through super pacs to put paul ryan on the ticket. that's an amazing statement. roger stone's a bit of a character, right but he has been in republican politics a long time. >> does that surprise you? does it really surprise you? >> you know what surprises me? they would lose the campaign that way, i wonder about the strategy. >> you're thinking that -- >> there's no way they'd win with that ticket. >> with paul ryan? >> they love paul ryan.

>> i thought you said -- excuse me i misheard. >> scott walker. >> no, no, no. it's clearly bearing out in what they're spending on these ads the super pacs. they are investing, they said they'd spend whatever it takes and that's what they're doing. paul ryan has got the koch brothers plan. we see scott walker walking out on the platform now. we're going to listen to him for a couple of minutes and we'll come back and tell you how he lied. [ laughter ] >> voters in wisconsin were asked to go back to the days of double detect tax increases billion dollar budget deficits and record job loss, or moving forward with reforms that lowered the tax burden, balanced the budget and help small businesses create more jobs.

on june 5 voters in my swing state were asked to decide whether they wanted elected officials to measured success by how many people of democrat on the government or if they wanted leaders who believe success is measured by how many people are not dependent on the government, because they control their own destiny in the private sector. on june 5, voters in wisconsin the to determine who was in charge, was it the big government special interests in washington or the hard working taxpayers of our state? the good news is that on june 5, the hard working taxpayers won! [ applause ] just ask sandy breath why that's important. when the economy took a dive a few years abshe took pay cut. not long after that, she lost her job.

today, however shies working at g3 industries in wisconsin. she just received a promotion. g3 is one of those companies that added jobs during the past year and now has plans to add even more. the owner told me that he's creating additional jobs in wisconsin because he likes the way we're moving our state forward and he's even more committed since the last election. without our positive changes, he told me, he would not have had the confidence to grow business in wisconsin. improving the business climate is not only good for small business owners, it's good for people like sandy. we need more stories like hers because the last couple of years have been pretty tough. like many places across the country, wisconsin lost more than 100,000 jobs from 2008 to 2010. unemployment during that time topped out at over 9%, but because of our reforms

wisconsin has added thousands of new jobs, and our unemployment rate is down from when i first took office. equally as important we improved the economic climate for job creators. today, 94% of our employers believe wisconsin is headed in the right direction. [ cheers and applause ] >> that compares to just 10% who thought the same thing just two years ago. elections have consequences. as was the case in wisconsin two years ago too many americans think our country is headed in the wrong direction but mitt romney understands, like i understand that people people, not governments create jobs. what that in mind, my administration is making it easier for people to create jobs in wisconsin. our reforms put the hard working taxpayers back in charge, people like sandy breath.

sadly, the federal government seems to be going in the opposite direction. nationally, we've experienced 42 consecutive months of unemployment above 8%. last month, 44 of the 50 states saw an increase in the unemployment rate. more than 12 million of our fellow citizens are unemployed. we need someone who turn things around in america. that leader is governor mitt romney. [ cheers and applause ] >> mitt romney turned businesses around in the private sector. he saved the winter olympics and he balanced state budgets without raising taxes in a way that helped the private sector create more jobs. then, with the announcement of paul ryan as his running mate, governor romney not only showed that he has the experience and the skill to become president he showed he has the courage and the passion. >> ok, enough of this.

[ laughter ] >> another republican governor who has a huge manufacturing sector who's claiming credit when it was the obama administration that finally came up with a manufacturing policy that would end up saving jobs in his state. drives me nuts. >> and their black and white view of the world is comical. is there any liberal that think we should all be dependent on the government. wouldn't it be terrific if we were all dependent on the government. he's such a straw man,ized ridiculous. >> nuance has gone out the window between now and november. we just made a very quick google search to see what in fact g3 industries is and why here hiring people. sounds like a great story. here in the automotive sector, harley davidson, these guys are selling into the sector that the president saved with an infusion of government money to make sure that they wouldn't all go

bankrupt. the hypocrisy g3 might have gone bankrupt or not but that sector would have gone under without president obama. >> g.3 is selling to the automotive industry, even if they didn't get a mailout, you believe their major customers would have been among the domestic automakers. >> i don't know if it was right one tweet said the owner of g.3 was one of the leading proponents of the recall. that would be an extra layer of irony. give credit to the tweeters a little bit more. we're showing tweets from wisconsin. miss badger, badger from wisconsin said i can't stomach these guys anymore. can up just send me a text of voldemore's speech. >> governor walker can't recall

caring about the workers of wisconsin but the workers of wisconsin really cared about recalling governor walker, and the whole notion behind his whole scheme was people have to believe that collective bargaining for teachers unions hurt the deficit but tax cuts for gazillionaires doesn't. this is a guy who would attack a hornet's nest if he thought the bees were too organized. do you think mr. vice president that there was a failure to get the vote out or was there so much koch money there that nothing would have helped? >> i sympathize with the voters of wisconsin and they did a very good job but they were up against very heavy odds. the money advantage that the walker campaign had, i believe it was eight and a half to one. now look, our democracy is in trouble. and this is a premier example of

why. he won the recall, he won the election he won the recall election and because we believe in democracy and elections, we have to give him credit for that, but we also have to take a step back and look at how it happened. his advocacy of big tax cuts for the very wealthiest americans cuts for those who need health care and other services to partly make up for it, those are the policies that are desired by the koch brothers and by the other extremely wealthy donors who gave him that eight and a half to one advantage. now, as a practical matter, we all want to believe that when you have a discussion of the issues, the people are going to go to the polls and they're not influenced all that much by all the ads and everything, but that's really not the way it works. the power of these 30 second television ads when they're dominated by one side, it's so great that it's not a fair

fight, and this is a sign of things to come unless we can find a way to fix this terrible situation with money. >> i view it asar struck cruise versus democracy. i could respect him if he had the guts to walk into police and firefighters unions and say you guys don't have the right to collective bargaining. >> 93% have the time, the guy with more money in congress in the congressional races win. shows you it's not whether republican or democratic, conservative or liberal you're ideas or idealogy, whoever has more money wins 93% of the time. >> obama's going to be outspent. >> there's some irony there because the higher the platform, the less money matters because president obama can get his message out because he's the approximate the. if you're in a small montana race, it matters a lot more, or a wisconsin race or if you have

an eight and a half to one advantage, you're going to flood the market and the other guy's not going to be able to get his message out. scott walker was at a much easier time buying that election than romney will in buying this election. >> i think there's also a saturation point where there's so many ads and so many campaigns in the final home stretch of an election that it has less of an impact, but we don't know for sure. there's going to be seven or eight swing states that are likely going to determine the election and having the money to buy up in advance the good spots for the final home stretch it's not impossible that it will have a very big impact on those states. >> it's entirely possible. we're going to take a quick break here. when we come back, rick santorum is going to be speaking. oh boy i'd love to analyze that, and we will, in just a moment. >>now that is politically direct.

ñ >> welcome back. we're here covering the republican national convention here in new york with the vice president and he is giving us his take on why the republicans once again misleading the nation. maybe that's my word, not his. you're more poll light than that. let me me say this, the theme of the republican party is we will bring you jobs, and it is just

so completely counter factual. i wish that the white house and, you know, you've got to make messages simple in politics, the attention span is slim the public is disenchanted with all of us, just that six chart showing the number of jobs not created jobs lost during the bush presidency, going down like this, president obama comes in with a stimulus, government efforts that work and jobs are coming back at a remarkable clip. it is such a powerful, accurate, factual argument, i just they would make it that simply. >> i do, too and i've been supporting what chenk has said over the last several weeks that finally in the last couple of months, we have seen the obama campaign really hit pretty hard and effectively. >> absolutely, yeah. his super pac is running an ad, which i was surprised the republicans didn't run in the primaries, mitt romney, number 47 in job creation when he was

the governor of massachusetts. going to run on the record of job creation, you were third from the bottom! that's terrible. they spent $10 million on that ad. >> fourth in the bottom on fairness. >> president obama's campaign with that devastating ad that they ran about the do over at this convention and mitt romney and they put all the pants on fire and all the fact checkers saying he's lying, et cetera. they have run a brilliant campaign and one that i did not expect in the beginning, i would have predicted otherwise. i think if they keep going this direction, that they're going to pound them. >> i think that the president is really at heart a very competitive guy, and he is not going to allow these guys just to continue to say these lies without taking off the gloves. he put them on in kansas and has not put them back on. >> they are lying.

>> our blood pressure is going up. the white house is responding but somehow still isn't cutting through which makes me think the way they are messaging this isn't working yet. >> the media isn't liberal. the media is terrified of being called liberal. the guy who says that obama who's born here has the same credibility that is the guy who says he wasn't born here. the media is as liberal as the corporations that own it. ed corporate media is bias in terms of profit. if you get more rating by having a tea party rally than an anti war rally that's what you'll show on camera. >> that assumes that the vast majority of people are watching media who cover this stuff but they're not. they're watching jersey shore they're watching other stuff and

the way they are being spoken to is through the ads it's not this media coverage. the problem is that the ads are so deceptive and those ads are winning. the welfare ad, they got word from the poll, the testers focus group testers, those ads go off the charts and this is why they're not backing down. >> i agree with both of those things. i think that the inundate the market with those ads and people think well, i'm going to call it 50-50, i heard the obama ad, the romney ad, and when it's 50-50 unemployment is high, maybe issued try something new. >> the president has an uphill battle because there's such fundamental did he say in chantment with economic progress. 70% say we're not moving in the right direction. that's very hard for an incumbent. what i think you need to do to get this message across is simply show the data, the raw data.

>> i see that same graph and i've showed it a million times on our show, i love that graph but i'm a guy that loves graphs. >> you and i love numbers. >> it's a stark graph. these campaigns run more on emotion, so the welfare ad is a lie, but it's emotional and says i don't want my money going to those welfare guys. >> i don't think it's all that complicated. both things are true. obama has done a good job he's created more jobs in the private sector every single month but it's also true that we had such a deep hole to dig ourselves out of everybody knows it was the worst recession since the great depression, and global in its scope, so it takes time, and it has unusual characteristics. it's not something that can be cured quickly just with a stimulus of the size that he passed. i think that most people do give him credit for having turned the

ship of state around and heading it in the right direction but i think that people look at the state of the economy and they think gee whiz, i wish things were better still and romney plays on that and gives his pitch and some people fall for it. >> he has one extra layer of complexity which is a problem for president obama he went toward the president in compromise, the stimulus, brought the number down and made a third of tax cuts. how do you go and explain no, i met the republicans halfway and it was half their proposals. i wanted to take credit for it, but at the same time we could have done better. that's hard to explain. >> if the state of our democracy was healthy, it would be easier to get the message across that what the romney campaign is proposing is to return to the exact same policy. >> exactly. >> that created the horrible recession in the first place and the obama campaign may yet

be able to get that message across. >> that is the simplest message and i think nerve very effective so far so i think they might be effective in that, as well. we've got to take a quick break here. when we come back, it's the first time we've ever hoped for rick santorum. all of a sudden, here comes rick santorum. not excited about the speech, i'm excited about our analysis of it right after. >> thank you. thank you. thank you. thank you. [ cheers and applause ] >> thank you. thank you. it is -- thank you. bless you. thank you, pennsylvania. that it is a great honor for me to be here tonight with the love of my wife, karen over here, and my 93-year-old mother from

florida. and some of our children. my oldest son john, wanted to be here tonight but he's a first year cadet at the citadel. [ cheers and applause ] >> so i just want to say to you john, proud of you, son, thank you. i am a first generation american. at the age of seven my dad came from -- to johnstown pennsylvania from the mountains of northern italy on a ship named providence. how providential that one day his son would announce his run for president from the deep mines where my father, mined coal until he was 72 years old. when my grandfather died, i

remembered as a kid kneeling at his casket and not being able to take my eyes off his thick strong hands. hands that dug his path in life and gave his family a chance at living the american dream. working the mines may not have been the dream he ever dreamed. i never dared to ask him but i think his answer would have been that america gave him more than he had ever hoped. america believes in him. that's why he believed in america. my grandfather like millions of other immigrants didn't come here for some government guarantee of income equality or government benefits to take care of his family.

in 1923, there were no government benefits for immigrants except one, freedom. under president obama the dream of freedom and opportunity has become a nightmare of dependency with almost half of america receiving government assistance. fewer and fewer americans are achieving their dreams and more and more parents are concerned their children won't realize theirs. president obama spent four years and borrowed $5 trillion trying to convince you that he can make things better for you to put your trust in him the government to take care of every

problem. the result, massive debt, anemic growth and millions more unemployed. the president's plan didn't work for america because that's not how america works. in america in america, we believed in freedom and the responsibility that comes with it to make the dream of our dream of god given potential coming through. we believe it, because it still works. even today graduate from high school work hard, and get married before you have children, and the chance you will ever be in poverty is just 2%. yet, if you don't do these three things, you are 38 times more likely to end up in poverty.

we understand many americans don't succeed because the family that should be there to guide them and serve as the first rung on the ladder of success isn't there or was badly broken. the fact is that marriage is disappearing in places where government dependency is the highest. most single mothers doing heroic work and an amazing job raising their children. [ cheers and applause ] but if america is going to succeed, we must stop the assault on marriage and the family in america today. [ cheers and applause ] >> from lowering taxes. >> we've heard all we could stomach from santorum.

when we return, we will tell you what he said wrong and what the reality is, right here on current. special event is brought to you by spiriva handihaler.

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it's like chicken and crunchy stuff got married! i only use french's french fried onions on my crunchy onion chicken because it's america's number one brand. just minutes to make, then bake! >> because i held its hand. >> all right, we are back on current's coverage of the republican national convention. it is politically direct, vice president gore with me, governor spitzer, governor granholm and john fuselsang. rick santorum had misinformation that we're going to break down for you. >> in the social media an interesting observation from a seasoned political observer who notes that in the convention voting earlier there were more

votes against mitt romney than any republican nominee since gerald ford in 1976, and of course that division in the party in 1976 contributed greatly to president ford's defeat in his reelection campaign. i don't know how significant that is, but we started the evening talking about the ron paul supporters walking out the lack of enthusiasm from different parts of the republican party. this is a tangible measure of that, and it could be a straw in the wind. >> the man behind us on the screen santorum finally gave his delegates over to mitt romney but reluck aptly so, hard to bring him back into the tent. they weren't sure they were going to give him a speaking spot at the convention until recently. >> i think we have all been observing through the primary season, there is the theological

republican party there's the libertarian, the traditional corporate party which is what mitt romney is from and then you have those. >> the tea party. >> the tea party the extremists and we don't know what they'll become or where they are so four discreet strands there and how they can be woven together if they can be, but that is the challenge, of course. >> here's the take from some of the mainstream media actually "the new york times" says startling to hear how many speaker in tampa think of it's acceptable to make points that have no basis in reality. >> i'm so glad they called that out. here they are saying hey enough is enough, as we watch rick santorum there he did it over and over, august i was part of the people who wrote the welfare to work plan, and that president obama is waiving the

requirement to to work. not true. >> you wrote a book about how we were losing our connection to science, to fact. is it getting worse or better, have we turned the corner? >> i think it is getting worse and of course that particular ad on the welfare, the waivers has been called out and yet they% with it partly because it place a lesser role now that money plays such a dominant role. that they think they can get away with creating an alternate reality and just repeating the big lie over and over again and pushing it down people's throats. >> and i would add one other fact, the theology of libertarianism creating a construct and refuse to accept facts that don't fit into it and that's what we're dealing with here. >> the theology that they are he is spousing now eliot you and

i were governors when the republican governors were begging for flexibility. mitt romney signed a letter in 2005 asking for this. it was signed by every other republican governor. these changes were made at the request of the republican governors. it makes perfect sense states should have flexibility that's why they want to block medicaid. it is such an outrageous plan and the fact that they are getting away with us drives me x-rays. >> cristobal asked for the waiver. >> they are not getting away with it, because you and the rest are holding their feet to the fire. i would like to point out something grotesque santorum said during the break. saying this president's refusal to enforce immigration laws. under this president according to the census, there was a net

zero percentage of illegal immigrants. it just proves once and for all there's nothing worse on your t.v. than a sneering santorum. >> we've got to go to break. that lies, lies and more lies, but we are going to tell you every single one of them after the break. come right back.

>> we're back here in new york listening to ted cruz, a name you will hear in years to come, the shining star, the new toy of the tea party. he is a voice from the far right, don't believe him but listen to hill, an evangelical voice that you should not trust. >> it is the story of the greatest generation who rose up to confront the grotesque evil that was the nazis and ushered in the greatest era of peace and prosperity the world has ever seen. it's the story of civil rights pioneers, like dr. martin luther king who stood up to the scourge of discrimination and bravely

chad that each of us must be judged not by the color of our skin but by the content of our character. [ cheers and applause ] >> it's the story of president ronald regan who turned back the growth of government and restored morning in america. who stood up against the oppressive evil of communism and demanded mr. gorbachev tear down this wall. [ cheers and applause ] >> it's the story of my mom irish and italian working class, the first in her family ever to go to college she became a pioneering computer programmer in the 1950's. it's the story of my father,

imprisoned and tortured in cuba, beaten nearly to death. he fled to texas in 1957, not speaking english with $100 sewn into his underwear. he washed dishes to pay his way through college and to start a small business in the oil and gas industry. my father is here today. when he came to america,. [ speaking spanish ] >> we've listened to ted cruz, the tea party voice. he is good, you are going to hear him. he is an amazing speaker. people who listen to him fall in love with him. when we come back, you will listen to ted cruz. we'll be right back.

cover the convention. but only current coverage will put you at the collision of tv and social media. we'll provide unsurpassed insight into the most buzz worthy tweets, posts and pontifications, from the entire social stratosphere including you. join in, tweet us, and you could be a part of our on-air and online coverage. >>now that is politically direct. new 5 rpm gum. stimulate your senses.

>> back at the republican national convention here, i'm michael shore. >> i'm david shuster. welcome back to our ongoing coverage. michael, what did you think? >> rick son was the first person to bring associate issues to the podium today. made me think that rick santorum is actually giving the key note address to everybody assembled

here and chris christie's speech later is going to be the key note address to america. >> mitt romney this evening speaker after speaker they've been talking about president obama, a little bit on social issues but hardly anything about mitt romney which is i guess why here waiting for ann romney to do all of that. it strikes me how quiet it is in here. >> it's a very quiet hall. whenever president obama's name is brought up, you don't get the kind of boos you would expect to get from this audience. that shows the passion they had about their ticket, maybe has to do with yesterday being a night off. >> i covered the convention in 2008 minneapolis it feels very much like a first night sort of b list speaker but even so, the quiet. >> they're considering ann romney chenk an a list speaker. >> maybe they are all out

getting barbecue until she speaks. thanks guys, really good point about not mentioning romney's name at pull. ted cruz, believe it or not is still speaking. this is a really pivotal character here. >> with apologies to barack obama. can we restore the constitution? [ cheers and applause ] >> yes, we can. >> can we retake the senate? >> yes! >> can we repeal obamacare? >> yes, we can! >> and can we defeat president barack obama? [ cheers and applause ]

>> stand together with mitt romney and paul ryan. retore the american love story. that, my friend, is change we can believe in. thank you and god bless you. >> it is so funny that he ended on that note, because during the break, i was telling everybody here he is their obama and he ends with the obama lines on yes we can and change we can believe in. he's their obama but crazy. you have to understand, this is a guy who believes the u.n. is on a plot with george zorros to kill the game of golf and force them into habit homes. it's cuckoo for cocoa puffs. he is using the constitution as a prop. he has got it in the background.

these are the same tea party guys who say we should take away the 17th amendment. they are not in favor of the constitution, they are not in favor of democracy. the fourth amendment, when is the last time we gave a damn about the fourth amendment. they love the warrantless searches bush started. he's a dangerous kind of popular figure out of texas. >> one of the reasons why hes dangerous is that he has an unbelievable pedigree. he went to harvard law school, he was in the law review, clerked for a supreme court justice, that's the cream of the crop. he has studied all of these very conservative economic philosophers. he is somebody who is seen as crafting the heart and soul of the republican particularly the tea party message. if he gets elected and of course he probably will be, because he just won his primary in texas he's going to be a figure to be reckoned with. >> two quick points here.

he won his primary against the republican's establishment candidate who started out as the favorite and i think it's a little bit -- well, it's probably not fair to him to compare him to todd akin, but you have a lot of tea party supported candidates who are winning these primaries and they come in with a lot of enthusiasm and support from the tea party but the net result is in the general election, you begin to get a cast of characters that the swing voters, the moderate voters are just not going to be drawn to, so we'll see. second quick point. i've begun to get the feeling that what we're watching is the first night of the 2016 convention because as we said earlier, they're not really talking about mitt romney. they're displaying their wares as potential candidates the next time around.

i think there's a lot of competition behind the scenes there to get out in front four years from now. >> we've got to leave it right there. artur davis is speaking right now. and nicky haley, also when we return. put you at the collision of tv and social media. we'll provide unsurpassed insight into the most buzz worthy tweets, posts and pontifications, from the entire social stratosphere including you. join in, tweet us, and you could be a part of our on-air and online coverage. >>now that is politically direct.

it's like chicken and crunchy stuff got married! i only use french's french fried onions on my crunchy onion chicken because it's america's number one brand. just minutes to make, then bake!

>> all right, we're back on politically direct here on current tv covering the republican national convention. artur davis is speaking now. it's an interesting story about him. >> i just want to go back to janine turner, parroting something, the constitution's under assault. i asked her and others what part of the constitution. you referred to this, they said the 17th amendment. i went to law school and had to look it up. this is direct election for the senate. what are they talking about? these guys you are living in a dream world. you tries to where are we under assault. the president's health care act is constitutional, the most conservative court in history says it's constitutional. they make it up. their economic narrative completely pablum.

>> it actually would give more power to the funders if they can get the state senators to vote for a united states senator rather a direct democracy so it steals power from the people, gives it to the rich and then pretends that they're doing it in favor of the people and in favor of the constitution when it's the exact opposite. >> governor perry was a big guy in favor of not letting people pick their own senators anymore. it has been ron paul consistently throughout this election cycle pointing out this only congress can drawer war and we haven't declared war as a nation since 1941 and we see how much they appreciate ron paul's grasp of the constitution. >> they don't like that kind of talk at all. artur davis used to be a democratic until recently, ran for governor of alabama as a democratic, lost in the primary switches over to becoming a republican. he uses corporate money as a democratic. it's not like he was the most progressive guy, but he has now

flipped entirely, and says some of the most skatinging things against president obama, using a occur get out there on television all of the time. it reminds me of joe ricketts campaign, the guy who owns the chicago cubs, got caught where they were going to do this racial line of attack against president obama in this election cycle, bring back wright. the people who wrote the memo said we need a person who is black to be the front person for our attacks. as i watch the congressional reaction to them, i think they might have gotten their guy. the letter sent about him now before he spoke was unbelievable. they said how could you switch almost all of your positions seemingly overnight because apparently he voled with president obama 95% of the time. and he said that if president obama was a beacon of freedom and a model these are all what's and then turns around and says all of a sudden, oh,

no, president obama is long and destroyed our economy. they all but called him a sellout and i think he had it coming. >> their letter didn't say we can only conclude your actions are the result of a nakedly political and personal calculation or anguish after failing to secure the nomination for governor of alabama in 2010. i think it's more the form are than the latter. i think it's a guy who said i've got to look out for my family, where's the money? >> i hope he and chris high five each other on the way across. >> charlie crist was absolutely right. [ laughter ] >> crist in fairness was a much more gradual evolution. >> the party has shifted so much even since the time charlie crist was governor of florida. i used to praise him as governor of florida.

>> speaking of conversion, look who's here. >> governor nikki haley from south carolina. >> my parents reminded me every day how blessed i am to live in this country that only in america, we could be as successful as we wanted to be and nothing would stand in our way. my parents started a business in the living room of their home and 30 plus years later, it was a multi-million dollars company. but there wasn't a single day that it was easy, and there wasn't a single day that my mom and dad didn't put everything they had into making that business. so president obama with all due respect, don't tell me that my parents didn't build their business. [ applause ]

>> almost 45 years after my parents first became americans i stand before you and then tonight as the proud governor of south carolina. we build things, we build cars, we had the four largest tire producers in the world and are about to become the number one tire producing state in the country. not too long ago the wall street journal said anyone still thinking the u.s. has lost its manufacturing chops hasn't been to south carolina. we have so much potential and so much to be proud of, but like so many states, we have our challenges. weather they be unemployment or education or poverty and like so many of my governors i work

in day in and day out to try and improve the lives of people in my state and sadly the hardest part of my job continues to be this federal government, this administration, and this president. [ cheers and applause ] >> as i said, my parents loved that when they came to america if you worked hard, the only things that could stop you were the limits you placed on yourself. unfortunately, these past few years, you can work hard, try to be as successful as possible, follow the rules and president barack obama will do everything he can to stand in your way. south carolina passed one of the immigration laws of this country. what did our president do? he sued us.

if this president. [ booing ] >> if this president refuses to secure our borders refuses to protect our sit accepts from the dangers of illegal immigration then states have to take it upon ourselves. [ applause ] >> we said in south carolina that if you have to show a picture i.d. to buy sudafed to set foot on an airplane, then you have to show picture i.d. to protect one of the most valuable most sacred rights in america, the right to vote! [ applause ] and what happened? president obama stopped us. and now we come to the most

unbelievable of them all. in 2009 south carolina was blessed to welcome a great american company that chose to stay in our country to continue to do business. that company was bowing. [ cheers and applause ] >> boeing started new line for their 787 dream liner creating a thousand new jobs in south carolina. at the same time they expanded their job numbers in washington state by 2,000. not a single person was hurt by their decision, not one. and what did president obama and his national labor board relations do? they sued this iconic american company. it was shameful and not worthy of the promise of america. [ applause ] >> but we did one of the things

we do best in south carolina, we got loud. [ cheers and applause ] >> we're fighters in south carolina and as we fought we watched an amazing thing happen. you fought with us. [ applause ] >> and guess what? we won. [ cheers and applause ] >> a few months ago, i sat on the tar mark at the boeing facility in north charleston as watched as a new mac daddy plane rolled on to the runway sporting a made with pride in south carolina decal, and surrounded by 6,000 non-union employees, cheering, and so proud of what they had built. [ cheers ] >> we're going to start analyzing the speaking here and other attacks on the unions on

the boeing issue. obviously unions give money to the democrats. that's why they do it. >> we have all been commenting here on some of the -- this is the most negative set of speeches i have heard. not a single affirmative argument for mitt romney. it's interesting because the largest thematic is against immigrants and those against government of course completely weeding out the reality of the enormous benefits, some of their deserved, but the duplicity and the lack of constancy in the analysis is simply shocking. >> i have a point to make. watched the olympics. and in volleyball they have the set up for a spike. and governor grandholm just

bragged how her state has been coming back as the leading manufacturer of cars. what other industry is connected to the success of the tire industry. >> i wonder. the president deserves a nice love letter for keeping the auto company afloat. >> uh-huh. >> let's keep listening to governor haley here. >> this is a man -- not just a candidate looking for election but a yearning to return america to what i once was and his greatest silver bullet he has his wife ann romney. ann is the perfect combination of strength and grace.

she does what so many people in america think. she raised five amazing boys battled ms is a breast cancer survivor, and through it all -- >> after this she is going to mention how ann romney took $5.7 billion in stimulus money. >> she is into this. this is the setup for ann romney. >> it's like the oscars. >> not too long ago, i traveled to michigan to campaign for the romneys. [ cheers and applause ] >> where we tried to bankrupt the auto industry. >> who self-described independents came up to me and said we like what we hear about governor romney and although we don't know everything about him what we do know without a doubt

is that we deserve better than what we have today. >> they couldn't come up with anything positive for mitt romney. what we know for sure is that we don't like president obama. >> that's the message of the convention so far. >> yes. we can do better. >> we want a president who will reform and protect our retirement benefits for future generations. we deserve a president who will fight for american companies not against them. >> that is nikki haley and her misleading set of talking points. as we just told you, ann romney is coming up very soon. let's take a quick break, and it will be interesting to see what direction ann romney goes. will she be the first speaker to actually praise mitt romney?

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[ cheers and applause ] >> politically direct coverage of the republican national convention, with just the right timing. ann romney is stepping up to the stage, and obviously we'll listen to her speech in its entirety. the whole point is to humanize mitt romney. we wish her good luck, kind of.

[ laughter ] [ cheers and applause ] >> wow! what a welcome! [ cheers and applause ] >> thank you, and thank you luce'. i can't wait to see what we're all going to do together. this is going to be so exciting! [ cheers and applause ] >> just so you all know the hurricane has hit landfall and i think we should all take this moment and recognize that fellow

americans are in its path and just hope and pray that all remain safe and no life is lost and no property is lost. so we should all be thankful for this great country and grateful for our first responders and all that keep us safe in this wonderful country. [ applause ] >> well i want to talk to you tonight, not about politics and not about parties, and while there are many important issues we'll hear discussed in this convention and throughout this campaign, tonight i want to talk to you from my heart about our hearts. >> we love you ann! [ cheers and applause ] >> i want to talk not about what divides us but what holds us together as an american family.

i want to talk to you tonight about that one great thing that unites us. that one great thing that brings us our greatest joy when times are good and our deepest solace in our dark hours. tonight i want to talk to you about love. i want to talk to you about the deep and abiding love i have for a man i met at a dance many years ago, and the profound love i have and i know we share for this country. i want to talk about that love so deep only a mother can fathom it. the love we have for our children and our children's children, and i want us to think tonight about the love we share for those americans, our brothers and our sisters, who are going through difficult times, who's days are never easy, nights are always long

and who's work is never done. they are here among us tonight in this hall. they are here in neighborhoods across tampa and all across america. the parents who lie awake at night side by side wondering how to pay the mortgage the single dad who is working extra hours tonight, so his kids can go back to school, take a school trip or play a sport. so his kids can feel just like other kids. and the working moms who love their jobs but would like to work just a little less to spend more time with the kids. but that's just out of the question with this economy. or how about that couple who would like to have another child but wonder how they can afford it. i have been all across this country, and i know a lot of you guys. [ cheers and applause ] [ laughter ] >> and i have seen and heard

stories of how hard it is to get ahead now. you know what? i have heard your voices. they have said to me i'm running in place, and we just can't get ahead. sometimes i think that late at night, if we were all silent for just a few moments and listen carefully we could hear a collective sigh from the moms and dads across america who made it through another day, and know they will make it through another one tomorrow but in that end of day moment they just aren't sure how, and if you listen carefully, you're hear the women sighing a little bit more than the men. it's how it is, isn't it? it's the moms who have always had to work a little harder to make everything right. it's the moms of this nation who really hold this country together. we're the mothers. we're the wives. we're the grandmothers, big

sisters, little sisters, and we are the daughters. you know it is true, don't you? [ cheers and applause ] >> i love you women! [ cheers and applause ] [ laughter ] >> and i hear your voices. [ laughter ] >> there's -- those are my favorite fans down there. [ cheers ] >> you are the ones that have to do a little bit more and you know what it is like to work a little harder during the day to deserve the respect you deserve at work, and then you come home at night and work on the book work, and you know the fastest route to the local emergency room, and which doctors actually answer the phone call when you call at night. by the way i know all about

that. you know what it is like to sit in that graduation ceremony and wonder how the years went by so quickly. you are the best of america. [ applause ] >> you -- [ applause ] . >> -- you are the hope of america. there would not be an america without you. tonight we solute you and sing your praises. [ cheers and applause ] >> i'm not sure if men really understand this, but i don't think there's a woman in america who really expects her life to be easy. our own ways we all know better. you know what and that's fine. we don't want easy, but the last few years have been harder than they needed to be. the price at the pump you just can't believe. the grocery bills that just get

bigger. all of those things that used to be free. like school sports are now one more thing to pay. and the good jobs the chance at college, that home you want to buy just gets harder. we're tee smart to know there aren't easy answers, but which ear not dumb enough to accept that there aren't better answers. [ cheers and applause ] >> and that is where this boy i met at a high school dance comes in, his name is mitt romney and you should really get to know him. [ cheers and applause ] >> i could tell you why i fell him in love with him. we was tall laughed a lot. he was nervous.

girls liked that. he was nice to my parents but he was always really glad when they weren't around. but more than anything he made me laugh. some of you may not know this but i am the granddaughter of a welsh coal miner. my dad got a job cleaning bottles. when he was 15 dad came to america. in our country he saw hope and opportunity to escape from poverty. he moved to a small town in the great state of michigan. [ cheers and applause ] >> michigan! [ laughter ] [ cheers and applause ] >> there he started a business one he built by himself by the way. [ laughter ] [ cheers and applause ]

>> he raised a family and he became mayor of our town. my dad would often remind my brothers and me how fortunate we were to grow up in a place like america. he pushed us to be our best and give our all. inside the houses that lined the streets of our town, there were a lot of good fathers teaching our sons and daughters those same values. one of those dads was my future father-in-law, george romney. [ cheers and applause ] >> mitt's dad never graduated from college. he became a carpenter. he worked hard. became the head of a car company, and then the governor of michigan. when mitt and i met and fell in love, we were determined not to let anything stand in our way. there are many reasons to delay

marriage, and we just didn't care. we got married and move into a basement apartment. [ cheers and applause ] >> we walked to class together shared the house, ate a lot of pasta and tuna fish. our desk was a door propped up on saw horses. our dining room table was a fold down ironing board in the kitchen, but then our first son came along. all at once i had a baby and a husband going to business school and law school at the same time. and i can tell you like any girl in this situation that it dawned on me that i had absolutely no idea what i was getting into. [ laughter ] >> well, that was 42 years ago. i have survived.

we now have five sons and 18 beautiful grandchildren. [ cheers and applause ] >> i'm still in love with that boy i met at a high school dance, and he still makes me laugh. [ cheers and applause ] >> i read somewhere that mitt and i have a story book marriage. well, let me tell you something, in the story books i read there never were long long rainy winter afternoons in a house with five boys screaming at once, and those story books never seemed to have a chapter called ms or breast cancer. a story book marriage? not at all. what mitt romney and i have is a real marriage. [ cheers and applause ]

>> i know the good and decent man for what he is. he is warm and loving and patient. he has tried to live his life with a set of values centered on family, faith, and love of one fellow man. i have seen him spent countless hours helping others. i have seen him drop everything to help a friend in trouble. and been there when late night calls of panic come from a member of our church who's child has been taken to the hospital. you may not agree with his politics, and massachusetts is is only 18% republican so it's not a shock to me -- but let me say this to every american who is thinking about who should be our next president.

no one will work harder. no one will care more. and no one will move heaven and earth like mitt romney to make this country a better place to live. [ cheers and applause ] >> it is true that -- it's true that mitt has been successful at each new challenge he has taken on. you know what actually amazing me to see his history of success being attacked.

are those really the values that made our country great? >> no! >> no! >> as a mommid voice do we want to raise our children to be afraid of success? >> no. >> do we send our children out into the world with the advice, try to go okay? >> no! >> and if the last four years had been more successful do we really think there would be this attack on mitt romney's success? >> no! >> of course not. mitt will be the first to tell you he is the most fortunate man in the world. he had two loving parents. he had the chance to get the education his father never had, but as his partner on this amazing journey, i can tell you mitt romney was not handed success. he built it! [ cheers and applause ]

[ chanting let's go mitt ] >> he stayed in massachusetts after graduate school and got a job. i saw the long hours that started with that first job. i was there when he had a small group of friends talking about starting a new company. i was there when they struggled, and wondered if the whole idea just wasn't going to work. mitt's reaction was to work harder and press on. today that company has become another great american success story. has it made those who started the company successful beyond their dreams? yes, it has. it made all of those long hours of book reports and homework worth every minute.

it has given us though deep satisfaction of helping others in ways that we could have never imagined. this is important. i want you to hear what i'm going to say. mitt doesn't like to talk about how he has helped others because he sees it as a privilege, not a political talking point. [ cheers and applause ] >> we are no different than the millions of americans who quietly help their neighbors, their churches and their communities. they don't do it so that others will think more of them. they do it because there is no greater joy. give and it shall be given unto you.% [ cheers and applause ]

>> but because this is america, that small company which grow has helped so many others lead better lives the jobs they took have helped educatation, scholarships, pensions and retirement funds. is america. dreams fulfilled. help others launch new dreams. [ cheers and applause ] >> at every turn in his life this man i met at a high school dance has helped lift up others. he did it with the olympics when many wanted to give up. he did it in massachusetts where he guided the state from economic crisis to unemployment of just 4.7%. under mitt massachusetts's schools were the best in the nation, the best.

[ cheers and applause ] >> he started something that i really love. he started the john and abigail adams scholarship which gives the top 25% of high school graduates a four-year tuition-free scholarship. [ cheers and applause ] >> this is the man america needs! [ cheers and applause ] >> this is the man who will wake up every day with the determination to solve the problems that others say can't be solve, to fix what others say is beyond repair! this is the man that will work harder than anyone so we can work a little less hard. i can only stand here tonight as a wife and mother and grandmother, an american and make you this solemn commitment. this man will not fail. [ cheers and applause ]

>> this man will not let us down! this man will lift up america! it has been 47 years since that tall kind and charming young man brought me home from our first dance, but he still makes me laugh, and never once did i have a single reason to doubt they was the luckiest woman in america tonight. i said i wanted to talk to you about love. look into your hearts. this is our country. this is our future.

these are our children and grandchildren. you can trust mitt. [ cheers and applause ] >> he loves america. he will take us to a better place just as he took me home safely from that dance. give him that chance. give america that chance. god bless each and every one of you, and god bless the united states of america. [ cheers and applause ] ♪ >> we're all dying to talk about that ann romney speech. some good parts -- >> there he is. >> there he is. >> there is mitt romney of course. coming out to greet her.

perhaps he is a surprise guest. wow, what a surprise. >> amazing. amazing. >> all right. now when we come back we will of course see chris christie and hopefully analyze the ann romney a little bit. we have all taken copious notes. we'll all be right back. ♪ talking about my girl talking about my girl ♪ ♪ my girl ♪ [ cheers and applause ] (vo) this politically direct special event is brought to you by spiriva handihaler.

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>> thank you all very much. thank you. >> republican national convention coverage, and governor chris christie just stepped on stage.

let's listen in. >> a new jersey republican delivering the keynote address to our national convention. [ cheers and applause ] >> from a state -- from a state with 700,000 more democrats than republicans. a new jersey republican stands before you tonight. proud of my party. proud of my state, and proud of my country. [ cheers and applause ] >> now -- now i am the son of an irish father, and a sicilian mother. [ cheers and applause ] >> my dad, who i'm blessed to have here with me tonight is gregarious outgoing, and lovable. my mom who i lost eight years ago, was the enforcer. she made sure we all knew who set the rules. tell it to you this way, this

the automobile of life dad was just a passenger. mom was the driver. [ applause ] >> now they both lived hard lives. dad grew up in poverty, and after returning from army service, we worked at the breyer's ice cream plant in the 1950s. with that job and the gi bill he put himself through rutgers university at night to become the first in his family to earn a college degree. [ applause ] >> and our -- our first family picture was on his graduation day with my mom beaming next to him six months pregnant with me. now mom also came from nothing. she was raised by a single mother who took three different buses every day to get to work and mom spent the time that she was supposed to be a kid

actually raising children, her younger brother and younger sister. she was tough and nails and didn't suffer fools at all, and the truth was she couldn't afford to. she spoke the truth bluntly directly and without much varnish. i am her son. [ laughter ] [ cheers and applause ] >> i was her son -- i was her son as i listened to darkness on the edge of town with my high school friends on the jersey shore. [ cheers and applause ] >> i -- i was her son when i moved into that studio apartment with mary pats [ inaudible ] who is now 26 years old. i was her son as i watched with pride as our daughter sarah and bridget marched with their

soccer teams in the labor day parade. and i'm still her son today following the rules that she taught to me. mom never thought you would get extra credit just for speaking the truth. and the greatest lesson from mom taught me was this one, there will be times in your life when you have to choose between being loved and being respected. she said always pick being respected. she said that respect could grow into real and lasting love. of course she was talking about women -- [ laughter ] >> -- but i have learned over time that it applies just as much to leadership. in fact i think that advice applies to america more than ever today. [ applause ] >> you see -- see i believe we

have become paralyzed by our desire to be loved. our founding fathers had the wisdom to know that social acceptance and popularity were fleeting, and that this country's principals needed to be routed in strengths greater than the passion and motions of the time. but our leaders today have decided it's more important to be popular and say and do what is easy and say yes rather than to say no when no is what is required. [ applause ] >> and in recent years -- in recent years, we as a country have too often chosen the same path. it has been easy for our leaders to say not us, not now in taking on the really tough issues and unfortunately we have stood silently buy and let them get away with it.

but tonight i say enough. tonight i say together let's make a much different choice. tonight we are speaking up for ourselves, and stepping up. tonight we're beginning to do what is right and what is necessary to make america great again. [ cheers and applause ] >> we are demanding that our leaders stop tearing each other down, and work together to take action on the big face facing america, tonight we'll do what my mother taught me tonight we're going to choose respect over love. [ cheers and applause ] >> see we're not afraid. we are not afraid. we are taking our country back, because we are the great-grandchildren of the men and women who broke their backs in the name of american

ingenuity, the grandchildren and sons and daughters of immigrants, the brothers and sisters of every day here rose the neighborhoods of entrepreneurs and firefighters veterans and factory workers and everyone in between who shows up not just on the big days or the good days, but on the bad days and the hard days each and every day. all 365 of them. you see we are the united states of america. [ cheers and applause ] >> now -- now -- now it's up to us. we must lead the way our citizens live to lead as my mother insisted i live. not by avoiding truths but by facing up to them and being better for it.

we can't afford to do anything less. now i know this because this was the challenge in new jersey when i came into office. i could continue on the same path that the wealth and jobs and people leaving our state, or i could do the job people elected me to do to do the big things. there were those who said it couldn't be done, that the problems were too big, too politically charged, and too broke tone fix, but we were on a path we could no longer afford to follow. they stated was impossible to cut taxes in a state where taxes were raised 115 times in the at it years before i became governor. that it was impossible to balance a budget at the same time with an $11 billion deficit, but three years later we have three balanced budgets in a row with lower taxes. we did it. [ cheers and applause ]

>> they said -- they stated was impossible to touch the third rail of politics, to take on the public sector unions and reform a pence and health benefit system headed to bankruptcy but with by part tan leadership we saved tax pairs $132 billion over eight years, and saved retirees their pensions. we did it. [ cheers and applause ] >> they said -- they stated was impossible to speak the truth to the teachers' union. [ cheers and applause ] >> they were just too powerful. the real teacher tenure reform that demands accountability and ends the guarantee of a job for life regardless of performance. they did it would never happen. but for the first time in 100 years with bipartisan support,

you know the answer. we did it. [ cheers and applause ] >> now -- now the disciples of yesterday's politics they always underestimate the will of the people. they assumed our people were selfish. when told of the difficult problems, tough choices and complicated solutions that they would simply turn their backs, that they would decide it was every man for himself. they were wrong. [ applause ] >> the people of new jersey stepped up and shared in the sacrifice and they rewarded politicians to lead instead of politicians who pandered. [ cheers and applause ] >> but we shouldn't be surprised. we have never been a country to

shy away from the truth. our history shows that we stand up when it counts and it's this quality that has defined america's quality in this world. i know the simple truth, and i'm not afraid to state, our ideas are right for america, and their ideas have failed for america. [ applause ] >> let me be clear with the american people tonight. here is what we believe as republicans, and what they believe as democrats. we believe in telling hard-working families the truth about our country's fiscal realities, telling them what they already know, the math of federal spending does not add up. with $5 trillion in debt, anded over the last four years, we have no other option but to make the hard choices, cut federal

spending and fundamentally reduce the size of this government. [ applause ] >> want to know what they believe? they believe that the american people don't want to hear the truth about the extent of our fiscal difficulties. they believe the american people need to be coddled by big government. they believe the american people are content to live the lie with them. they are wrong. we believe in telling our seniors the truth about our overburdened entitlements. we know seniors want this programs to survive and just as badly want them secured for their grandchildren. our seniors are not selfish. [ applause ] >> here is what they believe. they believe seniors will always put themselves ahead of their

grandchildren, and here is what they do, they pray on their vulnerabilities and scare them with misinformation for the single cynical purpose of winning the next election. here is their plan whistle a happy tune while driving us off the fiscal cliff as long as they are behind the wheel of power when we fall. [ applause ] >> now, we believe that the majority of teachers in america know our system must be reformed to put students first so that america can compete. teachers don't teach to become rich or famous. they teach because they love children. we believe -- [ cheers and applause ] >> we believe we should honor and reward the good ones while doing what is best for our nation's future demanding higher standards, and demanding the best teacher in every classroom in america.

[ cheers and applause ] >> get ready -- get ready. here is what they believe. they believe the educational establishment will always put themselves ahead of children. they believe in pitting unions against teachers educators against parents, lobbyists against children. they believe in teacher's unions. we believe in teachers. [ cheers and applause ] >> we believe -- we believe that if we tell the people the truth that they will act bigger than the pettiness we see in washington, d.c. we believe it's possible to

forge bipartisan compromise and stand up for our conservative principals. [ cheers and applause ] >> you see because it has always been the power of our ideas, not our rhetoric that attracts people to our party. we win when we make it about what needs to be done. we lose when we play along with their game of scaring and dividing. [ cheers and applause ] >> make no mistake about it everybody, the problems are too big to let the american people lose, a spiralling out of control deficit, and an education system that's failing to compete in the word. it doesn't matter how we got here. there's enough blame to go around. what matters is what we do now. [ applause ] >> see, i know -- i know we can fix our problems.

when there are people in the room who care more about doing the job they were elected to do than worry about winning recollections, it's possible to work together, achieve principal compromise and get results for the people who gave us these jobs in the first place. [ cheers and applause ] >> the people have no patience for any other way anymore. it's simple. we need politicians to care more about doing something, and less about being something. [ cheers and applause ] >> and -- and believe me believe me if we can do this in a blue state like new jersey with a conservative republican governor washington, d.c. is out of excuses! [ cheers and applause ]

>> leadership delivers. leadership counts. leadership matters. and here is the great news i came here tonight to bring you. we have this leader for america. we have a nominee who will tell us the truth and lead with conviction, and now he has a running mate who will do the same. we have governor mitt romney and congressman paul ryan and we need to make him the next president, the next president of the united states. [ cheers and applause ] >> see -- you see because i know mitt romney. and mitt romney will tell us the hard truths we need to hear to puts back on a road to growth, and create good-paying private

sector jobs again in america. mitt romney will tell us the hard truths we need to hear to end the debt that is burying our economy. mitt romney will tell us the hard truths we need to hear to end this debacle of putting our healthcare system in the hands of bureaucrats between her and her doctor! [ cheers and applause ] >> now we end in an era of absentee leadership without purpose or principle in new jersey. it is time to end this era of absentee leadership in the white house. america leads mitt romney and paul ryan and we need them right now! [ cheers and applause ]

>> now, we have got to tell each other the truth, right? listen, there is doubt and fear for our future in every corner of our country. i have traveled all over the country and seen this myself. these feelings are real. this moment is real. it's a moment like this where some skeptics wonder if american greatness is over. they wonder if we have a leadership to take america to a new era of challenge. and look around and say yes me. i have an answer for the skeptics and nay sayers. i have faith in us. [ applause ] >> i know -- i know we can be the men and women our country calls on us to be tonight.

i believe in america, our history, and there's only one thing missing now, leadership. you see mr. president, real leaders don't follow polls. real leaders change polls. [ cheers and applause ] >> and that's what we need! that's what we need to do now! we need to change polls through the power of our principles. we need to change polls through the strength of our convictions. 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. [ cheers and applause ]

>> i think tonight -- i think tonight is the greatestest generation, fighting nazi tyranny, standing up for freedom around the world. now it's our time to answer history's call for make no mistake, every generation will be judged and so will we. and what will our children and grandchildren say of us? will say they we buried our heads in the sand? that our problems were too big and were we too small? or will they say of us that we stood up and made the tough choices that needed to be made to preserve our way of life? you see, i don't know about you, but i don't want my children and grandchildren to read the history book what it was like to live in an american century. i don't want an enormous government that has ever taxed,

over spend, and over borrowed! i want them to live in a second american century! [ cheers and applause ] >> a second american century! [ cheers and applause ] >> a second american century of strong economic growth where those who are willing to work hard will have good-paying jobs to support their families and reach their dreams. a second american century where real american exceptionalism is not a political punch line. where it is evident to everyone in the world by the way we conduct our business. a second american century where our military is strong. our values are sure. our work ethic is unmatched, and our constitution remains a model for anyone in the world struggling for liberty. [ applause ] >> let us choose the path that

will be remembered for generations to come standing strong for freedom will make the next century as great as the last one. this is the american way. we have never been victims of destiny, we have always been the masters of our own. [ cheers and applause ] >> and i know -- i know you agree with me on this. i will not be part of the generation that fails that test and neither will you. [ cheers and applause ] >> all right. all right. it is now time to stand up. let's stand up! everybody stand up! stand up! because there's no time left to waste. if you are willing to stand up for me for america's future i will stand up with you if you

are willing to fight with me with mitt romney i will stand with you. if you are willing to hear the hard truths, i am here to begin with you the new era of truth telling tonight! tonight we finally and firmly answer the call that so many generations have had the courage to answer before us. tonight we stand up for mitt romney as the next president of the united states! [ cheers and applause ] >> and together -- [ cheers and applause ] >> and together everybody