thank you for the entire "politicsnation" family for a great year. one year ago tonight we started this show and it's all thanks to you at home. msnbc's special coverage of the republican national convention starts now. four years after the most exciting vice presidential rollout in a generation, the republican party tonight again introduces another young hardlined conservative for their vice presidential nominee. >> the next vice president of the united states. >> like 2008 the party's pick this year is a thrill for the republican base. >> the difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull. >> again this year, the party faithful are already in love. but tonight is paul ryan's chance to win over the rest of the country too. as plaquemines parish in louisiana floods below overtopped levees seven years

after hurricane katrina, isaac is tonight the backdrop as republicans put forward condoleezza rice to speak in primetime. after zero mentions of the name george w. bush on the convention's opening night, the former president finally appears in tampa tonight. on tape. not in person. it's night two of the republican national convention. msnbc's primetime coverage starts right now. good evening. and welcome to paul ryan night in america. i'm rachel maddow here at msnbc headquarters in new york city along with ed shultz and al

sharpton and chris hayes and steve schmidt who was the senior strategist for mccain/palin in 2008. lawrence o'donnell will be leading our coverage from tampa is chris matthews. mitt romney's choice of paul ryan was never a gimme, never seen as the safest choice in the world. to you tonight, chris, what would it look like tonight if that gamble is paying off and what would it look like if the gamble did not work out? >> well, that's great. that's a tough one, rachel. i think we'll see the excitement in the room reach a crescendo with ryan. i think ryan is the spirit of the republican party 2012. i think he's tea party, he's mainstream, he is the party. romney may be the nominee. he's the heart and soul of this party. i think they will show that in the room every face will radiate it. i don't see how they can have a down night tonight. tomorrow night i think is a big question for us all

i think tonight is the night. i think also something happens. i think they made a mistake. they should have put ryan on to put his speech on with romney tomorrow night. there's always the risk he'd outshine him. it's like e.t. calling home. when ryan's in the room with romney, his heart seems to wake up. let's go to the floor. let's go to andrea mitchell on the floor and see if i'm right. is this a ryan crowd or a romney crowd tonight? >> it's definitely a ryan crowd. this is the base and they're about to do the national anthem. so we have the color guard and i think it's hard for us to talk about this during the national anthem. if you could come back to me in just a moment, let's take a quick break. >> yeah. we'll take a break right now. >> that's wise. >> let's go back to rachel. >> actually singing the national anthem tonight is senator scott ronald of massachusetts's

daughter ala. she is in the middle of the national anthem. it's a solemn moment on the stage. congressman ryan who is the star tonight, he has been a party line for the republican party ever since he first got to congress 14 years ago. he is not in the -- he has not passed many bills. two to be precise. one about taxes arrows as in bows and arrows. and one bill renaming a post office. what paul ryan is famous for in congress is not making law. what paul ryan is famous for is for making budgets. paul ryan is famous in the beltway. he's famous in the conservative circles and popular among the republican base even though he's not more widely known in the country. because he is the house republicans budget guy. ezra klein has more on what is important to know about that. >> thank you, rachel. i'm going to start by saying that for most people, pretty much everything you think you

know about paul ryan's budget is wrong. and that of course is presuming you're a budget geek on this. if you are, you've probably heard about it. is the ryan budget, it lowers taxes, cuts the deficits, pays for that by cutting into medicare. that is wrong. you don't have to take my word for it. take paul ryan's words for it. these are the numbers that paul ryan gave to the congressional budget office. this is his plan. what you're seeing here are different categories of federal spending in the budget. mr. ryan's budget is in red. what happens if we did nothing and kept on the path we're going on, that's in blue. the first thing to notice, his cut from medicare is not dramatic. it is his cuts for medicaid and health reform that are much larger. about three times as large as the cut to medicare. so that's really the first thing you need to know. ryan's main cut is not to health care for old people. it is to health care to poor

people. ryan's budget then punts on social security. no change there. the biggest category of cuts is a category you could call everything else. everything. defense spending, infrastructure, education and training, farm subsidies, veterans benefits, food safety, and much, much more on the budget. mr. ryan takes almost as much from this omnibus category from medicare and medicaid combined. and congressman ryan has not said where they'll fall. more to the point, he doesn't have some theory about how to spend less and get more as he does from medicare with the voucher plan. as far as i think budget analysts can tell, he's just slashing categories to make the numbers add up. when you do that, the center on budget proposal po lss, they ran those numbers and if you slash those categories. nearly 2/3 of mr. ryan's $5 trillion plus in cuts will come from programs to the poor. the reason he's got to do that, that he's got to slash so much is he doesn't raise taxes and

the budget, but this is kind of his magic trick. it's important to understanding his budget. paul ryan extends all the bush era tax cuts. then an top of them a new bunch of tax cuts. so how does he pay for them? he just doesn't. mr. ryan told congress's budget guys to assume he would just figure how to pay for them at a later date. he would tell them later. if he were to do that he would have to eliminate tons of popular things on the tax code. child tax credit, mortgage interest deduction, things like that. he's not named one thing he'd eliminate. for anyone saying he would reduce the debt kbli implies he would find a way to pay for those. if he doesn't, that blows another hole in the budget. >> it seems like the important thing here -- well, there's a lot of important things you just said. one is that paul ryan has this

reputation for seriousness and particularly for seriousness about numbers. and when he's described that way, he is described as a deficit hawk. but as you point out, being willing to cut lots of things doesn't necessarily mean that you're doing anything good for the deficit. is that an earned reputation at all? or is it essentially just lazy reporting in the way he's described and people believing the legend? >> it is not an earned reputation. he voted for the bush tax cuts. he voted for the wars. he voted for the prescription drug benefit. he increased the deficit by trillions of dollars by his votes. or was part of it. the reputation comes from being willing to say unpopular things about medicare and medicaid. as you say on the tax side ledger, he is a tax cutter. he is jack kemp's former guy. of paying for tax cuts. the fact he's willing to get quite specific in terms of how much he would cut medicaid for

poor folks but say nothing about how he would pay for his tax cuts given he's got no record of paying for them. makes folks in the budget world suspicious. if he doesn't and he just assumes magic math the tax cuts will pay for themselves through growth, this will destroy the deficit. >> destroy the deficit and a massive, massive transfer of american resources from the poorest people in the country to the richest people in the country. and those are all the specifics we have. ezra, thank you very much for going into detail on that. if there's ever a day on which to understand what paul ryan's reputation ought to have earned him, this is the day we need to understand that. i turn now to lawrence o'donnell who as a senate staffer served in very nuts and bolts erm thes on these financial issues. being at the convention on the convention floor seeing the enthusiasm for paul ryan, how much does it line up with what he's really proposed or is it more people are into the myth? >> there's no one on the floor who cares about the details of

legislation as much as ezra klein does. what you were discussing is the crucial thing that makes paul ryan not a serious person in legislation. rachel, when i was running legislation for the senate it's still true, it separates the amateurs from the people who are serious. and they have to always be able to answer the question how do you pay for it? whatever it is you're proposing. a thousand new fbi agents, or a tax cut, or whatever it is. and the senate finance committee. we always simply asked people when we would bring proposals to us, how do you pay for it? paul ryan's proposals have never been paid for in any way. there's nothing serious in there. the key phrase that i'm looking for paul ryan to not use tonight is something that has been a standard for him in every speech he's ever given about his way of budgeting and about his way of tax cutting. he has always insisted we will be able to cut tax rates by

getting rid of tax shelters. that phrase, tax shelters. he's running with the king of tax shelters. we have never had a presidential candidate who has exploited american tax shelters the way mitt romney has. and it's one thing to talk about deductions which we all use, mortgage deductions, health care deductions. all sorts of deductions that you see on regular tax returns. most of us have never seen, never touched, never used and don't know how to explain a tax shelter. mitt romney is in that rare world where his wealth is built on tax sheltering. and the question is is paul ryan going to go after tax shelters tonight in his speech? i'll be surprised if he does. >> i think the difference between him and the deficit hawks and there's some real deficit hawks in both parties who really do care about getting the deficit down, getting the debt down for all kinds of good reasons. he's not one of them. he gets all the credibility for

being one. he's basically an ayn rand devotee. he's like alan greenspan who believes the dream of ayn rand where the wealth will rule the planet and the others are looters. and that's the way he treats people on welfare, on the poor people programs, on medicaid. he treats them like leeches and therefore they must be cut off. the rich on the other hand have to be rewarded. which raises the question which is the best way to get richer people to work harder and get them tax breaks and to have the poor people work harder to screw them? you cut them down. and rich people to work harder by giving them more. explain how that works in human nature considering we're all people. >> -- which is not the same thing as conservatism. this is a crucial point tonight.

this is probably the big theme for the night 37 the thing that distinguishes the political impact of paul ryan from the political impact of sarah palin as the decision to pick them as the vice presidential nominee is paul ryan has the numbers base seriousness. that is unearned once you actually take the time to look at the numbers. and whether or not that penetrates the sort of aura they have created around him tonight will be key as to whether or not this is a successful launch. >> he also has a chance to have courage for taking tough stands. the crucial thing there is cutting things for poor people is not hard in washington. that's not the hard thing. they don't have good lobbyists. medicare, yes. the medicare battle is a tough battle because people on medicare have social capital and political power. but going after programs that benefit the poor, there's not courageous about that. >> the last republican president george w. bush is not at the

republican convention this year. except on tape. with his dad. but the second president bush's people are all over the republican ticket in ways both seen and unseen. it is key to understanding the real legacy of paul ryan who gets his intro tonight. that story plus the remarks of senator rand paul and senator john mccain are coming up. you're watching the republican national convention here on msnbc. [ male announcer ] wouldn't it be cool if we took the nissan altima and reimagined nearly everything in it? gave it greater horsepower and best in class 38 mpg highway... ...advanced headlights... ...and zero gravity seats? yeah, that would be cool. ♪ introducing the completely reimagined nissan altima. it's our most innovative altima ever. nissan. innovation that excites.

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we are back with msnbc's live coverage of the republican national convention. i'm rachel maddow in new york.

chris matthews is in tampa. paul ryan is going to be the big speaker tonight. >> okay, you know, i was watching mitch mcconnell there and i have to tell you. i think there's a real nonpartisan assessment of that fella. his entire gall he's laid out from the minute obama was nominated and elected his goal was to get rid of him. he wanted to throw him out of the room from day one before he'd had a drink. this guy had been a negative force in american politics now for three years, mitch mcconn l mcconnell. let's go to chuck todd down on the convention floor. chuck? >> you know, chris, what's interesting here. i've been talking to a lot of republicans both in the super pac world in the last couple days and the romney world. they have all seen the same thing and in fact democrats have

seen the same thing which the numbers have moved in wisconsin. wisconsin has moved from a five to ten-point lead for the president down to anywhere from two to four points. it's very much in play. in fact, i've even had some republicans intimate to me, if ohio is going south on them, they hope to replace ohio with wisconsin. now, later tonight we're going to go to the map. we're going to the battle ground map and show how possible that is. it's possible for romney to get to 270 without ohio and replacing it with wisconsin, but it's still difficult. but one thing i'd caution a lot of people on with wisconsin is the president and the democrats have yet to run any advertising there. we actually haven't seen much from mitt romney either. we've seen some super pac money. let's see where the state is on september 15. the first round of polling we see in mid-september, after the ryan pick is settled in. that's when we're going to know how seriously it is in play. now, i think it's going to stay

in play because of the recall effort. it's the most organized state in the country. every voter's been identified. and i think we know the place is pretty polarized. by the way, paraphernalia down here, the wisconsin delegates are handing out cutout masks of ryan tonight as you could see. so you may see a lot of this. in fact, you can poke out the blue eyes. i don't have blue eyes so i don't know if that's a good idea. why would you replace paul ryan's blue eyes? >> thanks, chuck. back to you, rachel. >> the good thing is once you poke the eyes out, you can apply them to your eyelids and you can have paul ryan's beautiful eyes. that's the joy of those things. it's the point of having them. chuck just said that about wisconsin and ohio, i want to bring steve schmidt in here. when it comes to it on november 6th, what the whole country

thinks as a unit is much less important than what the important swing states think. and the ryan/romney folks or romney/ryan folks, the choice of paul ryan is popular in his home state. chuck raising the issue that while the polls have shifted in their position, they haven't contested wisconsin yet. how do you weight those variables? running advertising and competing there versus picking your vice presidential nominee from there? >> one of the things you want to get when you pick the vice presidential nominee is to put the home state in play. wisconsin is a state that republicans competed in. we did it in the bush campaign in 2004. we didn't win. we never really got close in 2008. but theoretically, wisconsin is a state that republicans can be competitive in. if you look at the race since paul ryan has been picked, president had a roughly five-point lead in the real

clear politics average. it's now roughly down to one point. the race has tightened over the last couple weeks. i think everybody agrees if the election was held tomorrow, the president would be re-elected. some time if romney is to be elected, he's going to have to pass the president and not look back. and part of what republicans have to be looking for out of this convention is when he's done speaking on thursday night and that polling begins. friday, saturday, tough to get samples, you know, for republicans just over the weekend. but by sunday, monday republicans want to see mitt romney ahead outside the margin of error for the first time in the race. that will recede. the democrats will have a bounce out of their convention. but republicans want to see does the republican argument work. is there elasticity in it to spread the field for the first time. is there a response in the middle of the electorate.

as we get through this week. >> this is an opportunity for paul ryan tonight to introduce himself to the state of wisconsin. he comes from an area where there's no media -- major media market. he's never run or won state office. he is a guy who has come from an area that's rural and conservative. so this is a great opportunity for him. the conservatives view him as this is the next generation. we've got a 42-year-old guy that could be on the stage for a long time politically for what our ideology is all about. he's not going there tonight to talk about numbers and how he's going to pay for cuts. he's going to sell them i'm a good guy, i got a vision for the future, i represent a lot of you 40-somethings. and i think we can take the country in a new direction. he's going to sell, i think, hard a new generation of conservativism tonight. >> i think in order to do that tonight he's got to bask in this

reputation he's got mostly from the conservative media but also from the beltway that he is this serious guy who can be counted on for serious policy solutions. remember when that was newt gingrich's brand for like five minutes. then he started seeing he's a direct scam artist and it doesn't make sense. i feel like we're ready for that reveal on paul ryan. >> the question is going to be whether he has five minutes or three. because the first thing he's got to do and i agree with ed. he's got to sell himself but also sell an argument. steve schmidt is saying if he and romney tonight and tomorrow don't have an argument that they come out of this convention, because we didn't get one last night. everybody that spoke other than ann romney acted as if the nominee was an afterthought. >> or themselves. >> i'm great. i should be the guy. look what i did on my state. and on the way out, oh yeah i forgot to support mitt romney. that's how it went. tonight, the problem is he's

never been on that big stage. i've never been a nominee but i've been there. you're sitting there in that hotel, all your attendants are sitting there. they don't have to walk out there. ryan's got to walk out there by himself. you don't even see people. you don't see the cameras. you see lights. and it's going to hit him. here i am. and i'm going to walk off here a champ or a chump. and nobody's going to make that walk for him. and he's got to walk out there tonight and face the rest of his life. and he could either flunk or he could come out of there a hero. if he comes out a hero, then he's got to worry can romney come up tomorrow night? >> but bob graham still complains about having to follow you in that convention because you were so good. >> chris, you want to jump in there? >> yeah. he's also hedging his bets. like joe lieberman ran for the re-elections of senator when we ran with al gore just to make sure he had a job to go back to. wisconsin is one of those states you can run for the house and

the vice presidency which he is doing. he has a plan if it doesn't work. he's still chairman probably and he goes back into action again with or without the help of mitt romney. so the guy isn't betting everything on this game. >> predictably the romney campaign of course at this point likes to talk a lot about paul ryan but they would rather not talk about president george w. bush. the romney/ryan ticket, particularly the ryan part of it ends up being chest deep in george w. bush and of its own volition. we've got that and mr. bush's only appearance in tampa and all the action from the convention floor coming up. plus the weird fight that unfolded in public today between the former vice presidential nominee of the republican party sarah palin and her employer at fox news. it's about john mccain. it happened in public. we've got the details ahead. you're watching msnbc's live coverage of the republican convention. managing my diabetes is part of my life,

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welcome back to msnbc's live coverage of the republican convention. senator rand paul of kentucky is speaking. let's listen in. >> -- before you speak. so i've had time to count to ten, and you know what? i still think it's unconstitutional. do you think justice scalia and justice thomas have changed their mind? i think if james madison himself, the father of the constitution, were here today, he would agree with me. the whole damn thing is still unconstitutional. this debate is not new and it's not over.

hamilton and madison thought from the beginning about how the government would be limited by the enumerated powers. madison was unequivocal. the powers of the federal government are few and defined. the power to tax and spend is restricted by the enumerated powers. so how do we fix this travesty of justice? there's only one option left. we have to have a new president. when i heard the current president say you didn't build that, i was first insulted. then i was angered. and then i was saddened that

anyone in our country much less the president of the united states believes that roads create business success and not the other way around. anyone who so fundamentally misunderstands american greatness is uniquely unqualified to lead this great nation. the great and abiding lesson of american history, particularly the cold war is that the engine of capitalism, the individual is mightier than any collective. american -- american inventiveness and desire to build developed because we were

guaranteed the right to own our success. for most of our history, no one dared tell americans you didn't build that. in bowling green, kentucky, the tang family owns the great american doughnut shop. their family fled war-torn cambodia to come to this country. my kids and i love to eat doughnuts so we go there frequently. the tangs work long hours. mrs. tang told us that the family works through the night to make doughnuts. the tang family have become valedictorians and national merit scholars. the tangs from cambodia are an american success story. so mr. president, don't you go telling the tang family that they didn't build that.

when you say they didn't build it, you insult each and every american that ever got up at the crack of dawn. you insult any american who ever put on overalls or a suit. you insult any american who ever studied late into the night to become a doctor or a lawyer. you insult the dishwasher, the cook, the waitress. you insult anyone who has dragged themselves out of bed to strive for something better for themselves and their children. my great grandfather like many game to this country in search of the american dream. no sooner had he stepped off the boat than his father died. he arrived in pittsburgh as a teenager with nothing. not a penny. he found the american dream. not great wealth, but a bit of property and a new land that gave him hope for his children. in america as opposed to the old country, success was based on

merit. probably america's greatest asset was that for the first time success was not based on who you were but what you did. my grandfather had lived to see his children become doctors and ministers, accountants and professors. he would li to see one of his sons a certain congressman from texas -- a certain congressman from texas run for the presidency of the united states. immigrants have flocked to our shores to seek freedom.

so full of hopes and dreams. so consistent and prif lent were these aspirations that they crystallized into a national yearning. we call the american dream. no other country has a dream so inextricably associated with the spirit of its people. in 1982 an american sailor john moony wrote a letter to his parents that captures the essence of the american dream. he wrote dear mom and dad, today we spotted a boat in the water and we rendered assistance. we picked up 65 vietnamese refugees. as they approached the ship, they were all waving and trying as best they could to say hello, american sailor. hello, freedom man. it's hard to see a boat full of people like that and not get a lump somewhere between chin and belly button and it makes one proud and glad to be an american. it reminds us of all what america's been.

a place a man or a woman can come to for freedom. tatrin are brothers and friends of mine. they came to america on one of those leaky boats. they were attacked at sea by pirates. their family's wealth was stolen. twan spent a year on a south pacific island existing on a cup of rice and water until he was allowed to come to america. now both of these men and their family are proud americans. hung owns his own business and twan manages a large company. they are the american dream. so mr. president, don't go telling the tring family you didn't build that. when the president says you didn't build that, he's flatout

wrong. businessmen and women did build that. businessmen and women did earn their success. without the success of american business, we wouldn't have any roads, brinls or schools. mr. president, you say the rich must pay their fair share. but when you seek to punish the rich, the jobs that are lost are those of the poor and the middle class. when you seek to punish mr. exxonmobil, you punish the secretary that owns the stock. when you block the keystone pipeline, you punish the welder who works on the pipeline. >> u.s. senator rand paul of kentucky in a speech that was -- it was contested as to whether or not either ron paul or his son would get this speech. he's got a big 15 minute

speaking slot tonight early in the night, but in primetime. >> i think that wins contentiousness award on you didn't build that rift. my ancestors game it's a place to be judged on merit and not who you are. this is the son of a united states congressman who has no plausible case that he would be a united states senator but for the fact that he's inherited all of this privilege and this last name talking about what a agreement experiment america is. appropriating the story of other people's social mobility to make his case for why america is he stands up there without acknowledgment. >> his remarks as prepared for delivery were distributed by the rnc. it says the honorable ron paul they put his dad's name up top. >> that's why he's there. and for him to talk about merit and act like there's no gender

gap in this country, no class gap, no race gap. but to start out with talking about this is still a battle in this country over states rights as opposed to a strong national government. clearly this is what this is about. because they wont every state who can vote. the want every state to now decide who gets health care. so we're really having a 21st century version of the civil war all over again. then when you deal with the fact that he's saying businesses built the roads rather than the roads helped business. like the businesses would tax themselves if there wasn't a government to tax them. so the government -- if the government didn't tax them, they would build these businesses and tax themselves. it's the ultimate trickle down philosophy. we've got the trickle, we never got the jobs. >> a point he made earlier about paul ryan with change. rand paul's one of the big four

at this convention who i think as you look ahead, obviously very talented guy from a speaking perspective. marco rubio, rand paul, chris christie, paul ryan. there's a great chance one day we'll see them all on the debate stage in that long presidential primary season. >> this is the new wave. >> a lot of enthusiasm in that hall for rand paul. >> this is interesting. it's a take we've never heard. we're actually punishing the oil companies. he said we're punishing the oil companies. they get billions of dollars in subsidie subsidies, at record profits over the last five years and we're punishing them. >> punishing the secretaries. >> i love the fact -- i can't believe i'm thinking of this before reverend sharpton thinks of this. here's the guy saying the health care bill is still unconstitutional. let's reset and go back to what he said when he ran for the senate. he said the civil rights act of 1964 was unconstitutional. and i wouldn't be surprised if he's correct, reverend sharpton,

in this case because i would assume that that synchronized swim team of scalia and thomas may well have voted to make that unconstitutional as well. but i tell you, we have to remember this guy's claims before. it's not just one bill that's unconstitutional. all progressive legislation, all landmark legislation i think falls into the category, his category, of unconstitutional. >> and, you know, i think there's one thing that sort of brings these things together which is that rand paul is of this new generation of republicans that does have an enthusiastic following even when nay say things hard lined. where rand paul got into trouble for not being able to answer whether the civil rights act was unconstitutional was on my show. where he announced he was running was on my show. before he became a united states senator, he was willing to engage with liberals like me who are the enemy. but now absolutely not. >> i had read reports that tonight's speech, there were

several reports that said tonight's speech he was going to get up and say defense spending cannot be sacred. that if we're serious about the deficit, serious about the debt, defense -- there were rumors. that was early draft. >> we have to be careful when we talk about new generations, steve. like we're saying they have a new message. he's gone back to jefferson and madison. he could be younger, but it's a younger version of the same old states rights, don't pass civil rights bills, don't deal with womens rights. i don't care how old he is. what i care is he's trying to turn the clock back. if somebody breaks in my house and wants to turn the clock back, i don't care if they're 12 years old or 70. >> let's be clear about something. most every republican in the country believes in the constitutionality and the civil rights act. his position notwithstanding. it's an outlier position. what he's talking about is the fact by design in our constitutional system, it's one

of enumerated powers. that in the constitution specific powers are granted to the federal government. and obviously one of the differences we have, me from all of you, is our role in conception of the size of the federal government. its legitimacy. that's not to make the point we ought to step back on the great accomplishments that have been made with the civil rights act and the voting rights acts that were passed as chris matthews would tell you a lot of republican votes back in the day. >> but they're now controversial. >> i don't think controversial on republican politics. >> i got a bit of reporting on this i should share with you. we got a bit of surprising news on the subject earlier in the day today. anthony torell reported that ron paul himself left the convention early today to go home to texas. there is this -- interesting dynamic inside republican politics. this persistent animosity about ron paul republicans and this

party that plainly does not want them. is not comfortable with having them around. that made for a mess yesterday as they tried to adopt their party rules. >> all those in favor signify by saying aye. all those opposed, no. the ayes have it. the resolution is adopted. >> now, those were pro-life people and tea party people unhappy about the changes. they were those shouting no there. but the bulk of the resistance is the ron paul folks. he told reporters this week he does not fully endorse mitt romney. he said he considers himself an undecided voter for november. ron paul himself turned down a speaking spot at the convention even though they released his son's remarks as if they were ron paul's. now ron paul has left altogether which has made this sort of a weird and oddly suspenseful hour

for the rnc. they aired a ron paul tribute video, they gave his son a 15 minute speaking slot which you saw moments ago. this faction of the party that ron and rand paul stand for amains basically unreconciled with the rest of the party. and as ron paul himself leaves the building and leaves tampa and goes home to not see any of it as the party extends this tentative olive branch to him. it's amazing. i love this stuff. suggests that senator john mccain was not a huge fan personally of his then rival mitt romney. it is clearer than that that he is not a fan of president obama. tonight the standard bearer addresses the rnc. that's in just a few minutes. you're watching msnbc's live coverage. stay with us. here's my morning routine. gotta start the day off right. wardrobe. cute.

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one of the mantras of the reagan administration was personnel is policy. who you hire, who you pick for important jobs determines what you get in terms of policy. the same principle applies to the conventions where personnel is politics. who you pick for speaking slots, who you highlight when the spotlight is on your party like this shapes the politics of your tam pain. who you pick for the convention matters. who you don't pick matters as

well. we turn to alex wagner. >> yes, choices do matter. perhaps the most notable absence from the roster of speakers at the republican convention is george w. bush. at conventions, former presidents traditionally hand off the baton to the new nominee. the republican party did not have george w. bush and dick cheney on hand to bless the mccain/palin ticket, which was perhaps not a huge surprise given that the bush approval rating was at a near historic cloe at 29%. and it may be a surprise that the former president won't be on hand this year, either. his latest favorability rating was 14 points higher than in 2008, but as of this past june, two thirds of americans still blame him for this country's current economic woes. still, that does not mean that the george w. bush era is as invisible at tonight's festivities as it is tonight. there's a tribute to both bushes

which the convention aired on the convention hall floor. there's also condoleezza rice, george w. bush's former secretary of state and national security adviser, indelibly associated with the foreign policy and the wars of the bush/cheney years. she'll speak tonight in primetime, and there's early indication that vice presidential nominee paul ryan is likely to take up the topic of fourn policy at some point in his speech tonight. it's wurkt noting of the romney/ryan campaign's 24 foreign policy advisers, 17 of them are from the george w. bush administration, including 43's former spokesman, dan senor. we'll also hear from rob port nn who was george w. bush's financial director. if you're hoping to hear from or catch a glimpse of george w. himself, you will likely be disappointed. while he had a sitdown with george h.w. and barbara bush in march, the closest we came to a george w. bush sighting was a

fleeting moment in may. he was asked about the republican race and managed to blurt out, i'm for mitt romney right before the elevator doors shut. there were no cameras on hand to document the moment. so as far as we can tell, mitt romney has yet to be photographed with former president george w. bush and if the past is any indicator, tonight will be no exception, but let us take a look at part of the tribute video to the presidents bush. >> people will remember george and i think they will, for having the determination and the toughness and the persistence to be able to see us through in our country through such a very difficult time after the terrorist attack. i'm so proud of george. >> integrity. honesty. never a scandal around his presidency. i think we forget the importance of that.

they'll remember him for being an honest president who got a lot of things done, but i think the thing i take pride in is integrity. >> history will remember him as a great president. not only was he well prepared for the job, but when the unexpected took place, he handled it with vision, a clear strategy, and calm nerves. >> he is the most decent, honorable, wonderful, nobody's ever been as lucky as i have been. i want people to remember him as courageous. i want them to remember him as he is. >> dad and i both know what it takes to be president. and there's no doubt in our mind that mitt romney will be a great president. >> he's a good man. >> and i hope that all of the people at the convention work really, really hard because i

think the romneys are prepared. i think ann romney will be great. and i think mitt romney will do a fabulous job. >> that video is the way that the -- both presidents bush are being represented at the rnc. neither of them is there in person. the republicans did not have to do this. they have brought the bush years back a little bit on second night. is this the right thing to do? >> well, i think it's something they have to do, generationally speaking because the bush family is so engrained in american politics. it's rough history for the country. what the bushes put us through, especially bush 43. i agree with some of the things that were said about bush 41. he was probably one of the most qualified people as far as experience and all the different things he had done in government before he went into the oval office. and he did deal with gulf war i and it wasn't based on lies. the second time around, it was. honesty is not a word i would

put to george w. bush, look at his budgeting process. the war is off budget, medicare, the tax cuts, all of those things, but you can make the case, and i said this to a georgetown university class just last year, you can make the case that george w. bush was one of the best conservative presidents the country had in terms of generational push. he put two people on the supreme court that delivered citizens united to us that we're dealing with to this very day in this election cycle. the bushes have had a tremendous impact. the country understands that we're dealing with the aftermath of the decisions that bush 43 made, that barack obama inherited, and now it's being hung on him, and i think the irony is that, well, i'll let that go for now. i know there is a great deal of anger in the country about the way things were handled under

bush. there is a great deal, and there's a lot of people who are upset the way it unfolded and how we move forward from here is the big question. >> what i think is remarkable is to see specifically bush foreign policy. dan senor, who was the spokesman for the bush iraq war effort at the invasion and after, at the top staffer for paul ryan. >> and condoleezza rice. and for someone to suggest, you know, maybe i missed something, but for someone to suggest that saying weapons of mass destruction was somewhere was not there is not some kind of scandal, i mean, is absurd. you send us to war, people lose their lives on something that wasn't there. that's pretty scandalous to me. >> i would like to jump in as someone who was honored to work for president bush. i think the notion that, and it was a name that republicans did not respond to effectively during the bush years, but the notion that george w. bush

deliberately lied about weapons of mass destruction is complete and total nonsense. it's something that bill clinton talked about. it was something that most of the democrats on the intelligence committee s believd and saddam hussein had those weapons of mass destruction. he's a man of decency and integrity. he didn't do everything correct. mistakes were made in that administration like they are in every administration, but i think he did his best by this country every day he was in office. >> it's one thing to say i believe they're there. it's another thing to say those weapons of mass destruction have been confirmed to be there by sources who did not confirm that. that was a lie, and it was told by condoleezza rice, dick cheney, and bush. >> to assert that the president deliberately lied the country into war -- >> if somebody says something is confirmed that wasn't confirmed, that is an untruth or a lie.

and then to have the same team, whether you say it was a fail e team or a lying team, the team is primetime tonight with your new generation. condoleezza rice, senien senor, who is there tonight? >> let's stipulate it was a lie. let's stipulate. we have between -- almost 5,000 american lives lost in that war. a minimum, a minimum, and this has been, of 100,000 iraqis. 100,000 human lives. that's a minimum. those lives do not weigh, i think, anywhere near as heavily on our body politic as they should. and that, to me, is amazing how much the spector of that has been removed. whether or not there were lies, it was still a policy engineered by that administration, and there is still has to be accountability, just in the

basic conscience and soul of the people who oversaw that. whether or not you think it was deliberate. >> the fact that the foreign policy team that brought us the iraq war, i think you're troith to stipulate, whether or not it was a lie, have been brought forward as if we should get new ideas from them, is what blows my mind. we're about to hear from senator john mccain, who was the 2008 nominee of the party, the vice presidential nomy of the party will not be speaking. sarah palin will be speaking about the kerfuffle she got in with her employer, fox news. let's listen to john mccain's address. >> thank you, thank you. thank you. thank you very much. it's an honor, as always, my fellow republicans, to join you at our national convention and add my voice to yours. as we nominate the next president of the united states,

my friend, governor mitt romney. you know, i had hopes once of addressing you under different circumstances. but our fellow americans had another plan four years ago and i accept their decision. i have been blessed for so long to play a role in our nation's affairs, and i'm conscious only of the debt i owe america, and i thank you for the honor. [ applause ] when we nominate mitt romney, we do so with a greater purpose than winning an advantage for our party. we charge him with the care of a higher cause, his election represents the best hopes for our country and the world. it is said that this election will turn on domestic and

economic issues, but what mitt romney knows and what we know is the success at home also depends on our leadership in the world. it is our willingness to shape world events for the better that has kept us safe, increased our prosperity, preserved our liberty and transforms human history. at our best, america has led. we have led by our example as a shining city on a hill. we have led at the direction of patriots from both parties. we have led shoulder to shoulder with steadfast friends and allies. we have led by giving voice to the voiceless. insisting that every human life has dignity and aiding those brave souls who risk everything to secure the inalienable rights that are endowed to all by our

creator. [ applause ] we have led with generous hearts, moved by an abiding love of justice, to help others eradicate disease, left themselves from poverty, live under laws of their own making and determine their own destinies. we have led when necessary with the armed might of freedom's defenders, and always we have led from the front, never from behind. this is what makes america an exceptional nation. it's not just a matter of who we are. it's the record of what we have done. it's the responsibility that generation after generations of americans has affirmed and carried forward. it's a cause that many americans

have sacrificed everything, absolutely everything to defend and when they have gone into battle as they do today, they have done so with a conviction that the country that sent them there is worth their sacrifice, that it stands for something more than the sum of our individual interests. may god bless all who have served, all who serve today, as he has blessed us with their service. we are now being tested by an array of threats that are more complex, more numerous, and just as deeply and deadly as i can recall in my lifetime. we face a consequential choice and make no mistake, it is a

choice. we can choose to follow a declining path toward a future that is dimmer and more dangerous than our past. or we can choose to reform our failing government, revitalize our ailing economy, and renew the foundations of our power and leadership in the world. that is what's at stake in this election. unfortunately, for four years, for four years, we have drifted away from our proudest traditions of global leadership. traditions that are truly bipartisan. we let the challenges we face both at home and abroad become much harder to solve. we can't afford to stay on that course any longer. we can't afford to cause our friends and allies from latin america to europe to asia to the

middle east and especially in israel, a nation under existential threat, to doubt america's leadership. we can't afford to give governments in russia and china a veto over how we defend our interests and the progress of our values in the world. we can't afford to have the security of our nation, we can't afford to have the security of our nation and those who bravely defend it endangered because their government leaks the secrets of their heroic operations to the media. [ applause ]

i believe we can't afford to substitute a political timetable for a military strategy. by committing to withdraw from afghanistan before peace can be achieved and sustained, the president has discouraged our friends and emboldened our enemies, which is why our commanders did not recommend these decisions and why they have said it puts our mission at much greater risk. we can't afford another $500 billion in cuts in our defense budget on top of the nearly $500 billion in cuts that the president is already making. his own secretary of defense has said that cutting our military by nearly a trillion dollars would be devastating. and yet the president is playing no leadership role in preventing this crippling blow to our

military. a wise congressman from wisconsin has said our fiscal policy and our foreign policy are on a collision course. and that man is our next vice president, paul ryan. but most of all, we can't afford to abandon the cause of human freedom. when long suffering people demand liberation from their jailers and torturers and tyrants, the leader of the free world must stand with them. unfortunately, this is not happening. when iranians rose up by the millions against their oppressive rulers, when they beseeched our president, chanting in english, are you with us or are you with them? when the entire world watched as

a brave young woman named netta was shot and bled to death in the street in tehran, the president missed an historic opportunity to throw america's full moral support behind an iranian revolution that shared one of our highest interests, ridding iran of a brutal dictatorship that terrorized the middle east and threatens the entire world. the situation is far worse in syria. what began as peaceful protests has now become 18 months later a savage and unfair fight with the full backing of iran and hezbollah and russia, with tanks and helicopters and fighter jets. bashar al assad is murdering men, women, and children, more than 20,000 people have perished, extremists are gaining

ground in tand the conflict is becoming more dangerous by the day for our allies and for us. in other times, when other courageous people fought for their freedom against sworn enemies of the united states, american presidents both republicans and democrats, have acted to help them prevail. sadly -- sadly for the lonely voices of dissent in syria and iran and elsewhere in the world who feel forgotten in their darkness and sadly for us as well, our president is not being true to our values. for the sake of the cause of freedom, for the sake of people who are willing to give their lives so their fellow citizens can determine their own futures and for the sake of our nation,

the nation founded on the idea that all people everywhere have the right to freedom and justice, we must return to our best traditions of american leadership and support those who face down the brutal tyranny of their oppressors and our enemies. our friends across the world, people are seizing control of their own destinies. they're liberating themselves from oppressive rulers and they want america's support. they want america's assistance. as they struggle to live in peace and security to expand opportunity for themselves and their children, to replace the injustices with the institutions of democracy and freedom, america must be on the right

side of history. the demand for our leadership in the world has never been greater. people don't want less of america. they want more. everywhere i go in the world, people tell me that they still have faith in america. what they want to know is whether we still have faith in ourselves. i trust that mitt romney has that faith and i trust him to lead us. [ applause ] i trust him to affirm our nation's exceptional character and responsibilities. i trust him to know that our security and economic interests are inextricably ties to the progress of our values.

i trust him to know that if america doesn't lead, our adsuveries will, and the world will go darker, poorer, and much more dangerous. i trust him to know that an american president always, always, always stands up for the rights and freedoms and justice of all people. i trust mitt romney to know that good can triumph over evil, that justice can vanquish tyranny, that love can conquer hate. that the desire for freedom is eternal and universal, and that america is still the best hope of mankind, and now, my fellow americans, let's elect our next

commander in chief and the next leader of the free world, my friend governor mitt romney. >> that was a stirring performance by john mccain. who at least has the credentials of having been born the son of a naval warrior and is the father of several warriors. he's endorsing the presidency and the position as commander in chief for someone with no family background future, past, or present in the military. the frightening aspect of what we heard is a former presidential candidate encouraging us to take a military leadership position in the overthrow of the gadhafi leadership, continued military presence in afghanistan and also in iraq, a military action against iran, a military action against the government of syria. this candidate, if this man speaks for him, would have us on a war footing, in fact, involved

military on the offensive in five different islamic countries. he thinks that should be sound u.s. policy. that's a frightening concept and it picks up on what we were talking about a few moments ago about the sig nns of putting dan senor in head of the campaign, perhaps bringing back john bolton. all of the hawks from iraq are coming back, festering for a chance to get us into iran, and if you believe john mccain and the agenda of countries who want to begin military action, beginning with a backward look at libya, a forward look at iran, that was a frightening, frightening speech. >> there was no mention of someone who used to be a focus on u.s. international thinking, osama bin laden, not brought up in this, which is the first really national security speech of the convention, and it might be the only national security

speech of the convention. by putting forth a ticket that doesn't have any foreign policy experience and isn't associated with any real foreign policy line of thinking, neither of them have any record on the subject at all, having john mccain there tonight is important, not just for john mccain and his biography, but because that is the republican foreign policy ticket. and unless you have someone who is going to displace the guys in washington who live there permanently who think this way, those are the guys you bring back from the bush administration and their thinking on international-affairs. >> there's nothing more frightening than the neocons surrounded by a president with no experience in foreign policy or national experience to push back from. the thought of another george w. or dan quayle under the influence of bill kristol, and

have people like john bolton coming back to advise someone who has no experience and advise them always in a militaristic action, never relying on the kind of things we relied on, that shot that mccain took was really a shot against international sanctions. to be effective, they require participation by the major economic powers. to say we can't go that route is to say we must go the military route. he seems to be saying forget about the sanctions bah we can't get the russians to go along with us. this is dangerous talk. i hate to hear it from mccain. i respect his service for the country. i certainly respect the way he ran for presidency where he refused to play on the fact that obama may be a muslim. he pushed back on that. i give him full credit for that

honesty and courage, but here he was giving a real bell ringer for war. and i think that was the last thing, even anyone in the room, was happy to hear. >> steesk, as someone who was so intimately involved with the campaign, the point chris made about strategy and the campaign, that mccain himself personally didn't want to go there in that racially inflected stuff, is that something he continued to advocate for in the party? here he's making a pure national security speech, not talking tactics, not talking politics, a couple shots at the president, but it's mostly why aren't we invading syria. does he have a political strategy role that people pay attention to? >> when you're a defeating presidential candidate and you stay in the united states senate, his political future is much more in line with what happened to ted kennedy, for instance, after he lost the race in 1980. he's not a political player in the sense that he has control over strategy. his involvement, and you just heard it, is directing a

republican foreign policy critique of the administration, and to chris' point, broadly speaking, i do think that there's a fundamental disconnect between the republican foreign policy establishment and even republican voters on these questions. this is a war weary nation. you can talk about our strategy in afghanistan. you can talk about we must say there until peace is at hand or victory is won, but the reality is we're going to leave afghanistan. we will leave afghanistan, nothing will have changed in that country. it is a tribal, islamic society with forces rooting it in the seventh century. we have had dozens of american men murdered by afghan comrades of arms. there's no discernible strategy, and i think that when the american people think about syria, they think about iran, they think about libya, they

understand that after a decade of war, that it's easy for the most powerful military in the world to enter these places, but not so easy to get out. and i think -- >> that's a mainstream republican perspective. >> i do think in the years ahead, in the months ahead, there will be some fighting in the republican party between, you know, between the realist approach and the neocon approach. >> don't you think this creates some kind of problem for the candidate? this opens up a whole can of worms. does mitt romney believe everything that john mccain just said? does he buy into that? this is at their convention. there's about 1,000 questions we need to ask mitt romney on each one of these countries individually. is he buying into international intervention as a strict policy of solution on everything that mccain is talking about? because we don't have any resources for that at this point. mccain is talking as if this just started last week. i think it's a problem for

romney. >> i just think this idea, let's take syria for a second. it's very hard for me to think that a poll of republicans. even the republicans in that hall, have an appetite for american military intervention in syria. and yet that is john mccain, i follow him on twitter, is more or less calling for that nonstop. and if you read the platform, i mean, the american exceptionalism exception, it's basically rachel's book in reverse. it's the opposite of everything in drift. it's basically the john mccain line on this. >> the maximalist line. >> totally unchanged, totally unlearned the lessons of the last ten years even though i think your average republican voter has in a lot of ways. >> let me say this, i think it's very important. and i disagree clearly with senator mccain is saying in terms of syria or iran in terms of military intervention. i disagreed even with the democratic party and obama on afghanistan. i think we should have gotten

out of there a lot faster, but i think it's very important to underscore that i do respect the fact that mccain refused to race bait. i give him and steve a lot of credit, as much as i vociferously got on you about george bush, i must commend you because they did not take the cheap out in '08. i think you have to give them credit, that you can disagree with them, which i do, but i have to respect what chris said, that they did not do that, and even did that probably to the detriment of some of their voters. i know he's the minority of the table today, and i favor minorities so i'm going to stand up and speak for that. >> whenever you have a big chasm between what policymakers are talking about and what the public generally believes, that's a political opportunity. what you were just articulating, steve. about this skepticism about why we need to stay in afghanistan longer, why we're still there now, that's not a partisan -- that's not a partisan position. a lot of americans believe that

left, right and center. our feelers about intervention and war right now are actually very nonpartisan things, and yet the republican party on policy is the party of dan senor and condoleezza rice and john mccain and maximalist intervention and that platform does read like it's september 15th, 2001. and that's a real political opportunity for the democrats should they choose to take it. are democrats even wired in such a way that at their convention next week, they can go on offense on that subject? if they choose to, the opportunity is almost limitless. there's a huge gap between what most republican voters believe and what the party is offering them. >> you can't deny the successes that the obama administration has had on executing the war on terrorism and protecting our country. we haven't been hit on his watch. we have protected the borders which is a big part of security. he's resourced the borders three times more than the bush administration did, and also the number of terrorists he's been able to take out. you may not agree with the drone

atta attacks, but the result has been overwhelming compared to what we looked at the last eight years. >> our cause in afghanistan was righteous and just. american service men and women have served valiantly in the last decade. under this president, al qaeda, as it was under president bush, has been decimated. the country has killed osama bin laden. the notion that we will stay in afghanistan and that afghanistan will join the community of nations as a tolerant, secular, democratic society is fantastical. it's a corrupt regime. afghans are murdering on a daily basis american men who are supposed to be their comrades in arms, our allies. and we're absolutely not having a discussion about this at any level in either party in this country. it's absolutely wrong. >> chris matthews, let me give you the last word on this. >> i agree completely with steve and the rest of you. for all of the saturday night live lampooning of the vice

president, joe biden, he was so insightful, i thought so visionary when he said the smart policy a couple years ago was to go with a counterterrorism policy basically projecting our strength from outside the country, not in country, and not a counter insurgency policy which is to get in there and fight village to village and actually join the tribal w warfare, was so visionary, and the president as i'll point out and reverend al sharpton pointed out, he wasn't wise enough to pick up on what joe biden said. sometimes we confuse the whimsical nature of the vice president with his knowledge. here he was dead right, and the president was wrong. sometimes wisdom doesn't come from the usual places. the vice president was right here, counterterrorism was right. counter insurgency took us deeper and deeper into the same pit the soviets fell into and the british before them trying to rule and reform afghanistan and not a smart move. >> outside of the foreign policy

sort of hawk's nest in washington when other people, even people paid to talk for a living like us, talk about foreign policy, you can not by closing your eyes match the comment to the partisan affiliation. that's why we're ready for a really robust debate in this country on military intervention, size and use of the military and foreign policy. the democrats have that moment to seize next week if they want to. paul ryan can seize it tonight if he's really ambitious. >> i rarely agree with former house speaker newt gingrich, but i always look forward to hearing him speak. in just a moment, he'll speak with us live. once mitt romney's toughest critic, now a romney supporter, is going to be our guest next. if it was any more fun, it would be a misdemeanor at least. this is our coverage of the rnc. stay with us. humans -- even when we cross our t's and dot our i's,

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joining us now is former speaker of the house and presidential candidate newt gingrich. great to have you on mr mr. speaker. i wonder how you're thinking about paul ryan tonight. you said in the past he was interesting with his right wing engineering in terms of his budget policy. have you adjusted your thinking? >> he reached out, worked with ron wyden of oregon, created a better version of his medicare reform which does allow people under 55 to stay on medicare, it's the only bipartisan reform for medicare we have seen. it's a very defensible proposal. i think it met every single concern i had. and it creates an environment where, remember, first of all,

you're over 55. nothing is done except they return the $716 billion that barack obama has taken out of medicare. if you're under 55, you have a series of choices that are really pretty close to the kind of health benefit plan that the congress gives itself, and you can take a range of choices there that enable you to stay in the traditional system or to go to a variety of other choices. i think it's a very responsible system that puts power back in the hands of the individual and doesn't center power in washington. >> i'll let that go, that claim about the president basically skimming $700 billion. here's a weird problem, in politics, in war, it's what stars wars, when both sides think they can win on a front. every democrat i know starting with like steve israel, head of the democratic campaign committee, they're thrilled that ryan's out there as the leader of your party on the issue of the budget and cutting spending and medicare/medicaid, all that stuff. yet the other side, your side

seems to be ready to make the fight as well. how can both sides be right? >> well, i doubt if both sides are right. i thought it was fascinating today that a new poll came out and by 45 to 42, the country now trusts governor romney more than president obama on medicare. now, romney had a huge advantage on the economy. this is the first time i have seen him start to pull away on medicare. i think what happened was a remarkable decision by romney and a fundamental mistake by the democrats. romney decide id, i think, this is inevitable. we're going to have the fight. why not put the guy who understands it best on television every single day by making him the vice presidential nominee. the country, the key moment may have come frankly in florida, when what you had was paul ryan bring his mother out and all of a sudden, other senior citizens looked and said, wait a second, this nice young man is not going to hurt his mom.

and i'm told by floridians, that was an amazingly important moment. >> you have seen people in florida get blown away politically, remember former senator paul hawkins, blown away on the social security issue. it's still the dangerous rail to touch, the rail you don't touch. you get electrocuted. you believe the democrats will lose florida over the medicare issue? and they're the ones protecting the system? >> first, they'll lose florida over the economy, and they will lose florida, but i helped lead medicare reform in 1996. we trained our members for a year, went back home, knew how to explain it. the result was medicare wasn't a big problem for us. it was sauved. if you watch the nevada special election where the republicans won, the democrats tried every mediscare tactic, the republicans trumped them, and by the end of the campaign, they were doing fine on medicare. we're in a different world. i think people are more sophisticated today. and i think the fiscal problems, the huge obama deficits, and the

fact that we still have 8% plus unemployment, has created a different environment for this conversation. >> we'll see, but most people love medicare who want it and don't want it touched. former speaker newt gingrich, former candidate newt gingrich, good to you on. kelly o'donnell is on the convention floor with senator john mccain. >> senator, this must have been a bit nostalgic to be on the convention floor. a little different than last time. what was the experience like? >> very nice. you know, i'm pleased that mitt romney is the nominee. i had my shot at it, and i'm very proud to have been the nominee. and i'm grateful they asked me to speak again. >> you topic was on defense, and repeatedly, you said, i trust mitt romney. do you think you need to help him get over a hurdle when it comes to issues like national security in the minds of voters. >> i'm sure that my experience on some of the issues he obviously could be appreciative, but he's got the right

instincts. he's got the reagan instincts about american exceptionalism, about the rule of america in the world. he's got the right instincts, i think, for being the kind of leader that ronald reagan was. >> and tonight we'll hear from paul ryan. he is given a lot of credit for his knowledge on things like the budget, but again, on foreign policy, doesn't have that national reputation. will that be hard for him against joe biden, the vice president, in the debate? >> first of all, he's been in the house since 1998, longer than barack obama was in the senate. second of all, i eagerly await joe biden's views on the world. he's been wrong from desert storm to the surge. he has an almost unblemished record of being wrong on national security issues, so i look forward to a discussion on national security between paul ryan and joe biden. in fact, i would love to see a separate debate on that. >> rachel maddow has a question for you. >> thank you very much. sorry to cut in like this, but

senator, i wanted to know if you know if mitt romney and paul ryan agree with your views about the necessity for a greater military intervention or a greater american intervention in syria. do they agree with you on that? >> they agree with me, rachel, on that we need to provide arms to the syrian resistance. they believe it is shameful, and it is shameful. we sat by and watched 20,000 people massacred, men, women, and children. tortured and gang raped. i think they obviously are embarrassed, as i am, that the president of the united states won't even speak up. when was the last time the president spoke up for these people much less did something about it? i'm sure their view is very different from this president who is awol, in case you missed what that means, absence without official leave. >> and senator, do you feel freer to be tough on the president now that you're not his direct opponent and the nominee? do you feel somehow more

liberated to be tough on the president? >> no, i just thought that the president wouldn't be this bad on national security issues. i had no idea that he would sit by and watch people slaughtered without saying a word about it. i am astonished that he doesn't believe in american exceptionalism, i'm astonished he wants america to lead from behind. >> we appreciate your time. back to you. >> thank you, kelly. thank you senator mccain. that's sort of a remarkable answer. he did call for additional intervention in syria and in iran and additional intervention in a number of other places around the country, and he says that mitt romney and paul ryan share his views on that. if we hear mitt romney and paul ryan articulate those views, we'll get to debate them. otherwise, we're taking john mccain's word he's they're on his page on this. >> we have a ton of news and event coverage and a visit with elizabeth warren of

massachusetts. her reactions to the goings-on in tampa. when we come back, you're watching msnbc's live coverage of the republican convention with more acronyms spelled out for your education at home. what was i supposed to wish for? why am i wearing a bow-tie? where did i leave my bicycle? after all, when you're enjoying the beefiest, juciest bite of pure kosher beef, nothing else matters. goodness gracious, that's kosher. with no fillers, by-products, artificial flavors or colors. hebrew national. the better-than-a-hot dog- hot dog. now we need a little bit more... a little bit more vanilla? this is great! [ male announcer ] at humana, we believe there's never been a better time to share your passions because the results... are you having fun doing this? yeah.

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when brands compete, you save! don't miss mattress price wars. and hurry, this special financing offer ends labor day. ♪ sleep train ♪ your ticket to a better night's sleep ♪ welcome back to msnbc's coverage of the republican national convention. we're seeing a major push by the romney/ryan campaign to use the platform of their nominating convention to try to appeal to women voters. from new jersey governor chris christie's extended riff on his mom to ann romney's somewhat off script tribute at one moment in her speech to all of the ladies in the house. >> i love you women! >> that was not in the prepared rema remarks, but it was appreciated by everyone. the romney campaign is clearly

trying to remedy its deficit in the polls with female voters, one of the barriers they're running into on that front is policy. they're a hard line ticket on abortion rights and access to birth control, but there are other economic issues that are important to women that have tripped them up on the campaign trail as well. cathy mcmorris rogers who is speaking this hour, she was first utilized by the romney campaign in a major way earlier this summer as the romney campaign struggled to say whether or not mr. romney supported the concept of and legislation to advance equal pay for women. one of president obama's signature policy changes, of course, was the lilly ledbetter act. when they used mr. romney's campaign to try to address this thing, it opened up mr. romney to the charges of being against equal pay for equal work. and so cathy mcmorris rogers, the highest ranking republican was dispatched to handle the issue. that strategy fell very desperately flat because the

campaign still could not say whether mr. romney himself would have signed the fair pay act and the big surrogate they rolled out to defend him, cathy mcmorris rogers herself, the romney campaign's big defender on fair pay for women, she herself voted against the fair pay act she was out there defending mitt romney's reputation on. joining us 93 is democratic senate candidate elizabeth warren of massachusetts. she's trying to unseat scott brown in november. and one of ms. warren's latest ads highlights the issue of equal pay for women and also reproductive choice. elizabeth warren, thank you for joining us tonight. >> good to be here. >> what do you make of the republicans' efforts to market themselves specifically to women voters. we saw a lot last night, we'll see more from paul ryan tonight and mitt romney tomorrow? >> they clearly want to do it. they think they need to it. they just have a real problem, and that is the facts are stubborn. and the facts are that they are not in a good place. they voted against equal pay for

equal work. they recently, don't forget, just a couple months ago, had the bill in to say that insurance companies didn't have to cover birth control for women. mitt romney has said that he will defund planned parenthood, and remember, they just picked a vice presidential nominee candidate after careful, careful vetting, who is a guy who co-sponsored legislation to redefine rape and also legislation to make certain -- potentially make certain birth control pills illegal. they have this whole package of things that they have been working on and working on recently. it's the republicans who in many ways are putting the issue of women into play. and they don't want to talk about that. so instead, they've got to kind of smile and find other things to say, but they sure can't talk about the facts because the facts are a problem. >> there is a split on the right

in terms of people on enright who want to talk about policy around those issues you just described and people who do not want to talk about it. mike huckabee is the other big speaker tonight still to come, besides paul ryan. he has been the biggest defender in republican politics of todd akin, the missouri senate candidate who did talk about redefining rape, who did cosponsor legislation with paul ryan to do that. mike huckabee has been arguing that the republican party is wrong to try to sublimate these issues. they ought to be campaigning more on this. i wonder if you see there is a reasonable republican party on this subject and there's an unreasonable part of the republican party on this. your opponent, senator scott brown, said he doesn't want to be associated with the extreme portions of his own party on this. >> what he says is he has that one part on choice that he says, hey, i'm pro choice. and he says, since i'm pro choice, i get a pass on all of the rest of it. and you know, that's not how it works. equal pay for equal work, access

to birth control, supporting someone who wants to defund planned parenthood, the way i see this is, this is really about a senator who says the right thing some of the time versus women who need somebody, they need a senator who will be there all of the time. and so i think that's how this one plays out. there's a part of the republican party that centers around akin, but another part of the republican party who says we want to pick one thing we're okay on, but that's not enough. that's not good enough. it's not okay to vote against women on core economic issues like equal pay for equal work. it's not okay to vote against women on core issues like whether or not there's going to be paid birth control in their health insurance policies. it's not okay to say, we're going to defund planned parenthood. it's really a case of either you

have an agenda that supports women, you treat them with equality and dignity and you really believe that you're going to be there on economic issues and on reproductive rights issues, or you're someone who can't be counted on. i think that's what it comes down to. >> looking around the venue in the republican national convention, listening to the speeches we're seeing again and again and again, this theme of we built it, which is intended to be a rejoinder to an out of context remark taken from the president's speech, also related to remarks you made last year that became popular in democratic circles and not controversial. this idea that individuals have success based on things we do collectively, things like roads that allow you to bring your goods to market. we heard senator rand paul tonight say you don't have businesses because you have roads, you have roads because you have businesses. you sort of started this whole

fight between democrats and republicans. i wonder what you think about the republicans have made of it? >> you know, i really have to say, i'm astonished that the republicans want to make a major part of their case to the american people on taking a statement from the president out of context, everybody has seen the videotape, knows he was talking about infrastructure and they want to make it into something else. but here's the conversation i would really like to see go on. between the republicans and democrats, and that is this notion of where is real support for small business versus big business? you know, i'm a big believer in small business. my daughter started her own small business, my brother st t started his own small business. my aunt alice start eed her own small business where i worked as a teenager. but what i see today is there's discrimination against small businesses. and here's the difference. washington is wired to work for the big guys. think about it. the oil subsidies, the big oil

companies, made $137 billion in profits last year. and yet they continue to suck down billions of dollars in subsidies. and who pays for that? all of the little businesses, all of the ordinary taxpayers. that when there's a tax bill that's coming up, the buffett rule, the republicans say no. the billionaires can continue to pay at half the rate their secretaries and everyone else pays. it's a game that's loaded for the wealthiest. it's a game that's loaded for those who can have the biggest lobbying outfits in washington, and it doesn't work for small businesses. it doesn't work for families. and so what i think is really going on, and the next part of the conversation that we should be talking about, is how it is that washington has come to be rigged for the big guy. how washington has come to be rigged for those who could hire armies of lobbyists and lawyers.

and leave small businesses, leave families behind. i think that's a really important issue. >> elizabeth warren, u.s. senate candidate from massachusetts, challenging scott brown. thank you for being with us tonight. i know this is a busy campaign time for you. thank you. >> thank you. >> as republicans convene in tampa, of course, the other big story in the country is tropical storm isaac, still pounding much of the gulf coast. the latest on isaac is coming up, and next hour, we're hearing from mike huckabee which is always entertaining even if there aren't really big political stakes on his speech, and tonight, there are. stay with us. i take insulin, so i test... a lot. do you test with this? freestyle lite test strips? i don't see... beep! wow! that didn't take much blood. yeah, and the unique zipwik tab targets the blood and pulls it in. so easy. yep. freestyle lite needs just a third the blood of onetouch ultra. really? so testing is one less thing

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we are back with msnbc's live coverage of the republican national convention. first, we continue to monitor the really severe weather situation along the gulf coast. at this hour, what was hurricane isaac is a torrential tropical storm that is continuing to pound the gulf with an astonishing amount of water. the storm has been steady and slow moving and relentless. torrential rains have left parts of louisiana deeply flooded. the worst of it seems to be felt in plaquemines parish, southeast of new orleans. the parish president, bill a nungesser told reporters early, we have never seen anything like this, not even on katrina. on the saeskth anniversary of katrina, plaquemines' residents were told to evacuate.

many who rode the storm out, ended up having to be rescued from the rising waters. authorities will breach the levee on purpose to relieve pressure on it. our own melissa harris-perry levs in nearby new orleans. they bought a home that had been wrecked by katrina. they were hoping to renovate it. it had beautiful bones. that home has now been destroyed by isaac. melis melissa, i'm so sorry about your home. i was heartbroken. what can you tell us about what is going on for you and the struggle down there. >> this is one of those moments a, you mentioned, the folks in plaquemines parish who chose not to evacuate. my husband is there because his parents and grandparents didn't want to evacuate. folks in new orleans and the surrounding area tend to take a lot of pride of not being afraid of tropical storms of category 1s, that sort of thing. what we're seeing with isaac is it's so slow, it's pouring

water, water, water, rain. that house we lost early this morning, you know, tit stood through katrina and gustav, but isaac took her down this morning. so it's really such that combination of weather and people trying to make predictions, but i'll say thing more than anything else, what we're seeing in plaquemines parish, a predominantly white community, a republican president of that parish, a republican in the state house, and under katrina, we had a predominantly african-american city, a democrat in the mayor's office, a democrat as governor, and at this moment, it does not matter. this is the whole point. is that the reason we need levees and the reason we need community, it's not about race. it's not about partisanship. this is the kind of thing that reminds us of that. >> this is what we need to do no matter what. the speech, at least i have been looking most forward to since the republican convention

schedule come out, is still to come. condi rice will be compelling, all of the coverage in tomorrow's papers will be about paul ryan, but me, i'm ready for mike huckabee. this is msnbc's live coverage of the republican convention. please stay with us. whoa! don't want you spilling that hot latte on my driver's seat. this is my car. who are you? i'm the second owner. the what? i will own this car after you. look, i'm not telling you how to drive our car. our car? if you're gonna have a latte in the car, keep a lid on it. it's a cappuccino. still needs a lid. [ male announcer ] the highest-quality cars plus an exceptional certified pre-owned program. good news for the second owner. take care of my car! [ male announcer ] experience the summer of audi event by september 4th with 1.9% apr for 60 months and a complimentary first month's payment on certified pre-owned audi models. and a complimentary first month's payment one is for a clean, wedomestic energy future that puts us in control. our abundant natural gas is already saving us money, producing cleaner electricity,

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[ male announcer ] polident. cleaner, fresher and brighter every day. welcome back to msnbc's coverage of the republican national convention. i'm rachel maddow in new york along with chris matthews in tampa and our many other msnbc colleagues in both places. this night of the big paul ryan

speech can sort of be seen as vice presidential short list night. in addition to paul ryan, it's also tim pawlenty and condoleezza rice and john thune and rob portman, all of whom were said to be up for the job that paul ryan ultimately got. over time, two of the people on the short list were george w. bush budget directors rob portman and mitch daniels. the george w. bush years were not fiscally conservative years to say the least. while the guy who got picked for vice president likes to be seen as a fiscal conservative, at least isn't tainted by the budget busting years of george w. bush, his actual voting record in congress is george w. bush all the way. paul ryan voted for the '01 bush tax cuts, for the '03 bush tax cuts. they added $1.7 trillion to the deficit. he voted for the medicare part d which asked $180 billion to the

deficit. he voted for the t.a.r.p. and hera bailouts, emergency supplementals for the iraq war, another $800 billion. none of these things were paid for. paul ryan just recently voted to extend the bush cuts good for another $620 billion on the deficit. republican senator orrin hatch famously admitted in the health care fight that during the george w. bush era, quote, it was standard practice not to pay for things, to load them onto the deficit instead. hearing an explanation of that tonight, now that would make for an amazing speech. chris matthews in tampa, ed schultz sitting next to me as well. i want to get your take on this. in terms of what we're going to hear from paul ryan in terms of any distance from the george w. bush years. we talked about whether there is distance to be found on foreign

policy, but on economic policy, how much does george w. bush loom here? >> i don't know how he's going to frame and defend his votes, but i can say that i believe that he's been a good soldier to republican leadership over the years because he's a career climber. i think when he gets an opportunity to be in leadership, he will reverse and show the real conservative side that he has always believed in. but to support bush, they had a way of getting in a room and making sure that everybody was on the same page. he wanted to move up in the republican ranks. it's about blowing up the federal budget deficit to the point where they can cut back government where they want it, and he was going to be that soldier to be a part of that big, you know, decade mission. let's get this federal budget deficit to a point where we're going to beane position where we can goat after the big three and we can take them down after decades of being against them. and so it's going to take the t.a.r.p. vote.

of course, that was to save our financial industry in the eyes of the republicans. medicare part d, they can make the case to the seniors. the tax cuts, we have to favor the wealthy, and of course, the auto loan, i'm going to be okay in that part of the country because i'm a lunch bucket guy. i have to appeal to the reagan democrats. that's not going to come back to haunt me. now he's in a position where he can be in leadership and be a republican leader, now he can put the hammer down and say this is really what we want to do and engenerational push to get rid of entitlements. >> i think the real republicans are the george w. bush years. one of the fundamental premises of the campaign is you should listen to what republicans say they're going to govern, not how they actually governed. they were running the country for six years and the last two years the democrats took over the house. how did they run the country in that period of time? it's not an abstract, theoretical question. they ran the government. they did not shrink government.

government as a percentage of gdp did not go down. it didn't go down. >> that was their plan. >> that's the point, they want to frame this as this massive idealogical choice between smaller government and bigger government. it's about who the government will benefit. i guarantee you if they're running the show, we'll see massive deficits again and they won't shrink government. they'll shift resources in the government as to where it gets spent. >> the interesting thing now with rob portman speaking, mitch daniels was on the short list as well. for portman to keep himself viable during the time he was on the short list for vp, he started telling a sort of revisionist history as his time as bush budget director. he said, yeah, i was bumgt director, but i disagreed with a lot of things we did. i was fighting for fiscal conservatism, i was just losing the fight. nobody listened to me. i was very, very frustrated. that makes sense as like a plotline in a sitcom about the budget. there's a story there, but

whether or not we actually get a reckoning with the big government, big budget busting years of republican governance is something we're still waiting for. >> i think a lot of this is posturing by the republicans. and including the tea party people. everyone who is experienced in politics knows these are terribly difficult if not awfully painful decisions when you start talking about entitlements, especially medicare and medicaid, special medicare and social security, i should say. the only way you're going to get agreement in large part, meaning a big majority in both parties, to go along with something like we did with social security when i was working in the government or tax reform, is to really be fair about it. listen to the voters and after the election, cut a deal that refrekr reflect the electorate. we had this opportunity last year. let's look at it. a real opportunity. $800 billion in new revenues and a very much larger chunk of spending cuts. entitlement cuts. the president had that deal with

boehner, it didn't go through. both sides, i think, showed a little weak kneed reaction near the end. the president thought he could get a better deal, about 1.2, perhaps lost his point when he should have moved. it's an opportunity for a smart move, but there's no way we're going to cut the entitlements entirely on the republicans' side, and no way a democrat is going to go along with it without tax fairness and no way you can go back to your constituency and say i screwed the poor people and rewarded the rich. you don't get elected as a democrat that way. you're gone and you should be gone because you're not reflecting the views of the people there. the only way to get a deal is sitting down, listening to the electorate, and getting to the negotiations situation and say you take 10-1, 5-1. you figure out the deal. the trouble is a lot of politicians get re-elected by not dealing, and tea partiers are the worst. i'm watching boehner, i don't think he controls his caucus. i don't know if ryan can control

the caucus if he gets in there as vp. i don't think romney's going to control the democratic -- the republican congress and cut a deal. so it's very good that we're looking for professionals now. i think we're going to hear a lot of talk from ryan tonight. what i want to hear is a deal. i want to hear how they're going to cut the deal with democrats to the satisfaction of both parties and i haven't heard that yet. >> but on -- >> they're not running on that. they're not running on how they're going to govern. they're running on how to stop obama from governing. and i think the big problem that they're going to have is when people say, all right, if you are in charge, what are you going to do? they have operated under mcconnell's edict. whatever obama says, say no, even if we believe in it. they started that on inauguration night. the biggest problem ryan has now is to go centerstage on that big stage and have to talk about governing. i think he will not do it. >> speaking of governing, i should say right now that nbc's luke russert is on the conven

convention floor, choo is eric cantor, who we would love to hear on this subject. >> yes, i'm here with house majority leader eric cantor from virginia. you're very close with paul ryan, a fellow young gun. what does he have to do in the speech. there was talk that the crowd wasn't really accepting of chris christie last night? what does hevise to do? >> i don't think he's going to have a problem connecting with the crowd or the people watching on tv. you know, paul is a genuine person. he's a family man. he's the real deal. and he's got a wonderful wife in jana. he's got three beautiful kids, and he really went to washington for the right reasons. and part of the reason why i got together with him and our good friend kevin mccarthy, the majority w.h.i.p., we wanted to affect the change we set out to do as a party and failed. what we have done is laid out an agenda. paul came up with the budget, to

try to fix the challenges facing the country. we also went out seeking partners, looking for folks to come join us in the house so we could get about this revolution the country needs to try to get us back on track, get people back to work. >> congressional approval ratings are at their lowest they have ever been in a lot of our polls. do you feel that the low rating that the house republicans have could be a drag on the national ticket considering romney comes from the house? >> look, congress has been a whipping boy for a long time. and i think that a lot of americans are justifiably frustrated because life is not working too well for them right now. and the reality is the obama agenda and the policies this president has put in place haven't worked. i think the people are pining for something new, something that actually will get them back to work, lift their spirits and provide some optimism for the future. that's what paul ryan has been about the entire career he's had in the house. mitt romney will be a president that actually can put those things into effect.

he's a business guy. he understands how to launch a business, how to turn something around. both in the public sector and the private. i think you're going to see a tremendous new spirit in washington once the election occurs and we win. >> republicans have been associated with having a women's problem heading into this convention. the todd akin controversy in mississipp missouri. is there any fear paul ryan won't be able to connect with wome women. >> you heard a lot from ann romney last night about who the man mitt romney is and how it is she trusts him and he's gotten the job done whether it's been through illness or through challenging times in the romney family with their kids and their family. i think as well you will see that paul ryan is a family man. and he understands the challenges that men and women are facing throughout this country in terms of trying to envision a better future for their kids. that's what it's about here. we're about trying to make sure that we pass on to the next

generation a better country and a better world than what we've had. right now, there are a lot of americans who don't necessarily believe that's going to happen. paul is going to provide the optimism, i think, to left people up so once again they'll have faith. >> house majority leader eric cantor from virginia. thank you for joining us on the floor of the republican national convention. rachel, back to you in new york. >> thanks, luke. appreciate that. the closing question from luke russert that there's no problem that paul ryan will have with women because he is a family man. >> well, generic terms there thrown out by eric cantor because he knows there's a lot of people in this country that don't know who paul ryan is. so all the good stuff, get brilliant on the basics. he's a family guy. he has a great wife. he's raising kids. you know, so he's coming up with a vision for america on what we're going to do. >> optimistic. >> optimistic. there wasn't a whole lot of detail there. it was a very introductory type

presentation by cantor about -- >> that's probably what we're going to get even in ryan's speech, don't you think? >> i want to go back to what chris was saying about doing big things. we should remind people when it cams to simpson bowles, it was paul ryan who advised his party don't go down this road. it will give obama a victory, walk him right back into a second term. when i say that about him being a good soldier, he may have a voting record that goes along with bush, but he also haa track report of where the buck stops to make sure obama has trouble in a re-election effort. >> that's exactly right. go ahead, chris. >> that's really what it's about. we all come to this discussion about priorities and concern for older people, concern for these entitlement programs and for tax fairness, but the fact of the matter is neither political party is going to rule the country for the next ten years. they're going to need the other party. if not in the current election, if they want to get re-elected. the republicans might get in,

might get in with 50 senators, they might use reconciliation, might cut all kinds of programs, but they'll be finished in two years unless they can find a bipartisan coalition that truly is fair, that the deal is fair to working people. they can say, yeah, okay, we got revenue from the wealthy people. we had to give in on some of the benefits. maybe we means test some of the programs like social security, means test some programs like medicare, and take some steps we wouldn't normally like to take. if we can get tax fairness out of this, if we can get something we can take home to our own families and say this is fair, that could be a deal maker. and i don't see anybody talking like that, and i think that's why a lot of this is disgraceful bs. a lot is just talking to get the people out of the chairs tonight so they'll stand up and applaud something that will never happen, and if it ever did happen, it would bring the party down. no political party will survive if it has the reputation for screwing old people, for cutting solsh security, for cutting medicare. it's always been the third rail, and no matter what newt says or

anybody else says tonight, if you cut those programs, old people turn against you. >> i want to turn now to nbc's ron mott on the convention floor with arizona's republican governor jan brewer. >> hey there, rachel. good evening to you. jan brewer is here from arizona. i want to talk to you about immigration and the fairly significant gap in support among hispanics for president obama and governor romney. you have taken a pretty hard-line stance on immigration. how concerned are you that that stance may have cost you that support, not just for this election cycle but mane maybe many election cycles to come. >> i believe the majority of the american public believe in the rule of law. that's the important part of the whole issue. if we could get our borders secured, we could come to the table and address those peripheral issues that have come about because of the insecure border. in arizona alone, we have an 8.3 billion budget, and $1.7 billion

goes to people because of illegal immigration and incarceration, health care, and education. simply can't afford it. but you know, if we don't like the laws, then congress ought to change the laws. >> let me ask you if you have had conversations with governor romney about securing your border, immigration in general, if you have, what has he told you, what he has promised you, what have you asked for? >> i believe governor romney understands the issues, being a former governor, he understands states' rights, we have to govern, and i know if president obama is elected in november, which i hope he is, he will be able to come together with all of us and come up with a solution. i believe he will secure our borders. and therefore, we can resolve all of the other issues as a simple matter. >> and lastly, paul ryan taking center stage here tonight in just a bit. what are you looking to hear from him with his big moment on the stage? >> i think this is a wonderful opportunity to introduce him to america on a large scale. and i think he's going to be

there telling us what he's going to do and he's going to talk about the budget and talk about the economy. and he's going to tell us that they're going to get the job done because we have seen no success in the last three years. we need a new administration. we need a new president, and a vice president, and i think he's the man who can do it. he's young, energetic, brilliant. >> thank you so much. >> governor brewer -- >> go ahead. >> i want to ask you about a compromise. it seems to me the republicans take a position which is unrealistic. sending everybody here in this country here without papers back to their countries. you can't hear me. that's convenient. can you hear me, governor? >> i have tons of static. >> i'm going to try to relay your question. >> maybe you can relay it to her. here is the question. how about a deal? she stops talking about sending everybody here without papers home, including 12 million

people deported in exchange for the democrats getting serious about a work permit. would she go for a deal that would stop imlegal immigration or will she continue to posture that she wants to throw everybody out of the country who is here without papers? >> what chris is asking is are you open to a deal where you will pull back from pushing that people who are here illegally be sent back home in exchange for what the democrats are asking for, some sort of work permit program that would allow those who are staying here, who are productive citizens of the country, towork out a kaumptmize. >> i believe we have to enforce the rule of law. if the rule of law says you're not leer leghere legally, you n address the issue. bottom line is i support immigration. again, but it has to be legal immigration. and i believe that if we could get our borders secured, then we could talk about guest worker programs, we can talk about all of the other issues.

that this point in time, we have to get our borders secured and talk about the issue. it's all about illegal immigration. it's not just about people who want to come to work, my friends. it's also about the drug cartels and the crime, and the cost it's costing us. >> governor brewer, it's rachel maddow in new york. can you hear me? >> barely. >> i'll be loud, i promise. my question is, you have done so much to talk about insecurity on the border, the need to deport more people. president obama has deported a lot more people than george w. bush ever did. devoted a lot more resources to border security in terms of money than george w. bush ever did. why are you so much more disappointed with president obama on this issue than george bush who was pappably wursh on this issue? >> i really do appreciate the work and the money they have spent on the border. i doebtd believe it's enough. we're still facing tremendous amounts of people coming across the border.

we're faced on a daily basis of the drug cartels bringing drugs into our state and into america. when the economy gets better, it's going to increase again. there are statistics from anybody's point of view, but if you talk to my citizens on the border, they're living in fear. they're absolutely living in fear. they want their borders secure. they're here legally, they're american citizens, part of my state and i believe in the rule of law, and i'm going to stand up and protect them. i wish the federal government would stand with me, secure my borders, come to the table and let's resolve the issue for all of america. >> are you suggesting there's no room for compromise here? >> i say we need to come to the table but secure my borders first. i will tell you, i was probably the biggest supporter you could believe in with ronald reagan, i love him. he was my idol. and he gave amnesty and said he would secure the borders. unfortunately, that didn't happen and i'm sorry for that. we're not going to stand for it any longer. we want the borders secured.

>> let's send it back to you. >> we appreciate it. ron mott and jan brewer of arizona talking about her state l living in fear. arizona. >> missouri candidate todd akin's view of women's health is not new, but the attention it has gotten is new. much to the chagrin of the rnc and the ticket this week. amazingly, mr. akin's greatest ally is about to address the party and the nation. that's coming up. stay with us.

[ "human" by the human league playing ] humans. we mean well, but we're imperfect creatures living in a beautifully imperfect world. it's amazing we've made it this far. maybe it's because when one of us messes up, someone else comes along to help out. that's the thing about humans. when things are at their worst, we're at our best. see how at libertymutual.com. liberty mutual insurance -- responsibility. what's your policy?

[ chuckles ] ♪ [ honk! ] ♪ [ honk! ] ♪ [ honk! ] ♪ [ male announcer ] now you'll know when to stop. [ honk! ] the all-new nissan altima with easy fill tire alert. [ honk! ] it's our most innovative altima ever. nissan. innovation that excites. ♪ there are long shadows cast at tonight's convention by two republicans who are not there. first obviously is gorgeous w. bush. he was not mentioned at all on the first night of the convention, but his two terms as president are felt tonight in the speech by condoleezza rice,

in a tribute video to both president bushes and of course president bush's record implicitly looms with the news out of louisiana and the gulf as they struggle with hurricane isaac almost seven years to the day after the catastrophe that was hurricane katrina. but the other casting a shadow on tonight is this guy, todd akin, the republican party's candidate for senate in missouri. he recently explained why we should feel okay about the government forcing rape victims to give birth against their will if a rapist has gotten them pregnant because in his view, anyone who gets pregnant wasn't really raped. >> if it's a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down. >> after todd akin made tholt comments two sundays ago, the republican party establishment moved within 48 hours to call for him to get out of the senate race. the idea of parsing different

types of rape to decide which type of rape victim would be allowed to make a decision for herself and which wouldn't, that was not the discussion the republican party wanted to have heading into their national convention to nominate mitt romney and paul ryan, but here's the problem. the problem is that mitt romney picked paul ryan for his vice president. and paul ryan sponsored a bill in the house to redefine rape for the purpose of deciding which types of rape victims get to be exempt from his proposed ban on abortion. paul ryan cosponsored legislation to redefine rape with todd akin. if todd akin's views on redefining rape are too extreme, why aren't paul ryan's views on the subject too extreme? and further, one of the reasons virginia governor bob mcdonnell is seen to have blown his chances for vice presidential nomination is because of the law he signed in virginia to force women there to have medclaicall unnecessary ultra sounds and force women to pay for them. the early version of the bill

which mcdonnell supported would have required them to be vaginal probes, forced state vaginal probes against a woman's will. it ruined his shot at the vice presidential nomination, but paul ryan, same thing. paul ryan sponsored a version of the virginia forced ultrasound law that would apply to the whole country. if governor ultrasauoujd was to extreme, why wasn't paul ryan who tried to do exactly the same thing, but not just to one state but to the entire country? and one more, mississippi voters rejected by double digits an abortion bill called personhood that was so broad it would have likely banned most birth control, iuds, and in vitro fertilization. paul ryan sponsored a version of that mississippi law that would apply to the whole country. incidentally, that's also the republican party platform this

year. paul ryan was not famous for being an extreme social conservative before he got the vice presidential nod. but now he is kind of famous for that. in part, thanks to the todd akin flare-up. the main defender of todd akin after his legitimate rape comments has been the fox news host and former presidential candidate mike huckabee. he's been lashing the republican party establishment for them criticizing todd akin. he has called the republicans and romney campaign disgraceful and sleazy. here's how you really know he's mad. he compared the romney campaign and the republican party establishment, and i quote, to union goons who knee-cap their enemies. tonight, mike huckabee who has been one of mitt romney's harshest critics even as reese nltdly as last week in this issue, tonight, he's featured in primetime to sing mitt romney's praises. pass the popcorn. melissa harris-perry joins us.

does this potentially crack this issue open in a way that is a little bit out of control of the candidate's message machine? >> maybe, except that if they follow the same script from last night, the speakers will not be talking about mr. romney. they're mostly going to be talking about themselves. under those circumstances it may not be awkward because he may give a speech that is primarily about his own views. the one thing you have to respect huckabee on is that he is pointed out, as you just did, this is only a matter of the tiniest semantic differences. paul ryan is todd akin in terms of policy. >> in terms of the difference between todd akin and paul ryan and paul ryan and the rest of the party, how much dois that inflii inflected by the fact that the republican party picked a hardline plank for their platform. they have no exceptions for rape or incest.

reince priebus is trying to explain this as not a problem for the ticket because they're saying ithe paul ryan platform s not the mitt romney plat fm. how much does it affect the party? >> only some. for the most part, priebus isn't wrong there. presidential candidates often wink and nod and ignore the platforms. what is different is given mitt romney has been on all sides of this particular issue in his public career, not just in his sort of personal utterances, but because he's taken various positions over time, we have to figure out sort of which mitt romney do voters think they're actually voting for? and in this case, that means that the gop platform becomes sort of the one thing you can hold onto because it's so difficult to hold onto romney's positions on this himself and also because ryan has never moved from this. there's really only one position ryan has had and it is the most extreme, most right position.

and it's not whether there's carve-outs for victims of rape and incest. that's difficult for women needing to make decisions in a quick time period, particularly to get in under other kinds of bans. the real issue is women and their doctors and their families ought to be able to make these decisions regardless of how they become pregnant. this is not the business of the government. >> we should also note that mike huckabee has a history because the person he appointed to run the health department in the state, in his state, a state rep by the name of fay boozman lost a race at a key moment because of a todd akin moment because he talked about the fact you can't get pregnant under conditions of rape. he called it god's little shield. there was dispute whether he used that phrase, but the words were the same, and mike huckabee appointed him to run up the state's health department. huckabee has been through exactly this battle before.

he has some skin in the game in this in terms of defending akin. >> i think his platform is different now. he's a radio talker with a big audience on a lot of radio stations around the country. he's in the flock right now. for him to deviate away from what he has previously said about akin on the biggest platform is going to be a very tough path to travel. >> you think he's got to take akin's cause? >> he may not use akin's name, but he's going to go with probably the strongest pro life campaign at the podium that we'll see throughout this entire convention. he's the guy to do it, the baptist preacher. >> the biggest question in my mind is about to be answered when we see this. are we going to see a barry goldwater 1960 moment? is he going to take the abortion rights/todd akin issue? are the romney/ryan ticket are going to intersect. this is coming up. our coverage of the republican national convention continues with mike huckabee when we come back.

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humans. we mean well, but we're imperfect creatures living in a beautifully imperfect world. it's amazing we've made it this far. maybe it's because when one of us messes up, someone else comes along to help out. that's the thing about humans. when things are at their worst, we're at our best. see how at libertymutual.com. liberty mutual insurance -- responsibility. what's your policy? [ chuckles ] ♪ [ honk! ] ♪ [ honk! ] ♪ [ honk! ] ♪ [ male announcer ] now you'll know when to stop. [ honk! ] the all-new nissan altima with easy fill tire alert. [ honk! ] it's our most innovative altima ever. nissan. innovation that excites. ♪

welcome back to msnbc's live coverage of the republican national convention. i'm rachel maddow at msnbc headquarters in new york. i'm with chris matthews at the rnc site in tampa. we're just about to get mike huckabee speaking who is sort of more than just a formal presidential candidate in terms of the power structure, right? >> he's a man of god, like many african-american people who have got into politics from the clergy, from the cloth, if you will. isn't he the guy who said about romney, i don't think he has a soul? now, somebody might use that, i might use that in a secular fashion. i don't know about you.

but it seems like a man of god when he says this fellow has no soul, he means it quite literal literally. then he comes out and if you look at the prepared remarks, he'll give him the greatest blessing in history. that's a heck of a 180 on this guy. >> we have heard from prominent democrats that the democrats really feared running against mike huckabee this year. they thought he was going to be the republican party pick. they may not have been saying that publicly, but that's what they were saying behind closed doors in washington. they think he's a formidable opponent. he will not be old in 2016, and he's been telling the press all year long he wouldn't be old in 2016 and that would be a great time to run. is there something to set him up in terms of a romney loss. >> you're a student to come up with this one. i was lying in bed at my grandmom's house in chesten hill, listening to the radio when i was hardly a kid, listening to barry goldwater's

speech at the '60 convention in chicago saying we're not going to win this one, nixon is going to win this one, but our day will come, presaging the goldwater victory in '64. the true believers would come back. they had to put up a pragmatist like romney this time, but they would eventually take control of their party. that's brilliant on your part to see that as an early type, using a biblical kerm, of what you might be seeing tonight, for this guy, even though he's really saying the true believers will have their turn when this guy fails. >> are the true believers likely to come from the social conservative part of the republican party? are those the people who feel like they need a santorum, they need a huckabee, and that's the only way they can win? >> well, it is, as you know, the key to being a republican nominee. you absolutely, positively must be pro life down the line. we have seen that ever since reagan. that's the terms of admission. but you know, the whole republican coalition we're

watching on the floor here is really built upon the disaffection with the democratic party by its right-wing former advocates, whether it's the dixiecrats or the religious right after the decision from the supreme court, no prayer in public schools, or the tea party who is fed up with the spending. he's an example of a southerner who has become a republican. >> former arkansas governor mike huckabee stepping up to the podium. >> to be asked to address one of this week's themes, we can do better. then i quasi-backstage and heard folks saying after hearing me speak, the delegates are going to say we sure can do better than huckabee. that's when they will unanimously nominate mitt romney to be the next president of the united states of america. i want to say to tampa has been a wonderful and hospitable city. and i'm grateful for all they have done for us.

but the only hitch in an otherwise perfect week was the awful noise coming from the hotel room next door to mine. turns out it was just debbie wasserman schultz practicing her speech for the democratic national convention in charlotte next week. bless her heart. four years ago, mitt romney and i were opponents. we still are. but we're not opposing each other. no, we are mutual opponents of the miserably failed experiments that have put this country in a downward spiral. the united states of america was originally an experiment. but it was an experiment in recognizing god-given individual liberty and creating a government in which no one is deemed better than another. and in which all of us are

equal. not equal in abilities, but equal in intrinsic worth and value. it is the essence, not just of who we are but what we are. now, let me just say to those who question how once rivals can be now united. it's quite simple. we have barack obama to thank. it was barack obama who said, you didn't build it. translati translation, it doesn't belong to you. well, no small differences among us in our part y approximate th vast differences between the liberty limiting radical left-wing antibusiness reckless spending tax hiking party of barack obama, harry reid, and nancy pelosi versus an energized america who knows we can do better.

for four years, we have given a chance to a man with very limited experience in governing, no experience in business whatsoever, and since taking office, mostly an interest in campaigning, blaming, and aiming excuses at his predecessor, the republicans, and people in business. or as republicans like to call them, employers. we've stagnated into an economy that has taken all that hope right down the slope and has left millions without jobs. forced out of their homes by foreclosure, herded into dependency on a government that promises us candy but gives us cavities. barack obama seems intent on enrolling more people on food stamps. mitt romney's focus is going to be on generating more jobs that

will make food stamps unnecessary for them. we know full well we can do better. mitt romney turned around companies that were on the skids. he turned around a scandal-ridden olympics that was deep in the red, into a high point of profit and patriotic pride. and he turned around a very liberal state when he erased the deficit and replaced it with a surplus. do you remember when barack obama said that if he couldn't turn things around in three years, it would be a one-term proposition? well, it's been almost four years. i say let's make him a proposition he can't refuse. let's vote him out.

i understand that the job of president is admittedly tougher than running a company, an olympic contest, or a commonwealth, but when one sees what even bill clinton noted was a sterling record of problem solving that has marked the life of mitt romney, we are confident that we will do better. i am thrilled to say mitt romney has been loyal to his lovely wife who knocked it out of the park last night in this arena. he's been loyal to his sons, to his country, to his employees and to his church. i'm sure now that the press is going to tell you he isn't perfect. but my friends for the past four years, we have tried the one that the press thought was perfect. and that hasn't worked out all that well for us.

that's why tonight i tell you we can do better. our founding fathers left taxation and tyranny seeking religious liberty and a society of meritocracy rather than air astockerousy. what they created was a bold experiment in government believing that god gave us unalienable rights and the role of government is simply to make sure that those rights are protected. so fail proof were they that the government would grow beyond their intention that even after crafting our magnificent constitution, they said we can do even better. they added amendments. we call them the bill of rights. those bill of rights limit what the government can do, and they

guarantee what we the people have the unimpeded right to do. whether to speak, assemble, worship, pray, publish, or even refuse intrusions into our homes. many of those founders died to pass on that heritage. they had lived under the boot of big government. and what they said was we can do better. as a kid growing up in a household, my dad never finished high school. i grew up in a family in which no male upsteam from me had ever finished high school, much less gone to college. but i was taught that even though there was nothing i can do about what was behind me, i could change everything about what was in front of me. my working poor parents told me i could do better. they taught me i was as good as

anybody else. and it never occurred to them to tell me that i could just rest comfortably and wait for good old uncle sugar to feed me, lead me, and then bleed me. they told me to get off my backside, work hard, take risk, and treat people honestly and honorably. and look at me today. i have become, as the press like to label me, a failed candidate. oh, it's true. i have fallen from the high perch of politics and now i wallow in the mud of the media. but i still know that as a country, we can do better. and with mitt romney and paul ryan, we will do better. i want to clear the air about

something that has been said. people wonder whether guys like me, an evangelical, would only support a fellow evangelical. well, my friends, i want to tell you something. of the four people on the two tickets, the only self-professed evangelical is barack obama. and he supports changing the definition of marriage. believes that human life is disposable and expendable at any time in the womb, even beyond the womb, and he tells people of faith they have to bow their knees to the god of government and violate their faith and conscience in order to comply with what he called health care. friends, i know we can do better. let me say it as clearly as possible, that the attack on my catholic brothers and sisters is an attack on me.

the democrats have brought back that old dance, the limbo, to see how low they can go in attempting to limit our ability to practice our faith. but this isn't a battle about contraceptives and catholics. but about conscience and the creator. let me say to you tonight, i care far less as to where mitt romney takes his family to church than i do about where he takes this country. joe biden -- joe biden said show me your budget. and i'll tell you what you value. well, in the senate, joe's party hasn't produced a budget in three years. what does that say about their values? and by the way, speaking of

budgets, joe biden's budget shows that while he wants to be very johnerous with your money through higher taxes and government spending, for years he gave less than two tenths of 1% of his own money to charity. he just wants you to give the c. he just wants you to give the government more, so he and the democrats can feel better about themselves. mitt romney has given over 16% of his income to church and charity. and my friend, i feel a lot better about having a president who will give generously of his own money instead of mine or yours. my concern is not barack obama's past, but my concern is for the future. not his future, but for the

future of my grandchildren, little chandler and scarlett. and under each of them, we have burdened each of them with tens of thousands of dollars of debt and a system that will collapse upon itself, because he thinks that we can prosper by promising productive and rewarding reckless irresponsibility. the democrats say we ought to give barack obama credit for trying. folks, that sounds like the nonsense of giving every kid a trophy for showing up. let's be clear. we're talking about leading the country, not playing on a third grade soccer team. look, i realize, this is a man who got a nobel peace prize for what he would potentially do. but in the real world, you get the prize for producing something, not just promising something.

sometimes, sometimes we get so close to the picture, we really can't see it clearly. i've had the privilege of working with bono for the past few years in the one campaign, to fight aids and hunger and disease around the world. bono is an irishman and a great humanitarian. and i remember him telling me of his administration for america. he said, america's more than just a country. we are an idea. and he reminded me that we are an exceptional nation with an extraordinary history, who owes it to the generations who are coming after us to lead them with an extraordinary legacy, but if we don't change the direction of our nation now, our

bequests will be nothing but an extraordinary chain, but dear friends, we can do better. president obama is out of gas. and americans are out of patience. and our great republic is almost out of time. it's time that we no longer lead from behind, but that we get off our behinds and leave something lasting for those who came after us instead of a mountain of debt and a pile of excuses. tonight, it's not because we're republicans, it's because we are americans. that we proudly stand with mitt romney and paul ryan and say, we will do better. god bless you, thank you. god bless. >> former arkansas governor, mike huckabee, speaking tonight in prime-time, with a long

discussion about abortion, accusing president obama of "finding human life to be disposable and expendable, at any time, even beyond the womb." accusing the president of, i guess, infanticide. also. mike huckabee has seen mitt romney's tax returns. >> yeah, he said that he gave 16% to his church. that's the biggest information we got on mr. romney's tax returns -- >> mr. huckabee, please share your sources with us. we would love to know. >> well, maybe because he's -- the evangelicals have been hanging out with him, he says. but i think that he did not do a goldwater moment. >> nope. >> okay, that's not -- >> i think it's very clear that he disappointed you on that, rachel. >> yeah, i know. >> i think he made it very clear that if it's about us sitting in the kitchen, wanting to make sure we have food for our families, government shouldn't interfere, that's our responsibility, or the kids'

education, that's not government's business. but big government's all right in the bedroom, regulating your private life. not in the kitchen, not in the kids' room. we want government to tell you about your intimate life. but on everything else, it's all on your own merits. >> chris matthews, let me get your response to the mike huckabee speech. >> yeah, i love this discussion of rights being god given. and that's an argument that they are. but of course, it was the civil rights and voting rights act that made them real in this country, and lyndon johnson that made them happen. you should remember that. >> let's pause now for condoleezza rice, the former secretary of state from the george w. bush administration, speaking tonight as one of the only high-profile representatives of the bush administration. one of the last speakers of the night. let's listen. >> thank you. thank you.

thank you very much, thank you. thank you. thank you so much. good evening. good evening. good evening. good evening, distinguished delegates. good evening, fellow republicans. good evening, my fellow americans. we gather here at a time of significance and challenge. this young century has been a difficult one. i can remember, as if it were yesterday, when my young assistant came into my office at the white house to say that a plane had hit the world trade center. and then a second plane. and then a third plane, the pentagon. and later we would learn that a plane had crashed into a field

in pennsylvania, driven into the ground by brave souls who died so that others might live. from that day on, our sense of vulnerability and our concepts of security were never the same again. then in 2008, the global financial and economic crisis would stun us. and it still reverberates as we deal with unemployment and economic uncertainty and bad policies that cast a pall over an american economy and recovery that is desperately needed at home and abroad. and we have seen, we have seen that the desire for liberty and freedom is, indeed, universal, as men and women in the middle east rise up to seize it. yet the promise of the arab

spring is engulfed in uncertainty, internal strife, and hostile neighbors, are challenging the young, fragile democracy of iraq. dictators in iran and syria butcher their people and threaten regional security. russia and china prevent a response and everyone asks, where does america stand? indeed, indeed, that is the question of the hour. where does america stand? because, you see, when friends or foes alike don't know the answer to that question, unambiguously and clearly, the world is likely to be a more dangerous and chaotic place. since world war ii, the united states has had an answer to that question. we stand for free peoples and free markets. we will defend and support them.

we will sustain a balance of power that favors freedom. now, to be sure, the burdens of leadership have been heavy. i know, as you do, the sacrifice that americans, especially the sacrifice of many of our bravest, and the ultimate sacrifice. but our armed forces are the surer shield and foundation of liberty. and we are so fortunate that we have men and women in uniform who volunteer. they volunteer to defend us at the front lines of freedom, and we owe them our eternal gratitude. [ cheers and applause ]

i know, too, that it has not always been easy, though it has been rewarding, to speak for those who would otherwise not have a voice. the religious dissident in china, the democracy advocate in venezuela, the political prisoner in iran. it has been hard to muster the resources to support fledgling democracies and to intervene on behalf of the most desperate. the aids orphan in uganda, the refugee fleeing zimbabwe, the young woman who has been trafficked into the sex trade in southeast asia. it has been hard, yet this assistance, together with the compassionate work of private charities, people of conscious, and people of faith have shown the soul of our country. and i know, too -- i know, too, that there is a weariness. i know that it feels as if we have carried these burdens long

enough. but we can only know that there is no choice, because one of two things will happen if we don't leave. either no one will leave and there will be chaos, or someone will feel the vacuum who does not share our values. my fellow americans, we do not have a choice. we cannot be reluctant to lead, and you cannot lead from behind. [ cheers and applause ] mitt romney and paul ryan understand this reality. our well-being at home and our leadership abroad are unextrickabunextric unextrickably linked.

they know what to do. they know that our friends and allies must be able to trust us, from israel to colombia, from poland to the philippines. our allies and friends have to know that we will be reliable and consistent and, and our foes, our foes can have no reason to doubt our resolve, because peace really does come through strength. [ cheers and applause ] our military capability and our technological advantage will be safe in mitt romney's hands. we must work for an open global economy and pursue free and fair trade to grow our exports and our influence abroad. if you are worried about the rise of china, just consider this. the united states has negotiated -- the united states has ratified only three trade agreements in the last few years, and those were negotiated in the bush administration.

china -- china has signed 15 free trade agreements and is in the progress of negotiating as many as 18 more. sadly, we are abandoning the field of free and fair trade and it will come back to haunt us. we must not allow the chance to attain energy independence to slip from our grasp. we are blessed with a gift of oil and gas resources here in north america, and we must develop them. we can develop them sensitively, we can develop them securing our environment, but we must develop them. [ cheers and applause ] and we have the ingenuity to develop alternative sources of energy too. but most importantly, mitt

romney and paul ryan will rebuild the foundation of our strength, the american economy. stimulating private sector growth and stimulating small business entrepreneurship. when the world looks at us today, they see an american government that cannot live within its means. they see an american government that continues to borrow money, that will mortgage the future of generations to come. the world knows that when a nation loses control of its finances, it eventually loses control of its destiny. that is not the america that has inspired people to follow our lead.

after all, when the world looks to america, they look to us because we are the most successful with economic and political experiment in history. that is the true basis of american exceptionalism. you see, the essence of america, what really unites us is not nationality or ethnicity or religion. it is an idea. and what an idea it is. that you can come from humble circumstances and you can do great things. that it does not matter where you came from, it matters where you are going. [ cheers and applause ]

my fellow americans, ours has never been a narrative of grievance and entitlement. we have never believed that i am doing poorly because you are doing well. we have never been jealous of one another and never envious of each other's successes. [ cheers and applause ] no, no ours has been a belief in opportunity. and it has been a constant struggle, long and hard, up and down, to try to extend the benefits of the american dream to all. but that american ideal is, indeed, in danger today. there is no country, no, not even a rising china that can do more harm to us than we can do to ourselves if we do not do the

hard work before us here at home. more than at any other time in history, greatness is built on mobilizing human potential and ambition. we have always done that better than any country in the world. people have come here from all over, because they have believed our creed of opportunity and limitless horizons. they have come here from the world's most impoverished nations, just to make a decent wage. and they have come here from advanced societies, as engineers and scientists to fuel the knowledthe knowledge-based revolution of silicon valley, along route 128 in massachusetts, in austin,

texas and across this great land. [ cheers and applause ] we must continue to welcome the world's most ambitious people to be a part of us. in that way, we stay young and optimistic and determined. we need immigration laws that protect our borders, meet our economic needs, and yet show that we are a compassionate nation of immigrants. we have been successful, too, because americans have known that one status of birth is not a permanent condition. americans have believed that you might not be able to control your circumstances, but you can

control your response to your circumstances. and as your greatest ally in controlling your response to your circumstances has been a quality education. but today, today when i can look at your zip code and i can tell whether you're going to get a good education, can i honestly say it doesn't matter where you came from, it matters where you're going? the crisis in k-12 education is a threat to the very fabric of who we are. [ cheers and applause ] my mom was a teacher. i respect the profession. we need great teachers, not poor ones and not mediocre ones. we have to have high standards for our kids, because self-esteem comes from achievement, not from lax standards and false praise.

and we need to give parents greater choice, particularly, particularly poor parents, whose kids, very often minorities, are trapped in failing neighborhood schools. this is the civil rights issue of our day. [ cheers and applause ] if we do anything less, we condemn generations to joblessness and hopelessness and life on the government doll. if we do anything less, we will

endanger our global comparables for competitiveness. and if we do anything less, we will tear apart the fabric of who we are and cement the turn toward entitlement and grievance. mitt romney -- mitt romney and paul ryan will rebuild us at home. and they will help us lead abroad. they will provide an answer to the question, where does america stand? the challenge is real, and the times are hard. but america has met and overcome hard challenges before. whenever you find yourself doubting us, just think about all those times that america made the impossible seem inevitable in retrospect. our revolutionary founding against the greatest military power of the time, a civil war, brother against brother, hundreds of thousands dead on both sides, but we emerged a more perfect union, a second founding when impatient patriots

were determined to overcome the birth defect of slavery and the scourge of segregation. a long struggle dpens coagainst communism with the soviet union eventually in collapse and europe whole, free, and at peace. and in the aftermath of 9/11, the willingness to take really hard, hard decisions that secured us and prevented the follow-on attack that everybody thought preordained. and on a personal note -- and on a personal note, a little girl grows up in birmingham, the segregated city of the south, where her parents can't take her to a movie theater or to a restaurant, but they have her absolutely convinced that even if she can't have a hamburger at the woolworth's lunch counter, she could be president of the united states if she wanted to

be, and she becomes the secretary of state. [ cheers and applause ] [ cheers and applause ] yes. yes, yes. yes, america, america has a way of making the impossible seem inevitable in retrospect, but we know it was never inevitable. it took leadership and it took courage and it took belief in our values. mitt romney and paul ryan have the integrity and the experience and the vision to lead us. they know who we are. they know who we want to be.

they know who we are in the world and what we offer. that is why, that is why this is a moment and an election of consequence. because it just has to be, that the freest and most compassionate country on the face of the earth will continue to be the most powerful, and a beacon for prosperity and liberty across the world. god bless you and god bless this extraordinary country, this exceptional country, the united states of america. >> former secretary of state, condoleezza rice, getting just a huge ovation at the republican national convention tonight. i think part of the impact of seeing her speak is that since her time in the bush administration, she has not maintained an intensely public life. you do not see her speak all that often. she's a very, very good speaker. on policy terms, it is hard to hear her talk about america being a country that is living

beyond its means, because she was such a high-profile member of the bush administration, but her personal story and her international statements at the beginning of the speech, very powerful. very, very well received. right now we're going to go to governor susanna martinez. >> before i begin tonight, let's keep in our prayers the families impacted by the storm affecting the gulf coast. if you haven't done so already, please, donate to the red cross. to find out more about how you can help those affected by hurricane isaac, please visit redcross.org/give. i am susanna martinez. on behalf of the great state of new mexico, let me express my gratitude for being invited to speak tonight. growing up, i never imagined a little girl from a border town could one day become a governor.

but this is america. in america -- [ speaking in foreign language ] my parents taught me to never give up and to always believe that my future could be whatever i dreamt it to be. success, they thought me, is built on the foundation of courage, hard work, and individual responsibility. despite what some would have us believe, success is not built on resentment and fear. we grew up on the border, and truly lived paycheck to paycheck. my dad was a golden gloves boxer in the marine corps, then a deputy sheriff. my mom worked as an office

assistant. one day, they decided to start a security guard business. i thought they were absolutely crazy. we literally had no savings. but they always believed in the american dream. so my dad worked to grow the business. my mom did the books at night. and at 18, i guarded the parking lot at the catholic church bingos. now, my dad made sure i could take care of myself. i carried a smith & wesson .357 magnum.

yes, that gun weighed more than i did. my parents grew that small business from one 18-year-old guarding a bingo to more than 125 employees in three states. and sure, there was help along the way. but my parents took the risk. they stood up and you better believe they built it. my parents also taught me about having the courage to stand for something. so i went to law school and i became a prosecutor. i took on a specialty that very few choose to pursue. i prosecuted child abuse and

child homicide cases. cases that were truly gut wrenching. but standing up for those kids, being their voice for justice, was the honor of a lifetime. sometimes you pay a price for standing up. when i was a young prosecutor, i got called to testify against my boss. i could have backed down, but i didn't. i stood up to him. and he fired me for it. so i took him on. ran against him for district attorney and beat him by a landslide!

i fear some of our leaders today have lost the courage to stand up. that what we have now a politicians that won't offer real plans and only stand up when they want to blame someone else. and i don't say that just because a democrat is in the white house. i was a democrat for many years. so were my parents. before i ran for district attorney, two republicans invited my husband and me to lunch. and i knew a party switch was exactly what they wanted. so i told chuck, we'll be polite, enjoy a free lunch, and then say good-bye. but we talked about issues. they never used the words republican or democrat, conservative or liberal. we talked about many issues, like welfare. is it a way of life or a hand

up? talked about size of government. how much should it tax families and small businesses? and when we left that lunch, we got in the car, and i looked over at chuck and said, i'll be damned, we're republicans! [ cheers and applause ] this election should not be about political parties. too many americans are out of work and our debt is out of control. this election needs to be about those issues, and it is the responsibility of both parties to offer up real solutions and

have an honest debate. in new mexico, i inherited the largest structural deficit in state history. and our legislature is controlled by democrats. we don't always agree, but we came together in a bipartisan manner and turned that deficit into a surplus. and we did it without raising tax taxes. but that's not the kind of leadership that we are seeing from president obama. he promised to bring us all together, to cut unemployment, to pass immigration reform in his first year. and even promised to cut the deficit in half in his first term. do you remember that?

but it hasn't come close. they haven't even passed a budget in washington, d.c. in three years. if he can take credit for government building small businesses, then he can accept responsibility for breaking his promise and adding $5 trillion to the national debt. [ cheers and applause ] because he did build that. [ laughter and applause ] as the first hispanic female governor in the history, little girls, they often come up to me

in the grocery store or in the mall. they look, and they point, and when they get the courage to come up, they ask, are you susana? and they run up and they give me a hug. and i wonder, how do you know who i am? but they do! and these are little girls. it's in moments like these when i'm reminded that we each pave a path, and for me, it's about paving a path for those little girls to follow. they need to know, no more barriers. in many ways, mitt romney and i are very different. different starts in life, different paths to leadership, different cultures. but we've each shared in the

promise of america. and we share a core belief that the promise of america must be kept for the next generation. [ speaking in foreign language ] it's success. it is success. and success is the american dream. and that success is not something to be ashamed of or to demonize. there is one candidate in this election who will protect that dream. one leader who will fight hard to keep the promise of america for the next generation. and that's why we must stand up and make mitt romney the next president of the united states! [ cheers and applause ] >> new mexico governor susana martin martinez, giving an excellent, in my opinion, speech, speaking just on the heels of condoleezza rice, who also gave an excellent

speech. neither speech about mitt romney or paul ryan. this is the video that introduces the paul ryan speech. >> his leadership begins with character and values. he's a person of great steadiness, whose integrity is unquestioned and whose word is good. he understands the fiscal challenges facing america and the fiscal catastrophe that awaits us if we don't change course. today is a good day for america, and there are better days ahead. >> when i look at all he's done, his life, his wife, his family, i'm just so proud. i know his father would be as well. especially tonight. >> i am so proud to introduce my husband, the next vice president of the united states, paul ryan. [ cheers and applause ]

>> hello, everybody! hello, everybody! [ cheers and applause ] thank you. thank you. thank you very much. thank you. hey, wisconsin. thank you. thank you. [ cheers and applause ] you guys are great. thank you so much. thank you. mr. chairman -- mr. chairman, delegates, and fellow citizens, i am honored by the support of

this convention for vice president of the united states. i accept the duty to help lead our nation out of a jobs crisis and back to prosperity and i know we can do this. i accept the calling of my generation to give our children the america that was given to us, with opportunity for the young and security for the old. and i know that we are ready. our nominee is sure ready. his whole life, his whole life prepared him forrer this moment. to meet serious challenges in a serious way, without excuses and idle words. after four years of getting the

runaround, america needs a turnaround and the man for the job is governor mitt romney. [ cheers and applause ] i'm a newcomer to this campaign. so let me share a first impression. i have never seen opponents so silent about their record. and so desperate to keep their power. they've run out of ideas. their moment came and went. fear and division is all they've got left. with all their attack ads, the president is just throwing away money. and he's pretty experienced at that.

you see, some people can't wibe dragged down by the usual cheap tactics, because their character, ability, and plain decency are so obvious. and ladies and gentlemen, that is mitt romney. [ cheers and applause ] for my part, your nomination is an unexpected turn. it certainly came as news to my family. and i would like you to meet them. my best friend and wife, janna, our daughter, liza, and our boys, charlie and sam. [ cheers and applause ]

the kids are happy to see their grandma, who lives in florida. there she is, my mom, betty. my dad, a small town lawyer, was also named paul. until we lost him when i was 16, he was a gentle presence in my life. i like to think he'd be proud of me and my sister and brothers. you know what, i'm sure proud of him and where i come from, janesville, wisconsin. i live on the same block where i

grew up. we belong to the same parish where i was baptized. janesville is that kind of place. the people of wisconsin have been good to me. i've tried to live to their trust. and now, i ask those hard-working men and women and millions like them across america to join our cause and get this country working again. [ cheers and applause ] when governor romney asked me to join the ticket, i said, let's get this done. and that is exactly what we are going to do. president barack obama came to office during an economic crisis as he has reminded us a time or

two. those were very tough days. in any fair measure of his record has to take that into account. my own state voted for president obama. when he talked about change, many people like the sound of it. especially in janesville, where we were about to lose a major factory. a lot of guys i went to high school with worked at that gm plant. right there at that plant, candidate obama said, i believe that if our government is there to support you, this plant will be there for another 100 years. that's what he said in 2008. well, as it turned out, that plant didn't last another year. it is locked up and empty to this day. and that's how it is in so many towns, where the recovery that was promised is nowhere in sight.

right now, 23 million men and women are struggling to find work. 23 million people, unemployed or underemployed. nearly 1 in 6 americans is in poverty. millions of young americans have graduated from college during the obama presidency, ready to use their gifts and get moving in life. half of them can't find the work they studied for or any work at all. so here's the question. without a change in leadership, why would the next four years be any different from the last four years? [ cheers and applause ] the first troubling sign came

with the stimulus. it was president obama's first and best shot at fixing the economy. at a time when he got everything he wanted under one party rule. it cost $831 billion. the largest one-time expenditure ever by our federal government. they went to companies like solyndra, with their gold-plated connections, subsidized jobs, and make-believe markets. the stimulus was the indicate of political patronage, corporate welfare, and cronyism at their worst. you, you the american people of this country were cut out of the deal. what did taxpayers get out of the obama stimulus? more debt. that money wasn't just spent and wasted, it was borrowed, spent,

and wasted. maybe the greatest waste of all was time. here we were, faced with a massive job crisis, so deep that if everyone out of work stood in single file, that unemployment line would stretch the length of the entire american continent. you would think that any president, whatever his party, would make job creation and nothing else his first order of economic business. but this president didn't do that. instead, we got a long, divisive, all or nothing attempt to put the federal government in charge of health care.

obama care comes to more than 2,000 pages of rules, mandates, taxes, fees and fines that have no place in a free country! [ cheers and applause ] that's right. that's right. you know what, the president has declared that the debate over government-controlled health care is over. that will come as news to the millions of americans who elect mitt romney so we can repeal obama care.

[ cheers and applause ] and the biggest, coldest power play of all in obama care came at the expense of the elderly. you see, even with all the hidden taxes to pay for the health care takeover, even with the new law and new taxes on nearly 1 million small businesses, the planners in washington still didn't have enough money. they needed more. they needed hundreds of billions more. so they just took it all away from medicare. $716 billion, funneled out of medicare, by president obama. in obligation we have to our

parents and grandparents is being sacrificed, all to pay for a new entitlement we didn't even ask for. the greatest threat to medicare is obama care. and we're going to stop it. [ cheers and applause ] in congress, when they take out the heavy books and the wall charts about medicare, my thoughts go back to a house on garfield street in janesville. my wonderful grandma, janet, has alzheimer's, and she moved in with mom and me. though she felt lost at times, we did all the little things that made her feel loved.

we had help from medicare, and it was there, just like it's there for my mom today. medicare is a promise, and we will honor it. a romney/ryan administration will protect and strengthen medicare for my mom's generation, for my generation, and for my kids and yours. [ cheers and applause ] so our opponents can consider themselves on notice. in this election, on this issue, the usual posturing on the left isn't going to work. mitt romney and i know the difference between protecting a program and raiding it. ladies and gentlemen, our nation needs this debate, we want this debate, we will win this debate.

[ cheers and applause ] obama care, as much as anything else, explains why a presidency that began with such anticipation, now comes to such a disappointing close. it began with a financial crisis. it ends with a job crisis. it began with a housing crisis they alone didn't cause. it ends with a housing crisis they didn't correct.

it began with a perfect aaa credit rating for the united states. it ends with a downgraded america. it all started off with stirring speeches, greek columns, the thrill of something new. now all that's let is a presidency adrift, surviving on slogans that already seem tired, grasping at a moment that is already passed, like a ship trying to sail on yesterday's wind. [ applause ] you know, president obama was asked not long ago to reflect on any mistakes he might have made. he said, well, i haven't

communicated enough. he said his job is to, quote, tell a story to the american people. as if that's the whole problem here? he needs to talk more and we need to be better listeners? ladies and gentlemen, these past four years, we have suffered no shortage of words in the white house. what is missing is leadership in the white house! [ cheers and applause ] [ cheers and applause ]

and the story that barack obama does tell, forever shifting blame to the last administration is getting old. the man assumed office almost four years ago! isn't it about time he assumed responsibility? in this generation, a defining responsibility of government is to steer our nation clear of a debt crisis while there is still time. back in 2008, candidate obama called a $10 trillion national debt unpatriotic.

serious talk from what looked like a serious reformer. yet by his own decisions, president obama has added more debt than any other president before him. and more than all the troubled governments of europe combined, one president, one term, $5 trillion in new debt. [ audience boos ] he created a new bipartisan debt commission. they came back with an urgent report. he thanked them, sent them on their way, and then did exactly nothing. republicans -- republicans stepped up with good faith reforms and solutions equal to the problems. how did the president respond? by doing nothing. nothing except to dodge and demagogue the issue. so here we are.

$16 trillion in debt and still he does nothing. in europe, massive debts have put entire governments at risk of collapse, and still he does nothing. and all we have heard from this president and his team are attacks on anyone who dares to point out the obvious. they have no answer to this simple reality. we need to stop spending money we don't have. really simple! not that hard. [ cheers and applause ] my dad used to say to me, son, you have a choice. you can be part of the problem or you can be part of the

solution. the present administration has made its choices, and mitt romney and i have made ours. before the math and the momentum overwhelm us all, we are going to solve this nation's economic problems. and i'm going to level with you. we don't have that much time. but if we are serious and smart and we lead, we can do this. after four years of government trying to divide up the wealth, we will get america creating wealth again. with tax fairness and regulatory reform. we'll put government back on the side of men and women who create jobs, and the men and women who

need jobs. my mom started a small business, and i've seen what it takes. mom was 50 when my dad died. she got on a bus every weekday for years and rode 40 miles each morning to madison. she earned her new degree and learned new skills to start her new business. it wasn't just a new livelihood, it was a new life. and it transformed my mom from a widow in grief to a small businesswoman whose happiness wasn't just in the past. her work gave her hope. it made our family proud. and to this day, my mom is my role model. [ cheers and applause ]

[ cheers and applause ] behind every small business, there's a story worth knowing. all the corner shops in our towns and cities, the restaurants, cleaners, gyms, hair salons, hardware stores, these didn't come out of nowhere. a lot of heart goes into each one. and if small businesspeople say they made it on their own, all they're saying is that nobody else worked seven days a week in their place. nobody showed up in their place to open a door at 5:00 in the morning. nobody did their thinking and worrying and sweating for them. after all that work, and in a

bad economy, it sure doesn't help to hear from their president that government gets the credit. what they deserve to the hear is the truth. yes, you did build that! [ cheers and applause ] we have a plan for a stronger middle class with a goal of generating 12 million new jobs over the next four years. in a clean break, in a clean break from the obama years, and frankly, from the years before this president, we will keep federal spending at 20% of gdp or less, because that is enough.

the choice, the choice is whether to put hard limits on economic growth or hard limits on the size of government, and we choose to limit government. i learned a good deal about economics and about america from the author of the reagan tax reforms, the great jack kemp. what gave jack that incredible enthusiasm was his belief in the possibilities of free people. in the power of free enterprise and strong communities to overcome poverty and despair. we need that same optimism right now. and in our dealings with other nations, a romney/ryan administration will speak with

confidence and clarity. whenever men and women rise up for their own freedom, they will know that the american president is on their side. [ cheers and applause ] instead, instead of managing american decline, leaving allies to doubt us and adversaries to test us, we will act in the conviction that the united states is still the greatest force for peace and liberty that this world has ever known! [ cheers and applause ] >> president obama is the kind of politician who puts promises

on the record and then calls that the record. but we are four years into this presidency. the issue is not the economy that barack obama inherited. not the economy that he envisions. but this economy that we are living. college graduates should not have to live out their 20s in their childhood bedrooms, staring up at fading obama posters and wondering when they can move out and get going with life! [ cheers and applause ]

everyone, everyone who feels stuck in the obama economy is right to focus on the here and now. and i hope you understand this too. if you're feeling left out or passed by, you have not failed. your leaders have failed you. none of us -- none of us should have to settle for the best this administration offers, a dull, adventureless journey from one entitlement to the next. a government-planned life. a country where everything is free but us?

listen to the way we are spoken to already, as if everyone is stuck in some class or station in life, victims of circumstances beyond our control, with the government there to come up with our fate. it's the exact exact of opposite of everything i learned growing up in wisconsin or a college in ohio. you know, when i was waiting tables, washing dishes, or mowing lawns for money, i never thought of myself as stuck in some station in life. i was on my own path, my own journey, an american journey. where i could think for myself, decide for myself, define happiness for myself. that's what we do in this country. that's the american dream. that's freedom. and i'll take it any day over

the supervision and sanctimony of the central planners. [ cheers and applause ] by themselves -- by themselves, the failures of one administration are not a mandate for a new administration. a challenger must stand on his own merits. he must be ready and worthy to serve in the office of president. we're a full generation apart. , governor romney and i. and in some ways we're different. there are the songs on his ipod, which i've heard on the campaign bus and i've heard it on many hotel elevators. he actually -- he actually urged me to play some of these songs at campaign rallies.

i said, look, i hope it's not a deal breaker, mitt, but my play list, it starts with ac/dc and ends with zeppelin. a generation apart, a generation apart, but that doesn't matter. it makes us different, but not in any of the things that matter. mitt romney and i both grew up in the heartland. and we know what places like wisconsin and michigan look like when times are good. we know what these communities look like when times are good, when people are working, when families are doing more than just getting by. and we know it can be that way again. we've had very different careers. mine mainly in public service, his, mostly in the private sector. he helped start businesses and turn around failing ones. and by the way, being successful

in business, that's a good thing! [ cheers and applause ] mitt, mitt has not only succeeded, but he's succeed idea others could not. he turned around the olympics at a time when a great institution was collapsing under the weight of bad management, overspending, and corruption. sounds kind of familiar, doesn't it? he was the republican governor of a state where almost nine in ten legislators are democrats. and yet, he balanced the budget without raising taxes. unemployment went down, household incomes went up. and massachusetts under governor mitt romney saw its credit rating upgraded.

mitt and i also go to different churches. but in any church, the best kind of preaching is done by example. and i've been watching that example. the man who will accept your nomination tomorrow is prayerful and faithful and honorable. not only a defender of marriage, he offers an example of marriage at its best. not only a fine businessman, he's a fine man. worthy of leading this optimistic and good-hearted country. our faiths come together in the same moral creed. we believe that in every life, there is goodness.

for every person, there is hope. each one of us was made for a reason, bearing the image in likeness of the lord of life. [ cheers and applause ] we have responsibilities one to another. we do not face the world alone. and the greatest of all responsibilities is that of the strong to protect the weak. the truest measure of any society is how it treats those who cannot defend or care for themselves. [ cheers and applause ] each of these moral ideas, each of these moral ideas is central

to democratic government, to the rule of law, to life in a humane and decent society. they are the moral creed of our country, as powerful in our time as on the day of america's founding. they are self-evident and unchanging. and sometimes even presidents need reminding that our rights come from nature and god and not from government! [ cheers and applause ] the founding generations secured those rights for us. and in every generation since, the best among us have defended our freedoms. they are protecting us right now. we honor them and all of our veterans and we thank them.

the right that makes all the difference now is the right to choose our own leaders. and you are entitled to the clearest possible choice. because the time for choosing is drawing near. so here is our pledge. we will not duck the tough issues, we will lead. we will not spend the next four years blaming others. we will take responsibility. we will not try to replace our founding principles, we will reply our founding principles! the work ahead will be hard! these times demand the best of all of us. all of us, but we can do this! we can do this. together, we can do this. we can get this country working again. we can get this economy growing again. we can make the safety net safe

again. we can do this. whatever your political party, let's come together for the sake of our country. join mitt romney and me! let's give this effort everything we have! let's see this thing all the way through! let's get this done! thank you and god bless you all! [ cheers and applause ] >> you're watching msnbc's continuing coverage of the republican national convention. paul ryan, the wisconsin congressman, being joined on stage now by his wife, by their three children, and by his mother. could not have been better received in the hall. there was one moment of interruption by protesters. it was at that moment of the interruption by protesters, the loudest reception he'd had at that point, people trying to

yell usa to drown oat the protesters, but there it was all downhill. by the end of the speech, he had the entire crowd on their feet. a ton of energy from congressman ryan there. chris matthews joins us from tampa. chris, what's your first reaction? >> -- the president for not supporting the simpson/bowles compromise. this is a guy who walked away from simpson/bowles. i don't know how he can criticize the president for not doing what he didn't do. his whole attack on ft. was that, fair leadership, and he failed to do that. i thought it was a very contradicted, very negative, very nasty speech, that didn't have anywhere near tell invitation of condoleezza rice's speech. i thought condoleezza rice's speech was spectacular. it was thrilling. it was american. it talked about the wonders of

immigration, to route 128 and the silicon valley, and the brilliant people that come to this country to work and live, and talk about, it's not where you come from, it's where you're going. it was a complete smackdown to all the attacks on barack obama's past. i thought condoleezza rice was presidential tonight, wonderful, in fact. and this speech was pretty much a canned political advertisement compared to condoleezza rice tonight. >> steve schmidt, reacting in both to what you just saw, but also chris's assessment to condoleezza rice. obviously, condoleezza rice's speech was received very, very, very well in the hall. it was not at all about mitt romney. the only compliments towards mitt romney were in the most generic terms. nothing specific about them at all. but what did you think of the comparative weight of those two -- >> i thought they were both great speeches. i thought they were different speeches. i disagree with chris' assessment. i thought this was a wonderfully written speech by two of the great speechwriters in the republican party, in fact, in both parties. i think it was brilliantly delivered. i think mitt romney is the nominee, he's the head of the republican party.

tonight, paul ryan, unequivocally, i think, is the head of the conservative movement in the united states. and i think he's going to be for a long time to come, no matter what the outcome is in november. i thought as a matter of political performance, i thought it was tremendous. i think that the struggles that he's obviously had to deal with in his life, the death of his father at a young age, the story that he told about his mom, i think has the ability to resonate with the suburban women that, as chuck todd pointed out last night, are the key swing demographic. and just a word about condoleezza rice, who i also thought was a brilliant speech, condoleezza rice lives in america's most broken state, our biggest state, california, where the republican party has collapsed. and i guarantee you tonight, really for the first time ever, we heard condoleezza rice talk about domestic issues. and there are stars lighting up in that california delegation tonight, looking at someone who could potentially restore the republican party to office in california. it will be interesting to watch

over theweeks, the calls for her to run for governor. >> i hear you on that. i think the parts of her speech that were brilliant when she was not talking about domestic policy. but hearing her make that turn is an unusual and notable thing given the amount of attention that speech is going to get. i want to bring in lawrence o'donnell. do we have lawrence with us? >> yes, you do. >> lawrence, who was in the hall and was able to see the speeches from thereby wi, lawrence, give your assessment. >> i agree about the effect of paul ryan's speech, especially here in the hall. it was a truly exciting speech for this hall. as soon as he stepped on the stage, it was transformed in here. toward the end of his speech, he said bravely, we will not duck the tough issues. he said that after a speech that ducked the tough issues all the way through. it was biographical, it was anecdotal. but it did not get into the issues, other than to talk about what they called -- paul ryan called raiding medicare by president obama.

they are now taking on the medicare campaign as we will save it and preserve it, which got cheers, and president obama has raided it. but other than that, it was a substance-free speech, all the way through. but his delivery here was very effective. it shows how much promise he has, as a campaigner, and i also think when you juxtapose it to chris christie's speech last night, there's just no comparison between the two. >> i agree. this was better. >> i thought there was an irony -- i agree, it was a very energetic speech. it sounded a lot like a stump speech. portions of it were what he's been giving. the theme of is no stanostalgia plays out. he talks about, back when i was waiting tables in college, we have this different kind of america than we have now. the question is, what exactly has changed? he talks about capping federal outlays as a percentage of gdp at 20%. every year when he was in college, they were above 20%. there isn't some massive

tyrannical expansion of the federal government that happened when he was in college when federal outlays were 20, 23% of gdp, and today under brom prbark oba oba obama, yet that's the story they want to tell. >> it's not that different. >> i think you heard three impressive speeches, they were much better than last night. i think that in fairness to ryan, he was better than i thought he was. i thought that condoleezza rice was all that chris said. the problem is that none of them told the truth. the fact is that ryan very eloquently misled people. he walked out of the debt commission. he lied about the plant in his hometown. it was closed in the end of '08 when bush was president, not obama. so if you want to have an eloquent person that does not tell the truth, this was a great

performance. if you're going to match facts with the performance, they have a big problem. condoleezza rice stands on a platform where they preached all night states' rights and talked about how she grew up in segregation. well, if the states righters would have won, dr. ryce, you still wouldn't get a hamburger at that lunch counter. so are you talking about education as the civil right. it is! then why are y'all cutting the education budget? so, i mean, it's great poetry for those that want to be lured into some fantasy island, but the reality is that what they advocate and what they theatr theatrically presented tonight is two worlds apart. >> he is the best young conservative presenter we have seen in a long time. he is the young conservative that the party has been looking for. he's got good communication skills. he came out tonight, he looked really nervous early on. he got into his stride. he got the feel of the crowd. he got into a momentum.

and then he laid it on. i mean, he got after the medicare, he got have the stimulus package, although he forgot to mention that he requested stimulus funds in his backyard. he also forgot to mention that his mother took a public bus to go to a state school to get back into this economy when his family rented and his father unfortunately passed away. but he's still perpetuating the lie about the $716 billion. he's perpetuating the lie, as al said, about the plant. to throw that off. i mean, here he is, passing himself off as a guy in the middle of the country, in homespun janesville. what do the people of janesville say? they must know that he's lying about that plant. this guy's got guts. he'll go out there on a platform and tell the red meat conservatives exactly what they want to hear. he's their new hero. >> the base calculation in picking paul ryan was the fact that they could neutralize the fact that the only thing he's

known for nationally is being the kill medicare guy. that's the basic idea, right? we've got a young guy, energetic, he can spin the story better than anybody else, he's a great performer, he's a political lifer. he's got great connections, he's beloved by the press. we've got to deal with the kill medicare thing, and here's the problem. so he gets up there and he and mitt romney have been sort of fine tuning this ever since they picked him. they had a few rough first day. but now what they're doing, and this would work so much better if they were the second convention instead of the first, is he's up there criticizing the president for medicare policies that are also in his own proposals for medicare. the novel thing about what paul ryan has proposed for medicare is a plan to privatize it. so you don't get guaranteed medicare anymore. you get a coupon, you get a voucher, and then you buy private insurance. and that is not that hard to explain, and that's what the democrats get to do now, all next week. if you can explain that in 20 seconds, like i just did, you can do that for three days next week in north carolina, and this medicare thing, because they've been pushing it so hard, it is

not over on the republican's own terms. and i think the democrats are going to beat paul ryan and mitt romney with older people in a way they wouldn't have otherwise, on medicare, because i don't think they came up with an actual fact-based rejoined tore their biggest weakness with paul ryan. chris? >> rachel, i think that you can always -- the thing i always look for in these speeches is who's the person on the podium up there at the lectern talking to? and i don't want to get too sectarian about this, but it's clear that paul ryan was talking to people who think about rights as something that were produced by thomas jefferson, ignoring the people for bhom the ignorin for the people who the rights came to in the 1960s. no reference that a good portion of the country was denied them, especially the important right to vote in 1965 given to them through a lot of fighting through the two parties and became a bipartisan effort but by lyndon johnson and, of

course, dirksen of illinois. for some reason they never mentioned those things, because they're talking to people, let's be honest about it, who didn't feel benefit at all from the civil rights. very important to point out. also, when they cut medicaid and do it as if it doesn't matter it's really for poor people so cutting medicaid, cutting programs for the poor as ezra klein pointed out, who, in fact, are the losers in the paul ryan budget plan don't even talk about those people because they're not the people who tried to get the vote for them so it's very interesting the way -- that's why i love condi rice's speech. she spoke to people of color and recent immigrants, people working on route 128 and high-tech industries, the kind of people that would like to draw to this country and talked about people not being judged where they came from but where they're headed. people like barack obama. she talked about them. that was a bigger america she was talking to. i remember ed rollins 20 years ago saying the biggest mistake

california didn't do was appointing her. pete wilson hasn't done that. she would on course to be president all those years ago. she is a first class american who thinks big and talks to the whole country and i don't think ryan spoke to the whole country tonight, in fact, a lot of these speakers have not, and it's obvious if you listen to their words. >> but, chris, don't we need from paul ryan in part, don't we need from him the attack dog stuff. doesn't this set mitt romney up to talk about himself in a way instead of having to just go after obama which is most of what he's been doing on the stump? >> rachel, you're right. historically the vp plays the attack dog and started with dick nixon back in '52, ike took the high road, nixon, the low road. i think we got past that. i think a lot of recent president, al gore and others refused to play that part. it isn't automatic you're the dog out there attacking like that at the heels of the other party. you ought to give some hope and spirit and some big picture sense of unifying america. i don't think paul ryan tried to

unify america today. i think he tried to use the divisions in america economically to advance the cause of the better-off people who don't want to be taxed and the upper middle class who think the benefits will come to them and basically ignore the bottom half of this country and i think that's not uniting the country. >> chris, we'll go to nbc's andrea mitchell on the convention floor with former secretary of state condoleezza rice. andrea. >> thanks so much, rachel. condoleezza rice, let's talk about the role of national security. this was the first time we've really heard about national security, yet, america is has two wars, the two longest wars, and, frankly, it's the wars that were ordered by a republican president under your watch. >> well, they were wars, first of all, against afghanistan because we were attacked on 9/11 and because saddam hussein had been a longtime threat in the middle east and, yes, iraq that war is over. the iraqis are struggling, but they at least are rid of saddam

hussein. they have a democratic institution so they're trying to make work. we need to try to help them, and so what we talked about here tonight is the role of america in the world. there are many other elements that are breaking syria, the situation with iran, but american strength begins at home and that's really the message i wanted to send. >> the obama administration could argue that there is a secretary of state whom you have said you admire, osama bin laden has been killed. al qaeda has been seriously damaged and downgraded. the arab spring has led to freedoms never before experienced, all over the region. why shouldn't barack obama be re-elected on the basis of a foreign policy record? >> well, first of all, we can argue about the successes of one administration or another. let's remember that much of the machinery that was put in place to kill osama bin laden, to deal

with al qaeda was put in place after the immediate aftermath of 9/11 and it's really a victory for two administrations we did so well against al qaeda but the core of american strength is our economic strength and not borrow money we can't afford to pay back, the core of american strength is to speak loudly about what we want to see in the world for free markets and free peoples, to advocate for free trade and so the case here is that this is a ticket, paul ryan and mitt romney that will bring those strengths, because they understand the nature of american exceptionalism. >> what advice do you have for mitt romney as to whether we should take military action against iran either now or after november? >> well, this is a question that really can't be answered by someone who's running for president. this is a question that only the current president of the united states can answer, and we will

only have one president at a time. and so i really believe that candidates need to talk about their principles, talk about the decisions, the basis on which they will make decisions, talk about the strengths of the united states in terms of our values, in terms of our economy, in terms of our sense of who we are because no one can really know what the circumstances are going to look like on january 21st. you have just to have confidence in the decision-making skills of the person in the oval office that day. >> dr. rice, in your speech tonight -- >> andrea, can i ask a question? it's chris matthews. >> yes, chris. >> andrea, could you ask the secretary, the speech was so overwhelming and powerful, was it kind of a rejoinder to the birtherism that she's heard in her party? >> your speech, chris matthews is saying, was so powerful. was that a rejoiner to the birtherism that's being heard in

the republican party? >> well, i think on both sides of the aisle, frankly, we're hearing some voices for america to pull back, and it would be a shame if america pulls back because we've done so much good in the world. i did want to send a message that we have broad responsibilities to the world but broad responsibilities here at home too to educate our people, to continue to welcome immigrants, and so that was the theme of the speech, and i had a great audience, it was well received. >> you said in your speech, dr. rice, that a child born in the most segregated large city in the south whose parents could not get you a hamburger at woolworth's taught you could be anything you wanted to be including president of the united states and, of course, secretary of state. you said specifically president of the united states. i know you've said you had no political ambitions, but that was a noticeable aspirational

comment. >> i said it many times. i thought my father thought i would be president of the united states. i think he would have been satisfied with secretary of state. to serve my country as the nation's chief diplomat at a time of peril and consequence, that was enough. i'll go back and be a happy stanford faculty member and obviously i'll do what i can to help this ticket, but my life is in palo alto, my future is with my students in stanford and public issues i care about like education reform. >> do you feel that there has been a very troubling question of race and of prejudice in this campaign by the birther movement and those who espouse it? >> i think the birther movement is an extreme, and there are extremes on both sides of the political spectrum. the great majority of people here i think the great majority in the people in the united states of america believe we are one america.

we're not an america that is driven by race although obviously race is still a factor in our lives, but the biggest place it is a factor is for minority kids trapped in failing neighborhood schools. >> you said that is the civil rights movement of our era. >> that's the civil rights issue of our era because if you are a poor parent and you cannot get your child into a school where they'll be well educated, we are condemning that child to a life of hopelessness and so i do consider that the major civil rights issue of the day and i hope that we can address it as a country. >> thank you very much, condoleezza rice, former secretary of state. professor and now obviously political orator. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> nice to be with you. >> and new member of augusta national. >> that's right, and i'm really honored and looking forward to playing there in an early occasion. thank you. >> rachel, back to you. >> thank you, andrea. with condoleezza rice. there is a lot to chew on in

that interview. everybody in the studio is popping over wanting to comment on that but first nbc's ron mott is on the floor with wisconsin governor scott walker. ron, to you on the floor. >> hey there, rachel. thank you very much, wisconsin governor scott walker here with me. paul is on the mind. >> yeah. >> you got emotional during the speech. >> i did. >> explain. >> i know paul well. i grew up down the road from him. i mean just what he said was not reading off a teleprompter talking about his life and his dad and knowing about his mother and those stories are real, they're who they are. and, you know, particularly when he talked about the gm plant. a lot of folks in my small town went into that plant to work and when he talked about the promises and the fact it's been closed. that's the real deal and shows this isn't just some concept that disconnected concept, that this is the real deal in places like janesville. >> truly in play, "a," do you believe that and how much do you

think that has to do with you coming out on top in the recall? >> we thought when we won by a bigger margin than two years ago you can't win in wisconsin with more than 200,000 votes with just republicans and conservatives, it takes independent, swing voters and even discerning democrats, they came out overwhelming telling us what they wanted even though didn't agree with every step we took, they wanted bold and courageous leaders. mitt romney showed he was a reformer and could win in wisconsin. when he put paul ryan on the ticket, that took that point and just took it much further forward. not just because paul from wisconsin, but because i think people in our state view paul's transparency as a true reformer. >> it's rachel maddow in new york. i only raise it because you did too, but i don't mean to be a fact checker but on that plant, isn't it true that plant closed during the bush administration? is your criticism the auto bailout wasn't big enough to

come back and re-open it? that was not barack obama shutting down that plant? >> no, it actually -- it had two rounds of layoff and ultimately closed down a few years ago but a good example and for all the people who said it was good in janesville and kenosha, it wasn't. in the end what they ended up doing in that bailout was doing a bankruptcy that was a managed bankruptcy which is essentially what mitt romney talked about in the first place, we would have been better off and saved the taxpayers more money if they would have been more effective doing that early on. >> you think the auto bailout was not effective for wisconsin and ohio and neighbors states? >> it wasn't in wisconsin. if you ask those who worked in janesville, they don't feel like it's effective because they're not working today. what we need is true prosperity and comes more effectively through the private sector and what paul talked about tonight. he talked about freedom and

prosperity. those are the things i think independent voters, as well as the base cares about in the state of wisconsin. >> i hear you on the general issues. it is surprising to hear you run down the american auto industry at a moment that it really has come back and to see such a bright spot in the economy, you talked about as if -- things haven't worked out in the auto industry since the bailout. it's a surprise. >> it didn't in wisconsin and ultimately did in places like michigan but could have come back more effectively and sooner had they taken the advice of mitt romney earlier and did a managed bankruptcy instead of spending all those dollars of taxpayers' money that could have been done more effectively in the private sector early on. we wasted a lot of money and it's yet one more of the many indictments against this president and his administration and why we need forward. >> was this private sector credit to save -- >> a managed bankruptcy could have been effective and i think that's ultimately where they ended up going after several

difficult misstep as long the way. >> i appreciate it. >> it was not barack obama's economic policies that closed that gm plant. that plant was closed in december of 2008. it's in "the washington post" right now, governor walker. it had nothing to do with obama's policy whatsoever. you can't get away from the fact. >> no, what i'm saying long term, the idea of that coming back, the idea of the auto industry coming back is something that could have been more effectively done if they had more aggressively gone down the path of mitt romney's suggestion to go down a managed bankruptcy than one that cost the taxpayers millions more. >> are you making the case that that plant in janesville would have better employment today if they had followed mitt romney's theory of a managed bankruptcy that you could guarantee in your economic model that that plant would still be employing and making things today? >> no, i -- >> i don't think you can and that's the key here.

>> the only one who made that promise was barack obama who promised the people in janesville that plant would still be open and the fact of the matter is -- that's -- >> but, governor -- >> you're right and he made -- >> if you want to talk over and not let me talk, that's fine. apparently that's what you do a lot of but in the end barack obama is the only one who made a promise about that. no, no, let me finish. barack obama -- let me finish. let me finish. barack obama was the only one who made that promise. he's the one who made the promise. if he wants to live up to that promise i'm not making a promise, i'm pulling out what he said about what would happen. it didn't happen under his presidency. >> it couldn't happen under his presidency. he was inaugurated in january of '09. it closed in december of '08 so how could he fulfill a promise when he wasn't in office, governor? >> because he said it wouldn't close and if it wouldn't close ultimately he would have come back and would be in play after he became the president. >> retroactively he should have had it open? >> no, i'm saying if it was effective in helping the

automobile industry it would have brought it back if that was his promise but his promise ultimately failed, which is why people aren't employed in janesville or kenosha and why we see in 44 or 50 states unemployment has gone up in the mast month and why we see 42 consecutive months of unemployment above 8% and have 23 million, sadly 23 of our fellow americans, were either unemployed or underemployed. that is a clear indictment. paul ryan not only talked about that, he had an optimistic plan of how to move it forward. we'll hear more details tomorrow and doesn't matter how long you talk over me and the facts are the fact and we'll move our country forward with mitt romney and paul ryan. >> thank you for talking to us and, ron, thanks for letting us step all over your interview. tom brokaw and david gregory. this is msnbc's live coverage of the republican national convention. stay with us.

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after four years of getting the run-around, america needs a turnaround and the man for the job is governor mitt romney. >> let's bring in nbc's tom brokaw and david gregory together there in the convention hall. i want to start with tom. who impressed you tonight, surprised you, if you will? >> well, i think what we did was see the outlines of a big part of this debate that will be coming in the fall. you know, very often the best defense is a great offense. and when paul ryan went on the offense in defending not just their version of obama care, of medicare, blaming medicare losses downstream on the obama administration, and he came back to that repeatedly, my guess is that we'll hear more about that

tomorrow night from president romney. pardon me, from presidential candidate romney. i was also struck, chris, by the fact that paul ryan talked about not needing a government to direct our lives. but he is a man, as i know that you've all referred to this, who did vote for the auto bailout, he did vote for t.a.r.p., he did vote as well for both wars that were not funded, and he voted for part "d" of medicare, and he's spent his entire life in government. tomorrow night governor romney will come here and talk about bringing a new presidential ethos to the oval office that is based on his business experience, on his private sector experience, and a man who lit up this room tonight has spent his entire adult life in government. >> interesting. david? >> well, i have a couple of points. i'll pick up on what tom said. there is a kind of ideological amnesia here on the part of paul ryan. he represents this new generation, a new strain of the

republican party which at its core is about fiscal rectitude and responsibility, and yet he did not stand up to the bush administration on two wars, on major areas of entitlements, as tom suggested, on the prescription drug benefit. all those conservatives who thought the bush administration was responsible for spending, this was not somebody who stood up against that. yet there's no mention of that. there's no mention of where they have come from as a party to get to this new mails. it's also very clear that they don't want to really still be associated with president bush and national security. they can put condoleezza rice out front but not talk about iraq or afghanistan. they can even have her make the point, take the shot at the president about leading from behind when they don't really want to reckon with unfinished business in afghanistan and iraq. so i think these are the parts that will be picked apart by people who do not like this republican ticket and maybe even those who were more middle of

the road who will see some deficiencies here. i'd add one other point. what i do think was effective was this line of argument, what's going to change? if you think the economy's bad and you're out of work and you don't believe in this president's leadership, what's going to change if you give him another four years? and i do think you're going to hear mitt romney build on that. >> i mean, speaking of the american actress who always played wholesome roles and somebody saying sarcastically, i knew her before she was a virgin. seems like the record of the guy doesn't -- you point out backing the bailout, backing the tax cuts, backing wars, backing prescription drugs, backing t.a.r.p., all those record points which are iconic even, yet he comes across as a guy who's still a student of ayn rand. condi rice, you've been covering her, i personally was blown away by the grandeur of her speech

tonight. >> she does have a great personal story to tell. i've known her for a long time. what a lot of people don't realize about condi, for many of them her life began when she showed up in the oval office as the national security adviser, later as secretary of state. before that, she was one of the great soviet studies experts in america. i have a friend in that field and he said to me, she had an extraordinary ear, for example, going across the various russian provinces and picking up the dialect and talking to russians, especially about their military component. no one knew more about it than condi rice did. so i was a little bit surprised tonight that she didn't talk in a more macro way about the challenges that are ahead of us, especially about the soviet union as we used to call it, now russia, because governor romney has identified that as our principal enemy. these are real issues that will come into play, whoever is elected in the next four years. and it seemed to me that she

could have given a kind of sar torial tonight, two or three paragraphs about the other challenges that face us. when she talked to andrea she said it begins at home with a stronger economy. she gave only one line to the two wars of which she was one of the principal architects of, although she had later reservations and went to the mattress as they say in terms of having feuds with don rumsfeld when she was secretary of defense. she did have a powerful personal story to tell. you'll remember that in los angeles, i think it was in los angeles, colin powell talked about the need for affirmative action in the republican party and endorsing that. they have a strong personal relationship, mrs. powell and condi grew up in the same town, in the same neighborhoods. tonight, condi rice went before this crowd and talked about the importance of immigration. didn't get much of a response to that. but as you say, it's a great

personal story. >> and i thought a rejoineder to some of the more fringy elements in this party, birtherism. david, you have kids in school, young kids. i was thinking what you thought about her pushing education. also a wonderful statement about religious tolerance, both she and huckaby both went from an evangelical back-ground. it also came up in ryan's speech. an attempt to talk i guess to people who may have prejudice against people who are mormon, to really say it's not what church i go to, it's where i'm taking the country. seems like all three of them tried to do that tonight. >> i really think there were speeches, parts of these speeches that were for the hall, parts for the television audience. it's as much about mitt romney as about the republican party, how the party wants to present itself, deal with perception bems it has, real liabilities it has. those are two examples where condoleezza rice tries to do that.

i've been struck by so much talk these first two nights about education reform. let's be honest about this, this is much more of a bipart son issue. even though chris christie likes to take it apart and says the democrats are just for unions, the reality is that it is a lot of the head of the that is behind strong education reform. michelle reid and others who are liberals, who are pushing for this reform. and maybe there's a kernel of something that these parties can do together at the federal level to keep building on this even while they're tearing each other apart over other issues. there's a lot of the people hoping that's the case as they watch all of this. >> even as we talk, chris. in fact -- i was going to say, to expand on david's point, as we sit here rahm emanuel, mayor of chicago, is locked in negotiations with the teachers union and it's going to go town to the wire and he's being very tough on them. let me correct a little math if i can as well on msnbc. a mistake i made on msnbc. one of the reasons i'm a

journalist, math was not my strongest point. here's a man who's the same age as the vice presidential candidate, paul ryan. and i said that paul ryan, when he was born, ronald reagan was in his second year of his presidency. turns out i was wrong on that. david's math was the strongest, he didn't correct me, but in fact paul ryan was in the fifth reagan when ronald reagan was in his second term. so he's very young. but he's also a very practiced politician. >> that is great. it's a good thing to have people from all ages here tonight. thank you, tom and david. checking into some of the veracity of what we've heard tonight, that's when we return. you're watching msnbc's live coverage of the republican convention. [ male announcer ] wouldn't it be cool if we took the nissan altima and reimagined nearly everything in it?

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america is a place where all things are possible. >> four years ago the country moved further toward the ideal that all men are created equal. >> it was electric. >> as the president reflects on his key decisions -- >> there are moments you really do put politics aside. >> -- msnbc looks at what inspires his vision. >> we're going to get this country moving. >> i'm chris matthews. join me for this exclusive documentary. "barack obama: making history."

you see, even with all the hidden taxes to pay for the health care takeover, even with the new law and new taxes on nearly a million small businesses, the planners in washington still didn't have enough money. they needed more. they needed hundreds of billions more. so they just took it all away from medicare. $716 billion funneled out of medicare by president obama. >> and also by paul ryan and his proposals. but that doesn't make him nearly as angry, or make him pause as manneringfully. the whole wall of wax might come down to one issue in november. may come down to one policy. the november election might hinge on medicare. part of why the choice of paul ryan for vice president was seen as a bold choice was paul ryan's

politically unpopular plan to end the medicare program the country has known and loved for roughly 50 years. because of his man to end medicare the democrats took the choice of him for vice president as good news. he said he wants to protect medicare from the dreaded democrats, who are really the ones trying to kill it. for the real skinny we have ezra kline. >> the medicare fact. right. i kind of can't believe we are running this campaign on republicans telling democrats they want to cut medicare too much, after what republicans have voted for in recent years. what those medicare cuts are, it's basically two major things. one is that we pay private insurers in the medicare program about 114% what we pay traditional medicare to cover the exact same group of people. the other that is hospitals as part of the affordable care act deal agreed to take lower reimbursements.

when romney/ryan say they want to repeal those cuts, what they are saying simply put this is. instead of moving that money from hospitals that have said, you can have it, and private insurers that are getting paid more than medicare, and putting it either towards health care for poor people, as barack obama does, or towards deficit reduction, as the house republican budget does, they should give it back to hospitals or private insurers. this is a bad enough idea that house republicans, including paul ryan who wrote the thing, put it in their budget. the broad overarching narrative of that critique, the thing that strikes me about it, is that when paul ryan and george w. bush did a major medicare prescription drug benefit expansion in the 2000s, they paid for it by putting it on the deficit. they didn't pay for a dime or a dollar of it. then democrats came in, they said we're not going to do that, we're going to be fiscally responsible, they said we're going to pay for all of it. the initial house democrat proposal would have been a tax on rich people which would have been more politically popular. a lot of republicans said, that

is irresponsible. if you're going to do health care reform, pay for it out of the health care system. democrats tried to do that, they did this cutting of medicare which they thought would get republican support. instead republicans ran against them for cutting medicare, while simultaneously saying, they don't have a plan to do anything about medicare spending, and also saying, the affordable care act as fiscally irresponsible plan. which goes to show, the democrats did not find it very easy to win for compromising or trying to compromise with what republicans said they wanted on this particular one. >> ezra, one thing. obviously when people go from their previous roles into being on a national ticket they are expected to abandon some of their previously held positions. so famously, george h.w. bush was apparently pressured into becoming more pro-life when he had previously been more pro-choice. but on this ryan/romney thing, paul ryan hasn't abandoned some of his other difficult positions

on issues like abortion. on this medicare thing, he is making it sound like it was his position all along to be the protector of medicare. is he just literally doing a 180 from his previous position by attacking this thing that was in his own budget? or could this reasonably be seen as an evolution or a different angle on his previous position? or is this a total u-turn? >> what's remarkable is his current budget is not moderate on medicare but it's more in the ballpark. a year ago he had a budget that ended medicare, nothing but private insurers, would have been a $6,400 cost shift to seniors, a massive cost shift in the program, by far the most massive medicare reform anybody's put forward in memory. they've moderated it since but it was true. a year ago, not 20 years ago. it's hard to get away from that and then say? our hearts we would never end the guarantee of medicare. that not just ended the medicare

guarantee, it ended medicare, and it was a year ago. >> you only have to go back five minutes before that in his political record to when he was proposing wholesale privatization of social security. that's in his very, very recent past. it's amazing. ez ka, thank you very much, i appreciate it, you bring much light to what is otherwise a very heated discussion. we'll be back in just a moment with more on paul ryan's speech. you're watching msnbc's live coverage of the republican national convention. are you okay, babe?

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in depressed patients, worsening of depression, including risk of suicide, may occur. alcohol may increase these risks. allergic reactions, such as tongue or throat swelling, occur rarely and may be fatal. side effects may include unpleasant taste, headache, dizziness and morning drowsiness. ask your doctor if lunesta is right for you. then find out how to get lunesta for as low as $15 at lunesta.com. there's a land of restful sleep. we can help you go there on the wings of lunesta. i'm rachel maddow in new york city. chris matthews is in tampa. what do you think is the most important thing that happened tonight? >> well, i was wowed by condoleezza rice's speech. i heard in her voice tonight and in the music in the words the old eisenhower republican party. international yes but very concerned about civil rights, very positive about all

americans joining together. i thought it was a great american speech. as a speechwriter, i heavily applaud not just the words but as i said, the music behind that speech tonight by condoleezza rice. >> reverend al sharp ton, what do you think is the most important thing that happened tonight? >> i think we saw better speeches as far as orator goes. i think they were delivered better. i think the problem is they were totally removed from facts. i think ryan was clearly caught saying things that factually are inaccurate. he talked about things that he had walked out of, the debt commission, his own participation in the deficit. he certainly misspoke as governor walker did about when this plant closed. i think condoleezza rice was good. i'd like to see her talk about civil rights today, voting rights in alabama, where she comes from they have photo i.d. i think the reality doesn't bear some of the poetry of tonight but at least the poetry was better than ralph crandon.

>> i know you liked paul ryan's speech and condoleezza rice's speech. what do you think had the biggest impact, the most important tonight? >> i think paul ryan did a great speech that i think connected to the middle class in this country, that's hurting economically. i think it was very effective politically. the other person who had a big night tonight, i think another republican star is born, susannah martinez from new mexico. i think we'll see a lot more of her over the fall. republicans have got to get over 30% of the hispanic vote in the country. she did a phenomenal job. major league debut for susannah martinez. >> quick review, most important thing? >> i thought the omission -- i thought paul ryan could have told a story of where we went wrong as a party. all republicans say we were led astray during the george w. bush era, we became partisans of big government then we turn ad round. i would have loved to have heard that story told, instead it's disappeared down the memory

hole. >> i think a star is born for the conservative right, mission accomplished. the romney camp has got to be participate with the performance of paul ryan tonight. he represents a generation, i thought he did a very good job tonight of comparing music, saying what -- there's a lot of people relate to zz top of the 40-something crowd. i think he wasn't trying to win everybody, he was trying to connect to people who hadn't made a decision yet. i thought it was as good a night as he could have had. >> diamond in the rough was susannah martinez, i'm with you. i think her speech was stunning, actually, stunning. steve schmidt, al sharpton, ed schultz, chris hayes. tomorrow we will hear from the candidate himself, mitt romney. we'll be back tomorrow evening beginning at 7:00 eastern. our coverage of the republican national convention continues from tampa with chris matthews. . i brought your stuff. you don't have to do this. yes i do. i want you to keep this. it'd be weird.

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[ villager 1 ] it's evil! if you'd try it, you'd know. she speaketh the truth! [ villagers gasping ] reverend? ♪ can i have some? ♪ when governor romney asked me to join the ticket, i said, let's get this done. and that is exactly what we are going to do. >> down here in tampa, i'm chris matthews, of course. down here in tampa where all the action's still going on here tonight, this seems to be the part of down where all the delegates come after the action. we see them trooping in here as we do the program tonight. and i'm sure it will happen in the next few minutes as we

speak. this is paul ryan's party tonight, of course. mitt romney may have been -- may be the main event tomorrow night, tonight ryan showed he is the heart and soul of this political party. what do we get from the vice presidential candidate tonight? strangely on the attack but did it hold the soaring optimistic message of his hero ronald reagan? >> they've run out of ideas. their moment came and went. fear and division is all they've got left. with all their attack ads, the president is just throwing away money. and he's pretty experienced at that. >> well, the focus of ryan's speech was the president's failed leadership, as he said. he provided few details about what a romney/ryan administration would actually offer the country. instead we got attacks like this one. >> it all started off with stirring speeches. greek columns. the thrill of something new.

now, all that's left is a presidency adrift. surviving on slogans that already seem tired. grasping at a moment that has already passed. like a ship trying to sail on yesterday's wind. >> there was also a heavy helping of deceptive language in the speech, on everything from medicare cuts to the closing of a gm plant in his hometown. he accused the president of closing it. the only problem, the plant closed down under george w. bush. he told the crowd a romney/ryan ticket would take responsibil y responsibility. well, really? >> we will not duck the tough issues, we will lead. we will not spend the next four years blaming others, we will take responsibility. we will not try to replace our founding principles, we will reapply our founding principles. >> but not for the closing of that plant in his hometown,

aplarntly. in contrast the other big speech of the night from former secretary of state condoleezza rice. it patrol down the house with language that is both political and personal. talking about unifying america, not dividing it. that's a far different message than ryan offered tonight. let me start with the key question this evening for all. what was paul ryan's message tonight and how important is it? lawrence o'donnell the host of "the last word" on msnbc. michael steele, former chair of the republican national committee. "the huffington post" howard fine, also msnbc political analyst. gentlemen, don't rush. say what you thought happened tonight. let's start with ryan. >> ryan is a certifiable star. i don't care about for political purposes, forever for swing voter purposes. every bit of the fact-checking that we've been doing on his speech since he stopped talking is utterly meaningless for the people who are going to decide this election. that 7% that the electorate, they don't do fact-checking,

they go with the gut. the medicare campaign he took on as straight ahead as you can expect him to, and here's his medicare campaign. my mother and my grandmother. you can talk about all the details you want. his grandmother on alzheimer's relying and living on medicare and being grateful for it. he said he was grateful for it. that's not what we've heard from other republicans about it. he's going with a gut case on medicare. and the phrasing they've chosen is kind of politically brilliant, especially given the position they're in and the face that ryan's proposed. he said, we are the preserve and protect medicare party, and they are the raid medicare party. that's the language. raid medicare to pay for -- >> i think he was jumping biden right there out of his own game. >> listen, democrats tonight at this hour, after ryan, have more reason to be nervous than they have had all year. joe biden now has a very real fight on his hands. >> it will be the battle of the grandmothers. take a look at what he said on that very question of medicare.

>> and the biggest, coldest power play of all in obama care came at the expense of the elderly. you see, even with all the hidden taxes to pay for the health caretakeover, even with the new law and new taxes on nearly a million small businesses, the planners in washington still didn't have enough money. they needed more. they needed hundreds of billions more. so they just took it all away from medicare. $716 billion funneled out of medicare by president obama. an obligation we have to our parents and grandparents is being sacrificed, all to pay for a new entitlement we didn't even ask for. >> moral annexation, the

strongest push -- >> the problem is that the answer to that is complicated. what he just said is very simple, the answer, the truthful full answer, is complicated. simple tends to win with swing voters. >> michael? >> i think lawrence hit it right. what ryan did, which i thought was very special and important, was to reach back to our efforts in 2010 when we talked about the seniors health care bill of rights where we were going to protect seniors against the then $500 billion in cuts to medicare by the administration and brought it forward and then personalized it. he brought it to the table and he said, this cut is represented in the face manufacture my grandmother, it's represented in the face of my mother. and that is a hard argument for joe biden and barack obama to take to the american people because then as lawrence says it gets complicated. and i love complication at this point because now you're going to have to explain the $716 billion in cuts and you're going to have to explain it in the context of somebody's

grandmother and mother. then guess what the next step s is. we look to the future. we look at the 18-year-olds, the 20-year-olds, the gen-xers. he says to them as a gen-xor, i got a better plan, i got a better solution. follow me, follow us. we're going to give you options. choices that the government will not give you. that the government, in fact, wants to take from you. powerful night. >> they'll get in trouble when they start walking down the road of detail. they're going to get in serious trouble. >> ryan, do you think ryan can possibly win the medicare argument against democrats who created medicare against republican opposition? >> i want to talk about something else. >> go ahead. >> which is that this was a speech in which paul ryan used the words old, tired, yesterday, the past, repeatedly in reference to the obama administration. this was an attempt, and i think

a very shrewd and successful one, to get leverage on the obama presidency to paint barack obama himself, who only four years ago was the paragon of youth, as the old story. as the old regime. >> last year's win. >> 42-year-old guy. first gen-xor on a national ticket. saying that the government is months the answer. so many americans are suspicious of government, especially younger people, suspicious of government, even as they rely on government. and i thought this was one of the most effective. i know about the facts and he's wrong on the 716, he wanted to do the same thing, and he voted no on the simpson-bowles commission, he was a big spender before he was a deficit cutter are but that appeal he made tonight was one of the most effective political speeches i've seen in a presidential convention, and i've been to a lot of them. >> especially from a guy in a corner. especially from the guy who's

guilty as the medicare cutter. >> once again, mitt romney was barely mentioned. really. >> yes, that's a pattern. >> once again. that's a pattern. >> that's the pattern. >> and if i'm barack obama i'm sitting there saying, i don't like having to take on this guy. >> the informed voters know who they're voting for. the people who are going to listen to very simple messages and be vulnerable to 30-second tv ads, that's who's vulnerable to this kind of thing. >> here's his message to college students. >> college graduates should not have to live out their 20s in their childhood bedrooms, staring up at fading obama posters and wondering when they can move out and get going with life. everyone who feels stuck in the obama economy is right to focus on the here and now. and i hope you understand this too. if you're feeling left out or

passed by, you have not failed. your leaders have failed you. >> you know, the sarcasm in that was so rich. the kid in his room he grew up in, pennants from high school, there's the obama hope poster and he's stuck there like in prison. that was a shot. didn't that take a shot at the kid and his hope, and i wonder who he won with that argument. >> behind every one of these sentences there's a policy that they're ignoring. he said if you're feeling left out and passed by, you haven't failed, your leaders have failed you. these leaders are not willing to help anyone who's unemployed, left out, passed by. that's the unemployed. they want to cut those benefits. they don't want to keep them in the economy even with unemployment benefits. but it's a very effective line. there's deception in every one of these lines but it's very effective. >> there's a lot of deception there. he spoke in plain language about plain lives in plain places and

he did it very effectively. i think he's a tremendously skilled politician who knows how to seem to be conceding a little bit to the other side. he says as an act of gentlemanly concession. let's admit the president was handed a difficult concession, then he proceeds to clobber him the next 20 minutes. >> let's get away from nuance. here's ryan blaming president obama for a general motors plant in his hometown that closed. the only problem, the plant closed under president bush. he must have known that when he said these words tonight. that's what i want to get to. let's take a look. >> my home state voted for president obama. when he talked about change, many people liked the sound of it. especially in janesville where they were about to lose a major factory. a lot of guys i went to high school with worked at that gm plant. right there at that plant, candidate obama said, i believe

that if our government is there to support you, this plant will be here for another hundred years. that's what he said in 2008. well, as it turned out, that plant didn't last another year. it is locked up and empty to this day. and that's how it is in so many towns. where the recovery that was promised is nowhere in sight. >> well, that sad countenance sounds profoundly unhappy because obama let him down in december 2008 when the plant closed. what ability did the president have to prevent that plant closing a month after he made the speech? >> probably none. >> was that not an openly deceptive lame claim in his speech, reliably untrue, known to be untrue by the candidate? >> if those facts i know, and you're right, the obama campaign's priority is to turn

that guy and his baby blues into a lying face, then they'd better do it fast. >> tonight by the time we get off the air. >> they better do it fast if they let that guy escape on that, then they're going to do themselves a great disservice because he's a very shrewd, she tough politician. >> can i? >> you just said it wasn't accurate. >> i don't know for a fact, i'm taking your word because i haven't researched that. i'll say this. having it out there, now guess what's going to happen? the obama team and all the others are going to go back, trying to disprove it, to show it's a lie. it goes back to what lawrence was saying before. it's out there. it's the way he said it -- >> no -- >> i'm telling you, it's the way he said it. >> they've got to turn it really fast. >> you need to do that, set that up. >> we'll see the next couple of minutes. let's go to something else that wasn't a lie because it was politics. attacking the president for not backing simpson-bowles when he, the most credible guy in the budget world, walked away from it.

people like my daughter worked for that commission. they're heroes for this guy, then their hero became durbin and coburn. here's the guy that's the whiz kid, the budgeteer with his budgeteer ears on, he walked away from the budget deal. >> watch his phrasing. technically -- >> he didn't say that. >> his phrasing about the plant gets him past any perjury charge. it's very carefully, lawyerly written stuff. the stuff he says about simpson-bowles is very lawyerly written. if the obama campaign has to get into a fight about exactly when the plant closed or what was it about simpson-bowles that you didn't like, it's going to be very hard to nail ryan on stuff like that. the fight they have to have with him, and they have to win with him, is the medicare fight. that's the fight. >> he's tapping into gen-x resentment and skepticism about government. that's what he's doing and he did it brilliantly tonight. >> i wonder whether a goody two shoes like him pays a higher

price when he's lying, what do you think? >> simpson-bowles, his answer is going to be quick, it's, i couldn't go for tax revenue increases. it's a long night and the wires and the big newspapers of quality and networks of quality like nbc are working festively to find the truth here. lawrence o'donnell defending the unscrupulo unscrupulous, defending the rhetoric of politics which sometimes works unfairly. michael steele, good defense, in other words no defense tonight. >> no defense on the facts. >> our coverage of the republican national committee. >> i had hopes once of addressing you under different circumstances. but our fellow americans had another plan four years ago and i accept their decision. ! [ chuckles ] ♪ [ honk! ] ♪ [ honk! ] ♪ [ honk! ] ♪

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our president is not being true to our values. let's elect the next commander in chief and next leader of the free world, my friend, governor mitt romney. >> welcome back. we're here channelside, a brisk walk from the convention, about this time of night the delegates start walking past on the way to the bars and restaurants to have a little fun, we're here ahead of them. george w. bush may not have been here tonight but neo cons from the busch 43 era were and their message came through loud and clear tonight, let's listen. >> we can't afford to give governments in russia and china a veto over how we defend our interests and the progress of our values in the world. sadly for the lonely voices of dissent in syria and iran and elsewhere in the world who feel forgotten in their darkness, and

sadly for us as well, our president is not being true to our values. my friends across the world, people are seizing control of their own destinies. they're liberating themselves from oppressive rulers and they want america's support. america must be on the right side of history. >> right now, "washington post's" eugene robinson, "mother jones's" david corn. i like mccain for our service to his country but he listed six islamist countries we should be at war with right now. we got to go into syria, against iran, stay in the war, get back into war with lieb yeah, continue our war with afghanistan and iraq, it went on and on. >> great idea. it's totally unrealistic. he is unburdened by responsibilities of the

presidency. that's a really good thing. it's a good thing that he doesn't get to go to war willy-nilly, left and right, the way he has consistently advocated since barack obama took office. >> used to be a man who cared deeply, and he does, about the service people stuck in a war begun with great popularity, ended up being unpopular. he was a great victim of that as a p.o.w. in vietnam. now he seems to be for fresh new wars and he attacks china. we have to stop using economic sanctions which rely on united effort by countries like china and russia and just go in there militarily. >> it's just sort of empty hawkishness. because as gene said, there is no obligation to act on it and deal with the consequences. whether it be financial, militarily, or strategic. it's just john mccain sort of flailing. i have to say this. i think now he may have set a guinness record for giving convention speeches in favor of nominees he detests. he did it with george w. bush in

2000. he does it now, 2012. i don't know what he thinks about palin. >> you say this with tremendous knowledge of the guy. >> i almost feel sorry for him. this seems like the speech he had to give in 2000, like he's being held hostage. >> he picked sarah palin because he couldn't stand romney. i always pay for it. tonight again, this wonderful person who i disagree with on many things but what a speech. i thought it was grand. here's secretary of state condoleezza rice coming back into public life from a sabbatical really politically to share her personal story. and toward the end of her speech she talked about what it was like to grow, like you did gene, in the segregated south. let's listen. >> and on a personal note. a little girl grows up in jim crow birmingham. the segregated city of the south where her parents can't take her

to a movie theater or to a restaurant. but they have her absolutely convinced that even if she can't have a hamburger at the woolworth's lunch counter, she could be president of the united states if she wanted to be, and she becomes the secretary of state. >> secretary rice talked about the greatness of america. what draws people from all over the world here, even today, to work on high-tech firms of massachusetts and california. let's listen. >> people have come here from all over because they have believed our creed of opportunity and limitless horizons. they have come here from the world's most impoverished nations just to make a decent wage. and they have come here from advanced societies as engineers and scientists to fuel the knowledge-based revolution in the silicon valley of california. in the research triangle of north carolina. along route 128 in

massachusetts. in austin, texas. and across this great land. >> i was so impressed as she was so good that she got people who totally disagree with what she's saying to cheer so loud. in this group are the birders. in this group are the people who suspect barack obama because of his name. who constantly chuckle with jokes about his heritage. here's a woman who's african-american standing up there and saying, three cheers for these people who come here and want to live here. >> exactly. immigration. she went there. look. it was a terrific speech, terrifically delivered. she's gotten so much better at that. two caveats to the speech. one, she didn't talk about the decaulk bell in iraq, she didn't talk about the war of choice she and others led us into of false pretenses of wmd that turned out to be a crock. number two, and she and i have discussed this, her personal experience of jim crow, segregation. we both went through that. we were born in the same year.

both to middle class families in the deep south. we had a lot of similar experiences. she was friends with one of the girls killed in the church bombing in birmingham. they played at each other's house. and we come out with somewhat different feelings and recollections of that era. mine is more about america being dragged kicking and screaming out of jim crow to a much better place where we are now. it was not -- it was not easy. it didn't just happen. a lot of people fought and died for that to happen. >> what was the name of that church? sixth street church? sixth avenue? >> 19th street baptist church. >> she is giving cough tore a party, you've been very hot on this chris, that is using racist-tainted attacks. >> she's joining against it though. >> she's pushing against it but

also giving them cover saying, look, we're not so bad, we clap for condoleezza rice. i can't get past the fact that when she finally reached the power, the pinnacle of power, after the greatness of america, she made false statements that led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people in iraq. >> you think she made personally false statements? >> oh, yes. aluminum tubes and mushroom clouds? you read the book i did with issikoff, she was in the middle of that, she was responsible, george w. bush, yet she gets off a little bit more easily because people like her manner and because she has this other story to tell. >> they lied to cover up their lying too. >> she was as responsible as anyone. >> let me ask you about the tonight, then. the whole question of the way they talked about rights. now, of course we all love the founding fathers, whatever their limitations were, in terms of civil rights and accepting slavery and the constitution. but this crowd, they were addressing them -- i don't mean

racist or anything. they addressed them as if they were white people. there was no sense there that there was in fact a civil rights fight. that a lot of people were denied the most fundamental right up until 1965, to vote. they acted like that didn't happen. but they acted like god gave us rights. melissa harris talked the other night, she's the professor who said, wait a minute, god gave us the rights but it took the fight of your lives to get them in law. >> exactly, exactly. >> it did but the process of opening america and giving to all americans the rights that are enshrined in the declaration and the constitution have been a long, bitter struggle and cost hundreds of thousands of lives, including the civil war. and that certainly didn't end it, you know. it didn't end when slavery ended. it was a battle and it's a struggle that's ongoing. it's a process, not a destination. >> that's why i like diversity in the office place. it's about the we, what is the

we? who's the we we're talking about? >> our country, as ann romney said. >> whatever you say about her war record, she talked about the whole country, she didn't narrow it, i loved that part. >> as i began, it was a terrific speech. i just quibble with a couple of things. >> anyway, thank you, gene robinson and david corn. it's a three-man judgeship, you're out. the bush factor. w. might not have been in tampa but there were reminders of his administration and the policies here tonight. coverage from the republican national convention continues right here on msnbc. >> when governor romney asked me to join the ticket, i said, let's get this done. and that is exactly what we are going to do. [ lenn if take ooann.geic onte wi cor

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once-rivals can be now united, it's quite simple. we have barack obama to thank. >> our fellow broadcaster mike huckabee back in the political business tonight. let's talk to some of the people. we're going to hear from everybody tonight. what did you like at the convention tonight? you watched it here i think. >> i thought paul ryan was fantastic. i thought he talked about the economy and how we need to get this country back on track. how old ideas that once were new are no longer working. president obama had four years to make some changes -- >> did you know that that plant closing in his hometown closed before obama ever became president? >> i did not know that. >> now you did. how do you get a hat like that? >> i really bought it at tampa airport. i think tonight condoleezza rice did a great job. >> me, too. >> i really enjoyed her speech. >> how many liked condeleeza

tonight? how many of you are democrats? >> what are you, democrat, republican? >> i'm registered no party affiliation since 1982. i've voted on both sides. >> did you vote for reagan? >> no. >> clinton? >> no. >> wait a minute. vote for gore? >> yes. >> good move. okay. just kidding. >> i am a proud registered democrat. and i work very, very hard for our president right now in tampa. walking around, talking to people, it amazes me what drives them to make their decision. and how undecided people. i think lawrence o'donnell hit the nail on the head when he said that these 30-second bullets, these statements that are made in these conventions which are -- a lot of them are very much lies. and can be traced back. like you said, in fact-checking. >> we've got too much to argue over the facts to see if they're true or not. what did you like?

>> i registered to vote when i was 18 in 1997. and i voted for president obama in 2008. and i'm going to vote for him again. >> okay, thank you for waiting in line here. sir? >> i'm an independent. >> how long are you going to stay independent? it gets around to november, what are you? >> i wanted to vote for mccain last time but i voted for obama. i'm from panama. >> okay, great. talk about being born overseas. thank you very much. we'll be right back with more "hardball." >> after four years of getting the run-around, america needs a turnaround. and the man for the job is governor mitt romney. you know why i sell tools? tools are uncomplicated.

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and 10 grams of protein to help maintain muscle. all with a delicious taste. your favorite patient is here! [ dad ] i choose great taste. i choose boost. mitt romney has been loyal to his lovely wife, who knocked it out of the park last night in this arena. he, he is been loyal to his sons, to his country, to his employees, and to his church. i'm sure now that the press is going to tell you he isn't perfect. but my friends, for the past four years, we've tried the one that the press thought was perfect. and that hasn't worked out all that well for us. >> welcome back. that's mike huckabee, former governor of arkansas, famously quoted in the book "game change"

as saying that mitt romney had no soul. was certainly good on the podium tonight. he was out there to ensure his fellow christian conservatives he would stand behind romney and ryan, neither of whom are protestant. let's watch him again here now. >> i want to clear the air about something that has been said. people wonder whether guys like me, an evangelical, would only support a fellow evangelical. well, my friends, i want to tell you something. of the four people on the two tickets, the only self-professed evangelical is barack obama. and he supports changing the definition of marriage, believes that human life is disposable and expendable at any time in the womb, even beyond the womb. and he tells people of faith that they have to bow their knees to the god of government and violate their faith in conscience in order to comply with what he calls health care. the attack on my catholic brothers and sisters is an

attack on me. the democrats -- have brought back that old dance, the limbo, to see how low they can go in attempting to limit our ability to practice our faith. but this isn't a battle about contraceptives and catholics. but about conscience and the creator. let me say to you tonight, i care far less as to where mitt romney takes his family to church than i do about where he takes this country. >> well, for more on huckaby's speech tonight and his appeal to his fellow evangelicals, let's bring in our political analysts. joy, what did you make of that? are you evangelical? >> i grew up methodist like george w. bush, the live and let live religion. i thought it was odd. we all know what mike huckabee's

sort of principles are, he wants his evangelical principles applied to government, he wants them applied to everyone, whether or not you're an evangelical. i was disappointed in huckaby, i didn't think he brought the fire i expected. nationally syndicated radio show, competing with rush limbaugh -- >> you think he wants romney to win? or is he planning to try again next time? >> i'm not sure, christie, him -- >> nobody's in love with the guy. >> not a single one of them. >> in terms of word count, tonight, it seemed like some of these speakers, like last night, first night, waited till the last couple of paragraphs of their 20-minute speeches to pay for their dinner in mentioning the guy that put them up there. >> as they were getting off the stage. it was awful. for mitt romney. but i have to say, i was shocked by mike huckabee's speech. last week he was railing against the party and he was defending todd akin, now he's being a good, excellent soldier and coming out and saying all these nice things about romney.

and then what was he saying about barack obama not protecting life outside the womb? what was that a reference to? >> i don't know what -- infanticide? >> practically. then that nasty crack about debbie wasserman schultz, she's not even in the room. it was nasty and soulless. >> explain the sexist part to me. >> he's making a joke about her voice, i guess. that she's -- hears someone practicing their speech in the next room and it's her, they make fun of their voice, that's what i thought was sexist. >> in '08 a lot of democrats were most afraid of huckaby. a guy with evangelical beliefs. but he's nice. he puts a nice face on that evangelical movement. that wasn't the case tonight. i think he lost the huckaby brand, at the same time didn't do the preacher thing, so he didn't move anyone. i grew up in denver, colorado. >> i was wondering why that

doesn't work with me, the huckaby thing, it seems sugar pops for me. a little sugary. a little bit -- >> we had salon reporters who went full huckaby, they thought he was so charming and played the guitar. but tonight there was none of that guy. it was the nasty guy. he left them cold in the hall too. >> let's talk about the people that weren't speaking tonight. i saw michele bachmann in the crowd, she looked great as always, she was there with her delegation. that's it. she was running for president not long ago. no platform time for her. sarah palin, who i argue was one of the great political stars of our time, can walk on a stage and wow us, not up there. this is like sudden death in this party. >> absolutely. i was struck by and tweeted about john mccain. john mccain had to open for this guy who came in like eighth on "american idol," right? while he was talking in the hall people were walking. people were walking around, milling around, where i was standing. it was so loud with people just

sort of making small talk while john mccain, who was the nominee of this party just four years ago. i thought it was insulting and sort of odd, his placement on the program. >> what's going on with sarah palin and john mccain and fox? >> i don't know. >> there's something going on. we have a statement from full screen, i'm sorry fox canceled all my scheduled interviews because i sure wanted to take the opportunity on the air to highlight senator john mccain's positive contributions to america, to honor him and to reflect on what a biased media unfairly put him through four years ago tonight. granted our honored and esteemed war hero has gone through much more than the liberal media can ever do to him in the efforts to harm this patriot. >> i have no idea what happened. that was a war mongering speech. >> fox later said they had to cancel because of the condensed schedules as a result of the shortened convention. not sure what that was about. let's talk about mccain tonight. six countries he wants to go to

war in. >> we're out there. and such disrespect to the president. that leading from behind crack. i mean, again, i don't expect him to like him but he's the commander in chief. >> are we supposed to lead the invasion of libya, lead the invasion of seer yeah continue our wars indefinitely in afghanistan sxir walk, confront the chinese, go to war with iran without any help of economic sanctions. >> right. >> the fact that it was varied, they did hide their past. people need to remember, the foreign policy team behind mitt romney are these neo cons, who backed all these wars. the bush guys are behind romney. we may have buried mccain in the weeds tonight but his foreign policy ideas are coming into the white house with mitt romney if he wins. that, people are not talking about. >> let me give you a really scary thought, joy and joan. if romney has no real foreign policy of his own, if he's an empty shell, guess who wants to march into that shell?

like they did to w. people like john bolden with strong views who are very smart, very articulate, have a very clear vision. >> very close to romney. it's bush/cheney ii, cheney back in charge. >> i saw bolden at the convention center yesterday. he's around, i saw the moustache. >> maybe somebody wearing a mask. he's a real hawk, that guy. anyway, thank you, joy reid who spotted john bolden here. and joan walsh of salon. well thought out, both of you fella is -- gals. hollywood made its way to tampa, two actors talking about the mystery man who may make an appearance at the convention tomorrow night. we'll be right back. humans. we mean well, but we're imperfect creatures

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we're back. the federal budget has received plenty of attention during this convention and two actors, i mean professional actors, were members of the nonpartisan advocacy group the creative coalition are here with me advocating for something that's been on the republican chopping block in this tough economy, federal funding for the arts. actor and president of the creative coalition, tim daly. actor and coalition member evan handler. evan, did you know romney's come

out for dumping all federal funding of pbs, there go all the great shows, your thoughts? >> what we're interested in are the same things as the republican party and the democratic party. which is making a strong, well-educated, innovative workforce enter the community after their schooling. and there are documentations the creative coalition has and shown me the documents really clearly that early education in the arts and music keep people in school longer, score over 100 points higher on s.a.t.s, and have more college attendance. it's one thing to education a workforce that's simply assembly line workers and another thing to see what makes the u.s. the most proud, apple innovations and the mars rover. from kids copying comic books and drawing and learning mechanical design. people don't come out of the womb designing mars rovers. they need to stay in school. these are the things the arts

do. >> arts programs, modern dance, all that stuff. >> condoleezza rice identified something crucial. she said k-12 education slashes threaten the fabric of our society. teach kids arts. they're three times more likely to graduate from high school. we're approaching a one-third high school dropout rate. in a couple of generations that's 100 million undereducated people. talk about people with a hand out asking for welfare, in the criminal cuss advertise system? a great way to prevent against that is teach them arts. >> what about the people that come along and say, we've got to cut something, we've got to cut the soft stuff. >> look, the national endowment for the arts first of all is a minuscule part of the federal budget. but beyond that, every dollar spent by the federal government on the national endowment for the arts reaps $7 in taxes. that's a 7-1 return. that's good business. if you don't want those returns in vegas on wall street or in your federal government, you're just doing something that's not

smart. >> why do people on the left support the arts and funding for the arts and people on the right, and i'm generalizing but i think it's pretty consistent, people on the right, the last thing they want to do is help museums or arts or any natural history museums, zoos, anything like that. except for newt gingrich. >> i don't find that to be totally true. in fairness, we've been here, and we've run across some allies and some people who are doing good thing in this the arts. >> give me napes of conservative republicans here who like the arts. >> the governor of iowa just made it part of their core curriculum. the government of utah does a great job in the arts there. those are two supporters. mike huckabee is a big supporter of the arts. to answer your question in a more negative way, i think it's become a very easy talking point for the kind of cultural war that goes on. i think it's easy to rally working people who feel they're being overtaxed to say, look at

these mamby pamby liberals who want to teach people to be singers and dancers. we're not talking about that at all. we're talking about the facts tim quoted. >> when you talk about the arts you can almost see someone's thought bubble. they're thinking of some person on "people" magazine or hoity toity person wearing a tuxedo at carnegie hall. we're not talking about that, we're talking about little towns who otherwise would not have any exposure for the arts. >> you know the bomber curve. the whole principle that the arts, even museums, certainly the opera, carnegie hall, there's no money in it. there's things have to be subsidized. these are not commercial enterprises. these are not blockbuster movies. >> they flood dollars to the restaurants nearby, taxi stands, to the shops that service the visitors, to the hotels. these are incredible drivers of the economy. entertainment is the number two export of the united states of america. am i right? >> yes.

>> entertainment and military. >> when "fortune" magazine asked mitt romney where he'd make budget cuts "first there are programs i would eliminate. obama care being one of them. but also various subsidy programs." he mentioned amtrak. i don't know what would happen if he got rid of amtrak. pbs, of course. the subsidy for the national endowment for the arts and humanities. he said, "i think they have to stand on their own rather than receiving money borrowed from other countries as our government does on its behalf." i think that's based on economic ignorance. these are not the kinds of things that make profits. >> well, look. you cut amtrak -- >> philadelphia academy of music for example. >> if people don't have amtrak how do they get to work? short-sighted, simplistic thinking as you said better than i could. >> are we going to hear from clint eastwood tomorrow night? >> i don't know.

you tell us. >> any other big celebs coming here? i'm trying to think of the republicans -- there's certainly -- let's see. tom selleck. right? >> yeah. >> there's james kahn. i'm thinking of -- >> bruce willis. >> bobby duvall. >> jon voigt. >> he is way over. anyways. there's not many there on the right. thank you. tim daly and evan handler. and i'm going to be back. that's all for me right now. coverage of the republican national convention in tampa is over tonight. i'll be back tomorrow at 5:00 eastern for more "hardball," and at 7:00 for the final night of the convention and the big speech by the candidate himself tomorrow night, mitt romney, his night tomorrow night. good night from us from tampa. you do this every morning?

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