with regard to what he brings to the table, do you think any controversy that may come with him, garrett will be allowed to be played out in advance of the gop hire arky gathering in tampa, or are there things you think will linger through november? >> you'll see a little bit of both. part of the benefit of ruling out your vp, someone not known nationally before the convention, it gives time for negative stories being worked on by democratic opposition researchers and the like, a chance to work through the system well through the convention. with paul ryan, you have a significant and unique set of pros and cons. he's most well known not for a gaffe or anything particularly outstandingly negative but for a piece of legislation he offered, the ryan budget, sort of the singular piece of the policy. it's thought to be a aus tear

budgets and republicans love it and democrats hate it. you won't be sneered over it although you have to discuss it. by putting him on the ticket, mitt romney ends up owning that budget. >> you talk about that budget proposal that massed on march 29th. and no democrats voting for it, understandably so. garrett, i know you're busy. thank you for the live report. let's go to campaign em bed alex moe. outside the ryan home, talk about what we're see gs as the sun is ridsing. you reported darkness settled in the house around midnight. and then any activity thus far this morning? >> we still have not seen anything in the house or outside of the house in terms of the ryan family. all of the reporters out here, under the impression he is

inside the home with his family. we did not see him leave. it is possible he could have found some way to get out without us noticing, but he does have a large fence all the way around his yard. that would have taken pretty interesting maneuvering to get both him and his wife and kids with them going to at the time announcement in virginia out there. still all quiet on the street here. >> see, i'm just doing the math here. logically speaking, it's going to take a couple of hours to get from where he is to the airport, down to norfolk, where he needs to be in place on board that ship. i think he's got to be out of there already but i'm wondering how he would have gotten out in the cover of darkness unless they weren't even there last night at midnight. is that possible? >> you know, anything is possible here i think but obviously like i said, we have been watching from every angle of this house.

and we have been here since he got home from milwaukee yesterday afternoon and we did not see anyone go in or out of any of the doors or entrance to the backyard that we saw. unless like i said, he jumped over the fence or i really have no idea how he would have gotten out. that would be a question i would love to have answered at some point this weekend. >> i'll bet. okay, alex, we'll let you keep your eyes trained on things. i'll bet if he is inside he's leaving post haste. so we'll bring you on as soon as you see signs of movement. right now we'll get more analysis. i'm joined by msnbc contributor joy-ann reid and republican strategist susan del percio. and david, talk about the optics that will be presented by having these two men who are actually similar in appearance. we've been talking about the

studio, they could be like father and younger brother or son type thing. talk about what we expect to see there in norfolk? >> alex, i mean with paul ryan, you're certainly going to get some differences which is a generational difference. you talk about father/son appearance. that may open up eyes and make a brotder appeal among younger folks. there was a lot of talks among rpz do you want to go with somebody like marco rubio who maybe more appealed to hispanic voters and showed a different republican party. in the end they wanted someone who spoke again to the budget like we've been talking about. i think you're going to see sort of a national debut for paul ryan for -- we just showed a poll about how people don't know who he is. this is a chance for for them to put him there with mitt romney and relaunch the entire romney campaign. >> interesting you bring that

up. i'll discuss this with you ladies. you talk about the fact they don't know him so well and talk about marco rubio, a hot topic at the beginning. his name faded away as if the lessons learned from the last go-around and having somebody relatively inexperienced. paul ryan, experienced certainly in the house, but from the national perspective, what do we know about his ability to run on the campaign trail and be someone who will weather that well? >> you don't know until you actually do it. that's part of the decision-making and the fact is paul ryan was under a national spotlight when he released his budget. we've seen he can handle the questions and knows how to defend the most significant issue he's ever dealt with nationally. so he's there and he can do that. i don't think he's going to have that much of a transition as people may suspect. but the fact is that his policy experience is so solid that it

really takes away from the idea, is he just too new on the scene in so many different ways like marco rubio who is new to public office in that regard. >> what about though, the lack of optic diversity with this ticket. how does that play out? marco rubio would have brought that to some degree. talk about if that's going to be a disadvantage in november? >> again, marco rubio, although idealogically he's conservative, would have been a base expander. this would have said we want to attempt to appeal to hispanic voters. paul ryan is a triple down on trying to get the base on board. i don't think mitt romney had -- i don't think he had too much of a chance of getting very many hispanic votes anyway, maybe they decided it wasn't worth going there with rubio. and i never saw him as the right pick anyway because he's not

mexican-american, which is 65% of the base. they are not looking at anything other than making sure the base is excited and doubling down on the policy ideas. we're going to be debating not mitt romney's ideas because there's no coherent mitt romney vision we know of. we're going to talk about paul ryan's vision for the economy. for the country. >> okay, mark murray is joining us now from washington. our nbc news senior political editor. mark with a good morning to you and thanks for joining us. you came up and briefed a lot of staffers about what we could xp expect to see and who delivers what. among the topics that you talked about was the vetting process and the lesson learned from having picked sarah palin last go around, someone perceived as not being ready to step into the oval office and take over. is paul ryan that person? >> alex, he isn't the person that a lot of thought would be the anti-palin pick. the reason why we were talking

about the rob portmans of the world and tim pawlenties, folks who were 180 degrees different from sarah palin as far as the work they had actually done and they were kind of quote/unquote the boring picks. with this ryan selection, it's not quite sarah palin, there are questions whether he would be ready on day one. not necessarily on issues he is familiar with like the budget and economics, but more on foreign policy matters, on actually having to win and campaign for a statewide. remember, as a member of the house of representatives, paul ryan has won his congressional district and not that hugely of a republican district, but he's never won statewide in wisconsin. he's never had to do that. how that actually applies to being on the campaign trail, the rigors of going in, not only in trying to help mitt romney win wisconsin but also ohio, florida, that really remains to

be seen. this is why people are talking about this is a bold but yet very risky pick as well. >> okay, that statement, bold but risky, if you look at the numbers that were offered up by a cnn poll, we have in terms of his perception favorablety, 27%, unfavorable, 19%. here's the part that gets me, 54% total campaigning never heard of and no opinion. how does that last group together, 54% of th people, does that lean more towards the risky column or that this is going to help mitt romney? >> we just don't know at this stage. of course, paul ryan is going to be able to make his case and introduce himself to voters across america today as well as at the republican convention. so that is whether or not how that ends up playing out. one thing when you look at the paul ryan pick, this is much more of an idealogical selection

that mitt romney has had. sometimes you look at joe biden or even dick cheney that was picked by george w. bush, thern seen as ready on day one could govern on day one given their experience. when you look at al gore's selection as veep for bill clinton, that was someone who complimented the message he was trying to relay, two young southern governors or senator in al gore's case. this time afrn mitt romney is trying to create a bright line with the democratic party and president obama talking about the need to reign in entitlement programs. it's pretty ironic given they wanted to make this a referendum on president obama and now it's a choice. >> do you think the silly season is over now, with this pick in particular? this is a guy who has been pretty stand up with his position on the economy, on the deficit, on medicare.

i mean, he's a serious guy. is silly season done? >> there's always a little silliness that comes to campaigns and i don't think it's going to completely go away. we have now gotten to the vice presidential pick and going to reach the convention. you'll have the four debates, the and there's not a lot of room in between to focus on issues besides those big events. we're less than 90 days before the election. it's going to be a furious sprint and today is the start of that. >> okay, mark murray, appreciate you getting up early for us. up next, david gregory and nbc news chief white house correspondent chuck todd, joining us with reaction and analysis to the expected paul ryan pick. first, some extreme weather expected today in parts of the country as folks in long island, new york, cleaning up from a tornado. who's at risk today? bill karins is live with the

forecast. >> good morning, a lot of breaking news and i'll have the forecast for norfolk shortly. they have a chance of rain down there this morning. yesterday the tornado, very rare event on long island. a lot of severe storms ended up rolling through southern portions of new england. there's a lot of cleanup needed. as far as long island tornado, winds were 80 to 90 miles per hour. it was not a big, strong tornado like in the midwest but did do significant damage, especially to the large trees on long island. let me take you to the forecast and show you what's going on. as far as the radar goes, here's the norfolk area and virginia beach, where the announcement will be made live on msnbc. right now it looks dry and they are pretty lucky. there's a chance of showers and thunderstorms, could get over an inch of rain in norfolk but it does appear to be dry for the big announcement coming up. saturday forecast in the northeast, once again we're going to see a chance of thunderstorms. the concentration and strength will not be as bad as yesterday. keep that umbrella handy, anyone

heading out for saturday morning events, best chance for thunderstorms will be later on this afternoon. as far as what we're dealing with in the drought region, the president just went and released a statement saying it's all hands on deck at the white house to help out anyone in need for all of the drought problems in the middle of the nation. corn prices hit a record high this week. look at the rainfall through the first ten days in august, that t stands for just a trace, from dallas to san antonio. the forecast, 90s, 100. little break from chicago to minneapolis, but no relief from kansas, colorado and missouri and down to dallas. the rest of the forecast today, eastern seaboard chance of storms, anyone joining us on the west coast, you'll watch another very hot day. coming up next, more analysis of the pending vice presidential pick by mitt romney. stay tuned. brain freeze cake donettes rolling hot dogs bag of ice anti-freeze wash and dry diesel self-serve fix a flat jumper cables 5% cashback signup for 5% cashback at gas stations through september.

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lng back, the breaking news, we expect mitt romney to noups paul ryan as his vice presidential running mate in one and a half hours from now. here's some sound from both of them recently. >> what do you want your running mate to say about you? what do you want your selection to say about what kind of president you're going to be? >> i don't think i have anything for you on the vp running mate other than i certainly expect to have a person who has strength of character, vision for the country, that adds something to the political discourse about the direction of the country. i happen to believe this is a defining election for america. that we're going to be voting for what kind of america we're going to have. >> we have enormously high stakes election, a new health care law that we don't win this election, it will get put in place. it will do great damage to

medicare and our health care system and blow a hole in the deficit. we have a debt crisis coming and senate that hasn't passed a budget in three years and president who punted and not led on the issue. >> any comment on the vp? >> nope. >> joining us now is david gregory, and nbc news political director and chief white house correspondent and host "the daily rundown" chuck todd. based on what mitt romney told you, did he make good on his selection? did he do exactly what he intended with the choice of paul ryan? >> we'll see but that was the minute he started answering that question and going down that road he went talking about adding to the political discourse, talking about somebody who has a vision for the -- shares a vision for the country, i went, oh, wow, i think he's telling me he's picking paul ryan. but it was one of those, am i sure i just heard that.

i remember talking to folks who in romney's circle who were surprised at how forthcoming that answer was and didn't seem to be -- didn't seem to be waving me off of saying, am i overreacting here? it sounds like he was describing ryan. he clearly -- that's what he wants to do with this pick. but again, it did create the bright lines. i want to go back to something else. any time we've been in a situation where a presidential nominee or nominee to be feels as if they need the running mate pick to sort of redefine their candidacy and campaign, it's usually not -- it usually doesn't end well. it may help the race get closer. al gore needed something to define his campaign as not clinton and found it in joe lieberman. got it close, some would say did get him over the finish line.

it is what it is. you look at what john mccain did with sarah palin and what walter mondael did with ferraro. a nominee is trying to define themselves -- being defined as something else, campaigning. it doesn't bode well for the long term. that said, romney did need this. he was at a point where he was not a defined -- his campaign was being defined about around his wealth and personality. not around any ideas and that was turning into a problem. >> david, what do you see as being that which paul ryan brings to the table that vaulted him over any of the other potential candidates, notably tim pawlenty and rob portman. >> i think mitt romney in the end for the reasons chuck spelled out, wanted some punch or surprise to the announcement and wanted to move the needle and relaunch the campaign at a

time when people are paying attention. paul ryan will do that because of his standing in the party, how he energizes fiscal conservatives and he has a laser like focus. those are all of the positive reasons. but if mitt romney has had a problem up until now being defined by president obama, by his record at bain, by being out of touch, being seen as elitist and not really in sink with middle class voters, then paul ryan will be similarly defined that way and that's how mitt romney will be defined. there is high risk in this and that comes with a bold pick, one celebrated in conservative circles. a doubling down on some of these arguments that have so divided washington and are dividing the two countries right now. it's going to be a big campaign and big debate on big issues, the presidential and vice presidential debates are going to be big. both have settled into a reality

where there will be big distinctions tw them. with that carries real risk. >> i want to ask you both as you mention the debates, the veep debate is set for danville, kentucky, october 11th. the topics being foreign policy and domestic policy. both of you weigh in on how you think paul ryan will stack up against joe biden. chuck, you first. >> this is a ferocious debater. paul ryan is looking forward to this. he's not shy about anything. this could be a fairly aggressive debate. i think it's going to be interesting to watch because it's -- they are both two creatures of capitol hill and very good at the ways of debating in the way capitol hill guys can be good at, as far as debating is concerned, it could get a little snippy. i could expect to see it get a little snippy between the two because ryan has not been shy about being sort of jumping into

a debate a little bit. and biden can get short as well. so this is one of those where i don't expect either guy to be walking on egg shells the way biden did when he was up against sarah palin and the way palin -- the two in general were afraid to have a real debate or confrontation. that won't be the case with ryan and biden. >> can i add? there's a couple of key points, the criticism on whether ryan is ready on day one is going to be articulated very hard and fast by other side and independent people. he's 42 years old, looks younger, doesn't have foreign policy experience. in the ways you would expect, that's going to come up as an issue, ready on day one and foreign policy be part of any part of the debate. the other issue whether ryan can come across as a happy warrior on the campaign trail. he's an intense guy, very smart, a big strategic thinker. democrats would argue, less flatteringly he's not so strategic and not such a big

thinker, he's dangerous to the middle class and poor americans. nevertheless, he's an intense guy and got to be able to channel the happy warrior and good politician at the same time he bores down on fiscal crisis. >> great talking with you both. if you can stick around, we appreciate it. we want to remind all of you, we have a special live edition of "meet the press" tomorrow at 9:00 eastern time. that man will be front and center on that discussion, former minnesota governor, tim pawlenty. if it is sunday, it is "meet the press" on nbc. we're going to have more on mitt romney's expected announcement this morning. i'll speak here with two studio guests, susan del percio and word from a phone app that is out about the vice presidential pick.

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welcome back to "weekends with alex witt." we have breaking news to report, that is the dynamic duo you'll see on the campaign trail if all of our sources are correct, one and a half hours from now you'll see mitt romney on the "uss wisconsin" in norfolk, virginia, announcing that paul ryan, wisconsin representative, will be his choice for running for vice president. joining me now, peter alexander in norfolk, virginia. tell me how you found out about this pick because it took a lot of people by surprise, the timing of it, late last night. >> reporter: yeah, alex, it is now confirmed by the campaign. they have put out their app suggesting in fact, confirming that paul ryan is the man who will be the vice president. that happened at 7:00 this morning. overnight if you went to romney/ryan.com, the website was

live. that was a good tipoff as well. traveling with this campaign for a four-state battle ground bus tour. we were with several of the top senior advisers and they gave no indication this announcement was coming during our conversations last night. there was some sort of clue there may be a big announcement on the horizon as there were five senior senators traveling with the governor, compared to two traveling with him overseas. i want to move out of the way and give you show and tell and tell you what the dramatic backdrop will be. it is the "uss wisconsin." the campaign is breaking out the big guns and turrets there, the flag. if you come down further, some people are being allowed in, the secret service has finished its sweep here. the teleprompter has been set in place. the microphones are working accordingly. then if we pan again, kevin, pan

over to the right. i want to show you the romney bus where we landeded in norfolk, our first chance to see this newly wrapped decorated romney campaign bus. along the side it reads not the ryan plan which many are familiar with, the romney plan, for a stronger middle class. the language on the side is new as well, says more jobs, more take-home pay. very clear for this campaign, that is going to be the center piece as they try to no longer allow obama, the president's team to define them but governor romney himself with paul ryan tries to define his own campaign in the course of the conversation going forward. >> and making it all about the economy. peter, do you have any idea whether or not paul ryan is on site right now? we've been speaking with alex moe positioned outside of his home. it's looked dark since midnight but they presume the ryan family was home as we give our viewers a live look. no activity, because i know alex

moe would have called in. do you think they got out under the cover of darkness? it's an hour and a half away. he must have left jamesville. >> well, we all assume he's going to be here for the dramatic announcement. it won't be nearly dramatic if you have the presidential candidate and not the vice president. we presume he's going to be here. i asked that very question of the one of the top campaign officials about ten minutes ago. i said is paul ryan in norfolk and will he be here? so far we have heard nothing from them about that. to give a sense about the last minute nature of this, as you look around, there's a lot of signage as they describe it, the giant r, swooshs we've seen during his buses and posters and placards. notably not here is anything that says romney/ryan. we haven't seen ryan to the best of my knowledge and i've been looking around and asking, it's not on anything at this point.

if there is going to be some big unveiling, if it's not the candidate themself, at least as far as we've seen, nothing with paul ryan's name. >> a few things there look super sized. peter alexander. thanks very much. joining me from there is andrea mitchell, host of "andrea mitchell reports." with a good morning to you, andrea. what do you think? >> good morning. >> paul ryan will be next to mitt romney? >> reporter: i would be absolutely shocked if he were not. peter and i have been talking about this and just talked to someone who works with the local congress member who is here. and they said that they have been told that paul ryan will be here. but of course there's no sign of him. we just have to assume that there was a great cover attempt and it was probably successful. i have to assume they got out the back and they've actually already left to head this way

because we do expect that it would be awfully strange for them to be in front of the uss wisconsin, the retired battle ship and not have the wisconsin congressman who is going to be the running mate from mitt romney. >> it seems like the perfect place to do this. all right. andrea, i would like your thoughts on what it is about paul ryan that allowed him to leave the pack and be successful as the vp choice over rob portman, over tim pawlenty? >> reporter: well, first of all, it is a clear play for a much different economic message. it's not just an attempt to run on the economy is bad and from their perspective president obama is responsible and hasn't done enough and it's time to give mitt romney a chance who has experience in business. that's their basic argument. this is different. this is an appeal to those who have been tea party conservatives as well as energetically concerned about the budget deficit.

this is an appeal to a completely different play to try to make something happen. it is a game-change choice because it's basically saying that running on the economy alone may not be enough, may not do it. they've had a bad summer. they've fallen behind in key battle ground states. ryan as pawlenty and portman is of course from the midwest. and can help them in that key area because they've got to win at least two of the big midwestern states in order to make this happen. so the battle ground states are critical both midwestern states are crucial. and i guess when they add it up, there's a generational difference, there's an energy difference. he has great reputation for being smart, conservative. brings a lot of that energy and the conservative base with it. >> andrea, i want to look ahead to october 11 when we have the vice presidential debate, the lone one scheduled in danville, kentucky. the topics will be foreign policy and domestic policy.

you know about foreign policy better than anybody else on the network. talk about paul ryan's knowledge of foreign policy and how important that will play on october 11th. >> reporter: i think it may not play as importantly as perhaps the obama camp would like. because they've got the former chairman of the foreign relations committee, who is often been talked about as a possible secretary of state, joe biden, the vice president of the united states, perhaps the most experienced foreign policy figure in the administration and he would like to make it an argument about foreign policy. he's up against a house member and one of the few house members to run on a national ticket in modern american this tri. the democrats would like this to be a foreign policy debate. but with paul ryan and also joe biden's deep roots in medicare and social policy, i think the

democrats can also try to put him on the spot on the medicare cuts, the ryan budget. you know, joe biden is a very strong debater. paul ryan is going to make the argument that this is a global economy that we have to fix our economy here that we're at risk because of what's happening abroad. i think that as a veteran member of congress, he is going to be -- well schooled as anybody can be on the rude meant tri aspects. you'll see a lot of domestic arguments as well. >> these arguments will be noted largely what's happening in the swing state. we'll throw up for our viewers the swing state map. we'll been talking about medicare and florida and how interestingly the elections from gone to florida, florida to ohio, ohio, ohio and now back to florida with respect to the issue of medicare. do you see it that way as well? >> i don't think it's florida as a state per se because i think

if they win enough of the midwestern states and some of these other battle ground states, they have a good shot at florida. but the medicare issue is going to be the big stumbling block because of the ryan budget. it's not just florida, it's pennsylvania and other states with aging populations. so they have to have a pretty good argument. i'm sure they've worked on it but it's going to be one of the early stops in this bus tour and they are going to have to road test that arment. two seniors being told by the democrats that the congressional budget office has looked at the ryan budget and a lot of seniors will have to pay more if the ryan budget were in effect and if there were the voucher system and if they had the personal choice of their own private insurance. or semiprivate insurance. that is going to be the earliest test of whether they can make that argument to seniors. and it has to go beyond florida. this is a critical test and that's why this is a fairly high

risk choice among the choices that mitt romney could have made. >> that road test begins today from there where you are in norfolk and goes to ashland. many thanks, appreciate your keen insights. >> you bet. >> we'll have more on mitt romney's announcement expected less than an hour and a half from now. 9:00 eastern this morning, that he has picked paul ryan to be his running mate. reaction from the white house when "weekends with alex witt" returns. [ female announcer ] with swiffer dusters, a great clean doesn't have to take longer. i'm done... i'm going to read one of these. i'm going to read one of these! [ female announcer ] unlike sprays and dust rags, swiffer 360 dusters extender gets into hard to reach places so you can get unbelievable dust pick up in less time. i love that book!

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that official event wraps up. that's what we can expect today. mitt romney, of course, making this big, bold choice with the pick of congressman paul ryan, expected to fire up the conservative base. democrats believe it's going to fire up their base as well. of course, paul ryan's budget plan is red meat to some democrats and calls for slashing the deficit without increasing taxes by overhauling entitlements like medicare. that is something the president the democrats are going to seize as a new line of attack as we head into the final three months of this election. president obama in the past has called the ryan budget radical and social darwinism. he heads to chicago today. tomorrow he has four fundraisers there including a big one for his birthday which he celebrated a few days ago. >> a kristen welker, many

thanks. what are paul ryan's strengths and weaknesses? we'll ask our panel when we come back. ♪ [music plays] ♪ [music plays] ♪ [music plays] [ slap! ] [ slap! slap! slap! slap! ] ow! [ male announcer ] when your favorite foods fight you, fight back fast with tums smoothies. so fast and smooth,

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5% cashback signup for 5% cashback at gas stations through september. it pays to discover. we are back, everyone, analyzing the expected announcement in a little over an hour of vice presidential pick paul ryan, that is expected to happen in norfolk, virginia. for some analysis, i'm joined by msnbc contributor, joy-ann reid and susan del percio and nbc news senior political editor, mark murray. i want to ask all of you this question with my thanks for being here. i'm going to start with you, mark. talk about congressman ryan's strengths and weaknesses. >> he's a rising star in the republican party, a rock star with a lot of conservative economic base. he also hails from a battleground state in wisconsin, which the romney campaign

december spra desperately wants to put in play. allows them to double down on president obama's record when it domestics to the deficit and debt and the romney campaign seize a big vulnerability there. as far as weaknesses, we've been talking about the paul ryan budget being a lightning rod and paul ryan also doesn't have foreign policy experience. >> david, would you concur with that and agree foreign policy will be a weakness? if so, is there a concern joe biden might make trouble for ryan in the vice presidential debate in kentucky? >> i'm sure biden that. and he's been talking a lot about his record and ending the war in iraq and killing osama bin laden. but ryan is a serious guy. you can talk indepth about policy and the bunt. his weakness is the stand on medicare and something the obama administration is going to really try to exploit. >> while some say it's not

official out of mitt romney's mouth which is expected at 9:00 a.m. eastern time. we have the websites and apps. they're all up live this morning. you're looking at the romney/ryan webb site. no mention of medicare. >> no mention. i mean there's some vague talk in the cut the deaf sigs portion of the romney-ryan.com website. definitely the word medicare does not exist on this page. so they're not tackling it. i think the big question and one of the additional weaknesses that i thought mark murray covered them all. when paul ryan gets on the stump and he's talking about the future under a romney-ryan administration, is he going to be talking about the romney plan or are we going to be debating the other? >> interesting as we saw the optic, susan, of what's out there right now. the romney plan is what's on the

side of wisconsin right now. might there be any sort of divisiveness between these two or has it been completely vetted out and these two are going to walk in sync during the remainder of this campaign. >> i think they're going to be in sync but the challenge to the romney campaign -- i think that's why they're announcing it a week earlier than expected. let the ryan ruleout happen and then pivot back to this is the romney campaign. it's not the ryan budget campaign. it's the romney cam paper and they will use that week lead swoog the convention and that's going to be critical for them because they don't want to necessarily have it be a referendum on the ryan budget. they really need to pivot back to the obama economy. >> okay. all of you sit tight. thank you so much for that. we're going to get you a final thought after the break, every. though i will tell you as we look at the "uss wisconsin," we're hearing about a new tweet from the romney campaign. we'll share that with you after this break. revolves around you.

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all right all you twitter fans. this is from the official mitt romney website, there it is. tweeted by mitt romney. paul's new handle if you're interested. you can reach him @paulryanvp. that makes it interesting as well. let's get just for a last quick analysis here, what -- does paul ryan ultimately help or hurt mitt romney's chances of becoming elected president, susan del percio? >> i think in the end it's going help, especially with this critical reset. >> joy-ann reid? >> like sarah palin. it helps and hurts. >> help or hurt? >> helps him return the talk to the economy and get it off some of the distractions about that he's trying to put behind him. >> and, mark murray, ultimately your thoughts on that?

ultimately will this do him good? >> short-term good and long-term, democratics will have their knives out. >> you guys are good. nice. afforded me the time to say good-bye to all of you. thank you to joy-ann reid, susan dell mer owe, mark murrorurray david. coming up next, we have "up with chris hayes." chris is going to bring you mitt romney's announcement live at 9:00 a.m. we'll bing you an early addition tomorrow at 6:00 a.m. and then again from 12:00 noon to 2:00 p.m. tomorrow. great to be here. great news coming up on "up." [ male announcer ] how do you trade? with scottrader streaming quotes, any way you want. fully customize it for your trading process --

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this is the age of knowing how to make things happen. so, why let erectile dysfunction get in your way? talk to your doctor about viagra. 20 million men already have. ask your doctor if your heart is healthy enough for sex. do not take viagra if you take nitrates for chest pain; it may cause an unsafe drop in blood pressure. side effects include headache, flushing, upset stomach, and abnormal vision. to avoid long-term injury, seek immediate medical help for an erection lasting more than four hours. stop taking viagra and call your doctor right away if you experience a sudden decrease or loss in vision or hearing. this is the age of taking action. viagra. talk to your doctor. good morning from new york. i'm chris hayes. we are awaiting word later this hour from mitt romney with his

official announcement of wisconsin representative paul ryan as his running mate. news of romney's choice of the 42-year-old ryan came overnight and comes as a surprise to many observers who expected him to make a safer choice like former minnesota governor tim pawlenty or ohio senator rob portman. ryan who entered the house in 1999 has risen quickly through republican ranks becoming chairman of the powerful house budget committee last year. he began his career as an aide to then jack kemp. ryan surged to the front of the v.p. pack in recent weeks on the strength of his popularity among grassroots conservatives. his esteemed right wing activists as a visionary and is considered an intellectual leader for the proposed budget. safety net programs like food stachs, cut hup dretds of billions of dollars and end medicare as we know it. the choice of ryan then would seem to be an attempt to bolster

romney's standing among conservatives who have remaining skeptical of his credentials even at this late date. the announcement comes just two days after "the wall street journal" urged romney in an editorial to pick ryan to call him, the candidate that best exemplar fi fies the nation. he voted for the iraq war and there's much in ryan's record that contradicts his image as a reformer and deficit cutter that will leave him open to democrats. among other things he approved the $800 billion stimulus package and the auto bailout. i'm joined. it's great to have you gentlemen here this morning. welcome. >> good to be here. thanks. >> i want to start with you. as someone who has been -- health care policy is something you've put a lot of interest and