for that. and if that counts as fiscal conservative for you, you don't speak english. that is it for us tonight. we'll see you tomorrow night. now it's time for "the last word with lawrence o'donnell." have a great evening. tonight, mitt romney is running away from paul ryan's record, but not as fast as paul ryan is running away from his record. and in his desperate pursuit of the vice presidency, paul ryan is running away from a woman he's been devoted to for most of his life. >> every now and then, i'm known to make a mistake. i did not make a mistake with this guy. >> after four days of pomp and circumstance -- >> i did not make a mistake with this guy. >> -- his selection is already creating problems for the campaign. >> this may be the worst merger since aol bought time warner. >> there were safer choices. >> this conversation has now shifted. it shifts the debate from a referendum to a choice election. >> i did not make a mistake with this guy. >> in college, paul ryan, one of his jobs was he drove the oscar

mayer weinermobile. he's going to be held accountable for all the other things that he's done. >> it's medicare that dominated the day. >> paul ryan's budget. >> ryan's budget. >> there's about 100 pages' worth here of details. >> the only place that paul ryan finds savings is by increasing costs on seniors. >> i have my budget plan, as you know, that i've put out. >> how is your budget deferent from ryan's? >> i'm sure there are places that my budget is different from his. >> do you agree with him on medicare? >> we haven't gone through piece by piece and said, here's a place where there's a difference. >> romney's strategy of avoidance and denial. >> mitt romney chose paul ryan to represent something, big ideas, change, reform. >> the items that we agree on, i think outweigh any differences there may be. >> romney already kind of backing away. >> they may lose big. >> short of economic armageddon, it's going to be very hard for obama to lose. >> oh! whoo! what a relief!

with 84 days to the presidential election, a new report reveals that republicans fear that mitt romney lost the election when he picked paul ryan as his running mate. tonight, on fox news, paul ryan didn't want to talk about the ryan plan. >> doesn't your budget also contemplate very major savings for medicare on something like the same amount? >> only president obama raids $716 billion from the medicare program. he cuts $716 billion from the medicare program, to pay for obama care. >> right. >> we don't do that. >> but what -- you make savings. how much? >> the point -- we -- i joined the romney ticket. and what mitt romney is proposing to do is repeal all of obama care. i have voted repeatedly in congress to repeal all of obama care, including this cut of $716 billion to pay for obama care. >> and here's charles krauthammer on fox news,

reviewing paul ryan's performance in his first solo interview as a vice presidential candidate on fox news. >> he's got one problem. and i think they knew this was a problem going in. the details of the ryan plan have some things which don't mesh with what romney is running on, and which are a little harder to defend. he's got to simply say, i can explain it, but it's not relevant. it's history, i'm running under the romney plan, and that's it. otherwise, you're going to end up in the weeds and distracted. >> a new gallup poll shows cardiolo congressman ryan is a member of the worst-rated u.s. congress in modern history. 10% of americans approve of congress, tying the lowest reading in gallup's 38-year history of that poll. 83% of americans disapprove of congress. a new politico report reveals what republicans, some republicans, really think of mitt romney's vp pick. "in more than three dozen interviews with republican strategists and campaign

operatives, the most common reactions to ryan ranged from gnawing apprehension to hair-on-fire anger that romney has practically ceded the election. it means romney/ryan can run on principles and provide some real direction and vision for the republican party and probably lose, maybe big, said former president george w. bush's senior adviser, mark mckinnon." rush limbaugh read that politico article and concluded that those republicans are trying to sabotage the romney campaign. >> what they're worried is that the conservative wing of the party is going to be able to lay claim to victory here. and that they, these unnamed, establishment republican consultants and what have you, they are the ones who are going to lose their positions of power and influence, because they aren't on board with this. >> joining me now, msnbc's alex wagner and ari melber.

alex, let's stick with rush's thinking here, and take it just one step further. if the republicans lose, then doesn't that discredit the rush limbaugh wing of the republican party? >> yes! >> yeah, see? i thought it might. >> you know, lawrence, the takeaway from these sort of very adventurous last 72 hours, i think, is, what's the plan? this is what i got from that politico story. senior republicans, unnamed and otherwise, must be thinking, what is the deal, mitt romney? you didn't have a plan on bain. you didn't have a plan on the swiss bank accounts. you have now made a bed with the standard-bearer for the republican house caucus and some of the most draconian policy that has ever come across the floor of congress, and you don't have a plan on how you're going to address that. they trot paul ryan out there. it's a lamb to the slaughterhouse, almost. he can't even answer the questions. mitt romney doesn't know what hi differences are. this, they could have seen coming from a mile away, and yet

there is no messaging, there is no talking point, there seems to be no strategy as to how mitt romney's going to negotiate this. >> and here's the truth of paul ryan, that the romney campaign, i don't think, quite noticed. and that is, he's never been able to answer television questions about the ryan plan. he's always gone soft and he's always had himself in a position where he's basically playing softball on tv. not under the pressure of being a vice presidential candidate. >> that's right. and even by his own numbers, the plan keeps a large deficit, well passed, 20/30. so it is not a deficit-cutting plan. you know, there's some people in washington who are calling him a budget hawk. >> a deficit hawk. >> a deficit hawk. >> he leaves the deficit going for the rest of mitt romney's lifetime on this one. >> exactly, lawrence. he keeps the deficit going and what he does is attack the programs he doesn't like, health care for the middle class and especially health care for the poor in medicaid. he's not a deficit hawk, he's a poverty hawk, he's a charity hawk, he's a social services hawk. but we were talking about this earlier, you know, dennis kucinich is not called a deficit

hawk just because he wants to cut defense spending, because he has a critique of how much we spend on defense. as for the plan, look, i'm reminded of the opening scene in "the dark knight rises," where a different bane, an evil bane says, it doesn't matter who we are, what matters is we have a plan. in that case, an evil plan to take out gotham. the problem for these guys is what meshes, to go on the krauthammer quote. they both have similar plans to decimate medicare. it's not going to work in florida and i don't think it's going to work many other places. >> alex, here's the trick question for george will and for other establishment, so-called neutral major media players who have always regarded paul ryan as the thinking man in the republican house of representatives. who is the number two thinking man in the republican house of representatives? and none of them have an answer. which is to say, ryan is the only person in a group of hundreds of republican congressmen who don't know anything about government or policy, and so he stands out,

because he knows a couple of things. just a couple of things. but not enough. >> and keep in mind, lawrence, i mean, she's ghe's gotten two bi passed in his tenure as a congressman. one is renaming a post office. these are sort of ideological proposals that he's put on the table, that in their earlier iteratio iterations, found no support among the republican caucus. they're the ones who said, oh, this plan for social security is too extreme. it's only in the last two years since the tea party caucus has come in, flags waving with pitchforks and so on, that these proposals of paul ryan's have seen the light of day. >> and ari, this, i think, is something the romney campaign was uniquely susceptible to. the sensation of, let's grab a guy who really stands for something, because we donat't. i mean, because of the utter emptiness of the romney campaign, that's part of what made ryan so attractive to them. >> exactly. the idea that we don't have a course that will get a political core transplant. but then, wait! this is hard to sell.

what does mitt romney do with things that are hard to sell? what did he do with the assault weapons ban, as you've covered on this show in massachusetts. what did he do with his medicare plan? he walks away from it. and then you have what was in that interview, paul ryan, who was selected for one thing, backing away from that. when you back away from that, what else do you have from paul ryan? you don't have private sector experience, because hep spent his life in congress. you don't have other foreign policy experience. you don't have other things there. this is what's mind boggling about this and we're only 72 hours in. >> let's take a look at this new obama re-election campaign ad, which is going to be airing in five swing states. >> mitt romney on how to pay for college and start a business. >> take a risk, get the education, borrow money if you have to, from your parents. >> hope they can afford it. romney's plans could cut college aid for nearly 10 million students and eliminate the tax deductions for college tuition. president obama eliminated bank middlemen from college loans and used the savings to double

college grants. >> take a risk, get the education, borrow money if you have to, from your parents. >> get real, mitt. >> for those of us who could not borrow money from our parents to start a business or pay rent or any other thing, romney's really out of touch, obviously, in that ad, and it would have been nice to pick a running mate who could actually address that side of romney's problem. >> surely, surely. that line, "borrow money from your parents if you have to." that same dude, two days ago said, i love policy. that's your education policy? i mean, say nothing of the fact that the paul ryan budget, aside from the medicare sort of revisionism, is about changing the american social compact on every level, whether that's housing assistance, food stamps, education, technology, science, infrastructure, transportation. i mean, you're trying to appeal. mitt romney needs to appeal to the middle class. he has the most class warfare message of them all. >> and paul ryan is a guy who has lived on and continues to live on money from his partners, his grandparents, and his great grandfather who started that

business in -- out there in wisconsin, where they actually are in the road building business, virtually, totally dependent on government income and government projects. >> yes. and he's used social security for its survivor benefit s wits which is a great part of social security. >> and i'm glad he could and i'm glad he did. >> yeah, and he mentioned his mom is on medicare. that's a fact without a point. right? he she's on something that he wants to destroy. >> right. ari melber and alex wagner, thanks for joining me. coming up, paul ryan says he's had a change of heart and will now fight to save medicare. the romney campaign is still really con foofused about what wants to do with medicare. the new romney versus ryan plan is next. and like mitt romney, paul ryan has his share of flip-flops. paul ryan was willing to abandon the woman he says most influenced him to enter politics. and he did it for political

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so far, paul ryan's campaign for the vice presidency has been about medicare and defending his plan to end medicare as we know it. pretending it is actually a defense of medicare. and it's also been about a woman he loved almost as long as he has loved his mother. ayn rand, who he now disowns in pursuit of higher office. paul ryan and ayn rand, that romance is in tonight's "rewrite". [ female announcer ] the best things in life are the real things.

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we're the ones who are offering a plan to save medicare, to protect medicare, to strengthen medicare. we're the ones who are not raiding medicare to pay for obama care. president obama is actually damaging medicare for current seniors. it's irrefutable, and that's why i think this is the debate we want to have and that's the debate we're going to win. >> the first presidential campaign that could be decided entirely on future of medicare is now underway. mitt romney released this ad today. >> you paid into medicare for years. every paycheck. now when you need it, obama has cut $716 billion from medicare. why? to pay for obama care. so now the money you paid for your guaranteed health care is going to a massive new government program that's not for you. the romney/ryan plan protects medicare benefits for today's seniors and strengthens the plan

for the next generation. >> i'm mitt romney and i approved this message. >> and so now the romney campaign is claiming to be the protector of medicare. but the romney campaign seems to realize that they have to protect medicare from medicare's worst enemy, romney's running mate, paul ryan. >> when obama gutted medicare by taking $717 billion out of it, the romney plan does not do that. the ryan plan mimicked part of the obama package there. the romney plan does not. that's a big difference. >> joining me now, robert reich, former labor secretary under president clinton, professor of public policy at the university of california at berkeley, and the author of a new ebook, "beyond outrage," and jonathan combs, the senior editor for "the new republic." robert reich, take us through

the adjustments made my president obama in the affordable care act, and the changes in medicare proposed by ryan and the ryan plan and whatever we can make out to be the current romney plan. >> yeah, well, lawrence, it's very, very straightforward. i mean, both president obama, in the affordable care act, and ryan, and let's call it the ryan/romney plan, because it is ryan and romney, both of them are going to slow the growth of medicare expenses by about $715 or $716 billion over the next ten years, but they do it in different ways. under the affordable care act, you slow the growth by cutting the payments to the providers of medical care. that is the drug companies and the hospitals and all the other providers. holding down the costs. but under the ryan/romney plan, you hold down the costs of medicare by shifting the costs on to seniors. that is giving seniors what are essentially vouchers that are not in any way going to keep up with the expected costs of

increases in health care costs. so seniors are left bearing the cost of the savings. i mean, it's night and day. they're entirely different methods of actually holding down the costs. romney wants to put it on seniors, romney/ryan, and obama wants to put it on the health care providers, the companies, the corporations, the insurers, the drug companies. you couldn't have it any different, you know, if you wanted a contrast, you could not have a bolder contrast than that. but romney wants to obfuscate it. now he's scared of the backlash against ryan. and all they want to do is create enough confusion so that people don't really see that contrast. >> jonathan comb, do you think they can create that confusion? and particularly among current medicare recipients? >> absolutely. i mean, i'm sure they can, because they've got, you know, ryan has two different plans, and romney will do anything to avoid a specific. you know, he'll say one thing in the morning and one thing in the

evening. but i think there's a chance -- i do think there's actually one very concrete thing we can point out to today's seniors. and it speaks right to that advertisement that you played before. you know, the point of that ad, is look what obama's doing. he's taking money from your medicare and giving it to someone else. actually, that's not true, entirely. you know, the money that both ryan and obama, they both take money out of medicare. but pobama, a lot of that money goes right back to seniors. you know, today if you're a senior on medicare, you get free annual wellness visits. you get free cancer screenings. the doughnut hole is shrinking. that's the money that obama took out of medicare. he took it from the health care industry and he's given it to seniors. now, ryan, in the first 18 years, he takes that money also. he doesn't give it to seniors. i'm sort of surprised no one's picked up on this, but the impact of the ryan plan in the first ten year is the doughnut hole opens back up and the free

screenings all goes away. you tell me. so obama's giving seniors more prescription drug coverage, he's giving seniors the free visits. ryan's taking that away. you tell me, who's stealing from seniors? >> robert reich, paul ryan built a career and a cheerleading group for himself from the republican party by saying, we have to contain the costs of social security. we have to contain the costs of medicare. so president obama introduces some cost containment in medicare, which as you will recall, the last democratic president did too, in his first year in office, a couple hundred billion dollars in medicare cost containment, in that very first clinton budget bill. this is not a new thing for democratic presidents to try to do. so president obama does that, and then the guy who's the champion -- the republican champion of containing medicare costs, then attacks the president for trying to contain some medicare costs. >> lawrence, are you suggesting that the republicans are little

bit hypocritical about medicare? >> i'm getting that feeling! >> well, look it, the problem is, everybody knows, out there, 15 years from now, we do have to control medicare costs. we've got to control medicare costs, largely because health care costs, overall, have to be controlled. i mean, they're now 18% of the national budget. in fact, they're 18% of the national economy. and they're going to be about 25% of the national economy. at least the affordable care act, the obama's health care act, does provide the beginnings of health care cost control. and that's a good thing. what ryan and romney keep saying is, we are going to be saving medicare from itself. well, they're not saving medicare. they're actually reducing the coverage for seniors, and they're doing absolutely nothing about controlling the overall growth of health care costs, which are drawing medicare costs upwards. >> and jonathan cohn, the cbo is

now saying with some of the ryan ideas for changing maee ining m we know it, they don't even know how to score it, because it's such a radical change to medicare, that it would affect the entire health care system in ways that are unpredictable, even to the experts at cbo. >> that's right. this is really unknown territory. but, remember, this is what i think bob was just referring to. the key difference, the one thing we do know, is that under president obama, under the affordable care act, the one thing we know for sure is that the benefits of medicare stay. that's the guarantee. those won't go away. under romney and ryan, what they're basically saying is, we're going to cut the funding, and if the voucher isn't big enough, you'll lose that. >> robert reich and jonathan cohn, thank you very much for joining me tonight. >> thanks, lawrence. paul ryan has always hit all the right republican talking points, attacking president obama's stimulus plan. but what if, what if we actually have paul ryan on paper saying,

in writing, that the president's stimulus plan creates jobs? that's coming up. and later, which republican is in the front-runner status now, right now, for the presidential primary of 2016? we know that the republicans are going to lose this time around. we know they're going to need a new republican nominee in 2016. and it is not too early to start figuring out who that's going to be. andy boarowitz is going to join me for that. that's coming up. this is the plan for back to school. introducing share everything, only from verizon. a shareable pool of data to power up to 10 different devices. add multiple smartphones to your plan, so everyone in your family can enjoy unlimited talk and text. the first plan of its kind. share everything. get your student a samsung galaxy nexus for $99.99.

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and now poor paul ryan's trying to say he didn't really know about ayn rand's philosophy when he professed his devotion to ayn rand's philosophy. paul ryan's been caught in a bad romance with ayn rand and that's in tonight's "rewrite." and speaking of love stories, remember when president obama signed the stimulus bill and paul ryan just said he loved it? oh, that's right. he never said he loved it. at least not publicly. but he did write love letters about the stimulus bill and we've got them. paul ryan's stimulus love letters are coming up next.

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our party's at the top of its game. and that's why now is the perfect time for impeachment. >> yes. >> yes. >> yes! >> we're united! we'll get every republican vote. >> i don't know, dave. remember, obama's only been president for three weeks.

>> in the spotlight tonight, the hypocrisy of paul ryan. that was "saturday night live's" version of what happened when congressional republicans met days after president obama was sworn in. and this is what really happened when congressional republicans met days after president obama was sworn in. >> we are advancing constantly and we're not interested in holding on to anything, except the enemy. we're going to hold on to him by the nose and we're going to kick him in the [ bleep ]. we're going to kick the hell out of him all the time. and we're going to go through him like crap through a goose! >> that was the clip that house republicans actually showed at a republican retreat in virginia just ten days after president obama was inaugurated. and president obama was the enemy in that clip. a clip of george c. scott as general patton, talking about what he would do to hitler's

army. it was shown, along with c-span footage of the house vote on the recovery act, otherwise known as the stimulus bill, which no republican in the house voted for. one of the republicans who was at that retreat and voted against the recovery act, was paul ryan, of course. who, as "the boston globe" reports today, "sought stimulus funds while decrying stimulus." "the globe" reports, in 2009, as representative paul ryan was rail against president obama's $787 billion stimulus package as a wasteful spending spree, he wrote at least four letters to president obama's secretary of energy, asking that millions of dollars from the program be granted to a pair of wisconsin conservatives groups. here is a portion of the letter paul ryan wrote in december of 2009 to energy secretary steven

chu, or as he's known to rush limbaugh, obama czar steven chu. "i was pleased that the primary objectives of their project will allow residents and businesses in the partner cities to reduce their energy costs, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and stimulate the local economy by creating new jobs." there's paul ryan in writing, saying, government, through the stimulus spending, will -- his words -- stimulate the local economy by creating new jobs. talk about smoking guns. joining me now are michael grunwald, senior national correspondent for "time" and author of "the new new deal: the inside story of president obama's recovery act," and jonathan capehart, an editorial writer for "the washington post" and an msnbc contributor. michael, how surprised are you

that congressman who, you know, danced all over the floor is saying the stimulus was the end of america, like paul ryan, then got stimulus money, saying that it would create new jobs? >> you know, it's funny. the stimulus has become my number one obsession. >> for a lot of us. it's our number one -- you're perfectly normal. totally healthy. don't worry about that at all. >> that's right. paul ryan's sort of been my number two. and so i would have to say i wasn't very surprised. this sort of fits the m.o. of a deficit hawk who supported the bush tax cuts and the bush security spending and the bush stimulus and the bush bank bailout and the bush highway bill, that included the bridge to nowhere. you know, it's funny. when they were putting this stimulus bill together, republicans were very concerned. they were having a big fight. because their goal, you had the kind of political leaders, whose goal was, we have to be unanimous against the stimulus, no matter what. and we've got some moderates, we've got some guys who love

concrete, so if we've got to throw in a lot of spending, we'll throw in some spending. they came up a $715 billion alternative to obama's, almost the same. then you have the ideologues who say, we're not here to do another new deal, we just want to do tax cuts. we don't want too $800 billion, we'll do $400 billion. paul ryan voted for both of them. so, of course, $715 billion is freedom-crushing tyranny, euro socialist radicalism. but a few billion less than that is perfectly fine. >> let's listen to what the then eternal optimist, president obama, said about the stimulus. >> so when i hear people just saying, we don't need to do anything, this is a spending bill, not a stimulus bill, without acknowledging that by definition, part of any stimulus package would include spending,

that's the point, then what i get a sense of is that there's some ideological blockage there that needs to be cleared up. but i'm the eternal optimist. i think thatver time, people respond to civility and rational argument. >> jonathan capehart, it seems paul ryan did not publicly respond to rational argument, but he comes from a family that understands stimulus. it's a family, the family business is road building! he's seen it work before. >> right, right. and as you, you know, let us know from the congressman's writings, he understand it completely. he knew exactly who to thank for it and he knew exactly what it would do. but you have to understand, though, what they -- what the republicans were saying publicly, and michael, i think you wrote about this, is that, publicly, they were saying they're against -- they were against the stimulus, but it was also because they basically had

decided, after president obama had been elected, that they were going to -- they were going to oppose him on everything, as often as possible, as often as they could, to deny him any kind of success, to basically turn his presidency into a failure, before it even had a chance to get off the ground. so publicly, sure, they decried the stimulus, but, of course, they're politicians, and they know the people back home are looking for them to bring home the bacon, to bring home government largess, and that's exactly what paul ryan did behind the scenes by thanking the obama administration for stimulus funds that went to his district. to show that he was actually doing something. >> michael, any reasonable version of the vice presidential debate will include reading the last lines of that letter to paul ryan, about the stimulus bill in his community, creating jobs. and his belief that it will

create jobs. what would you expect ryan's answer to be if asked, as he should and must be asked, about that letter in the vice presidential debate? >> you know, he's a smooth politician. as you know. i think, as jonathan mentioned, in my book, i talk about how the republicans really decide decide before day one that they were not going to give obama any victories. that they were going to stand for no. paul ryan had -- he had voted for a stimulus just a year earlier. mitt romney, in fact, every republican and democratic candidate in 2008 supported a stimulus, and mitt romney's was the largest. it was only after january 20th, 2009, that this suddenly became, you know, big government, ludicrous, you know, boondoggle spending. so i assume that he would just pretty much say what he's always said, which is no, even while he's voting yes. >> you are embarrassing me with things that i have forgotten about these candidates' history

with stimulus. michael grunwald, author of the new book, "the new new deal," and jonathan capehart, thank you both for joining me tonight. >> thanks, lawrence. coming up, paul ryan's first love has now turned into a bad romance. that's in the "rewrite." and, now that the suspense is out of this presidential election, andy borowitz will join me to look into the future as only he can and tell me who the presidential nominees will be in 2016. that's coming up.

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♪ with a subaru you can always find a way. announcer: love. it's what makes a subaru, a subaru. paul ryan got caught in a bad romance with ayn rand. he had to lie about her again tonight on fox news. that's got him in the "rewrite." . insuring that stuff must be a pain. nah, he's probably got... [ dennis' voice ] allstate. they can bundle all your policies together. lot of paperwork. [ doug's voice ] actually... [ dennis' voice ] an allstate agent can help do the switching and paperwork for you. well, it probably costs a lot. [ dennis' voice ] allstate can save you up to 30% more when you bundle.

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chase sapphire preferred. there's more to enjoy. ♪ ♪ caught in a bad romance >> in tonight's "rewrite," another bad political romance. episode two of paul ryan's relationship and lies about his relationship with a woman who is not his wife. paul ryan fell in love with this woman long before he met his wife and continued his love affair with her until april of this year. he had to drop his beloved, then, for two reasons. one, he was being considered for the republican vice presidential nomination. and two, catholics became highly critical of paul ryan's very public entanglement with this

woman. ayn rand was dead by the time paul ryan discovered her and fell in love with her through her books "atlas shrugged," "the fountainheads with t fountainhead," and others. she became, by his account, the most influential person in his life. >> the reason i got involved in public service, by and large, if i had to credit one thinker, one person, it would be ayn rand. >> as i reported in this space in april, catholics united issued a statement saying, "we question why ryan as a self-professed catholic would put the teachings of ultra-capitalist ayn rand, of who he has spoken glowingly, before the teachings of jesus and the church." and of course, that was enough for ryan to not only drop ayn rand, but to start lying about her, lying about his relationship with her, lying about what he loved about her. he suddenly started saying, "i reject her philosophy, it's an atheist philosophy." today in a breathtakingly lazy

interview conducted by the homework-averse, who very convincingly played dumb about ryan and rand, ryan confidently lied about his relationship with her once again. >> what is your view of ayn r d rand? are you and ayn rand -- >> i really enjoyed her novels, "atlas shrugged" in particular. it really triggered my interest in economics. i later in life learned about what her philosophy was. it's called objectionism. it's something i completely disagree with. it's an atheistic philosophy. >> oh, okay, so later in life, he learned about what her philosophy was, even though earlier in life he had been reading about her philosophy in her novels with, and that's what triggered his interest in economics. that's kind of weird, because ayn rand's philosophy was very well-known, even to people who never read her books. she was on "the tonight show" with johnny carson, as a guest,

where johnny actually bumped burst crab one night, just to let ayn rand keep talking. really, buster crab. she talked to johnny about being an atheist, and she said this to mike wallace. >> you are out to destroy almost every edifice in the contemporary american way of life, our judeo-christian religion, our modified government-related capitalism, our rule by the majority will. other reviews have said that you scorn churches and the concept of god. are these accurate criticisms? >> uh, yes. >> you would have to be pretty dense to be an ayn rand fan and not know that ayn rand was an atheist, as ryan is now pretending. now, like ryan, i read ayn rand when i was in high school. in fact, she was assigned reading in my catholic high school, where none of the priests were afraid of exposing us to atheist writers and mor e

philosophers, including some they and i agreed with. i enjoyed reading her novels then too, but unlike ryan, i didn't believe she was a better moral or political philosopher than jesus christ. and by the way, most atheists i know find jesus christ a better moral philosopher than ayn rand. only for a politician is ayn rand's atheism a strike against her. and only a politician would dream of claiming to have been once an ayn rand fan and not know anything about her philosophy or that she was an atheist. only a politician would try to pretend that he learned those things about ayn rand, quote, later in life. well, let's see. if he grew up reading ayn rand, as he has said, later in life would be, what? in college? in his 20s? when he was working in congress

as a republican staffer? or would later in life be, oh, i don't know, april of this year? is that when he's claiming that he just discovered what her philosophy was and that she was an atheist? because later in paul ryan's life, in fact, in 2005, he actually wrote a speech about ayn rand that he then delivered at a meeting of the atlas society, a group of rand worshippers. all of whom were well versed in rand's philosophy and her atheism. >> i grew up on ayn rand. that's what i tell people. you know, everybody does their soul searching, in trying to figure out who they are and what they believe and you learn about yourself. i grew up reading ayn rand and it taught me quite a bit about who i am and what my value systems are and what my beliefs are. >> so there he is, in 2005, "later in life," as a congressman, sounding like an

expert on ayn rand. but according to today's testimony to brit hume, he never really knew what her philosophy was, until some time later in life than that, i guess. it must have been later than 2005, because he said this in 2009. >> it doesn't surprise me that sales of "the fountainhead" and "atlas shrugged" have surged lately with the obama administration coming in. because it's that kind of thinking and that kind of writing that is sorely needed right now. and i think a lot of people would observe right now that we are living in an ayn rand novel, metaphorically speaking. but more the issue is this, the issue that is under assault, the attack on democratic capitalism, on individual freedom in america, is an attack on the moral foundation of america. and ayn rand, more than anyone else, did a fantastic job of explaining the morality of capitalism, the morality of individualism, and this to me is

what matters most. >> so there he is, praising ayn rand's morality. there's paul ryan in 2009, still citing ayn rand as the moral philosopher who guides h thinking about capitalism and government. but fox news viewers didn't see that video and they never will see that video of paul ryan, for two reasons. one, it would involve brit hume or someone working for brit hume today to have done some homework. and two, brit hume's job nowadays, after a distinguished career in real journalism elsewhere, is to help fox news help paul ryan become the next republican vice president of the united states, who gives orders to the president. now, during our next commercial break, which is a moment away, i offer this thought experiment. imagine brit hume interviewing a the democratic candidate for

vice president of the united states, whose moral and political guiding light was a russian atheist. what would hannity say? what would o'reilly say? what would sarah palin say? if barack obama tried to dismiss and rewrite a lifelong infatuation with a russian atheist the way paul ryan just did on fox news, what would they say? just imagine. imagine what they would do to barack obama for that. imagine. imagine what the fox news crew would say about him. imagine. oho ntok befurg mpsslpoo

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well, if we don't run chris christie, romney will be the nominee and we'll lose. >> ann coulter was right, of course, about losing, if the republicans nominate mitt romney. which means, it's time to consider who will be the next republican presidential nominee in 2016, when president obama completes his second term as president of the united states. and seeing that far into the future is beyond the range of mere political pundits, so joining me now, a man with a unique perspective on our politics, andy borowitz, comedian, author, and creator of "the borowitz report." i could go on and on with your introduction, because i know a little bit more than that. >> you do. >> creator of "fresh prince of belaire" too. >> the most popular show in guantanamo. >> among the troops stationed there or the -- >> detainees. but let's -- >> detainees? >> let's leave that aside. >> you and will smith are winning hearts and minds,

possibly, of the detainees in guantanamo. >> that's correct. you're welcome. >> you didn't have that mind back -- >> i didn't. >> as i recall, you never mentioned, this could be used -- >> i didn't know about the war on terror, in 1991. >> but now you're better seeing into the future, which is why you're here. >> excellent. >> so we know that paul ryan will considered by regular pundits as the front-runner for the republican nomination next time. but we have, i believe we have a big board display some -- we do? maybe we don't. yeah, we do of all -- there's a bunch of pictures behind you, all losing vice presidential candidates who could never be president, because every one in the television age who has lost in the vice presidential slot has, in that moment, lost their political future. they've gone on to nothingness. so we have to assume. i'm assuming, you tell me. i mean, you tell me. am i wrong to assume that paul ryan is now in the grip of history, his political career is over, when he loses in the vice presidential slot? >> you're right. he will never be president. >> you know, you can come back.

you know what -- >> look, lawrence, i want to go one step further here. because a lot of the sort of conventional wisdom is that sarah palin was somehow a terrible vice presidential pick, no future, and pall ryan -- >> some of us have thought that. >> and paul ryan is awesome. i think it's just the other way around. i think that sarah palin didn't read, but as you point out, paul ryan read ayn rand. so you give that round to palin. >> right. he's in more trouble for what he read than she is for having -- >> exactly. the lesson is, do not read. >> do not read. okay, now chris christie, he's giving the keynote speech in the convention. marco rubio is introducing candidate romney at the convention. those are pretty good spots to be in, isn't it, for positioning for the next presidential election? >> no -- it is if it's at a democratic convention. bill clinton, barack obama. in the republican conventions, they give the keynote people like rudy giuliani and guy vanderjagt. >> what convention was that? >> 1980. >> during my lifetime.

>> there was a guy name guy vanderja vanderja vanderjagt? >> guy vanderjagt, never elected for president of the united states. do you watch the show, "america's next top model"? it's an excellent tv program. on that show, when the loser gets told by tyra banks she's not going to be the next top model, she cries and packs her bags and goes away. they don't make her keep modeling at that point. paul ryan is america's next top model. not these guys. don't put them through this. >> quickly to the democratic side, it's an open seat so it's tricky. and it will be hillary clinton running against andrew cuomo of new york, martin o'malley offian. all three strong candidates. democrats don't like candidates who have run before. they're not good at rewarding them the way republicans are. >> right. but, guys, we have to give it to hillary. she's earned it. in that year in 2016, she's going to be 69. but i think she's really older