john avlon, the senior political columnist with the daily beast.com. ari fleischer.can contributor erick ericks erickson, editor in chief of red state.com. and democratic strategist james carville and donna brazile. there's donna. our former presidential adviser, david gergen. david, i'll start with you. we have now got the team in place, it's going to be obviously mitt romney/paul ryan versus president obama, vice president joe biden. i think this is going to be a lively 86, 87 days. >> it sure is. this was mitt romney's best day on the campaign trail, wolf, since he won the nomination. i think the choice of paul ryan clearly has injected new spirit into his base. he had a campaign that was drifting, that was on the defensive. he tried to put it back on offense today. but in choosing paul ryan he's also taking a risk. we have been talking about it all morning. because there may be talking points saying that mitt romney can shift away from the ryan plan, but he can't do that politically. he's embraced the plan, now he's put the architect of the plan on the ticket. he

john avlon, let's talk about loopholes.em to necessarily be on the same page when it comes to either closing or leaving loopholes open. >> this has been one of the big debates going on. you see a fundamental contradiction between the romney plan as he set it out so far and the ryan plan, far more specific. here's the crux of the debate, about the politics and the policy of it. romney said he would embrace something like simpson/bowles. paul ryan served on the simpson/bowles commission and voted against its recommendations. one of the key questions about if you're going to lower rates but keep the revenues basically in place is what loopholes they're going to close. where the simpson/bowles commission says we should close loopholes, mitt romney said, that's off base. and here right when erin interviewed paul ryan in the halls of congress earlier, he spoke about it as well. let's take a listen. >> it sounds to me like you're opening to increasing revenue by doubling revenue by getting rid of loopholes? >> and lowering tax rat

"outfront" tonight, john avlon, michael waldman and hogan gidley. hogan, let me start with you.k says the ads are not politically motivated. >> of course. >> of course i'm starting with you on this one. do you buy it? >> that's right. i wouldn't say that. people advertise for different reasons. obviously places like target and starbucks have been using homosexual couples in their advertising for years. there's really no departure from where a lot of these companies are going. we'll let the market decide. the big problem here is using taxpayer dollars to do it and to make a political statement. that's what's going to turn people on to this topic and make people angry and come out against it, i would imagine, from the right. i ma chick-fil-a's a private business. they can do what they want to do. amtrak obviously using taxpayer dollars here, that's going to be a serious issue for the right and i imagine amtrak will become somewhat of a rallying cry or a whipping boy, if you will, for our side and we'll come out and try to show people that we disagree with that type of advertising

"outfront" now is john avlon. this is interesting and especially given the tension that we had there over the position. they don't want to talk about the specifics of when someone supports abortion or doesn't support abortion. that is not something the republican party wants to talk about. >> no. and you could feel the force of the pivot with reince priebus' word right there, dumb, biologically stupid, bizarre, that ain't subtle language. he wants to get off this topic as fast as possible and just say, he wants this to be in yesterday's papers because he knows at the end of the day, the longer this is in the headlines, the more of a loser it is. but the real question is, as you said, the real implication of the position of oppositional abortion even in cases of rape and incest. today, the romney/ryan ticket came forward with a statement making it crystal clear that that tick is pro-life with exceptions for rape and incest. >> which is what chairman priebus was trying to say, that's the ticket. >> as of today. but

let's bring in cnn contributors john avlon, a senior political columnist daily beast, ari fleischer and democratic strategist james carville. let me start with you, john. what do you think about what joe biden said about paul ryan in that little clip and that was just a few weeks ago. >> sure, a preview of things to come, no question. up to this point mitt romney has pursued a general strategy of attack and distract. he hasn't pro poepd new policies. now with paul ryan, maybe the first nominee in history to outsource his policy. that ryan plan he has been rewarded for his courage and put a specific policy plan on the table. 73 pages, 37 footnotes. but i'll tell you this, all that is attached to the nominee. we really have at this point is a choice election, a very different vision. i think this pick invigorates the republican base. paul ryan is one of the smartest republicans nationally, the intellectual leader of congress for all time. i think it's a bold pick but a risky pick to come. that biden clip is what's to come. >> two different economic visions for the future of the united sta

i asked john avlon and roland martin all about this last night on "out front." but the question really was, how on earth could they have been different to begin with? >> partly because different county have different fiscal positions and that could have been why they weighed differently. >> in his statement really gave it away. today i'm living the playing field. that's to the extent it's an admission that it wasn't on level playing field before. when you look at that map it is hard to say that there wasn't politics behind some of these county disparities. ryan makes a great point about each county taking its own economics taken into account. bottom line is we should have a common interest. >> the obama administration suing because that state ended early voting, the friday before the election. obviously people know that saturday, sunday, and monday before the election have been -- have been very important for a lot of people. they work, they need the weekend to vote. and church services for african-americans have souls to the polls. explain me and tell me why su

. >> john avlon, as always, thank you for your insight. thanks for calling in this morning.nk you. >>> be sure to stay with cnn this morning, as romney unveils his running mate. it happens at 9:00 eastern time from norfolk, virginia. cnn will bring it to you live. >>> with election day three months away, new polls suggest that romney's support is slipping while president obama's is growing. you see it there. that's according to a new cnn/orc poll. if mitt romney does announce paul ryan as his running mate this morning, will it help his approval rating? our poll shows 54% of voters don't have a favorable or unfavorable opinion about ryan. signaling that a majority of americans don't know enough about him. that is the same among republicans, saying they were unsure about ryan. if they were to choose, they told us they would prefer to see marco rubio on the ticket ahead of chris christie or paul ryan. >>> as i mentioned, the polls suggest things aren't going so great for mitt romney. president obama has expanded his league. and an abc news/"washington post" survey says, romney'

john avlon, thank you as well. ahead, mitt romney is telling us something he hasn't told us before. hint. a hint about his taxes. you got to stay tuned for this one. it's been the best kept secret. >>> also apple may be one step closer to taking over your television. but is it a step in the wrong direction for this company? more in a moment. senokot-s has a natural vegetable laxative ingredient plus the comfort of a stool softener for gentle, overnight relief of occasional constipation. go to senokot-s.com for savings. what? it's a brand-new camry. i just bought this. really? i just thought i'd take a looka. sure, you can. this malibu eco features e-assist. it offers an epa estimated 37 miles per gallon highway. this cannot be a brand-new car. what are you doing? i was looking for a cassette deck. [ male announcer ] visit your local chevy dealer today. now get a 2013 malibu eco for around $219 per month. ntgomery and abigail higgins had... ...a tree that bore the most rare and magical fruit. which provided for their every financial need. and then, in one blinding blink of an eye, th

i'm john avlon in for erin burnett. "outfront" tonight, 60 hours of whirlwind attacks. that's how long it's been, 60 hours, since mitt romney announced his running mate, wisconsin congressman paul ryan. and since then, we've been bombarded with political attacks that are based more on fear than fact. >> paul ryan has embraced an extremist proposal. >> with a romney/ryan ticket, it's like reagan again. ♪ >> so tonight we're going to cut through the partisan spin to give you the facts on three fronts. first, how the ryan/romney deficit reduction plan compares to the president's own $4 trillion deficit reduction proposal. do they add up? then the pros and cons of paul ryan, what his votes have been on the key issues from afghanistan to abortion to t.a.r.p. and finally, the politics of mediscare, the fear-mongering that both sides do when entitlement reform is proposed. we want to look at the next decade. we're talking about stacking the ryan/romney budget against president obama's own proposal. that's the debate we should be having in this country. about what's the best pa

john, let me bring in the other john, john avlon, into this conversation. what do you think?anging pick? by the way, game changing pick might be more like rubio or christie than some of those names we talked about. >> that's right, you've certainly seen conservatives come out hard for paul ryan in recent days. i want game changer because you're starting to see the numbers solidify. it's a long way out but the trend is not mitt romney's friend. game change got a bad name after sarah pail be. someone like rubio who could certainly excite the base, help get tea partiers engaged and maybe bring the youth vote could really make a big difference. or a paul ryan. that's a long ball. there are risks. it would excite the base and rally folks around the ticket. >> john king, what was your vote? >> erin, i'm not sure a game changing pick would do it. mitt romney's problems are mitt romney's problems. his unfavorables are going up. people view him increasingly as a rich guy who wouldn't fight for the middle class. would you accentuate that with a blue collar guy? maybe. but mitt romney's

john avlon, thank you as well. ahead, mitt romney is telling us something he hasn't told us before.t. a hint about his taxes. you got to stay tuned for this one. it's been the best kept secret. >>> also apple may be one step closer to taking over your television. but is it a step in the wrong direction for this company? more in a moment. with alzheimet a day goes by that you don't have them. questions about treatment where to go for extra help, how to live better with the disease. so many questions, where do you start? alzheimers.gov. the answers start here. so, what's the problem? these are hot. we're shipping 'em everywhere. but we can't predict our shipping costs. dallas. detroit. different rates. well with us, it's the same flat rate. same flat rate. boston. boise? same flat rate. alabama. alaska? with priority mail flat rate boxes from the postal service. if it fits, it ships anywhere in the country for a low flat rate. dude's good. dude's real good. dudes. priority mail flat rate boxes. starting at just $5.15. only from the postal service. for fastidious librarian emily skinne

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. >> what i find amazing, i was reading john avlon's column yesterday and he said the paradox here is that republicans don't like big government. and yet, forcing a woman to take an unwanted baby to term is essentially saying keep your hands in my body, and i am struggling with that and i wonder how many other republicans struggle with that, as well. ann, thank you for joining us. i'd love to hear back from you how things go at the convention. >> okay. thanks. >> guess who else is going to tampa? rhymes with widen. find out more about it, wolf blitzer joins me with all of the things political and what the implications are coming up at 20 past the hour. and now i want to take you overseas. a journalist's last moments harrowing. and it's all on video. just before she was killed in a gun battle in syria, a japanese journalist maked mikai yamamoto spent the last several moments of her life filming the horror in aleppo. you can hear a gunshot and hauntingly, that footage ends. take a look. >> and that's it. joining me live from beirut, lebanon is arwa damon. when i see things like this, it

. >> john avlon joins me. what amazed me about the whole debate is here we are just months away and nobody has planned for this. >> nope. >> and nobody has no idea how much it's going to hurt and, therefore, i see little impetus to prevent it from happening. >> but congress is planning on summer vacation. >> that is the end of the week. >> that's the artificial urgency here. look, it is insane. first of all, let us remember this is a self-inflicted problem. we've had a number of chances to avoid these painful sequestration cuts. this was always the stick if they didn't take the carrot. the deal for the super committee, bowles/simpson. in this big poker game in washington, they had their bluffs call and now they don't want to third take their medicine. it's amazing. both sides have had their bluffs called. the president is clearly playing politic because he doesn't want the pink slips go out. the republicans say this is dire and horrific but can't come up with anything measurable that would indicate it is. >> t

john avlon wrote a column today for the daily beast answered said we expect our presidential candidatesowever big or small, a hero's journey of suffering and redemption that informs their judgment, arming them with empathy and wisdom once they reach the oval office. if mitt romney has such a story, he has not shared it yet. >> i think what mitt romney does and plenty of republican does and paul ryan does and i think he was real clear about it, it was a very speech last night and i think it will be another one tonight. and i do think that mitt romney needs to show his empathy and concern for the people, but why run for president if you're not concerned about the people of the united states? we know he is. we know he is. and he is going to express that tonight. and frankly, everything that's come of tampa this week, the republicans expressing concern about the distress that the american people have faced over the last four years. they want somebody who can actually get the job done and it just hasn't gotten done in the last four years it is time to pick somebody that can do the job and mi