real solutions can be delivered, but it will take leadership and the courage to tell you the truth. mitt romney is this kind of leader. paul ryan has become an intellectual leader of the republican party. he understands the fiscal challenges facing america, our exploding deficit and crushing debt, and the fiscal catastrophe that awaits us if we don t change course. bret: that was today. it s a virginia stop today on this bus tour that is ongoing. just stopped in manassas a few moments ago, earlier before the show. then they head to north carolina and ryan s home state of wisconsin on sunday. they ll come here to florida on monday and head to ohio on tuesday. we re also hearing of a possible stop in iowa. but it is not locked in. let s bring in our panel. bill crystal, editor of the weekly standard. kirsten powers, columnist for the daily beast. charles lane, opinion writer for the washington post.
go back to. we ve stabilized. we ve had private sector job growth now for 26 straight months. the president is the first person to say the economy is not as strong as any of us would like it to be. every election is a choice. mitt romney, when he was governor of massachusetts, had the worst economic record in the country. number one debt, 47th in job creation. so he s tried it there and it didn t work. we saw what happened in the last decade. falling income, exploding deficit. mitt romney and his congressional allies, by the way he s aspearing with speaker boehner today in ohio which is fitting because ultimately he s going to pick a vice president to run with. ultimately his running mate is the congressional republican agenda. he s adopted it hook, line and sinker. you want to go back to the policies where we exploded our debt, middle class falls farther behind, the only answer is tax cuts for the wealthy, short change things like education. we need to focus this is going to be a cl
the big lie has worked in propaganda and politics for ages and works again now. what s the game? suppose more documentation comes out and he says i ll shut out now. some think that s his theory, that he has no real entree so he s chosen this. the trouble is, he s riding a tiger and if you fall off the back of the tiger, the tiger eats you. what s his exit strategy? after last night, what is it? does he quit? i think he ll go all the way with this. all the way to the presidency? it will be a litmus test. is the republican party about lower taxes i m with you. i think the republican party that you represent as chairman is not the george will party of the cerebral let s look at the issues and reduce the deficit. it s become, not a ethnicity party, but the crazy tribalist
exploding deficit politically was he smart to play possum on this? yeah, absolutely. and get through the re-election campaign perhaps with this. i am amazed by this. i like number that is are clear cut. i don t like 50/50 numbers. number of democrats, 5%. that s it. and he knew this months ago. pollsters are working way ahead of this poll. what do you make of the way he s handled this politically and putting ryan out there to bake? very, very skillful in the short term. i think the challenge for him is that people believe two contradictory things. they don t want to cut medicare, but they do want to cut the deficit, so he has to appeal to that part of them, too, with a credible deficit reduction plan that maintains his ability to take a whack at these republicans who voted for the ryan bill. the word about that bill that passed the house last week has not yet filtered down to the public.
a second firefighter died outside of dallas. a documentry film director was killed by a grenade in libya today. commissioner says he has deep concerns about finances and operations. now back to hardball. welcome back. keep that government off my medicare. it is a government program, but that s a cry you hear a lot of. but a new poll out today ask if people support cutting medicare and medicaid to deal with the big government deficit right now. 92% say no way. 73% of republicans say leave it alone. and 75% of independents say leave it alone.