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CNN Saturday Morning News

Paul Ryan is Romney's VP Pick; Many Don't Know Romney's VP Pick

Aired August 11, 2012 - 11:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

RANDI KAYE, CNN ANCHOR: From CNN Center, this is CNN SATURDAY MORNING. It is Saturday, August 11th. Good morning, everyone. I'm Randi Kaye. I'm glad you're with us.

A major announcement from Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, he's picked a running mate. It is Congressman Paul Ryan of Wisconsin. We'll take an in depth look at Ryan's record, positions and background and the reasons Romney may have put him on the ticket.

Plus, Ryan's reputation as a hard core fiscal conservative it could dramatically reshape the race. We'll tell you how and find out why some are calling Romney's choice a big gamble.

First now, the actual moment when Mitt Romney revealed his vice presidential pick. It happened two hours ago in Norfolk, Virginia, the starting point of a four-day, four-state bus tour for the new Ryan/Romney team. The presumptive Republican nominee announced his choice on the "USS Wisconsin" a retired battleship that is now a museum. He called Congressman Ryan a man of character and values.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

FORMER GOV. MITT ROMNEY (R-MA), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Paul's upbringing is obvious in how he's conducted himself throughout his life, including his leadership in Washington. In a city that's far too often characterized by pettiness and personal attacks, Paul Ryan is a shining exception.

He doesn't demonize his opponents. He understands that honorable people can have honest differences and he appeals to the better angels of our nature. There are a lot of people in the other party who might disagree with Paul Ryan. I don't know of anyone who doesn't respect his character and judgment.

REP. PAUL RYAN (R-WI), VICE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I have worked closely with Republicans as well as Democrats to advance an agenda of economic growth, fiscal discipline and job creation. I'm proud to stand with a man who understands what it takes to foster job creation in our economy; someone who knows from experience that if you have a small business, you did build that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KAYE: And with that, Ryan and Romney boarded their bus and headed to Ashland, Virginia for an afternoon rally. CNN's national political correspondent Jim Acosta is live in Ashland. Jim, good morning. Now that we've gotten our first look at the Romney/Ryan team together on stage, tell us more about why Paul Ryan was picked as opposed to some of the others on the VP short list.

JIM ACOSTA, CNN NATIONAL POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT (via telephone): Well, I think you got a sense of that in the speech Randi earlier this morning. I think Mitt Romney wanted to change the terms of this debate. I was really looking at some comments he made during his remarks introducing Paul Ryan and at one point he said very close to the end of the remarks he said, "At a time when the President's campaign is taking American politics to new lows, we are going to do things differently."

And then he went on to talk about how this campaign is going to be about ideas and the contrast that exists between these two different campaigns. And then Paul Ryan came out, Randi, and really went -- you know, sort of drilled deep in his own -- I guess his own philosophy about the national debt and the -- and what he believes is a danger to the country in terms of the national debt.

And I think we're going to be hearing a lot about that over the coming weeks. Paul -- this is Paul -- this is in Paul Ryan's bailiwick. This is his -- this is where he likes to come from. He is the House Budget Committee Chairman, and I think they wanted to lay a marker for the coming debate in this campaign that it's going to be about the issues and not about Mitt Romney's business background. I think that is a big driving force behind this pick today.

KAYE: Where exactly are they headed on this bus tour, by the way?

ACOSTA: We are right now en route to Ashland, Virginia, which is in the Richmond area. So you can sort of, you know, take a look at the major media markets in this battleground state and make sense of this itinerary that started in the tidewater area, the Hampton roads area, that's a big media market; also maybe the truest swing section of the state of Virginia. And now we're heading up to the Richmond area which is also a decent-sized media market and then we'll end the day in Manassas, there in the Washington area. The northern Virginia area is -- is perhaps the make or break area of Virginia that will perhaps determine who wins this race.

KAYE: Did you get the sense that even though Paul Ryan was on that stage for just a short time that he's already helped Mitt Romney in some way? I mean, his youthful vigor, he had great energy. What did you make of how he did?

ACOSTA: I think it was a well-executed speech. I think it was an extremely well-executed event. You know there was that misfire that Mitt Romney had at the very beginning when he referred to Paul Ryan as the next president of the United States and then you saw Mitt Romney go up there after he introduced Paul Ryan.

I'm assuming somebody from the staff told him that he had made that mistake and then he went back up there and he said, no, no, the next vice president of the United States. And even folks have fun of themselves and said yes, I even make some mistakes but not with this pick. So Mitt Romney sort of acknowledging that you know from time to time he does have his share of verbal slipups.

But you know I think that what Paul Ryan brings to this table is a certainty for conservatives. There are a lot of conservatives out there who are sort of clamoring for this kind of bold pick. And Mitt Romney is giving them what they wanted.

Now, I'll caution you with that. That you know there are some Democratic operatives out there saying well, you know Mitt Romney, he just sort of kowtowed to conservatives out there. I think in Romney's defense, the Romney campaign would point out and as we were reporting all morning that this decision was made on -- around August 1st, according to the campaign.

That was when Mitt Romney first called Paul Ryan to set up a meeting and then that's when at that subsequent meeting according to the campaign that is when this deal was sealed and Paul Ryan, you know, ultimately decided to jump on this campaign.

But if there were conservatives out there who had any doubt that Mitt Romney is, you know, hook, line and sinker with the conservative movement, he made that I think very clear today with his choice of Paul Ryan. You can't make a more clear choice when it comes to a running mate than Paul Ryan in that regard I think -- Randi.

KAYE: No question about that. Jim Acosta, thank you very much. I appreciate your reporting this morning.

So where does Congressman Paul Ryan stand on the important issues of the day? He's most known for his conservative budget principles. In July 2009 he proposed a road map for America's future, an economic plan that would end Medicare as we know it and privatize Social Security.

At first he got push back from his own party because Republicans worried it would scare away senior voters. Former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich even called it right-wing social engineering but he's become the darling of Tea Party supporters.

On abortion Ryan a Catholic voted to ban federal health coverage of abortion. On economics he is a leading GOP voice against the Obama administration. He voted no on the President's stimulus plan. He took on the White House over the Affordable Care Act and wants to repeal Obamacare.

On guns, he's backed by the NRA. He voted to decrease the gun-buying waiting period from three days to one day. On privacy he voted to allow electronic surveillance of Americans without a warrant. And on defense he's a hawk; he voted to send America to war in Iraq and voted against ending the war in Afghanistan.

And it looks like many Americans aren't sure who Paul Ryan is. According to a new CNN/ORC international poll, take a look, 54 percent of Americans say they don't know enough about the Wisconsin congressman to form an opinion; 27 percent view him favorably and 19 percent don't like him.

John King takes look at the political career of Romney's VP pick.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RYAN: We want to give you that --

JOHN KING, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): For Paul Ryan debating Joe Biden might feel like a demotion.

RYAN: So my question is why not start freezing spending now and would you support a line out of veto and helping us get a vote on it in the House?

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Let me respond to the two specific questions but I want to just push back a little bit on the underlying premise about us increasing spending by 84 percent.

RYAN: The discretionary spending the bills that Congress signs and you sign into law that has increased 84 percent.

OBAMA: All right, we'll -- we'll have a -- we'll have a longer debate on -- on the budget numbers there. All right?

KING: Ryan is the GOP's numbers guy. The House Budget Committee Chairman who isn't afraid to say in his view the only way back to fiscal sanity is to dramatically shrink government and fundamentally change Medicare.

RYAN: If you don't address these issues now they're going to steam roll us as a country. And the issue is the more you delay fixing these problems the much uglier the solutions are going to have to be.

KING: In short he's a lightning rod.

DAVID GERGEN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, it would be a bold choice, it will be a risky choice. It's hard for me to see Mitt Romney who has played it safe all the way through this campaign making that kind of gamble.

KING: There are upsides. It would energize the GOP base sometimes suspicious of Romney. Ryan is an energetic debater and campaigner and at just 42 he would add youthful vigor to the ticket.

Close friends like former House colleague Mark Green say Ryan would help Romney in Wisconsin and across the Midwest.

MARK GREEN, FORMER U.S. CONGRESSMAN: I think he does get Wisconsin but I think more importantly he gets that sort of blue collar conservatism that I think is the heart of the Republican Party.

KING: But tapping Ryan is a big gamble because of the House GOP budget that bears his name. Up to now, Romney has done everything to make this a referendum on the incumbent. ROMNEY: The President's policies are not creating jobs.

KING: Add Ryan to the ticket and there's no escaping this --

SEN. CHARLES SCHUMER (D), NEW YORK: Ryan plan to end Medicare as we know it must be taken off the table.

KING: Other potential downsides: Ryan has never run statewide. He has no foreign policy experience and some will question whether a 42- year-old House member is ready to be commander-in-chief.

GERGEN: One of the stars of the Republican future over the next 10 to 20 years. Whether he's ready at this moment, only the campaign trail could tell. And he's going to get -- I will tell you he's going to take a real beating.

KING: Ryan says family history makes him a fitness fanatic, leading House colleagues in grueling cross-training workouts.

RYAN: My dad died of a heart attack at 55, my grandfather at 57. So I've always had this incentive to stay healthy.

KING: And an avid hunter as Green learned one day when he sent an e- mail from his post as ambassador to Tanzania.

GREEN: I got this terse response saying I'm sitting in the deer stand. It's hunting season. Leave me alone.

KING: He's a self-described nerd, but don't underestimate Ryan's ambition or his competitive streak. It's clear if he had his druthers he'd rather debate the president.

RYAN: I love the idea of Barack Obama. I love the fact that we have elected an African-American man as our president. I think that that is just a really cool thing. I just don't like the ideas coming from Barack Obama.

KING: But it is Romney who will share the biggest fall debate stage.

RYAN: Governor Mitt Romney, hopefully the next president of the United States of America.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KAYE: Among Republicans 49 percent like Paul Ryan and 45 percent say they don't know enough about him.

And you can bet one man who has been keeping a close eye on how all this is playing out is President Obama. He's headed back to his own stomping ground of Chicago to celebrate his birthday this weekend. He's also holding a number of fund-raisers, but a ticket to one of the events doesn't come cheap, $40,000 for one person.

Back in May, Congressman Paul Ryan was being coy about being on the ticket. What a difference a couple of months make.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If Mitt Romney asked you to run as his vice president, would you agree to do so?

RYAN: Next question. You know, that's somebody else's decision, months away. And that's a -- that's a conversation I need to have with my wife before I have it all with you.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Fair enough.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAYE: Many Americans awoke this morning wondering just who is Paul Ryan. Except for the Washington political scene he is little known outside of Wisconsin. He hails from Janesville, a small town between Milwaukee and Madison.

Congressman Paul Ryan is best known for his knowledge of the U.S. budget. He is the Republican's leader on fiscal matters including developing his controversial road map for America's future which would drastically change the Medicare program and privatize Social Security.

On Capitol Hill, he represents Wisconsin's first congressional district, a conservative-leaning swing district that's voted for both Republicans and Democrats for president.

Now, in his seventh term, he was first elected in 1998 at the age of 28. He's currently the chairman of the House Budget Committee and serves on the powerful Ways and Means Committee as well -- that writes tax law. He's Catholic and staunchly opposes abortion.

He graduated from Miami University in Ohio which sits in house speaker John Boehner's congressional district and he's married with three children.

Let's talk more about Mitt Romney's choice of Paul Ryan as his running mate and what it may mean for the race going forward.

Joining me now from Washington is Wolf Blitzer and CNN senior political analyst Ron Brownstein. Wolf, I'll start with you on this one; your thoughts on seeing these two guys together on stage, officially running mates for the first time. Anything surprise you as well about this choice?

WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: I think it's a formidable team. I think they're going to be a strong team going forward. I think it will dramatically energize that conservative Republican base. They want to turn out the vote in these swing states, whether Florida, Virginia, North Carolina, Ohio -- some of these other swing states, Colorado to be sure. And this will energize a lot of those conservatives who weren't really 100 percent sure that Mitt Romney was really one of them and Paul Ryan they love. So it will do very well for the turnout that conservative base of the Republican Party. On the other hand, it will energize the Democrats as well because they don't like the Ryan plan when it comes to Medicare -- Medicare reform for people who are under 55 years old. This will energize the Democrats as well.

It's going to be a substantive debate. I think Paul Ryan and Joe Biden, they will have a good, serious debate in October. I'm looking forward to it.

KAYE: I'm sure a lot of us are as well.

Ron, some are thinking that Romney would maybe wait until the Olympics were over. I know he'll be starting the bus tour today. But why do you think he chose today and where do you see the strategy moving forward?

RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, I think it was the bus tour and, you know, they have also had a bad couple weeks in polling, had a rough trip abroad; a good opportunity to change the subject.

Look, the Ryan pick is a high risk, high reward kind of maneuver here by Mitt Romney. On the one hand he brings, as we saw today, energy and a sense of mission to a campaign that's often seen more PowerPoint than passion from Mitt Romney. On the other hand, as Wolf notes he really does play into the Obama campaign's goal from the outset has been as much as possible to shift this away from solely a retrospective referendum on the President's performance toward a forward-looking choice between two competing visions.

Now Mitt Romney had embraced the Ryan budget. He said he would sign it as president. But putting Ryan on the ticket obviously elevates those issues and does push this further in the direction of being a choice election.

KAYE: Wolf, Paul Ryan is certainly a darling of the Tea Party which really brings up the major strategic question here. Won't this selection possibly make it harder for Romney to get a chunk of that Independent vote that they're going to need to win?

BLITZER: That's a good question. And you know, what happens with that 8 percent, 9 percent or 10 percent Independent vote that's still undecided or swayable, if you will, especially in these key battleground states? I don't know what it does.

I think a lot of people don't know a lot about Paul Ryan yet. Those of us who work here in Washington, have covered him over the years, interviewed him, we know something about him.

But for most Americans they don't know anything about Paul Ryan. They're about to learn a whole lot about this 42-year-old congressman. And we'll see how that plays with Independent voters out there who are still swayable, if you will, or have a relatively open mind. I don't know yet. Maybe Ron has a better sense of how Independents will react.

BROWNSTEIN: Yes. Well, can I add one point on that Randi? I mean -- KAYE: Absolutely.

BROWNSTEIN: As Congressman Green noted in John King's piece, the heart of the modern Republican coalition is much more in blue collar than white collar America. They run best among older whites and blue collar whites. They got about 60 percent of their votes in 2008, each of those groups.

And the tension is that those voters while generally anti-government in polling are clearly resistant to changes in entitlements that benefit the middle class, particularly Medicare. And the Ryan budget as Wolf noted, for people under 55 will convert Medicare into a premium support or voucher program. That has not polled well with the blue collar and older whites who Romney will need really overwhelming margins among and has been generating overwhelming margins among so far in the polling.

So the tension there, I think, will be within the Republican coalition and among those kind of more down scale Independents that have been trending Republican in recent years. Will they stay with this Ryan budget?

KAYE: And in terms of the choices that Romney had before him, I mean if you look at the short list. You had Governor Pawlenty from Minnesota. You had Senator Portman from Ohio. And then they picked the congressman from Wisconsin.

Wolf, do you think that they were dead set, the Republicans, on trying to go after a blue collar industrial Rust Belt type candidate?

BLITZER: It looked like the three finalists all from the Midwest, Portman from Ohio as you say; Pawlenty from Minnesota; and Ryan from Wisconsin. This is an area that if Romney is going to be the next president of the United States, he really needs to win especially Ohio. Ohio is very much in play.

Wisconsin, I don't know how much he's going to bring Paul Ryan to Wisconsin. I assume he's going to help him in Wisconsin. Wisconsin did elect a Republican governor, Scott Walker, in 2010. There's been a lot of controversy in Wisconsin. It's been a long time since Wisconsin in the presidential race went for a Republican.

I assume that Romney thinks Paul Ryan is going to help him in Wisconsin and maybe bring him over the top although I think that is still very much an uphill struggle.

KAYE: it's going to be very interesting to watch. Wolf Blitzer, Ron Brownstein, great to have you both. Thank you.

BROWNSTEIN: Thank you.

BLITZER: Thank you.

KAYE: And we're watching other news as well this morning.

Hillary Clinton is in Turkey talking Syria. We'll tell you who she is meeting and what exactly is on the table today.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAYE: Welcome back. Twenty-four minutes past the hour.

Checking some other news, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is in Turkey discussing the crisis in Syria. She has been meeting with Turkish leaders and Syrian opposition activists today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HILLARY CLINTON, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: I came away very impressed by these young activists and very committed to increasing the assistance we are already providing. Several of those present have already received support from the United States. As you know, we are providing $25 (ph) million in nonlethal aid, mostly communications to civil society and activists.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KAYE: In Syria, it continues. At least 30 people were killed around the country today.

It has been a deadly week for NATO-led forces in Afghanistan. Three U.S. Marines were shot dead last night by an Afghan worker. It happened on a military base in the Garmair District in southern Afghanistan. In the past four days, six American soldiers have been killed in rogue attacks.

Residents living near a sink hole in southern Louisiana will have to wait about another month to return home. This sink hole that you see here bubbling away prompted evacuations and even swallowed a 100-foot tree. Officials in Louisiana want know if an underground salt cavern may be the problem here. The sinkhole measures 324 feet in diameter and it's 50 feet deep, but in one corner it actually goes down more than 420 feet.

Mitt Romney has named Paul Ryan as his vice presidential pick. We'll have more details on him and his policies straight ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAYE: Welcome back.

He is the man everyone is talking about today. Paul Ryan, Mitt Romney's VP pick. But who is Paul Ryan and what are his political views? Gloria Borger has more on that.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

REP. JOHN YARMUTH (D), KENTUCKY: The Ryan road map is the way to the cliff and then over the cliff.

JEFFREY SACHA, ECONOMIST: The Ryan proposal obviously would destroy our government.

REP. PAUL RYAN (R-WI), VICE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I gave fear up for Lent this year.

GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: You're not joking.

RYAN: I should know. I gave up fear for Lent this year.

BORGER: You're not kidding me, right?

RYAN: No.

BORGER: How do you do that?

RYAN: Well, I'm working on it.

BORGER: Until recently, Paul Ryan was a relatively unknown budget wonk. Now he's famous as the face of a new brand of Republican economics that includes the most sweeping plan to cut government spending in decades.

RYAN: There's a big test for this country. And whether we apply our country's principles, you know, liberty, freedom, free enterprise, self-determination, government by consent of governance --

BORGER: Right.

RYAN: All these really core principles are being tested right now. And you can't have fear if you try to fix these problems.

You know, there's sort of shoot the messenger strategy these days and you can't --

BORGER: You're the messenger.

RYAN: I'm the messenger and you can't fear that.

BORGER: So who is Paul Ryan?

RYAN: I'm fifth generation from Janesville. Basically -

BORGER: The path from the union-heavy small town in Wisconsin led to a conservative pedigree, first as a Republican Congressional staffer.

RYAN: I'm Paul Ryan, candidate for Congress.

BORGER: Then with a long shot bid for a House seat 13 years ago.

BILL BENNETT, CNN POLITICAL CONTRIBUTOR: Well Paul Ryan is maybe a rare thing in Washington. He is what he seems.

BORGER: Bill Bennett is a conservative talk radio host and CNN contributor. He was one of Ryan's mentors, along with supply side guru, Jack Kemp, in the early 1990s.

BENNETT: He is a guy without guile, without pretense. He likes to hang out with actuaries for relaxation, which is -

BORGER: Who doesn't? BENNETT: Yes, which is kind of a funny thing. He also hunts elk with a bow and arrow. So he's an interesting character.

RYAN: And it literally gets our economy on a -

BORGER: He's had the deficit in his sights for years, but even Republicans steered clear of some of his more controversial budget ideas, that is until the Tea Party became the rage.

RYAN: I think it is because of the circumstances of what happened that the recession, the resulting binge in spending that occurred after it, and then passing entitlements like ObamaCare and then the electoral reaction to that brought these ideas into the mainstream.

BORGER: Because it's not like you had an extreme makeover.

RYAN: No, no. I've been doing the same thing for a long time.

BORGER: Ryan became popular by pushing the unpopular, things like killing his colleagues' pork projects, or trying to revamp Social Security and eventually change Medicare into a program of vouchers for private insurers. So that's not only touching the third rail of politics, as it's called -

RYAN: Yes. I usually say -

BORGER: by grabbing on -

RYAN: - I'm a koala bear on the third rail. That's what I used to say.

BORGER: Right.

RYAN: So here's the problem. If you don't address these issues now they're going to steamroll us as a country. And the issue is the more you delay fixing these problems the much uglier the solutions are going to have to be. Fifty-one percent of Medicare right now is funded with borrowed money.

BORGER: Right.

RYAN: And so if we're going to keep that promise you have to change it for our generation. You have to change it for those of us in the X generation to be a little melodramatic it does it would kill people, no question.

BORGER: His ideas infuriate liberals like Nobel Prize winning economist, Paul Krugman.

PAUL KRUGMAN, NOBEL PRIZE-WINNING ECONOMIST: The cuts in Medicare that he's proposing they're replaced at the Medicare by a voucher system would in the end mean that tens of millions of older Americans would not be able to afford essential health care. So that counts as cruelty to me.

BORGER: Ryan scoffs at the idea and his fellow Republicans have joined in, making the Ryan budget the coin of the round. Just ask Newt Gingrich who once dared take it on.

FORMER REP. NEWT GINGRICH (R), GEORGIA: I don't think right wing social engineering is any more desirable than left wing social engineering.

BORGER: Gingrich called Ryan to take it back.

RYAN: And basically said he just he was wrong.

BORGER: And there are other ideas. Ryan wants to reform the tax code. As for new taxes, no way, not even if a deal included $10 of spending cuts for every $1 of new taxes. The public wants compromise, and wants a solution where Democrats and Republicans work together and they see, okay, Republicans won't accept -

RYAN: Yes, see the kind of compromise all I hear about these days is we take the tax increases and they do a little less spending. What are the policies? See this is ridiculous talking about ratios. Where's ObamaCare? Where's Medicare reform, Medicaid reform?

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: This is not class warfare.

BORGER: And when the President proposed a plan to cut the deficit by taxing the wealthy, Ryan was the first to call it class warfare. And he's convinced the President is just wasting valuable time.

RYAN: We're in the middle of a lost decade.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KAYE: That is Paul the politician, but what is he like as a person. We'll have that for you.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAYE: Welcome back to CNN SATURDAY MORNING. Paul Ryan is a politician, but he is also a husband and a father. He's Gloria Borger with more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BORGER: And Ryan is a man in a hurry. In Washington he bunks in his Congressional office. It's cheaper, near work and closer to the House gym, which is good since he's a fitness buff who got some of his colleagues hooked on a grueling exercise routine called P90X.

RYAN: It's just a great workout.

BORGER: In a way he owes his devotion to fitness to his father, in particular one day when the younger Ryan was still a teen. Your dad was fifty-five when he died and you were sixteen years old.

RYAN: Sixteen, yes.

BORGER: How did that affect you? You way you're more sensitive - RYAN: Yes. It - I was just a young kid working at McDonald's that summer and my mom was out visiting my sister who got a job in Denver. And went to wake him up in the morning, he wasn't alive.

BORGER: You found him.

RYAN: So I basically had to learn to sink or swim. My grandmother who had Alzheimer's moved in with us at the time and my mom and I took care of her. My mom went back to school to learn a skill and I did a lot of growing up very fast. It made me very I'd say initiative prone, live life to its fullest because you never know how long it's going to last.

BORGER: But you had the opportunity to run for president at the age forty-one if you're in a hurry. And you said and -

RYAN: Oh yes, yes, nice boomerang on that.

BORGER: And you said no.

RYAN: Sure because I think there are other good people who can do this job, but there are other good people who can't raise my kids.

BORGER: That didn't stop the push this past summer to try and draft Ryan to run. The argument is simple. He's proven he can take on the President.

OBAMA: Paul, I -

RYAN: Is this a difference in philosophy?

OBAMA: No, no, no. Look.

RYAN: It is exactly.

OBAMA: This is an important point.

BORGER: Bill Bennett says that Ryan really flashed on to the President's radar after some fiery exchanges at his Health Care Summit last year.

BENNETT: You can tell Barak Obama took notice even of took the measure of him. Paul Ryan was in his frame a little bit.

BORGER: Actually a lot. The White House seated Paul Ryan right up front at the President's budget speech in April and then proceeded to denounce his plan.

OBAMA: It ends Medicare as we know it.

RYAN: What I was thinking going into that speech was, you know what, we're getting a divided government to work.

BORGER: Yes.

RYAN: We're actually compromising, getting things done. So what I got out of that was political mode, -

BORGER: Right.

RYAN: - demagoguery and try to sort of nullify the notion that there's an alternative for this country.

BORGER: With neither side budging Ryan has settled in.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Paul Ryan is the right guy.

BORGER: He's a hero to Republicans and a devil to the Democrats. And he's okay with that.

RYAN: Well actually they had an ad of me pushing some old woman off a cliff or something like that.

BORGER: Doesn't bother you?

RYAN: No, not really. Look, we have a normal life here in Janesville. My wife and I have three beautiful kids, and we have soccer on Saturdays. We have Cub Scouts. We have a normal life like everybody else. I go to Washington four days a week, which I call the silly place. It's two different kind of worlds. And if we don't tackle these big problems they're going to tackle us.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KAYE: Washington, the silly place. Well with the grueling months of campaigning ahead he may have far less family time though.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CNN IREPORTER: Oh my hopes are even higher that Romney will win this election.

CNN IREPORTER: With the selection of Ryan we see a choice election. We see an ideological choice. Finally -

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KAYE: People already reacting to the choice of Paul Ryan. We'll hear some more of our iReporters next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAYE: So what do people think of Mitt Romney's choice? Our CNN iReporters are already chiming in.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CNN IREPORTER: He's very well spoken, very knowledgeable, articulate and he brings a lot to the table. I think he's going to make an excellent running mate and with him next to Romney my hopes are even higher that Romney will win this election.

CNN IREPORTER: With the selection of Ryan we see a choice election. We see an ideological choice. Finally America is going to be able to select a progressive direction or a recessive direction, a conservative direction. They will get to decide if they want a humane society or the survival of the wealthiest society.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KAYE: With the country watching Mitt Romney stumbled on the biggest announcement of his presidential campaign. We'll show you what he said and play it for you.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAYE: Presumptive Republican presidential candidate, Mitt Romney, is on a battleground bus tour right now with his newly announced running mate, Congressman Paul Ryan of Wisconsin. He announced his vice presidential pick in Norfolk, Virginia this morning, but he misspoke while introducing Ryan. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROMNEY: Join me in welcoming the next president of the United States, Paul Ryan. Every now and then I'm known to make a mistake. I did not make a mistake with this guy, but I can tell you this. He's going to be the next vice president of the United States.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KAYE: Long before his selection as Romney's number two, Ryan seemed to be preparing for the role, hitting the campaign trail with the Republican presidential candidate at events like this one in Milwaukee. The Wisconsin native is in his seventh term in Congress. Ryan, who resisted calls for his own president run this year spoke to our chief political correspondent and host of CNN's "STATE OF THE UNION," Candy Crowley, about the kind of person who could help Mitt Romney win the White House.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CANDY CROWLEY, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Usually the number two on the ticket helps balance out the number one that he sort of fills in the gaps. What kind of number two do you think Mitt Romney needs? What does he need balancing out for or of?

RYAN: Whatever he thinks helps him win the fall and helps him govern afterwards.

CROWLEY: Well what do you think helps him win in the fall?

RYAN: Honestly I don't know if it's the geography thing. There are a lot of conventional wisdom. What I think matters is, is he putting together the right kind of team to take the right kind of referenda of the country to offer the country a choice of two futures? And is he getting somebody who's ready for the job and who can help him govern and deliver upon the reforms on which he's willing to campaign on this fall? So I have no clue who that's going to be, what kind of person or where they come from. It's really I don't see the point of speculating on all of that. We have jobs to do where we are. I have a job to do as budget chairman as a Wisconsin representative. I'm focused on that. And so let's see. Let's get this primary taken care of and then everybody can worry and speculate about the rest of it.

CROWLEY: But do you for instance, let me just try one more time on this, would you for instance go for someone who is seen as a little more working class? We know that when President Obama was a candidate and he was selecting a number two they felt that there was a certain kind of - he seemed a bit removed from people and they wanted someone who really spoke to blue collar workers. Does Mitt Romney need that as well in the number two?

RYAN: I'm really not the political pundit type, Candy. I'm very much of a policy person. I'm focused on doing my job. So it's just not my forte to get into that kind of speculation because I'm just busy trying to do my job. And right now my job is being the Congressman from the 1st Congressional District in Wisconsin and as budget chairman trying to prevent a debt crisis from sinking our economy and destroying our children's future. So honestly that's what I'm focused on.

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KAYE: And CNN "NEWSROOM" starts at the top of the hour. Fredricka's here to tell us what she has coming up. Hello.

FREDRICK WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Good to see you.

KAYE: You too.

WHITFIELD: And of course we're going to follow up on this Paul Ryan running mate announcement. Was it a bold move? Will this be a very distinctive quality that sets Romney, the Romney camp apart? We're going to be talking about that beginning in the noon Eastern hour. And then of course our legal guys are going to be with us as they always are, Richard and Avery.

We're going to talk about Facebook and when you like someone are you protected by the First Amendment? There's an interesting case that involves a young man who liked someone who turned out to be a opponent of his boss who was running for office and then he got fired. So what are the protections as it pertains to, yes, the First Amendment, -

KAYE: Social media.

WHITFIELD: - Facebook and, yes, social media in general. And then we're also going to talk about cheerleading and whether cheerleading on the university level is protected by Title IX. That too is another case that our guys are going to explore.

And then the Olympics this is the final weekend and still there's been a lot of expressed disappointment by Lolo Jones, the 100-meter hurdler, herself as well as lot of folks, critics and fans who have talked about her and her journey there at the Olympic games. I talked with her about what she calls her heartbreak. And then she also talks about social media and how it really has opened up a new can of worms as it pertains to how Olympians respond to their events and how they had a direct dialogue with the fans. And it can be a big distraction.

KAYE: You've been following the Olympics in London, haven't you?

WHITFIELD: Yes. I got a chance to go there with my dad, who's a 1948 Olympian.

KAYE: How nice.

WHITFIELD: And we met up with a number of other '48ers as we call them. My dad was a gold medalist. And there he is right there along with my brother, Lonnie. We took the journey to London to reunite with his Olympic bud and to really reconnect with the city where he made history 64 years ago.

KAYE: How did it feel for him to be back?

WHITFIELD: Oh he loved it. He said I haven't felt this good in so long.

KAYE: And you got to do it with him.

WHITFIELD: I know.

KAYE: So nice.

WHITFIELD: And that was so - it was beautiful. It was memorable. I hope I forget nothing about it for the rest of my life. It was great.

KAYE: And he hasn't been to one of the Olympics you said in a long time.

WHITFIELD: Well his last Olympic games was in Beijing. I went along with him, but prior to that Atlanta was the last games. That was kind of the centennial Olympic games, but because of his health it's been a little bit difficult to do that.

KAYE: Yes.

WHITFIELD: But this was so special.

KAYE: What a nice trip for you. All right, Fred, looking forward to it, thanks. Could today's announcement be the start of Romney's claw back up to the polls? Up next we'll show you why the Ryan pick might be just the ticket to turn it all around.

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KAYE: Polls suggest things aren't going as well as they could for Mitt Romney. President Obama has expanded his lead and an ABC News Washington Post survey says Romney's "laboring" under the lowest personal popularity ratings for a presumptive presidential nominee in mid-summer election year polls back to 1984. Dana Bash reports on Romney's slipping numbers and if a VP pick is enough to turn things around.

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ROMNEY: (singing) Oh beautiful for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain.

DANA BASH, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: If you turned on your television last month there's a good chance you saw this brutal attack ad against Mitt Romney.

ROMNEY: - majesty above the fruited plains.

BASH: It ran 12,402 times in the last half of July not including local cable. It's the crown jewel of the Obama campaign's summer strategy to define Mitt Romney as an out of touch, wealthy businessman with something to hide since he won't release most of his tax returns.

SEN. HARRY REID (D-NV), MAJORITY LEADER: Let him prove that he has paid taxes because he hasn't

BASH: All that fuss some self-inflicted wounds like questioning Great Britain's readiness for the Olympics add up to a rough month for Romney and it appears to be taking a toll in a crucial area for voters, likeability. A new ORC poll shows Romney's unfavorable rating climbed six points over the last month with registered voters and skyrocketed twelve points among those critical independent voters.

And President Obama opened up a seven point lead over Romney. One month ago it was just three points, a statistical dead heat. Privately, frustrated senior Republicans continued to complain to CNN that the Romney camp can't find its footing in an economic environment that should be devastating for the President. Now team Romney is trying to get back on offense, launching a bus tour entirely on the President's turf, Virginia, North Carolina, Florida, Ohio, all states the President won in 2008 up for grabs now.

ROMNEY: It is good to be with you guys.

BASH: The Romney camp is trying to course correct not just with where the candidate goes or what he says. It's a two-pronged approach, streamline his economic message and reclaim the idea of Romney the businessman as a positive, not a negative.

ROMNEY: I know what it's like to hire people and wonder whether you're going to be able to make ends meet down the road.

BASH: And trying to shred the President's calling card, his credibility and character like with this brand new ad slamming the President for a pro-Obama Super PAC commercial which blamed Romney for a woman's death. It was an ad CNN found to be inaccurate.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: What does it say about a president's character when his campaign tries to use the tragedy of a woman's death for political gain? Doesn't America deserve better than a president who will say or do anything to stay in power?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: And of course the Romney campaign is really hoping that the narrative will change with their VP pick and the GOP convention in Tampa. Romney officials say they expect to get a significant bounce from both, but if Romney does get a bounce in the polls it will defy recent history. In the past two election cycles in 2004 and 2008 neither party's nominee went in the polls more than two percent after the conventions, Dana Bash, CNN Washington.

KAYE: We have had such a busy morning here at CNN and CNN "NEWSROOM" continues right now with Fredricka Whitfield.

WHITFIELD: And we're going to have a very busy afternoon.

KAYE: Yes you are.

WHITFIELD: You're passing the baton to us now.

KAYE: Take it.

WHITFIELD: All right. Thanks so much. Randi, have a great day.

KAYE: Thank you.