>> we begin as democrats prepare to make their case for president obama 's re-election, with their convention set to be gaveled to order in just one hour. first lady michele obama caps the opening night with a speech that will talk about the president's connection with and support for the middle class . a theme that the president himself anticipated earlier today at a rally in norfolk, virginia, where he drew a sharp contrast with his republican rival, mitt romney .
>> i mean, think about it. a plan that says we're going to make middle-class families pay for another budget-busting, $250,000 tax cut , for people making $3 million a year or more, that's not really persuasive to most people.
>> while the president was delivering that line, mitt romney 's been up in vermont this afternoon, working on his powers of persuasion, fine tuning his debate preparations and leaving hatchet man paul ryan to do the dirty work on the campaign trail as today in battleground ohio.
>> the biggest threat to medicare is obama care and one of the biggest threats to job creation is obama care. so for the sake of medicare , and for the sake of jobs, we are going to repeal and replace obama care.
>> what a line. i wonder why he doesn't use that more often. of course. that was mr. ryan 's well rehearsed stump speech . like a p 90 x for the truth where he bends and stretches his way around the facts, he gets even more of a workout during interviews like trying to walk back that line blaming the president for the jamesville auto plant that closed under president bush .
>> in my opinion, it seemed like you were unmistakebly trying to link the president's promise with the closing of that plant, which you know obviously closed before he became president.
>> the promise was -- that he was going to open the plant. he said if we pass the stimulus unemployment would never get above 8%.
>> yes. when you bend one truth to its breaking point, just move right along to the next set of flexible facts. what about their plan to pay for a gigantic tax break for the wealthy by closing loopholes?
>> tax policy and chick growth.
>> others have looked at your plan to close loopholes and you can't cut taxes in the way you say and raise as much money by going after loopholes. they've looked at every single one and you don't get there.
>> they did not actually analyze the romney plan. and what other groups have shown is you can do this.
>> oh, the no, they didn't, yes, you can defense, very clever. but then came the vexing question about why neither mr. romney nor mr. ryan made any mention of afghanistan in their convention speeches.
>> how can you not mention that war?
>> well, i think you have to remember, the day before his speech, mitt romney went to the american legion and gave a lengthy speech on the topic.
>> a lengthy speech on the topic? really? because unlike most americans, we actually watched mr. romney 's american legion speech last wednesday afternoon and he did, indeed, talk about afghanistan , and here's what he actually said.
>> the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction continues to be very real and, of course, we're still at war in afghanistan .
>> that is it. that was his sole mention of afghanistan in his american legion speech. as usual, short on specifics, on afghanistan , just plain short. let's get right to it with msnbc's lawrence o'donnell, host of "the last word" who joins us now from the convention in charlotte. lawrence , it's great to have you again. has paul ryan in your experience always been a compulsive liar or have we only just started to notice his loose grip on the truth?
>> well, everyone who's been watching his budget work over the last few years who knows how budgets work have known that they've all been incomplete. he's always left out what he's really going to do with the tax code . which is what are they going to do with deductions, loopholes, what he used to call, martin, tax shelters . that's what he used to call them. up until last week when he stopped referring to tax shelters on order of the romney campaign, since the head of that ticket is the king of exploiting tax shelters for his own personal wealth. so he's always been leading up massive things and people like paul krugman and "the new york times," know bell winning prize economist has always been saying that ryan is not a serious man on budget matters, but in republican world, he has been advanced as their serious man on budget matters. what we're now seeing especially with these great interviews, matt lauer 's done, george stephanopoulos , but i think what matt did, really opened up this candida candidacy's weaknesses in a way i couldn't have predicted last week, which is the "today" show actually has swing voters watching, you know. that's really where they're going. they don't come to this programming. they don't want a lot of political programming. that's where paul ryan has to be ready and he wasn't ready and that campaign wasn't ready. for some very basic questions that you have to see coming, since the reaction to ryan 's speech the night he gave it.
>> lawrence , here's the problem with the lies they keep telling. if i arrived in this country last week, without any prior knowledge of this nation's recent economic history, here's what i'd learn from the republican ticket. that the president abandoned the auto industry , that romney and ryan would never cut medicare , that the president is solely personally responsible for the high deficit and the nation's credit downgrade and that romney and ryan are going to save the safety net .
>> yeah. and it becomes the press's obviousligation to deal with these issues the way the republicans have framed them. to actually show the trickery that's going on in that framing and that's what we saw. that's what the matt lauer -- by the way, the think that's striking about matt's interview is, these were all straight ahead predictable questions. that's how easy it is to rip away the framing that paul ryan is using for his speech. you know, as long as he was delivering that speech in the sealed environment of the republican world last week, those lines were very, very effective. but they're not -- this week not able to survive press scrutiny in areas where you think they'd have a practiced response ready to go.
>> lawrence , it felt as though they were speaking from the lan net uranous. they were making this stuff up and as you say the moment anybody asks a single reasonable question, well, they just run for the hills.
>> well, they're not the first political candidates to make things up.
>> of course not.
>> but they definitely have made up more than most. i mean most candidacies tend to play with the truth around the edges. these -- this ticket is playing with the truth at the core, at the very basics of what they're talking about, and martin, i have to applaud you for going after the afghanistan issue. i sitting here just now learned what mitt romney actually said in that speech last week about afghanistan . i hadn't realized it was really just the one word in one sentence.
>> it was actually the country and the mentioning of that nation in south asia that constituted what paul ryan said was a very lengthy speech. but let's keep going on this detail. because on a personal level, mr. ryan keeps talking about jamesville , wisconsin. but you know, lawrence , he's been in washington , d.c., since he was 22. for the last 20 years, he's been part and parcel of the washington political elite , not the ordinary folks of jamesville . and again, does he somehow assume that we have no access to a properly functioning memory?
>> well, martin, here's the really important question for paul ryan that he hasn't gotten yet on the jamesville auto plant. the plant employed your friends from high school . the plant employed voters of yours. constituents of yours. what did you do, paul ryan , to save that plant? you saw it when they put up the notice saying they were going to close it down. it was a republican president in office when that happened. what did you do with that republican president? what did you do with your republican leadership? what bill did you write? what did you try to push?
>> lawrence , we --
>> to save that plant.
>> we know what mitt romney did. he did nothing. he did zero.
>> but it's really, martin, all the more pointed, this is a real congressman, representing his district actively, when he sees that plant heading toward closure, a real congressman goes to work in all sorts of ways that washington has to try to do something to intervene. he did absolutely nothing. while in office to intervene. mitt romney wasn't in office, he had no responsibility that he could possibly point to other than writing a wall street journal op-ed piece saying let it die , let all these plants die, but paul ryan who wants to exploit it now, exploit that image of friends of his from high school losing their jobs, which is tragic and is real, what did he personally do for them? he had a chance. he was in government at the time.
>> well, i want to draw our conversation to a close, lawrence , by mentioning that mitt romney , gave his convention speech but it appears he got absolutely no pounce whatsoever, according to gallup, he actually lost a point after the convention. you're telling me that the we built in debt clock didn't work for these guys.
>> well, for one thing you have to say this is a great testament to the intelligence of the swing voter . they listen to that and they realize there was nothing in it. that is a very important measure of just how smart the swing voters are at this stage of the game. they are waiting to hear things to actually make their decision one way or another and what they're saying clearly is we from tampa.
>> lawrence o'donnell, thank you so much, lawrence .
>> thanks, martin.
>> lawrence will be bringing us much more from charlotte leading up to the president's speech on thursday.
>> i mean, think about it. a plan that says we're going to make middle-class families pay for another budget-busting, $250,000 tax cut , for people making $3 million a year or more, that's not really persuasive to most people.
>> while the president was delivering that line, mitt romney 's been up in vermont this afternoon, working on his powers of persuasion, fine tuning his debate preparations and leaving hatchet man paul ryan to do the dirty work on the campaign trail as today in battleground ohio.
>> the biggest threat to medicare is obama care and one of the biggest threats to job creation is obama care. so for the sake of medicare , and for the sake of jobs, we are going to repeal and replace obama care.
>> what a line. i wonder why he doesn't use that more often. of course. that was mr. ryan 's well rehearsed stump speech . like a p 90 x for the truth where he bends and stretches his way around the facts, he gets even more of a workout during interviews like trying to walk back that line blaming the president for the jamesville auto plant that closed under president bush .
>> in my opinion, it seemed like you were unmistakebly trying to link the president's promise with the closing of that plant, which you know obviously closed before he became president.
>> the promise was -- that he was going to open the plant. he said if we pass the stimulus unemployment would never get above 8%.
>> yes. when you bend one truth to its breaking point, just move right along to the next set of flexible facts. what about their plan to pay for a gigantic tax break for the wealthy by closing loopholes?
>> tax policy and chick growth.
>> others have looked at your plan to close loopholes and you can't cut taxes in the way you say and raise as much money by going after loopholes. they've looked at every single one and you don't get there.
>> they did not actually analyze the romney plan. and what other groups have shown is you can do this.
>> oh, the no, they didn't, yes, you can defense, very clever. but then came the vexing question about why neither mr. romney nor mr. ryan made any mention of afghanistan in their convention speeches.
>> how can you not mention that war?
>> well, i think you have to remember, the day before his speech, mitt romney went to the american legion and gave a lengthy speech on the topic.
>> a lengthy speech on the topic? really? because unlike most americans, we actually watched mr. romney 's american legion speech last wednesday afternoon and he did, indeed, talk about afghanistan , and here's what he actually said.
>> the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction continues to be very real and, of course, we're still at war in afghanistan .
>> that is it. that was his sole mention of afghanistan in his american legion speech. as usual, short on specifics, on afghanistan , just plain short. let's get right to it with msnbc's lawrence o'donnell, host of "the last word" who joins us now from the convention in charlotte. lawrence , it's great to have you again. has paul ryan in your experience always been a compulsive liar or have we only just started to notice his loose grip on the truth?
>> well, everyone who's been watching his budget work over the last few years who knows how budgets work have known that they've all been incomplete. he's always left out what he's really going to do with the tax code . which is what are they going to do with deductions, loopholes, what he used to call, martin, tax shelters . that's what he used to call them. up until last week when he stopped referring to tax shelters on order of the romney campaign, since the head of that ticket is the king of exploiting tax shelters for his own personal wealth. so he's always been leading up massive things and people like paul krugman and "the new york times," know bell winning prize economist has always been saying that ryan is not a serious man on budget matters, but in republican world, he has been advanced as their serious man on budget matters. what we're now seeing especially with these great interviews, matt lauer 's done, george stephanopoulos , but i think what matt did, really opened up this candida candidacy's weaknesses in a way i couldn't have predicted last week, which is the "today" show actually has swing voters watching, you know. that's really where they're going. they don't come to this programming. they don't want a lot of political programming. that's where paul ryan has to be ready and he wasn't ready and that campaign wasn't ready. for some very basic questions that you have to see coming, since the reaction to ryan 's speech the night he gave it.
>> lawrence , here's the problem with the lies they keep telling. if i arrived in this country last week, without any prior knowledge of this nation's recent economic history, here's what i'd learn from the republican ticket. that the president abandoned the auto industry , that romney and ryan would never cut medicare , that the president is solely personally responsible for the high deficit and the nation's credit downgrade and that romney and ryan are going to save the safety net .
>> yeah. and it becomes the press's obviousligation to deal with these issues the way the republicans have framed them. to actually show the trickery that's going on in that framing and that's what we saw. that's what the matt lauer -- by the way, the think that's striking about matt's interview is, these were all straight ahead predictable questions. that's how easy it is to rip away the framing that paul ryan is using for his speech. you know, as long as he was delivering that speech in the sealed environment of the republican world last week, those lines were very, very effective. but they're not -- this week not able to survive press scrutiny in areas where you think they'd have a practiced response ready to go.
>> lawrence , it felt as though they were speaking from the lan net uranous. they were making this stuff up and as you say the moment anybody asks a single reasonable question, well, they just run for the hills.
>> well, they're not the first political candidates to make things up.
>> of course not.
>> but they definitely have made up more than most. i mean most candidacies tend to play with the truth around the edges. these -- this ticket is playing with the truth at the core, at the very basics of what they're talking about, and martin, i have to applaud you for going after the afghanistan issue. i sitting here just now learned what mitt romney actually said in that speech last week about afghanistan . i hadn't realized it was really just the one word in one sentence.
>> it was actually the country and the mentioning of that nation in south asia that constituted what paul ryan said was a very lengthy speech. but let's keep going on this detail. because on a personal level, mr. ryan keeps talking about jamesville , wisconsin. but you know, lawrence , he's been in washington , d.c., since he was 22. for the last 20 years, he's been part and parcel of the washington political elite , not the ordinary folks of jamesville . and again, does he somehow assume that we have no access to a properly functioning memory?
>> well, martin, here's the really important question for paul ryan that he hasn't gotten yet on the jamesville auto plant. the plant employed your friends from high school . the plant employed voters of yours. constituents of yours. what did you do, paul ryan , to save that plant? you saw it when they put up the notice saying they were going to close it down. it was a republican president in office when that happened. what did you do with that republican president? what did you do with your republican leadership? what bill did you write? what did you try to push?
>> lawrence , we --
>> to save that plant.
>> we know what mitt romney did. he did nothing. he did zero.
>> but it's really, martin, all the more pointed, this is a real congressman, representing his district actively, when he sees that plant heading toward closure, a real congressman goes to work in all sorts of ways that washington has to try to do something to intervene. he did absolutely nothing. while in office to intervene. mitt romney wasn't in office, he had no responsibility that he could possibly point to other than writing a wall street journal op-ed piece saying let it die , let all these plants die, but paul ryan who wants to exploit it now, exploit that image of friends of his from high school losing their jobs, which is tragic and is real, what did he personally do for them? he had a chance. he was in government at the time.
>> well, i want to draw our conversation to a close, lawrence , by mentioning that mitt romney , gave his convention speech but it appears he got absolutely no pounce whatsoever, according to gallup, he actually lost a point after the convention. you're telling me that the we built in debt clock didn't work for these guys.
>> well, for one thing you have to say this is a great testament to the intelligence of the swing voter . they listen to that and they realize there was nothing in it. that is a very important measure of just how smart the swing voters are at this stage of the game. they are waiting to hear things to actually make their decision one way or another and what they're saying clearly is we from tampa.
>> lawrence o'donnell, thank you so much, lawrence .
>> thanks, martin.
>> lawrence will be bringing us much more from charlotte leading up to the president's speech on thursday.