Joe Biden Calls Romney 'Out of Touch'; Paul Ryan Admits He 'Misspoke'
The best outtakes from the Sunday morning political talk shows.
.On CBS's Face the Nation, Bob Schieffer sat with Joe Biden to discuss a variety of topics, including the Supreme Court's health care law hearings, about which, despite the less-than-commanding performance of Solicitor General Donald Verrilli, he still remained confident.
“We think the mandate and the law is constitutional, and we think the court will rule that way. ... I’m not going to speculate about something I don’t believe will happen. We should focus on what the law is doing for people now and what would happen if the Republicans were able to repeal it.”
Shown a clip of Mitt Romney declaring the Obama presidency "a failure," the vice president said he found the Republican frontrunner "a little out of touch," then launched into this speech defending his administration's accomplishments:
"General Motors is the largest corporation in the world again. Twenty-four straight months of economic growth. Americans going back to work. The unemployment rate dropping by a percent. I understand the Republicans talking about Obamacare. I get that. They've been against it from the beginning. But, you know, you go out there and take a look, Bob. Everywhere I go in the country there's millions of people out there that are benefiting now. There are those people with chronic diseases like cancer don't have to worry about getting a phone call saying, "You're cut off. Your insurance has run out." There are tens of thousands, several million kids who are on their parents' insurance policy. They wouldn't be there before. And what is the Romney answer? There's nothing. All they argue is cut. Get rid of that. Get rid of that. I just think that look...this is about the middle class. And what affects middle class people are jobs, being able to own a home, being able to live in a safe neighborhood, being able to send their kid to college. It's about their dignity. This is about the middle class. And none of what he's offering does anything. It's just returning to the old policies."
On CNN's State of the Union, Romney-backer Paul Ryan said a Wisconsin win would clinch the candidate's fate once and for all.
"I think Rick [Santorum] would need something like 82 percent of the rest of the delegates, which isn't going to happen. ... [We need] to focus on the task at hand, which is the fall election, and not drag this thing out which I think becomes counterproductive."
Watch Ryan's comments on Romney here:
Ryan also said he "misspoke" when earlier in the week he accused top generals of not “giving us their true advice” when it comes to the Pentagon's budget, and somehow toeing the Obama administration line:
“I really misspoke. I didn’t mean to make that kind of an impression. So, I was clumsy in how I was describing the point I was trying to make.”
“What I was attempting to say is, President Obama put out his budget number for the Pentagon first, $500 billion cut, and then they began the strategy review to conform the budget to meet that number. We think it should have been the other way around."
A nervous Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin backed Romney on NBC's Meet the Press this morning, saying Romney "private sector" experience is the qualifying factor that earned his backing:
"I certainly understand a big part of our problem is the fact that this president and members of his administration have no private sector experience whatsoever, and Gov. Romney has 25 years of experience in the private sector, plus he has executive experience in government. And I never did intend to endorse anybody, but I've had the opportunity to meet with Gov. Romney over the last couple weeks, and had long phone conversations with him. I've come away from those conversations fully convinced that Gov. Romney is the person to lead our party, to lead our nation."
On the same show, Sen. Chuck Schumer said the hostile tone of the Supreme Court's questioning of the health care law doesn't mean they'll vote against it, adding, "should the Supreme Court overturn this law, it would be so far out of the mainstream that the Court would be the most activist in a century."
On Fox News Sunday, Rick Santorum called the growing list of Romney supporters within the party the work of the GOP "establishment" looking to back another "moderate," just as they did with John McCain in 2008.
He said the protracted primary between then-Sen. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton resulted in the "best candidate" for the Democrats, while Republicans decided, "We've got to wrap this thing up" and picked McCain as their nominee.
"We came up with someone who ... wasn't able to win," Santorum said on "Fox News Sunday." "We don't need to repeat that again. We don't need to bail out and not have the best candidate to take Barack Obama on in the fall."