he s finished. i haven t had a chance to really dissect with him as to what in the world he s thinking, calling our plan radical. i probably would reserve judgment on that. perhaps he can come out and say he misspoke and get back onboard with what we re trying to do. alsoรง this morning gingrich who will be the last to know that his political career is over went on conservative bill bennett s radio show thinking he could talk his way back to life. we heard you equate paul ryan s plan with obama s plan. right-wing social engineering versus left-wing social engineering. why the hit on ryan? it was clearly unambiguously a criticism of ryan. it s not a criticism of ryan as a person. not as a person as a plan. it is a criticism what i said was you shouldn t impose radical change. he s not imposing radical change. how is he he can t impose it.
social security and medicare and medicaid, you are not serious. i just don t see the democratic party these are really the altar pieces of the democratic party, they re proudest of, the idea they re going to start cutting in these areas and unemployment insurance and food stamps and earned income tax credit, i just don t see it. as for newt, i agree, we talked the last hour, when you call ryan s plan radical, that is difference than saying it s courageous, i have to take a look at it, you come out for the individual mandate, joe, you must be writing off today 75% of the republican party which has that as a major issue overturning that in she supreme court. congressman, i want to separate what pat said, unemployment insurance and these other things aren t the big drivers of long term debt, they re just not. they re a very, very small percentage. i will use the term that drives a lot of people crazy, it ain t
you just agreed with him. okay, on that point- there you go. newt. thank you so much for letting me have him. we will hand him back to you. is paul ryan s plan radical? i think it is, no question. do you agree with newt gingrich there should be an individual mandate? i do. newt has begun to agree with us on that. he s been some place else for a while, although most republicans i know were there with individual mandates 10, 15 years ago, i don t know what happened during the interim except maybe they didn t do it. mark halperin, help me out here. sounds like we have a gingrich-clyburn 2012. strong coalition. all the way from georgia to south carolina. what is newt s thinking? newt has been going for the tea party vote and also his rhetoric has been so bombastic, suddenly, he goes on meet the press and
calling the gop plan radical. there s two politically appealing things about it. number one, a lot of older people vote not just in the general election and iowa and early republican states. the other thing is the ryan plan is not going to become law. the best republicans can hope for it s a talking point and piece of leverage, in all likelihood, if the current polls stand, this is going to be a negative for republicans at all levels in the 2012 election. a smart candidate, and gingrich is smart, thinks about the general election, if you re going to run in the general election, better off being against the ryan plan and barack obama than for it. republicans running for president have suddenly lost the courage they claimed to have last year. the fact of the matter is, when you drill down, those cuts ryan is talking about are so devastating to people, the regular people that ultimately, when they do start to drill down and hit the street, it s clearly going to be a loser.
question of the individual mandate, it may be now the mainstream of the republican party considers that, but it was not what the mainstream republican party thought not only in the 1990s but five years ago, there were governors all over the country, republican governors thought the individual mandate was the right way to deal with health care. let s talk about paul ryan, calling paul ryan s plan radical. the language is very harsh. i don t think there will be a single mainstream candidate who will embrace paul ryan s budget for president, some will not go that far as to call it radical but you will not hear, i don t think, tim others embrace it. the polls are way too negative for the mainstream presidential candidates to embrace that. i ll be shocked if one of the others wraps his arms around paul ryan. these presidential candidates are going to be the trying to get elected. pat, they re going to be the