Paul Ryan and Mark Levin - Obama's Speech, April 13, 2011

Yesterday, Paul Ryan was interviewed by Mark Levin on his radio program.

They discussed Obama's speech.

Ryan was really ticked off.

Transcript

MARK LEVIN: I watched this speech today, Congressman, and I really couldn't believe it.

PAUL RYAN: I was sitting about 12 feet away from him, right in the front.

LEVIN: Oh, really?

RYAN: Yeah.

LEVIN: I mean, I'm thinking to myself, does he have a grasp of what the hell's going on in this country?

RYAN: Well, what I got out of it was he basically said that people like myself and Jeb Hensarling, who was sitting right to my right, are un-American, that we're interested in pitting children with autism or Down syndrome against millionaires and billionaires, that we're ending America as we know it, and if only we'd kind of get on with his program everything would be OK.

I've never seen a president give a speech like this before. I've never seen a president stoop to this level of, you know, distortion, demagoguery, partisanship.

He invited us to come to the speech - myself, Hensarling, and Dave Camp, the three of us who are chairmen and we're on the fiscal commission. We were led to believe that there was going to be an olive branch, that he wanted to talk about mutual agreement and respect. I was led to believe that there was going to be a Social Security plan he was going to offer. And then we get this total political broadside. It really did quite honestly kind of surprise me.

I expected these kinds of comments from Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid when we put this budget out. That kind of goes without saying, but to get these things from the president - just amazing to me.

And it really poisons the well. I mean, he's not talking about trying to bridge differences or find common ground on this or that area. He's basically trying to demean his political adversaries and set up a bunch of straw men and then knock them down and try to win the debate by default.

I'm not sure who said it but he's basically, 'I'm a pyromaniac in a field of straw men.'

What we got was he just wants to raise taxes.

...We got a campaign today. We got a campaign speech, and we got a very, very vilifying campaign speech. And that sure makes it tough to get this thing fixed.

Listen to the full interview here.