Paul Ryan to NFL: ‘Give Me a Break!’
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SAUL LOEB/AFP/GettyImages(CINCINNATI) – Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan slammed the NFL’s replacement referees for an apparent blown call during the Green Bay Packers loss to the Seattle Seahawks during Monday Night Football, telling supporters that, like President Obama, “if you can’t get it right, it’s time to get out.”
After taking the stage at a town hall meeting in Cincinnati, Ryan, a seven-term GOP lawmaker from Janesville, Wis., quickly deviated from his traditional stump speech.
“Something that was really troubling that occurred last night. Did you guys watch that Packers game last night? I mean give me a break!” Ryan complained. “It is time to get the real refs.”
Ryan then drew a parallel between NFL’s struggle with replacement referees and President Obama’s economic job performance the past four years in the White House.
“It reminds me of President Obama and the economy. If you can’t get it right, it’s time to get out. I half-think that these refs work part-time for the Obama administration and the Budget Office,” Ryan said. “They see the national debt clock staring them in the face, they see a debt crisis, and they just ignore and pretend it didn’t even happen. They’re trying to pick the winners and losers and they don’t even do that very well. Look, we have a big choice to make. It’s not an ordinary time.”
Ryan wasn’t done yet. A short time later, the budget guru told supporters that he and Mitt Romney are out campaigning “trying to deserve this victory” and “show you how we’re going to deal with it.”
“The principles we will use, the policies we will put in place, and we will not duck this issue,” he said. “Unlike the Seattle Seahawks last night, we want to deserve this victory. We want to earn this victory, we want a real victory because we want a mandate to fix this mess in Washington before it gets out of our control.”
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