The Obama campaign struck back Thursday at Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan, accusing him of making several false claims during his address Wednesday night at the Republican National Convention.
Mr. Ryan, the GOP’s vice presidential candidate, was harshly critical of President Obama during the speech, accusing the president of being tone-deaf to the nation’s economic troubles and refusing to consider budget cuts that Mr. Ryan said would lead the country out of its doldrums.
In response, the Obama campaign posted a video Thursday morning on YouTube that takes clips of the congressman’s speech and evaluates them with alternating giant labels: “False,” “Misleading,” and “Wrong.”
At one point, the video features a clip of Mr. Ryan saying the president’s Affordable Care Act cut $716 billion from Medicare, then stamps the word “False” across the screen and shows news clips fact-checking the statement and pointing out that Mr. Ryan’s own proposed budget also included more than $700 billion in cuts to the program.
The video also takes Mr. Ryan to task for criticizing the stimulus by arguing that he sought stimulus funds for his district, labeling that claim “Wrong” since Mr. Ryan himself asked for stimulus money for constituents.
And in a final accusation, the campaign labeled “Wrong” Mr. Ryan’s claim that Mr. Obama “did exactly nothing” with the bipartisan Bowles-Simpson deficit commission report. Mr. Obama didn’t back that proposal, but Mr. Ryan himself had on the commission himself and voted against the final report, helping deny it the chance for a vote in Congress.
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee sent an email to supporters Thursday afternoon accusing Mr. Ryan of having “brazenly lied to the country,” and accusing Republicans of being “willing to say anything to tear down” the president.
The email implored Democrats to respond by donating to the party in an effort to boost its August fundraising.
