Paul Ryan: ‘I Know who Mitt Romney Is; I Know What’s in His Heart’

"I know who Mitt Romney is. I know what's in his heart. I know what he really feels and believes in a man, in the family. And this is a man who is deeply concerned about those who are less fortunate. This is a guy who really does want to see everybody in this country reach their potential.

Look, I've spend a lot of time on this issue. You may know that this is very near and dear to my heart. It's one of the reasons why I'm staying on as Chairman of Ways and Means and not doing other things because I think this country has to address the poverty head on. I think we have a lot of work ahead of us, and I have spoken with Mitt a lot about this over the last couple of years, and I know he understands and agrees with that.

Look, I don't know what he's going to do. I don't think that he has made a decision, so I don't want to get out ahead of him. But let me just say this. It is a very good thing for this country on both parties to start debating how we fix poverty. We got to stop measuring things by how much money we spend, how many programs we create, but we need to start measuring it first by our outcomes, our results. Are we getting people out of poverty? And the more people who bring this debate up, the better off we are."