Ryan jabs Obama on 'bayonets'

Paul Ryan said in an interview that aired Tuesday that he “just doesn’t understand” the reference President Barack Obama made to bayonets in Monday night’s presidential debate.

“To compare modern American battleships and Navy with bayonets, I just don’t understand that comparison,” the GOP vice presidential nominee said on “This Morning” on CBS.


( Also on POLITICO: 7 takeaways from final debate)

Ryan’s comments came hours after Obama said, in a pointed discussion about military spending, “We also have fewer horses and bayonets.” That was a sharp retort to Mitt Romney, who slammed the president for, he said, overseeing the smallest Navy since 1917.

“Our Navy is…smaller now than any time since 1917,” Romney said during the Monday night debate. “The Navy said they needed 313 ships to carry out their mission. We’re now down to 285. We’re headed down to the low 200s if we go through a sequestration. That’s unacceptable to me. I want to make sure that we have the ships required by our Navy.”

Obama, who said the sequester “will not happen” — a comment his campaign later tried to modify — jabbed back at Romney, adding that “the nature of our military’s changed….the question is not a game of ‘Battleship’ where we’re counting ships. It’s what are our capabilities?”

Ryan argued potential defense cuts would be the fault of the Obama administration and would leave America vulnerable.

( Also on POLITICO: Mitt Romney: I come in peace)

“Look, we have to have a strong Navy to keep peace and prosperity and sea lanes open,” Ryan said. “The president’s— all these defense cuts, if all these defense cuts go through, our Navy will be smaller than it was before World War I. That’s not acceptable. And, yes, the ocean hasn’t shrunk. You still have to have enough ships to have a footprint that you need to keep sea lanes open, to keep our strength abroad where it needs to be.”

In a separate interview on NBC’s “Today,” Ryan said he didn’t support a coming round of defense cuts, even though he supported the 2011 budget deal that led to the sequester.

“We have a trillion dollars in defense cuts coming down the pipe that will hollow out our military and we don’t agree with that,” Ryan said.

“Sir, you voted for those cuts,” host Savannah Guthrie interjected.

“No, I did not,” Ryan said. “No, no, I did not support — you have to understand we have a third round of defense cuts coming. We obviously didn’t support the president’s budget. Let’s never forget it was the president who insisted that these defense cuts be part of the sequester bill. I wrote the legislation preventing them from happening.”