Ryan defends Romney's 47% remarks

NEWPORT NEWS, Va. (WAVY/AP) - In a one-on-one interview with WAVY.com, GOP vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan defended statements made a day prior by Mitt Romney.

A video surfaced Monday showing Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney telling wealthy donors 47 percent of Americans "believe they are victims" entitled to government support and that it is not his " job ... to worry about those people ... I'll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives."

Romney later said the comments were not "elegantly stated" and were spoken "off the cuff."

Ryan spent Tuesday at a GOP campaign rally at Christopher Newport University in Newport News and defended Romney's comments in a one-on-one interview.

Watch the full interview with Ryan here.

"The whole point he was trying to make was that we got to get people from a live of dependency and economic stagnation that's occurred in the Obama administration, because of his failed policies back to lives of self-sufficiency," Ryan said. "[Romney] admitted it was an inarticulate way of delivering this. We don't want to promote more government dependency. We want opportunity."

WAVY.com asked Ryan if Romney's statements from the fundraiser gave Americans a reason to think that Romney is out of touch.

"I think the point that Mitt is trying to make is that he cares not only about the middle class, he wants to grow the middle class," Ryan said. "He wants to get people out of poverty and into the middle class."

According to the Associated Press, about 46 percent of Americans owed no federal income tax in 2011.

"The way to get those 47 percent of Americans who are not income tax payers to become tax payers is to get them jobs," Ryan said.