Letterman: Ryan's 'The Grandson of Ripley’s Believe It or Not Man Who Was Able to Swallow His Own Face'

August 17th, 2012 10:09 AM

It appears now that Paul Ryan has been named Mitt Romney's running mate, CBS Late Show host David Letterman feels obligated to attack him every evening.

On Thursday's program, Letterman spent two minutes on the Wisconsin Congressman including accusing him of being "the grandson of the Ripley’s Believe It or Not man who was able to swallow his own face" (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):

Towards the end of his opening monologue, Letterman said, “We're talking to a woman earlier, somebody from Wisconsin, about Paul Ryan. Do you have Paul Ryan fever?”

Sidekick Paul Shaffer responded, “Oh, who doesn’t? Come on, we all do.”

“He looks like a guy who owns his own chain of nursing homes,” Letterman joked. “Did you notice this a little bit? That's exactly what he looks like.”

“We've put together an informational segment here,” he continued. “It's entitled ‘Who is,’ because it's still early, and if you don't live in Wisconsin, maybe you don't know much about Paul Ryan. So this segment is, “Who is Paul Ryan?” I hope you find it informative.

A video was shown with an announcer saying, “Paul Ryan is a seven term congressman from Wisconsin's first congressional district. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Miami University in Ohio, and is the grandson of the Ripley’s Believe It or Not man who was able to swallow his own face. Hope you learned something on ‘Who is Paul Ryan?’”

After the video, Letterman continued, “Paul Ryan likes to catch a catfish bare-handed. Anybody ever done that? Actually, he'll wade into a river and catch, with his bare hands, take just a giant, and pull it out with his bare hands. Chris Christie likes to reach into the tank at Red Lobster.”

Letterman wasn’t finished.

“Paul Ryan is an avid hunter though. Here we have a picture. I think this is him with a, I think that’s a deer. That's a huge deer. I think it's a white tailed deer. That’s an enormous deer. Here this next picture I think, there he is with an elk. Oh my god, look at that animal. And I think we have a picture of him with a turkey. Is that coming up? There he is right there.”

Funny stuff, huh?