[ ♪ theme ♪ ] >> bill: hello everybody. it's the morning after the third presidential debate. here we go. tuesday, october 23rd. good to see you today. this is the "full court press" on current tv. welcome, welcome to the program! thank you for joining us. boy, i gotta tell you you know, we're going to focus this morning on last night's debate. we saw two very different men take the stage in boca raton florida. one, president of the united states the other wants to be president of the united states. one knew what he was talking about on foreign policy. the other didn't have a clue!

but one thing for sure on that stage last night we only saw one commander in chief. yes, obama wins round three of the presidential debate hands down. we'll get into it every which way here for the next three hours but first today's latest, the current news update from lisa ferguson out in los angeles. hi lisa, good morning. >> hey bill. good morning everyone. if you are asking yourself who won last night's presidential debate you probably weren't watching. president obama came out with a strong and aggressive performance against mitt romney on foreign policy. the first instant poll from cbs shows 53% of undecided voters say president obama came out on top, just 23% say toward romney. but there are some differing opinions out there. according to cnn poll, only 40% of viewers say romney won but 60% say he is ready to handle

the responsibilities of president. and 32% of independents say they are now more likely to vote for romney after last night's performance. that is surprising since by most accounts president obama effectively painted romney as untested reckless and inconsistent when it comes to foreign policy. he also mocked romney's knowledge of the military with the most popular zinger of the night. when romney complained that the navy has its smallest fleet in nearly 100 years, here is the president's response. >> obama: governor we also have fewer horses and bayonets because the nature of our military's changed. we have these things called aircraft carriers where planes land on them. the ships that go underwater, nuclear submarines. >> that one won the twitter war with more than 100,000 tweets per minute. more than a full 30 minutes after the debate was over, the hash tag horses and bayonets was still trending worldwide.

bill press is coming up live after the break. i.q. will go way up. how are you ever going to solve the problem if you don't look at all of the pieces? >>tv and radio talk show host stephanie miller rounds out current's morning news block. >>you're welcome current tv audience for the visual candy. >>sharp tongue, quick whit and above all, politically direct. >>you just think there is no low they won't go to.

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[ ♪ theme ♪ ] >> announcer: broadcasting >> announcer: broadcasting across the nation on your radio and on current tv. this is the "bill press show." >> bill: and score! round number three to barack obama! you bet. hey, hello everybody. it is tuesday october 23rd. can you believe it? great to see you today. this is it. the "full court press." what you've been waiting for and looking for to talk about last night's debate. the third presidential debate. this one from lynn university, never heard of it before, in boca raton florida.

moderated by bob schieffer on the subject for the most part of foreign policy. and it was a clear one-sided argument victory for barack obama over mitt romney. obama showed he knows what he's talking about. mitt romney, not so much. great to have you with us today. we're going to have a lot of people talking about the debate and give you a chance to talk about it too, by giving us a call at 1-866-55-press. or going on twitter as many of you already have. at bpshow. same with facebook. facebook.com/billpressshow. and in the chat room today already busy, go to current.com and click on chat room and join your "full court pressers" across the land. lots to get into this morning. lots of ammunition last night. so good to see you today. i was up in new york yesterday. little debate with tucker

carlson. who remains a good friend even though we've differed on the issues for years. we did crossfire together and spin room together and worked at msnbc together and both of us got fired by both of those networks and now tucker is on fox and i'm on current. >> tucker is one of the less crazy republicans. he's a republican you can have a beer with. >> bill: and i did. >> i'm sure you did. >> bill: our team here is in place as well. peter ogborn and dan henning hello, guys. >> hey hey. >> good morning. >> bill: yes indeed. >> late nights and early mornings. >> bill: i'm glad it is the last presidential debate. it is tough. bad enough to take the train to new york and train back and by the way so i listened to the debate last night. because i was on the train for most of it. it is a different experience listening to the debate. phil backert on phones and cyprian bowlding our videographer on the camera keeping us -- our mugs

throughout as well. thank you, sichrian. -- thank you cyprian. so it was it was like obama's home turf. home field advantage. he was comfortable. >> he was very comfortable. >> bill: one thing i didn't see but i was listening on npr because that's the connection i could make on my ipad but there were a lot of tweets about mitt romney sweating. >> yeah. >> bill: really? >> absolutely true. he looked -- and he very well could be sick. he looked like he was a sick man. he looked like he had the flu. he was pale. he sort of had a flop sweat going on. his upper lip was blinding me. it was shiny. >> bill: nixonesque. >> nixonesque is exactly what i was going to say. obama looked -- there is a big difference of romney and obama when they did the split screen. romney sat there with that

permagrin and obama looked concerned. he was listening he looked cool, he looked confident. it was totally different than the first debate. >> bill: from the tweets only again, i was listening -- from the tweets on npr obama won the split screen. there were a lot of comments from people saying it. they were not all obama supporters tweeting but a lot of them said that obama had the split screen. hands down. >> it has played a factor in every debate. >> bill: indeed, it has. yesterday was a big occasion. not just the -- not -- by the way, it will be interesting to see how many people watch the debate given the fact that the giants game was on. giants and the cards and monday night football. and probably the biggest event of all, bill clinton and hillary clinton celebrating their 37th wedding anniversary in haiti of all places where they spent their honeymoon.

hillary says what a wild ride. >> and have just celebrated our 37th wedding anniversary which is exhausting to think about. [ laughter ] >> bill: you bet! >> it's been an amazing experience from start to now. >> amazing? is that how you would describe it? really? >> that's a long time for anybody but for them, going through the life that they've had of, you know, constant public service and high profile -- that's a stressful -- >> bill: attorney general governor out then back in as governor and then president of the united states, first lady and then u.s. senate and secretary of state and monica along the way. it's been awhile. >> they've done a lot in those 37 years. >> bill: it is amazing they're still together. it is great they're still together. >> absolutely. >> bill: haiti on your

honeymoon? >> well, you know, president clinton has spent a lot of time there doing relief efforts after the hurricane. >> bill: have you thought about going there on your honeymoon? >> it is a gorgeous country. >> bill: i guess. if you like living in a tent. >> dan, you're about to get married. you're going to get married here soon. >> i would love to go to haiti. >> bill: let's start taking up a collection. >> they have a very nice honeymoon tent for you. >> bill: we could put $12.50 together. >> i'm sure there are lovely places in haiti. >> bill: used to be. 37 years ago. >> exactly. >> bill: let's get serious here. nia malik henderson from the post is going to be here. chris kuhns from delaware will join us this morning. of course, judd legum will be here. it is tuesdays with judd from think progress. but first... >> this is the "full court

press." >> some of the headlines making news, in sports, the san francisco giants are headed to the world series. >> bill: yes yes yes yes! >> to face the detroit tigers. giants rocked the defending champion st. louis cardinals 9-0 in a rain-soaked game. >> bill: why couldn't the nats do that? >> third win in a row. marco was named the nlcs mvp for 14 hits. they welcome the tigers to at&t park for game one of the world series tomorrow night. >> bill: you have to feel sorry for the cards right? >> no! i hope it was painful. i tuned in because it was after the debate. i thought to hell with it, i'll stick around and watch the end of the game. i was looking at the cardinals going cry! i want to see tears on the faces of the players. >> bill: they beat our nats. >> the soup kitchen that paul ryan visited for the washing dishes photo op came on hard

times quickly when conservative donors pulled their money because they felt the soup kitchen put the v.p. nominee in a bad light. now the society of st. vincent de paul in youngstown, ohio is set to survive and then some thanks to a new group of doyneers who got together with the folks at spark.com of all web sites raiding over $10,000 and the nonprofit will stay alive and be able to help the 100,000 people a year that it serves. >> bill: why do they think it put paul ryan in a bad light? >> they said we didn't want him here and he sort of came in and washed the dishes and said the soup kitchen said we don't want to get involved in the political process. he barged in there and said i need to take a photo and wash some dishes. fargo is headed to the small screen. deadline reports the coen brothers are bringing their 1996 oscar winning film fargo to tv. they're adapting the line centering around the press nant police chief and the car -- around the pregnant police chief

and the car salesman. >> i endorse this idea. i love that movie. >> you're not one to endorse something of reincarnations. >> bill: i watched that movie not long ago. >> it is such a good movie. it holds up. >> bill: what a contrast we saw last night. it might have been at one level the most boring of the debates but it was also the most one-sided. you had two men on stage. one knew what he was talking about. the other did not have a clue. very, very clearly. one of them was aggressive. he was comfortable. he was on his home turf. and the other was just rambling and stuttering and stumbling totally -- very uncomfortable and totally out of his element. romney, first of all, he had nothing to say on most of the foreign policy issues. and when he did have anything to say, he didn't show any big difference between himself and president obama on most of the

issues. and he kept trying to get the debate back on domestic policy, back on the economy and you know why, because he doesn't make any sense there earth but at least he pretends to know -- can pretend to know what he's talking about. some of the exchanges, i know you're going to want to talk about your favorites at 1-866-55-press -- mitt made the mistake, i think of saying well look, under you mr. obama, the navy's getting smaller and the sharidging navy -- >> sha hinking navy -- >> our navy is smaller now than any time since 1917. the navy said they needed 313 ships. we're now at 285. we're headed down to the low 200sif we go through a sequestration. that's unacceptable to me. i want to make sure we have the ships required by our navy. >> bill: the president has nothing to do with the sequestration but that opening

gave president obama the opportunity to score one of his best lines of all time. >> obama: i think governor romney maybe hasn't spent enough time looking at how our military works. you mention the navy, for example. we have fewer ships than we did in 1916. governor, we also have fewer horses and bayonets because the nature of our military's changed. we have these things called aircraft carriers where planes land on them. we have ships that go underwater. nuclear submarines and so the question is not a game of battleship where we're counting ships. it is what are our capabilities. when i sippet of sit down with the secretary of the navy and the joint chiefs of staff we determine how are we going to be best able to meet all of our defense needs. >> bill: do you know, governor, we have these ships that planes can land on. >> horses and bayonets. i love it! >> bill: it was great. then romney again said at one time, he said remember our

greatest enemy today is russia. the president again scored big time. >> obama: you said russia. not al-qaeda. you said russia. in the 1980s or now calling for their foreign policy because the cold war has been over for 20 years. but governor, when it comes to our foreign policy, you seem to want to import the foreign policies of the 1980s just like the social policies of the 1950s and the economic policies of the 1920s. >> bill: the '20s, the '50s the '80s. several times the president said mitt romney, everything you said was wrong. everything you've ever said is wrong. but then, here's what's interesting. we thank our friends at "huffington post" for this. on many, many issues after mitt romney finished his bluster, he ended up agreeing with obama on many -- almost every key issue last night.

so this little montage of the two of them agreeing. >> romney: i felt the same as the president did. >> obama: you supported us going into libya? >> romney: i supported his action there. >> obama: i'm glad governor romney agrees with the steps we've taken. >> romney: drones are being used in drone strikes and i support that entirely. >> obama: i'm pleased that you're now endorsing our policy of flying diplomatic pressure. >> romney: we have to do -- i digress with taking out osama bin laden and going after the leadership in al-qaeda. >> obama: governor romney, i'm glad that you agree that we have been successful in going after al-qaeda. >> romney: the president was right. >> obama: i'm glad you recognize that al-qaeda is a threat. >> bill: we could go on and on and on and on. at times, it was embarrassing. i'm sure there were times the republicans were cringing and saying stop agreeing! cbs news did their instant poll of undecided voters. obama beat romney 53 to 23. >> wow.

>> bill: the vote on november 6th won't be that one-sided but pretty one-sided last night. >> twitter loved the debate. we're tweeting at bpshow at bpshow. anthony miller says president obama did excellent. i think mitt is still in surgery getting the president's foot out of his hind parts. travis moss writes in about the sweating that romney had going on. travis moss says obama took mitt out to the woodshed and gave him a make you sweat kind of spanking and eric agrees. romney sweating. was that a nixon moment. i say yes. >> bill: a nixon moment. your calls your comments at 1-866-55-press. we'll come back and talk about last night's -- something of mitt romney by president obama. these ships where planes can land on them. aircraft carriers. >> no kidding! >> announcer: on your radio and on current tv, this is the "bill press show."

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>> announcer: heard around the country and seen on current tv >> obama: in the 1980s or now the cold war has been over for 20 years. >> announcer: this is the "bill press show." >> bill: we want our foreign policy back. stop stealing our 1980 foreign policy. that's a great line. >> by the way dan just because he talked about the 1980s doesn't mean we have to have all 1980s bumper music today on the show. >> i was thinking about it. >> bill: 25 minutes after the hour now here by the way. it is the "full court press." the morning after the third debate. the ppp swing state, they did an instant poll of the debate.

voters in the swing states. obama won 53-42 over mitt romney and follow-up question was so who are you going to vote for? in the swing states again colorado virginia, iowa. nevada and ohio. 51 obama. 45 romney. >> wow. >> bill: both good indicators here. let's say hello to ike down in charleston, south carolina. what do you say ike? >> well, i'll tell you what, brother, now you know the difference between a president and a used car salesman. i'll tell you what. that boy was sweating like he just found out that that undercoating is not needed. you know what i mean? >> that's a great analogy. >> caller: but also, too, you know, something that really struck me, i'm telling you i about fell out of my chair, i don't know how big of an this issue is going to be with people but somehow or another in the

debate, did i hear him right? was romney talking about the poor peasants in china that needed jobs? or am i trippin'? >> bill: no, he was talking about that. bain capital has done as much as they could to give the poor peasants the china jobs by exporting our jobs. >> caller: well, you know, i tell you something brother i'm a refugee out of atlanta. i'm stuck in the wealthless state in the country. i would love to get back home but you know what? i can't get the jobs to pay and by the way since when did illegal immigration become not a part of national security? wide open boarders allowing anyone who wants to come here come here. i don't care how many jobs you produce, if you don't control the borders we don't have enough jobs, brother. >> bill: absolutely. romney's got no plan at all to deal with that. peter, what else you got on the twitter or facebook? >> margaret on twitter tweeting at bpshow, a new word i hadn't heard yet last night the

president was obama-rific. he was obama-rific on foreign policy and -- >> bill: the other candidate had romnesia. >> obama did great. romney had the worst republican performance on foreign policy ever. >> bill: wow. anita in san antonio texas. >> caller: i'm so excited to talk to you bill. >> bill: thank you. >> caller: you are my favorite. favorite white house correspondent. >> bill: i love you. thank you. what did you think of last night, quickly? >> caller: i love you too. i speak real fast. okay. first of all -- oh! >> bill: anita we love you. i'm sorry, we're out of time. call us back another time when we have a little more time. >> announcer: this is the "bill press show."

but he said -- exactly what ed is talking about is pile up more and more debt. pile up more and more debt and get to the point where the whole >>i jump out of my skin at people when i'm upset. do you share the sense of outrage that they're doing this, this corruption based on corruption based on corruption. >>i think that's an understatement, eliot. u>> i'm not prone tot. understatement, so explain to me why that is. i think the mob learned from wall st., not vice versa.

>> announcer: your first chance to talk about the debate 1-866-55-press. this is the "bill press show." live on your radio and current tv. >> bill: 33 minutes after the hour. we're talking about last night's debate. the big one-side win for barack obama. ready to take your calls at 1-866-55-press. join us on twitter at bpshow. up in a debate with tucker carlson. we came back on amtrak last night. i was talking with tucker about kind of a new passion of mine.

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visit tryancestry.com. you'll have two full weeks to see what you can uncover. visit tryancestry.com. that's t-r-y-ancestry.com. two full weeks and you'll have a lot of fun. 35 minutes after the hour. here's our roving ambassador, arnold down in atlanta georgia. what's up, man? >> caller: good morning, man. what a great debate barack obama had last night. >> bill: he was hot. >> caller: mitt romney roots trace back to the book of genesis where it says the slickiest animal is the snake. he jumped on barack obama. it was just -- on countless issues of how he can change around the debates of last year to now. how he's changing.

i'm to sing the song. ♪ i'm so in love with you ♪ >> bill: obama can sing it for sure. the biggest was when mitt romney trotted out the line, arnold, great to hear from you. cell phone breaking up a little bit. the apology tour. good lord. >> you're exactly right. tired, old line. >> bill: i was waiting for obama to say name one thing. name one place where i apologized. the same thing -- what was the other statement he made? oh, i'm going to put daylight between us and israel. i would like obama to say yeah, when did i say that? romney? he never said that. he has never -- never never said that. they keep rolling it out. on the apology tour, obama said

that's the biggest whopper of the entire campaign and it has been proven by every fact checker. steve is in portland, oregon right? >> caller: yep. think. >> bill: hey, steve, how you doing? >> caller: at one point bob schieffer said he mentioned the iranian threat and he followed it up saying if israel were to attack, would you stand -- i think is there any chance in the world iran would initiate a war with israel. i was exasperated both candidates took the question seriously. i turned it off at that point. >> bill: i was struck by that, too. isn't that where romney said -- oh no, it was if netanyahu called you and said our bombers are on the way to iran and mitt romney -- i thought correctly there said look, i'm not going to get into a hypothetical like that. this was strange on schieffer's part.

otherwise, steve i thought schieffer did an excellent job. more than any other moderator has been able to keep them on track. he didn't let them -- >> he kept them on track without interrupting. he kept them in line. >> bill: without whining. at one point i remember romney said after obama had just finished and romney said you have to give me a chance to respond to all of these arguments. he just made against me and schieffer said i think you threw out a lot of things against him. >> romney admitted it. he shut him right down. >> bill: ronald calling from wilmington north carolina. what's up? >> caller: yes, good morning. once again as i was watches the debate last night -- >> bill: turn your radio or tv down ronald. thank you. >> caller: they never hold romney's feet to the fire when asked about his budget plan. last night, he began to speak about the plan and then all of a

sudden, it was i want to say something first and when obama tried to bring him back to it, it was well, it is online. read about it. but nobody actually drives that stake through its heart about the budget plan that won't work. >> bill: it won't work. first of all i think -- you're right. i think obama did that pretty well in the last debate. i also think that bill clinton did it down in charlotte. if you remember when bill clinton said it's math. >> there was a point in the debate -- it is arithmetic. there was a point where schieffer asked him about his plan and romney's answer was you'll have to go to our web site to get the details on it, in the middle of a debate where he's supposed to be explaining things to people. you'll have to go to the web site. >> bill: the problem is you can o the not do the math and come up with anything that makes sense because romney has $5 trillion -- $5 billion in tax

cuts on top of which he's got another billion dollars in -- i'm sorry trillion. $5 trillion in tax cuts. another trillion getting rid of the bush tax cuts and $2 trl in more spending for the pentagon. the president said that's $8 trillion and there's no way he's going to come up with enough getting rid of enough loopholes or deductions to make up for that. so it doesn't add up. nobody can make it add up. and greg from denver, colorado. hello, greg, good morning. >> caller: how you doing bill? >> bill: i'm doing great. what did you think of last night? >> i thought it was pretty hilarious romney didn't want to go near libya last night. he wanted to stay away from that. you could see the effects from the second debate took its toll on him. the other thing about the paul ryan -- >> bill: yeah, i was surprised. again, i was with tucker last

night on the train. when they finished the libya conversation, i just said to tucker if romney could not score on libya, this thing is over, you know. >> caller: that's exactly the -- he didn't want to get into it at all. he wanted to talk about some of the other countries like syria and the apology tour. >> bill: and molly. what's going on? don't mean to make light of it but it is hardly the biggest national security problem. greg, we lost you. cory in minneapolis. hello, cory. >> caller: good morning, bill. >> bill: good morning to you. >> caller: i've got a couple of quick points to make here. first of all if bob schieffer would have been wearing a dress or been female, i don't think mitt romney would have shown as much respect as what he did. >> bill: i think you're right about that. >> caller: that's another argument. i won't even go there but obama looked as presidential as could

be and the most important time of any of the debates foreign policy. but the fact of the matter is we can sit there and tap dance and gloat but what we need to do at this point in time now is call our friends call our long-lost relatives, even our uncle ed who is as conservative as can be and tell them to get out and vote. romney made it perfectly clear last night he is not ready to take care -- take over the presidency! he's gotten absolutely no clue when it comes to foreign relations. and that will turn us back into an embarrassment. obama got the respect back of most of the world. the ones that he hasn't gotten back are never going to respect us anyway. we can't lose that -- can't lose this election. it will be the most important election of our lives. >> bill: cory, well said. absolutely. and that is the message.

and there are two weeks left. two weeks from today. absolutely. >> by the way, not only are we tweeting in on facebook, we're chatting with "full court pressers" live at current.com/billpress. >> margo says we saw the president of the united states and a boy that came to do a man's job. >> bill: ooh! >> jeff says obama sank romney's battleship. >> bill: and his aircraft carrier. >> and his submarine. and his horses and bayonets. >> bill: nia malika henderson is on the scene in boca raton. she'll give us her report and analysis coming up here and more from you on the "full court press." >> announcer: your chance to debate the debate. this is the "full court press." live on your radio and current tv.

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we have a big, big hour and the i.q. will go way up. how are you ever going to solve the problem if you don't look at all of the pieces? >>tv and radio talk show host stephanie miller rounds out current's morning news block. >>you're welcome current tv audience for the visual candy. >>sharp tongue, quick whit and above all, politically direct. >>you just think there is no low they won't go to. oh, no. if al gore's watching today...

>> obama: i know you haven't been in a position to actually execute foreign policy. but every time you've offered an opinion, you've been wrong. >> announcer: this is the "bill press show." >> bill: president obama showed up again last night. just like he did in the second debate. very aggressive. didn't hesitate to call out mitt romney when he thought he was wrong. didn't hesitate to needle him when he saw an opportunity like when he said the 1980s want their foreign policy back, mitt romney. stop stealing it. >> bill: we got to watch it last night. some lucky people were right there in the hall at lynn university. including our good friend nia malika henderson national political reporter for "the washington post" up early this

morning. nia malika, how are you? >> i'm well. it is early though. >> bill: don't tell us about it. we're here every day this early nia malika, you know that. what was the mood down there watching the debate and tell us how you saw it from your angle and what the reaction of the media room was. >> i think by the time it was over, you had the republicans coming after it was over. the republican spinmeisters. i think by the end people judged that obama won you know, maybe about 50, 10 points if you -- about 5 10 points if you looked at it on scoring but romney didn't disqualify himself by making some huge faux pas. you had a reaction that was like which mitt romney is this? he sounded like a democrat in those first 20, 30 minutes of the debate when he kept talking about peace and investing in

people over in these foreign countries and in sitting down with intellectuals and breaking out moderate elements of some of these factions. peace, peace peace. so that was a new mitt romney. this whole idea we can't kill our way out of the mess in the middle east. it suggested to me that he read a pew poll that had come out a couple of days earlier that said that 63% of americans want less foreign intervention in the middle east. want americans to intervene much less. and so you know, i think people expected that he would come in and try to have some sort of perry mason moment over benghazi, over libya, and he never did that. he was, all of a sudden, the person who seemed to agree with president obama on everything. >> bill: i was just look in "the new york times." i saw referenced this morning several people said it was like miss america. she wants peace too.

but sounded like something he could say. "the new york times" calls it -- he sounded like a beauty pageant contestant saying "we want a peaceful planet. we want people to be able to enjoy their lives and know they're going to have a white and prosperous future and not be at war." yeah we all do right? >> we all want that. >> bill: nia malika, i was amazed at "huffington post" put out a montage of all of the times that romney actually agreed with obama. he ended up agreeing with him on afghanistan. he really ended up agreeing with him on iran. you know, on the use of drones, right? on killing osama bin laden. on and on. on getting rid of mubarak. >> that's right. he knows that most americans agree with what the president has done in terms of foreign policy. and he senses at this point he's

going in with some momentum and why spoil that? why try to create some daylight indifference in terms of america's foreign policy when folks think it is going pretty well. the real issue is the economy. he probably scored some points. and also with aiming to make up what i think was a loss in the previous debate so he was trying to make it about the economy. one of the most extraordinary moments for him was his shifting on the auto bailout. essentially saying, of course, of course i would have -- of course i wanted exactly what happened to happen. when in reality that's not actually true. he argued for a much different course. he knows that has been hurting him in ohio and that is where he's headed over the next days. he's really going to bombard ohio certainly with ads i'm sure on the air but also with his presence. >> bill: the president is back there today or tomorrow, i forget now. >> yeah. >> bill: so you know, it's not

just that issue. on almost every issue in the last couple of weeks, mitt romney has been shifting like you know, on abortion, on -- you mentioned on the auto bailout on education i mean almost everywhere right? i'm not as bad as as he thought i was. is he in danger of further reinforcing i guess this notion that we're not sure who he is or what he stands for? >> that's right. you had a romney campaign for months that were very dangerous of the flip-flop label. they were pretty consistent. didn't really fight back. with the obama campaign. with the democrats in terms of them labeling mitt romney as more of a right wing person. more in line with house republicans. but so now you have him coming out and shifting some position

on, as you said, healthcare, seeming to hug the president all last night on foreign policy and then on immigration, even softening his stance there. talking about abortion in a different way. emphasizing different things. much to the dismay of some conservatives. i think last night you saw conservatives get kicked under the bus. but i think at this point republicans are sensing that mitt romney is the only one that has some momentum. if you look at certain national polls at least. and they feel like they can look away from what had been his shifting more moderate stances. now the democrats' challenges are to say no, no, no. this isn't the real mitt romney. the moderate mitt romney as bill clinton has said. where you been, boy? the real mitt romney is the one who had expressed much more conservative -- severely conservative positions throughout the primary. >> bill: you got it. nia malika, thank you so much

for joining us. i know you will be on the road for the next two weeks nonstop. we'll catch up with you whenever we can. >> great. >> bill: as we go from here to the finish line on the "full court press." >> announcer: this is the "bill press show."

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the powerful my steal an election but they cannot steal democracy. >> announcer: taking your e-mails on any topic at any >> announcer: taking your e-mails on any topic at any time. this is the "bill press show." live on your radio and current tv. >> bill: i love this one from the man who calls himself the eye in the north. north of the border that is.

brent says bill, from canada, we can tell you folks down there some extra bayonets and a few horses if you like from the canadian military. it is our main artillery. [ laughter ] extra horses and bayonets in canada. wayne says i wanted to step away from the tv last night when willard said he loved teachers. >> that was a sick moment. >> bill: that was a sick moment as bill schieffer said. >> on twitter bpshow. ray says romney is right. donald trump better hair, less personality and a much better social parasite although he's more dangerous for america. >> bill: god. is he ever. donald trump we'll talk about him later. noreen from "national journal" is going to join us at the top of the next hour. we'll be joined by judd legum. editor in chief of think progress. so stay around here on the "full court press." >> announcer: this is the "bill press show."

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[ ♪ theme ♪ ] >> bill: good morning, everybody! and welcome to the "full court >> bill: good morning, everybody. what do you say? it is tuesday october 23rd. welcome to the "full court press" on current tv. where we bring you the news of the day from our nation's capital. from around the country around the globe from boca raton florida. third presidential debate. we'll take your calls at 1-866-55-press. one thing for sure, we saw two very different men walk on to that stage at lynn university last night. one was president. the united states. one wants to be president of the

united states. one knows what he's talking about when it comes to foreign policy. the other does not have a clue. and one thing was very evident last night. there was only one commander in chief on stage. all right. more about the debate and your comments, your calls coming up. but first the latest, today's current news update. here she is. lisa ferguson out in los angeles. hi lisa, good morning. >> hey bill. good morning everyone. no break for president obama this morning. he hits the trail in florida with an event at the del rey tennis center then he's campaigning with vice president joe biden in dayton, ohio. he's coming off a very strong performance in last night's foreign policy debate. foreign policy likely not something that will decide this year's election. but many voters did get the chance to see exactly what they wanted last night. that was a confident and assertive president. not afraid to challenge romney's inexperience. >> obama: i know you haven't been in a position to execute foreign policy. but every time you've offered an

opinion, you've been wrong. >> it seems romney might be wrong again or at the very least, overzealous. when it comes to the global justice system, here is what he said last night about iranian president ahmadinejad. >> i would make sure that ahmadinejad is indicted under the genocide convention. i would indict him for his words. >> those words romney is referring to come from a translation of ahmadinejad saying israel must be wiped off the map. later reports say that translation was somewhat incorrect but senior advisor eric fehrnstrom backed up romney's claims and told talking points memo an arrest would remove one of the most anti-jewish progenocide members of tehran and he's absolutely hoping ahmadinejad would be indicted. but that could only escalate the situation in iran. former nato commander wesley clark said charges like that would cut off any possibility of a nonmilitary solution. more bill press coming up after the break. stay with us.

people when i'm upset. do you share the sense of outrage that they're doing this, this corruption based on corruption based on corruption. >>i think that's an understatement, eliot. u>> i'm not prone tot. understatement, so explain to me why that is. i think the mob learned from wall st., not vice versa.

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>> announcer: broadcasting across the nation on your radio and on current tv, this is the "bill press show." >> bill: round number three score another big win for barack obama. good morning, everybody. what do you say? it is the "full court press." here we go. tuesday, october 23rd, the morning after the third presidential debate. so good to see you today. thank you for joining us. we're coming to you live coast-to-coast, all the way across this great land of ours from our studio on capitol hill in washington, d.c.

booming out to you on your local progressive talk radio station and on current tv. whether you're watching or listening, appreciate having you with us this morning. you can expand your partnership in the show by giving us a call at 1-866-55-press. several ways. give us a call at 1-866-55-press. go online to give us a tweet. twitter at bpshow. you can follow us and comment on facebook. facebook.com/billpressshow or go to the chat room. go to current.com and join the chat room, you'll join your "full court presser" friends all across the land debating the issues that we are talking about here on the air mainly last night's debate to help us through that this morning. innoreen is with the "national journal." she's been out on the road covering the campaign and we're getting close to d day naureen.

>> two more weeks. >> bill: two weeks from today. you pointed out that -- we hadn't thought about this -- last night, if you add up the primaries, right, this was the 24th. >> it was the 24th debate. it is over! there was 20 -- if my count is correct, there's 20 during the primaries and then of course four, three presidential and vice presidential. >> bill: we're kind of debated out. >> i'm so debated out. >> it was genuine work to watch last night's debate. the vice presidential debate to watch that and listen to that, i actually enjoyed it then the second presidential debate, there were so many fireworks i got into that. last night, it was like let's just do this. >> number 24. bring it on. >> bill: all right. peter ogborn and dan henning. >> hey hey. >> bill: phil backert has the

phones. cyprian is our videographer. first, while the president was finishing up his debate prep and heading down to boca raton yesterday, joe biden out in -- where else, ohio. and the big event out there, he was on fire. so much that somebody in the crowd shouted out give them hell joe. >> the gentleman who yelled give them hell, joe. i'm reminded of harry truman's expression. when someone yelled out to him he said i'm just going to tell them the truth, they're going to think it is hell. >> bill: joe biden is a little bit like harry truman in terms of his style. things we heard about harry truman. >> he is an every man. he is a guy that i want to like. >> bill: he's a good campaigner. >> he really is. >> bill: full of fire out there. you know, you're going to want to talk about this debate at

1-866-55-press. we'll get right into it. the high points, the low points. president obama's effective needling of mitt romney. bayonets and horses. but first -- dan's got the "full court press." >> on this tuesday other headlines making news, a big honor for ellen degeneres here in washington last night. comedienne was honored with the mark twain prize for american humor. stars giving tribute included jane lynch jimmy kimmel, john kraz krasinski among others. it will air on pbs next week. recent twain winners include will ferrell, tina fey and bill cosby. she's in good company. >> bill: i love ellen degeneres. she's great. well deserved. >> apple is widely expected to unveil a new mini ipad today. the company has invited members of the media to an event to introduce a smaller cheaper version of the tablet. the current has a ten inch screen. new ipad expected to have something of a 7 inch screen, the size of the competing amazon

kindle. >> bill: i don't get it. why? i think the ipad is such a great -- >> they want to get -- >> bill: a great piece of technology. >> they want to reach out to a different market. >> it is not going to be that much cheaper by the way. it is not going to be that much cheaper. the iphone is getting bigger. the ipad is getting smaller and at some point they're on a collision course. >> giants are headed back to the world series. giants rocked the defending champion st. louis cardinals 9-0. miller with the call. >> delivers. slider. popped up. scoot row at second. the giants win the pennant! >> marcos was named the mvp. giants welcome the tigers to at&t. game one of the world series is tomorrow night.

>> bill: that game last night it was like a walk in the park for the giants. brought the cardinals back to san francisco. cardinals did not score a run. >> 9-0. shut out. >> bill: the night before, wasn't it? >> night before, i believe it was 6-1. >> bill: they brought them back to san francisco. won three straight. >> destroyed them. >> bill: last night cardinals couldn't get anything done. anyhow. good for the giants. very excited about that. >> my only problem is they didn't beat them by more. like they did the nationals. >> it still hurts. >> it still hurts damn it. >> bill: last night with the debate, president obama as we said he didn't hesitate to -- very aggressive in calling out mitt romney, naureen on some of his statements. for example right off the very top, he said look, governor romney you look back at

everything you've said about foreign policy. you're all over the place.ú >> obama: your strategy previously has been one that has been all over the map. and is not designed to keep americans safe or to build on the opportunities that exist in the middle east. >> bill: i thought the phrase all over the map is kind of fun for foreign policy. and on afghanistan, he pointed out again you say one thing then you say another. we don't know where the hell you stand on afghanistan. here's the president again. >> obama: you said first we shouldn't have a time line in afghanistan. then you said we shouldn't. now you say maybe or it depends which means not only were you wrong but you're confusing and sending mixed messages both to our troops and our allies. >> bill: finally just to give a flavor of the debate, mitt romney saying well, look, stop attacking me. >> romney: attacking me is not talking about how we're going to deal with the challenges that exist in the middle east and take advantage of the opportunity there and stem the

tide of this violence. >> bill: he got a little whiny. after romney has attacked him boom boom, boom in all three debates. come on. that's what the debate is all about. so naureen no big mistake on either part. i don't think last night. neither one of them really embarrassed themselves. but how did you read -- you know, obama versus romney, who came out on top? >> i think the instapolls right after the debate showed that obama had won by a pretty big margin. cbs poll had him up by something like 30 points. >> bill: 53 to 23. >> yeah. pretty high margin. but you know, the president -- he's obviously been commander in chief and that's a pretty big trump card to play on your challenger. i made these decisions. i've been in these rooms with the nation's leaders and i know so much more than you can know having done what i've done for the last four years.

romney's task was a little bit smaller. he wanted to avoid any big stumbles. didn't want to mess up the names of any countries. wanted to -- >> bill: at times he seemed to slow down when he was pronouncing the countries like i want to make sure i say this correctly. that i don't make a mistake. >> he didn't want to pull a herman cain you on a becky -- ubecky. at times it seemed like he read the c.i.a. book a little bit. was showing -- i've read up on this stuff. i know it. he did that. he demonstrated his competence. i don't think anybody's -- well, you know, i watched some undecided voters after the debate. they were quaking about the potential of a romney presidency. he demonstrated his -- you saw a sharp performance from obama here. it is probably due to the fact that he has experienced this.

>> bill: what's interesting to me about that is four years ago obama had experience in foreign policy. he's really grown in this's to the point where i believe -- i mean story in the n.y. times the other day about europeans are saying what's wrong with these americans? this guy is so good, he's done so much for us and in not -- not just helping the euro and the european union but pulling them together in the same policy toward syria. pulling them together in the same policy toward iran. pulling them together in the effort in libya right? and in what's happening in syria. so that obama has really grown in this area and showed it last night to the point where i don't -- mitt romney agreed with obama on so many issues. >> there were not that many differences between the two men

which was striking. it was hard -- >> bill: which is not good for romney if you want to say here's what's wrong with him and why you need to replace him with me. he kept going back to the economy. >> he was trying to pivot to center as he's done in these last three debates. i don't think he wants to tie himself at all to the foreign policy of the previous republican administration. there's definitely a need to reach out to those war weary americans and say we want to focus on nation building. it is different than the mitt romney we saw during the primaries which was much more hawkish, we can't show weakness. he sounded those refrains a little bit. it was very different. you're right. president obama is -- i think the first democratic president in a long time to erase sort of the republican advantage on the national security front. especially with the osama bin laden kill. that's sort of been fading, too if you look at the most recent polls before the debate. romney had managed to sort of ease in there too. so it will be interesting to see

where the numbers are at now. >> bill: i was surprised that romney -- there were two areas where i thought he might be able to score and make it uncomfortable for obama. one was israel. and i don't think romney gained any ground at all in this argument that he tries to make that you want to put daylight between us and israel and you went -- the first time you went overseas, you did not go to israel when obama came back and said well, when i went there as a candidate i didn't take any donors with me. i didn't have fund-raisers at the king david hotel. i went to the holocaust museum then down to the border and talked to these women and their kids when the shells were dropping. romney at that point just shut up. >> he didn't have a comeback to that. >> it is hard to argue with a man who's talking about his holocaust memorial experience. >> bill: romney gave him the opening. when obama said don't --

basically he said don't talk to me about trips right? >> yeah. it is hard for romney to make an argument on that end. >> bill: on libya i mean the president -- hey dan we've got that clip where the president talks about -- he wrapped up and said here's what we did on libya. >> obama: i immediately made sure that number one, we did everything to secure those americans who were still in harm's way. number two that we would exactly what happened and number three most importantly, we would go after those who killed americans and we would bring them to justice. >> bill: again you know, what could romney say other than well, you should have told us sooner. it was an act of terror. >> sure. they didn't go into the nitpicking like they did in the splitting hairs between information was revealed. i don't know if that was a strategic thing or if the moment had passed him by and if romney apparently had a cold during his debate so maybe that was part of

the reason for his more subdued performance. >> bill: the cold explains it. >> did he have a cold? >> this is what i read. >> i saw somebody else mention that on twitter that he was not well. he didn't look well. looking at him on the tv. he was clearly sweating. he had lost some color in his face. he didn't look well. >> cnn reported that as well. i thought he was decidedly less feisty. especially in the first 10, 15 minutes. >> bill: they're trying to make an excuse for mitt romney's horrible performance. i don't buy that at all. >> did president obama have a cold during the first debate? >> bill: all right. naureen khan is here from the "national journal." join the conversation at 1-866-55-press. we'll be right back. >> announcer: get social about the debate on facebook and on twitter at bpshow. this is the "bill press show."

it's one box with hundreds of possibilities. (vo) john fugelsang sees what happens. i like mitt romney but i'm sorry. they guy has flipped more than a crack house mattress. (vo) so we gave him a weekly show. >> thank you.

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persistent fever, bruising, bleeding, or paleness. [ phil ] get back to the things that matter most. ask your rheumatologist if enbrel is right for you. [ doctor ] enbrel, the number one biologic medicine prescribed by rheumatologists. now to my point. (vo) jennifer granholm ... >>for every discouraged voter, there are ten angry ones taking action. trickle down does not work. in romney's world, cars get the elevator and the workers get the shaft. that is a whole bunch of bunk. the powerful may steal an election, but they can't steal democracy. [ ♪ theme ♪ ]

>> announcer: this is the "bill press show." live on your radio and current >> announcer: chatting with you live at current.com/billpress. this is the "bill press show." live on your radio and current tv. >> bill: all right. 25 minutes after the hour now. judd legum is the editor in chief of think progress here every tuesday. tuesdays with judd. we call it. he'll be up in the next segment. naureen khan is here from the "national journal." >> they're asking how the president did but we're asking about your favorite moments. tony says when romney answered to bob schieffer go to the web site where we could find out our plan and obama came back and

said we've been to the web site many times and the math still doesn't work. that to him was the moment. also pbr says when obama said aircraft carriers, we have aircraft carriers, we have nuclear subs, it was great classic. also on the idea that romney and obama sort of -- romney seemed to agree with a lot of obama's policies at rip them up on twitter says romney became a peace loving, who rode to the horse with no name with a binder full of bayonets. >> bill: naureen the big question is will last night's debate -- let's assume that president obama won will it make any difference? >> yeah, it is sort of hard to tell. i bet -- here's what i will say. i think the obama campaign wishes they could switch debate one and debate three in terms of the president's performance because that route in the first debate really changed the dynamic of the race and allowed

this narrative to build about the romney comeback. got the numbers back up to where they needed to be to be a competitive race. this was a solid performance by president obama. you wonder if people are really -- you know, sitting around their kitchen tables talking about syria and terrorist networks and drone strikes and probably not. they want to know things about closer to home. i wonder how much the cake was baked by the time we got here. >> bill: i would agree with that assessment. i don't think most people are going to make their -- cast their vote depending on the value of the iranian currency. lena is in mob -- mobile, alabama. >> caller: good morning. >> bill: what's your point? >> caller: i'm so outraged at people like that woman sitting in front of you. and also nia malika henderson or whoever she is that came on earlier. >> bill: yeah. >> caller: i want to tell her

yes, we're sitting around our tables talking about drone strikes and all of that because you know what? hasn't a president that is strong on foreign policy, it is very important. because what's going on around the world affects america. we understand that. we're not ignorant. we're not stupid and we're sick and tired of you all giving mitt romney a pad. >> bill: all right. lena, just in the interest of time, i guess some people do care about foreign policy. >> there are foreign policy voters i stand corrected. >> bill: i think for the most part, people are going to cast their vote, i'll take the blame based on jobs and the economy. but president obama certainly showed himself a very, very strong leader on national kurt issues last night. i think mitt romney shows he didn't really know what he was talking about. naureen, thank you so much for coming in. >> thank you. i appreciate it. >> announcer: this is the "bill press show."

i.q. will go way up. how are you ever going to solve the problem if you don't look at all of the pieces? >>tv and radio talk show host stephanie miller rounds out current's morning news block. >>you're welcome current tv audience for the visual candy. >>sharp tongue, quick whit and above all, politically direct. >>you just think there is no low they won't go to. oh, no. if al gore's watching today...

>> announcer: this is the bill "bill press show." >> bill: great to see you. 33 minutes after the hour on tuesday, october 23rd. here we go. it is the "full court press," the morning after the third and final presidential debate. and by some counts, at least, the 24th debate of this political season. if you're feeling debated out. no wonder. watching the debate last night we can't wait for the count of how many lies mitt romney told

during this debate. they do that every presidential and vice presidential debate. our good friends at think progress, the editor in chief of think progress, judd legum in for tuesdays with judd. good to see you. >> good to see you. >> bill: welcome back. we're looking at the debate last night. anyhow, we don't have a count on the lies yet. >> being tabulated. >> bill: the first one was 27 lies in 31 minutes. last one was 38 lie in 48 minutes. >> something like that. maybe 31 and 41 i think was the second one. it was 31 and 41. >> bill: can't wait for this one. but one thing that struck us and -- maybe you last night. was how many times romney sort of blustered about stuff but then like on afghanistan on iran, on drones, but then ended up agreeing. with president obama. i want to get your comment on

it. "huffington post" did us all a little favor by putting together a montage that goes on and on and on but here's a little -- flavor of it. >> romney: i felt the same as the president did. >> obama: to the governor's credit, you supported us going into libya. >> romney: i supported his action there. >> obama: i'm glad that governor romney agrees with the steps that we're taking. >> romney: it is widely reported drones are being used in drone strikes and i support that entirely. >> obama: i'm pleased that you are now are endorsing our policy of applying diplomatic pressure. >> romney: i congratulate him on taking out osama bin laden and going after the leadership in al-qaeda. >> obama: governor romney, i'm glad you agree we have been successful in going after al-qaeda. >> bill: they even both love teachers. >> it is true. >> bill: but it was astounding right? when you go into a debate, romney ends up agreeing with so many things. >> to me it seemed like a similar tact that he took in the first debate in that he was

trying to moderate his positions. after being severely conservative in the primaries after -- after really talking about a muscular foreign policy and trying to criticize obama on any number of fronts. was trying to tack to the center again by agreeing with obama on a lot of issues and i didn't think it worked out as well for romney this time. because obama was certainly ready for that. but yeah you took down the issues whether it was egypt afghanistan, syria drones, on and on and on. he essentially endorsed the position -- iran i think was very notable. really endorsed the positions of the president. said that the sanctions were working. after his campaign. had pretty much for a year and a half said that the sanctions were not as effective as they need to be.

so it was an interesting tact. i think he must, in my view, believe that you know, he's ahead and was trying not to make a mistake but i think just like football teams, kind of put -- going back into prevent defense sometimes it doesn't work out as well as you would hope. >> bill: it must have driven the neocon supporters crazy when he -- they want to go to war in iran. they want to bomb iran, bill crystal and that gang. they want us to stay in afghanistan and in iraq, right. they want us to send troops into syria and here mitt romney kept saying no, no military solution. >> he said a version of either peace or peaceful nine times during the debate. and i think it was a very deliberate move to try to reassure moderate swing voters that he wasn't the next george w. bush. i think that was the one mission romney had.

he really didn't even try to respond to what i thought was a very effective aggressive obama who was attacking him on any number of fronts and the response was basically not to respond and just to assure people that he wasn't george w. bush. the problem that he has of course, is everything he said up to this debate which was -- which has been quite hawkish and also he surrounded himself with a lot of the same advisers who were the advisers who helped push george bush into iraq, said that he's consulted vice president cheney fairly extensively on foreign policy issues. that's terrifying. so he's done one thing but then at the debate for the people who tuned in, there are a lot of people who tuned into the debates but probably aren't tuning into the election everyday -- he presented the

moderate -- a more moderate approach and i guess the feeling was that that was more important maybe than really even trying to engage in the debate. >> bill: interestingly enough, cbs did an instant poll of undecideds watching the debate last night. came out 53 obama. 23 romney. and then ppp did a survey of swing state voters immediately after the debate. 53 obama. 42 romney. so how are you going to vote? 51% in the polls said they were going to vote for obama and 45% for romney. judd the other issue and to bob schieffer's credit, it was the first one he went to, i thought it was going to be the one real flash point of last night's debate and that was libya. i'm sure mitt romney was not going to make the mistake again of you didn't say this the day

after -- because he lost that round the last time. but still, i could see where with the right attack, the administration might be vulnerable on what happened in benghazi and its response to it. but even there romney didn't score. did he? >> well, not only did he not score. didn't even try. didn't even mention at all of the attacks except to just say that it was a tragedy. but besides that, sort of moved on quickly to sort of a broader critique of the middle east. and you know, we watch this pretty closely. and since that last debate, ine though he had what was a pretty bad moment where he said you didn't say that in the rose gauche -- rose garden, check the transcript et cetera the campaign stuck on it. they said, in fact, it was the about the who lied when he said acts of terror, he wasn't referring to libya. even though of course, it was a

five-minute speech in the rose garden just about libya so it was a weird thing but they went on. if you listen to john sununu who was his campaign chair the most blustery guy they've got. they put on the cables a lot during the day. he said barack obama came out and he lied in the last debate. this was a tragedy. there is a cover-up. there is lots of people throughout his campaign continuing to push the issue. but romney kind of bailed on it. and i think the reason why is the more we know about it, the argument is breaking down. as if turns out there is a role or the most recent reporting says there was a role for the video. it wasn't just about the video. but there is reporting that the video was a factor for the people on the ground there who perpetrated the attack. the ties to sort of the centralized al-qaeda network are very weak if they exist at all.

according to the recent reporting. the c.i.a. has come out or there's been reports that, in fact, they were the ones who provided the talking points to secretary rice and her much criticized appearance on the sunday shows when she pointed out the role of the video. so there's really nothing left. we know that obama did call in an act of terror. so i think what romney recognized -- maybe to his credit, maybe he realized the exchange wasn't going to work out well for him. there wasn't much there. but we've spent weeks on this. >> bill: it took him a long time to drop it. they tried it every which way they could. >> yeah. >> bill: judd legum is here from think progress. editor in chief. we're talking last night's debate. join the conversation. the high points for you the low

points. where president obama really scored. let's talk about horses and bayonets when we come back. and where you think if at all mitt romney scored. 1-866-55-press. talk to us on twitter at bpshow. we'll be right back. >> announcer: radio meets television. the "bill press show." now on current tv. dreams come true if the brewery got sold to bain. >> only on current tv.

>>i jump out of my skin at people when i'm upset. do you share the sense of outrage that they're doing this, this corruption based on corruption based on corruption. >>i think that's an understatement, eliot. u>> i'm not prone tot. understatement, so explain to me

why that is. i think the mob learned from wall st., not vice versa. >> announcer: this is the "full court press." the "bill press show." >> announcer: this is the "bill press show," live on your radio and current tv. >> bill: 14 minutes before the top of the hour. judd legum in studio with us

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record numbers even give away $1,000 to somebody for checking them out. that's incomeathome.com. that's incomeathome.com. peter, we wanted to talk about the navy again. before we do -- >> we're tweeting at bpshow at bp show. find us there. we're asking your favorite moments from the debate last night. pat 120 says president obama could have talked about romnesia with every response last night. >> i know. >> there was one moment i thought he was going to say it when he said governor, everything you just said is not true. i thought he was going to say romnesia. >> bill: you've got a bad case of romnesia. >> he didn't say it. another tweeter says the president showed how a president thinks when leading a country. romney showed how a businessman would run a company which is a big difference. and one interesting little tidbit that comes from reed wilson the pizza shop owner from ft. pierce, florida who gave president obama the big bear hug. >> bill: picked him up.

>> he was a guest at last night's debate for barack obama's side. he was there. he didn't go up and give him a big bear hug after the debate but he was there. >> i did notice that tagg romney did give a hug to the president. >> tagg romney did. >> which was interesting after saying he wanted to take a swing at him after the last debate. but i guess they've -- >> the olive branch. >> bill: that's funny. one of the high points -- from last night was when mitt romney said you know, our navy is getting too small. we don't have enough ships. it is shrinking under president obama. obama had one of the best zingers of all time in. here he is. >> obama: i think governor romney maybe hasn't spent enough time looking at how our military works. you mention the navy, for example. we have fewer ships than we did in 1916. governor, we also have fewer horses and bayonets. because the nature of our military's changed. we have these things called aircraft carriers where planes

land on them. ships that go underwater, nuclear submarines. the question is not a game of battleship where we're counting ships, it is what are our capabilities. so when i sit down with the secretary of the navy and the joint chiefs of staff we determine how are we going to be best able to meet all of our defense needs. >> bill: it is a very, very antiquated concept that the more ships you build, the stronger you are right? >> yeah. >> bill: that's been 100 years. that hasn't been true. >> the ships are a little bit different than they were in 1970. there's been some advancement. they may be even a little bigger. more powerful. i thought it was a good line. he had a lot of good lines. you know a lot of the stuff is predictable at this point. romney has his set attacks on this navy attack line he gives at pretty much every single speech. you could predict it was coming.

but the other time he had a very good -- clearly a set response was on israel. when romney criticized him for -- >> he was ready for it. >> for not going to israel. i thought it was a really effective reply when he said you know, i did go to israel as a candidate and i didn't bring my fund-raisers i didn't fund raise. i was looking at the security situation and talked about his record. so i thought that was a real point of strength. and what's interesting is you can have these lines prepared. that's easy enough. but delivery was good. he was engaged. and that was -- i thought that was effective. >> bill: you know, i think -- the overall impression, the most important last night is just their body language and their deportment. obama looked comfortable.

mitt romney did not. partly it was maybe mitt romney had a cold. but it was the issue they were talking about. obama not going into the presidency with a lot of foreign policy experience. but there's been a lot happen on his watch. he's handled it. he's grown. he's handled it very, very well, i believe. restored our reputation around the world. mitt romney knows this is not his long suit. i think he was nervous about not making a big jerry ford kind of goof. gaffe. >> his positions in this area, mitt romney's, they're all an inch deep. so i think that there was a calculation that look, we do not want to get into a back and forth. peel back the onion. so when obama would attack, romney's response, a number of times was just well, attacking me doesn't solve the problem. but of course you could say about any attack or any -- you could say that no matter what. and it kind of gets you through in a way but it also fends off

any extended -- any extended back and forth because when you peel back, he hasn't articulated beyond the talk and beyond the bluster, he hasn't articulated here is my defined strategy that really differs from what you're doing in key areas in iran, libya, syria what is it? what is the policy? >> bill: no. you know what? i think today we still don't know. other than he says -- be a better obama. i don't know. better the obama we have. all right. i can't believe it. judd, we just got started here. >> time flies. >> bill: it is always that way. thank you so much for coming in. we'll see you next tuesday. thinkprogress.org, folks. as we tell you make it one of your favorites. check it out several times a day. then you will be as up to date as we are. >> announcer: this is the "bill press show."

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[ ♪ theme ♪ ] >> announcer: this is the "bill press show." >> bill: hey, how about it. president obama, busy schedule doing no fewer than six fund-raisers leaving the white house this morning at about quarter to 12:00 going up to baltimore. >> bill: we were reading that mitt romney won the debate. get out of here! morning joke right? morning joke! jesus. i mean people say msnbc. he's the most conservative guy out there right now on msnbc. at least you've got an alternative.

you don't have to watch shut up mica show anymore. sorry. for the tangent. but back to the -- >> i thought you were going to throw something at me. >> bill: back to the president's schedule. president campaigning in florida and ohio today. yes, indeed. campaign event this morning in del rey, florida. then he heads up to dayton, hey. you can't go to ohio too much. right? he's up five points in ohio. we gotta get it up to 10 points in ohio he'll have a big campaign event in dayton, ohio at triangle park at 4:00 this afternoon. then he heads back here overnight before he heads out on the campaign trail tomorrow. we'll talk to senator chris kuhns from delaware who was at the debate last night. and the next hour as well as political editor paul singer from "usa today." >> announcer: this is the "bill press show."

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[ ♪ theme ♪ ] >> bill: good morning everybody. happy tuesday october 23rd. welcome to the "full court press" here on current tv. this is where we bring you up to date on what's happening around the world and around the country and in washington, d.c. and take your calls today. it is a -- like a laser focus on last night's debate. third presidential debate. on foreign policy. and boy, we saw two very, very different people walk on the stage last night. one was the president of the united states. the other wanna be president of the united states. one knows what he's talking about when it comes to foreign

policy. the other does not have a freaking clue. one thing was apparent to anybody who watched, there was only one commander in chief on stage last night. barack obama. winning it hands down. all right. more on the debate. more of your calls but first the latest today's current news update from lisa ferguson. out in los angeles. hello, lisa. >> hey bill. good morning everyone. some backlash coming from iran after last night's foreign policy debate. romney is known for taking a hard red line approach when it comes to iran's nuclear program. and he added to that last night calling for crippling sanctions against the country. >> romney: i would tighten those sanctions. i would say that ships that carry iranian oil can't come into our ports. i imagine the eu would agree with us as well. >> today, ryan officials are saying they will stop -- iran officials say they'll stop exports and that they have a plan b to survive without oil revenues. because of sanctions already in

place, we do not import any of iran's oil. we actually get most of ours from our own national forces along with canada and latin america. but iranian oil going off the world market would still affect gas prices here in the united states. one of the big goals for both candidates last night was steering the foreign policy debate toward domestic issues where americans can relate. we saw that with talks of the auto bailout teachers and unemployment rates and today the obama campaign is bringing the conversation back to big pictures here at home with this new ad. >> obama: here's my plan for the next four years. making education and training a national priority. building on our manufacturing boom. boosting american-made energy. >> the ad asks americans to compare the president's plan to mitt romney's and decide which is better for you. that one is airing in seven swing states. bill press is coming up again live after the break and we're live in chat, current.com/billpress.

we have a big, big hour and the i.q. will go way up. how are you ever going to solve the problem if you don't look at all of the pieces? >>tv and radio talk show host stephanie miller rounds out current's morning news block. >>you're welcome current tv audience for the visual candy. >>sharp tongue, quick whit and above all, politically direct. >>you just think there is no low they won't go to. oh, no. if al gore's watching today...

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[ ♪ theme ♪ ] >> announcer: broadcasting across the nation on your radio >> announcer: broadcasting across the nation on your radio and on current tv. this is the "bill press show." >> bill: round three. score to president obama. good morning everybody. what do you say? it is the "full court press." this is tuesday october 23rd. morning after the final debate of this political season. aren't you happy? and the third presidential debate from boca raton florida last night and lynn university moderated by bob schieffer. we watched it. we listened to it. we've been talking about it this morning. we'll continue here on this third hour of the "full court press" coming to you live across this great land of ours from our

nation's capital coming to you live on current tv and on your local progressive talk radio station. great to you have with us today. join the conversation at any time. so many of you want to sound off about the debate. we understand that. that's why we're here for you. 1-866-55-press is our toll free number. and there are other opportunities. you can join us on facebook at facebook.com/billpress show. on twitter at bpshow. in our chat room, go to current.com and join the chat room and just join up with all of your "full court pressers" -- fellow "full court pressers" across the land to debate the issues among yourselves or again just give us a call at 1-866-55-press. here in this hour to do a little fact checking with us about points that were made last night and how close they were to the truth, paul singer is the editor for politics -- politics editor for "usa today."

hi paul. nice to see you. you work with david jackson. susan page. >> indeed. it is a great crew. >> bill: i see david every day at the white house. briefings at the white house. susan is a frequent guest on the show. she and i have been out on the campaign trail together a couple of times. >> it is an honor to work with her. i feel pretty lucky. >> bill: nice to have you here. joining our team, peter ogborn and dan henning. >> one thing we love about david jackson. he's always available to take our phone calls so if anybody wants to reach out to david he's always around. >> there are few people more committed than d.j. >> bill: he's right there. phil backert has the phones. cyprian bowlding our individualographer on on the job as always and doing a good job. it will be interesting to see how many watched the debate last night because there was serious competition from monday night football. i don't know who played monday night football. >> the bears and the lions.

>> bill: the bigger competition last night the giants and the cardinals. it was 3-3. giants had to win it and the cardinals didn't even show up. they were like president obama in the first debate. they didn't show up. here is john miller from knbr out in san francisco with the final play. >> delivers. slider. scud row at second. he's got it. giants win the pennant. >> bill: 9-0. >> in the pouring rain. we had a it on. why don't we suspend for awhile. it is pouring. >> bill: it started as a drizzle, didn't it? it picked up and in the end i guess they just figured what the hell. let's just get it over with. >> i think it did affect the debate. we were seeing twitter statistics last night that the final debate had somewhere around 6.5 million tweets using

the hash tags. the first debate had ten million so if you're down 30% of twitters i wonder if your eequally down 30% in viewers. you were talking foreign policy. baseball game and football game, who wants to watch? >> bill: third one. >> i can tell you i was focused mostly on the debate but i did have -- i built myself a nest of laptop ipad, iphone, tv and i kept checking the baseball game score. ac absolutely. >> bill: i had a very different experience with the debate last night because i was on the train. could not get the live feed on my ipad. so ended up listening to it on my ipad. through npr. and listening to the debate and watching the debate is very different. very different experience. >> how did it change your impression? what was your take away from the sound of the debate? >> bill: from the sound was

obama was on comfortable ground and mitt romney seemed shaky. i think maybe that's how it came across on television. i didn't see the sweat. >> you missed the sweaty glow of mitt romney's upper lip. >> bill: paul singer here. we'll get into the debate. take your calls and take a look at what was said and what's true and what's not. but first... dan with the big stories of the day. >> other headlines making news on this tuesday another cheating scandal is potentially brewing in the nfl. league is investigating the san diego chargers after an official found an equipment manager using towels with some sort of sticky illegal substance on them. >> what? >> during last week's game against the broncos. no word on exactly what that substance is. might be pine tar as they use in baseball but if they find the team used it during play which they're reviewing now, they could be fined or lose a draft pick next season. >> bill: sticky substance. oh god. all right.

>> simon cowell's got at least another year of work. fox yesterday announced it will pick up the reality show x factor for a third season although it's gotten nowhere near the ratings of "american idol." fans seem to be happy with the new judges demi lovato and britney spears. >> bill: simon cowell. i don't think he has to worry about it. >> i haven't been watching the x factor. >> bill: who are these people? >> tiger woods is trying something new. he's building a golf course. >> not chitting? >> golf.com reports the star golfer is trying his hand as course architect designing his first one doing so at a resort in cabo in mexico. the 14-time major champion says it will be a course that anybody of any experienced level will be able to enjoy. no word on how many more courses he wants to build and how much he's getting paid but it is costing $12 million to build. >> bill: it is costing $12 million because they have to bring the water from northern

california. baja, california, it is a freaking desert. leave it alone. >> there are so many jokes i could make right now. about tiger woods. >> bill: i know. paul last night, "usa today," the fact checkers, this has been the season for fact checkers. >> i have mixed views about it myself. >> bill: you're part of it. >> i know i'm part of it. but i think sometimes we worry more about the trees and miss the forest. >> the trees are just the right height. [ laughter ] >> bill: so i just want to go through some of the ones you put out there and we'll see -- let the chips fall where they may as they say. >> fire it up. >> bill: president obama on defense spending. president obama says mitt romney wants to add $2 trillion in spending to the military budget. >> right? >> correct? >> yeah. this is this fundamental difference you saw on display last night. romney believes we need an

increased military force a larger military force. this is where we get into the whole discussion of we don't as many votes. we don't have as many horses or bayonets either. obama wants to shrink defense spending over time. he says -- he said last night that the defense budget had been higher every year and it is not entirely true. it is a little smaller last year. but this is sort of one of those fundamental philosophical things that is reflected in the facts that romney wants to expand the defense budget and obama thinks we don't need to and that's a good place to get deficit reduction. >> bill: where is the $2 trillion coming from. that romney says $2 trillion. who says we need more? >> it is a math equation. he says we should be spending 4% of our gdp on defense spending. romney -- never mind the exact number the $2 trillion number, romney's focus is we need to rebuild the navy and ships. it is expensive work. >> bill: when obama says you

want to add $2 trillion to the defense budget, he's right. romney does want to do that. >> yeah. >> bill: the other thing related is that romney accuses president obama of wanting to cut defense spending through sequestration. >> there was an interesting line last night that caught my attention -- >> bill: correct or not? >> well, what obama said about sequestration is that's not going to happen. which was interesting because -- >> bill: yes. >> it is the law. it is going to happen unless something happens in the next eight weeks. >> bill: but it is not something obama proposed. >> it is not something obama proposed. he signed it into law. you tell me whether it is something he preferred or didn't prefer. i don't think anybody wants to do it this way. it is a dumb way to govern. it has been a dumb way to govern since the '80s. you claim there are immediate cuts that have to go into effect >> bill: obama signed the

legislation because congress insisted that this is the only way we're going to raise the debt ceiling is if you give us the opportunity to make this big plan cut through our joint budget committee and prove we mean business, we'll put this hammer over our heads. guess what. >> here comes the hammer. it is pretty much meaningless. i thought it was interesting when obama said last night it's not going to happen. meaning he's sure that congress is not going to let it happen. >> bill: let's jump on here. defense spending. syria. obama said romney said he would provide heavy arms to syrian rebels. >> that is correct. what romney has said is we need to have the syrian rebels with arms that can defeat assad's tanks. i mean -- >> bill: that means heavy arms. >> that pretty much means heavy arms.

>> bill: does he know which rebels he would give them to? >> the discussion where romney -- obama agree is you can't just flood the nation with heavy weaponry and hope it lands into the right hands of our friends. this is -- this is where al-qaeda and the taliban grew up. same kind of concept. so i think on both sides, will you see significant caution. this is where the rhetoric is more muscular on romney's side. which is his advantage not being an incumbent. you can say a bunch of stuff. we'll arm the rebels. what i suspect you would hear from obama if he was off the record and off microphone might be something closer to that. we just can't talk about it very publicly. >> bill: it was interesting both of them talked about -- when they were talking about syria or libya. we have to -- identify the moderates. make sure they were using the phrase moderates and make sure the help goes to the moderates and not to the extremists. little tangent here.

there were so many cases where romney's rhetoric was muscular and yet when it came down to what is the real difference between romney and obama there wasn't much of a difference. "huffington post" put together a montage of how many times they ended up agreeing. here is just the beginning of the montage. >> romney: i felt the same as the president did. >> obama: to the governor's credit, you supported us going into libya. >> romney: i supported his action there. >> obama: i'm glad governor romney agrees with the steps we're taking. >> romney: it is widely supported that drones are being used in drone strikes and i support that entirely. >> obama: i'm pleased you're now endorsing our policy of applying diplomatic pressure. >> romney: we have to do as the president has done. i congratulate him on taking out osama bin laden and going after the leadership in al-qaeda. >> obama: governor romney, i'm glad that you agree that we have been successful in going after al-qaeda. >> bill: this goes on. >> i agree with your pointing out that they agree 50 on a number of issues. >> bill: it was astounding.

you expect it to be a clash. >> but it's not. we joke about this. politics ends at the water in foreign policy. the fact of the matter is that u.s. interests abroad are going to be the same whether obama or romney is president. there may be different rhetoric. there may be different emphasis. we're still going to try to prevent iran from getting a nuclear weapon. we'll try to figure out how to encourage moderate muslim factions in places like egypt and libya and we haven't figured out how to do it yet but we would like to think we can. we're still going to try to prevent mill tarrization by islamic extremist ins north africa. all of this stuff is our policy as a nation. whoever is the president. now again there will be disputes about how much money you spend on defense and where you focus your time and are you close enough to israel or not close enough to israel. but those are really in the margins of foreign policy that you see that kind of dispute. not in the sort of overall

letter. >> bill: even on israel, we'll get to that just a little bit later. i want to ask you about the apology tour. romney dragged this chestnut out the first thing the president did when he was in office is go to the middle east, not go to israel and go to arab countries saying we're sorry we've been so mean to you. >> right. >> bill: basically. >> the trip is true. the itinerary is correct. he was not in israel on that trip and what obama was talking about was -- he has talked about still now is building a more credible.relationship between the united states and arab world this can be interpreted as an apology if you believe that we should not be going to the arabs and saying you know, yes america has done some things wrong. now, obama never apologized. he never said we're sorry. he never said we've been wrong on x y and z. he said hey, america had responsibility for the world banking crisis. we need to take some ownership

of this. is that an apology? i leave that to interpretation. >> bill: i wouldn't. i think it is speaking the truth. i think president bomb scored when he said this is the biggest whopper of the entire campaign. american people could relate to that. they know what a big whopper is. >> thing i learned in the fact checking, apology tour came from hannity. it was a fox news -- they kind the term the apology tour. >> bill: is that right? >> that's what i heard from our fact checker. i believe them. >> bill: hannity, mitt romney. i can see the connection. paul singer in studio with us. we'll be right back. >> announcer: this is the "bill press show." building up to this. >>bill shares his views, now it's your turn. >>i know you're going to want to weigh in on these issues.

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now to my point. (vo) jennifer granholm ... >>for every discouraged voter, there are ten angry ones taking action. trickle down does not work. in romney's world, cars get the elevator and the workers get the shaft. that is a whole bunch of bunk. the powerful may steal an election, but they can't steal democracy.

>> announcer: this is the "bill press show." live on your radio and current tv. >> bill: joe cirincione is our guest from the ploughshares fund >> obama: we have fewer ships than we did in 1916. governor, we also have fewer horses and bayonets because the nature of our military's changed. we have these things called aircraft carriers where planes land on them. >> announcer: this is the "bill press show." >> bill: president obama -- pointing out some obvious fact to mitt romney who apparently doesn't know we also have these ships that go underwater that are called submarines. paul singer from "usa today" in studio with us. peter, what you got -- people are talking on facebook and twitter. >> we're tweeting at bpshow at bpshow. on the tape we just played about the -- before the break. there's not much difference between the two of them. one person says you should ask al-qaeda if they think there isn't much difference between

romney and president obama. favorite line of mitt romney at the debate was attacking me is not an agenda. every time that obama leveled a charge at mitt romney. he would say that. jim johnston says attacking me is not on the agenda. wasn't he at a debate? he didn't punch you, sir. he was questioning your foreign policy chops. so it wasn't necessarily an attack to question his leadership. >> bill: "usa today" is on a whole fact check of the many of the statements made last night. both sides looking at things said by both romney and obama. paul singer in studio with us. we won't have a chance to get to them all. go to usatoday.com to read the whole account. let's take one that keeps coming up. mitt romney keeps accusing president romney -- president obama of being a support supporter of israel. >> by the way, that charge sticks. there are a lot of jews who are very concerned that obama is not friendly enough with israel. as daylight -- the daylight

comment has been rattling around for awhile. there was a meeting at the white house apparently with some jewish leaders and obama said something along the lines of we want to have daylight between us -- >> bill: when there's no daylight, it is harder for us to be an honest broker. >> it really was about the talks with the palestinians if the united states goes in basically echoing israel's position, it doesn't help in the peace process. what they're saying now clearly is that doesn't relate to any other foreign policy. it is just in that discussion but they never denied they said it. >> bill: it doesn't erode our basic support for israel which the president affirms over and over again. i'm not speaking for the obama administration. i would say why shouldn't be there be daylight? >> there is daylight between us and all of our allies. >> bill: paul singer, thanks for coming in. >> announcer: this is the "bill press show."

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>> announcer: this is the "bill press show." live on your radio and current tv. >> bill:>> bill: at 33 minutes after the hour. on this tuesday morning the morning after the third presidential debate. all about foreign policy down in boca raton florida. if you're talking foreign policy, you can bet not far away will be members of the senate foreign relations committee listening and hanging on every word to see what differences if any there are between barack obama and mitt romney on these issues. and one of our good friends my home state senator chris kuhns

and member of the foreign relations committee was there. he joins us from a diner in boca raton. hey, senator good to talk to you. >> great to be with you again. >> bill: thank you. so overall, mitt romney, barack obama speaking on foreign policy. what was your overall impression? >> well last night once again the main question was which mitt romney was going to show up? i felt like it was a discussion between the president, our commander in chief and someone trying out to be his next secretary of state. it was stunning how many different times across how many different issues romney agreed with obama. governor romney had taken these extreme positions in the republican presidential primary. he walked them back and instead gave almost completely opposite position ones that agreed with and often supported president

obama's leadership on syria on iran on afghanistan, on libya the opening question of the debate last night, bob schieffer's opening question was just a softball right across the plate giving governor romney a chance to renew his i think groundless and largely pointless attacks of somehow insinuating the president had done something wrong around benghazi. he completely -- he shifted 180 degrees away from it. didn't deal with it or address it. i think in part because he did so poorly when he attempted to in the second debate. at the end of the day bill, this whole process this election is about choosing our next president and our president isn't just an investment portfolio manager. he isn't just a job creator. he's also commander in chief. there is only one commander in chief on the stage last night. it was president obama. governor romney seemed like he was sort of flipping around and all over the map and reciting things he had just recently

learned or rememorized or struggling a little bit about positions where he changed so much. and i think the president did a appropriate and respectful job of calling governor romney on the carpet when he had changed positions so dramatically and thanking him for agreeing with the president which he did a striking number of times. >> bill: he did over and over. i said earlier that it was -- only mitt romney could connect molly, poland and libya together in the same sentence and say this proves our middle east policy is falling apart right? it was like -- but that was a general theme of his. senator, that the arab spring was wonderful under george bush and it has all gone to hell in a handbasket under president obama. where i think one could make the argument just the opposite is true. there are certainly some serious issues still in the middle east. but we're on a better track. >> to the point about our relationships with our allies in europe, in the middle east, in

africa, around the world. i was pleased that president obama really pushed back hard on this story line that governor romney keeps pushing that there was somehow an apology tour. that somehow -- >> bill: yes. >> in the early days of the obama administration, the president ran around the world and said i'm sorry for being american which is just not true. there's no historical basis for that. the other, i think strongest point that the president had was when romney trotted out again this idea that the number of ships that we have, the number of fighters that we have is the lowest since a particular date in 1917 or 1940. it is both factually inaccurate. the recent dip in the number of ships was actually at its lowest point under president bush but the president also showed clearly that the appropriate focus is on capabilities. you're not just counting how many ships we have. you're saying do we have the ships, the aircraft carriers, the nuclear-powered submarines

that are appropriate for our modern -- the demands of our modern situation for our projection of force in the world. i think he handled that defendantly and -- deftly by reminding governor romney we don't have as many horses or bayonets we may have had. it got the one real laugh out of the audience of the night but it also underscored a more important point which is whether it is his ill-informed statements about russia being our leading geopolitical foe or his shallow commentary on the number of planes we have, it is obama's -- it is president obama's strength and leadership and record as commander in chief that was on display last night and his insights into how to reshape our military in partnership with the joints chief to meet the real demands of the world and his record on spobbly ending the war in iraq, on taking the fight to al-qaeda, on having a real plan for

getting us out of afghanistan on standing up to iran and being a reliable and strong ally to israel, those were the things he covered thoroughly and well and responsibly and reminded folks who might still be undecided in this campaign that you're hiring a commander in chief here and there was only one on the stage last night. that was president obama. >> bill: i think overall that the president looked very comfortable. very comfortable. knew his facts knew his territory. he was on his home turf and mitt romney clearly wasn't. and even looked maybe a little nervous because of that. you mention -- we're talking with senator chris cooks from delaware on this tuesday edition of the "full court press." senator coons romney keeps trying to make the point that there was a big split between the obama administration and the state of israel and president obama has set out to create daylight between the two

countries. what are the facts there? >> as the president repeated last night and as i've heard directly from israeli leaders the security and military relationship between the united states and israel is at its strongest ever today. >> bill: ehud barak said that. no administration has been more supportive than the obama administration. >> correct. in the sharing of intelligence, in the delivery of concrete support for systems like iron dome which the president referred to last night a missile interception system that's protecting israeli households against the constant barrage of rockets that come over the borders from lebanon. he has been a real and reliable partner for israel and has effectively mobilized the world community to impose crippling sanctions on iran. romney could not come up with a different course of action he would take in standing up to iran and nuclear ambitions. and i think you know, this whole concept that somehow obama

president obama's responsible for the arab spring turning into turmoil across the region just fell flat. it did not seem credible as you pointed out earlier. he's trying to suggest this upwelling of freedom was a great thing when bush was president and it turned into a terrible thing. president obama i think did a great job of showing what's the path forward? what are the investments and actions and the riskes we need to take and how are we going to lead in this very difficult and uncertain period. >> bill: you know, the idea that all of the focus is on the fact that there were some protests at our embassy outside our embassy in cairo ignores the fact that mubarak is gone, the dictatorship is done. there is an elected new government in egypt. you know. of course, maybe a little rocky road for awhile but that's a major change and then libya yeah the tragedy at our consulate in benghazi but

gadhafi is gone, right. there is a new government in libya. and so the arab spring is working. >> i was glad the president reminded viewers last night that gadhafi had more american blood on his hands than any any dictator in the world. repeated incidents over decades. he had done horrible things to his own people and murderous things to americans innocent americans in incidents that it is clear he had ordered the terrorist attacks that took down airplanes and that killed americans in settings around the world. so i do think in iraq, in libya in egypt the president has shown real and strong leadership in what are very difficult countries that are unsettled and will be for a long time to come. standing on the side of democracy and continuing to lead from our values is what i'm confident this president will do in a second term. >> bill: and on iran again this is one area where romney

keeps saying we've got to do more. we've got to do more. but then admitting it looks like president obama has been doing the right thing with the toughest sanctions against any country and we're starting to see some response from iran. >> yes. i think one of the things the president was most successful at and a fair amount of credit goes to his whole foreign policy and national security team. our own delawarean vice president joe biden has been a capable and strong and engaged leader as has of course secretary of state hillary clinton. they've engaged the world community and our allies. they've managed to get russia and china to the table to support sanctions and to help with the implementation which was not easy to do. we do not agree with them on a wide range of issues and it was not -- accomplishment of this administration was move from chest thumping and cage rattling

of we're going to impose sanctions to actually imposing them. the president went through how crippling they've been for the iranians. i'm expecting we'll see some resolution to this before the iranians cry uncle and are willing to give up the nuclear enrichment capability. i'm hopeful that's where we're going to move. that's going to happen because our president is resolute in making it clear publicly and privately over and over. he's going to stand with israel. he's going to stand for the right of self-defense. he's not going to allow a nuclear capability to develop in iran. >> bill: as you said, senator there was only one commander in chief last night. on the stage and president obama showed that he fills those shoes very, very well. senator chris coons good friend. thank you for joining us. we look forward to seeing you back in the studio pretty soon. >> thank you bill. have a good day. >> bill: chris coons down in boca raton florida. we'll give you a chance to sound off at 1-866-55-press.

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we have a big, big hour and the i.q. will go way up. how are you ever going to solve the problem if you don't look at all of the pieces? >>tv and radio talk show host stephanie miller rounds out current's morning news block. >>you're welcome current tv audience for the visual candy. >>sharp tongue, quick whit and above all, politically direct. >>you just think there is no low they won't go to.

oh, no. if al gore's watching today... >> announcer: heard around the country and seen on current tv this is the "bill press show." >> bill: 12 minutes to go before the top of the hour. vice president -- i mean the foreign policy debate last night. third presidential debate. more calls and more comments about that but first here's a news story from a site called threatpost.com that caught my

attention. a security breach out of florida college appears to involve almost 300,000 students, faculty and employees. stolen records include names birth dates and social security numbers. here we go again. a case of identity theft in the making. reminds you how important it is to protect yourself against identity theft. i've done that by signing up for lifelock ultimate. encourage you to do the same. most comprehensive i.d. theft protection ever made. it even monitors your bank accounts for takeover fraud. but lifelock can't protect you if you're not a member. call now and mention press 60 for 60 risk-free days for lifelock ultimate protection. give them a call within another 60 days and cancel. they'll give you a full refund. see life-lock.com for details. give them a call at 800-356-5967 for lifelock ultimate.

1-800-356-5967. one of the other amuse parts of the debate as several people pointed out that mitt romney, a couple of times said about talking about iran, one of the problems is that -- talking about syria. that one of the problems is that iran is syria's biggest sponsor because syria provides iran access to the sea. he said that twice. i'm thinking you know, is that true? is that true? that's not the way i remember it. several people pointed out -- i just brought the map up again there. is only only one problem with that statement. between iran and syria are iraq and turkey. >> whoops! >> bill: parts of both countries. so whoops. big leapfrog and iran has plenty of coastline. >> they do. >> bill: of its own. he was factually wrong.

>> interesting story. we've talked over the past couple of days about voter disenfranchisement and voter i.d. and making sure -- >> bill: attempts to oppress the vote. >> there is a story that's been floating around out there but might have gotten a lot more interesting. man by the name of collin small from pennsylvania. he was working for a company called pinpoint that registers people to vote. that company was hired by the virginia republican party to get people registered to vote. well it turns out this gentleman, collin small registered people to vote, took the voter registration forms and threw them in the dumpster. >> bill: bet they were all democrats. >> they probably were. he was busted. he was caught. they found out he did this. he has been charged with 13 counts of destruction of voter registration applications, disclosure of voter registration information and obstruction of justice. now, this just got a lot more interesting. i tweeted out the story if you're following this at bpshow.

you can read it is on salon. this company has also been hired by the republican national committee. pinpoint. this company ha he worked for. so they didn't a little bit deeper. >> bill: they complain about acorn. here's lynn on last night's debate. lynn from carey north carolina. hi lynn. >> caller: hi, bill. how you doing? >> bill: i'm good. >> caller: good to be on the show. my question is not so much about last night's debate but about debates in general. i feel that the debate has become a side show. i'm wondering if you felt it is more or less outlived their usefulness. i would almost rather see an in-depth interview with a good journalist where the journalist could go down the list and say what are your views about the economy, global warming gay rights and give us a whole picture rather than -- because what drives me crazy is romney has been saying one thing throughout his campaign. before the first debate, he

completely switches gears. >> bill: let me tell you lynn -- thank you, first of all for your call. i just wrote a column about that very very issue. if you go to our web site at billpressshow.com, you'll see in the column. maybe we ought to talk about the show tomorrow and really get into it. my column is entitled after the debate the debate over the debates. making that very point. i do think these debates in their present form, has outlived their usefulness and it is time to take a look at them and say are these really serving any purpose the way they are not structured and by the way why can't we hear from the third party candidates? why wasn't a ron paul or gary johnson on stage last night? so that's a good conversation to have. can't have it today because we're out of time. just time for my parting shot coming up. >> announcer: this is the "bill press show."

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[ ♪ theme ♪ ] >> >> announcer: the parting shot with bill press. this is the "bill press show." >> bill: on this tuesday october 23rd, my parting shot for today. two totally different men took the stage last night at lynn university. one of them, president of the united states. the other wants to be president. one of them very comfortable with foreign policy. the other didn't know what the hell he was talking about. hands down, score debate number three for barack obama. he was on his home turf. debating foreign policy with mitt romney. obama showed knowledge experience and strength. romney just looked confused.

he stumbled, he stuttered. he rattled off the names of every country he could think of as if proving he had mem rised his briefing book and on several issues on afghanistan syria and iran, mitt ended his bluster by agreeing with obama. no wonder he kept trying to shift the subject back to the domestic economy because he still doesn't make any sense but at least he's more comfortable talking about those issues. so the presidential debates are over and all in all i think they showed the american people that mitt romney is not fit or ready to become president of the united states. my parting shot for today. tomorrow big show lined up already. eliot spitzer host "viewpoint" will be here. jennifer duffy from cook political report on the senate races. have a good one. see you back here tomorrow.