♪ >> um get your chance in a moment. i'm still speaking. you get the first question so i let the last question. >> he doesn't have a one point plan. he has a fife point plan. >> women's groups brought us binders of women. have you looked at your pension? >> it's not as big as yours. >> let me give you some advice. isle you'll get your chance in a moment. i'm still speaking. to tell our kids before they have babies they out aut to think getting married to someone. >> when he said behind closed doors that 47% of the country considered himself victims. think about who he was talking about. >> it took the president 14 days before he called the attack in benghazi a terror. >> use the -- >> he did call it -- >> can you say that a little louder, candy? ♪ yeah yeah yeah

>> just 20 days until the election. and just 18 hours since the president gave mitt romney binders and all the mother of all spankings. not once during tuesday's presidential debate did the president let up. when the republican nominee was down, the president put his rhetorical heel on mr. romney's throat, to make sure he stayed down. a tactic he took with him on the campaign trail today. >> i've got to tell you, we don't have to collect a bunch of binders to find qualified, talented, driven young women, ready to learn and teach in these fields right now. >> yes, binders full of women. mr. romney has delivered world class stupidity during this campaign but few have stirred the passion on his answer on how he would bridge the pay gap between men and women.

>> we took a concerted effort to go out and find women who had backgrounds that could be qualified to become members of our cabinet. i went to a number of women's groups and said, can you help us find folks? they brought us whole binders full of women. >> amazing. mitt's version of right to choose is to give women the option of being a two or thre three-hole punch. but this is romnmitt romney, remember? it's not just his foolish asides you have to keep up with, it's his loose interpretation of the word "fact" which unfortunately for him they were checked live and on air. >> i want to make sure we get that for the record because it took the president 14 days before he called the attack in benghazi an act of terror. >> get the transcript. >> he did, in fact, sir. so, let me call it an act of terror -- >> can you say that a little louder, candy? >> but tuesday's debate wasn't just about mr. romney shooting himself in the foot that was frequently in his mouth, it was the president's performance that stole the show.

and not just his final remarks, where he quoted romney's repulsive reference to the 47%, lacking personal responsibility. but also a series of blows that left romney reeling. >> when i took office, the price of gasoline was1. 0, $1.86. why is that? because the economy was on the verge of collapse. it's conceivable governor romney could bring down gas prices because with his policy we might be back in that same mess. >> let's get right to our panel now. from washington, dana milbank, political columnist for "the washington post." david corn, who's an msnbc political analyst. and the man who broke the 47% story in mother jones' magazine. there's his recent e-book. here in new york with me, jonathan alder, also an msnbc political analyst and a man i spend more time with than my wife. david, if i may start with you, david, humiliated for lying about the president's reaction to libya. condescending about cramming women into a binder.

and without a single repost after the president described the romney/ryan budget as an $8 trillion sinkhole, i mean, a drunk snooki was nimbler on her foot than he was last night. >> i'm still thinking about all that time you spend with jonathan. there's a lot of things we talked about last night but the one thing that came to me is how did mitt romney start his career? a consultant, walking into the offices of a ceo and saying, i know more about the company than you do with power point presentations, charts and graphs. then moved to bain capital, met a lot of rich people saying here is why you should give me millions and millions of dollars. he was masterful and did quite well by it. you can see the talents and skill set he developed at the first debate. why? because he went unchallenged. the president was sleep walking and he had the whole boardroom to himself.

but once he was challenged last night again and again, on his policies, on his ideas, on his past positions, on his days at bain, he lost his footing. he was unsure. he didn't know who to turn to. he didn't know whether to look at candy, at the president, the person asking a question. he was not this confident fellow we saw a week and a half ago. he just doesn't hold up well when challenged under pressure. he became testy and lost all those alpha dog staredowns that happened last night. and i think we saw mitt romney in a real pressure cooker situation, not being able to meet the grade. >> right. john, romney gave us his binders chokful of women. but when he was ceo of bain, he failed to elevate a single woman to partner. and today we discovered four out of 49 of the firm's managing directors in the buyout area are women. yet somehow we're supposed to believe that because he requested binders as a governor, he's the answer to equality for

women. >> this was an absolutely critical part of the debate, martin. obama was slipping among women. if that gender gap were to close too much, obama would lose the election. so, this was extraordinarily pivotal. you knew that the president was going to go out there and talk about some women's issues. what we didn't know is he would have the good for ttune to havet teed up by an opponent and played over and over again. certainly when i watched the debate, i didn't expect the line about binders to be a dominating coverage in the days to come. >> but your wife did. >> but my wife noticed it. and i think an awful lot of other women noticed it. what's interesting about these debates is that's just a slip of the tongue. the issue that was being discussed, there are differences on the lily ledbetter act --

>> that stretches differences. >> -- to not do anything, to close pay gaps between men and women. that's the real issue. what happens in these debates, it's often the more symbolic issue, the cosmetic issue that takes center stage. but that then symbolizes big differences on fundamental issues that are truly important. >> dana, to that point, and we ought to give paul ryan credit because he voted against the lily ledbetter act but they say today what mitt meant to say, which is a common refrain for this campaign, but mitt meant to say that he went out of his way to hire women. that's false because women's groups actually came to him and his opponent, did they not? >> right. and i think that whenever you are trying to do monday-morning quarterbacking after the debate and saying what the candidate meant to say is that the

candidate is in a bit of a bind if not a binder. >> you've been rehearsing that, david. >> i've been saving that for you, martin. all day long it was killing me. >> fabulous. don't try comedy, dana. keep going. >> but the whole answer to the question, when he got himself into trouble, he wasn't even answering the question directly. it was about pay inequality. he went to, look, i've hired women which in itself turned out not to be terribly true in the first place. now, the question is clearly one that would, as jonathan said, was teed up for obama. in fact, a few questions seemed to work out to the president's advantage that way, to talk about the dream act in immigration, to talk about women. it allowed him to hit the various parts of his constituency that he wanted to reach during that debate. had this debate occurred in the first debate, i think we could be on the beach and the election would be basically over. it's not as significant that it

happened at -- in the second debate but it does change the narrative back. at the very least, it should end the bleeding that's been occurring and is, again, rallying as joe biden did. >> dade, if i might put this to you, the president had a great line on mitt romney's five-point jobs plan. take a listen to? >> governor romney says he has a five-point plan. he has a one-point plan. and that plan is to make sure that folks at the top play by a different set of rules. >> david, he does have a one-point plan but he also has an $8 trillion sinkhole plan, doesn't he? >> yeah. the sketchy plan that the president described. you know, before the first debate, there was this great story that was leaked that mitt romney was rehearsing zingers, getting ready to zing the president. we didn't see those. we saw a gooth good performance but not a lot of zingers.

it seems the president -- jonathan can attest to this, too -- he's a guy with a real sharp wit, a strong sense of sarcasm. he's disciplined enough to hold it and keep it back most of the time. but whether he practiced those zingers first or not, you know, they were really good last night. he had the best moments when he could sort of use emotion, use either derision or just outrage, as he did during the libyan exchange. and really make himself seem, i think, a strong, passionate fellow who could think well on his feet and really could -- you know, was -- it was like watching a good boxer change his style throughout the fight, depending on what was necessary. it really looked like romney didn't see this coming and thought he was going to be up against a sleep walker again. so, that wasn't how it played out. >> i was going to say, the sports metaphor that i come to is the one that the president himself uses, basketball. you know, it's like a guy who has a lead in the third quarter,

the star of the team, and he benches himself. he basically sits out the third quarter and suddenly the lead's evaporated. he shows up in the fourth quarter and starts hitting jumpers. >> are you saying the president did that deliberately in the first debate to make this more entertaining? >> i wouldn't say deliberately but we need to explore, and i think i will in my next book, what is going on in some subconscious level -- >> all right, enough, enough of the advertising. dana, we have a debate on -- next monday, xh is focused on foreign policy. something that mr. ryan and mr. romney, notwithstanding his experience running the olympics, have limitations on. so, i'm assuming the president must be licking his lips now. >> well, i mean, it does give romney some chance to go back and read the transcript, so he'll get the libya answer right, presumably. but i think a lot of republicans are saying, why did they agree to have this foreign policy debate as the final debate? it's an area that's always going

to advantage the incumbent president. and this year is no different. all he has to do is, once again, say, i killed osama bin laden. at the very least -- at the very most romney can do is try to bring that issue to a sort of tie. the fundamentals of the debates have occurred already. i think this will be more of a side show next week. >> right. quickly? >> you never know what's going to happen in a debate. what romney will do is say the economy is our strongest foreign policy and try to return to the economy. that gives obama one more chance to say, which he didn't do in this debate, hey, you were 47th out of 50th in job creation. we really can't trust turning this over to you. >> mitt romney and that number 47, it's such a problem. jonathan alter, dana milbank and david corn, thank you. romney fumbles on the subject of libya and he needs a life line. candy, candy! please stay with us. >> candy -- candy, candy, candy.

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it should come as no surprise that the first major on-air fact check in these debates found mitt romney's pants to be on fire because for the second time in as many months, romney missed his 3 a.m. call on libya. >> i want to make sure we get that for the record because it took the president 14 days before he called the attack in benghazi an act of terror. >> get the transcript. >> he did, in fact, sir. so, let me call it an act of terror -- >> can you say that a little louder, candy? >> conservatives in between

hosing down their nominee have falsely accused the moderator of shedder her impatrtiality to sae the president but that's not true because the president smacked the line of libya right out of mitt romney's mouth. >> the suggestion that anybody in my team, or the secretary of state, our u.n. ambassador, anybody on my team would play politics or mislead when we've lost four of our own, governor, is offensive. that's whatnot we do. that's not what i do as president. that's not what i do as commander in chief. >> joining us from washington is julian epstein and matt miller, washington post columnist and also an msnbc contributor. thank you to both of you for being here. julian, this repulsive attempt to exploit the tragedy in libya occurred in front of our very eyes. we don't need six bogus studies. we saw it.

and while the president stood up for the very best values in public service, defending the integrity of those who lost their lives and as secretary of state, one has to say that mitt romney was exposed as lying on the facts and exploiting the dead. >> i think that's correct. i think the fact that the romney campaign is grasping to try to politicize this campaign tells you a lot where the romney campaign thinks they are in this election which is, as we all know, not in a good place particularly when it comes to ohio. look, the fact of the matter is this. the facts on the ground in the days after the attack on the embassy in libya, all the eyewitnesss were saying they thought the video was the major factor that sparked the protests and attacks. obama was very careful at the time to say the video may have been a factor but it may have provided an opening for terrorists or al qaeda loosely

affiliated elements to exploit it. it wasn't just next day in the rose garden. it was for weeks after it he was very consistent on it. now the news reporting, new york times and elsewhere, show both things were true. the video was having -- was in some ways insti indicating what was occurring but that the terrorist elements that were there were looking to exploit it. i think this fits into the narrative. consistently the romney campaign is making these attacks that end up being very hollow, that don't withstand scrutiny. >> yes. here is the line from the president from his initial briefing in the rose garden. take a listen. >> the world must stand together to unequivocally reject these attacks. no attacks will shake this great nation, alter that character or eclipse the light of the values we stand for. >> matt, no acts of terror. i'll repeat it. no acts of terror.

will ever shake the resolve of this great nation. what was mitt romney trying to achieve by that? >> one of the things that's so wonderful about this moment, it undercuts mitt romney's image as the all-knowing ceo. one thing ceos can be expected to assure is good staff work. and staff works mean in this case, not going to the mat the way he did, obviously, expecting that he had obama right where he wanted him because that phrase wouldn't have been said for two weeks. obama knew exactly what was happening when he said, you know, check the transcript, you know, go ahead. and it really emerged with that much egg on your face when one of the things you can competently organize those around you to execute on a plan, whether it's from the economy or even to prepare for a debate lake this and be effective really undercuts one of his central claims for, you know, for why he's the guy. >> right. julian, if anyone owned up to

major politicizing during a trangdy we give you mitt romney during that 47% videotape. >> this is really -- by the way, if something of that nature presents itself, i will work to find a way to take advantage of the opportunity. >> there you have it, julian. given that two parents of the deceased have plead the for their sons' deaths not be used as political fodder, isn't it time mitt romney gave us details about his taxes instead of exploiting this tragedy? >> the important point is romney said he was looking for an opportunity to exploit a national security crisis for partisan purposes. if you think back about the republican party we once knew, under george herbert walker bush, never in a million years would you ever think the republicans would be out there trying to exploit a national

security crisis for their own partisan purposes for a way that could actually hurt national security. look, this is going to be a useful opportunity. the republicans want to go in this area. as matt said, the facts will not bare them out. but it gives obama an opportunity to say, you know what, we'll find these guys and bring them to justice, one. secondly -- and obama has a little bit of contradict on that, his record on osama bin laden. >> just a bit. >> it's extraordinary to me the republican party can be looking to talk about intelligence failure when there doesn't seem to be any major intelligence failure. but the republican party would be talking about intelligence failures when on their watch the biggest intelligence failure in the history of this country occurred on 9/11/2001. >> if you put aside how unseemly it is to exploit the tragedy as you pointed out, martin, even as a pure matter of raw politics, i don't think anything about

benghazi will ever trump osama bin laden having been vankuished by obama. they won't trump the national security credentials a reputati he has in the eyes of the public. i always thought the one foreign area romney has a point to gain traction is china, where he tried to outflank obama but they have him boxed out because of his investments. it would have been a vulnerability had he not had that profile. >> thank you both. next, a terror plot foiled in lower manhattan. we'll have the latest on this breaking news. stay with us. 4g lte is the fastest. so, which superfast 4g lte service would you choose,

based on this chart ? don't rush into it, i'm not looking for the fastest answer. obviously verizon. okay, i have a different chart. going that way, does that make a difference ? look at verizon. it's so much more than the other ones. so what if we just changed the format altogether ? isn't that the exact same thing ? it's pretty clear. still sticking with verizon. verizon. more 4g lte coverage than all other networks combined.

authority say arrested a man they say was planning a terror attack on the federal reserve building. they say the 21-year-old was arrested in lower manhattan

after he attempted to use a cell phone to detonate what he believed was a 1,000-pound bomb inside a van at financial district landmark. now, he faces charges that include attempting to provide material support to al qaeda. the bust followed a joint sting operation by the fbi and nypd. officials stress that the public was never at risk. thank heavens for that. stay with us. the day's "top lines." i get th. [ voice of dennis ] ...safe driving bonus check? every six months without an accident, allstate sends a check. ok. [ voice of dennis ] silence. are you in good hands?

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oh, hey alex. just picking up some, brochures, posters copies of my acceptance speech. great! it's always good to have a backup plan, in case i get hit by a meteor. wow, your hair looks great. didn't realize they did photoshop here. hey, good call on those mugs. can't let 'em see what you're drinking. you know, i'm glad we're both running a nice, clean race. no need to get nasty. here's your "honk if you had an affair with taylor" yard sign. looks good. [ male announcer ] fedex office. now save 50% on banners. a boxy match, a hockey fight, a good old fashioned brouhaha. here are today's top lines. >> i have seen every presidential debate. this was immeasurably the best. >> mitt romney doesn't have a five-point plan. he has a one point plan. folks at the top play by a different set of rules. >> you cut permits on federal lands and waters in half. >> not true, governor romney.

>> how much did you cut them by? >> do you want me to answer. >> >> i'm still speaking. you get the first question so i get the last number. $20,000 deduction. >> which deductions, which loopholes are you going to close? he can't tell you. he wouldn't have taken such a sketchy deal. neither should you. >> somehow the numbers don't add up. >> of course they add up. i was someone who ran businesses for 25 year. gosh, can't we find some women? brought us whole binders full of women. >> governor romney's was asked about the lily ledbetter bill. >> you're the last person getting tough on china. >> any investments over the last eight years have been managed by a blind trust. >> have you looked in the pension? >> it's not as big as yours. i stood in the rose garden and said this was an act of terror. the suggestion that anybody in my team would play politics or mislead is offensive. >> it was an act of terror.

>> please proceed, governor. >> he did, in fact, sir, so let me call it an act -- >> when he said 47% of the country considered themselves victims, think about who he was talking about. >> it was almost like an ice hockey game. >> they were kind of circling each other like, okay, man. >> i'm not going to whine about the rules or moderator. >> the moderator actually becomes the ref. she made a gigantic mistake. >> you don't offer specifics. why? >> this weekend atlas scrub. >> you're a numbers guy. >> no, we're saying -- right. >> you know how hard it is so make volunteering at a homeless shelter look like a negative thing? >> how's that for an answer? >> it's a terrible answer. >> this was immeasurably the best. >> let's get right to our fanl. we're joined by the author goldie taylor and kr yichltysta. i have to start by saying, i love you, binders. so, he's -- mr. romney's comment about binders has produced

thousands of -- there's a website called thousandsofbinders.com and can you click on that and see how mitt romney appointed 19 judges while governor in massachusetts. two of them were women. maybe he had binders full of women but he didn't want them in his courts. >> he considered them but they didn't get the job. the thing that's amazing is even the anecdote about the binders full of women, isn't not even true. he didn't go out and say, i need more women. there was a women's group called mass gap, massachusetts gap, who put together a list of highly qualified women who were going to push whoever was elected governor to a point where women -- whether it was romney or his opponent. so, after he won the election, they gave it to him. it's not like he went out looking for them. i can't understand. you can't even come up with one true anecdote about being truly pro-woman and seeking out women

and valuing women in a professional capacity? it's unbelievable. >> the answer is no. mr. romney's choice of phrasing was strange, and stranger yet is paul ryan's explanation of what he meant. >> all he meant is that he went out of his way to try to recruit qualified women to serve in his administration when he was governor. that's really what he was saying. >> so, there you go, goldie. that clears it all up. let's not dwell on the fact that mr. romney had no women partners when he was ceo of bain capital in the '80s and '90s or that today only 4 out of 49 of the firm's managing directors in the buyout area are women. i guess they -- do they have binders at bain capital? i don't know. >> well, i imagine they do but i'm not sure they're filled with women. it's amazing to me that mitt romney would say that he has some kiventd propensity to give equality to women. when you look over his business

ka reeshgs you look at what he did at at bain, the olympics, the boards he served on, from marriott corporation, in the massachusetts governor's office. you know, precious few women -- you know, he didn't have enough women in all of those years to fill a snap folder, let alone a binder. six months after romney mr. was elected governor in massachusetts, this is really telling, he expanded all of that state's policies on affirmative action. those rules that allowed women, minorities, people living with disabilities, protections, equal protections as being state employees. he did it proverbially in the dead of the night. there was no press conference. no press release. he snuck this in. when civil rights groups found out about it and took him to task, he appoints a weak-kneed commission that comes back with lackluster recommendations that still don't offer -- put in place those protections again. it took governor duval patrick

to reinstate those practices when he was elected governor. mitt romney has a lot to explain about affirmative action, a lot to explain about his sxhimecomm to women. >> thinking about the issue of single parents, and how romney explained that. he linked his explanation or response to a question about firearms to the issue of single parenting. take a listen to this. >> we need moms and dads helping raise kids. wherever possible, the benefit of having two parents in the home -- that's not always possible. a lot of great single moms, single dads, but, gosh, to tell our kids that before they have babies they out to think about getting married to someone, that's a great idea. >> so, krystal, the answer to violent crime is not legislation or laws to prevent these super large weapons from falling into the wrong people's hands but it's fewer single-parent families. >> it was a very strange connection to make. >> well, he made it.

>> he made it. i would also say it's true that a lot of times single mothers get trapped into a cycle of poverty. that part is true. but what is governor romney proposing? he's certainly not proposing allowing those women to take control of their lives and have family planning services. he's certainly not advocating for any safety net to help support them while making ends meet for their family. i mean, the whole thing is just a strange situation where he's trying to cover for the fact he used to support an assault weapons ban when he was in massachusetts. now because of where his party is and where he thinks he should be politically, he can't say that anymore. >> she's right about that. i've been a single parent almost all of my adult life. we have five kids. you know, things like the earned income credit, things like the child care credit, things like, you know, the tuition credit you see -- you know, we're able to get on our tax returns. those were the things that helped me out of poverty. i will tell you this, the number one predictor for the presence of illegal guns, the number one

predictor for the presence of violence in communities, it is persistent poverty. it is not whether or not one or two parents or at home or a traditional marriage or nontraditional. it is poverty. when you look at mitt romney's policies -- >> or paul ryan's budget. >> or paul ryan's budgets. when you want to kick 200,000 kid off the free lunch program, you want to shut down things like -- >> excellent. >> -- those are the things that are pushing gun violence in this country. so, if you want to answer this thing about single parents, let's answer the question of poverty and give them the help they need to, you know, on a hand up rather than a handout. >> well done, paul ryan and mitt romney. thank you so much. next, dot math, mitt. please, dot math. you have an mba, for pete's sake. stay with us. >> you heard the debate last night when governor romney is asked a direct question about equal pay. he started talking about binders.

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♪ [ whispers ] real bacon... creamy cheese... 100 calories... [ chef ] ma'am [ male announcer ] progresso. you gotta taste this soup. in the magic all world of mitt romney, everyone guess a 20% tax cut, the deficit goes down and jobs fall like mana from heaven. in addition, mr. mitt romney increasing military spending by $2 trillion and his running mate, paul ryan, run ace marathon in less time than it takes to wash up three sauce pans in an empty soup kitchen. but on tuesday night the president decided to burst the bubble. >> if somebody came to you, governor, with a plan that said, here, i want to spend $7 or $8 trillion, and we're going to pay for it but we can't tell you until maybe after the election how we're going to do it, you wouldn't have taken such a sketchy deal. and neither should you, the

american people. >>. >> jarod bernstein is an msnbc economic contributor. good afternoon. the president chose the term sketchy. others have called romney's economic plan a crap burger, heavy on fat with no meat. is there any evidence, please tell us, to suggest that cutting the taxes of the wealthy leads de facto to the creation of millions of jobs. >> no there is lots of evidence to the contrary. basically, think of it this way. i can make this pretty simple. if cutting taxes on rich people supply side trickle down economics actually worked, we'd know it by now. because that was the strategy of the the tax cuts under george w. bush. ones that we're still struggling with in terms of their sunset. the job creation over those

years was the lowest on record for any business cycle expansion going back to the 1940s. now, last night there was an interesting interchange where governor romney tried to differentiate himself from president obama's economic record but i think if you were listening at all carefully, they're just wasn't much there. this is trickle down supply side stuff. when it comes to jobs and growth, it's a terrible record. >> thank you very much for explaining that. let's listen to mr. romney's most detailed explanation yet of how his plans would work in practice. take a listen. >> in terms of bringing down deductions one way would be to say, everybody gets -- i'll pick a number, $25,000 of deductions in credits. and you can decide which ones to use. home mortgage interest deduction, charity, child tax credit, et cetera, you can use those to fill that bucket of deductions. >> if you will, this sounds absolutely fantastic. everyone get to fill the bucket.

you drop your mortgage deduction, i drop my charitable contributions deduction, someone else drops their health care deduction. i mean, that's going to simplify the tax code, that one, isn't it? >> this is absolutely driving me nuts f i may be so frank. it's not that -- the lurching going on here around what is purported to be a serious proposal is absolutely absurd. you can't in the midst of a campaign where you're trying to convince america that a $5 trillion tax cut on top of all that other stuff the president was talking about is in our best interest, and when it comes to paying for it in a very tough budgetary environment, lurch around like this 37 one week the math doesn't add up but i have six studies, most of which are -- >> blogs. >> then say -- well, last week it was we're going to cap deductions at 17,000, then 25,000. if you cap deductions like that, you're digging into the middle class. >> no doubt about it.

jarod bernstein, thank you. next, the president bomb storms the battleground states with the wind at his back. first, amanda drury with the cnbc market wrap. >> receipts take a look at how stocks stand going into tomorrow's session. marginal gains across the board with the dow marginally higher with a couple of points. same for the s&p and nasdaq. that's it from cnbc, first in business worldwide. [ male announcer ] this is joe woods' first day of work. and his new boss told him two things -- cook what you love, and save your money. joe doesn't know it yet, but he'll work his way up from busser to waiter to chef before opening a restaurant specializing in fish and game from the great northwest. he'll start investing early, he'll find some good people to help guide him, and he'll set money aside from his first day of work to his last, which isn't rocket science. it's just common sense. from td ameritrade.

what i've learned in getting bipartisan legislation moving is that you don't go to congress and say, here's all of our details, take it or leave it. you say, this is my framework. let's lower tax rates 20% across the board, close loopholes for high income people, make sure the middle income tax pairs are protected. >> but you know the math -- >> you're going to leave it up

to congress? where's the leadership. >> no, we're saying -- >> you're a numbers dwi. >> it wouldn't be too surprising if mitt romney within minutes of the debate ending made an emergency call to his running mate to clear up the mess he left behind on stage. in between a p90x session focused on making his dell trto he made three appearances on morning television to spin mitt romney's defeat into an imaginary victory. joining us -- why are you laughing, sir? >> oh, just -- you're funny. this whole situation is funny. >> i don't think is funny, brad, because mr. ryan clearly wanted to give republicans a reason not to drown themselves in their cornflakes so here's what he actually said. listen to this. >> you're asking decided voters to close the deal four here. don't those voters have a right to know exactly what they're getting?

>> they have a right to know our bottom lines. there are three bottom lines. we're not going to raise the deficit. we're not going to raise taxes on middle class taxpayers. we're not going to reduce the share of the taxes borne by high income tax individuals. >> they have a right to know our bottom lines, but don't we have a right to know which deductions we're going to lose if they these win the white house? don't we have a right to know how reducing revenues by $7 trillion magically converts into a balanced budget? don't we have a right to know these things? >> well, you absolutely have a right to know. i mean, i guess we can all appreciate paul ryan is telling us what we're allowed to know. i mean, come on. i think paul ryan must wake up some mornings -- he's a good soldier but he must wake up wishing he hadn't been next to the phone when mitt romney made the call to ask him to be his vice presidential running mate because he's exhausted any credibility he's ever had. he's a number guy that wouldn't tell you the number. he has a tax plan but he won't

tell you how it affects your taxes. pick your poison. it's a sketchy deal, a bonus bargain, a pig in a poke, a crap burger with cheese. but definitely what it is a raw deal for the middle class. >> what did you think of ryan today calling on those six studies, three of which are dodgy blogs. he says they're now studies. if that's the case, i'm waiting for harvard to give me a ph.d. for my introduction to this segment. >> well, that's exactly right. look, this point has been made over and over again and fact-checked to death. there aren't six studies that support their plan. there are virtually none. some of these they point out -- the things they put in that category is a blog post. next thing you know, they'll be counting tweets. i mean, it's embarrassing, martin. >> in the mythical world of mitt romney, he loves to peddle this line on how he'll work on a bipartisan basis with democrats.

can you explain to me how in 2011 ryan's budget received not a single democratic vote and four republicans defected and in march of this year, not a single democrat voted for his budget and ten republicans defect the. that's an impressive bipartisan record, isn't it? >> right, if you're talking about partisanship, it seems to be on the side against his budget, when you have republicans and democrats voting against his budget. look, this is one of the most rigidly partisan tickets in american history. mitt romney has run as an extreme or severe conservative. paul ryan is one of the most rigidly partisan members of congress. let's not forget, paul ryan told john boehner, don't cut a deal with the president to deal with our debt and deficit, don't cut a grand bargain because it might help the president politically. there's not a bipartisan bone in paul ryan's body. >> very impressive bones.

>> they sure are. >> we'll be right back. my friend told me about a great new way to get deals.

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pass it on. [ male announcer ] introducing bankamerideals, free for online banking customers. sign in to your online banking to choose your deals today. who doesn't like a good deal? frsh on off a decisive performance tuesday night, a reinvig rated president was back in iowa before heading to ohio this evening. already attacking mitt romney's binder full of women. mike viqueira joins us. on the trail the president seemed fired up. what are you hearing out of the white house about the overall feelings concerning his performance in the debate? >> i think they're quite satisfying. we heard a briefing from air force one that's piped back to the white house. you could sell tel from what they said and the subliminal themes, the tones, even from 35,000 feet, somewhere over the midwest, martin, the white house is very happy. the people you talk to are happy

the ship was righted. in particular after the first debate. when it comes to themes and issues of concern to women, you can expect the president to hit hard. you mentioned binders full of women, that quote from mitt romney that's gotten so much attention. no mistake there. the president had many women in the background, a preponderance of women, he was wearing the pink bracelet in observation of breast cancer awareness month, some legislation that the president himself signed. everything from planned parenthood, this white house acutely aware of the importance of women in this election. the president has the women's vote in many bralgts ground states. still enjoys a wide double digit marg margin. he won with the women's vote in 2008. 10 million more women voted in 2008 than men and both of these campaigns are cutely aware of that. >> now, we've got this final debate between the president and mr. romney on monday. the focus is foreign policy.

i guess once again, this helps the president in terms of both experienced and expertise in this specific area. >> reporter: i think the conventional wisdom is a sitting president, with the presidential daily briefings, classified briefings that president obama and every president gets every morning, sort of the on the job training, the sticky problems the president deals with from the middle east on outward give the president an advantage on substance, on knowledge of the issues. on the other hand, because the president has a record over the past four years and you can expect mitt romney to hit him on things like the arab spring, egypt, the aset eascend ents of muslim brotherhood, so democrats should rein in their confidence. lower their expectations. worked last time. >> indeed. very briefly, if you can, in terms of the campaign here on in, the president on the road basically every