give me jim leher over that nonsense any day. coming up.f the people who declared a winner after watching last night's debate i'm going to ask you to reconsider after tonight's rewrite. and paul ryan will have the time he needs to explain his medicine careplan. and mitt romney says he is going to pay for his tax cuts for the wealthy by cutting 1, 100th of 1% of the federal budget. that is right. mitt romney wants to fire big bird. capella university understands businesses are trying to come back from rough economic times. employees are being forced to do more with less. and the need for capable leaders is greater than ever. when you see these problems do you take a step back, or do you want to dive right in? with a degree in business from capella university, you'll have the knowledge to go further in your career than you ever thought possible. let's get started at capella.edu >>> john mccain has been dead wrong on the fundamental issues relating to the conduct of the war. barack obama has been right. they are the facts. >> in the spotlight

give me jim leher over that nonsense any day. coming up.re one of the people who declared a winner after watching last night's debate i'm going to ask you to reconsider after tonight's rewrite. and paul ryan will have the time he needs to explain his medicine careplan. and mitt romney says he is going to pay for his tax cuts for the wealthy by cutting 1, 100th of 1% of the federal budget. that is right. mitt romney wants to fire big bird. [ female announcer ] think a thick cream is the only way to firm skin? challenge the need for such heavy measures with olay. regenerist micro-sculpting serum for firmer skin in 5 days. pretty heavy lifting for such a lightweight. [ female announcer ] olay regenerist. >>> john mccain has been dead wrong on the fundamental issues relating to the conduct of the war. barack obama has been right. they are the facts. >> in the spotlight tonight the next debate. at this exact moment one week from now vice president joe biden and paul ryan will be hugging their families on a stage where they will have compeco comp

with an estimated 60 million americans watching on tv, cable and the web, moderator jim leherer asked can you put more people to work? >> the answer is, yes, we can help. >> reporter: romney would cut taxes and regulations on small business. >> my priority is jobs, and so what i do is i bring down the tax rates. >> governor romney's proposal that he's been promoting for 18 months calls for a $5 trillion tax cut. >> reporter: which the president claimed would help the rich at others' expense. >> the average middle class family with young children would pay $2,000 more. >> everything he said about my tax plan is not accurate. >> it is not possible to come up with enough tax cuts to avoid either raising the deficit or burdening the middle class. it's math. it's arithmetic. >> reporter: on medicare and social security one agreement. >> neither the president nor i are proposing any changes for any current retirees or near retirees. >> reporter: in ten years romney wants a private medicare option. >> aarp has said that your plan would weaken medicare substantially. >> reporter: romney fired

he can't come off out of touch. >> do you think the moderator, jim leher comes up?i think mitt romney would make a mistake if he brought it up. >>> let's get to josh elliott and the rest of the morning headlines. >> we're going to get to the desperate scene in northwest minnesota. half of a town forced to flee as wildfires threatened homes there. heavy winds and drought conditions there. flames spread across 3 miles in 20 minutes. workers had to scramble to empty a nursing home and a school. but crews say the fire is mostly under control. >>> we're learning more about the killing of a u.s. border patrol agent along the mexico/arizona border on tuesday. nicholas ivie, a husband and father of two children. cecilia vega is there along the border. good morning, cecilia. >> reporter: josh, good morning. this is one of the famous drug trafficking corridors. for that reason, investigators suspect what happened to agent ivie could be connected to narco trafficking. just three miles from the u.s./mexico border remains a crime scene. the land so rugged, so steep, helicopters

. >> reporter: the debate will take place inside maggens arena, moderated by jim leher. after mitt romney is trailing in the polls, many expect him to come out swinging. >> i think he needs to fight a little bit. obviously, he's not the kind who will play dirty, but i think step it up a little. >> i think you're going to see both sides with as much fire as they possibly have, you know. you're going to see both sides come in with their a game. >> reporter: some debates have more impact than others, but with the polls at close, much may be at stake tonight. >> depending on how each side performs, i think you could see a sway in one direction or the other. >> that was ken pritchard reporting from denver. plenty of debate parties are going on around the bay area and coming up at 5:30, we will go live to both a democrat and a republican watch party. we'll also find out what voters both want and need to hear from their candidate. >>> a federal judge declared a mistrial in the case of a former crime lab technician. deborah madden was charged with obtaining cocaine by fraud, dec

when i wrote that episode of "the west wing", which was the longest in history, i consulted with jim lehereas then and now our most experienced presidential moderator. he was an invaluable resource, but i was sure i was going to lose his support when i told him my idea for dropping the rules of the debate. the republican will propose dropping the rules of the debate because he believes the democrat is a weaker debatetor and needs to hide behind the rules. the democrat will have an awful choice refuse to drop the rules and look like he is obviously hiding behind the rules for the rest of the debate or be forced to agree to drop the rules and take his chances against the more experienced debate or. it was a no lose proposition for the republican. the republican looked supremely confident, while the democrat is forced to cling to the rules or the democrat agrees to dropping the rules which makes the republican look like he's in complete control of the debate. there was a long silence at the end of the phone when i presented this idea to jim lehrer. i was sure he was searching for a polite way

. >> one thing we will say about martha raddatz, it certainly was not jim leher style. she got right in there. for people who didn't see it or don't remember it. let me play a couple of quick clips. >> do you have the specifics? do you have the -- do you know exactly what you're doing? >> look at what mitt romney -- look at what ronald regan and what tip o'neal did. we want to work with the congressmen how best to achieve this. >> no specifics. >> no specifics. no specifics. no specifics. is there a broader message we're getting here, leslie, about women in the workplace? >> well, in general, we want women to be present everywhere. it took those girls, they had to get 100,000 signatures just to get a woman even on the agenda for these debates. i think in general if women are not part of the discussion, that is terrible for all of us because we do have slightly different points of view. and i'm hoping that candy's going to go out there and slug a few for the women and do what tom brokaw did. he caught a lot of, you know, debates for the way he steered questions in a town

he missed many chances to correct the record or to ask questions jim leher was practically useless.r. romney, specifically, what tax loopholes or deductions do you want to get rid of. he didn't ask it. the president should have asked it. that's only one example of many and it was clear to everybody in the room tonight what happened in the debate. >> we just heard from david pluff and ed asked him pointedly, how come the 47% remarks didn't come up? how come president obama didn't go after that and his response was that, oh, everybody knows about that. 100% of the country knows about that. >> well, i don't think that's right when you're dealing with an audience of 60 million people or so. in a debate. that was, presumably, include a lot of the undecided voters. and the president needed to speak directly to the audience which he didn't do enough of either, tonight. directly to the camera and say, look, we need to hear specifics from this guy. we haven't heard them. the president, it's a classic case of a president kind of showing up and figuring that because he's president, he gets ext

a 90-minute debate, jim leher moderating in the arena north of a thousand guests of the campaigns asdents here at the university of denver. they have been instructed no noise, no applause, no cheers, good luck with that. the format is three segments of 15 minutes each on the economy, one segment on health care, one on the role of government, and finally, one on governing itself. the candidates get two minutes each to answer the questions, and leher can follow-up between the candidates. that will get interesting. the president won the coin toss today to get to give the first answer to the first question. there's lots of coin tosses at these debates. another coin toss was over who would get to make the last closing statement. mitt winning that coin toss. neil? neil: all right, thank you very much, peter. as you said, i think they did show -- i did see ann romney and the romney family, and i had seen michelle obama and some key cabinet members in the audience. joining me right now is scott tifton, the republican congressman from colorado, and we chatted before coming up here, it is amaz

tonight's moderator is jim leher, he will be running the show for the 12th time.keep presidents and candidates in line. we'll hear from somebody who has done the job as we countdown to the first presidential tee bait of 2012 on this special edition of "the fox report" live tonight from denver. issan altima and reimagined nearly everything in it? gave it greater horsepower and best in class 38 mpg highway... advanced headlights... and zero gravity seats? yeah, that would be cool. ♪ introducing the completely reimagined nissan altima. it's our most innovative altima ever. nissan. innovation that excites. ♪ has become boring and tasteless... only one man can save the day. ♪ ♪ he's nutty! ♪ he's crunchy! [ male announcer ] it's crunchy nut! honey sweet flakes with nuts in every bite! ♪ he saves the day! ♪ in his tasty way! ♪ ♪ he is the crunchy nut! [ male announcer ] kellogg's crunchy nu it's super delicious! >> shepard: i'm shepard smith. this is the fox report. it's the bottom of the hour, time for the top of the news. live tonight from denver. and it's not just th

two-minute statements, they're each going to get two minutes at the beginning of the subjects that jim leherer will introduce. and discussing not policing 30-second rebuttals and 60-second statements. none of that red light stuff with the clocks and all of that stuff. and when you're in mitt romney's position, where he's actually trying to hide some things, trying to hide the details of the deduction side of his tax plan, he's still hiding his tax returns. when you're that candidate who has things that you don't want to talk about, those very narrow rules are your friend. the red light is your friend. the very limited 30-second response, 60-second response works well for candidate who trying to dodge and trying to get away from things. president obama, i think is going to have an advantage in the way the non-rules are in this debate tonight. and i also think that mitt romney has come off a series of really easy debates. we have to remember, mitt romney triumphed in a republican presidential field that was the worst republican presidential field in the history of the republican party. those are

the newshour jim leher moderates. live with our live preview at 7 p.m. eastern.th candidates on screen, the entire debate. on c-span2, the multicamera version of the debate and dpolling, your reactions, calls, e-mailing and tweets. follow our coverage on c-span, c-span radio, and online at c-span doirgs. >> i have all the channels, house, senate, plus author, book review, speeches, those kinds of things. if i know a bill's coming up on the floor in the house, i watch, you know, which channel i want to see because i have them all. if there's either a speech i know that you've covered or a book review or so on, i'm going to watch that. when i want to find out something that has some value

i felt terrible for jim leher er who was not in control. >> i feel both of the candidates -- did notk about immigration. they did touch on the jobs going overseas. i fear that is the main key right there -- americans are not making money. >> body language of the candidates was -- romney won that. hefar as romney's ideas, said a lot of stuff about the changes he made to this day. but the entire national stage will be a different idea. and something that is so little far-fetched right now. >> i think it is a draw. they both had their composure. they both made their points. mr. romney did look a little frustrated a few times. i likened him to a pit bull on a leash. i agree with him on the values, whereas the democratic party i do not agree with their bodies system at all. >> of the body language on these guys. it looks like there were full of crap. and they're just, they keep avoiding the real issues. >> i'd just ahead of this reaction tonight. the entire time romney would be talking, i would say how, how, how? he wanted to say how he was going to do all this stuff. but he did not tell

jim leher the moderator. >> good evening from the magness arena. i welcome you to the first presidential debate between president barack obama and the republican nominee mitt romney. this debate and the next three are sponsored by the commission on presidential debates. tonight's 90 minutes will be about domestic issues and will follow a format designed by the commission. there will be six 15-minute segments with two-minute answers for the first question then open discussion for the remainder of the segment. thousands of people offered suggestions on questions via the internet and other means. i made the final selections. they were not submitted for approval to the commission or the candidates. the segments will be three on the economy -- one each on health care, the role of goverment, and governing. there will be an emphasis throughout on differences, specifics, and choices. both will have two-minute closing statements. the audience has promised to remain silent. no cheers, applause, or other noisy, distracting things so we may concentrate on what

the live debate gets underway at 7 eastern, and jim leher moderates, and after the debate, your reactions and comments taking your calls, e-mails and tweets on c-span, c-span radio, and online at c-span.org. >> i have all the channels, house, senate, plus author and book review, speeches, those kinds of things.ao if i know a bill's coming up on the floor in the house, i watch, you know, which channel want to see because i have them all. if there is either a speech i know that you've covered or a book review or so on, i'm going to watch that. when i want to find out something that has some value to it, that's going to be one of the first places i look. i mean, i'm obviously a public broadcasting fan. i watch those channels. out of a couple hundred channels, i probably have five to ten at the most i go to. it's going to include all the c-span channels. >>> david brugger watches c-span on direct tv. c-span, created by america's cable companies in 1979 brought to you as a public service by your television provider. >> agenting faa administrator recently told the house transportation subcommit

>> jim lehrer the moderator got clobbered by the mainstream media for being too easy. it became obvious that leher had left the left down by not jumping in like crowley and raddatz. but dylan quoted brent buzzel who feichbdz fault with the media, i can't find any way schieffer handled the debate. >> i think we agree on schieffer. i still like the potted plant approach to moderate. let the two candidates at it. >> every debate had a different set of guidelines. >> that is a good point. >> and all this vehicles, again and again, on one side. you have to wonder after a while whether or not she is being fair and balanced. >> some people see things on one side. >> the left never does that, no? i would much rather see a panel with a diversity of ideology. why can't we have rush limbaugh and sean hannity or alan colmes interrogating one on the right. >> jon: make it blatant right up in front. >> i think it's good, this is what journalists used to do. they would ask confrontation questions. >> the clock is ticking and the coverage ramps up. >> debates are done and with election day over a week away, what