How to out the debate in the head to think about how aggressive july look, how aggressive do myself . It was so clear that mitt romney who could be oisin in the program was never going to flinch, never going to show a flash of anger and its clear barack obama in every debate does not like mitt romney. By the end of you saw there was a shot on some of the different shows where you could see both of them at the table he looked like by the time he was going to be on top of mitt romney. He felt so agitated i think. He finds we hear this from a lot he finds that romney to be dishonest and almost every answer he gives and therefore he almost seasons with anger when he talks to reduce bernanke guilaume that might come obama, he said two weeks ago that what you said. The air brushed history. Rachel, did you have a thought on that . Thats been proven ongoing narrative that connects all of these including the Vice President ial debate putative how aggressive should you be, how do you come out as assertive and so commanding and president ial, how do you correct the other without seeming angry if you try to look president ial mabey obama did try to in the first debate you end up not registering at all. A look at all the criticism after the first debate about how obama was and how he didnt show up and then we saw an extremely aggressive joe biden and the Vice President ial the date. But for the last that might have worked better with the last nominated. So its like in each of these and then in the third it looked Like Fight Club was happening. And that was toned down a little bit in the debate, a much softer tone from both men added to the fact they were sitting tonight instead of standing trying to hit the calibration that gets the right effect. Needelman of the candidate seemed to have a Foreign Policy debate either. They talked about Foreign Policy for the first few minutes and then they made every effort to turn it back to the all important economy, john, the deficit. We heard a lot of shots to teachers there at the end as well. I think in the campaign theres been a lot of firsts and a lot of memorable moments in the debate and we will look back years from now and letting people will look back on this debate as the debate that the two candidates agree on more things for more minutes than in any other debate that we have ever seen. Iran, libya, syria, afghanistan, iraq, essentially china, where they were on russia. There is no difference. Everything. Love it, love it. I got every email from a republican that says mixed messages. I would do exactly what the president did only better. Right, and bigger. Right, right. It is a tough position to be an and that is why in some ways that made from thes performance even more remarkable because he was so willing to work but there were no major distinctions, and for all of the polarization and the politics, for all of the ideology that radiates in the two parties today, it is amazing how there has been a convergence wind counterterrorism we are going to be aggressive whether it is waterboarding for using drones to issue that people simultaneously right now. There is convergence getting the troops out of afghanistan in 2014. Convergence. Not getting into any other wars or u. S. Forces in places like syria. Convergence. Its basically true for congress. There are disagreements, but sort of the neocon wayne of the Republican Party loses the entire war left which is very defining in the bush years. None of that exists anymore. It seems like theyve just narrowed the difference. Governor romney moved towards the president s position of iran as forecast and a preview showed he didnt attack on the idea of talking with iran. There was a remarkable moment agreed on egypt, too. It was just endless. Remarkable moment when the president said the lead story on the sunday New York Times was not true. They reported that there was an agreement for iran and the u. S. To sit down facetoface and use the words not true, which is pretty remarkable. Now, to go behind the curtain on that, there is certainly an opening towards that. We probably will see that. Its headed toward that. They just dont have a specific agreement. So look at the head line, and it went too far. Just to the story was right and the president didnt dispute that. The one thing that struck me in the debate coming and i would be interested to see tomorrow way and is i felt like at some point about halfway through, romney ran out of his talking points, and he often more than an hour debate. He often put it into the economy. One come two come three, four, five. He went back to that but he lost his Foreign Policy narrative a little bit here and it like he kind of went through all of the flash cards. Thats kind of the impression that i got and then obama would keep pivoting back to put him back on his heels. It seemed like he did, and we know he did hundreds of hours of prep work over the last several months. Briefings at night and carried books around to try to understand each region and was clear on each question whether he was talking with the intricacies of what is happening internally in pakistan or and moly. He wanted to convey i get it. I am ready. I might not have Foreign Policy experience but i have an intellectual understanding of all of the various threats for happening to the country simultaneously. So, by that object if he probably did. But your right once you have exhausted that and you never had a position overseas, you are not the sitting president , the head lot to work with. But he had a Leonid Melamed reaction and this may be a tribute to senator Robert Portman of ohio and maybe this can of a mock debate, but mitt romneys commander in chief moment is when Bob Schieffer asked you get a phone call that says that israel has begun attacking iran. What do you do . And before the president could react, mitt romney grabbed it and said a first of all, we are not lead to get into the hypothetical as like that and second, we have a relationship with israel that we wouldnt get that phone call. The fact that we would not be surprised. That was a brilliant reaction. That was quite that was quite good. He also there was another moment when obama said to him i understand youve never had to execute foreign affairs. And he said it really quick and went by and those are the kind of comments that i wondering how they are going to play for obama tomorrow. Was that a little too snyde. Can you think of any moment in the debate that substantively would have been eliminating for the voters . In the areas where i am missing . There is a clear distinction how it would lead. I got some emails same how is the race different tomorrow . The email said it was too dull to move the needle. I wondered if a lot of people tune out. It got in the weeds a little bit and they were too busy hugging each other. Romney was clinging onto obama and i wonder of people tune out a little bit. Of spring out the fund and bring in the facts. Josh at the gate, you have been watching some Fact Checking. You are a student of Foreign Policy. So are there any areas where the candidates were completely misleading and what they were saying and was there any distinction that you saw that was interesting in the debate . Well i thought was interesting how romneys evolution on the departure from afghanistan continued again tonight. You know, it was two weeks ago he made the Foreign Policy speech talking about sort of a goal of leaving afghanistan by 2014. He talked about pursuing a transition out of afghanistan saying that he was with the commanders and so forth. Today he seems to have the joe biden position which is we are out at the end of 2014 everything is on course for us to pull out and its going great. So it was an interesting evolution and then im not sure if he and obama were entirely candid about the dangers of afghanistan. The fact that we have had the experience of the green on blue attacks and weve had afghan troops on the Training Mission and what have you. Suddenly start firing on the u. S. Troops and nato forces more than 50 people have been killed, soldiers have been killed in those attacks just in the last year or so. So, they both seem to gloss over those dangers pretty significantly, and then you have this huge fight about iraq as well. Whether obama would have left the tracks behind. I thought the president was a little off the mark at least he never got called foley on the carpet for the fact that the white house did want to lead troops in iraq. They tried to negotiate the lead troops in iraq. Not as many as romney would have. He talked about ten to 30,000. The white house never put out a number but was reported to be plugging at three to 5,000. But romney was actually right on that point. The white house wanted to leave troops there and failed to get a deal and then did a complete pullout at the end of last year and the president proclaimed as a victory because it was so complete. Even though that wasnt what his administration had asked for. Josh, when you are doing these stories after every debate you write about the Fact Checking. How do you pick out the lines that you were going to fact check and how did you determine, you know, in the hour that you have for the two hours that you are naturally going to file what are the biggest waters that need to seize on and you need to expose for their readers the following day . We try not to repeat exactly the ones that weve done before. And you look at the debate where one or the other candidate says we have a transcript or something along those lines. Thats always a signal that one side or the other things the have the one in a factual error and that is something that grabs our attention. And then at politico what we try to do is add that on different issues like transportation, even tonight supposed to be Foreign Policy debate but our health team are contributing on what are the costs involved in obamacare and what repealing it really bring enough money to pay for additional troops . We were able to draw on that very detailed knowledge about the mechanics and the budget numbers to assemble a fact check that involves not only me and another call author, but people from around the politico empire. One of the sure winners in the cycle is the Fact Checkers get lots of attention and the president even referred to them after mitt romney repeated what he would have done on the although bailout, he said ahead and check the facts and the president said people certainly are. Who was more right or what is the horse back opinion on who has a better argument when they were talking about what mitt romney would have done on the bailout. I think that obama has a better argument but its not clear cut you go back and look at that piece that he wrote in the New York Times and it does talk about offering the government loan guarantees in some sort to these companies if they went through bankruptcy the problem is a lot of experts that the that the situation say what he was talking about wouldnt have really been feasible because there were not enough private companies willing to loan money in that very, very stressed type of early 2009 who were in bankruptcy and were very hard to come up with capital. So, there are some on both arguments. Romney is also right when he repeatedly says the companies did go into bankruptcy. Obama doesnt really acknowledge that. Succumb on this 1i would say that obamas description of what romney would have done probably is seen as more accurate by most of the people that look at it and they are called into the finances of the companies, but it isnt quite as trusted as the way that obama made romneys sound as if he were just going to shove the companys off a cliff. Thank you, joshed. We appreciate your reporting and the amazing part of the political performance and here there are stories already on the website come Fact Checking i think three or four different fact from the date. If you go to politico. Com you can get a full list. We have policy teams that cover everything from transportation to health care to policy defense coming and we will be Fact Checking every part of the debate. A couple of things coming across the email, two different polls. A cbs poll of undecided voters showed obama winning the debate easily. And the ppp much as a democratic cleaning poll for the Campaign Season had a sample that had 5342, obama in a swing state, and the people the survey, people are planning to vote for obama 51 [laughter] 45 and a breakdown by ten swing states. The important thing to make but the cbs poll and the reason people are so excited about it shows an amazing 30point gap of 5323 but what is interesting is in the first debate which in retrospect was a win for romney was to get 4622, so that is a good track record. Spinnaker will take several days for this to work itself into certainly the mind of the voters and work its way through the polls. The truth is we are here today where we were everybody thought we wouldnt be two months ago and a race nobody is going to know the outcome until the election might its going to be very close. No one thinks there will be a surge in the polls one way or another. I feel we are going to have senator john mccain, president ial nominee from 2008 in the the dates with us. Senator, to us watching at home it seemed like the debate could have lasted a couple minutes because they could have just said we agree on everything. Where do they disagree on Foreign Policy . I did they disagree on the overall weakness of america. I think as romney point of america is weaker over the last four years than stronger the opposition in the world today in iraq obviously the president didnt tell the truth. He wanted to leave a residual force behind but was unable to achieve it. Iraq is unraveling, there are al qaeda Training Camps in western iraq and afghanistan, and things are unraveling because all we do is say when we are leaving, and obviously there has been no progress whatsoever as was pointed out with iran as they continue their progress towards requiring the Nuclear Weapons and this debacle in libya and i am sorry that he didnt talk more about that but clearly there is serious situation there and the president didnt lead and they are either not telling the American People the truth about it or they are not senator, this is louis. Even a good job of articulating the differences on policy but it didnt seem like governor romney wanted to do that tonight. He seemed a little bit more hesitant and, you know, just saying he disagreed with him. Was their something tactical going on that we should know about . No, i dont know. But i do know that mitt pointed out that we are weaker and not stronger. The president ridiculed a statement about smaller navy since 1914, smaller army since 1940 and smaller air force ever, that can from secretary leon panetta as to what would happen if we did sequestration to this, the president was ridiculing the remark that mitt romney was making, which is a direct quote from the secretary of defense. And i was astonished. I almost fell out of my chair when the president said dont worry sequestration wont happen. We have been digging the president to sit down with us to avoid with his own secretary defense has said would be a devastating blow to our National Security. So, he said sequestration will happen. Hes not a dictator yet. Thank you very much, senator. We appreciate you joining us. It will be an exciting two weeks and will be interesting to see you on the campaign trail. We have got things here. One is the top search terms on google during the debate. Number one during the debate, horses and bayonets. Molly to risk and its largely because of politico. And the word mitt romney used several times right next to molly. Islamic exactly. And the politico readers are creative and clever. Weve already got a politico reader that submitted what they believe the opening of saturday night live will be this saturday. We believe it could be obama teaching de history class on warfare. Now the greeks have very few guns. [laughter] they have one student and will be mitt romney. Exactly. The a4a is it appears the president used three or four times all over the map, that is one of the phrases of the night, and i actually think that might have been pretty effective because he had a list of things where the devin are contradicted himself back and forth, backandforth. And so, that i dont know its interesting to see if the polls pickup that had any impact. I could just imagine being in undecided voter and sitting their watching this debate thinking the president seems pretty strong. Like he understands whats going on in the world. I feel like hes made progress in afghanistan. And i could see him watching mitt romney going he seems pretty strong. Ims confused today as i was 90 minutes after the debate than i was before the debate, and thats where a lot of this stuff is going to come down to who is better organized in the state to respect nobody made a mistake tonight. The real advertising at the end. Will come from republicans come candidates making an appreciable difference. We dont know. No one can be sure at this moment. We know who is happy and as my mother would say stewing to read the president is going to be stewing. He cant believe that romney is certainly surging in the race. Will drive him crazy. The last line i cant believe im losing to this guy. David in may and is concerned and i assure my mom is concerned, too. Lets use the final minutes we have just to set the stage for how the campaigns will handle the final two weeks of the campaign. Obviously barack obama has a surgical approach to the campaign. It will continue to run ads that are tailored to the very specific states if you are in ohio it is an although bailout. If you are in virginia it will be military or about 47 . If its florida there going to hit you with medicare. That from the its just time for change. The economy is bad and i am better. Where you see the advantages of the bully pulpit we are going to see the advantages of the obama machine putative starting tomorrow he goes off on air force one on an amazing seven state tour where hes hitting every state except North Carolina which they still think of as a swing st