department joel ruben and daily beast contributor zachary carib e caribel. libya is on the agenda, and the president most recently on the daily show with jon stewart admitted mistakes were made. we know about the intelligence and when it came into the white house. no doubt there is still an issue here over what mistakes were made and why the administration seemed to have stuck for so long on the story this was a protest against the film and factoring in, of course, the new details regarding the cia. thank you, tamron. you re right. this story is certainly going to come tonight, and tonight s debate is the commander in chief test. does mitt romney and the president have an understanding of the issue and the demeanor to lead. on the libya issue, i think it s going to be a stark contrast. the data that the administration has been putting out has been reflective of what the
has to communicate. it s not so much here are 50 things i would do differently as comma commander in chief. it s the idea that you can trust me as a leader in dealing with a foreign policy crisis, in dealing with our national security. and i think when you re looking at the libya issue, in the last debate it wasn t so much that the president knocked it out of the park and put the issue to rest, it was that mitt romney flubbed it, which means it s still there for him if he tackles it right on monday. what i found interesting right after the debate they walked away from it. they didn t want to have it. they didn t want to relitigate. it seems like there is sensitivity to do we want to go down that route. and i think if that s what mitt romney has to do object monday he s in trouble. he hasn t done anything in the past two years campaigning to show that he is more trustworthy on foreign policy and i think this debate will be a problem for him because he has to lay out specifics. you a
he s in the game. that s your problem. he s in the game. the cnn poll was eight points more republican than democratic about look, he s not trying to win this it s just something the president doesn t want to talk about. look i talked to a republican consultant today who s as sensible as you usually are, who said it s unfortunate the last debate s on foreign policy. we need to get back to the economy. i think mitt romney, for example, would be a lot smarter to try to talk about china and see if he could connect that to jobs issues here in the u.s. he s not going to make progress on this libya issue. he just qualified himself we ll see, bob. hold on, hold on. i ve got to ask michael steele about this. what about the president s response about the very next day in the rose garden, he talked about an act of terror? i mean, are we that doesn t qualify? no, no, it does qualify, but then the question, this gets into the nuance and the semantics of what the preside
see if he could connect that to jobs issues here in the u.s. he s not going to make progress on this libya issue. he just qualified himself we ll see, bob. hold on, hold on. i ve got to ask michael steele about this. what about the president s response about the very next day in the rose garden, he talked about an act of terror? i mean, are we that doesn t qualify? no, no, it does qualify, but then the question, this gets into the nuance and the semantics of what the president was referring to when he said that. is he specifically talking about this event in benghazi, or is he talking more broadly i read the transcript, and for my interpretation, he was not eight paragraphs later actually, two sentences are right next to each other. he said, acts of terror are unacceptable. the killing of our people in benghazi will be the people who will be brought to justice. why would he i did read it. why no, you didn t. why would he talk about an act of terror and the
as all americans, national security. you re right, the economy is the number one issue and jobs, but, jenna, you brought up a point that a month ago obama was 18 points ahead, and now those points have actually centered because of the first debate. where you had an articulate mitt romney that laid out what he was going to do if as president to help create more jobs, and that s what women want. jenna: gallup just did a really interesting poll on women in swing states, and they asked women and men voters but women specifically in this question what do you consider the most important issue for women in this election, and women answered in the swing statements, abortion, which is interesting. and so, angela, my question for you is if the economy s the number one issue and republicans are really making that their agenda for women, are republicans missing an opportunity not to talk more about social issues? no. and they should talk about social issues, but it depends on what audience you p