obama above it all, as self-disciplined, as never angry, as calm and cool. joe biden isn t running those same risks. everyone knows joe biden runs hot after 30 years in national politics. so he was much, much more aggressive and much more comfortable in going on the attack. that s traditionally been the role of the vice president, but i think we saw tonight why that s the case because he s not he has less to lose. i think it does have that s true in terms of the difference between the two candidates, but it does have an overall effect. yes. one of the things you saw after the such lop-sided results in the debate last week, you saw people on the right crowing, oh, obama era liberalism is wussy and can t stand up for itself and there s something wrong with democratic politics. a if you think that democratic politics right now are lethargic, well, joe biden just blew that out of the water. i also think he did something that was very wise. that is when he got to some major deci
conservative. this seems like a really important moment in the campaign. this, to me, seemslike something that s very, very important. in 2004, george w. bush won re-election and said i earn political capital, now i m going to spend it. he tried to spend it on privatizing social security. paul ryan was on board. the democrats have now signaled as of this debate tonight they re going to try to it hold him to that, make him run on privatizing social security. in all the conversations you had on policy with paul ryan, was he telling you that the republican leadership made him take privatizing social security out of his plan, but he s still for it, he still wants that? well, the part about the republican leadership is well known. he didn t say that in any specific interviews. one thing that s important to know here, and this came out a lot tonight in the debate. ryan, as of a couple of years ago, not 50 years ago or ten years ago, but two years ago h a much more extreme set of policies
overall effect. yes. one of the things you saw after the such lop-sided results in the debate last week, you saw people on the right crowing, oh, obama era liberalism is wussy and can t stand up for itself and there s something wrong with democratic politics. a if you think that democratic politics right now are lethargic, well, joe biden just bl blew that out of the water. i also think he did something that was very wise. that is when he got to some major decisions, he kept saying, i was in the room when the president did so and so. i was there. so he gave a lot of credit to the president as the guy that was there. i think that it really gave a
worked well? here s paul ryan criticizing the stimulus package, how terrible it was, deepening the deficit. then he makes personal requests for his own congressional district. that s a matter of record. i don t think paul ryan looked very good at the end of the day. he believed that stimulus plan was going to create jobs. that s exactly what it did. senator, this is ed. i don t know if pressure is the right word or not, but joe biden went in to this debate tonight. he had to accomplish something that maybe wasn t done in last week s debate. you being a veteran of the senate, i know you ve known joe for a long time. was there any doubt in your mind that he was going to come out and clear the plate tonight for the middle class? no, there wasn t. i didn t want to trump it ahead of time and say it s going to be a great debate for joe biden. you play down a little bit or don t get carried away.
good evening. it is now 11:00 p.m. here on the east coast. it is 8:00 in the west. you are watching ms nbc s continuing coverage of tonight s vice presidential debate from center college in danville, kentucky. if you did not get away from your television to pop the popcorn during the debate, planning on popping it during the boring moments and there weren t any, you re going to have to wait until the commercial break because there s more. vice president joe biden and paul ryan did just wrap up about 30 minutes ago. the obama campaign heading into tonight said they needed a strong performance from vice president biden tonight. by pretty much all accounts they got one. the fireworks tonight in this debate started almost from the very first moment. this benghazi issue would be a tragedy in and of itself, but unfortunately it s indicative of a broader problem. that is what we are watching on our tv screens is the unraveling of the obama foreign policy,