digital analyst and host of fox news. the lead president obama had has plummeted 11 points. he had a 15-point advantage in this department in september, and now take a look at it. it is a four-point advantage for him. is that all because of libya? >> well, it would certainly seem to be that way, and it's a double problem for the president, one, there is the basic fact, and the fact that the administration was hoping to avoid with their public response, which was being held accountable for whatever failures at whatever level lead to this successful attack by islamists militants on a u.s. outpost on the anniversary of september 11th. that was never going to be a good thing or help the president's status on foreign policy with voters. and the handling of it, it has continued even until yesterday on the daily show with jon stewart the president continues to have trouble explaining what happened and explaining how he managed to talk about this in the way that he did. so, yeah, you'd have to say that libya is at the heart of that big drop. megyn: it's amazing what a difference that issue is starting to have in this election, because the same polling group did a poll on foreign policy about a week ago and asked about everything from china, to iran, to egypt, and let me just give you some of the numbers. it shows the two candidates about deadlocked on who would better handle iran. a slight edge for the president when it comes to who would handle egypt better. slowed a slight edge -- stronger edge to romney and who would handle china better and get tough on trade with china the issue of libya seems to be the thing that narrowed this gap from 11-point advantage to barack obama to 4-point advantage. while it was somewhat of a debacle the other night, one person said one and the other person challenged back and forth and the moderator tried to stop it and everyone wound up confused at the end they will have a whole 90 minutes to discuss libya and other issues on monday. >> instead of the moderator moving on bob scheffer is going to be expected to get to the bottom of it and ask the president a lot of questions. the president has one response, which is to accuse mitt romney of political opportunism for the libya attack and politicize the issue. that is one note that you can sound in a debate. on foreign policy the president will have to answer questions who knew what when, how high up in the administration, how come nobody caught this? how come they were not prepared. how come requests for additional security were denied. how come when it became to be known that there were al-qaida elements involved and a platte involved that it wasn't said publicly. they will have to answer all those questions, that's not where he'd thought he would be. he thought he would be talking about how great it was that osama bin laden is dead. megyn: a message he is now taking out of his campaign trail remarks, about how al-qaida is on the run and osama bin laden is dead. that is one of his main points and that's been removed in the past week or so, and didn't go without notice by the presents corp. i want to ask you about the interview he gave to comedy central. obviously he's trying to appeal to younger voters. sooner or later you have to sit down and talk to the american people through the press corp or through presidential debate mod raeurt i gues moderate err i guess about what happened. how did we become victim to this terrorist attack on 9/11 and why have the stories been so disparate about what happened? the president, since this has all happened he's gone on "the view" "letterman" some radio show called "pimp with the limp" and he did to his credit also go on "60 minutes" although they didn't get that deep into it and that was early on in the game. is this it, monday night, is this the time when we are finally hoping to get a robust back and forth with the president himself on this issue? >> i believe he's also doing "us weekly.. "the pimp with the limp i don't believe asked about this. it's obvious candidates want to seek out safe space to do interviews. it's very logical. the problem is when you are the incumbent you have to remember those things. and i'm sure that the jon stewart interview was on the schedule. to go on "comedy central" and do that was on the schedule for a longtime, as you said it exit's younger voters, liberals who watch the show and all that kind of stuff. at a certain point have you to wonder if you're the chicago champagne if you have to advise the president we have to pull back on this warm and fuzzy stuff. even when you're doing letterman or whoopi goldberg and jon stewart, even when you're doing those things you're complicating your situation and it continues to look to americans like you're not being as serious about something that they are very concerned about as they would like their commander-in-chief to be. megyn: chris stirewalt, thank you sir. >> yes, ma'am. megyn: the president has aggressively defended the administration's handling of the attack in libya in recent days, most moat plea at this week's debate when he had a heated exchange at governor romney, the president saying he called this terror from day one. >> you said in the rose garden the day after the attack it was an act of terror it was not a spontaneous demonstration, is that what you're saying. >> please proceed, governor. >> 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. megyn: well the same day that the president commented on the libya attack in remarks he delivered from the rose garden the president took off for las vegas where he took part in a campaign event and he said this. >> i want to begin tonight by just saying a few words about a tough day that we've had today. you know, we lost four americans last night who were killed when they were attacked at a diplomatic post in libya. megyn: there are questions about whether those are the types of remarks in a campaign setting in vegas that we would have expected from our president on the day that he now says he knew we were subjected to a terror attack. next hour we're going to speak with former bush white house secretary dana perino and ask her about that decision and how that is playing in this presidential campaign. with 18 days until voters head to the polls you any tensions would be high and they are. but the campaigns put aside the battle for a couple of hours last night to have truly funny moments with each other and themselves. i mean some of these things were a laugh-riot these comments. john roberts is in our new york bureau with some of the highlights from this year's al smith dinner. >> it's a tradition for the presidential candidates to attend the al smith dinner for catholic charities. set aside the campaign to raise money and a little bit of comedy. the candidates poked fun at themselves with that first debate performance really at the center of that. >> it turns out millions of americans focused in on the second debate who didn't focus in on the first debate, and i happen to be one of them. [laughter] >> people seem to be very curious as to how we prepare for the debates. let me tell you what i do. first, refrain from alcohol for 65 years before the debate. [laughter] second, find the biggest available straw man and then just mess leslie attack it. big bird didn't even see it coming. [laughter] >> i learned that there are worst things that can happen to you on your anniversary than for getting to buy a gift. >> i was actually hoping the president would bring joe biden along this evening because he'll laugh at anything. [laughter] >> there were some moments where the humor got a little bit of -- a little bit biting. it seemed the campaign came right into the room, listen here. >> don't be surprised if the president mentions this evening the monthly jobs report where there was a slight improvement in the numbers. he knows how to seize the moment, this president. and already has a compelling new campaign slogan. you're better off now than you were four weeks ago. [laughter] >> the unemployment rate is at its lowest level since i took office. i don't have a joke here, i just thought it would be useful to remind everybody. [laughter] >> as president obama surveys the waldorf banquet room with everybody in white tie and fine reyou have to wonder what he's thinking. so little time, so much to redistribute. [laughter] >> after some of you guys remember after my foreign trip in 2008 i was attacked as a celebrity because i was so popular with our allies overseas, and i have to say i'm impressed with how well governor romney has avoided that problem. [laughter] >> perhaps channeling last night president obama in the stump in fairfax, virginia today, george mason university came up with a new way to describe what he says are governor romney's shifting positions on the issues. he labeled it romnesia, simply byee hrebting barack obama to a second term. right in the middle of bike toberfest, mitt romney is going to accuse the president that he has nothing that appears to resemble an agenda for a second term. those will be the last campaign appearances, then it's a two-week mad dash until election day. megyn: that is a fun event to watch. thank you. also from the campaigns today a tale of two interviews as governor romney's wife sits down with the ladies of "the view" and gets different questions than what the obamas faced a few weeks back. we'll show you. new questions about the obama administration and what they told us about libya. the questions come after we get new details on what the cia chief in libya reportedly told washington just 24 hours after the terror attack that killed four americans. keep in mind the white house is blaming intel sources. now we know reportedly what the cia intel chief said. we'll tell you. and a heart-warming story to end the week when a autistic girl gets the chance to sing with her hero. ♪ singing] ♪ megyn: the "associated press" dropped a small libya bombshell today reporting that the cia station chief in libya told washington, quote, there was no protest, within 24 hours of the terror attack in benghazi. the cia station chief in libya told washington that there was no protest. that raises a whole new round of questions about why the administration went out with the story blaming an internet video and the protest there over for the murder of four americans. joining me now alan colmes, the host of the alan colmes show and mike gallagher who is a syndicated radio host and a fox news contributor. let's put this in perspective. we have the state department saying we knew it was terror. we have the administration saying intel sources told us it was about a video. we now have -- we already had leaks that some intel sources said, no it's terror, but we didn't know whether somebody higher up in intel was telling the government that it was about a video. now we hear from the cia station chief in libya was saying terror. the stories are socon tphreubgting it's verso so conflicting. it's hard to keep straight. where are we on the eve of this information. >> on the eve of this third and final presidential debate which will be centered on foreign policy americans are well aware that we have a foreign policy disaster, a scandal, a huge controversy, if you will. i mean if you were scripting this out from a political standpoint it couldn't come at a better time for governor romney, who next week is going to have an opportunity to hone in on this like a laser. alan is not going to like this much but i swear this feels like devine intervention. it almost feels other worldly that the stars are aligning in such a way that this is playing out that the american people are being exposed, as you said by a bombshell announced today, megyn, day after day, benghazi has been one big bombshell and president obama is going to be very hardpressed to try to explain this one away during the foreign policy debate. this is a full-fledged bonafide scandal, and this couldn't come at a worse time for the president. megyn: alan, the president on comedy central last night said every piece of information we got as we got it we laid it out to the american people. >> right i agree. megyn: if he was told within 24 hours the administration was that there was evidence this was carried out by militants and not a spontaneous mob, why didn't we know that? why was the message on that sunday all about the video? >> because there was conflicting evidence that came out simultaneously. megyn: why weren't we told that? we were told, we were focused on the video. nobody was saying this was a terrorist mob. >> it was both. we got both pieces of information. it looks like we are playing politics here with some people saying on the right, it was the video, you're just saying it was the video. and, for example, let me tell you the david kirkpatrick reported in "the new york times" earlier this week he said the libyans who witnessed the assault and know the attackers there is little doubt what occurred he said. a well-known group of local islamist militants struck without any warning protesting and in retaliation for the video. that was one piece of information. megyn: the president of libya was on the sunday shows the same day susan rice was there saying this was a ter terrorist attack. and she said he doesn't have the same information we do. >> because there were conflicting pieces of information. intelligence doesn't come from one source. we have different intelligence groups and a number of different pieces of information came out simultaneously and people are using this like my friend here for political purposes, which is outrageous. >> why not present the conflict, alan. >> they did. >> why only present one side. megyn: let mike finish his point. >> please, the trouble is you can take the obama tack alan that this is just being political. >> it is. >> this is all politics. you better believe it. we are in the final weeks of a major, major election, and you know what, the american people, the reason gallup is now showing governor romney with a 7 point lead oef your guy, alan is because the american people aren't dumb. we are able to absorb that this conflict was not presented by the obama administration, and when you've got susan rice being chased down the hallways of reagan national by a fox news crew because she doesn't want to answer the question you've got a bad situation. megyn situation. >> you're mentioning the gallup poll, there are three other polls that have obama ahead. it's nice to pic cherry pick. the libya moment in the debate the other night was a very bad moment for mitt romney where he got the facts wrong, because they are trying to make the case that the obama administration didn't want to say it was terror as if they don't want to admit that terror could happen on their watch when in fact for terror was not mentioned just in the rose garden but the day after in a speech in denver. romney got the it wrong. it was his first moment of the last debate. >> dee dee vine intervention, alan, i'm telling you the stars are lining up. megyn: there may be some hysteria here. alan do you deny that the message this administration was sending us in the first week after this attack was that this was about anger, sparked by a video that bashed the prophet muhammad? >> i maintain that the administration told us what it knew at the time, based on conflicting reports. megyn: why didn't they tell us that it was conducted by militants who were not upset about a video but who were unleashing a terror attack which was one of the streams of information they were receiving. >> the president actually mentioned terror on two successive days after september 11th. megyn: they were getting information that there was a militant terror attack underway that didn't have anything to do with the video. >> i don't think you rush to judgment like mitt romney does until you have all your duck nasa row. mitt romney immediately even before we knew about the death of the ambassador said we were siding with people who wanted to do us and meant us harm. he should be embarrassed by this and the people on the right are trying to use this for political purposes in the middle of an election season rather than gather together to do what is best for the security of the country. >> it's great spin, alan. >> no spin. >> i would argue that you pretending. >> i'm not pretending. >> that this is in fact a political mood all -- >> listen to your own words, it's devine intervention for romney. megyn: let him finish your point. >> you're presenting our best argument that the obama administration was not truthful to the american people. it sounds a little bit like watergate. >> this is like watergate. megyn: i've got to go. >> nobody died at watergate. nobody died in wate watergate. megyn: some good news for the little girl who was shot in the head by the tal been for wanting ttaliban for wanting to go to school. ♪ [ male announcer ] it's time for medicare open enrollment. are you ready? time to compare plans and see what's new. you don't have to make changes, but it's good to look. maybe you can find better coverage, save money, or both. and check out the preventive benefits you get after the health care law. ♪ medicare open enrollment. now's the time. visit medicare.gov or call 1-800-medicare. ♪ now getting involved in an investigation of possible voter fraud. dozens of people accused of casting ballots in two different states ph a previous election with police now looking closer at two key cases. steve harrigan live in our miami bureau with more. steve. >> reporter: the original number in this case was 36. that was brought to florida state officials by a watchdog organization that claim that the 34 people vote ned florida and in a second state at the same time in a previous federal election. out of those 34 cases so far state officials have found enough evidence in two of them to pass them onto law enforcement but they will continue to review the other 34 cases. there are concerns about the state of florida as a potential site for double voting. for one thing it is a place where people have second homes and absentee balloting could enable them to vote in other places, the main reason being there is no national database of voter registration. florida unlike many other states doesn't participate in regional information sharing with other states. so it's hard to cross check if you're registered to vote in florida whether or not you could be registered in another state to vote at the same time. megyn. megyn: thank you. more than 40 years after the manson family staged a murder spree that shocked a nation we today have a developing story in los angeles about a whole series of unsolved killings that may be tracked back to charlie manson's family. and governor romney's wife ann sits down with the ladies of "the view" and gets different questions from the ones the obama's faced a few weeks back. we'll show you where they went with her, next. >> when he was governor he was pro-choice, and now is against abortion except in the case of rape and inch crest and th the life of the mother. i wonder what your views are. we have been accused of a sharp tongue so we'll start off gentle and work our way. you are about to celebrate your 20th wedding anniversary, october 3rd. 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