VP Debate Analysis: Facts Matter!

From where I sit Vice President Joe Biden won the debate last night. I’m sure my Republican friends will disagree. To that all I can say is, FACTS MATTER!

It was a bit painful to watch Ryan try to match Joe Biden’s facts with outright lies. As Biden told Ryan a couple of times last night, his statements were “MALARKEY.”

BIDEN ON FOREIGN POLICY —  MALARKY: 

BIDEN: Let me tell you what the ayatollah sees.

RYAN: You have to have credibility.

BIDEN: The ayatollah sees his economy being crippled. The ayatollah sees that there are 50 percent fewer exports of oil. He sees the currency going into the tank. He sees the economy going into freefall. And he sees the world for the first time totally united in opposition to him getting a nuclear weapon.

Now, with regard to Bibi, who’s been my friend 39 years, the president has met with Bibi a dozen times. He’s spoken to Bibi Netanyahu as much as he’s spoken to anybody. The idea that we’re not — I was in a, just before he went to the U.N., I was in a conference call with the — with the president, with him talking to Bibi for well over an hour, in — in — in stark relief and detail of what was going on.

This is a bunch of stuff. Look, here’s the deal.

RADDATZ: What does that mean, a bunch of stuff?

BIDEN: Well, it means it’s simply inaccurate.

RYAN: It’s Irish.

BIDEN: It — it is.

(LAUGHTER)

We Irish call it malarkey.

FACTS MATTER:

Regarding Iran and it’s nuclear weapons program…

BIDEN: Oh, I didn’t say — no, I’m not saying that. But facts matter, Martha. You’re a foreign policy expert. Facts matter. All this loose talk about them, “All they have to do is get to enrich uranium in a certain amount and they have a weapon,” not true. Not true.

ON THE ECONOMY:

BIDEN: All this talk, we saved a million jobs.  200,000 people are working today, and I’ve never met two guys who are more down on America across the board.  We’re told everything’s going bad. There are 5.2 million new jobs, private sector jobs.  We need more but 5.2 million, but if they would get out of the way, if they’d get out of the way and let us pass the tax cut for the middle class, make it permanent.  If they’d get out of the way and pass the jobs bill.  If they’d get out of the way and let us allow 14 million people who are struggling to stay in their homes because their mortgages are upside down but they never missed a mortgage payment, just get out of the way.  Stop talking about how you care about people.  Show me something.  Show me a policy.  Show me a policy where you take responsibility.

When asked about struggling Americans, Ryan brought up an anecdote about a couple he and Governor Romney met in Massachusetts.

The couple were in a car crash that left two of their sons paralyzed and Romney told the couple don’t worry about college for those boys, he’ll pay for it.

There was some criticism on Twitter following that anecdote because in 1972, Vice President Biden lost his wife and baby daughter in a car accident. His sons were also in the car, but were spared.

BIDEN:  I don’t doubt [Governor Romney’s] personal generosity, and I know what its like. When I was a little younger than the congressman, my wife was in an accident. [It] killed my daughter and my wife, and my two sons survived. The one thing you can give people is solace to know that if you’ve been through it, they can make it.

ON MEDICARE:

BIDEN: These — look, these guys haven’t been big on Medicare from the beginning. Their party’s not been big on Medicare from the beginning. And they’ve always been about Social Security as little as you can do.

Look, folks, use your common sense. Who do you trust on this — a man who introduced a bill that would raise it 40 — $6,400 a year; knowing it and passing it, and Romney saying he’d sign it, or me and the president?

FACT CHECK ROUNDUP:

Here are just some of the dozens of Fact Check Moments from the debate.

Health Care:

• FACT CHECK: President Obama Is Expanding Access To Contraception, Protecting Religious Liberty: Contrary to what Congressman Ryan said tonight, President Obama was able to expand women’s access to contraception while protecting religious liberty by exempting churches and religiously-affiliated organizations from paying for contraceptive coverage. Mitt Romney and Congressman Ryan, on the other hand, would put women’s health care decisions in the hands of their employers. And Congressman Ryan has repeatedly stood with Todd Akin and extreme Republicans in Congress to restrict women’s access to contraception. http://www.barackobama.com/press/release/fact-check-president-obama-is-expanding-access-to-contraception-protecting

• FACT CHECK: Romney-Ryan Too Extreme on Women’s Health : As Congressman Ryan highlighted tonight, he and Mitt Romney are too extreme on the critical issue of women’s health. In the House, Ryan worked with Todd Akin to narrow the definition of rape and outlaw abortion for rape and incest victims. And Romney-Ryan believe women’s health care decisions should be put into the hands of their employers, would defund Planned Parenthood, and endorsed the Republican Party platform that includes a constitutional amendment to ban abortion even in cases of rape and incest.

• FACT CHECK: Obamacare Allows People To Keep Their Insurance Plans: Congressman Ryan just claimed that 20 million people will lose their employer-based coverage under Obamacare. That’s just not true, and independent fact checkers have said so. The truth is that Obamacare allows people to keep the coverage they have if they like it and incentivizes employer-based coverage. Romney and Ryan aren’t telling the truth about Obamacare because they don’t want the American people to know the devastating impact of what they’d do if elected – they’d allow insurance companies to discriminate against 89 million Americans who have had gaps in coverage if they have a pre-existing condition. http://www.barackobama.com/press/release/fact-check-obamacare-allows-people-to-keep-their-insurance-plans

Time and time again, Vice President Biden showed that experience trumps youthful confidence every time.

Below are some of the reviews of last nights debate performances.

George Stephanopoulos: “Over the course of the debate, more of the issues fell in Biden’s corner, he was able to take control of more of the debate.”

Chuck Todd: “If you were scoring as a debate coach, you’d say, ‘boy, the guy who controlled that debate was Joe Biden.”

Mark Shields: “I just thought he really kind of hung Ryan out to dry on the no details of the tax plan. I mean, that really was exposed.”

Mike Allen: “This also is a reminder that the promise of the Paul Ryan pick was supposed to be that they were going to tell the American people hard truths, this was a sign that they were getting us ready for an adult conversation. Well, we haven’t had one hard truth said to us since and I don’t remember Paul Ryan giving us a hard truth tonight.”

Governor Martin O’Malley: “People said ‘oh he laughed too much’, but it is laughable that we would be 28 days out from this election and they still haven’t told us how they’re going to do this wonderful plan that all the details are behind door number three. That stuff is laughable. You can’t cut by 20% taxes for millionaires and billionaires, corporations by 30% and not have to pay for it somehow.”

Jim Vandehei: “There was an enormous gap, it seemed, in substance and specificity, the gap between Joe Biden and Paul Ryan when it came to everything from what’s happening in Afghanistan to the Middle East to the defense budget to taxes. On every single one of those, it’s like Biden came ready to brawl, he came ready to brawl with lots of nitty gritty details.”

John Harris: “It seems to me…the consensus back here in our newsroom is that [Ryan] did at best a passable performance…He really didn’t do anything positive to help his own reputation or help the case of his ticket.”

Lois Romano: “You know, I think [Ryan] had a missed opportunity on his own budget. You know, it’s his own budget, his own numbers. I feel like Biden got the best of him on it.”

Sam Youngman:  “I tend to agree with Jonathan, I saw a very long pause from Congressman Ryan when the discussion turned to abortion. I don’t think he was probably prepared to discuss that.”

Wolf Blitzer: “Congressman Ryan’s low point happened near the end of the debate around 10:20 eastern when he was asked about abortion.”

Jonathan Chait: “I predicted that Paul Ryan would wipe the floor with Joe Biden. That did not so much happen. Ryan did not perform quite as well as I expected – he seemed greener, younger, and he visibly gulped when challenged. But Biden delivered a revelatory performance that proved me utterly wrong.”

Buzzfeed: “After effectively vanishing from the national stage, Ryan re-emerged Thursday not as the intellectual leader of the right, but as passable debater with a slightly crooked necktie.”

Reuters:  “While Ryan tried to depict the Obama administration as projecting weakness, Biden hit back hard with repeated questions on details of Romney’s foreign policy plan, which Ryan was hard put to answer.”

Fox focus group participant: “I found that the Vice President’s position on foreign policy was stronger than Paul Ryan’s. I really thought  he scored some pretty good points there.”

National Review’s Robert Costa: “It wasn’t a knockout performance [for Ryan].”