Bill O'Reilly
October 12, 2012
Bill O'Reilly: The upcoming vice presidential debate

By Bill O'Reilly

The pressure is on Congressman Paul Ryan who is warming up to debate Vice President Biden in less than an hour. Mr. Ryan has never debated in a worldwide forum while Mr. Biden has.

So it is crunch time for the Congressman. Mitt Romney and the Republicans are counting on Ryan to continue the momentum and to at least parry anything Vice President Biden says. Can Ryan do it? That is the drama of the debate in Kentucky this evening. Since the campaign began, the Obama team has not dealt with the media very much even though the media loves the President.

The last White House news conference, seven months ago. Can you believe it? Mr. Obama does some soft end news, like the late night shows and "The View". But rarely sits for policy interviews.

Now I've interviewed the President twice. But indications are he will dodge THE FACTOR this year. We hope he doesn't. If he wants to reach Independent voters, this is the place. And obviously any interview he does with us will get worldwide attention.

Vice President Biden is even worse in the serious media. He's done few national TV interviews and only rarely does he talk to even local TV people. Biden has never been on THE FACTOR, although I have talked with him on the phone. So here is the question. Why? Why is the Obama-Biden team hiding? Well the answer is their record. This is an awful lot of bad stuff.

Just this week the Libya situation put the President on the defensive and the economy speaks for itself. So the only place the voters can really see the Obama-Biden ticket under pressure is in the debates.

On the other side we're hoping Governor Romney will sit for an interview with us. We're negotiating that right now. We'll have an update for you on Monday.

Generally speaking, Mr. Romney has been more accessible than President Obama, but it is true the Romney campaign is playing it very safe.

At the debate tonight, Vice President Biden is the experienced hand. He's 27 years older than Paul Ryan and Biden knows how to attack. The Congressman is an unknown quantity when it comes to dealing with this kind of pressure.

But "Talking Points" expects Mr. Ryan to be armed with plenty of facts that might slow down Mr. Biden who will most likely go after Ryan hard. It will be interesting to see how the Congressman handles that.

And that's "The Memo."

— You can catch Bill O'Reilly's "Talking Points Memo" weeknights at 8 and 11 p.m. ET on the Fox News Channel and any time on foxnews.com/oreilly. Send your comments to: oreilly@foxnews.com.

Transcript Date: 
Thu, 10/11/2012
Transcript Show Name: 
O'Reilly Factor
Posted by BillOReilly.com Staff