WASHINGTON (CNN) - In a response after Friday night's presidential debate, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger defended Sen. John McCain's attack against Sen. Barack Obama for Obama's willingness to meet with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad "without precondition."
Immediately following the debate, the McCain campaign released a statement from Kissinger backing the Republican nominee's sentiments on structuring any talks with Iran.
"Sen. McCain is right. I would not recommend the next president of the United States engage in talks with Iran at the presidential level," Kissinger said in the statement.
"My views on this issue are entirely compatible with the views of my friend Sen. John McCain. We do not agree on everything, but we do agree that any negotiations with Iran must be geared to reality."
McCain and Obama sparred during the debate over how to best handle relations with Ahmadinejad, who has repeatedly threatened Israel. Both candidates referenced Kissinger's comments from a CNN forum last week in which former secretaries of states discussed several topics including Iran, and the
presidential candidates disagreed over what Kissinger had said.
WASHINGTON (CNN) – A New Hampshire senator who is helping negotiate a bailout agreement for the finance sector said Saturday he expects a single proposal to be hammered out by Sunday.
Judd Gregg of New Hampshire said the negotiating team planned to meet late Saturday afternoon.
"Senator (Chris) Dodd and I talked about this a lot and the basic understanding is that when we get in that room as principals we will stay there until we reach an agreement, or if we can't reach an agreement ... we'll stay until we've done something" to address the issue "in a comprehensive and
effective way, hopefully," he said.
"The progress we're making is good and I can say with some confidence that we've basically moved this thing down the road a long way toward reaching an agreement," Gregg added.
He and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky appeared together at a news conference where McConnell added, "The goal would be to announce an agreement tomorrow and have the vote on Monday."
The Statement:
Sen. John McCain said in the debate in Oxford, Mississippi on Friday, September 26 that Adm. Mike Mullen, Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman, "suggests" that Sen. Obama's troop withdrawal plan from Iraq "is dangerous for America."
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(AP Photo)
OXFORD, Mississippi (CNN) – A national poll of people who watched the first presidential debate suggests that Barack Obama came out on top.
Fifty-one percent of those polled in a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey of Americans who viewed the debate say that Obama won. Thirty-eight percent of those polled say that John McCain did the best job.
“According to our CNN survey, McCain and Obama both exceeded debate viewers’ expectations tonight,” noted CNN Senior Political Researcher Alan Silverleib. “It can be reasonably concluded, especially after accounting for the slight Democratic bias in the survey, that we witnessed a tie in Mississippi tonight. But given the direction of the campaign over the last couple of weeks, a tie translates to a win for Obama. McCain is trailing right now; he needed a game changer. There are no indications he got that tonight.
Men were nearly evenly split between the two candidates, with 46 percent giving the win to McCain, and 43 percent to Obama. But women voters tended to give Obama higher marks: 59 percent thought he was the night’s winner, while just 31 percent said the same of McCain.
Both men did better than expected, according to those surveyed: 57 percent say Obama exceeded their expectations, and 60 percent said the same of McCain. One in five voters thought each man under-performed.
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) – Negotiators from Capitol Hill and the Bush administration – after working well past midnight – are set to resume talks Saturday over a proposed $700 billion bailout of the financial system.
The talks, which broke at 1:40 a.m., involve staffers from Congress, the Treasury Department and the White House, a senior administration official told CNN.
The exact status of the legislation and the next steps remained unclear, but officials say they face pressure to agree on a bill and vote very soon.
Fewer than a dozen "unresolved issues" remain, a spokesman for a key lawmaker said Saturday.
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