Jon Stewart vs. Bill O'Reilly Debate Draws Large Audience

Reena Ninan, George Stephanopoulos discuss highpoints of celebrity debate.
3:00 | 10/07/12


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Transcript for Jon Stewart vs. Bill O'Reilly Debate Draws Large Audience
We'll turn to the political showdown not between presidential candidates, but rather cable tv heavyweights and in one corner "the daily show's" jon stewart and in the other bill o'reilly of fox news. At times decorum went out the window and so many people wanted to watch online last night that the server actually crashed. Abc's reena ninan has the story from washington. Good morning. Reporter: Good morning, bianna. They really are the odd couple. Bill o'reilly versus jon stewart taking on the heavy issues of this election season with, of course, humorous spin on it all. We are merely weeks from being a failed state or even worse, greece and the way to solve it is to kill big bird. Reporter: It's the debate that is election season that is clocking in the laughs. Drones, yes, waterboards, no. May I borrow one of your cards for this? No. Reporter: Fox news anchor bill o'reilly. Adios, sayonara, aloha, it's boring. Reporter: Took on comedian jon stewart in a 90-minute debate with topics ranging from funding pbs. Give me my money back, the $800 billion to the iraq war and children's television is on the house. Reporter: To taxes. Why is it that if you take advantage of a tax break and you're a corporation you're a smart businessman. But if you take advantage of something that you need to not be hungry you're a moocher. Reporter: And even foreign policy. It appears that the american foreign policy has been to go into the middle east and try to buy friends. Does that ever work? Yeah, we can buy friends. you'll likely never see in the presidential debate. You just begrudged -- you've been begrudging all night. No. This is nothing but begrudging. Reporter: There's hair advice for bridging the bipartisan divide in congress. One major snafu of the night, some viewers had difficulties streaming the debate live. There was so much demand it overloaded the servers. This whole idea is insanity. Reporter: Prompting tweets like this. Your site is more broken than america. The rumble 2012 will soon bel toed by the refund 2012. At a press conference after the debate, bill o'reilly responded and said if fib wants their 4$4 $4.95 back they'll send it back to you. Lincoln douglas, it was not, reena ninan, thanks very much. Bill o'reilly will be live on "this week" with george stephanopoulos and we happen to have george right here to talk about it. It was a revealing moment you pointed out where bill o'reilly criticized so-called assassin politicians who go on cable news shows and spread extreme views that they don't actually believe. Are you going to ask him about that. I think so. We want to talk to him about that. Some say that's what happens on his networks. Other networks every single day. That was really something, the top frenemies in cable television going at it. They seem to like each other in the end a lot more than barack obama and mitt romney. Absolutely. I think that's a safe assertion. Speaking of those two,re going to start to see polls now reflecting this lackluster debate performance that a lot say barack obama put in this past week over the next 24 hours. What do you expect we'll see. Some momentum for mitt romney in those national polls, the daily tracking national polls. He's definitely picked up. Also has a lot more excitement with his crowds right now and it seems like it's re-energized his campaign but what I'll watch are those polls in the key battleground states like ohio, virginia, florida, colorado, those have to start closing up for mitt romney as well, so far they haven't, in fact, there is a new poll out this morning coming out of the university of denver showing barack obama maintains a four-point lead in colorado. And it is the battleground states where this race will be won. Absolutely. Very quickly, vice presidential race. Any pest depth for a vice presidential debate impacting the trajectory of a race? Not -- probably one of the most serious debate moments everywhere lloyd bentson took on dan quayle and said you're no jack kennedy but in the end george h.W. Bush still won that race. George stephanopoulos, thank you very much. Great to see you here on the set this morning. George has a big show this morning featuring romney campaign senior adviser ed gillespie and obama campaign senior adviser robert gibbs and also bill o'reilly and george will co-anchor along with diane sawyer our coverage of the vice presidential debate this thursday night moderated by abc's award-winning correspondent martha raddatz starting at 9:00 eastern, 6:00 pacific.


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