Former Sen. Jim Talent (R-MO), an adviser to Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, was forced to modify his talking points on Tuesday after MSNBC host Andrea Mitchell said she had fact checked the claim that President Barack Obama went on an “apology tour” and determined “it just didn’t happen.” Mitchell pointed out that during an earlier segment, The New York Times‘ Elisabeth Bumiller had documented at least five issues where Romney had changed his position on foreign policy during Monday night’s final presidential debate.
“I think the opposite is true,” Talent argued. “Let’s just be fair for a second. I think the president is modifying his positions to come closer to Gov. Romney’s, and by the way, to come closer to the mainstream of American foreign policy.”
“He goes and does an apology tour,” the former senator continued. “And then last night he denies it was an apology tour.”
“Excuse me, Senator,” Mitchell interrupted. “I have fact checked the so-called ‘apology tour’ and it just didn’t happen.”
“Yeah, he went to four different cities, said America had dictated,” Talent insisted, before pivoting to say that the president had “resisted sanctions against Iran.”
“I’ve been covering the Iran sanctions at the U.N. in the P5-plus-1,” Mitchell noted. “After that initial attempt… to reach out and give Iran a chance to try to have an engagement — after that initial attempt, there was nothing but a move at the United Nations by Secretary [Hillary] Clinton to try to bring all of the allies aboard. The allies were demanding, ‘Make an overture, then we’ll be with you.’ And they ended up with the toughest sanctions ever.”
