Barack Obama, Political Debate | featured news

Washington is growing increasingly jittery about the prospect of automatic spending cuts decimating federal agency budgets in January. So when President Obama declared in Monday’s debate that the cuts “will not happen,” people took note. Read full article >>

The third presidential debate drew a lot of viewers on Monday night, but not as many as the two debates that preceded it. 53.9 million people tuned in to watch President Obama and Mitt Romney face off, according to Nielsen. That number made the night, which focused on foreign policy, the lowest-rated of the three debates. As the Washington Post pointed out, there were several things working against the ratings.

It was almost as if President Obama's advisors had said before the debate, "Don't agree with Romney on anything," while Romney's advisors might have said to their boy, "Agree with Obama as much as possible." After all, this third and final presidential debate of 2012 was supposed to be about foreign policy, an area in which Obama is expert and seasoned and in which former governor Romney has no enviable credentials.

According to CBS: "Before the debate, 46% said they would trust Romney, and 58% said they would trust the president. Those numbers spiked to 49% and 71%, respectively. "Overwhelmingly, the same group of voters said President Obama would do a better job than Romney on terrorism and national security, 64% to 36%. But they were evenly split, 50-50, on which candidate would better handle China."

Chinese Internet users who watched live streams of Monday’s U.S. presidential debate heard President Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney criticizing China with some of their toughest language of the campaign – which many Chinese assume the candidates will dial down once the election is over.

President Obama and Mitt Romney met for the third and final debate Monday night, where they tackled foreign policy issues. Below, CBSNews.com takes a closer look at the candidates' assertions on issues relating to Iraq, Russia, Iran, the size of the military, the economy and energy...

Text of the third and final presidential debate between President Obama and Mitt Romney.

While foreign policy became an unexpected pivotal point in last week's town-hall style presidential debate, Monday's final showdown will focus entirely on international affairs.