Face in the News

On this Sunday's Face the Nation, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani continued to criticize Vice President Joe Biden's "chains" comment from a recent Virginia campaign rally, calling his remarks "an absolutely blatant appeal to racism."

Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., fired back at Giuliani and defended Biden. "There isn't a racist bone in Joe Biden's body, and to suggest that is I think over the edge," Durbin said. "Joe Biden is my friend. Rudy Giuliani, that isn't fair. What you have said is going too far."

When Giuliani demanded an apology from Biden, the Senate majority whip said he wasn't "going to dignify those remarks."

The conversation turned to Medicare where both Giuliani and Durbin agreed that the campaigns are ready for debate.

"The idea that Paul Ryan wants to end Medicare is just a total lie," Giuliani said. "He wants to save it because it's going to go bankrupt if we don't save it. So let's have a debate about it."

Durbin added, "We're anxious to make Medicare the issue, if that's what Paul Ryan and Mitt Romney want to speak to...if they want to debate that, we're ready."

Giuliani noted the Romney campaign's shifting focus from the economy to Medicare. "It's either going to be one of the great political decisions or one of the political mistakes," Giuliani said. "But I think it's a gutsy one."

(Read more about the conversation with Giuliani and Durbin on Politico, The Washington Post, New York Post, Los Angeles Times, The Capitol Column, The New York Times, Red Alert Politics, The Daily Beast, The Hill, UPI, National Journal, New York Magazine, USA Today, The Boston Globe, The Atlantic)

President of Americans for Tax Reform Grover Norquist squared off with Neera Tanden, president of the Center for American Progress, to discuss the role of taxes in the presidential campaign.

While Norquist argued that eight tax increases in the Affordable Care Act "directly hit low income people."

"The president didn't keep his word when he said he wouldn't raise taxes on people earning less than $200,000 a year," Norquist said.

Tanden defended President Obama's tax plan. "The Affordable Care Act is a $600 billion tax cut for health care, tax cuts to middle income families," Tanden said.

She added, "The truth here is that the only person who actually has a plan to raise taxes on middle-income voters ... is Mitt Romney, whose tax plan is giving a massive tax cut to the wealthy and will pay for it by increasing taxes by $2,000 on middle-income families."

Don't miss the political panel with Niall Ferguson, Nia-Malika Henderson, Jeff Zeleny, and John Dickerson as they weighed in on the Ryan-effect. Also, Kim Barker of ProPublica discussed her recent findings that Super PACs have been out-funded by social-welfare groups in television ad spending.

Watch the full episode of Face the Nation.