According to CNN host Wolf Blitzer, Senator John Kerry said “something really, really nasty at the president” during the second presidential debate that precipitated President George W. Bush's talking over debate moderator and ABC co-anchor Charles Gibson in order to respond.

On the October 12 edition of Wolf Blitzer Reports, Blitzer asked the following of CBS News chief Washington correspondent and Face the Nation host Bob Schieffer, who is scheduled to moderate the final presidential debate on October 13:

BLITZER: Well, what happens, though, what do you do if -- if what happened the other night in St. Louis happens, that John Kerry says something really, really nasty at the president and it's time for you to move on to another subject, but the president is obviously anxious to respond and he just starts talking? How do you -- he's the president of the United States.

SCHIEFFER: Well, I don't suppose I could tell him to go take a time out, could I? That might be -- I don't suppose you could ask either one of them to do that. But I would try to accommodate that, but I think what I would do, Wolf -- and we won't know until it happens, if it does -- I would always make sure that if I let one of them do something and run over, I would try to make sure that the other got the same opportunity.

Here's the exchange from the October 8 debate:

KERRY: Now, I'm going to add 40,000 active-duty forces to the military, and I'm going to make people feel good about being safe in our military, and not overextended, because I'm going to run a foreign policy that actually does what President Reagan did, President Eisenhower did, and others. We're going to build alliances. We're not going to go unilaterally. We're not going to go alone like this president did.

GIBSON: Mr. President, let's extend for a minute --

BUSH: Let me just -- I've got to answer this.

GIBSON: Exactly. And with reservists being held on duty --

[crosstalk]

BUSH: Let me answer what he just said, about around the world.

GIBSON: Well, I want to get into the issue of the back-door draft --

BUSH: You tell Tony Blair we're going alone. Tell Tony Blair we're going alone. Tell Silvio Berlusconi we're going alone. Tell Aleksander Kwasniewski of Poland we're going alone. There are 30 countries there. It denigrates an alliance to say we're going alone, to discount their sacrifices. You cannot lead an alliance if you say, you know, you're going alone. And people listen. They're sacrificing with us.

As Media Matters for America noted, on ABC's Good Morning America on October 11, Gibson said of this debate moment: “Well, ties go to the president. He was going to make his point, and so you have to back off and let him.”