At the onset of the 2016 coverage on Wednesday’s CBS Evening News, anchor Scott Pelley mentioned how Donald Trump discussed torturing terrorists at one appearance and then joked that perhaps Trump and GOP rival Ted Cruz “might like to try” waterboarding each other due to the heightened tensions between them.
Before tossing to correspondent Major Garrett in South Carolina, Pelley first noted that “Trump said that waterboarding is not severe enough in the effort to pry the truth out of suspected terrorists.”
The liberal CBS anchor then ruled that, “from the sounds of it, he and his chief rival Ted Cruz might like to try it on each other in campaigns that seem unable to break out of a cycle of name calling.”
Of course, this quip by Pelley depicting two candidates as physically torturing each other and then chiding candidates (as the liberal media does on a daily basis) for supposedly engaging in nasty rhetoric marked the latest example of hypocrisy by the liberal media.
Garrett went onto spent nearly all of his two-minute-and-seven-second segment going blow by blow between Cruz and Trump with only 22 seconds for South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley’s endorsement of Senator Marco Rubio ahead of Saturday’s primary and how Trump “picked up the endorsement on the Low Country Sportsmen today, an influential hunting and fishing group.”
It’s also worth mentioning that Pelley’s quip comes a day after the Jeb Bush campaign demanded Garrett apologize for quoting a tweet on Tuesday’s newscast that urged Bush not to commit suicide upon seeing one of his tweets about receiving a new handgun with his name engraved on it.
The transcript of the segment from the CBS Evening News with Scott Pelley on February 17 can be found below.
CBS Evening News with Scott Pelley
February 17, 2016
6:36 p.m. Eastern[ON-SCREEN HEADLINE CAPTION: CBS News Campaign 2016; Battle for South Carolina]
SCOTT PELLEY: Campaigning today in South Carolina, Donald Trump said that waterboarding is not severe enough in the effort to pry the truth out of suspected terrorists and from the sounds of it, he and his chief rival Ted Cruz might like to try it on each other. In campaigns that seem unable to break out of a cycle of name calling. Major Garrett is in South Carolina.
REPUBLICAN SENATOR TED CRUZ (Tex.): Donald, I would encourage you, if you want to file a lawsuit challenging this ad, claiming it is defamation, file the lawsuit.
GARRETT: Ted Cruz today scoffed at Donald Trump for threatening to sue over this ad from the Cruz campaign.
DONALD TRUMP [on NBC’s Meet the Press, 10/24/99]: I am pro-choice in every respect.
CRUZ: Mr. Trump has sent me a legal cease and desist letter saying, “stop telling the voters my record.” Now, that is objectively legally frivolous.
GARRETT: Trump fired back calling Cruz “desperate”: “I am pro-life and I do not support taxpayer funding for Planned Parenthood as long as long as they are performing abortions,” the GOP frontrunner said in a statement. Trump has called Cruz a liar all week. He's also threatened to sue Cruz over his eligibility to run for president, given his Canadian birth. On another legal issue, Trump said today he would defy Geneva Convention prohibitions and use torture to fight terrorism.
DONALD TRUMP: Torture works, okay, folks. Torture, you know, you have these guys — torture doesn't work upon believe me it works. What do you think of waterboarding? Absolutely fine but we should go much stronger than waterboarding.
GARRETT: Marco Rubio, current polling behind Trump and Cruz, today won the coveted endorsement of South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley.
REPUBLICAN GOVERNOR NIKKI HALEY (S.C.): If we elect Marco Rubio, every day will be a great day in America.
GARRETT: It was another blow to Jeb Bush whose brother, former President George W. Bush, met privately with Haley on Monday. Trump picked up the endorsement on the Low Country Sportsmen today, an influential hunting and fishing group. Scott, the group backed the 2012 South Carolina Republican primary winner, Newt Gingrich.
PELLEY: And the Republican vote in South Carolina is on Saturday. Major, thank you.
