Debates

On Monday, the major English and Spanish network ignored on their evening newscasts the decision by the Republican National Committee (RNC) to officially strip NBC News of its chance to host the February 26 Republican presidential debate that was soon after awarded to CNN (while keeping previous partners Telemundo and National Review).

MRC President Brent Bozell issued the following statement on Monday in reaction to the Republican National Committee’s decision to officially cut ties with NBC News for a planned February 26 Republican presidential debate. “This was the right move by the RNC. After the dreadful performance by CNBC’s moderators at the Republican debate in October, it makes no sense to continue to allow committed…

Appearing as a guest on Monday's New Day on CNN to discuss Sunday night's Democratic presidential debate, liberal CNN political commentator Paul Begala asserted that, in contrast to the Democratic debate, that the last GOP debate had been "hateful" in its battle between Ted Cruz and Donald Trump. He went on to claim that Republicans argue about "who's going to be more extreme," adding, "if a…

In contrast to the other post-Democratic debate analyses on Sunday night, the guests assembled on the Fox News Channel (FNC) repeatedly ripped the three presidential candidates for failing to mention national security or foreign policy in the debates’s first question from NBC co-moderator Lester Holt on what three things they would do in their first 100 days in office.

After NBC’s Democratic co-moderator Andrea Mitchell lectured Bernie Sanders in Sunday’s debate about whether or not he regretted bringing up Bill Clinton’s sex scandals, the post-debate analysis on CNN saw panelists Dana Bash and Paul Begala (a former Clinton aide) less than pleased with the issue and did their best to downplay its significance in the 2016 race.

Batting lead-off on the post-Democratic debate coverage of their respective networks late Sunday, CNN’s Jeff Zeleny and FNC’s Ed Henry couldn’t have offered a larger contrast as Zeleny gushed that Hillary Clinton “pretty much dominated” Bernie Sanders on “the issues” while FNC’s Ed Henry observed that it was Sanders who “dominat[ed] the agenda” with “his best performance so far.”

Near the end of Sunday night’s Democratic presidential debate on NBC, co-moderator, Clinton correspondent, and MSNBC host Andrea Mitchell served up the lone question on Bill Clinton’s sex scandals in a misleading and vague fashion that allowed Senator Bernie Sanders to dodge the substance of the matter and instead falsely bash the media for even bringing it up. “You called Bill Clinton's past…

In the pre-Democratic debate show on MSNBC Sunday night, Meet the Press moderator Chuck Todd brought on House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and asked her if, as “a student of American politics” and someone who “broke a marble ceiling as first woman Speaker of the House,” how significant it would be “for the Democratic Party to elect the first woman president.”

On Friday's Real Time with Bill Maher on HBO, Senator Ted Cruz and House Speaker Paul Ryan were the two Republican figures who were most on the receiving end of host Maher's vitriol as he derided Cruz as the "child of Satan and a dog," and asserted that both men have a "punchable face." By contrast, when former Vice President Al Gore appeared as a guest to promote his environmental agenda, the…

On ABC's The View on Friday, the ladies discussed the Republican debate. They actually discussed both debates, going after Carly Fiorina's Hillary wisecrack in the undercard. She said: "Unlike another woman in this race, I actually love spending time with my husband.” Co host Joy Behar made a meowing sound and said, “I wonder who she’s talking about? Who do you think she’s talking about?”

On Friday's Erin Burnett OutFront on CNN, during a segment devoted to discrediting President Ronald Reagan's conservative credentials and painting modern Republicans as far right, host Erin Burnett proclaimed that Republicans "would hate that guy," and joined with CNN presidential historian Douglas Brinkley in suggesting that Democrat Hillary Clinton's views on some issues are closer to Reagan's.

On today's Melissa Harris-Perry show, the perpetually outraged Nina Turner of Ohio ripped Ted Cruz and Chris Christie for their language during this past week's debate: "to call the president a boy, those of us who understand African-American history—cause that's exactly what they called him was a boy—and you don't do that to anybody, and especially to an African-American man." Republican…

During the 1980s, a favorite talking point of liberals was that President Reagan tended to confuse movies with reality. In a Friday article, Zack Beauchamp accused a current Republican presidential candidate, Ted Cruz, of doing something similar, and alleged that the GOPers who took part in Thursday’s prime-time debate stand for a “view of the world [that] is as much a work of fiction as” Michael…

Is the outrage over Ted Cruz' 'New York Values' hit on Donald trump really warranted?