Debates

Despite a strong debate performance Wednesday night, on Thursday’s NBC Today, co-host Savannah Guthrie lectured Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina on her business record: “I know you have gotten into the reasons for your dismissal from Hewlett-Packard....in politics, and you know this well, if you're explaining, you’re losing.”

It's one thing for conservatives to concur that Carly Fiorina was outstanding at last night's debate.  But to hear a string of superlatives about Fiorina coming from committed liberal Mika Brzezinski was breathtaking. Over the course of today's Morning Joe, a stream of praise for Fiorina flowed from Mika, capped by this: "my God, I have never seen anyone like her. Ever."

Following Wednesday night’s Republican presidential debate on CNN, Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly analyzed the network’s debate format and noted how CNN’s moderators “made the debate very personal using Donald Trump’s attacks on other Republicans to frame questions.” 

In the late hours of Wednesday night after the Republican debate, MSNBC’s Hardball host Chris Matthews was in his element as he whined about the 2016 GOP candidates being “very ideological tonight” and targeted the Cuban-American heritage of Senators Marco Rubio (Fl.) and Ted Cruz (Tex.) for thinking that “they still are fighting a Cold War” and “treat[ing] Obama like he’s Castro.”  

In CNN’s post-debate coverage early Thursday of their 2016 Republican debate, CNN political commentator Michael Smerconish praised Carly Fiorina as possessing “a public speaking gift,” but lamented that she didn’t smile enough during the debate and should “loosen it up a little bit.”

Near the end of the first hour of the CNN Republican Debate, co-moderator Dana Bash fretted to numerous 2016 candidates about the possibility of a federal government shutdown over a conservative effort to defund Planned Parenthood that included her hounding Governor Chris Christie (N.J.) whether or not he would “support the shutdown.”

Closing out Wednesday’s NBC Nightly News, liberal correspondent and MSNBC host Andrea Mitchell played the role of Ronald Reagan biographer in using the late former president to attack the current Republican presidential field and ruled that Reagan’s “message was infused with sunny optimism” and represents “the flip side of today's angry rhetoric.”

The stage for tonight’s prime-time Republican presidential debate will be occupied by businesspersons, U.S. senators, current and former governors, and, in Jeet Heer’s words, a “genial fanatic,” whom you probably know better as retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson. Heer opined in a Wednesday article that Carson “combines extreme ideas with a comforting, trust-inducing persona” and explained that…

During an appearance on ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live on Tuesday night, CNN’s Jake Tapper pushed back against the idea that the media fueled Donald Trump’s presidential campaign and instead stressed that there “is a chicken and egg thing there.” 

A great many Fox News hosts and contributors publicly criticized Donald Trump’s latest Twitter swipes at Megyn Kelly. This raises a major pot-kettle issue, claims lefty writer Marcotte, in that these high-profile personalities who objected to Trump’s sexism work for a channel that disseminates one sexist message after another. “The position at Fox News and elsewhere in the conservative media on…

Just two weeks after the broadcast networks mourned “cultural icon” Jon Stewart leaving The Daily Show, Friday’s NBC Today and CBS This Morning touted an online petition on the liberal Change.org website urging the Commission on Presidential Debates to select the left-wing comedian as a 2016 debate moderator.

Did Rush Limbaugh force Fox News, in the wake of the Donald Trump/Megyn Kelly dust-up, to back down and welcome Trump back on its network?  That's what New York Times reporter Nick Confessore suggested on today's Morning Joe. Asked by Mika Brzezinski who was the most powerful person in the media today, Confessore responded: "I think Fox or Rush Limbaugh [whose last name Confessore pronounced "…

On MSNBC’s The Rundown on Tuesday, fill-in host Frances Rivera touted Hillary Clinton slamming Florida Senator Marco Rubio for having “offensive and troubling” views on abortion and asked The Washington Post’s Anne Gearan: “So when you hear Hillary Clinton talk about that...how is this new war on women narrative, if that's what it's going to be called, play into Hillary Clinton's hands?”

Joe Scarborough began with a telling admission: that if he were running the Republican party, he wouldn't let MSNBC host a GOP debate.   But the Morning Joe host went on to make an interesting point today: that if an MSM network had hit Donald Trump with the same sort of gotcha questions that Fox News did during this past Thursday night's debate, the reaction from conservatives would be "…