On Thursday, ABC’s World News Tonight and the CBS Evening News chose not to be the arbiter of whether Donald Trump or Ted Cruz was in the wrong concerning the debate over the wives and despite the fact Cruz had nothing to do with an ad of a naked Melania Trump, the newscasts painted Cruz as down in the mud with Trump for “defending the virtue of his wife.”
CBS Evening News anchor Scott Pelley did nothing to highlight the threat Trump had made against Cruz’s wife Heidi and instead rode in on his high horse to lambaste the pair as equals for not putting issues like “war and peace, immigration, and tax policy” at the “front and center” of their campaigns.
Lamenting that “[t]his day was about which Republican could appear more macho defending the virtue of his wife,” Pelley introduced national correspondent Chip Reid’s report by admitting that Reid “didn't find much virtue in any of it.”
Reid played the now-viral clip of Cruz telling Trump that he’s “a sniveling coward and leave Heidi the hell alone” before describing the Texas Senator as “respond[ing] angrily today after Donald Trump retweeted these side-by-side photos of Cruz's wife Heidi and Trump's wife, Melania, a former model, with the caption: '[T]he images are worth a thousand words.’”
The CBS News correspondent ruled that Cruz’s emotional comments were “just the latest exchange in a war of personal insults involving the two candidates' wives” that started Tuesday when a “16-year-old G.Q. Magazine photo of Melania was posted by a Super PAC that supports Cruz but is not affiliated with his campaign.”
Only in the final seconds of his piece did Reid note that it’s Turmp who should be concerned about how he’s viewed by women:
According to this week's CBS News/New York Times poll, Trump is leading Cruz among women Republican primary voters by 14 points, but, Scott, the news is not so good for Trump among registered women voters nationwide, where only 19 percent view him favorably.
Over on ABC, anchor David Muir told viewers from Brussels that Thursday “perhaps” marked “a new low in the race for president” because Cruz “[came] out swinging today, blasting Donald Trump for a retweet with pictures of the two wives, side-by-side, and the comments made about Cruz's wife.”
Republican campaign correspondent/Sunday anchor Tom Llamas hyped at the onset that Cruz was “enraged” as he peered “right into our camera” when he told Trump that he was “a sniveling coward.”
As for the initial ad about Melania Trump, Llamas mentioned that Cruz has “maintain[ed] he had nothing to do with the original ad, calling it completely inappropriate,” but the media and correspondents like this one have nonetheless continued salivating at the “war of wives.”
Perhaps most ironically, Llamas concluded by eagerly promoting a statement from none other than Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski (who’s been in the headlines repeatedly for his behavior around women): “Tonight, the Trump campaign is responding. Trump's campaign manager saying this about Senator Cruz. ‘This is his effort to gain attention to try and stay relevant in a race that he has lost.’”
NBC Nightly News anchor Lester Holt fretted in an opening tease that the events could mean that the 2016 campaign has taken “perhaps its nastiest turn yet,” but both he and Cruz correspondent Hallie Jackson took a slightly different approach.
Seconds after Cruz made his initial remark about Trump, the newscast showed the following exchange between Cruz and Jackson about what it means about whether Cruz would support Trump if the billionaire becomes the GOP’s nominee:
CRUZ: Donald, you're a sniffling coward and leave Heidi the hell alone.
JACKSON [TO CRUZ]: So, will you support him as the nominee?
CRUZ: I'm going to beat him for the nomination.
JACKSON [TO CRUZ]: He's leading right now. You just looked in that camera and said he is a coward. Will you support him as the nominee?
CRUZ: Donald Trump will not be the nominee because Donald Trump is a train wreck.
Further, Jackson highlighted Trump’s perilous state among female voters much earlier in her segment than CBS did:
Megyn Kelly, whom Trump has attacked repeatedly, asking about the tweet, simply: “Seriously?” Nearly half of female Republican voters say they can't imagine picking Trump, more than either of his rivals and among women in the general electorate, 7 in 10 have a negative view of Trump.
