Debates

Syndicated columnist and FNC contributor Charles Krauthammer was Bill O’Reilly’s first guest on the 11:00 p.m. Eastern edition of The O’Reilly Factor after Wednesday’s CNBC debate and tore into the moderators for a “most appalling performance” in which they were “obnoxious,” “interrupting,” and “disorganized.”

"This got a little revolting tonight," MSNBC's Chris Matthews lamented to colleague Chris Jansing in a post-debate special edition of Hardball Wednesday night. Matthews was chagrined with Republican Sens. Ted Cruz (Texas) and Marco Rubio (Fla.) scoring points with the debate audience by attacking the liberal media.

With his "viral video" line about the liberal media being the Democrats' super PAC to his deft handling of Jeb Bush's attacks, Sen. Marco Rubio won the night, MSNBC analysts agreed in a special Hardball.

Governor Chris Christie (N.J.) assailed CNBC debate co-moderator Carl Quintanilla for dedicating a line of questioning to whether daily fantasy football websites should face regulation by the federal government: "Are we really talking about getting government involved in fantasy football? Wait a second, we have $19 trillion in debt, we have people out of work, we have ISIS and Al Qaeda attacking…

MRC president Brent Bozell issued a statement Wednesday night criticizing the overall tilt and tone of the CNBC Republican debate in Boulder:  "The CNBC debate will go down in history as an encyclopedic example of liberal media bias on stage. The audience roared its disdain for these so-called 'journalists,' and all of America heard it."

Wednesday's New York Times featured "Ted Cruz as Beowulf: Matching Candidates With Books They Sound Like," in which the Times measured the candidates’ debate rhetoric by complexity and eagerly forwarded some unchallenged stereotypes of "simplistic" conservatives: "'Trump has the language of the board room, the language of entertainment,' [professor Sharon] Jarvis said. 'He really speaks to the…

During Wednesday's Republican presidential debate on CNBC, Senator Marco Rubio (Fl.) shellacked the news media as “the ultimate super PAC” for Democrats and Hillary Clinton. "Last week, Hillary Clinton...admitted she had sent e-mails to her family saying hey, this attack in Benghazi was caused by al-Qaeda-like elements. She spent over a week telling the families of those victims and the American…

During Wednesday’s Republican presidential debate on CNBC, Senator Marco Rubio (Fl.) excoriated the Florida newspaper The Sun-Sentinel and debate co-moderator Carl Quintanilla for raising questions about his young age and calls for him to resign from the Senate due to missed votes as examples of “a double standard” and “bias that exists in the American media today.”  

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) took CNBC debate panelists to task for their liberal bias: “The questions that have been asked so far at this debate illustrate why the American people don’t trust the media....The contrast with the Democratic debate, where every thought and question from the media was, which of you is more handsome and why?...And nobody watching at home believes that any of the moderators…

As I noted earlier this evening, in an early question in the undercard GOP debate tonight, CNBC's John Harwood pressed Gov. Bobby Jindal (R-La.) on his staunch opposition to tax hikes. Well, later in the same debate, Harwood hit Jindal from the other side of the ledger as regards spending cuts, and the $1.6-million shortfall that the state treasury saw earlier this year. It, by the way, has since…

Continuing to come unhinged and flash his liberal colors in the first CNBC Republican presidential debate on Wednesday, co-moderator John Harwood pontificated that President Obama has made the United States economy “the strongest in the world.”

Well, CNBC GOP debate moderator John Harwood didn't waste any time. Shortly into the "undercard" debate tonight, the journalist pressed Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal about whether he would "do for the federal budget what you did for the Louisiana budget" and citing "many Republicans are opposed to the approach that you've taken in Louisiana" by "tr[ying] so hard to avoid anything that can be called…

Mollie Hemingway -- the winner of the first annual Noel Sheppard Media Blogger of the Year Award -- has an excellent piece at The Federalist detailing why "CNBC's John Harwood Has No Business Moderating A GOP Presidential Debate."

Ahead of Wednesday’s Republican presidential debate, NBC’s Today promoted Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton having “her own battle plan heading into tonight,” preparing to respond to the GOP 2016 field with a new ad blitz.