Debates

CJ Pearson, the 13-year-old conservative social-media star, could use a few good role models, suggested TNR’s Brian Beutler in a Monday article. After noting that Pearson has been “revealed as the perpetrator of a number of hoaxes,” Beutler mused that such behavior isn’t surprising given the ideological company the youngster keeps. “He's coming of age in a movement that often treats reality as…

Good ol' Mike Barnicle dutifully carried Dem water this morning, maintaining a straight face while calling Hillary Clinton a "strong" candidate.  But also on the Morning Joe set was Nicolle Wallace, who reported that "Democrats think she's terrible. I hope [Biden] doesn't run, because he's better than her." For good measure, Mark Halperin opined that Biden might want to wait until February, on…

During an interview with former White House Communications Director Anita Dunn, John Heilemann called out the Obama official for using a “strawman argument” to defend the Democratic Committee’s decision to only have 6 presidential debates. The With All Due Respect host challenged Dunn over her assertion that the hypothetical number of debates would be either 6 or 25 and wondered why Chairwoman…

Appearing on Wednesday’s NBC Today, new Daily Show host Trevor Noah described his eagerness to mock the Republican 2016 field: “Yeah, a great gift, the campaign. Great gift, Donald Trump, Ben Carson, Carly Fiorina, these are all gifts, these are beautiful – I couldn't ask for more.”

During an appearance on Fox News’ MediaBuzz on Sunday, Republican commentator Mercedes Schlapp compared the recent GOP presidential debate on CNN with that on Fox as being like a “Montessori school” that was “unstructured.”

A common allegation against Ronald Reagan during his White House years was that he confused movies with the real world. According to Chauncey DeVega, the current Republican presidential candidates do somewhat the same thing, and have added video games and a bit of Comic-Con to the mix. “Wednesday night’s CNN debate showed the American people an alternate reality where Chuck Norris movies are the…

Even after undercover tapes showed Planned Parenthood engaging in morally reprehensible and legally questionable practices with aborted babies, the New York Times is still using abortion as a wedge issue to use against "hard-right" Republicans, demonstrated by hostile, label-heavy stories in Friday's edition, including two on the front page. Elsewhere there was the usual defense of Planned…

On Friday’s NBC Today, co-host Savannah Guthrie proclaimed: “Hillary Clinton hitting back at another Republican candidate, Carly Fiorina. She went after Clinton several times during the debate.” In the report that followed, correspondent Andrea Mitchell noted how Fiorina “lit up the debate stage by partly targeting Hillary Clinton, the most famous woman in American politics.”

The healthy living editor for The Huffington Post reacted to the CNN GOP debate by criticizing Donald Trump and others for “peddling dangerous and bad ideas about health,” because of their remarks about vaccinations. Criticism of “anti-vaccination” stances is rich coming from Huffington Post, which has repeatedly been a platform for anti-vaxxer opinions including actor Jim Carrey’s. In 2009,…

This NewsBuster is a paid subscriber and regular listener to Hugh Hewitt's podcasts, and believes that Hugh is the ablest conservative interviewer on radio. So it was surprising to see him serve as such a loyal CNN soldier on today's Morning Joe. Hewitt, a member of the CNN panel at Wednesday's GOP debate, refused to complain about the paltry opportunities he was given to question the candidates…

Among the insights: Fiorina "has a notable facility for delivering answers that thrill conservatives but fall apart under close examination"; a discussion of childhood vaccines showed that the party is "fervid, claustrophobic, recklessly insinuating, and, at the same time, utterly timid when it comes to extremism in its own ranks”; and the GOP as a whole is "wedded to the tenets of [George W.]…

All three Thursday network evening newscasts led off with their respective recaps and analysis of the second Republican presidential debate, but NBC Nightly News stood out in proclaiming that the event “expos[ed] disconnects within the Republican Party” on issues such as Iraq in addition to defending Hillary Clinton from Fiorina’s “fierce attack” against her and Planned Parenthood.

Eager to provide supposed “fact-checking” of the Republican presidential debate, on Thursday, MSNBC NewsNation host Tamron Hall declared: “But to Carly Fiorina's moment regarding Planned Parenthood. While that comment was applauded by conservatives, a lot of that Twitter traffic was also...people fact-checking her on that statement.”

Apropos of Wednesday night’s Republican debates, Esquire’s Charles Pierce worried that political reporters may be treating the race for the party’s presidential nomination as if it were a Brad Thor novel rather than a highly consequential real-world event. “How do you cover a campaign in which 15 candidates are running on the basis of things that simply are not true…that simply do not exist?”…