Candidates took shots at media bias on Wednesday during the third GOP presidential primary debate, to the delight of conservative viewers.
Florida Sen. Marco Rubio got things rolling early when he was asked about his missed senate votes. CNBC debate moderator Carl Quintanilla asked Rubio to respond to a Sun Sentinel article suggesting the Florida senator resign for not voting and for “hating” his job. Rubio answered by saying the article was “actually evidence of the bias that exists in the American media today.”
“Back in 2004, one of my predecessors to the Senate by the name of Bob Graham, a Democrat, ran for president missing over 30 percent of his votes. I don’t recall them calling for his resignation,” Rubio said, adding that secretary of state John Kerry and President Obama also missed high percentages of votes but were endorsed by the Sentinel.
“So this is another example of the double standard that exists in this country between the mainstream media and the conservative movement,” Rubio said.
But it was Texas Sen. Ted Cruz who had the best line of the night in regards to media bias. He was asked a question about the recent debt limit vote, and instead responded by noting how much of a travesty the debate had been so far.
“The questions that have been asked so far in this debate illustrate why the American people don’t trust the media,” Cruz said. “This is not a cage match. And, you look at the questions — ‘Donald Trump, are you a comic-book villain?’ ‘Ben Carson, can you do math?’ ‘John Kasich, will you insult two people over here?’ ‘Marco Rubio, why don’t you resign?’ ‘Jeb Bush, why have your numbers fallen?'”
But Cruz wasn’t finished with his condemnation of the media.
“The contrast with the Democratic debate, where every fawning question from the media was, ‘Which of you is more handsome and why?'”
I disagree somewhat with Cruz’s assessment of the Democratic debate. The moderator in that debate, Anderson Cooper, did ask the candidates some tough questions about current scandals and political liabilities. Overall, however, that debate focused more on issues while the Republican debates so far have focused on petty attacks between the candidates.
Cruz continued: “Let me be clear. The men and women on this stage have more ideas, more experience, more common sense than every participant in the Democratic debate. That debate reflected a debate between the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks.”
He ended his answer by pointing out that no one believed the moderators would be voting in a Republican primary, and implored the moderators to ask questions about “substantive positions.”
Cruz’s answer gained applause from the audience and received the most favorable reaction ever recorded by a Frank Luntz focus group.
Rubio mentioned the biased media again later in the debate, when he described the mainstream media as “the ultimate Super PAC” for Democrats.
“Last week, Hillary Clinton went before a committee. She admitted she had sent emails to her family saying, ‘Hey, this attack at Benghazi was caused by al Qaeda-like elements,'” Rubio said. “She spent over a week telling the families of those victims and the American people that it was because of a video.”
“And yet the mainstream media is going around saying it was the greatest week in Hillary Clinton’s campaign,” he added.
The moderators of the debate were booed throughout the night for their questions and constant interruptions. Even traditionally left-leaning publications like Slate and the Boston Globe branded the moderators as “smarmy” and biased. Politico wrote that the moderators had “lost control” of the debate.
Following the debate, RNC Chairman Reince Priebus released a statement critical of the moderators.
“Our diverse field of talented and exceptionally qualified candidates did their best to share ideas for how to reinvigorate the economy and put Americans back to work despite deeply unfortunate questioning from CNBC,” Priebus said. “One of the great things about our party is that we are able to have a dynamic exchange about which solutions will secure a prosperous future, and I will fight to ensure future debates allow for a more robust exchange. CNBC should be ashamed of how this debate was handled.”
