Following Tuesday night’s Democratic debate, all three of Wednesday’s network morning shows seized on Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders demanding the media stop asking about Hillary Clinton’s e-mail scandal. During fawning coverage on NBC’s Today, correspondent Peter Alexander proclaimed: “When it came to Hillary Clinton's e-mail scandal, it was her chief rival Bernie Sanders who sent a message loud and clear.”
John Dickerson
The morning after House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy shocked Congress by announcing he was dropping out of the race to become the next Speaker of the House, CBS This Morning and NBC’s Today sprinted over to their analysts to tear into the “really pathetic” conservatives for creating a “chaotic” situation for the House that shows they’re “impossible to run.”

On Tuesday’s CBS This Morning, Face the Nation moderator John Dickerson touted Hillary Clinton’s new campaign ad which blasts House Republicans investigating the 2012 Benghazi terrorist attack. After House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy argued last week that the committee's discovery of Hillary’s private e-mail server had caused her poll numbers to rapidly decline, Dickerson touted the “political gift” the Republican had given to the Democratic presidential front-runner.
An hour before news broke that House Speaker John Boehner would be resigning from Congress at the end of October, on CBS This Morning, Face the Nation moderator John Dickerson declared that the Republican leader “had the high and the low yesterday, spending time with the Pope and then three hours with those conservatives who are giving him a lot of trouble on trying to keep the government open and funded...”

On Sunday, Face the Nation moderator John Dickerson interviewed Hillary Clinton for her first Sunday show interview as a 2016 presidential candidate and the host repeatedly tossed softball questions at the Democratic frontrunner over use of a private e-mail server. The CBS News Political Director did his best to stress how Clinton has “been transparent, in the release of these e-mails” and repeatedly asked his guest open-ended questions but failed to push back against her standard talking points defending her e-mail practices.

ABC, CBS, and NBC's Friday evening newscasts all barely mentioned former Texas Governor Rick Perry suspending his second bid for the Republican presidential nomination. Altogether, ABC's World News Tonight, CBS Evening News, and NBC Nightly News set aside 54 seconds to Perry's announcement. By contrast, the Big Three news programs devoted 6 minutes and 11 seconds to Vice President Joe Biden's Thursday appearance on CBS's Late Show. NBC's Peter Alexander touted how Biden was still "riding a wave of emotion" after his son Beau's death in May 2015.
Two weeks after offering a mere 21-second news brief on allegations that the Pentagon altered intelligence data on ISIS “to provide a more optimistic account of progress” against the terror group, Thursday’s CBS This Morning was the only network morning show to report on 50 intelligence officials confirming that their analyses were changed.

Friday's CBS Evening News stood out for not covering Hillary Clinton's interview with NBC's Andrew Mitchell. The newscast didn't even mention the former first lady during their 2016 election coverage. Instead, Scott Pelley played up how Donald Trump "seems to stumble a lot, but never seems to fall" – specifically, his confused answers on foreign policy during an interview with conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt. Pelley also covered Vice President Joe Biden "agonizing publicly about whether he would run" for president.

During an appearance on CBS’s Face the Nation, Washington Post reporter Ed O’Keefe argued that Hillary Clinton’s decision to compare Republicans with terrorists on the issue of women’s issues was a sign of weakness coming from her presidential campaign. O’Keefe suggested that Clinton’s comments were meant to “solidify the Democratic base and sort of remind that she's willing to be that partisan warrior that they're seeking...But I saw that sort of as a sign of desperation or at least an attempt to sort of tamper down the idea that others are surging or that they're going to get in.”

On Sunday’s Face the Nation, Washington Post columnist Michael Gerson blasted President Obama for aligning Republicans in Congress with the leadership with Iran who chant “Death to America” simply for opposing the nuclear deal.

On Sunday’s Face the Nation, CBS’s John Dickerson spoke to Jamelle Bouie, liberal writer for Slate, about Hillary Clinton’s upcoming testimony before the Benghazi committee and wondered if the GOP will “go over the top, and that she'll be able to use that” to her advantage. He suggested that Clinton’s “team seems to be banking on the hopes that in this hearing, as Nancy [Cordes] suggested, members of Congress will behave as they occasionally do...use that. Do you think she’s got a shot at being able to turn that to her advantage?”
On Wednesday, all three network morning shows proclaimed that Donald Trump was making it “nearly impossible” for any other 2016 Republican candidates to get any media attention. On NBC’s Today, co-host Matt Lauer declared: “Donald Trump remains the talk of the presidential race with some new antics on the campaign trail. And it's making it hard for any of the fifteen other Republicans to get any attention...”
