The morning after Washington Post cartoonist Ann Telnaes published (then unpublished) an illustration depicting Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz’s daughters as toy monkeys, calling them “fair game” since they appeared in a campaign ad, ABC’s Good Morning America ignored the story completely while CBS This Morning and NBC’s Today excused it as merely a “feud” and part of “increased scrutiny” for Cruz as he ascends in the polls.
Matt Lauer
After covering the upcoming Republican presidential debate on Tuesday, NBC Today co-host Matt Lauer promoted Hillary Clinton preparing to attack her GOP rivals: “Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton is planning a preemptive strike against the barrage of criticism that she's expecting from her Republican rivals on that stage tonight. So today she’ll make her case on how she’d take on the ISIS threat.”

An MRC analysis of interviews from January 1 to December 4 finds the broadcast networks have pounded the candidates with a blizzard of hostile and left-wing questions.
Moments before President Obama’s Sunday night address to the nation about the San Bernardino terrorist attack, NBC Nightly News anchor Lester Holt hoped the speech might be “a defining moment for his presidency.” By Monday morning, reaction from hosts and analysts on the Today show made it clear the presidential remarks were not impressive.
At the top of Thursday’s NBC Today, co-host Matt Lauer seized on a BBC World News correspondent dismissing the San Bernardino shooting as “just another day” in America: “I don't often start coverage of an event like this by talking about how other people are covering it, but a commentator for the BBC said overnight, ‘Just another day in the United States – another day of guns, chaos, and panic. This time in the city of San Bernardino.’”
On Tuesday, only NBC’s Today covered Oklahoma Wesleyan University president Everett Piper slamming political correctness on college campuses. Co-host Matt Lauer informed viewers: “...a university president is getting a lot of attention for a surprising blog post that he aimed at students. His message to today's youth, ‘Grow up and stop being so self-absorbed and narcissistic.’”
Interviewing Ben Carson for the first time on NBC’s Today on Tuesday, co-host Matt Lauer condescended to the Republican presidential candidate while citing the latest polling: “In the last four to six weeks you have gone from number one in Iowa to number three, and your decline seems to coincide with some very troubling world events....Is it a coincidence that your numbers are going down as Americans are coming to terms with moments like that?”
Talking to Bloomberg Politics managing editor Mark Halperin on Monday’s NBC Today, co-host Matt Lauer wondered if the shooting outside a Planned Parenthood facility in Colorado would hurt the GOP politically: “...does the attack take the issue of Planned Parenthood off the table for Republican candidates who don't want to be seen or don't want to risk taking advantage of a tragedy or being on the wrong side of a tragedy?”
Teasing an upcoming report that amounted to Obama administration propaganda on Thursday’s NBC Today, co-host Savannah Guthrie proclaimed: “Fighting for family leave....How one mom's courageous battle for more time at home made it all the way to the White House.”
Appearing on Wednesday’s NBC Today, former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge repeatedly ripped President Obama’s failing foreign policy against ISIS as co-hosts Savannah Guthrie and Matt Lauer sat back without comment.

CBS This Morning stood out as the sole Big Three network morning newscast on Tuesday to cover a University of Missouri academic shouting down a reporter, briefly physically attacking him, and then calling people over to "get this reporter out of here...I need some muscle over here." Norah O'Donnell spotlighted Melissa Click, "an assistant professor of mass media," who along with "students, were telling the media...to back off." ABC's Good Morning America and NBC's Today didn't mention Click.
During an interview with NBC Today co-host Matt Lauer on Monday, Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus denounced the “crazy obsession” of the media over alleged inaccuracies in Ben Carson’s biography and pointed out a glaring double standard: “The fact is, you know, we kind of wish the media would be just as obsessed or half obsessed with Hillary Clinton's lies of many years and real relevant things like people who have died in Benghazi and e-mails and everything else.”
