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.
Carly Fiorina
By Ken Shepherd | September 17, 2015 | 8:33 PM EDT
Carly Fiorina is "either a liar, or she's delusional" regarding the Planned Parenthood sting videos, Salon editor-at-large Joan Walsh snarled on tonight's edition of Hardball.
By Ken Shepherd | September 17, 2015 | 6:18 PM EDT
Leave it to CNN to go to the streets of Tehran for commentary on the Republican presidential primary.
By Ken Shepherd | September 17, 2015 | 4:49 PM EDT
"[I]n the current presidential campaign, the lines [between super PACs and candidates] are being blurred even more and no candidate is testing the legal limits more visibly or blatantly than Carly Fiorina, whose performance in Wednesday night’s Republican debate has thrust her candidacy into the spotlight," NBC News's Alexandra Jaffe and Kailani Koenig in a posting today at NBCNews.com's Meet the Press page.
By Matthew Balan | September 17, 2015 | 4:35 PM EDT
MSNBC's Morning Joe and CNN's New Day both interviewed Carly Fiorina on Thursday after she did well at the Republican presidential debate. However, the two programs failed to bring up her dare to President Obama and Hillary Clinton to watch the hidden camera videos exposing Planned Parenthood's sale of unborn babies' organs and tissue. CNN's Alisyn Camerota and Chris Cuomo largely skirted the issues during their segment with Fiorina, with Cuomo asking about her lack of smiling during the debate.
By Kyle Drennen | September 17, 2015 | 3:04 PM EDT
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.”
Lefty Blogger: GOP Debate ‘Most Fitting Tribute to Ronald Reagan Ever,’ Since It Was Full of ‘Complete Bulls**t’
By Tom Johnson | September 17, 2015 | 2:34 PM EDT 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?” wondered Pierce. “If the elite political press is going to treat fiction as fact as long as the fiction is delivered in a compelling, dramatic manner, then the country truly is lost.” He added, "The final fealty of the Republican Party to total and complete bullshit has been sworn.”
By Kyle Drennen | September 17, 2015 | 9:05 AM EDT
Despite a strong debate performance Wednesday night, on Thursday’s NBC Today, co-host Savannah Guthrie lectured Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina on her business record: “I know you have gotten into the reasons for your dismissal from Hewlett-Packard....in politics, and you know this well, if you're explaining, you’re losing.”
By Mark Finkelstein | September 17, 2015 | 9:04 AM EDT
It's one thing for conservatives to concur that Carly Fiorina was outstanding at last night's debate. But to hear a string of superlatives about Fiorina coming from committed liberal Mika Brzezinski was breathtaking.
Over the course of today's Morning Joe, a stream of praise for Fiorina flowed from Mika, capped by this: "my God, I have never seen anyone like her. Ever."
By Scott Whitlock | September 17, 2015 | 8:45 AM EDT
Former Democratic activist turned journalist George Stephanopoulos on Thursday went after Carly Fiorina for attacking Planned Parenthood during Wednesday’s presidential debate. The Good Morning America co-host grilled, “Another powerful moment last night was when you talked about those Planned Parenthood tapes. But analysts who've watched all 12-plus hours say the scene you're described, that harrowing scene, actually isn't in those tapes.”
By Curtis Houck | September 17, 2015 | 1:28 AM EDT
In CNN’s post-debate coverage early Thursday of their 2016 Republican debate, CNN political commentator Michael Smerconish praised Carly Fiorina as possessing “a public speaking gift,” but lamented that she didn’t smile enough during the debate and should “loosen it up a little bit.”
By Curtis Houck | September 16, 2015 | 10:31 PM EDT
Near the end of the first hour of the CNN Republican Debate, co-moderator Dana Bash fretted to numerous 2016 candidates about the possibility of a federal government shutdown over a conservative effort to defund Planned Parenthood that included her hounding Governor Chris Christie (N.J.) whether or not he would “support the shutdown.”