Speaking to former Florida Governor Jeb Bush on Thursday’s Today, NBC’s Matt Lauer did his best to play up Donald Trump’s repeated attacks on his fellow Republican throughout the Republican presidential primary. During the one-on-one interview, Lauer told Bush “your resume and your pedigree are perfect for the job of president” but wondered “after several months in the race, you're losing in the polls to the host of Celebrity Apprentice. How do you get your arms around that?”
Jeb Bush
By Brad Wilmouth | September 24, 2015 | 12:57 AM EDT
Appearing as a guest on Wednesday's CNN Tonight, former New York Times columnist Frank Rich -- now of New York magazine -- accused GOP presidential candidate Dr. Ben Carson of receiving support from a "racist, bigoted part of the Republican base," in the aftermath of Dr. Carson's comments opposing the election of a Muslim President. A bit later, he even accused GOP candidate Mike Huckabee of "bigotry" against homosexuals.
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 Tom Blumer | September 17, 2015 | 2:21 PM EDT
Either Nicholas Riccardi at the Associated Press is woefully ignorant, or he set out to deliberately mislead readers about the impact of Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush's tax plan. I'll report the details; readers here can decide for themselves.
Riccardi's "analysis," contained in his Sunday morning writeup covering the tax proposals of Bush, Marco Rubio and Rand Paul, contained the following paragraph summarizing the Bush plan's impact (HT to longtime emailer Alfred Lemire):
By Jeffrey Meyer | September 17, 2015 | 2:12 PM EDT
On Sunday, Hillary Clinton will make her first appearance on the Sunday morning political shows as a 2016 presidential candidate when she sits down with CBS’s John Dickerson on Face the Nation. She’s getting a very late start: While Clinton has so far avoided interviews with the “Big Three” (ABC, CBS, and NBC) Sunday shows, 18 other presidential candidates have made a total of 106 appearances since January 1, with Socialist Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) topping the list with 12.
By Brent Baker | September 9, 2015 | 6:21 AM EDT
Stephen Colbert largely kept his liberal politics in check on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert on CBS, at least in the Tuesday night debut, not producing the highly political program conservatives feared would emerge after Colbert rid himself of the conservative buffoon act he offered on Comedy Central. Overall, a much sillier and artificial program than David Letterman’s old show.
By Tom Johnson | September 4, 2015 | 2:27 PM EDT
Apparently at least two of the Beach Boys are Republicans, but when Daily Kos's Mark Sumner used a GOP/surfing metaphor, it didn't mean “catch a wave and you’re sittin’ on top of the world.” Rather, as Sumner sees it, the party is heading for a wipeout.
“For decades, Republicans have been thriving on a theme of Me-firstism and an insistence that it's the sworn duty of every American to fear those who have less than them,” wrote Sumner in a Tuesday post. “Republicans unleashed the tide of unreasoning fear and distrust, then they climbed up onto their boards and began to surf…Only, that wasn't so much a wave. It was more a tsunami.” And now, Sumner added, GOPers are so unhinged that in the presidential contest they’re abandoning their own political pros in favor of unqualified candidates who’ve never held public office.
By Scott Whitlock | September 3, 2015 | 11:59 AM EDT
For the second day in a row, Good Morning America's George Stephanopoulos on Thursday interviewed a Republican presidential candidate, grilling Jeb Bush on his floundering campaign: "You've had a pretty tough summer. Polling averages show you in single digits nationally, single digits in Iowa, single digits in New Hampshire. What happened and how do you turn it around?"
By Tom Johnson | August 30, 2015 | 8:33 PM EDT
In March 2013, the Republican National Committee released what soon became known as the “autopsy report,” which looked at how the GOP might reverse trends that recently had caused the party to lose the popular vote for the fifth time in six presidential elections. Washington Monthly blogger Martin Longman believes that conservatives’ hostile response to the report’s big-tent ideas paved the way for the disruptive candidacy of Donald Trump.
“This was all supposed to turn on a dime when the presidential election started,” wrote Longman in a Tuesday post. “All this hate and resentment and bigotry was supposed to just get turned off and Jeb Bush would waltz in with his sunny Reaganesque nobility and his love of amnesty and Common Core and his Mexican wife and family…and the hive would settle down and get back driving around that ideological cul-de-sac like good little stormtroopers. But these aren’t good little stormtroopers. These are genuine ruffians. And they’re having a block party and they’ve got their own music provided by Donald Trump.”
By Curtis Houck | August 27, 2015 | 11:07 PM EDT
While it may be a shock that the major broadcast networks on Thursday night reported that Hillary Clinton compared Republicans to “terrorists” on women’s health, it was far from a surprise that ABC and NBC openly cheered her for “coming out swinging” “on the offensive” with some “tough talk.” In addition, ABC, CBS, and NBC all refused to denounce Clinton’s comparison even though they chastised the use of the term “anchor baby” by Donald Trump and Jeb Bush.
By Mark Finkelstein | August 27, 2015 | 8:16 AM EDT
The morning after Al Sharpton was exiled to the Sunday morning desert from his evening show, and not long after Ed Schultz and Alex Wagner were relieved of their hosting duties, Joe Scarborough has profusely thanked NBC News honcho Andrew Lack for making those changes.
On today's Morning Joe, Scarborough was discussing stunning poll results in which the first word that came to voters' minds about Hillary was "liar." Asked what was the worst thing said about him in such polling, Scarborough answered "he works for MSNBC." But Joe then added, his hands steepled in a gesture of gratitude: "not any more though, cause things have changed. Thank you, Andy. Thank you very much."
By Jeffrey Meyer | August 25, 2015 | 10:20 AM EDT
On Tuesday’s CBS This Morning, reporter Chip Reid touted Democratic outrage over Jeb Bush’s comments over the need to crack down on“birth tourism” as evidence the Republican has “ignited a new controversy” on the issue of birthright citizenship. After the CBS reporter highlighted the ongoing back-and-forth between Bush and GOP frontrunner Donald Trump over the issue of immigration, Reid proclaimed “as Bush stood by his use of the controversial term anchor baby...He ignited a new controversy.”