On her Tuesday MSNBC show, host Andrea Mitchell reminisced over CNBC’s Washington correspondent John Harwood tripping up Rick Perry during a 2011 Republican presidential debate. After playing a clip of the infamous “oops” moment, Mitchell turned to Harwood and proclaimed: “John, what are you doing when you're not ending people's presidential candidate's race? I mean, that was a memorable moment.”
Rick Perry
By Matthew Balan | September 11, 2015 | 9:59 PM EDT
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.
By Scott Whitlock | August 20, 2015 | 5:03 PM EDT
Liberal Washington Post political reporter Ben Terris on Thursday offered a sneering article on Rick Perry, deriding the presidential candidate as a "zombie" "specimen." The story mocked Texas's longest-serving governor for having trouble raising money: "Due to a relatively recent political experiment known as super PACs, Perry’s zombie campaign lurches forward."
By Brad Wilmouth | August 18, 2015 | 12:28 PM EDT
As GOP presidential candidate Rick Perry appeared as a guest on Tuesday's New Day, co-anchor Alisyn Camerota challenged the former Texas governor for vetoing a Texas bill on equal pay, as she demanded, "Don't women deserve equal pay?"
By Curtis Houck | August 6, 2015 | 8:36 PM EDT
On Thursday’s network evening programs, ABC’s World News Tonight was the only newscast to make no mention of the 5:00 p.m. EDT debate between the bottom seven Republican presidential contenders ahead of the 9:00 p.m. EDT event featuring the top ten candidates. In addition, the CBS Evening News skipped Carly Fiorina’s attack on fellow candidate Donald Trump for his phone call with Bill Clinton.
By Brad Wilmouth | July 27, 2015 | 6:53 PM EDT
On Monday's Wolf show on CNN, host Wolf Blitzer referred to GOP presidential candidate Rick Perry's criticism of gun-free zones as "controversial" and "eye-raising" before then giving gun control activist Mark Kelly an unchallenged forum to push for more gun laws.
By Tom Blumer | July 27, 2015 | 12:32 AM EDT
2016 GOP presidential candidate and former Texas Governor Rick Perry is fighting a legal battle against an out-of-control Lone Star State county. That county's prosecutor has sued Perry, claiming that a) he committed an illegal act of "coercion" by threatening to veto legislation funding a "public integrity" office headed by Travis County's Rosemary Lehmberg, who was convicted of drunk driving in 2013 but refused to resign; and b) that he committed another illegal act by carrying out his veto promise. In effect, the County wants to criminalize Perry's exercise of his then-gubernatorial duties.
A Texas Court threw out the "coercion" contention on Friday. The Associated Press's Will Weissert was clearly quite displeased.
By Jeffrey Meyer | July 19, 2015 | 12:47 PM EDT
Building on comments he made on NBC’s Today, Meet the Press moderator Chuck Todd wondered if Donald Trump’s attack on John McCain were a “reap what you sow issue here for the Republican Party?” Todd brought up the “reap what you sow” argument during an interview with Rick Perry as he played up how the “party embraced Donald Trump four years ago...during his whole birther craze at the time and you actively reached out for him. In hindsight was that a mistake for the party in general to embrace Trump four years ago?”
By Tom Blumer | July 17, 2015 | 12:09 AM EDT
As usual, much of the press has responded to scandalous behavior by leftist sacred cows by making the story about Republicans criticizing the actions instead of the scandal itself.
On the one hand, are we really supposed to believe that only pro-lifers are horrified by the evidence that Planned Parenthood, aka Planned Parthood, sells the body parts of aborted preborn babies? Gosh, I hope not. So it's more than fair to turn the question around on anyone who tries to isolate the objections in that way. Mark Halperin at MSNBC tried that on Rick Perry, asking him, "Why are you so troubled by this video?" — as if the former Texas governmor is the one with a problem.
By Tom Blumer | June 5, 2015 | 11:50 PM EDT
On Thursday, the Associated Press's Will Weissert demonstrated that the ignorance of our nation's founding documents exhibited by Meredith Shiner at Yahoo Politics in March is not isolated to her.
Readers may recall that Shiner, reacting to Ted Cruz's presidential announcement speech, tweeted: "Bizarre to talk about how rights are God-made and not man-made in your speech announcing a POTUS bid? When Constitution was man-made?" In covering Rick Perry's presidential announcement, Weissert showed similar ignorance.
By Curtis Houck | June 5, 2015 | 1:00 PM EDT
After providing minimal coverage of former Texas Republican Governor Rick Perry’s 2016 announcement on Thursday night, ABC and NBC moved on from the story all together with zero mentions of Perry or the 2016 campaign on their Friday morning newscasts. Their late night comedy shows, however, spent plenty of time mocking Perry over his intelligence and eating of a corn dog back in 2011.
By Curtis Houck | June 4, 2015 | 8:52 PM EDT
Former Texas Republican Governor Rick Perry announced a second presidential campaign on Thursday afternoon, but viewers on the Thursday evening network newscasts may have missed the news altogether if not careful since the “big three” of ABC, CBS, and NBC gave Perry less than a minute and a half of combined airtime.