Campaigns & Elections

The early Wednesday morning edition of ABC’s Nightline provided the first look at the network reaction to Tuesday night’s Republican presidential debate and featured correspondent David Wright ripping it as a “bloody” affair with help from liberal comedians and scolding Chris Christie for remarks about Los Angeles mothers placing their children on school buses only to have classes canceled due to…

Giving viewers his initial thoughts concerning Tuesday’s 2016 GOP presidential debate on the 11:00 p.m. Eastern edition of AC360, CNN political commentator and former Obama administration adviser Van Jones opined that Marco Rubio seemed “rattled” for “the first time” and “lost his cool” as he faced “competition” from fellow Senators Ted Cruz and Rand Paul.

Offering his initial thoughts on Tuesday’s GOP presidential debate on the 11:00 p.m. Eastern edition of CNN’s AC360, CNN political commentator and Hillary Clinton super PAC head Paul Begala complained that Republicans possess “dominant emotion” of “fear” that they’ve somehow used to instill fear in Americans following recent terror attacks in Paris and San Bernardino. 

The British press has gone from topless models to penis jokes about presidential candidates. At least that junior high humor stays largely on Twitter, where the filters come off and journalists’ truly biased viewpoints come out.  

Dave Zirin, sports editor for The Nation, had particularly harsh words for the GOP candidates on stage during CNN’s debate Tuesday night. Perhaps not surprising as he has a history of bashing conservatives and Christians,  like when he bashed Scott Walker earlier this year or his multiple attacks against openly-Christian Tim Tebow.  

During Tuesday’s debate, CNN featured a question suggesting that Republicans are biblical hypocrites when it comes to the issue of immigration. Co-moderator Wolf Blitzer played a video question from a woman named Carla Hernandez. She suggested, “I'm from the University of Texas at Austin and my question is directed to all the candidates. If the Bible clearly states that we need to embrace those…

In a bizarre exchange, co-debate moderator Hugh Hewitt on Tuesday night pressed Ben Carson as to whether he was “tough” enough to kill thousands of children. Hewitt lectured, “We're talking about ruthless things tonight. Carpet bombing, toughness, war. And people wonder, could you do that?” 

Former John McCain presidential campaign advisor Steve Schmidt pushed back against Chris Matthews on tonight's Hardball when the latter whipped out his tired Bush-caused-ISIS talking point.

Just after the undercard Republican presidential debate began on Tuesday night, the “big three” networks of ABC, CBS, and NBC offered previews of the impending “freewheeling and fiery slugfest” debate and contrasted that with plenty of laudatory rhetoric for “grown up” Hillary Clinton as she spoke in Minnesota about ISIS and “slamm[ed] Republicans for fearmongering.”

On Sunday's This Week, they concluded the show with a feminist tribute. ABC’s Cokie Roberts sat down with feminist legend Gloria Steinem for what should’ve been an interview on her first book in over 20 years, My Life on the Road. Instead, it was a celebration of her life. George Stephanopoulos gushed that Steinem “sat down with our own pathbreaker, Cokie Roberts, for a look back at 50 years of…

When it comes to global warming, Esquire’s Charles Pierce implies, it’s now conservative Republicans and a few hidebound Democrats versus pretty much everyone and everything else, including the world’s non-human animals and its plant life. Meanwhile, New York magazine’s Jonathan Chait opined that the Paris climate deal was “probably the [Obama] administration’s most important accomplishment."

MSNBC's Joe Scarborough blasted Marco Rubio in a series of posts on Twitter on Tuesday. Scarborough linked to Rubio's latest TV ad and contended that "Marco goes full-on nativist. Says he feels out of place in his own country. It's such a crass play. It's offensive." The Republican senator led the ad by stating, "This election is about the essence of America -- about all of us who feel out of…

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…

On two occasions during CNN’s live coverage Monday night previewing the sixth Republican presidential debate, CNN political commentator Michael Smerconish attempted to paint the issue of climate change and the deal reached in Paris as posing a “down ballot concern” for the GOP and causing “brand damage” since the party has largely rejected the ideal and declined to embrace the issue as a whole.