Donald Trump

One could offer credit to the PBS NewsHour for mostly avoiding the unsubstantiated National Enquirer story claiming Ted Cruz had five secret mistresses. The closest the NewsHour came to it came on Friday was anchor Judy Woodruff saying "Cruz accused Trump of being behind tabloid accusations of extramarital affairs. It was the latest in the escalating war of words over women this week between the…

Conservatives and liberals often agree that the media have played an outsized role in making Donald Trump the Republican presidential frontrunner but differ about how they’ve done it. (Here’s a view from the right.) Lefty Esquire blogger Pierce argues that the list of offenders in this regard is long; in fact, it includes every journalist who’s failed to point out over the last few decades that…

On Monday's Last Word, MSNBC's Tony Dokoupil inadvertently revealed that his network restrains itself from pressing Donald Trump too hard. Dokoupil reported on conservative radio host Charlie Sykes's "incredibly blistering" interview of Trump earlier in the day, and underlined that the personality "knew it was going to be a one and done. He does not have to go back to Donald Trump ever again.…

According to Good Morning America’s Matt Dowd, it really doesn’t matter if Ted Cruz or Donald Trump win the Republican primary. Neither can beat Hillary Clinton. While discussing the National Enquirer’s sketchy claims about Cruz, the ABC political analyst allowed that Clinton is “vulnerable.” But he concluded of the GOP primary: “It actually almost puts the Republicans in a place where they can't…

NBC anchor Chuck Todd isn’t buying the National Enquirer hit piece on Ted Cruz. On the March 27 edition of Meet the Press, Todd commented that “there’s more evidence that ties Trump to planting the story, than there is to the story itself tying anything to Cruz.”

Sunday's MediaBuzz on Fox News Channel critiqued the media's attention on the National Enquirer's cover story about multiple alleged affairs involving Senator Ted Cruz. Howard Kurtz noted that "the dilemma for the press here is whether to run with these unproven allegations." The Daily Caller's Gayle Trotter asserted that the press "shouldn't run with it, because the story itself shows that the…

Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski had a jolly old time mocking Ted Cruz on today's Morning Joe. After playing a clip of Cruz refusing to say whether he'd support Trump given The Donald's attack on his wife, Joe imagined Cruz rehearsing his words before a mirror. Scarborough went on to approvingly cite David Axelrod, who had said that Cruz seems "staged" even when defending the honor of his…

Despite the fact that there’s a complete lack of solid sourcing in the sleazy National Enquirer allegations against Ted Cruz, all three networks on Monday morning reported on the story again, offering an additional three minutes and 44 seconds. This is on top of 11 minutes and 43 seconds devoted to the sketchy claims from Friday through Sunday. In total, the ABC, CBS and NBC morning and evening…

Appearing as a guest on Sunday's Reliable Sources on CNN, Daily Beast editor-in-chief and CNN political commentator John Avlon painted Fox News and the conservative media as "appeasing the crocodile" of Donald Trump "hoping that it eats you last" as he also blamed Trump's rise on Republicans chasing moderate "RINOs" out of the party.

Conservatives have objected in droves to a remark President Obama made this past week during his visit to Argentina. Addressing a gathering of young adults, Obama said, “In the past there’s been a sharp division…between capitalist and communist or socialist…but I think for your generation, you should be practical and just choose from what works.” The right’s hostile response, contended The…

The media quite routinely circulate Donald Trump tweets that they find offensive or at least controversial, even by now they suspect nothing outrageous ever dents the Trump magic among his followers. But what about the followers, the Trumpkins? How ugly can they be on social-media forums like Twitter? We know the media plucked offensive signs out at Tea Party rallies, so how is this different?

According to Dylan Matthews, Donald Trump attracts a highly diverse group of foes. Some of them (mostly Democrats and independents) find racism appalling, but others (notably some prominent Republicans) are fine with it as long as it’s packaged in a certain way. In a Wednesday article, Matthews remarked that even though GOPers such as Jeb Bush and Mitt Romney have sharply criticized Trump, they’…

Former Reagan administration official Bruce Bartlett joined the opening panel on MSNBC’s All In Thursday night and put forth the notion that Republicans in Washington and particularly Congress are responsible for the rise of Donald Trump by creating an “authoritarian, fascistic attitude that we're going to get stuff done.”

Appearing as a panel member on MSNBC's MTP Daily, Daily Beast columnist and MSNBC contributor Jonathan Alter tagged Republicans as the "Banana Republican Party," and declared that both men who have a chance to be the nominee -- Donald Trump and Ted Cruz -- are "manifestly unfit for high office." As Mary Kissel of the Wall Street Journal jumped in to remind him that, on the Democratic side,…