CNBC’s Deplorable Debate Debacle
“Mr. Trump, you’ve done very well in this campaign so far by promising to build a wall and make another country pay for it; send 11 million people out of the country; cut taxes $10 trillion without increasing the deficit; and make Americans better off because your greatness would replace the stupidity and incompetence of others. Let’s be honest. Is this a comic book version of a presidential campaign?”
— CNBC’s chief Washington correspondent John Harwood question to Donald Trump at the CNBC Republican debate, October 28.
“You’ve been a young man in a hurry ever since you won your first election in your 20s...Now, you’re skipping more votes than any senator to run for president. Why not slow down, get a few more things done first, or least finish what you start?....So when the Sun-Sentinel says Rubio should resign, not rip us off, when they say Floridians sent you to Washington to do a job, when they say you act like you hate your job, do you?”
— CNBC Squawk on the Street co-host Carl Quintanilla’s questions to GOP Senator Marco Rubio, same night.
“Ben Bernanke, who was appointed Fed chairman by your brother, recently wrote a book in which he said he no longer considers himself a Republican, because the Republican Party has given in to know-nothingism. Is that why you’re having a difficult time in this race?”
— Harwood question to former Florida Republican Governor Jeb Bush.
“Anybody who was following the market knows that your stock [Hewlett-Packard] was a much worse performer, if you looked at your competitors, if you looked at the overall market. I just wonder, in terms of all of that — you know, we look back, your board fired you. I just wondered why you think we should hire you now?”
— CNBC Squawk Box co-host Becky Quick question to Carly Fiorina.
“Senator Rubio, you yourself have said that you’ve had issues. You have a lack of bookkeeping skills. You accidentally inter-mingled campaign money with your personal money. You faced foreclosure on a second home that you bought. And just last year, you liquidated a $68,000 retirement fund. That’s something that cost you thousands of dollars in taxes and penalties. In terms of all of that, it raises the question whether you have the maturity and wisdom to lead this $17 trillion economy. What do you say?”
— Quick’s question to Rubio.
Even a Liberal Recognizes CNBC’s Awfulness
“CNBC was really reprehensible. But we got a real look at the Republican Party for the first time and their anti-government message is really picking up steam. And the Democrats [have] got to pay attention to it and they’re right about the mainstream media. We in the mainstream media need to be reading the right-wing press more, looking online more. I look at it, because it’s a very different universe than we talk about. And there’s a lot of people out there that adhere to it.”
— Former Washington Post reporter Carl Bernstein on CNN Tonight, October 29.
Huh? Hillary Was “One of the Biggest Winners” of Debate?
“She, I think, is actually one of the biggest winners last night. The more they duke it out, the more internal fighting there is, she stays above the fray. And come that general election, that is really going to help her....She was having a good time. I think she was actually liking it. She was live texting her supporters throughout this debate. She was live tweeting. One of the tweets that she retweeted, she said she was LOLing about this debate. And George [Stephanopoulos] mentioned that clip of Hillary Clinton brushing off her shoulders....A lot of her supporters thought that was really funny and that was the big zing from Hillary Clinton last night.”
— ABC’s Cecilia Vega on Good Morning America, October 29.
“Revolting” Republicans Should Just “Grow Some Nuts”
“You know, some of those questions, especially given the prescriptions they are offering, are questions that feel hostile to those Republican candidates and, you know, that’s life in the big city.”
— CNBC’s John Harwood discusses moderating the GOP debate on MSNBC’s Hardball, October 28.
“This got a little revolting tonight, because I thought that the candidates were trying to get votes, and they were using that initiative to take it out on the moderators.”
— MSNBC’s Chris Matthews on same show.
“Look, in many ways this was a premeditated attack. There had been some leaked ideas that, you know, beforehand, they were going to go after the moderators and say, ‘Hey, the Democrats didn’t get questions like this,’ and they determined this before the debate even started.”
— Meet the Press host Chuck Todd on NBC’s Today, October 29.
“So grow some nuts. If you’re going to be the president, you’re going to have to answer these questions at some point. I don’t understand.”
— Whoopi Goldberg on Republicans complaining about CNBC debate moderators on ABC’s The View, October 29.
“Fascistic” GOP Debate Letter Appears “to Have Been Drafted by Stalin”
“It’s hilarious because, first of all, if you look at their [the GOP presidential campaigns] demands in this letter, which they’re not even all agreeing to, they seem to have been drafted by Stalin. You know, it’s so tedious, it’s so fascistic really....They seem like scared little children.”
— New York magazine’s Frank Rich on MSNBC’s The Rachel Maddow Show, November 2.
Republicans Are “a Bunch of Unruly Nasty Children”
“If they are going to rejigger the process, I would suggest to Ben Carson and the people he’s meeting with that they have the next one in a sandbox because God, what a bunch of unruly, nasty children we had. But basically, Chris, I think it’s really easy to be a Republican presidential candidate. The answer to every question is ‘liberal media.’ Are you — do you associate with snake oil salesmen? ‘Liberal media.’ What about the budget deal? ‘Liberal media.’ What about the fact that you don’t do your day job? Liberal media. That’s simple.”
— Esquire’s Charles Pierce on MSNBC’s All In with Chris Hayes, October 29.
Hillary Faced Down McCarthyite “Demagogues” at Benghazi Hearing
“I thought we got a great look at who President Hillary Clinton would be, for the first time really, a kind of competence, the kind of command over the whole scene that she was being asked to testify under. She knew the issues. There was nuance about her positions. It was very impressive, given what she was up against and the other thing is I think you have to go back to Joe McCarthy, to the House Un-American Committee, to find a process as abusive in a congressional hearing as this one was....This was a reckless and outrageous hearing.”
— Former Washington Post reporter Carl Bernstein on CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360, October 22.
“She did great, because she was up against a group of demagogues. You have to go back to Joe McCarthy to see this kind of demagoguery in a congressional hearing and what they did is they gave her a platform to show her what kind of President of the United States she would be.”
— Bernstein an hour later on CNN Tonight.
How Dare You Accuse Hillary of Lying!
Senator Marco Rubio: “I’ve never personally attacked anybody in this race and I’m not going to start now....”
Co-host Charlie Rose: “Well, well, you called Hillary Clinton a liar, senator....The CIA was changing its own assessment of what happened there [Benghazi] during that time zone. If you’re calling her a liar by saying she perpetuated a lie, then why do you think she did that? What was her motive?....You were saying, Senator, that Hillary Clinton lied because she wanted to help Barack Obama in his re-election campaign? That’s a serious charge.”
— Exchange on CBS This Morning, October 29.
I Keep Telling You Bernie, Your Ideas Are “Not Radical”
Host Charlie Rose: “I’m the first person trying to argue you away from the idea that you’re a socialist....I’m just trying to argue that a lot of people believe what you do about those kinds of issues. They believe there are too many people in jail. There are too many people coming out and not having a place to go and they’re back in jail....There are a whole lot of people who believe the first step towards income equality or to eliminate income inequality is a $15 an hour minimum-wage and that’s been enacted in certain cities already. I’m just saying, these are not radical ideas.”
Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders: “Right. That’s right! They’re not radical ideas.”
— Exchange on PBS’s Charlie Rose, October 26.
Now Politically Incorrect: “Hard Worker”...
Alfonso Aguilar, Latino Partnership for Conservative Principles: “If there’s somebody who is a hard worker when he goes to Washington, it’s Paul Ryan. Not only works with the Republicans but Democrats.”...
Host Melissa Harris-Perry: “I want us to be super careful when we use the language ‘hard worker,’ because I actually keep an image of folks working in cotton fields on my office wall, because it is a reminder about what hard work looks like. So, I feel you that he’s a hard worker. I do, but in the context of relative privilege, and I just want to point out that when you talk about work-life balance and being a hard worker, the moms who don’t have health care who are working....We don’t call them hard workers. We call them failures. We call them people who are sucking off the system....No, no. Really, ya’ll do. That is really what you guys do as a party.”
— Exchange on MSNBC’s Melissa Harris-Perry, October 24.
...and Uttering Jewish Last Names
“I am not the anti-Semitic police, but I want to try this by all three of you. If this guy [Sidney Blumenthal] was ‘Joe McGee’ or ‘Jimmy Brown’ or any kind of regular name that wasn’t obviously or seemed to be Jewish, would we be hearing these names thrown around? The other day, I heard Saul Alinsky thrown in with Lenin and Marx! Saul Alinsky included. What is this about these names that the Republicans, especially the hicks love to use and throw around? It’s a tricky question, but I’m sorry, I’ve heard it from too many friends of mine who are Jewish who are sick of this. Why Sidney Blumenthal has become this name of evil?”
— Chris Matthews on Mike Huckabee’s criticism that Hillary Clinton had talked more about Benghazi with her confidant Sidney Blumenthal than with Libya Ambassador Chris Stevens, on MSNBC’s Hardball, October 27.
ESPN Host: Tea Party is Just Like ISIS
Huffington Post editor Howard Fineman: “But, he’s [new House Speaker Paul Ryan] going to be spending all his time trying to deal with these Tea Party people. What he’s probably going to have to do, if in fact he gets in, is stage some kind of fight with them and defeat them, or take away their power, and go after them. I don’t know if he’s got the guts to do that. I don’t know if he’s got the numbers to do it.”
Host Tony Kornheiser: “Are they like ISIS trying to establish a Caliphate here?”
Fineman: “Yes! Yes! That’s a very good analogy! Without the violence, obviously, but yes, they are a rejectionist front.”
— Exchange on Tony Kornheiser’s WTEM 980 Washington DC sports radio talk show, October 23.
Kathy Griffin’s Sober Analysis of Accomplished GOP Candidates
“So, I’ve met The Donald [Trump] several times. He is such a tool. It’s ridiculous....He can’t be President of the United States. And Dr. Ben Carson, I wouldn’t let that guy give me a pap smear. I mean, I’m sorry....I mean, something is just in the water. And Marco Rubio is, like secretly scary.”
— Comedian/actress Kathy Griffin on PBS’s Tavis Smiley, November 4.
PUBLISHER: L. Brent Bozell III
EDITORS: Brent H. Baker, Rich Noyes, Tim Graham
DEPUTY RESEARCH DIRECTOR: Geoffrey Dickens
RESEARCH ANALYST: Mike Ciandella
NEWS ANALYSTS: Scott Whitlock, Kyle Drennen, Matthew Balan, Jeffrey Meyer and Curtis Houck
INTERN: Michael McKinney