Posted on 03/26/2016 1:34:32 PM PDT by drewh
TV news talent took on the look of innocent bystanders being drawn into a gunfight today when GOP presidential candidates Ted Cruz and Donald Trump exchanged fire over an unsourced National Enquirer report alleging Cruz had carried on extramarital affairs with five women.
“I have to say, I’m trying to sort of figure out how to cover this,” All In anchor Chris Hayes said as he moderated a chat with MSNBC’s national correspondent Joy Reid and the Daily Beast’s Betsy Woodruff. He noted that several outlets, including Breitbart News, had opted not to run with the National Enquirer story because it was so “thinly sourced.” Woodruff said her site “thought about writing this story several months ago, but we didn’t want to broadcast baseless rumors had no connection to reality by saying, ‘Hey, these stories are going around.’” “
When the story broke and when it really blew up on Twitter today, we thought, ‘All right, let’s pull the trigger’,” she explained. The Daily Beast’s take was that it was Marco Rubio backers who had been shopping the story to media outlets for six months, with no takers.
Things got particularly uncomfortable for CNN during a live on-air segment in which Kate Bolduan asked two talking heads – former Cruz communications director Amanda Carpenter and pro-Trump newspaper columnist Adriana Cohen – to discuss the two candidates’ clubbing each other in defense of their wives. You remember: an anti-Trump SuperPAC made an ad showing Trump’s model wife in a nude photo with a headline warning she could be the next First Lady. Trump shot back that he might “spill the beans” about Cruz’s wife, and later re-tweeted photos comparing Melania to a particularly unflattering picture of Cruz’s wife Heidi.
“I think we should move on,” Cohen said of that storyline, which was yesterday’s talker but you know how cable news likes to hang on to a good thing. “Where we should move to is the National Enquirer story that has reported Ted Cruz has allegedly had affairs with at least five mistresses, including – you’ve been named – Amanda.”
(Actually, she had not been named in the article, though she’d been ID’d by other media outlets who’d jumped in to play that abovementioned game.)
“I’m sorry, I don’t think that’s moving on at all, Adriana,” interrupted an aghast Bolduan. After pausing to inform CNN viewers the network has no reporting of its own on the tabloid story, she then turned the floor over to Carpenter.
Trump, meanwhile, issued a statement on his Facebook page, denying any involvement with the tabloid report.
“I have no idea whether or not the cover story about Ted Cruz in this week’s issue of the National Enquirer is true or not, but I had absolutely nothing to do with it, did not know about it and have not, as yet, read it,” the GOP front-runner said in a statement.
But, of course, he made sure to note the tabloid had been “right about O.J. Simpson, John Edwards and many others,” referencing the former senator from North Carolina and onetime VEEP candidate, whose career ultimately was nuked by the Enquirer’s report about his love child with filmmaker Rielle Hunter.
DISCOVERY
Ted’s damage control is to use the name “Donald Trump” every time the National Enquirer is mentioned
How long are people going to put up with the deflection?
Ted Cruz is a serial philanderer and everyone is pixxed at Donald Trump
uh huh.
Wow—thanks for the informative link!
This problem is for Cruz to settle. With his wife, with the media, with the voters.
This is not a Donald Trump problem.
"Guy Code" stipulates that when caught in a compromising situation, you are allowed to lie, deny, find some way to excuse the actions... You may blame her girlfriends (who are always trying to break us up) but you do not put the blame on some other guy.
Every time Cruz tries to put the blame on Trump, American men say, "Dude. Really?"
Cruz should know this.
DC politicians have LONG had immunity from press talking about their mistresses.
Remember Kennedy?
A reporter who talked about this would become a pariah among the ruling class. Only those who incurred the wrath of The Uniparty would be vulnerable.
I was responding to your comment that there was no corroboration...
There is.
Medium, Allum Bokhari (of Brietbart), and Drew Johnson have all corroborated in some form or fashion.
Parsing Johnson’s tweet won’t change the fact he says 2 are accurate.
Didn't the Clintons use that line a lot? LOL.
I mean, was there ever any "corroboration" of Juanita Broaddrick's story? And how many people are there on here who don't believe her?
There was no denial from Cruz, there was weasel wording like a ivy league lawyer. He attacked the article did not deny it was not true of the alleged affairs.
There is innuendo, gossip, etc. There is no proof of anything. Cruz has denied it and so have the “anonymous” woman. Who some guy found in the White Pages and called is not evidence, it is some random guy on the Internet making claims.
You could very well be smearing an innocent man. Johnson does not say he has even the slightest bit of evidence, only that 2 of the names are what he’s heard before. IE, those names have been shopped around.
All you need to do is wait a couple days and this story will be debunked or proven true. Instead, Trump people are posting endless slime - and doing so quite gleefully.
Trump can’t afford to alienate yet more people, so perhaps his fans should show a bit of class and let it play out and see if any of this amounts to anything.
WHY did we not hear even rumors about Ted Cruz’s alleged infidelities before now? Any number of now defunct campaigns would have benefited if Cruz had been torpedoed with this story either before Iowa, or even before his own home state primary of Texas?
Good question. I'd love to have the truth.
But there seems to be plenty of denial among his diehard supporters. LOL.
“Let me be clear this National Enquirer story is garbage,” Cruz said today. “It is complete and utter lies.
This is about as categorical denial as your gonna get.
Maybe if you would stop blindly following a person whose wife is involved in the cartel to destroy our national sovereignty we would be more tolerant. Instead we are called liberals, our faith is questioned and the name calling in endless. Open your ears and listen
We have been deceived and WE will be no more. This is what Trump was about to expose. These are the beans he was going to spill on Heidi Nothing sexual but the distruction of our nation by our own government The Bush/CLINTON/ Obama/ and now CRUZ cartel Open your eyes before it’s too late
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gXcYCwaBKnQ
no its not its weasel wording. To see a real denial look at the one Trump shoved up Cruz’s Mistress Crisis. That’s what a denial looks like.
Judge Jeanie maybe!!! She rocks it every Sat. Night!!
08.19.13
Ted Cruz at Princeton: Creepy, Sometimes Well Liked, and Exactly the Same
Four independently offered the word “creepy,” with some pointing to Cruz’s habit of donning a paisley bathrobe and walking to the opposite end of their dorm’s hallway where the female students lived.
“I would end up fielding the [girls’] complaints: ‘Could you please keep your roommate out of our hallway?’” (roommate) Mazin says.
The news outlets held the story so if Cruz got the nomination they could sink his ship for Hillary, October surprise.
Is that you Ted?
Your linked video makes a lot of things more clear. Thank you for posting it.
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