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, Im trying to sort of figure out how to cover this, All In anchor Chris Hayes said as he moderated a chat with MSNBCs national correspondent Joy Reid and the Daily Beasts 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 didnt 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, lets pull the trigger, she explained. The Daily Beasts 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 Trumps 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 Cruzs wife, and later re-tweeted photos comparing Melania to a particularly unflattering picture of Cruzs wife Heidi.
I think we should move on, Cohen said of that storyline, which was yesterdays 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 youve been named Amanda.
(Actually, she had not been named in the article, though shed been IDd by other media outlets whod jumped in to play that abovementioned game.)
Im sorry, I dont think thats 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 weeks 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 Enquirers report about his love child with filmmaker Rielle Hunter.
Why? For two reasons. One, to use it at a later time. And two because they’re also dirty nobody wants to launch their missiles first
You hit the nail right on the head.
End of story.
Um... What?? No.
Any other pics of this girl?
How long have Amanda and Ted known each other? What does her husband look like?
NE has let Saint Ted know they stand behind the story.
Ted can always sue them, but he won’t and you know why.
Last I heard Cruz attacked the smear and he attacked Trump for being behind it but he didn't deny the substance nor did he threaten to sue the Enquirer.
Typical weasel behavior.
Just think about Amanda Carpenter. She's been a CNN contributor for a long time. How's it going to look on them if the main CNN talking head for Cruz is involved in a love triangle (love octagon?) with Ted Cruz?
I don't know about that Carly PAC woman... but she's part of the whole thing, too.
Someone said it best the other day. All these people run in the same circles. They argue on TV for our benefit, then they all go out for drinks afterwards.
The are the designated "voice" for us, but they're not one of us at all.
Must be true—how can it be wrong? Cruz is the world’s biggest hypocrit.
Bull. He obfuscated, without specifically addressing anything, in typical Cruz fashion. This isn’t the time for lawyerly parsing of words if Teddy wants to save his failing campaign.
Blaming Trump for this is beyond the pale - it was an open secret in DC for some time evidently.
Maybe Ted should look at his new establishment masters. But it sounds as though the blame lies squarely on Ted.
Exactly right. The TV shows that have been pushing these bimbos into our faces knew. More than just Cruz has some explaining to do here. Lots of people are losing credibility for knowing this and concealing it.
Deal with the FACT you follow a tabloid candidate.
If he were to be the nominee or the VP pick make no mistake the Democrat operatives have all this info on file to spring on him as an October Surprise.
mkjessup asked:
WHY did we not hear even rumors about Ted Cruzs 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?
1. The ruling class controls virtually all traditional news sources. People are not going to risk their careers going against the power.
http://www.businessinsider.com/these-6-corporations-control-90-of-the-media-in-america-2012-6
2. In politics the only thing better having a president owe you favors is to own that president with blackmail material. IF he were to get elected he would be fully controlled.
3. There was no advantage to pulling the trigger at this time. Cruz was still useful to stop Trump and could be eliminated at any time in the general if he got the nomination either by this or the NBC, etc.
4. The objective it seems was to take out BOTH Cruz and Trump creating a brokered convention where the party pick would be the one seeing as how easy Hillary (Obama term 3) is to beat.
5. It became clear Cruz could not win the nomination even with massive vote fraud and rigged delegates. So this was a fall back plan to take out both top runners or damage them so bad the GOPe could steal the nomination with little opposition.
When the Bush clan got involved, it SHOULD have been obvious. But trying to get that through to the Cruzers was like spitting into the wind.
There is probably more than an ounce of truth to what you say.
But there are multitudes of reasons more that they don’t want to poke this possum to see if it’s alive.
The Breck girl had long fit the meme. His trash was believable. But neither the image of Cruz that Ted presents, nor the images of him presented by disliking media, nor even that by prior rounds of criticism by Trump fans fit with this take on Ted. So this trash isn’t sticking to Ted as well as some might like. But the return fire, whether it be trash or not, does have a meme to which to stick. Trump is known for, and admits to, being a counter-puncher. Many don’t feel he’s only ‘counter’. When the trash publisher is a long time ‘good friend’ of Trump, his publication has endorsed Trump and the article’s only cited source is a hard core ‘fired’ Trump supporter the public takes Trump’s timely, vehement denials of responsibility with a yuuge amount of salt. It’s too soon to say for certain whether Donald has a ‘Trump Publisher Problem.” But if you substitute the publisher’s name it could make a catchy headline or hashtag, arguably even catchier than #CubanMistressCrisis. This could still fall either way.
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