Free Republic

Republican presidential campaigns will meet together to discuss changing the debate process this weekend, and will not include representatives from the Republican National Committee (RNC), Politico reported Thursday evening. The news comes after a series of complaints about Wednesday’s presidential debate hosted by CNBC. Candidates complained during and after the event about the network and the debate moderators. The weekend confab is being organized by the campaigns of Donald Trump, Ben Carson, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, Politico reported. The campaigns of Sens. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and Rand Paul (R-Ky.), as well as Carly Fiorina and...

Not too long ago Reince Priebus asked Donald Trump to sign an agreement not to go third party. It is time for Priebus to go third party.

Fox News’ Megyn Kelly, who was criticized for how she moderated the first GOP presidential debate, is herself critiquing the CNBC moderators from Wednesday night’s debate, saying it was “uncomfortable to watch.” “How about personalization of so many of the questions: I, I, I — you heard Becky Quick saying — there was one when she said, ‘I too had student loans, Senator Rubio, and I can’t figure out the math of that; And Harwood, ‘I have spoken with The Economist’; Back to Becky — ‘our cause’ talking about working women; ‘our cause,'” Kelly said in her analysis of the...

The Republican National Committee is suspending its participation in a scheduled February debate hosted by NBC News and Telemundo after complaints from GOP presidential campaigns about this week’s CNBC debate, RNC chairman Reince Priebus announced on Friday.

Mr. Andrew Lack Chairman, NBC News 30 Rockefeller Plaza New York, New York 10112 Dear Mr. Lack, I write to inform you that pending further discussion between the Republican National Committee (RNC) and our presidential campaigns, we are suspending the partnership with NBC News for the Republican primary debate at the University of Houston on February 26, 2016. The RNC’s sole role in the primary debate process is to ensure that our candidates are given a full and fair opportunity to lay out their vision for America’s future. We simply cannot continue with NBC without full consultation with our campaigns....

GOP candidates face a firing squad manned by leftist journalists The Republican presidential candidates’ debate on CNBC wasn’t so much a debate as it was a firing squad manned by left-leaning journalists. Over and over journalistic equivalents of, “When did you stop beating your wife?” were asked of the candidates. The reporter-moderators weren’t just asking questions: they were prosecuting the candidates at a televised show trial. Personal attacks were disguised as questions. (Here is a transcript of the at times boisterous 10-way main debate, along with a transcript of the four-way undercard debate that preceded it.)

Marco Rubio may have stood out in the Republican debate, but if you ask competitive debaters, Ted Cruz was the hands-down winner.Ted Cruz did well last night's debate because he knows how to debate-literally.Though the emerging pundit consensus seems to be that Marco Rubio won the night, Cruz nabbed what was arguably the biggest stand-out moment of the evening when he squared off with moderator Carlos Quintanilla and questioned the entire premise of the evening's event. Whether he was conscious of this or not, the Senator used a risky and controversial tactic used by high school debates champions the world...

...HUGH HEWITT: Now Mark Steyn, on two levels, and we'll talk about the substance, but there is art in that response. There is a man who's litigated successfully nine times before the Supreme Court, who managed without taking notes to retain every personal attack, reframe them, repackage them, repurpose them into a counterattack on the panel expertly. It was actually art.MARK STEYN: Yeah, and that's the Ted Cruz I like, Hugh. The criticism of Ted Cruz this election cycle has been that he's been too canned and too rehearsed, and he uses his talking points. And when he does that,...

At least for this Presidential election cycle, and also for the last two, the GOP has agreed to debates hosted by unfair moderators who masquerade as "journalists". From Candy "get the transcript" Crowley, to the CNBC debacle October 28, the GOP seems complicit in setting up an unfair playing field. Basicly, the hard, snarky questions are asked the Republicans while the Democrat candidates are served softball questions. Could it be the GOP is in cahoots the mainstream media and the democrats, and is using the unfair format to decimate the conservatives within their ranks, leading less formidable ( McCain, Romney)...

For the CNBC employees who boarded a charter plane right after Wednesday's bruising GOP debate, the redeye flight was physically smooth but emotionally turbulent. People were exhausted, but also rattled and worried. "We were shell-shocked," one source said. The poor reviews were piling up - declaring CNBC the biggest loser of the night - and the moderators Carl Quintanilla and Becky Quick knew more would be published by the time the flight landed in New York. So for some flyers, it was a sleepless night. But there was some laughter and some liquor to lighten the mood - and some...

RNC Chairman Reince Priebus stated that CNBC won’t moderate another Republican debate after its “crap sandwich,” and that all future debates will be “re-evaluated” on Thursday’s “Hannity” on the Fox News Channel.

The third GOP presidential debate, held Wednesday evening in Colorado, revealed two key truths: The political media has declared war on several Republican candidates, and the candidates have declared war on the political media. The GOP's gripes against the media are legion. Over the past several election cycles, they have reached a fever pitch, with the presidential debates largely to blame. The problem, from a Republican standpoint, was epitomized by Candy Crowley's intervention on behalf of President Obama during his crucial second debate with Mitt Romney in 2012. Reeling from a limp and lackluster performance the first time around, Obama...

Unlike almost all conservative commentators and a fair number of liberal ones, Ohio Governor John Kasich was quite satisfied wit the job done last night by the CNBC debate moderators. Brittany M. Hughes of the Media Research Center: The presidential hopeful told MRCTV he “thought they did a good job,” saying he was “very appreciative of how they did their job.” "I had time" to speak and discuss the issues - and, this time, the debate "wasn't a circus," Kasich said.

Conservative pundit Ann Coulter weighed in Wednesday night to all the CNBC debate haters - lay off the "ridiculous" attempts to "imitate" Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump. Some of the questions by the CNBC moderators on Wednesday got significant boos from the debate audience and criticism from Republicans. Here's what Coulter had to say: Complaints about the CNBC moderators are a ridiculous attempt to imitate Trump. Compare it question by question to the other 2 debates. - Ann Coulter (@AnnCoulter) GOP's media bashing is getting boring.CNBC Qs not measurably different from CNN or FNC. They're just imitating Trump. - Ann...

Among the fiercest critics of CNBC's debate telecast on Wednesday night were its rivals at Fox News. Fox is hosting the next GOP debate, on November 10, on its smaller sister channel Fox Business. -snip- Cavuto, Maria Bartiromo, and Journal editor in chief Gerard Baker will moderate the prime time debate.

[Note: This comment was written immediately following the third televised Republican presidential debate in Boulder, Colo., on Wednesday night.] IT WAS, hands down, the most arresting moment of the Republican debate in Colorado. One of the CNBC moderators, Carl Quintanilla, asked Senator Ted Cruz whether his opposition to the just-announced congressional deal raising the federal debt limit demonstrates that he's "not the kind of problem-solver American voters want." Cruz's response was to turn the tables on the moderators, blasting them for the hostility toward the candidates that oozed from virtually every question they had asked so far. Then, with devastating...

Wednesday night’s epic s*itshow of a debate highlighted one fact beyond all others: if Republicans are to win the presidency in 2016, their main opponent will not be Hillary Clinton, but the established media.

CNBC said its Wednesday-night telecast of a debate among Republican candidates for U.S. President lured an average of 14 million viewers, making it the most-watched broadcast on the NBCUniversal-owned cable outlet in its history.CNBC’s audience for the telecast was significantly lower than the crowds lured by Fox News Channel and CNN for similar events. A Republican debate broadcast in August by Fox News attracted an average of 24 million viewers, while a Republican debate broadcast in September by CNN won an average of 23.1 million viewers.For CNBC, however, the numbers were meaningful. The network said it the broadcast of the...

How did they do last night? The big loser was CNBC and the media, of course, but I'm talking about the candidates. BTW, "Who do you think won the debate?" is not the same thing as "Who do you like the most?" What I think: Excellent: Cruz (1st place), Rubio (2nd place), Christie (3rd place) Good to very good (alphabetical order): Carson, Fiorina, Huckabee, Paul, Trump Poor (alphabetical order): Bush, Kasich Regardless of performance and standing, these people should leave the stage: Bush, Carson, Graham, Huckabee, Jindal, Kasich, Pataki, Paul, Santorum What say you?

I dedicate the lead of this column to thanking CNBC for displaying its rank liberal bias in last night's GOP presidential debate for all the world to see. In relative terms, "all the world" is not that far off if you consider last night's audience size compared with the network's usually paltry ratings. The more people who saw this charade from the network's alleged moderators the better for America. My first reaction as this spectacle unfolded was muted outrage, shaking my head that this atrophied arm of the mainstream liberal media would show its colors so overtly, without any pretense...