Free Republic

No Trump, no show. Earlier today, Donald Trump announced that he wasn’t going to participate in the next GOP debate, which was scheduled to take place in Salt Lake City next week. Trump told Fox News “I think we’ve had enough debates,” and would instead be “making a major speech in front of a very important group of people.” Reaction to this was split. If you like Trump, you think that he doesn’t need to debate anymore. He just came off a series of major wins, and another night at the podium does nothing but give his detractors an opportunity...

During the Fox News/Google GOP debate on Thursday night, the candidates, especially Rubio and Cruz, were taken to task over their record on immigration. In one exchange, moderator Megyn Kelly challenged Senator Cruz to on whether, based on his amendments offered, he supported legalization. "Yes it would," said Kelly of his amendment. However, later that evening Kelly interviewed Cruz and conceded an important point. That being pretty much the opposite, which is that he did not and does not support legalizing the status of people here illegally. First, what was said at the debate: "It would have allowed for legalization,...

Trump's standard line when he is about to storm out of a media event because he doesn't like how it covers him is that he is going to go host an event to raise money for veterans. Thus it was no surprise when he announced that he would be skipping the FoxNews event to hold a separate event to raise money for.... well, "veterans," generally. Of course, Trump did not name a specific charity so that his feet might be held to the fire on this, just "veterans," generally. Well, there are two small problems. The main veterans group that...

Speaking on Good Morning America and Morning Joe this morning, Donald Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski hinted that other candidates were thinking of dropping out of the upcoming Fox News debate after Trump decided to bail. He asserted that anchor Megyn Kelly was "obsessed" with his boss, which was one reason why Trump decided not to participate. "Megyn Kelly is totally obsessed with Mr. Trump," Lewandowski said on Good Morning America. "She's done multiple shows on why he shouldn't be even involved in the race on television. She's completely obsessed with him. It's impossible to have a fair and honest...

Despite all the Republican griping over CNBC's presidential debate, Maria Bartiromo says any question will be ‘fair game’ in Milwaukee on Tuesday. -snip- Bartiromo will share moderating duties with Fox Business and Fox News anchor/executive Neil Cavuto and Journal editor-in-chief Gerard Baker-will ostensibly focus on the economy, jobs, and business, but will also touch on the news of the day, such as whether or not Dr. Carson has misrepresented aspects of his youth (knife fights? West Point scholarship?) in the stories he likes to tell about his coming of age.

Fox News thinks it can do a better job hosting a presidential debate than CNBC. Staffers for Fox News and its sibling channel Fox Business openly criticized the way CNBC handled Wednesday night's Republican debate on Twitter. Fox Business is hosting the next GOP debate on Nov. 10. Fox Business anchor Neil Cavuto sent out this tweet as the CNBC debate was winding down.

Women are storming social media to let Donald Trump know that they are still perfectly capable of doing their jobs and living their lives while on their periods, after the presidential candidate made sexist remarks about Fox News host Megyn Kelly. At last week's GOP debate, Megyn, 44, pressed Donald, 69, about comments he has made about women in the past that many have deemed as sexist. Donald, put off by being asked to explain why he's called women 'fat pigs, dogs, slobs, and disgusting animals', lashed out at Megyn, insinuating that she was only being hard on him because...

Maybe they go five-for-five. Maybe they hit a walk-off. Maybe a diving stop followed by a double play wins the game. ESPN's "Top Ten" has lots of different kinds of highlights. Point is that there are as many ways to have a great debate as there are great baseball days. Marco Rubio and Carly Fiorina both had great debates, because they did everything they did very well. "Five tool" players rarely use them all in one game, but Fiorina and Rubio did. To them, the laurels. Scott Walker got in one towering homer, to mix a metaphor, by putting the...

Last week’s Republican primary debates have quickly become a cultural and political phenomenon. Even progressive pundits have been forced to acknowledge the high quality of the Fox News moderators, the toughness of their questions, and the sheer entertaining excitement of the shows. Contrary to the usual soporific political debates, with robotic recitations of prefabricated talking points, this one had fireworks and substance. Let’s hope this new paradigm for presidential debates carries through all the way to next year’s presidential debates. But there’s another value to the debates. A lot of progressive received wisdom was exploded last Thursday night. First is...

I asked the staff on the other side of the glass exactly one hour ago to take a wild guess at who had the most camera time last night, who said the most, who had the most speaking time last night. I will admit it was a trick question. I did not say, "Which of the candidates...?" So the answers were the candidates, but that was not true. The Fox the moderators dominated the debate last night. The candidate with the most airtime was Donald Trump. "Time analysis compiled by a university political researcher finds frontrunner Donald Trump dominated last...