Posted on 03/26/2016 2:49:48 PM PDT by Kaslin
On Saturday, all three broadcast morning news shows talked about the National Enquirer allegations against GOP presidential candidate Ted Cruz, allegations for which there is still no on-the-record source or any other supporting evidence.
CBS, which took the high road and skipped the tawdry allegations on Friday’s Evening News, this morning offered a 68-second item read by CBS This Morning: Saturday co-anchor Anthony Mason, which cast the matter as a “he said, he said,” between the two candidates.
ABC’s Good Morning America offered a full report from weekend political correspondent Devin Dwyer, in which Dwyer unfortunately cast both Cruz and Trump as guilty of soiling the campaign discourse: “On one of the most solemn days of the year for Christians, Good Friday, the Republican frontrunners descended into a battle over sleaze,” Dwyer fretted.
As she did on Friday’s Nightly News, NBC correspondent Hallie Jackson was the most thorough in explaining the many reasons to doubt the Enquirer story, listing the tabloid’s past boosting of Trump and the categorical denials of two of the women linked to Cruz in the story.
Unlike Friday, however, none of the networks on Saturday morning talked about the role of onetime Trump aide Roger Stone in promoting the Enquirer story to the media, although NBC’s Jackson showed viewers the spectacle of pro-Trump journalist Adriana Cohen hijacking a CNN interview on Friday to smear Cruz supporter Amanda Carpenter as a way to force the media to pay attention to the story.
Given that the Cruz story falls far below the normal journalistic threshold for covering such sensational claims, the only fair way to discuss it at all is to point out the evidence that it is, in all likelihood, part of a smear campaign from a political rival. NBC’s Jackson accomplished this in her report, but ABC and CBS limited themselves to merely running Cruz’s own condemnation of the story, juxtaposed with Trump’s Facebook declaration that he had nothing to do with it.
ABC’s premise that both “Republican frontrunners” had “descended into a battle over sleaze” does a disservice to Cruz, since Cruz — unlike Trump — did not attack his rival’s wife, while his attacks on Trump as “Sleazy Donald” are a reaction to what is by all journalist norms a false story being forced onto the national media by Trump supporters such as Adriana Cohen and Roger Stone.
ABC Scolds Both Cruz and Trump After Tabloid Smear
Here’s a bit more of how each of the three networks covered the Cruz story on Saturday morning:
CBS This Morning: Saturday:
ANTHONY MASON: The battle between Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump and Texas Senator Ted Cruz is escalating, fresh off their heated back and forth about each other's wives. Cruz spent much of Good Friday responding to a tabloid article that claimed he cheated on his wife.
[Followed by a clip of Cruz and reading of Trump’s Facebook statement]
ABC’s Good Morning America
DAN HARRIS: Back home now where the Republican race for the White House has become really a race to the bottom. Ted Cruz is now accusing Donald Trump of planting a very personal and potentially damaging story about him in a supermarket tabloid, with the candidates' wives at the center of an increasingly nasty fight We get the latest now from ABC's Devin Dwyer who is at the white house. Devon, good morning to you.
DEVIN DWYER: Yeah, good morning, Dan. You know, on one of the most solemn days of the year for Christians, Good Friday, the Republican front-runners descended into a battle over sleaze....This morning, explosive allegations from Senator Ted Cruz against Donald Trump — Cruz accusing Trump of planting a story in the National Enquirer, which claims political operatives are looking into rumors that Cruz had multiple marital infidelities....
NBC’s Today
HALLIE JACKSON: ...Arguing it’s tabloid trash, a furious Ted Cruz is firing back at the National Enquirer, denying its story claiming he had extramarital affairs.
SENATOR TED CRUZ: Let me be clear, this National Enquirer story is garbage. It is complete and utter lies. It is a tabloid smear, and it is a smear that has come from Donald Trump and his henchmen.
JACKSON: Trump, who’s been endorsed by the Enquirer and wrote an op-ed in its pages, says in a statement, quote, “I had absolutely nothing to do with the story,” adding he also has “nothing to do with the paper,” again calling Cruz, “Lyin’ Ted.” Cruz creating his own nickname for his rival.
CRUZ: With this pattern, he should not be surprised to see people calling him “Sleazy Donald.”
JACKSON: All of it spilling over into a tense exchange on live TV between a Trump supporter and a Cruz backer.
Columnist ADRIANA COHEN (on CNN): Where we should move to is the National Enquirer story that has reported that Ted Cruz has allegedly had affairs with at least five mistresses, including — you’ve been named, Amanda.
Cruz spokeswoman AMANDA CARPENTER (on CNN): What’s out there is tabloid trash. If someone wants to comment on it, they should talk to my lawyer. It is categorically false.
JACKSON: Another woman who’s been the subject of speculation, a former Cruz ally and current Trump spokesperson, tweeting, “of course the National Enquirer story is 100% FALSE!!!”...
“For cRuz to do nothing but blame Trump on this NE story is quite telling.”
Cruz blamed Trump for the thugs that came to Trump rallies. Then he blamed Trump for Brussels!
This is as bad as Obama blaming Bush for everything.
“It IS an anti-Trump pac. That does not mean it is a pro-Cruz pac, or that he has ANYTHING to do with it.”
You mean the little blurb about ‘vote for Cruz’ on the ad doesn’t mean it’s a pro-Cruz PAC that put it out?
Get real.
Donald Trump’s Alliance With the National Enquirer - October 30, 2015
It just occurred to me, read where Cruz has been preparing for this to come out for weeks.
Hows this for a plan, put the Melania’s too much of a slut to be first lady ad out then sit back and wait.
Trump hits back hard and Cruz cries to the press that Trump is picking on his family.
Cruz’s story of his ho’s comes out and he screams it’s more of Trump.
If planned, this worked brilliantly because the media won’t separate Trump from the Cruz scandal.
I swear, color me paranoid but I think it was all intentional on Cruz’s part.
I posted this yesterday, but JMHO it’s even more relevant now:
Get yourself too emotionally involved in something and when it goes FUBAR on you, the first inclination for some is to kick the dog or break something. Sorry about casting you and me as a dog.
Hell, I’m not even voting for Trump (or, for that matter, anybody) until long after all those “experts” back East let us know who They want, but get to listen to this namecalling and BS from all sides anyway.
Maybe I’ll just take a break from FR to sorta lower the noise level and devote my energies to taking care of my family after this CHARLEY FOXTROT settles down to one set or consistent group of targets.
291 posted on 3/25/2016, 4:16:00 PM by Unrepentant VN Vet (Smile. It’ll drive people nuts trying to figure out what you know or have done.)
Since tomorrow’s Easter and we’ve got the whole clan at The Homestead for (at least) dinner, I’m going to take my own advice, log off here shortly and most likely not even look at a computer until OhDarkThirty on Monday.
I hope it doesn’t go down that way, but if the SHTF on Monday the way things are shapin’ up now, a lot of people are going to wish they’d taken a pill Sunday evening and slept through the whole damn week.
Anyway, I wish you all as blessed and happy Easter as I’m going to have (I think the “littlest” grandkids will be rollin’ in around six thirty as first to arrive) and I’ll “see” y’all Monday.
Best regards
UVNV
A very blessed Easter to you.
How is this “he said, he said?” Cruz’s statement that it came from Trump and “his henchmen” is as reliable as, or possibly less reliable than, anything published in the National Inquirer.
The earlier battle after Cruz’s SuperPAC published the photos of Melania and Trump’s “spill the beans” and side-by-side comparison of the wives is totally separate from this story.
i think that Cruz will learn that Cruz will learn as Rubio did that one cannot win at mudrassling with a master of it. For the first time I am reconsidering a comment that someone somewhere that Trump decided he wanted to be president, and decided on running as a Republican because he had absolutely no chance of breaking the Clinton hold on the Democratic Party. Against the Republican, he could use the Perot card or he could play the role of insurgent that Cruz was trying to play. Anyway I have come to the conclusion that the man is a total cynic. He displays the same spirit as a Gore Vidal with faith in no one, past or present. As for Cruz, he reminds me of Hamilton, both for his good qualities and his bad. His reach may have exceeded his grasp.
National Enquirer report was that someone was shopping the story and private investigators are trying to dig up dirt on Cruz.
It then described 5 women that were the subject of the investigation and what they supposedly did without naming anyone or making any claims.
NE never accused Ted of anything. So there is nothing Ted can sue over as everything in the story is true.
They feel quite let down, and some are striking like snakes with their tail stepped on.
“I swear, color me paranoid but I think it was all intentional on Cruz’s part.”
Yup .. I made the same case here last night .. proactive damage control
You figured it out correctly.
Did Jackson talk about part NE articles that were aimed at poking Trump? NE has had him on their cover many times, and not in a complimentary fashion.
“That does not mean it is a pro-Cruz pac”
The ad read “or you can vote for Ted Cruz”...
It didn’t say “or you can vote for someone else” OR
“you can vote for John Kaisch”
Ted Cruz’s name was used. If he didn’t like that, he should have been HOWLING about it from the very beginning!
The only thing he had to say, FINALLY was it was “inappropriate”
You can’t say that ad was not promoting Cruz when it says on the ad “or you can vote for Ted Cruz”
“Cruz needs to COME CLEAN here...and hope for the best.”
OR, he needs to have his attorneys in court first thing Monday morning DEMANDING a retraction, apology and a cease and desist order be enforced.
Then he needs to file a lawsuit to FORCE the NE to defend their reporting.
IF Cruz does that, he looks better. If he doesn’t do a damn thing other than blame Trump and talk about rats,,he looks weak, and guilty. He has the money, he has the connections and he certainly has the legal knowledge needed to take legal action asap!
Hey, welcome to Free Republic. Stay strong.
The Conservative Treehouse said it was first brought up by Rubio, not Trump. But, of course, everything is Trump’s fault.
Trump has made it VERY clear on numerous occasions that he will not hit first. But, if he is poked, he will hit back 100x times stronger. He has said it.
I don’t know why at this stage, people still don’t believe it.
I want that kind of person fighting for our country!
It is much worse than even that. It is a microcosm diorama of bigbox zevangelicals - they love the fecking drama because it makes them forget their own inadequacies. Witness the woman who got the zot after shrieking for 24 hours straight!
This primary is not so much a circus but more a political exorcism.
Trump should name Fr. Damien Karras as his VP.
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