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!!!”...
Blah blah blah Cruz the Saintly Christian is such a victim here.
The story is based on rumors ABOUT CRUZ CHEATING ON HIS WIFE REPEATEDLY that have been swirling for months. It’s not Donald Trump’s fault that Rubio people started shopping around the story and someone finally bit.
Cruz can run and hide on the Melania ad all he wants, but fact of the matter is he just let the ad sit out there for days and then after the Utah caucus (and after Trump took to defending his wife), only then did Cruz bother to briefly mention that he didn’t have anything to do with the ad before then using the media coverage to (once again) highlight his signature campaign platform of “Donald Trump is terrible”.
The MSM coverage only continues to prove that the media is in the tank for the #NeverTrumps and is giving Cruz a pass on everything.
Whatever. Don’t care. Enough people are wise to all the BS. Trump’s gonna Trump ‘em all.
#MAGA
ping
It is a sad day in America when Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders look more presidential than Trump and Cruz.
“in which Dwyer unfortunately cast both Cruz and Trump as guilty of soiling the campaign discourse: “
Unfortunate? I’d say that is spot on.
Hypocrisy is a powerful charge, and it has to be refuted vigorously, if it can be. Time will tell.
I’m a Trump supporter (Trump-humper to some here), because I think he’s a wild card... meaning some potential upside. Everybody on the Dem side is known downside. Cruz, in my opinion is unelectable, and for him a sex scandal would aggravate that position (because it would damage his appeal to evangelicals through sexual hypocrisy).
It would bother me if Trump is found to be behind this and it is false, however.
If I didn’t care so much about the fate of the country, I could just lean back and appreciate this as theater.
Why would Trump want a story pushed that involves/implicates his own spox?
For cRuz to do nothing but blame Trump on this NE story is quite telling.
#TrumpLovesPecker on twitter sez it all.
One can understand why Trump equates Palestinian terrorism with Israeli defense against it with his I’m neutral statement
He throws out mean spirited and mendacious sleaze against a REAL conservative like Cruz then when Cruz defends himself Duh Donald gets his media toadies and benighted followers to claim the kerfuffle is caused by both.
Trump has made an already filthy business totally fecal, accelerating America’s immoral plunge to perdition.
Yup. This entire mess could have been instigated/planted by the GOPe to knock both Cruz and Trump out of the race. Any truth to the reports that Rubio was shopping this story around for weeks prior to the NE running with it?
Rubio is certainly laying low himself.
Why are they trying to tie Trump to this sex scandal of Cruz’s? It was Cruz’s zipper that came undone, and while it was, he sure did get around...
As far as Trump goes, that was years ago with Marla, and it was all over the news, they going to rehash that?
This is Ted’s problem, he did it, he is to blame, didn’t his mommy and daddy ever talk to him about ‘the birds and the bees’????
try. #cubanmistrisscrisis
Why they saying as between the 2 candidates? They know Trump had nothing to do with the Cuban Mistress Crisis.
They seem to forget the MSM no longer controls the nation’s narrative and places like Twitter have surpassed them on this story.
The story just bubbled to the surface yesterday. Don't worry, there will be plenty of people going on the record before too long.
Then, obviously, most of the network coverage had obvious slant, especially ABC trying to associate Trump with the story, even thought that is patently false.
Meanwhile, direct evidence has surfaced that the Cruz campaign was involved with the Melania Trump ad, and that's not even mentioned.
The Rubio campaign was hawking this Cruz story weeks ago, and it has been known about for months, but suddenly it's all Trump's fault, eh?
The character assassination continues unabated.
The GOPe is screwing itself at this point. If they manage to derail the Donald Trump nomination, their substitute will go down in unenthusiastic flames.
I'm done with the Republican Party. The leadership is corrupt to its very core. Same with the Mass Media and Democrats.
All the GOP had to do was let the candidates slug it out it a fair fight, and instead they actively took sides in an effect to overtly sabotage the will of the GOP voters.
There will be Hell to pay. I hope the GOPe enjoys having Hillary as President, because it's exactly the result that they and all the hysterical Trump-haters deserve. Hillary could have been easy prey, and now the GOPe looks to have screwed the pooch.
Go, Trump, Go!
LOL. Romney and all his GOP establishment pals got suddenly friendly with Ted because they know Ted, in spite of his "outsider" BS, considers himself to be one of the guys. A good ole Bush insider who, when you get right down to it, is taking on those not so Bush people and making it sound like he's taking on the establishment as a whole.
Poor Ted, he doesn't know what a sucker he really is. His wife is wired into the establishment, him they could care less about. Ted thinks it's smart to blather along about Trump's wife and has his crowd on that track for weeks. Romney sees a chance to kill two birds with one stone while making sure the faithful in Utah don't dare drift from the fold and pumps out the ad with Trump's wife in GQ.
You can guess what follows, the good Mormon Romney patting Ted on the back while near by Beck weeps and prays. Then Romney says, "Trump said he'd get even if you didn't stop about his wife (a lie because Trump stated a specific not a general consequence but meh, what's a lie now and then?) and now there's this story about your lady friends in NE which is run by Trump's good buddy"
So, Romney delivers for the Party. Both Ted and Don are under attack by all the major media rather than the media being a step behind Trump, the dogs bark, and the Party moves on.
“The anti-Trump, pro-Cruz PAC fired the opening round and I believe it was done in Cruz’s name whether he approved it or not.”
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.
Cruz just isn’t ready for prime time. He has surrounded himself with some very dubious, shady, characters and accepted the endorsement of the Bush clan. HE lacks good judgment.
Cruz abdicates any pretense of being a serious candidate every time he gets on television for the past two weeks, starting in force with the protests in Chicago. He can’t talk about anything, leftist BLM rioters, terrorist attacks in Brussels, his own infidelity... without making it a five minute screed somehow linking everything to Trump. It’s pathetic.
And with the sex scandal, it’s also an abdication of personal responsibility and presumption of innocence. I mean, any other person who had a story put out accusing them of having an affair, and it wasn’t true, would address the claims with sincerity, refute them with as much evidence as possible, and threaten the publication with legal action. Who holds a press conference about Donald Trump in response to allegations like this?!
It appears that even more women have come forward https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dB3VXwD6X0
The excrement is making contact with the rotating device.
Could be. I’m seeing that all over this site. I wouldn’t put anything past any member of the GOPe.
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