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!!!”...
“Wasn’t Cruz’s name mentioned in the ad?”
Yup.
This is what is bugging me.
cruz is supposed to be a top lawyer and why does he not just come out and state he will sue for these false allegations, and yet he doesn’t .
He also will not explain why 500 grand was given to the Fiorina campaign when one of these women were working for her.
I don’t know if it is true, but it sure doe snot look good for cruz
The difference is, Trump can recover from this. First of all, it’s only 3 days old and the “Trump did all this” bulls**t is losing steam since it’s clear this was being thrown around by Rubio’s people, GOPe people, and journalists for some time now. Also, Trump is not the one who is running on his personal piety; all of his skeletons have already been thoroughly examined, admitted to, hashed, re-hashed, and re-re-hashed.
The GOPe and the MSM know that if Trump wins WI, he’ll very likely go on to win the delegates he needs. After months of hoping he just went away, then spending hundreds of millions against him as they worked their way through “last hope” establishment candidates, this is their Hail Mary.
We’ll see if it works. But if it doesn’t, that’s it. He’ll get his delegates, and they’ll have to figure out a different way to steal the nomination at the convention, and then we’re talking about the complete dissolution of the Republican Party.
This all leads me to believe that the Cruz affair story does actually have some teeth. They’re playing the card now because it’s truly the 11th hour for the gravy-train-engorged establishment globalists to stop Trump and keep the whole corrupt party mostly intact, and the status quo chugging along profitably.
You’re way off base. Total BS.
It says this about Trump that incapable of rational debate on the issues, he has become a master of calumny. Does anything think that he will do the same to Clinton and get away with it? And if he does, he proposed to government in this manner, simply by abusing his rivals? Most like after defeat, he will retired to his tower and relish his “triumph”. He likes to talk about his hands. They are smeared by the turds he throws.
“Unfortunate? I’d say that is spot on.”
What did Trump say? I thought he handled it in a very dignified manor...
The difference is, Trump can recover from this
That depends on what he does going forward
Hey NOOB (March 17, 2016), did you come here solely to engage in anti-Cruz jihad with an emphasis on promoting/advancing the fallacious “mistresses” slander?
Huh? And what he hell was Cruz’s response?
He has something to hide. There’s no getting around it, and like I said his credibility is taking a major hit. He’s ruined politically now.
I can't believe some people around here, can still post with a straight face, that Ted Cruz is a real conservative, with all the vetting that has been done on him.
CGato
No matter how good the spokesperson might be, I'm sure most politicians would trade one for taking out their main rival. It might be a scratch to her reputation but it could be a fatal wound to Cruz' political career. Although, it is probably a moot point since she has denied the affair.
Pathetic bold-faced lie!
He’s gonna keep on Trumpin’. He’s not been tweeting about Cruz’s marriage problems today. He’s focused on calling out the MSM on their complete nonsense that he’s anti-woman.
Good point.
Quote:
“What did Trump say? I thought he handled it in a very dignified manor...”
He did. But that won’t matter to the MSM or the GOPe. They will attempt to paint Trump with Cruz’ problems, but they will ultimately fail.
As for the Cruz supporters in “conservative Media,” if these allegations about Cruz’ affairs prove to have any truth to them, their careers will follow Cruz’ - right into the toilet.
I personally saw various tweets at #TheThing for the dates of March 10-14. Most of them ..have been scrubbed as of yesterday. But everyone (Rubio supporters et al) were anticipating TheThing for it to be released before SuperTuesday. RickWilson even had a tweet out to msm media and others to just have an intern upload the video to youtube and the “discover it” those were his words.
The plan was to knock Cruz down a couple of notches so Rubio could claim the #2 spot in the race and go head to head against Trump. Rubio lost SuperTuesday and the Never Trump and Rubio folks began covering their tracks.
I imagine NE got the story like everyone else and decided to do due diligence on it before running with it, hence the delay. As far as I am concerned the Trump campaign had nothing to do with it. As for Roger Stone..he says that in the period leading up to the story being broken he was approached by various media asking questions about what he knew. His quote is in the article and says something along the lines of ...if true it would hurt Cruz among his evangelical voters. Pretty benign comment.
Trump denies involvement. NE Denies Trump involvement so Cruz is blowing smoke here. Are the allegations true? That I can not answer.
Is this the kind of stuff you like to see on your site?? This is just a taste of what Trumpamania are posting. I guess you as well as three quarters of your followers don't give a dmn about the Real consequences of this election
Is this the kind of stuff you like to see on your site?? This is just a taste of what Trumpamania are posting. I guess you as well as three quarters of your followers don't give a dmn about the Real consequences of this election
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