New Jersey Governor Chris Christie slapped down notions that his Tuesday RNC speech was a selfish play for a future presidential run, as CNN's Piers Morgan said he talked about himself much more than Mitt Romney. "Oh, listen – at the end of the day, what I was doing was building the case for Mitt Romney. Do you think there's anybody here who doesn't know his name?" Christie responded. "I mean, this is really kind of silly stuff." "But listen, I understand that folks in the media have nothing better to do but to do that kind of stuff. And... continue reading
When CNN's Piers Morgan brought up the Todd Akin controversy in his interview with Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), Bachmann lashed back that "you're reading directly off the Obama talking points." "What about all the fury last week over Todd Akin?" Morgan asked Bachmann, in a move out of the Democratic playbook. "Because you and he and Paul Ryan all got together with the Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act and he obviously came a cropper last week. What do you think of what he said?" "I am pro-life. Paul Ryan is pro-life and we are a pro-life party and we're not... continue reading
CNN's Piers Morgan cast Paul Ryan's pro-life record on the "extreme" end of the GOP and brought up Todd Akin to emphasize the party's gender gap, but his Republican guest would have none of it early Thursday morning at the Republican Convention. "What about Paul Ryan's positions on social issues like abortion? He's pretty right-wing, to the more extreme end of the party. Are you concerned that that will be perceived as anti-women?" Morgan inquired. "Well I think what the issue's that extreme is when Barack Obama has voted four times to say if you have a failed abortion and... continue reading
How has George Stephanopoulos spent his week? The former top aide to Bill Clinton pushed Democratic talking points on all his guests at the Republican National Convention, continuing the practice on Thursday. After allowing that Paul Ryan "electrified" the crowd in his speech last night, the host fretted, "But it's quite a gamble, especially here in Florida, to put Medicare front and center like that, isn't it?" Talking to Jeb Bush on Good Morning America , he continued, " You know what Democrats say. They say he reinstates those cuts in order to finance the tax cuts for the wealthy... continue reading
In an interview with former Florida Governor Jeb Bush on Thursday's NBC Today , co-host Matt Lauer used attack lines from deputy Obama campaign manager Stephanie Cutter to question the honesty of Paul Ryan's vice presidential nomination acceptance speech: "[She] said, 'Forty minutes of vitriol and half a dozen previously debunked attacks.' Was it an honest speech or was it just a campaign convention speech?" [ Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump ] This is the same Stephanie Cutter who in July made the wild accusation that Mitt Romney was a felon . In an... continue reading
Instead of airing Latina Governor Susana Martinez's speech at the Republican National Convention, ABC chose to host liberal Univision anchor Jorge Ramos who had dire words for the Republican Party. "I think Republicans have a real, real challenge trying to get Latinos. Because just a few words in Spanish from Susana Martinez over principle is not enough," warned Ramos while ABC showed video of Martinez speaking. "[I]if they insist on talking about immigration, they're going to lose even more of the Hispanic vote," he also said. Ramos has been an immigration advocate while appearing as a journalist with Univision. He... continue reading
ABC's analysis of Paul Ryan's RNC address included former Democratic operative George Stephanopoulos citing an a-mail from a "top Democrat" slamming the integrity of Paul Ryan's speech. Stephanopoulos noted "we saw how much this crowd loved it" before immediately adding: "I got an e-mail from a top Democrat saying the speech was audacious in its dishonesty." He added in his own words that the speech was "brazen in some of these claims." He has done this before on ABC's Good Morning America , reading Democratic material on-air like an e-mail from the DNC or a tweet from President Obama. [Video... continue reading
Minutes after Paul Ryan finished his RNC speech on Wednesday, MSNBC's Chris Matthews slammed the Republican vice presidential candidate for supposedly ignoring blacks during his " very constricted, very negative, very nasty speech ," and suggested that he was directing the address to racists: "It's clear that Paul Ryan was talking to people who think about rights as something...produced by Thomas Jefferson, ignoring the people for whom the rights only came in the 1960s ." Matthews added that "for some reason, they never mentioned those things, because they're talking to people - let's be honest about this - who didn't... continue reading
On NBC’s live Wednesday coverage of the GOP convention both Brian Williams and Tom Brokaw used Condoleezza Rice’s speech to paint the GOP delegation as close-minded on immigration, education reform and Barack Obama’s background. Right after the former Secretary of State’s speech, Williams snarked: “Portions of that speech could have been delivered at next week [DNC] gathering in North Carolina. Some candid talk to tepid applause on immigration.” He then added that Rice made the “ rare utterance at a GOP convention of the American truism that zip code determines education in our country.” For his part, Brokaw took a... continue reading
NBC anchor Brian Williams reprimanded Ann Romney for saying “I believe in my heart that Mitt is going to save America,” suggesting it would have been incendiary if Michelle Obama had made such a promise. As the two sat in the NBC News booth at the Republican convention, Williams told Mrs. Romney the phrasing “jumped off the screen to me” and maintained, without identifying the supposed source, that “someone who knows you conceded that if Mrs. Obama used words like that...there’d be all kinds of hubbub.” He demanded: “What do you mean? Those are powerful words.” Audio: MP3 clip From... continue reading