The eloquent Ted Cruz takes on CNBC moderators during yesterday’s Republic debate:
“Let me say something at the outset, the questions asked in this debate illustrate why the American people don’t trust the media.“
“This is not a cage match. And you look at the questions — Donald Trump, are you a comic book villain? Ben Carson, can you do math? John Kasich, will you insult two people over here? Marco Rubio, why don’t you resign? Jeb Bush, why have your numbers fallen? How about talking about the substantive issues.”
[AUDIENCE APPLAUSE; MODERATOR SMIRKING]
“The contrast with the Democratic debate, where every thought and question from the media was, which of you is more handsome and why?”
“Let me be clear, the men and women on this stage have more ideas, more experience, more common sense, than ever participant in the Democratic debate. That debate reflected a debate between the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks.”
“Nobody believes that the moderators have any intention of voting in a Republican primary […] The questions being asked shouldn’t be trying to get people to tear into each other, it should be what are your substantive solutions to people at home.”
On Thursday’s NBC Today, Meet the Press moderator Chuck Todd portrayed his fellow “journalists” as victims of a GOP trap: “Look, in many ways this was a premeditated attack. There had been some leaked ideas that, you know, beforehand, they were going to go after the moderators and say, ‘Hey, the Democrats didn’t get questions like this,’ and they determined this before the debate even started.”
Sadly his colleagues fell for the trap when they asked dumb questions of their own accord that were not asked of the Democrats.
Continued Todd: “But boy, Cruz captured the moment. And he actually came across as magnanimous. He’s the guy that supposedly everybody secretly doesn’t like, he was the guy that defended everybody on that stage.”