Posted on 03/26/2016 1:34:32 PM PDT by drewh
TV news talent took on the look of innocent bystanders being drawn into a gunfight today when GOP presidential candidates Ted Cruz and Donald Trump exchanged fire over an unsourced National Enquirer report alleging Cruz had carried on extramarital affairs with five women.
I have to say, Im trying to sort of figure out how to cover this, All In anchor Chris Hayes said as he moderated a chat with MSNBCs national correspondent Joy Reid and the Daily Beasts Betsy Woodruff. He noted that several outlets, including Breitbart News, had opted not to run with the National Enquirer story because it was so thinly sourced. Woodruff said her site thought about writing this story several months ago, but we didnt want to broadcast baseless rumors had no connection to reality by saying, Hey, these stories are going around.
When the story broke and when it really blew up on Twitter today, we thought, All right, lets pull the trigger, she explained. The Daily Beasts take was that it was Marco Rubio backers who had been shopping the story to media outlets for six months, with no takers.
Things got particularly uncomfortable for CNN during a live on-air segment in which Kate Bolduan asked two talking heads former Cruz communications director Amanda Carpenter and pro-Trump newspaper columnist Adriana Cohen to discuss the two candidates clubbing each other in defense of their wives. You remember: an anti-Trump SuperPAC made an ad showing Trumps model wife in a nude photo with a headline warning she could be the next First Lady. Trump shot back that he might spill the beans about Cruzs wife, and later re-tweeted photos comparing Melania to a particularly unflattering picture of Cruzs wife Heidi.
I think we should move on, Cohen said of that storyline, which was yesterdays talker but you know how cable news likes to hang on to a good thing. Where we should move to is the National Enquirer story that has reported Ted Cruz has allegedly had affairs with at least five mistresses, including youve been named Amanda.
(Actually, she had not been named in the article, though shed been IDd by other media outlets whod jumped in to play that abovementioned game.)
Im sorry, I dont think thats moving on at all, Adriana, interrupted an aghast Bolduan. After pausing to inform CNN viewers the network has no reporting of its own on the tabloid story, she then turned the floor over to Carpenter.
Trump, meanwhile, issued a statement on his Facebook page, denying any involvement with the tabloid report.
I have no idea whether or not the cover story about Ted Cruz in this weeks issue of the National Enquirer is true or not, but I had absolutely nothing to do with it, did not know about it and have not, as yet, read it, the GOP front-runner said in a statement.
But, of course, he made sure to note the tabloid had been right about O.J. Simpson, John Edwards and many others, referencing the former senator from North Carolina and onetime VEEP candidate, whose career ultimately was nuked by the Enquirers report about his love child with filmmaker Rielle Hunter.
GO TRUMP!
VERY AWKWARD: CNN’s Amanda Carpenter Accused of Sleeping with Ted Cruz by Trump Supporter https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XzT_ff75Peg
Yes, GO TRUMP GO
More tabloid trash? Seriously?
There’s a reason they aren’t sure how to proceed. The DC crowd and the top tier of the mainstream media can donate a kidney to each other they are so inbred.
Does anyone sane think Cruz was the only politician doing this? That Amanda was the only young hot girl using sex to advance her career?
Nobody wants to touch it because someone. Might mention them. That’s my take.
Also, more confirmation that it came from Rubio.
Cruz needs to leave Trump out of this sordid business.
Of course they knew. The plan was to run Donald out, make Cruz the nominee, then release this in early October and destroy him.
More tabloid trash! That’s what John Edwards said I think...
the msm media has been trying to keep this story under wraps for like six months... https://avengersocial.wordpress.com/2016/03/26/interview-with-a-candy-wrapper-the-lollipop-edition/
And now that the election has come to a screeching halt - over - what’s there to report or blog about?
I was just thinking how politicians used to have to be careful of inappropriate behavior. At the time, we had these strange beings called journalists that just lived and breathed to find out such things.
Today......it's just one big case of 'everybody's dirty'.
Cruz needs to get his apology speech written. He should talk to Glenn Beck and get his recipe for producing fake tears before he goes on stage with it.
A sixsome? Now, that is news.
Individual sentences are your friend.
The critical questions which have yet to be answered satisfactorily are:
WHY did we not hear even rumors about Ted Cruz’s alleged infidelities before now? Any number of now defunct campaigns would have benefited if Cruz had been torpedoed with this story either before Iowa, or even before his own home state primary of Texas?
NObody sits on a story like this unless it was the libtard media and/or the ‘RATS and RINO leadership of the GOPe wanting leverage over Cruz depending on how far he managed to get in the primary race.
The hacking group ‘Anonymous’ warned Cruz 10+ days ago that they would be revealing his indiscretions to the public if he did not withdraw from the race. ‘Anonymous’ seemed particularly torqued off at the whole Ben Carson issue in Iowa, whether that is a legitimate reason to ‘out’ Cruz is in the eye of the beholder.
I find it curious that this alleged sex scandal comes to the surface not long after the infernal Bushes infiltrate and occupy the Cruz campaign, first with Neil Bush, then comes Jebuardo with his ‘endorsement’. Why would the insiders embrace an ‘outsider’? The same question can be asked of the RINO king of dirty tricks, Mitt Romney who likewise began supporting and campaigning for Cruz.
There are strong indicators that indeed, Marco Rubio operatives were trying to peddle this story in hopes of derailing Cruz, but that falls into the category of “too little too late” and Rubio is no longer in the race.
This smacks of a GOPe ‘divide and conquer’ strategy, they would like nothing better than to goad Cruz into blaming Trump, and for Trump to respond in kind, if the GOP elites think they already have Trump stopped short of 1237 delegates (based on recent reports of their changing the rules now), what they need at this point is to paint Cruz as a suspected adulterer, turn him into damaged goods, which allows them to turn to their RINO of choice, which would be either Jeb Bush, Mitt Romney or Paul Ryan.
There is more to this than meets the eye. I don’t buy that Trump had anything to do with it because he didn’t NEED to smear Cruz, in his view, he was already besting Cruz in the primary races, his delegate count proves it, and Cruz’ path to the nomination had become even more problematical before any of this scandal talk broke loose.
My bet?
The stabbing in the back of Ted Cruz started with the Bushes, and will end with the GOP ‘leadership’. Cruz became their number one target as soon as they perceived (whether correct or not) that Trump will now be stopped.
It is amazing that Trump has again managed to flip the focus off of his nastiness towards women to another topic - Ted Cruz’s alleged affairs with latching on to a National Enquirer article and then having his campaign manager and Ann Coulter feed it fuel...Aside from the obvious comparisons to Richard Nixon, he tries to ‘mud up’ what he considers his opponents vulnerabilities by doing a ‘switch and bait’. Another interesting thing is that he uses the Enquirer to do his bidding. If you want to examine Trump’s affairs and sexcapades, just read his autobiographies - he likes to brag about them.
Harvey Levin is gonna need some good tables at the Correspondants Dinner to keep this one under wraps...
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