Bam! Right away, one could tell the stage was set for taking one man down, and his name was Donald Trump (#15 FCIL). Thursday night at the GOP President debate hosted by Fox News, Breit Baier (#13 FCIR) came out with a zinger of a question by asking, “Is there anyone on stage, and can I see hands, who is unwilling tonight to pledge your support to the eventual nominee of the Republican party, and pledge to not run an independent campaign against that person?” After a pause, Trump was the only man to raise his hand, with the crowd reacting in a mixture of boos (especially from Jeb Bush supporters who conveniently booed all night against Trump, no matter what he said) and cheers. As CNN put it, “Donald Trump stole the show before he’d even said a word.” And again, “None of contenders made noticeable blunders. But none of them could outshine Trump.”
In spite of the “gotcha” question, critics agree that Donald won the show, with a Drudgereport Poll putting him at 45% of the votes. In a far second came Ted Cruz (#13 FCIR) at 14%. To be sure, Rand Paul (#13 FCIR) did well, even in the eyes of liberals, and perhaps gained some fans by taking on Trump a number of times. Jeb Bush (#13 FCIR), and John Kasich (#13 FCIR) played it safe, not saying much against anyone, while Carly Fiorina (#13 FCIR) was her usual likable, intellectual self (she could easily take on Hillary Clinton, also being female). The biggest loser seemed to be Fox News, who has since come under scrutiny for not only the initial question posed by Baier, but also for the moderators taking up 32% of the entire night! “The analysis notes Fox moderators Chris Wallace (#13 FCIR), Megyn Kelly (#15 FCIL) and Bret Baier spoke for 31 minutes and 53 seconds of the roughly two-hour broadcast, or 31.7% of the time.” Wow!
Megyn Kelly indeed came on strong on The Donald. The questions to me were far tougher, and that I supposedly, according to what everyone’s telling me, I won the debate, according to the call-ins and everything, Trump told reporters after the debate. But the questions to me were not nice, I didn’t think they were appropriate, and I think Megyn behaved very badly personally. One issue Kelly brought up was Donald’s disparaging remarks of women. “You’ve called women you don’t like fat pigs, dogs, slobs, and disgusting animals.” Donald simply replied, “Only Rosie O’Donnell,” which got a big laugh from the crowd. At any rate, as expected, Donald held his own, with one source stating, “Though it was Trump’s first political debate and perhaps one of his first experiences with time constraints and a buzzer Trump navigated the debate stage with ease.”
Baier was perfectly justified to ask Trump his loyalty level to the GOP (especially for later in the debate), but highly unfair by ambushing Trump as he did at the very beginning of the debate without any candidate having yet spoken a word! Baier framed it so that Donald couldn’t even respond, only to raise a hand Baier knew Mr. T would raise. Immediately, this ploy would cause people to turn against Trump as a loner, not a team player regardless of whether Trump had good reasons for not playing Baier’s game. Despite the bushwack, in all coolness and #15 acumen, Donald softly spoke multiple times, I understand (what you’re attempting to do) Trump knew the bigger issue at hand, and it wasn’t Baier’s fake attempt to ascertain his political position with the GOP, but rather he knew he was in the middle of a Benghazi attack with no forewarning! (Help, where’s Hillary!?)
Yes, Fox knew it would make Trump look bad, especially since he wouldn’t be given time to truly explain his position. The first thing taught in Business 101 (maybe even grade school) is that negotiating and deals are ALWAYS predicated on leverage, i.e., what cards you’re holding. No candidate has even one-half of Trump’s business smarts, so the last person to reveal his plans would be not only Donald but likely every other #15 on the planet. Just ask Bill and Hillary about that.
Brett Baier is normally professional in his media tasks but sank to the depths of mainstream media loaded with a personal (and business) agenda not even-handed, objective reporting (much less unbiased moderating).
At the heart of all the hoopla lies the question, “Who really cares about, and who really loves America?” Fox News should have put away their bias by not beginning the night on such one-sided footing, and hopefully they will come across as more “fair and balanced” during the next debate. It should be Donald Trump vs. the other candidates, not Donald Trump vs. Fox News.
Written by: Staff
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Okay, so I was off on Carly; thought she was #15 fcil as I mentioned in my comment on the previous article. Nice to see such a representation of the #13 type, however. She is all business, serious, and very to-the-point. I for one have tired of the stereotype of #13 as a comedic Hollywood clown flitting all over the place dramatically with ADHD; that is simply one of many subtypes of #13, and it may not even necessarily be the most common (especially among women). Regardless, Carly is anything BUT those things. She is more like my mom, who herself was a successful, no-nonsense businesswoman in a time (60s and 70s) when it was not common.