As he has taken on the “Washington Cartel,” Ted Cruz took on the left-of-center and “mainstream” media during the CNBC GOP presidential debate on Wednesday night. Cruz took the focus-group dial to a record-breaking 98 percent when he unloaded on the CNBC moderators for their bias during the debate and indicted the media in general.
The Texas senator enjoyed probably his strongest campaign debate moment during that debate.
Cruz hit back at the CNBC panel when asked a question about whether his opposition to increasing the debt limit reflected “that you are not the kind of problem-solver American voters want?” His response was in-your-face.
“Let me say something at the outset. The questions that have been asked so far in this debate illustrate why the American people don’t trust the media. This is not a cage match,” he said. “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 people care about?”
He addressed the media’s handling of the Democratic debate and said, “The contrast with the Democratic debate where every fawning question from the media was – ‘Which of you is more handsome and wise?’”
Cruz continued his indictment of the media’s handling of the presidential debates as well as the Democratic Party, “And let me be clear. The men and women on this stage have more ideas, more experience, more commonsense, than every participant in the Democratic debate. That debate reflected a debate between the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks. And nobody watching at home believes that any of the moderators has any intention of voting in a Republican primary.”
He forcibly said, “The questions that are being asked shouldn’t be trying to get people to tear into each other. It should be ‘What are your substantive solutions to people that are hurting?’” His critical assessment and statements received robust applause and cheers.
Cruz not only set a record for focus group approval spikes, but he won the social media war. The left-of-center Washington Post, reported that Zignal Labs tracked more than 650,000 mentions during the two-hour long CNBC GOP debate. The Texas senator hit the night’s biggest spike when he took on the media. Overall, Cruz dominated with 20 percent when looking at overall social media chatter. Trump was reported to have garnered 15 percent, Carson 13 percent, and Rubio 12 percent. Bush had 8 percent, and Carly Fiorina and Christie both had 7.5 percent.
Post-debate conservative commentary, as retweeted by the pugilistic Texas senator, posited that Cruz “absolutely nailed it.”
One of the tenets of Cruz’ campaign is that he is a fighter that has taken on cronyism and the establishment in Washington.
Senator Marco Rubio also hit the topic of media bias with an epic – “The Democrats have the ultimate Super PAC. It’s called the mainstream media.” Governor Chris Christie told one of the CNBC moderators during the debate, “even in New Jersey that’s rude.” Trump said in different ways on several occasions, “[that] was such a nasty question.”
As reported by Breitbart News, the audience booed the CNBC anchors several times during the debate.
Lana Shadwick is a contributing writer and legal analyst for Breitbart Texas. Follow her on Twitter@LanaShadwick2
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