Trump, Rubio, Cruz and Carson ganged up on CNBC and the mainstream media for political biases as debate moderators grilled candidates on their fiscal policies

This article is more than 4 years old

This article is more than 4 years old

Republican presidential candidates turned fire on the media on Wednesday as their economic policies were put under the spotlight in an acrimonious but revealing presidential debate in Colorado.



Everything you need to know about the Republican debate in six gifs Read more

Tough questioning from CNBC moderators, who pressed the candidates over the viability of their tax plans, prompted Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, Donald Trump, Ben Carson and others to unite against the television network, attacking them for bias.

“Do you want to answer, or do you want me to answer?” demanded governor Chris Christie, who was among the most vocal in taking on CNBC. “Even in New Jersey what you are doing is called rude.”

But the intense focus on the unconventional policies of outsiders – and current frontrunners – Trump and Carson appeared to bolster the hopes of more moderate candidates, particularly Rubio, who used the debate to reinforce his claim to be a strong compromise candidate.

Rubio upstaged his former mentor Jeb Bush, who desperately needed a strong performance to rescue his plummeting poll numbers and restore flagging confidence among donors.

Instead, a clash between Bush, the former governor of Florida, and Rubio, the state’s senator, was among the most memorable moments of the the night. The pair, once close allies, are now battling over the same home turf, both a rich vein for donors and a key swing state.

When CNBC moderators brought up a stinging editorial in Florida’s Sun Sentinel newspaper that pointed out Rubio had missed more votes than any other senator, and should consider resigning, Bush pounced.

You get like three days where you have to show up? Bush attacks Rubio's voting record

“Marco, when you signed up for this, this was a six-year term, and you should be showing up to work,” said Bush. “I mean, literally the Senate, what is it, like a French work week? You get like three days where you have to show up?”

But the younger rival managed to turn difficult questions into an opportunity to boast of his humble background and promise of change.

“I am not running against Governor Bush I am running for president,” responded Rubio, who appeared among the most polished of the 10 candidates in the main debate. Turning to his former mentor, Rubio added: “Someone has convinced you that attacking me is going to help you. It’s not.”

However, it was Rubio and some other candidates’ concerted pushback at the TV moderators, whom they accused of liberal bias, that proved to be the biggest talking point after the debate.

Trump, who has for months been the frontrunner in an average of national polls of Republicans, accused TV executives of seeking to profit from overly long debates and blasted what he claimed were “nasty and ridiculous” questions.

Third Republican debate: nine things we learned Read more

Carson, who is gaining ground on Trump, particularly in the first-in-the nation primary state of Iowa, received vocal support from the crowd after he was questioned on his links to a disgraced pharmaceutical company. He concluded his appearance by thanking fellow panellists “for not falling for the traps”.

“The questions that have been asked so far on this debate illustrate why the American people don’t trust the media,” claimed Cruz in comments that brought some of the biggest cheers of the night from the Colorado crowd. The Texas senator even went so far as to stand up for several rival candidates, defending them against CNBC’s moderators.

Reince Priebus, the chairman of the Republican National Committee, which organises the debates in coordination with TV networks, reacted angrily to the line of questioning.

“While I was proud of our candidates and the way they handled tonight’s debate, the performance by the CNBC moderators was extremely disappointing and did a disservice to their network, our candidates, and voters,” he said in a statement.

“CNBC should be ashamed of how this debate was handled.”

The aggressive scrutiny was welcomed by Democrats, who used the opportunity of the debate to send out a fundraising email to supporters.

“I had chills watching the debate tonight – and not in a good way,” wrote the Democratic National Committee’s chair, Debbie Wasserman Schultz. “We can’t let a single one of them get close to the White House.”

The forensic questioning also laid bare some of the unconventional policies and claims made by candidates, particularly Carson and Trump. The latter faced an especially embarrassing moment when CNBC moderator Becky Quick asked the real estate mogul about his claim that Rubio was Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg’s “personal senator”.

Trump disputed ever having made the statement – and claimed to be unaware where Quick could have found such erroneous information. “I don’t know,” Trump said. “You people write this stuff.”

As Quick pointed out 20 minutes later, it came from the immigration policy paper on Trump’s own website.

Despite the heat, there was also substantially more light than in previous debates as candidates were held to account over what many economists view as extreme tax and spending policies as well as conflicting promises on social security.

“Folks, we gotta wake up,” said Ohio governor John Kasich in an opening exchange which hinted at a concerted establishment fight-back against the outsiders. “We cannot elect someone who doesn’t know how to do the job.”

The veiled attack on Trump produced a typically robust response from the billionaire TV celebrity, who said Kasich’s poll numbers had tanked. “That’s why he’s on the end [of the stage],” Trump said. “And then he got nasty.”

CNBC business journalist John Harwood further rattled Trump by asking if his fiscal policy amounted to a “comic-book way to run a presidential campaign”.

But the difficult questioning was not limited to the so-called “outsider” candidates who have never held public office.

Do you have the maturity and the wisdom to lead a $17tn economy? Rubio faces a pointed question

Rubio, for example, was asked: “Do you have the maturity and the wisdom to lead a $17tn economy?” He responded by accusing the mainstream media of favouring Democrats and failing to hold Hillary Clinton to account in their coverage of the Benghazi hearings. “Democrats have the ultimate Super Pac, it’s called the mainstream media,” he said.

Danny Diaz, Bush’s campaign manager, later tried to push back on the narrative that Rubio had gotten the better of his candidate.

“I think Marco Rubio is an outstanding performer. We knew that going in, we know that coming out,” he said. “The reality is that he doesn’t have a record of accomplishment. The reality is that he hasn’t demonstrated that he is qualified to be president.”

Meanwhile, Trump, predictably, heralded himself the victor. “I think I did very well according to all the online polls,” he said afterwards. “I got 80% as a win and hundreds of thousands of people are sending their numbers in and according to every single poll that’s a win.”

His wife, Melania, accompanying him for the first time on the trail, said her husband had been “fantastic”.

While Bush and other stragglers such as Rand Paul and Mike Huckabee failed to make much impression on the debate, the third Republican TV showdown revealed how wide open its primary race remains compared with a Democratic race increasingly dominated by Clinton.