All three network morning shows on Thursday ripped into Michael Bloomberg’s Democratic debate debut, hammering the “universally bad” night as possibly a “knockout punch” for the former New York Mayor. ABC even suggested it would have been better if Bloomberg never qualified for the debate.

On CBS This Morning, co-host Gayle King ripped, “Listen, the reviews are in for Mike Bloomberg, as you know. And they are universally bad with words like ‘disastrous,’ ‘pummeled,’ ‘stumbled.’” She then held up the mocking front covers of the New York Post and Daily News. King opened the show by declaring, “Mike Bloomberg stumbles in his first Democratic debate.”

Talking to Major Garrett, King marveled, “My question to you, how does this happen to him last night? He knew the all the questions were coming. How does he recover?” Garrett offered his scathing critique: “The consensus was Bloomberg was unprepared, unfocused and uninspiring.... The consensus among these Democrats was Bloomberg blew it.”

Over on Good Morning America, reporter Jon Karl said it would have been better for Bloomberg to have never made the debate: “Bloomberg qualified for the debate at the last minute and only after the DNC changed the rules but there's no question that he would have been better off if he didn't qualify. But there’s only so long you can hide behind a $400 million ad splurge.”

On NBC’s Today, the show opened with a graphic that speculated, “Knockout punch?” Co-host Savannah Guthrie insisted, “I don't think there is any dispute from the Bloomberg folks that this was not a good debate for him.”

Why all the doom and gloom from the liberal media? Aside from accepting the reality — this just wasn’t a good performance — journalists have been struggling over how to deal with a possibly disastrous Bernie Sanders nomination. One reaction is for media outlets to disingenuously pretend that candidates like Amy Klobuchar and Pete Buttigieg are “moderates.”

Bloomberg was meant to be a possible alternative to journalists terrified of Sanders. Wednesday’s debate performance is worrisome that they might have to look elsewhere.

Partial transcripts are below. Click “expand” to read more: