After the Debate, A New GOP Narrative; Has the Media Made Trump Unstoppable?
BRIAN STELTER, CNN ANCHOR: Hey, good morning. I'm Brian Stelter and it's time for RELIABLE SOURCES -- our weekly look at the story behind the story of how news and pop culture get made. Ahead this hour, Clinton wins big in South Carolina, but does her redemption in the Palmetto State solidify her path to the nomination and should the press be careful not to count Bernie Sanders out? Ed Schultz and David Brock will weigh in. Plus, the candidates' media blitz before Super Tuesday is ramping up, but there's one place the candidates aren't appearing. It's your local newspaper. We're going to talk with three of the country's top editors join me from Super Tuesday states for a special editors' round table. And later, an implosion at MSNBC. Host Melissa Harris Perry's show suddenly gone, canceled. I have fresh reporting on what went wrong later this hour. But, first, the gloves, they sure were off at the CNN's GOP debate in Houston on Thursday night. Gosh, it feels like it was a long time ago, doesn't it? Almost 15 million viewers tuned in to watch the leading candidates hurling insults and trading personal attacks. But it's really what happened next between Marco Rubio and Donald Trump on the campaign trail that made the debate look civilized. Marco Rubio taking a page right out of Trump's playbook and it's making the GOP contest feel like this, a SmackDown from the WWE.</s>DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I watched him repeat himself five times four weeks ago --</s>SEN. MARCO RUBIO (R-FL), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I watched you repeat yourself five times five seconds ago.</s>TRUMP: It was meltdown. He's a nervous basket case.</s>RUBIO: Con artist.</s>TRUMP: He's a choker.</s>RUBIO: He spelled choker, c-h-o-k-e-r, chalker.</s>TRUMP: Boo, boo.</s>RUBIO: The worst spray tan in America.</s>TRUMP: Nasty little guy.</s>RUBIO: Make sure his pants weren't wet.</s>TRUMP: Ahh, ahh, I need water.</s>RUBIO: He was having a meltdown.</s>TRUMP: Bing, bing, bing. Bing, bing, bing.</s>RUBIO: Donald Trump likes to sue people. He should sue whoever did that to his face.</s>STELTER: What do we say, right? You know, comedian Jake Flores might have said it best. He suggested on Twitter this week, he said, "I'm starting to think this is the last season of America and the writers are just going nuts." I was just looking here. It's been retweeted 25,000 times. So, clearly, some people agree with him. Now, many people are asking have media outlets enabled Trump and are they now egging on Rubio? Let me bring in my all-star panel to talk about. Kathleen Parker, syndicated columnist at "The Washington Post", Jim Warren, the chief media writer at "Poynter", and Mollie Hemingway, senior editor at "The Federalist". Kathleen, do you feel is happening is Rubio basically trying to portray Trump as a loser, something other candidates up until now have been maybe afraid to do?</s>KATHLEEN PARKER, THE WASHINGTON POST: Well, absolutely. And I'm delighted that he seems to have taken my advice because I wrote a column to that effect. But anyway, yes, he -- you know, basically what he's doing I think is going after Trump. He's taunting him because the one thing a bully can't stand is to be taunted, and he's trying to get under Trump's skin I think at a deeper level than anyone else has bothered to do previously and why not? I mean, Trump has been throwing it at him pretty fiercely. He's returning the volley.</s>STELTER: Yes, what --</s>PARKER: But he's also having a little bit of fun I think. It's a liberation moment for Marco Rubio who has been accused of being so robotic previously.</s>STELTER: Yes --</s>PARKER: So, he's -- you know, it seems to be working too. Trump cannot stand it and we'll see where it goes. We'll look forward to everyone getting back to being a little more presidential however.</s>STELTER: You think that will actually happen?</s>PARKER: Will that actually happen? Well, you know, it has to at some point. I mean, I think Marco Rubio has been out front for a good long while with his policies and has been very, very serious all along. But now --</s>STELTER: I find myself --</s>PARKER: -- that he's be able to do this a little while --</s>STELTER: I'm sorry to interrupt you. I was going to say I find myself wondering, Mollie, if this wall-to- wall coverage of Trump and now this wall-to-wall coverage of Rubio could end up hurting Trump. You know, a lot of people have said for months that cable news coverage of Trump has boosted his campaign, has turned him into the front-runner he is, but you have to wonder now that Rubio is using Trump's tactics and being broadcast live doing them, if it will really start to do damage to Trump.</s>MOLLIE HEMINGWAY, SENIOR EDITOR, THE FEDERALIST: Well, it's not just that Donald Trump has gotten so much of the media coverage. You know, 60 percent to 80 percent of the actual air time when you're covering Republican candidates, it's also about what he's getting coverage for. The media aren't responsible for Donald Trump but they're definitely responsible for enabling him and they're also responsible for the fact that if you're a Republican candidate and you're trying to get even a chance at air time, you have to taunt and mock your opponent just to get any time on the air. And so, that is something I do wish the media would reflect on what they're incentivizing in the process. There's no incentive to act presidential because it doesn't get you air time. There's no incentive to talk policy.</s>STELTER: Jim, as our media critic, do you agree?</s>JIM WARREN, CHIEF MEDIA WRITER, POYNTER: Yes. Well, Kathleen, there's a better chance my New York Knicks from the early days will win the championship than this is going to get more presidential anytime soon. I mean, we have an obvious race to the bottom for the likes of Trump and now Rubio. The marketplace is almost dictating, you know, this sort of descent into the valley of kind of almost Internet trolling. The back and forth is akin to some of the raw notes we see at the bottom of our internet pieces as anybody can say what the heck they want. And, obviously, you've got the symbiotic relationship between the candidates on one hand and news director whose see some of this as ratings manna, particularly with Donald Trump, and you have a system which is commercially driven. Remember, in most other countries, you know, debates and town halls like this are not commercial. There's not an incentive for folks to sort of jack up the pugilistic air about it. So, I don't think this descent to the bottom is going to change anytime soon.</s>STELTER: You know, Jim, I went to reach for my water to take that sip and then I realized Trump might make fun of me. The way we've seen visual comedy on the trail with Trump mocking Rubio, and then Rubio, of course, reading tweets on stage, we showed that a couple of minutes ago, it felt like something right out of late night TV, right out of Kimmel having people read mean tweets. Kathleen, I saw you shaking your head yes.</s>PARKER: Well, are you speaking to me? I couldn't tell.</s>STELTER: Yes, go ahead. I'm sorry.</s>PARKER: There's a little bit of wind. So, I think it goes without saying that the candidates, that this campaign on the Republican side has devolved into sort of the reality TV, you know, template. But, you know, I think too and I agree with Mollie that the media do have a choice in how they cover it, and I wish they would cover it more substantively and the ratings clearly drive all of that. But, you know, at some point, I do think, you know, maybe it's after the conventions. I mean, that's a long time to wait for presidential. But at some point, you know, everybody has got to sit down and talk seriously about how to fix things and how to unify the country primarily. That's the most important --</s>WARREN: But, guys, guys, at the same -- guys, at the same time it's interesting, you have so many reality sort of hiding there in plain sight, whether it's the Donald Trump business record, and that's been laid out by many folks. There was the former "New York Times" reporter David Cay Johnston who a year or so ago did a fabulous piece raising 20, 25 questions or so in something called "The National Memo" about that record. Then, the other night you had Rubio with what was deemed some Pearl Harbor-like sneak attack when it comes to Trump University. That's all been laid out. Go to "TIME" magazine, my old friend Steve Brill did a fabulous piece just going through the court records and almost everything Trump said in response to Rubio, to Wolf Blitzer, was categorically wrong. But the question is does -- is any of this appreciated? The information is out there, but there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of understanding or interest in understanding --</s>HEMINGWAY: It's not --</s>STELTER: Mollie --</s>WARREN: -- on the part of the Republican primary electorate.</s>STELTER: Mollie, go ahead.</s>HEMINGWAY: It's not just about whether you cover it one time or whether there was something written in the past. It's really about how much coverage you're giving as part of the whole. And so, when Donald Trump get so much coverage for every outlandish thing, and then you say, "Oh, well, there was a piece written a few months ago that went through some of his mob ties," that's not sufficient. I think the media need to be a little more proportional in the same way that they cover Hillary Clinton. Certainly, her campaign gets covered but also some of her e-mail scandals and things like that. So, I think we could just see much more substantive coverage of Trump as well.</s>STELTER: You mentioned mob ties. Worth knowing Ted Cruz brought up that on one of the Sunday show this is morning. Wonderful if we'll hear more from Cruz on that. I want to turn in this block to another of Trump's favorite punching bags, of course, the media, because this week, "The New York Times" wrote one of these substantive stories we're hungry for. The title here is: "Donald Trump in New York, Deep Roots, but Little Influence." Now, don't know this for sure, but what do you think? Do you think Trump attacked "The New York Times" as a result? Take a look at what he said.</s>TRUMP: "The New York Times," it's going out of business, it's the worst newspaper. It is a dead newspaper. These people are incompetent and they're bad people. They have a bad agenda. We're going to open up the libel laws so when they write falsely, we can sue the media and we can get the story corrected and get damages, right, believe me.</s>STELTER: "The New York Times" has seen better days but it's not dead. Jim, I want you to tell us about the libel law issue. Educate our viewers for a moment. Is it fundamentally an attack on press freedom to do what Trump is proposing to do?</s>WARREN: Yes, absolutely. I mean, if you go back --</s>STELTER: Why?</s>WARREN: -- to the Supreme Court case, famous case Sullivan, you've got to show malicious intent in proving libel against a media outlet, even when it publishes erroneous facts. The irony here of a guy who is trying to weaken those libel laws at the same time, he's very much profiting, is he not, from the protections of the First Amendment by basically saying what the heck he wants. But I think in the process, by railing every time he feels he's been done some injustice by the press, I think he has inadvertently making a very, very good case for why you should make the laws stronger, not weaker. And I do hope Mr. Trump and campaign adherents are watching the Oscars tonight and crossing their fingers that "Spotlight" wins because that movie is all about the First Amendment and its relevance in a democracy and why it should be stronger, not weaker, as Trump wants to make it.</s>STELTER: You just gave a great tease for me. We're going to talk about "Spotlight" later in the hour. I'm curious, you know, we have to keep in mind -- whenever I hear Trump criticizing the press, I think this does resonate with a lot of his fans. We are a punching bag that seems very effective. Mollie, is the antidote, if there is one, to that sort of rhetoric?</s>HEMINGWAY: It's heartening to see the way the media have responded negatively to Donald Trump's calls to open up libel laws. But it also speaks to the strength of his argument, which is that the same media who are complaining about what he said about "The Washington Post" and "The New York Times," they don't care when Democratic candidates openly state they're opposed to Citizens United, which is also a Supreme Court decision that protects the First Amendment, that allows people to criticize candidates. I don't know if people remember, Citizens United was about a nonprofit group trying to criticize Hillary Clinton and the Supreme Court said they could do that under free speech and free press rules. So, we don't see the same level of angst about other candidates speaking against the First Amendment or the current administration, which hasn't been so friendly to press freedoms and has punished people that they think are not covering them fairly, or also just opposing other parts of the First Amendment such as religious freedom protections. People are upset about that and that's partly why they're supporting someone like Trump.</s>STELTER: Mollie, Jim, Kathleen, I thank you all for being here this morning.</s>HEMINGWAY: Thank you.</s>WARREN: Thanks.</s>STELTER: A quick reminder that after Super Tuesday, the big media story will be Donald Trump and Megyn Kelly, the rematch next Thursday night. You know, this conversation reminds me of a quote of "Rolling Stone's" latest issue. We put it on screen here. It says, "Trump found the flaw in the American Death Star. It doesn't know how to turn the cameras off even when it's filming its own denies." So should we find the off button? The author of that story, Matt Taibbi, will join me right after the break.