GOP Candidates Sharpen Debate Attacks; Republicans Blast CNBC Moderators
ROMANS: All right. All the candidates in last night's debate, they seemed to agree on at least one thing. Taking issue with the moderators. Highly critical of the CNBC team during and after the debate.</s>CRUZ: 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.</s>CHRISTIE: What we should do is to be investing in all types of energy, John. All types of energy. I've laid out --</s>HARWOOD: In government?</s>CHRISTIE: No, John. John, do you want me to answer or do you want to answer?</s>CHRISTIE: Because I've got to tell you the truth. Even in New Jersey, what you're doing is called rude.</s>HARWOOD: Is this a comic book version of a presidential campaign?</s>TRUMP: No. It's not a comic book. And it's not a very nicely asked question the way you say that.</s>BUSH: It didn't control the debate. Plain and simple. It was not the -- it was not a fair debate in that regard.</s>ROMANS: Let's bring in Brian Stelter, CNN senior media correspondent and host of "RELIABLE SOURCES." That plays well with the Republican base to attack the questioners and say, look, this is the mainstream media. They were asking questions that weren't there.</s>BRIAN STELTER, CNN SENIOR MEDIA CORRESPONDENT: For sure. The most effective line about that was -- it was Marco Rubio who said the Democrats have the best super PAC of all. The mainstream media. Now there are cases where there are questions that might have some liberal bias coming in. I thought there was more of an issue last night, though, with the management of the time, with the management of the candidates. Yes, some of the questions might have seemed staged and might have seemed too personal, they might have been too much about getting candidates to fight with each other. But there was also this chaos, a sense of chaos throughout the debate. It was unclear who was in charge. And that's a big difference from the FOX and CNN debates. Tapper was in charge of that GOP CNN debate on CNN. Megyn Kelly, Bret Baier, Chris Wallace, they were in charge of the FOX debate. You knew who was leading the show. Last night you didn't know who was leading the show.</s>BERMAN: No. There's really two separate issues here. The tone of the questions and to whom and how often the questions were going.</s>STELTER: That's right.</s>BERMAN: We have I think the debate time. Who got the most talking last night.</s>STELTER: It is revealing.</s>BERMAN: And Carly Fiorina spoke the most last night. She had more than 10 minutes of talk time, depending on how you measure it. Jeb Bush and Rand Paul had the least amount of time.</s>STELTER: Fiorina was very effective about jumping in.</s>BERMAN: She was.</s>STELTER: And then making sure the moderators didn't cut her off.</s>BERMAN: It was interesting, you don't see this much. I guess Jeb Bush's campaign manager, Danny Diaz, was banging on the control room door during the debate.</s>STELTER: Yes.</s>BERMAN: During the debate, essentially saying, this isn't fair. You're not asking, you know, fair questions and distributing fairly enough.</s>STELTER: And they're not given enough time. You know, there are 10 candidates on the stage. They wanted a two-hour debate. CNBC would like it to go on a little bit longer. Of course CNN's was three hours long. The candidates didn't like that. I honestly wish they had gone on longer, on the one hand. On the other hand, it was so chaotic that it was good it ended at two hours. You know, in a perfect world, I think we wouldn't have 10 candidates on that stage.</s>ROMANS: Right.</s>STELTER: Because it can create such a difficult situation. If you can split it up with seven and seven, seven earlier and seven later, randomly, to me that will make a lot more sense. But obviously the top ranking candidates like Donald Trump don't want that to happen. And they do have a lot of leverage in these situations.</s>ROMANS: One of the big criticisms this morning, you know, of so many of those candidates about the mainstream media, this is a typical mainstream media, it sort of struck me. I don't think of CNBC as, like, quote-unquote, "mainstream media." It's a niche business and economics platform. And that's what they presumably were going for, to talk about the economy.</s>STELTER: With many conservative commentators.</s>ROMANS: Right.</s>STELTER: I think of them as a red network in many way like FOX News.</s>BERMAN: The founding party of the Tea Party.</s>STELTER: That's right. Rick Santelli who was up there asking questions last night. The network quickly was portrayed as being part of this liberal bias problem but that is not what it normally is. I think the moderators could have been more prepared for that line of attack. They could have pushed back more on it and expected it more.</s>ROMANS: Let's show the statement of the network.</s>STELTER: Yes, let's put on screen. CNBC's one-line statement. They say, "People who want to be president of the United States should be able to answer tough questions." That's their one-line response to all the criticism. But frankly the criticism goes beyond the issue of tough questions, it also goes to the overall management of the stage and the pushback.</s>ROMANS: And the follow-up. Let's talk quickly about this.</s>STELTER: Yes.</s>ROMANS: Becky Quick, a fantastic reporter and anchor, she asked a question to Donald Trump about his position on h-1b visas and immigration, whether he criticized Mark Zuckerberg and Marco Rubio. And he completely disavowed his own platform on immigration and she didn't push him on it.</s>STELTER: That's right. She in fact kind of acknowledged, kind of, I'm not sure where I read that. Instead of pushing back, showing the evidence that she was right, that she was right to ask the question. It goes to show that being on these stages, moderating these debates is extremely difficult. And frankly, I came away even more -- having more respect for the Jake Tappers and Megyn Kellys of the world because we see how hard it is. And I have a feeling we're going to see changes in the future debates as a result of this.</s>BERMAN: Right. Yes.</s>STELTER: I think we're going to see more pushback from the campaigns. They want to have more control of the debates in the future.</s>BERMAN: Reince Priebus is not happy at all.</s>STELTER: Yes.</s>BERMAN: Brian Stelter, great to have you with us. Thank you so much.</s>ROMANS: Nice to see you.</s>STELTER: Thanks.</s>BERMAN: Let's take a look at what's coming up on "NEW DAY." Alisyn Camerota joins us now -- Alisyn.</s>ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR, "NEW DAY": Hey, good morning, guys. We will have much more analysis of last night's Republican debate. Which candidate won, which candidate lost, and which candidate had the best zingers. We will speak with many of the candidates, including the man who some people believe won last night. That's Senator Marco Rubio. We will also have on "NEW DAY" Carly Fiorina and Governor Chris Christie as well as former governor, Mike Huckabee. What did they think of their performances and where does the presidential race go from here? We have so much to discuss, me and Michaela will see you in about 13 minutes.</s>ROMANS: Can't wait.</s>BERMAN: Where, oh, where does it go from here. Alisyn, great. See you in a few minutes. Bernie Sanders. His position on marijuana changing. What he is saying now. That's next.