Republican Debate

  • NewsKen Tucker

    Trump Turned The Republican Debate Into A No-Brawl Zone

    “So far, I can’t believe how civil it’s been up here,” said Donald Trump a half-hour into Thursday night’s Republican debate on CNN. It was striking that the candidate who set that tone was the candidate who’d previously done so much to operate during previous debates without civility: Trump. To be sure, Trump questions dominated the proceedings: CNN knows where its ratings reside.

  • NewsKen Tucker

    Republican Debate: Trump Grilled By Megyn Kelly, Insulted By Opponents

    Hoo boy, what a day for politics it was, in the hours leading up to Thursday night’s Fox News Republican debate. Trump responded with a spirited torrent of abuse, starting with “I could have told Mitt to drop to his knees” when Romney sought Trump’s endorsement for Romney’s own Presidential bid. Exciting times, and made only more rousing by the Fox News debate, where Trump came face-to-face with his nemesis, moderator Megyn Kelly.

  • NewsKen Tucker

    Republican Debate Review: The Night Of A Thousand Trump Attacks

    The Republican debate on CNN Thursday night became an unceasing cascade of attacks: Attacks leveled at the party front-runner, and by him. Donald Trump was flanked on a Texas stage by Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, and those candidates did everything possible to undermine Trump’s credibility as Presidential timber. Trump, however, was more than capable of shouting them down, which only raised their volume.

  • NewsKen Tucker

    Republican Debate Review: Scalia's Death and a Vicious Brawl

    The announcement of the death of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia on Saturday led to a subdued beginning for the CBS-sponsored Republican debate held in South Carolina. Moderator John Dickerson led the hall and the six candidates in a moment of silence out of respect for Scalia.  What followed, however, was the opposite of silence: The candidates occasionally yelled at each other, accused each other of lies, dishonesty, and misogyny, and felt the lusty boos of an audience that sometimes sou

  • NewsKen Tucker

    'Full Frontal With Samantha Bee' Review: A Gleefully Savage Triumph

    To the challenge of being TV’s most prominent woman on the late-night landscape, Samantha Bee spent the debut episode of Full Frontal making that challenge irrelevant or glorious—take your pick. Bee’s opening monologue—a stand-up affair, with deft use of illustrative clips—hit at the false humility of Hillary Clinton and moved on to what she called the “banquet of all-you-can-eat-crazy” that was Saturday’s New Hampshire debate. Later, Bee introduced a taped piece in which she did not appear, y

  • NewsKen Tucker

    Republican Debate Turns Into a Live Saturday Night Fight

    Verbal punches were thrown and the New Hampshire audience booed as though they were at a bare-knuckle brawl during ABC’s Saturday-night Republican debate. Marco Rubio was on the receiving end of some of the most punishing blows. The debate began like a bad Saturday Night Live sketch, with Ben Carson jamming up the entry-way onto the stage by refusing to take his place at the podium.

  • NewsKen Tucker

    Republican Debate Review: Without Trump, Cruz Became The Target

    Donald Trump thought he was going to be attacked by Megyn Kelly, and pulled out of the Fox News-Google Republican debate. Ted Cruz ended up being the guy who was attacked on Thursday night—not by Kelly, but by a couple of his opponents. Marco Rubio and Rand Paul aimed a number of direct hits at Cruz, and in terms of television drama, that made Cruz the chief protagonist (and antagonist) of the debate.