After Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) redoubled efforts Wednesday to shift blame to the media for circulating misinformation that Ben Carson was dropping out, a CNN journalist took Cruz to task for trying “to throw my network under the bus.”
Cruz accused the media of trying to stir up a fight with Carson during a Wednesday press availability in New Hampshire, and slammed a reporter who asked if the alert that Carson was leaving the presidential race was a “dirty trick,” as Carson has said.
“Is it a dirty trick to pass on your news stories? You’re in the business! Would you think it was a dirty trick if I was forwarding an ABC story? Or is it just a dirty trick to pass on a CNN story?” Cruz told reporters.
After playing video of those remarks, CNN host Brooke Baldwin defended the network’s report.
“Just so we’re all crystal clear here, when Sen. Cruz, with all due respect, tries to throw my network under the bus, let me stand up for my colleagues and my journalists here in terms of this CNN report Cruz keeps quoting,” she began. “We reported it accurately and here are the facts.”
Baldwin continued: “Dr. Carson’s staff told us that he would return home to Florida to, quote, unquote, take a breath from the campaign before resuming his activities on the campaign trail. That accurate report was disseminated on television and CNN digital and that was that. That was that.”
“Forgive me,” Baldwin said to her guest, Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC), a Cruz surrogate. “When someone tries to take down the media and misreport something it gets me fired up.”
“You have a tough job, and I can tell you, knowing a number of people in the media, it’s one thing to report, it’s another to verify it, and certainly your reputation is stellar,” Meadows replied.
Meadows went on to say the whole snafu underscores the need to stay focused on “the main thing,” policy issues like immigration and national security.
But Baldwin wasn’t having it, and interrupted to say: “Congressman, forgive me, but I’m going to call out B.S. if I hear B.S. And that was B.S.”
“You are not hearing it from me!” Meadows said. “But you go ahead and call it out. I’ll be glad to respond.”
She said Cruz’s claim the media is trying to stir things up with Carson is “just not accurate, and I just needed to go on the record saying that.”
Meadows based on his experience with Carson, he is a “humble man” who would accept Cruz’s apology.
“But Sen. Cruz is saying the media is coming in and trying to stir up this fight between him and Dr. Carson when that’s just not accurate,” Baldwin responded.
The North Carolina congressman tried to minimize the story, and said “the genesis of the story” was “a tweet by Donald Trump.”
Watch the full exchange, captured by TPM:
Keep this in the headlines. We want people to be familiar with this, so it just takes a few words to keep painting Cruz as slimy and conniving.
Saint Cruz wouldn’t lie. Jesus endorses him.
Personally, I try to avoid scapegoating bus drivers.
The MSM have much, much to answer for. But they don’t tell scurrilous lies all day every day. Like Cruz, let me add, just in case that’s not clear. POS.
(cough!)…UFO Balloon Boy…(cough, cough!)