This is 1 annoying audience...

Rubio's just hitting Trump on Trump University NOW?!?

Can't tell if the way Trump got off the platform was disappointment or just something he'd do anyway. You know Trump...

Related:
>Fox News Can’t Decide What It Thinks of Donald Trump, and Its Latest Awful Debate Proves It
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2016/03/03/fox_news_can_t_decide_what_it_thinks_of_donald_trump_in_gop_debate.html
>Donald Trump may never be president, but we are living in his America. Thursday night’s exhausting and pathetic two-hour debate in Detroit put on display a Republican Party disintegrating before our eyes, and enough personal insults and crude boasts to shame Howard Stern. It was nearly enough to make one sympathize with Mitt Romney’s borderline sappy, straight-outta-1955 plea for civility earlier in the day. If the campaign that Trump has dragged down into the gutter no longer surprises in its lowness, the confusion at Fox News Channel, the network that (barely) hosted the debate, remains one of the most shocking things about this bizarre election year.

>For the past several months, from the time Donald Trump’s campaign went from an absurd joke to a frightening reality, Fox exhibited two things that it has never exhibited before: irresolution and utter perplexity. Trump not only shunned the traditional Republican playbook—a playbook that Fox News has tried to enforce for two decades—but also attacked a number of the channel’s personalities, including one of its biggest stars, Megyn Kelly. Fox was at a loss: Should it try to take Trump down, and risk alienating its viewers? Or should it go along with the man who not only was changing the party and challenging its establishment, but also seemed unlikely to beat Hillary Clinton in a general election?

>>26921
>The result was a network that often seemed unmoored, with bickering anchors, different factions, and no game plan about what to do. Finally, Rupert Murdoch, who owns the network, stated that the party had to unite, which in practice (given the polls) means that it had to unite around Trump. Roger Ailes, who runs the network, soured on Marco Rubio, according to Gabriel Sherman’s reporting in New York magazine. (Within 24 hours of that report, Sean Hannity, one of the network’s big stars, turned harshly against Rubio.) And Bill O’Reilly, who had been cautiously pro-Trump for months, was particularly gushing about the candidate this week.

>In its campaign coverage on Thursday—one of the biggest days of the 2016 election—Fox consistently went out of its way to ensure that Trump had a smooth ride. Mitt Romney’s speech blasting Trump, which dominated news coverage all day, was covered skeptically on the network. Bill O’Reilly tried to get all of his guests to pledge support for Trump. Even Fox’s so-called establishment contributors, such as former Bush press secretary Dana Perino, spoke harshly about Romney’s speech.

>When the actual debate began, it seemed as if the Fox strategy would continue as it had all week. Bret Baier, one of the moderators, went after Rubio on the second question, asking him, inanely, “How many jobs have you created?” Frank Luntz, whose ridiculous focus groups throughout the campaign have consistently boosted Rubio, tweeted out that this time the group did not like Rubio’s attack on Trump.

>>26922
>But the pro-Trump strategy either fell apart or was never solid in the first place. The network’s moderators spent the middle hour of the debate slicing and dicing Trump: exposing the phoniness of his promises to cut the budget, confronting him with his past statements, playing sustained video clips of him flip-flopping. They offered his rivals an endless number of opportunities to attack him, which they did relentlessly. It became clear that the main purpose of the debate was to launch sustained and brutal attacks on the front-runner. Kelly’s attack on his business practices went on and on—and Trump sputtered and sputtered.

>It was a superb performance from Kelly, who, despite her very serious shortcomings, is capable of excellent journalism when she chooses. All of those attacks—and all of Fox’s questions—may do as little to damage the front-runner as everything else in this campaign. But whether or not they do, Fox emerged from a long political day appearing as uncertain as ever about how it would proceed going forward.

>The only conclusion, in the end, is that neither Murdoch nor Ailes is exerting real control over the network. In short, it’s a mess, a lot like Thursday’s debate was. Even Luntz, a loyal (if useless) soldier if ever there were one, tweeted out an alternate moderator because the evening had become such a ridiculous circus.

This is honestly just an amazing, ridiculous circus act. On one hand if Fox News changes to the Trump viewer base, it's not going to be able to do any solid journalism or reporting (it's already questionable), and they'll shrink into just another drudge report. On the other hand, if they stick with their traditional Conservatives, the population is dwindling so fast that they'l implode on themselves within 10-20 years.

Bill O'Reilly seems skilled at pandering to viewers on either side, so I think he's fine and just waiting for the dust to settle. Most likely Fox News will rebrand itself and stop doing its news segment altogether, and just become a stream of talk shows.

>>26974
So fox news will just be a bunch of talk shows hosted by old conservatives in the future?

>>26923
>It was a superb performance from Kelly, who,
I don't like jokes that aren't funny anon. She basically inserted herself into the debate against Trump. Boy did she have a bone to pick. Trumps choice to skip the 2nd debate was right on point even if it might have cost him Iowa. This one he had to attend but all it showed was his right judgement in missing the Iowa one. She cited fucking buzzfeed articles as sources and flatfaced on the bbb rating which he was correct in. And only he got hammered with video of his soundbites.

Which he surprisingly handled with such poise I was surprised, just casually answers and asks what the 2nd part of her 3 part attack was.

All in all he held his own which when you have everyone and the moderators out to get you is admireable. His debates have always been his weak point and he needs to really polish up on it with another one on the 9/10th.

Ted Cruz probably had overall best performance.

>>26991
> And only he got hammered with video of his soundbites.
She was trying to show that the king had no clothes...

I'm really beginning to think that Trump was paid to do a presidential run by liberals just to make Republicans unelectable for the next 40 years.

>>27033
If true that idea backfired: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/us_politics/2016/02/amid_trump_surge_nearly_20000_mass_voters_quit_democratic_party

That prediction turned out to be modestly wrong though. It turned out that only 600,000 people voted Republican in comparison to the predicted possible 700,000.

Also 20,000 is nothing compared to the 1.2million Massachusetts voters that ended up voting Democrat. Democrats dominate the state. (and my waifu Sen. Elizabeth Warren is there)

>>27061
>waifu elizabeth warren

she's such a fucking idiot for pretending to be native american to gain the faculty position in harvard law

I have the least respect for people like that

Why are people unaware of the power of social hypnotism and that not only did Donald Trump and FOX plan this in advance but they used mesmerism to do it?