Now that former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley has agreed to participate in the CNN debate at Drake University in Iowa, it looks like we'll be seeing an actual debate on January 10. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis confirmed his participation when the debate was first announced, earlier this month. There's been plenty of narratives surrounding the Republican primary debates, and they're not great ones. The RNC has received plenty of criticism, including and especially from Vivek Ramaswamy. The RNC made changes to allow candidates to participate in non-sanctioned debates, but there's concerns surrounding those debates as well.
CNN has since announced that one of the moderators includes Jake Tapper, meaning that a network with poor ratings is choosing an anchor with poor ratings for their first Republican debate since the 2016 cycle.
Overall, the network is doing terribly, especially as it continues to lag behind both Fox News and MSNBC. Back in September, TheStreet noted that "CNN just made primetime ratings history (not in a good way)," speaking to the network's low ratings among the key demo of viewers aged 25-45. The ratings haven't gotten any better, and it looks like the network will finish the year with its lowest ratings.
While DeSantis raised praise and positive coverage for the town hall that he did last week on the network, it actually lost ratings for CNN in primetime, as Nielsen Media Research showed. The network seems to be allergic to ratings, given that when former and potentially future President Donald Trump did the same kind of event back in May and brought in stellar ratings. CNN employees were apoplectic. Tapper wasn't the only one to complain, but he was a particularly memorable example. Ratings then went back to "crisis" levels. Chris Licht was forced out as CEO just a month later in part due to all the controversy, as well as the network's ratings.
Tapper hosts "The Lead With Jake Tapper," which comes in as the 189th most popular show overall on TV. According to data from Nielsen, the show is experiencing its lowest rated year among the key 25-45 demographic since 2014.
"All the Demons Are Here: A Thriller," Tapper's book released on July 11, didn't do so well either. Despite all of the promoting Tapper, the network, and his celebrity friends did, it still was not a success. As The Washington Free Beacon and even the leftist Daily Beast noted on November 7, the book had sold just 13,196 copies at the time. Again, the book had been released almost four months before.
The network has also experienced some serious debate failures. As Spencer covered, CNN announcing that their New Hampshire debate on January 21 would be at St. Anselm College was also news to the college itself. A CNN update from Saturday about the debates made a curious point about New Hampshire. "The second debate will be January 21 in New Hampshire. The location, originally announced as St. Anselm College, is likely to change, according to the network," the report mentioned.
When it comes to CNN's criteria to qualify for the Iowa debate, candidates are required to meet a 10 percent polling threshold. It doesn't seem likely that Ramaswamy or former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie will qualify, given that they're polling at 5.3 and 3.8 percent, respectively, in Iowa. Trump has yet to participate in the debates, and it doesn't look like he'll be participating in this one.
Ramaswamy memorably called out not only RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel during last month's debate in Miami, but also NBC News, the network which aired the debate and whose anchors served as co-moderators. According to Ramaswamy, NBC News is part of the "corrupt media establishment." The debate was also in partnership with the Salem Radio Network. The Salem Radio Network and Townhall are both under the Salem Media Group.
When asked a question about why he should be the nominee, Ramaswamy answered in part that Tucker Carolson, Joe Rogan, and Elon Musk should be the moderators, and that they'd "have 10 times the viewership asking questions that GOP primary voters actually care about and bringing more people into our party." He also told co-moderator Kristen Welker that "this is actually about you in the media and the corrupt media establishment," later adding "we need accountability because this media rigged the 2016 election, they rigged the 2020 election with a Hunter Biden laptop story, and they’re going to rig this election."
.@VivekGRamaswamy goes scorched earth on RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel and the NBC moderators. pic.twitter.com/heFclqEz9T
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) November 9, 2023
Biggest applause so far tonight for Ramaswamy when he demands NBC News give an account for their coverage of Trump and Russia.@VivekGRamaswamy suggest Tucker Carlson, Joe Rogan, and Elon Musk should be moderating, not NBC News, and "we'd have 10 times the viewership."
— Philip Melanchthon Wegmann (@PhilipWegmann) November 9, 2023
NBC News is hardly alone when it comes to that bias worth calling out. Despite such valid criticism from Ramaswamy, which earned the most applause of the night by calling out NBC News, he's still going on these networks. This includes a recent town hall on CNN, like the ones Trump and DeSantis did.
Although such remarks came at at Turning Point USA’s Americafest in Arizona on Sunday, rather than on the network, Ramaswamy did have some colorfully candid language for CNN's Van Jones, as well as the media overall. Jones had claimed he was "shaking" when he was criticizing Ramaswamy's debate performance during the fourth debate earlier this month.
"And then you get the mainstream media, you got this character Van Jones on CNN afterwards saying, 'This is the rise of an American demagogue who’s gonna live 50 years longer than Trump. This is dangerous, I am shaking,' that’s what he says,” Ramaswamy said on the stage at Americafest. "Just shut the f**k up."
For all of his calling out the media, will Ramaswamy participate in the CNN debate, if he does qualify? That remains to be seen. As the Washington Examiner reported last Friday, the Ramaswamy campaign told the outlet "it expects to qualify but doesn't know if it will decide to accept the debate's invitation."
Vivek Ramaswamy tells Van Jones to “just shut the f*** up.” pic.twitter.com/wiDfEgAF2g
— Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) December 18, 2023
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