Fox News Disputes Rand Paul’s Claim that Trump Got Special Treatment at Debate
Fox News came to Donald Trump‘s defense, in a sense, on Monday after Rand Paul accused the network of giving the GOP frontrunner “twice as much airtime” as every other candidate at the first GOP debate earlier this month.
“And then everybody wonders why he’s doing well in the polls,” Paul said in an interview with Boston Herald Radio today. “Maybe we shouldn’t predetermine to give somebody who really isn’t even a good Republican, or a good conservative — maybe we shouldn’t be predetermining to give them twice as much time as everybody else.”
But in a statement to The Huffington Post, Fox News Executive Vice President Michael Clemente denied the veracity of Paul’s claim.
“There is zero truth to Senator Rand Paul’s accusation,” Clemente said. “While Trump was given the first question by virtue of his standing in the national polls, time was allotted as equally as possible, given the back and forth and interruptions that occurred.”
Following the debate, NPR Politics crunched the numbers on each candidate’s speaking time and it is true that Trump spoke for more than twice as long as Paul. But the rest of the field fell on a spectrum in between the two.
Here is the full breakdown:
1. Trump 10:30
2. Bush 8:33
3. Huckabee 6:32
4. Carson/Cruz 6:28 (tie)
6. Kasich 6:25
7. Rubio 6:22
8. Christie 6:03
9. Walker 5:43
10. Paul 4:51
Ironically, while Trump may have gotten the most debate airtime, he too spent the following days and weeks accusing Fox of treating him unfairly, mostly when it came to Megyn Kelly’s tough questions.
[Photo via screengrab]
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