CNN Employee, Fox News Consultant Provided Media Training to GOP Candidates
According to a Politico report, CNN commentator S.E. Cupp and Fox News communications consultant Jon Kraushar both gave media training to most major Republican Senate candidates leading up to Tuesday’s midterm elections.
The “bootcamp” was arranged by the National Republican Senatorial Committee and intended to keep GOP candidates from making campaign-crippling media gaffes. Politico pointed to former congressman Todd Akin’s “legitimate rape” remarks in 2012 as a prime example of such a blunder.
Cupp, who was a panelist on “Crossfire” before CNN canceled the show in October, remains a commentator at the network. She conducted mock interviews with candidates, simulating the kind of interrogation they might receive from the media in weeks prior to the elections. Kraushar, who has worked for Eric Cantor, Paul Ryan and Dick Cheney, handles most of the on-camera training at Fox News. He was also present to ensure that candidates were primed.
“Over the next two days, for eight hours a day, the candidates had to watch each other stumble, stammer, run from the cameras. They were drilled on policy, then had the cameras turned on them,” Politico’s Edward-Isaac Dovere, Manu Raju and John Bresnahan report. “They were briefed on common media mistakes, then had the camera turned on them. They were shown footage of Akin and Richard Mourdock making fools of themselves two years ago, then had the camera turned on them again.”
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