Republican presidential candidates assailed what they called media bias at their third debate on Wednesday night as the questions from CNBC moderators tended to veer from the forum’s focus on the economy.
One of the first questions posed to Sen. Marco Rubio (R., Fla.) concerned a recent editorial from the Sun Sentinel, a Florida newspaper that urged him to resign his Senate seat because he "has missed more votes than any other senator this year."
Rubio responded that the editorial was "evidence of the bias that exists in the American media today."
"In 2004, John Kerry ran for president missing close to 60, 70 percent of his votes," he said during the debate at the University of Colorado Boulder. "I don’t recall the Sun Sentinel … in fact, the Sun Sentinel endorsed him."
"In 2008, Barack Obama missed 60, 70 percent of his votes and the same newspaper endorsed him again," he continued. "So this is another example of the double standard that exists in this country between the mainstream media and the conservative movement."
Jeb Bush, former Florida governor, prodded Rubio on the criticism of his voting record.
"I’m a constituent of the senator, and I helped him, and I expected that he would do constituent service, which means that he shows up to work," Bush said.
"I mean literally the Senate, what is it like a French workweek?" he continued. "You get like three days where you have to show up? You can campaign or just resign and let someone else take the job."
Rubio had a swift riposte that drew applause from the audience.
"The only reason why you’re doing it now is because we’re running for the same position, and someone has convinced you that attacking me is going to help you," Rubio said.
"I will continue to have tremendous admiration and respect for Gov. Bush," he added. "I’m not running against Gov. Bush; I’m not running against anyone on the stage. I’m running for president because there is no way we can elect Hillary Clinton to continue the policies of Barack Obama."
Later in the first round of questions, Sen. Ted Cruz (R., Texas) sharply criticized the nature of the queries from the moderators.
"The questions that have been asked so far in this debate illustrate why the American people don’t trust the media," Cruz said to applause. "This is not a cage match. And if you look at the questions—Donald Trump are you a comic book villain, Ben Carson can you do math, John Kasich will you insult two people over here, Marco Rubio will you resign, Jeb Bush why have your numbers fallen—how about talking about the substantive issues that people care about?"
"The men and women on this stage have more ideas, more experience, more common sense, than every participant in the Democratic debate," he added. "That debate reflected a debate between the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks."
Rubio piled onto the media criticism later in the debate, stating that "the Democrats have the ultimate Super PAC. It’s called the mainstream media."
The candidates were able to use some of the questions to address economic conditions for working class Americans, who they said are still struggling due to stagnant wages while wealthier citizens reap gains from a surging stock market. Most have proposed plans that would lower taxes and eliminate government regulations, which they said would put more money in the pockets of working families.
"This is how socialism is started," said Carly Fiorina, a businesswoman who is close to Rubio and Bush in the polls. "Government creates a problem and then government steps in to solve the problem."
"It is why we have to simplify and reduce the power of government," she added. "It is the only way to level the playing field between the big and powerful and the small and powerless."
In another attack on President Obama and Clinton, the Democratic frontrunner, Rubio said, "the time to turn the page is now."
"For the first time in 35 years, we have more businesses closing than starting," he said. "We have a world that is out of control and has grown dangerous and a president that is weakening our military and making our foreign policy unstable and unreliable in the eyes of our allies, and our adversaries continue to grow stronger."
"If we don’t act now, we are going to be the first generation in American history that leaves our children worse off than ourselves," he added.
The audience began to boo repeatedly after questions that seemed like partisan attacks on the candidates rather than economic policy.
Responding to a question about whether fantasy football should be regulated as online gambling, Gov. Chris Christie (R., N.J.) summed up the sentiments of those on stage.
"We have 19 trillion dollars in debt, we have people out of work, we have ISIS and al Qaeda attacking us, and we’re talking about fantasy football?" Christie asked incredulously. "Let people play. Who cares?"