Fox Allows GOP Pollster Frank Luntz To Tout Marco Rubio's Debate Performance Without Disclosing Past Financial Ties

Fox News invited Republican pollster Frank Luntz to lead a post-debate focus group, where Luntz lauded Sen. Marco Rubio's (R-FL) debate performance without disclosing Luntz's past financial ties relationship to the GOP presidential candidate.

Following the January 28 Republican presidential primary debate, Luntz convened a focus group on a post-debate edition of The Kelly File to analyze the candidates' debate performances. During the segment, Luntz discussed Rubio's debate performance and asked the panel about his electability and likability. Luntz also aired two flattering clips of Rubio during the debate, one of which Luntz introduced by saying “watch how well he did on immigration.”

A January 2012 Wall Street Journal article reported that Rubio hired Luntz to assist in writing his “100 Innovative Ideas for Florida's Future,” which Luntz and host Megyn Kelly failed to disclose.  

This is not the first time Fox News has failed to disclose Luntz' ties with Rubio when asking him on for political commentary. During a January 7 appearance on Your World with Neil Cavuto, Luntz lauded Rubio without disclosure, calling him “the most optimistic, the most focused on the American dream of any of the candidates” and “what the public needs right now.”

In June 2014, CBS came under fire from veteran news ethicists and observers for failing to disclose Luntz had received more than $15,000 in consulting fees from Rep. Eric Cantor's (R-VA) congressional campaignwhile hosting him as a political analyst to comment on Cantor's electoral defeat. In March 2013 on Fox's Fox & Friends Luntz praised his former clients Marco Rubio and Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) without disclosing his past work for the politicians, and during an October 2015 appearance on CBS in which Luntz pushed Ryan for the role of Speaker of the House, Luntz and CBS failed to disclose the $100,000 he had received from Ryan since 2012.