Referring to Sen. John McCain's September 24 announcement that he was going to “suspend” his presidential campaign, co-host Alan Colmes said on the September 25 edition of Fox News' Hannity & Colmes, “What kind of a campaign suspension is a guy who says, 'I'm suspending my campaign,' keeps running ads, goes on television?” Co-host Sean Hannity responded: “He's not running ads. He's pulled them.” When Colmes countered, “Ads kept running today,” Fox News contributor Pat Caddell responded: “He's not running ads.” Hannity then stated: “He pulled them.” In fact, as Colmes noted, and as Media Matters for America documented on September 25, McCain campaign television ads ran throughout the day.

Additionally, according to a Media Matters search* of the TVEyes.com database, McCain ads ran on September 25 during the 7:00 p.m. ET hour on several network affiliates, including WWJ-TV, a CBS affiliate, and WOOD-TV, an NBC affiliate. Further, a McCain ad ran at 6:53 p.m. ET on WXIX-TV, a Fox affiliate.

Caddell later stated: “He said he's suspending his campaign, pulling his ads. It takes several days. You buy the ads in advance, by the way, just to inform your audience.” Colmes responded: “What about the surrogates? Why didn't he pull the surrogates off television?” As Media Matters has also documented, despite the purported suspension, McCain campaign surrogates -- including Nancy Pfotenhauer, Tucker Bounds, and Nicolle Wallace -- continued to appear on cable news networks throughout the day, attacking Sen. Barack Obama.

From the September 25 edition of Fox News' Hannity & Colmes:

COLMES: All right. And let me ask you, Pat Caddell: What kind of a campaign suspension is a guy who says, “I'm suspending my campaign,” keeps running ads, goes on television?

HANNITY: He's not running ads.

COLMES: Goes on --

HANNITY: He's pulled them.

COLMES: Ads kept running today.

CADDELL: He's not running ads.

HANNITY: He pulled them.

COLMES: The ads ran today.

CADDELL: No, but he --

COLMES: He goes on television, he does interviews --

CADDELL: Alan --

COLMES: -- and he continues to put his surrogates on TV. How is that suspending a campaign?

CADDELL: Whoa, whoa, whoa. He said he's suspending his campaign, pulling his ads. It takes several days. You buy the ads in advance, by the way, just to inform your audience.

COLMES: What about the surrogates? Why didn't he pull the surrogates off television?

CADDELL: But the surrogates -- but the point is -- look, but he is in Washington. He went there -- he went there to say we have to deal with this. It was for him. It helped, and the fact is, I think there is a problem here -- that the, you know, that the Republicans were not on board in the House. Something will come out of this.

* Media Matters searched the TVEyes.com database for “I'm John McCain and I approve this message” from 6:00 a.m. ET to 9:00 p.m. ET.