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Morning Joe Tag

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on March 03, 2017 25 Comments
Joe Scarborough and John Heilemann were leading an overheated charge against Jeff Sessions on today's Morning Joe, when a surprising note of caution came from an unexpected source: Kasie Hunt. Hunt is an MSNBC correspondent, not a commentator, nor someone suspected of harboring hidden conservative leanings. Yet Hunt issued a blunt assessment on Dem dealings over Sessions. Observing that there's danger for Dems if they overplay their hand, Hunt said: "I think one of the lessons we learned in the 2016 election is Americans are sick of faux outrage."

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on March 01, 2017 6 Comments
At the beginning of the primary season, the Huffington Post infamously consigned coverage of Donald Trump's campaign to its entertainment section. So it was striking that on today's Morning Joe, it was HuffPo's Sam Stein who chided his fellow liberals for refusing to acknowledge the obvious: that President Trump gave a good speech last night [see Stein's tweet, below.] Stein's take was echoed across the panel. Mark Halperin called it Trump's best speech ever, an assessment shared by Chris Cillizza. Joe Scarborough, who has been very tough on Stephen Miller, gave him high marks for writing such a good speech. Michael Steele heard echoes of Ronald Reagan. Bob Woodward suggested that Trump commanded the room in ways that even Reagan, Clinton and Obama had not.

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on February 23, 2017 14 Comments
Joe Scarborough went on an epic rant this morning against liberal academia and the way it shuts down and ultimately radicalizes conservative students who grow frustrated with being stifled in the classroom. The segment began as an effort to explain Stephen Miller's personality, as Morning Joe cited a column by Andrew Sullivan in which he speaks of conservative students who are often "mocked, isolated, and anathematized on campus" and often react by adopting "brattish and obnoxious positions just to tick off their SJW peers and teachers."

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on February 21, 2017 16 Comments
Mike Barnicle, of all people, set the tone for the opening segment of today's Morning Joe, exclaiming "thank you, Jesus" in response to President Trump's pick of H.R. McMaster to take over from Michael Flynn as National Security Adviser. The segment was one belated Valentines Day bouquet of praise for McMaster, coming from members of the panel itself as well as in quotes from a bi-partisan array that included several critics of the president, John McCain notably among them. Perhaps even more significant than the accolades for McMaster was the suggestion that his selection reflected well on President Trump himself.

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on February 17, 2017 24 Comments
Has Mika Brzezinski been binge-watching House of Cards? The question arises because on today's Morning Joe, she offered up a Machiavellian theory which appeared to portray Mike Pence as scheming to take over the presidency. Joe Scarborough asked who within the White House will go to President Trump and tell him that he's undercutting his credibility. When Mark Halperin proposed VP Pence for that job, Mika Brzezinski replied: "it's not happening. He's waiting to be President." Was Mika implying that Pence has adopted a conscious strategy of letting President Trump implode so that he can assume the presidency when Trump is driven from office?

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on February 15, 2017 34 Comments
As far as Mika Brzezinski is concerned, Kellyanne Conway should not be permitted to appear on Morning Joe. Said Mika this morning: "Joe was just saying that she books herself on these shows, we know for a fact she tries to book herself on this show. I won't do it. Because I don't believe in fake news or information that is not true." Later, Mika laid down a personal marker, a virtual ultimatum. Warning Conway not to contact the show, Mika said: "I will say, Kellyanne Conway does not need to text our show. At least, as long as I'm on it. Because it's not happening here."

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on February 13, 2017 39 Comments
If Morning Joe had a hook, they would have yanked presidential advisor Stephen Miller off the set of the Sunday shows he appeared on yesterday. Today's Morning Joe devoted a long segment to eviscerating his performance. The essence of the criticism was two-fold. First, that Miller spoke too much about his personal views rather than those of the president he serves. Second, that in declaring that the powers of the president to protect the country "will not be questioned" he was expressing an undemocratic view running counter to the principle of judicial review.

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on February 09, 2017 32 Comments
Morning Joe came down with a bad case of the vapors this morning, clutching its collective pearls [to mix metaphors] over President Trump's comments about the court currently hearing the case on the executive order on immigration. Jon Meacham said that Trump was "messing with the Magna Carta," of all things! Joe Scarborough upped the anxiety ante, saying "the historical precedents are chilling. I don't even want to mention their names, but some of the dangerous autocrats of the 20th century, their two goals were to, first, undermine an independent judiciary and, second, to undermine a free press." Gee, wonder with which "dangerous autocrat" of the 20th-century—whose name one dared not speak—Scarborough was lumping Trump?

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on February 03, 2017 11 Comments
Larry O'Connor's suggestion was so brilliant that . . . Rachel Maddow is almost sure to ignore it. On today's Morning Joe, Weekly Standard editor and radio talk show host O'Connor suggested that Rachel Maddow, accompanied by Dem senator Cory Booker, should escort onto campus Milo Yiannopoulos and other conservative speakers who have been confronted with violence. Maddow should make the point, suggested O'Connor, that violence is "not what we do in America." O'Connor argued that by their silence, Dems are being hurt by the protests because Americans are seeing opposition to Trump as "violent thugs."

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on February 02, 2017 13 Comments
To listen to Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards on today's Morning Joe, you'd think her organization was mainly about "health care" for women—not about being the nation's largest abortion provider. As you'll see in the video clip, Richards manages to mention "health care" seven times in her interview with Mika Brzezinski. The word "abortion" only passes Richards' lips twice. The first time, to insist that the federal government doesn't pay for abortions [as if the federal funds PP receives aren't fungible], and the second to claim that to reduce the abortion rate, more access to PP should be promoted.

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on January 31, 2017 36 Comments
Day Deux of Joe Scarborough's tirade against the Trump admin's handling of the executive order on immigration. On today's Morning Joe, Scarborough condemned the admin's accusation that acting AG Sally Yates had "betrayed" the Justice Department by refusing to enforce the executive order. Scarborough repeatedly called the use of the word "frightening," suggesting it was worthy of an "autocrat" in a country like Venezuela. Scarborough then turned the tables, saying that Stephen Miller, Steve Bannon, and Trump himself had "betrayed" Defense Secretary Mattis, DHS head John Kelly, and others by failing to provide them details of the order before it was made public. Scarborough expressed outrage that Stephen Miller and others in the administration apparently believed they could not trust those heroes with a secret.

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on January 23, 2017 71 Comments
An extraordinary first half-hour of Morning Joe today. The thesis was that President Trump had gotten off on a seriously bad foot by failing to look back at history in his inauguration speech, sending a first and ungracious tweet about the Women's Marches, sending Sean Spicer out to berate the press over crowd-size reporting, and above all for a self-referential, boastful, angry speech, referencing crowd size, given while standing in front of the wall of fallen heroes at the CIA. And the message, delivered repeatedly and in the starkest terms, by Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski, was that those aides who abetted President Trump, who counseled him to adopt a combative tone, should be fired and leave immediately. View the video to see the myriad ways in which Joe and Mika pummeled the presidential aides who did not advise President Trump to moderate his remarks.

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on January 20, 2017 30 Comments
Joe Scarborough reported something stunning on today's Morning Joe—an insight into just how blatantly, consciously biased one of America's leading newspapers was in its effort to elect Hillary Clinton. Said Scarborough:

"There was somebody that held an extraordinarily important position in print media who brought their people together after Hillary Clinton lost and literally said, 'we did the best we could do. We tried and we failed. But we did the best we could do.'"

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on January 19, 2017 52 Comments
Mike Barnicle might not bring much to the table, but he is still capable of passing along nasty remarks by unnamed sources. On today's Morning Joe, discussing Nikki Haley's preparations for her confirmation hearing as UN Ambassador, Barnicle said, "I was told by somebody within the world of diplomacy and international relations that Nikki Haley makes Sarah Palin sound like Henry Kissinger." Joe Scarborough seemed to have intentionally teed Barnicle up to take his anonymous shot at Haley, asking him "what are you hearing about her?" After Barnicle's gossip, Scarborough weighed in, saying that he'd been hearing for weeks "real concerns with the people that had been prepping her over her complete ignorance of foreign policy."

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on January 18, 2017 27 Comments
Assessing President Obama's legacy, the panelists on today's Morning Joe seemed in competition to outdo each other with misplaced praise. Historian David Maraniss led off, calling Obama "the Jackie Robinson of American electoral politics." Next up was Joe Scarborough, who upped the ante by placing Obama in the same category as Martin Luther King, Jr. Batting clean up, Walter Isaacson hit one out of the hyperbole park, claiming that "Obama will go down as one of the great presidents we have ever had."

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on January 17, 2017 13 Comments
Mika Brzezinski is an unabashed liberal, someone who pushed Elizabeth Warren to run for president and subsequently became a Bernie Sanders fan. But she has also proved herself willing to criticize her own, be they politicians or, as this morning, fellow members of the MSM. On today's Morning Joe, Brzezinski first criticized CNN's Jim Acosta for his pro-John Lewis speech in the guise of a question to MLK III after his meeting with Donald Trump. A bit later, she expanded on the point in a very pointed way: "we [in the MSM] decipher Democrats and make them sound great. And we make Republicans sound like complete—the word we won't use."
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