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MSNBC Tag

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on July 12, 2017 24 Comments
Does Joe Scarborough believe that Donald Trump will be resigning the presidency sometime this summer? Seems so, judging from Joe's baleful proclamation on today's Morning Joe. Said Scarborough:

"they have dug so far down low into the bunker that this is not Nixon in '73. This is Nixon in the summer of '74."

Nixon resigned the presidency on August 8, 1974. Below is the iconic image of Nixon waving goodbye as he leaves the White House.

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on July 11, 2017 28 Comments
On today's Morning Joe, Joe Scarborough stared into the camera and invited people to contact him if they're aware of a presidential campaign that accepted "oppo research or support" from a foreign power. The question was based on a quote, shown on the screen, from former Romney campaign strategist Stuart Stevens asking whether any other campaign in history had received "oppo from foreign interests." Joe's invitation came in the context of a discussion of a meeting of senior Trump-campaign people with a Russian purportedly offering oppo info on Hillary Clinton. Of course, based on what's now known, Trump's campaign people didn't actually receive oppo research, just an offer of such in order to get a meeting.

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on July 01, 2017 25 Comments
On Joy Reid's MSNBC show this morning, guest Tamara Holder—who Reid, ironically, billed as an "equal rights attorney and advocate"—mocked the women in Donald Trump's life. Holder was upset that they had failed to condemn the president over his tweets directed at Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough. Said Holder:

"I think the women in Donald Trump's life probably have smaller minds than his small hands . . . he has continued to surround himself, Donald Trump, with very, very, weak-minded women, who are afraid of him."

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on June 29, 2017 38 Comments
Thursday, Trump used his personal Twitter account to tweet less than kind things about MSNBC Morning Joe hostess, Mika Brzezinski. As is now customary for the weekly Trump Twitter tirade, the entire political media set quickly condemned Trump's tweets and members of Congress rushed to release official statements expressing their disgust with the President's behavior (because there's not more pressing business), and the daily White House press briefing was overrun with questions about Trump's tweets.

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on June 29, 2017 34 Comments
Joe Scarborough has an explanation for the way Rex Tillerson has reportedly said he's been thwarted as Secretary of State. On today's Morning Joe, Scarborough said he would "testify under oath" that Trump administration members said that Jared Kushner "will be the de facto Secretary of State." Scarborough later said, "I've been told by four people in the administration over the past six months that Jared Kushner was going to be the de facto Secretary of State."

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on June 28, 2017 22 Comments
How to become an MSM hero? Publicly confront the Trump administration. At yesterday's White House briefing, Playboy White House correspondent Brian Karem got into a testy exchange with Deputy Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders over CNN's fake Russia story and the broader issues involved. Appearing on Morning Joe today, Karem received a hero's welcome. As he was introduced, someone exclaimed "well done!" and there was even a smattering of applause. At the end of the segment, after Karem pleaded for the media to "stand up" to the Trump admin, Mika Brzezinski concluded, "and stand with you. Brian Karem: amen—to everything you said."

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on June 24, 2017 17 Comments
Yesterday, we noted Kellyanne Conway mocking CNN's Russia fixation. Conway told Alisyn Camerota: "I know that we just like to say the word 'Russia, Russia' to try to mislead the voters. And I know that CNN is aiding and abetting this nonsense as well.” Well, if CNN likes to say "Russia, Russia," we'll need to multiply that 28 times to understand the depth of MSNBC's obsession with the subject. In the first hour of Joy Reid's MSNBC show this morning, the word "Russia" or "Russian" was heard . . . 56 times!

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on June 22, 2017 21 Comments
On today's Morning Joe, Mika Brzezinski strongly suggested that President Trump is in cahoots with the Russians, saying "it's kind of hard not to think that [Trump] might be in on some sort of scheme." Earlier, Mika recycled the Trump/Nazi card. She invited Jon Meacham to draw a historical parallel to President Trump. When she asked him "what this is reminiscent of if you had to make a parallel," Meacham drew the comparison to President Nixon at the end of his tenure. That wasn't what Mika was looking for, so she tried again: "what is this reminiscent to, even outside of the United States?"

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on June 17, 2017 11 Comments
On Joy Reid's MSNBC show this morning, Democrat operative Scott Dworkin, after saying that Jared Kushner is "lucky that he's not in jail at the moment," flatly claims that Kushner is "guilty of a crime." Dworkin said, "if I had done that when I was working for Obama, I would have been fired, I would have been locked up, and there would have been no doubt about it, nobody would have asked any questions about it."

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on June 13, 2017 17 Comments
In the wake of the Kathy Griffin severed-head fiasco, and the Central Park play depicting the assassination of President Trump, you'd think that pundits might have the good sense to lay off metaphors invoking the violent death of the president. But today comes law prof Jonathan Turley with yet another sanguinary simile. Appearing on Morning Joe to discuss President Trump's executive order on travel, Turley suggested that President Trump's tweets on the subject are undermining his case. Then Turley went there: "it's like a presidential version of death by cop. Every time you seem to make advances, the president seems to stand up and say 'shoot me, shoot me.'"

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on June 03, 2017 16 Comments
Put this one in your political time capsule. On her MSNBC show this morning, Joy Reid played a clip of her recently asking Elizabeth Warren if she was "going to run" for president in 2020.  Her response is interesting, to say the least. What makes it significant is that Warren did not resort to the classic dodge of saying "I am not running," a meaningless non-answer for anyone who has not yet thrown his hat into the ring. The question was whether she was "going" to run, and Warren's "no" would, as a matter of logic, indicate that she has ruled out a run.

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on May 21, 2017 26 Comments
Bob Schieffer is an old-school newsman. There's no doubt that the former Face the Nation host leans left, but he is still capable of reporting, you know, the news. That is too much for denizens of the modern MSM to tolerate. On today's Reliable Sources on CNN, Schieffer reported the glaringly obvious truth: that President Trump gave a good speech in Saudi Arabia today. Guest host John Berman had to push back: "you know, Bob, though, that there will be people who look at that last comment you made and say you're normalizing the president." Schieffer gave the perfect response: he wasn't trying to normalize Trump, he was trying to do what reporters [are supposed to] do: report.

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on May 20, 2017 26 Comments
On Joy Reid's show this morning, MSNBC terrorism analyst Malcolm Nance said that if the United States "were some third-world nation right now, we'd be watching the army to see if the tanks are getting ready to move for a coup. Or if a guy jumps on a plane and flies to Monaco with all the money from the state." Sounds like a "helpful" suggestion/wishful thinking from MSNBC. Nance, by the way, is the person who nominated a Trump property for an ISIS suicide attack. To date, there's no evidence online that he has apologized or been disciplined by MSNBC.

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on May 19, 2017 35 Comments
Joe Scarborough has painted a no-win portrait of VP Pence. On today's Morning Joe, Scarborough said that Vice-President Pence "is either a sucker and a dupe for Donald Trump . . . or he's a liar. There is no middle ground." Giving Pence the dubious benefit of the doubt, Scarborough advised, "if it is the first, I think it's about time for Mike Pence to go to Donald Trump and say, as I think most of us would, if you set me up to be your liar again, I'm walking."

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on May 18, 2017 19 Comments
What a difference a day makes. Yesterday, DC was deep in the throes of impeachment fever. Today, the collective political temperature has plummeted all because of deputy AG Rod Rosenstein's appointment of the highly-respected Robert Mueller as special counsel to oversee the investigation of possible Russian involvement in the presidential election. As a marker of just how dramatically the mood has changed, consider these statements about Rosenstein on today's Morning Joe. The Washington Post's David Ignatius said that Rosenstein "went from the seeming fall guy to the defender of our republic." Joe Scarborough seconded the notion: "it sounds melodramatic; it's not. Rod Rosenstein: defender of our republic, ensurer of our system of checks and balances." John Heilemann similarly credited Rosenstein with "saving the constitutional republic."

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on May 17, 2017 25 Comments
Joe Scarborough likes to make himself out to be a simple country lawyer. But on today's Morning Joe, he ran afoul of a cardinal lawyering rule: never ask a witness a question to which you don't know the answer. Scarborough laid out a lengthy timeline for the purpose of teeing up law professor Jonathan Turley to agree with Joe's conclusion that there was a prosecutable, federal case of obstruction of justice against President Trump. But Turley hit Joe between the eyes with his response:

"This isn't going to be real popular, but I don't think so . . . The fact is, I don't think this makes out an obstruction case."

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