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MSNBC Tag

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on December 20, 2016 18 Comments
In the wake of yesterday's terror attacks, including the one in Berlin in which 12 people were killed and many more injured, Donald Trump tweeted that the civilized world must "change thinking." A disdainful Joe Scarborough reacted on today's Morning Joe: "I don't know exactly what the civilized world is going to do about trucks, unless we're going to ban trucks. But again, some of the deadliest attacks have been with vehicles."

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on December 19, 2016 32 Comments
Shades of "other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you enjoy the play?" . . . On today's Morning Joe, Mike Barnicle claimed that Barack Obama had a "great, outstanding" presidency, "with a few minor ripples like Syria." So the death of hundreds of thousands of civilians, traceable to Obama's abandonment of his red line, is a "minor ripple?" How callous can Barnicle be? And as bad as was Obama's failure on Syria, it is just one of a string of fiascos at his feet, from the rise of ISIS, to Iran, Libya, and on the domestic front, a record number of people out of work and on food stamps, and the slowest recovery in modern history.

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on December 14, 2016 1 Comment
Some feuds die hard. Joe Scarborough and Keith Olbermann have one going back to at least 2008, with another flare-up in 2012. Scarborough's got the bigger mic now, and he wielded it on today's Morning Joe to mercilessly mock Olbermann as someone suffering from delusions of Nazi tomatoes that talk to him. The context was Mika Brzezinski role-playing Rex Tillerson being questioned during his Senate confirmation hearing. Joe played the committee chairman, but couldn't help himself from launching into an Olby impression, with his trademark "Sirrr!", then riffing "you do know that he calls tomatoes, that he thinks are staring ominously at him, Nazis? You know he does that? . . . Because they keep talking to him in German. The tomatoes in his kitchen. It really disturbs him."

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on December 13, 2016 13 Comments
"Absolute disaster": that's how Joe Scarborough described the prospect of John Bolton serving as Deputy Secretary of State on today's Morning Joe. Scarborough blamed "neo-cons" for boosting Bolton, singling out Sheldon Adelson. Said Scarborough: "he needs to tell Sheldon Adelson, sorry, I love you buddy, and I'll play blackjack out at your casino, but I can't let you destroy US foreign policy because you like this guy." Scarborough's beef with Bolton focused on his hawkish approach to foreign policy, noting that he was one of the few in the foreign-policy community still saying that the invasion of Iraq was a good idea. Scarborough suggested that Bolton's stance would put him at odds with Trump, who made his opposition to the Iraq war a key element of his campaign.

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on December 11, 2016 33 Comments
Jennifer Rubin is the Washington Post's "right" columnist, though many people would dispute that designation. Rubin has made no secret of her Trump hatred, which came through today on MSNBC. Rubin branded several of Trump's cabinet and high level nominees "ignoramuses."
"I wish I could say that Ben Carson is the only person who doesn't have experience in his area. You mentioned Tillerson. We also have Terry Branstad, who is the ambassador to China. He's been the Governor of Iowa! And I like her, I think she's smart, Nikki Haley, terrific person, but she's going to the UN. But does she have any foreign-policy experience? So I think what we have are ignoramuses, billionaires, and a few generals."

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on December 10, 2016 24 Comments
Guess the Chris Hayes contingent missed the memo from President Obama about giving Trump a chance . . . The topic on Hayes' MSNBC show last night was Trump's thank-you tour of states that had supported him. Hayes kicked things off by making a thinly-veiled Hitler allusion, saying the Trump rallies feel "not that far from rallies for the 'leader,' which don't have a great history in politics across the world." Slate columnist Michelle Goldberg was not so coy, coming right out and claiming that Trump is "going to turn our country into a racist police state." Not to be outdone, Fordham professor Christina Greer said that the Trump rallies "have a feeling of a Klan rally, they have a feel of a white-supremacist rally."

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on December 09, 2016 23 Comments
And people fret about Trump trying to control the press? Now we learn about the kind of paranoid control freaks running the Clinton campaign. Mika Brzezinski made a stunning revelation on today's Morning Joe. Mika, a loyal Democrat, said that after she warned that the Clinton campaign was perhaps being arrogant in assuming that the race was over, "I'll just say it: NBC got a call from the campaign. Like I had done something that was journalistically inappropriate or something, and needed to be pulled off the air."

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on December 08, 2016 22 Comments
My, my: such a violent metaphor. Aren't the Dems the peace 'n love party? On MSNBC today, regarding the nomination of Scott Pruitt as EPA Administrator, Dem Sen. Ed Markey of Massachusetts threatened "a confirmation hearing that has razor-blade sharp edges." To which guest-host Peter Alexander stunningly responded: "as the Sierra Club told me last night, they said this is sort of like putting an arsonist in charge of fighting fires." Note: Alexander wasn't merely reporting the Sierra Club's statement. With his preface—"as the Sierra Club told me"—Alexander seemed to be adopting the slanderous simile as his own.

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on December 08, 2016 33 Comments
Donald Trump's nominations have turned out to be a pleasant surprise for some of his biggest conservative critics. That was Joe Scarborough's take on today's Morning Joe. From James Mattis at Defense, to John Kelly at DHS, and now to EPA foe Scott Pruitt . . . at EPA, the President-elect has proposed people with strong records and in a number of cases, strong conservative philosophies. So much so that Scarborough remarked: "How fascinating that the Never Trumpers and the Wall Street Journal editorial page and the Bill Kristols, and all the people who were rightly the most skeptical of Donald Trump during the primary, have to sit back going, wow, I would not have gotten this with Jeb or Marco."

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on December 05, 2016 6 Comments
The American foreign-policy establishment is wringing its collective hands over Donald Trump's phone conversation with the President of Taiwan, and his subsequent tweet in which he took China to task for its currency devaluation, tariffs on American products, and military build-up in the South China Sea. But there was some surprising support for Trump's initiative on today's Morning Joe. First, Mark Halperin said this showed that Trump wasn't planning to be a passive "inbox president" [Ed.: sayonara, leading from behind], and that it was a way for the US to get "leverage" on China where we had none before. Joe Scarborough described years of frustration in which every year Congress would extend China's Most Favored Nation status for one year on the proviso that it improved its record, which it never did. Joe concluded that from his perspective and that of millions of Americans, "pushing back a little bit on China not the worst thing for an American leader to finally do.. There was an intriguing end to the segment. Going to break, Morning Joe played a riff from Rush Limbaugh's famous theme song, A nod to a new reality? The era of Trump/Rush?

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on November 29, 2016 46 Comments
Early in this presidential election cycle, Mika Brzezinski was a big Elizabeth Warren booster, repeatedly urging the Massachusetts senator to throw her hat into the ring. So it was nothing short of stunning to see Brzezinski go on a blistering attack against Warren on today's Morning Joe. The segment began with a clip of Warren in essence declaring war on Republicans, claiming Dems had won more presidential and senatorial votes, and declaring that they didn't intend to "whimper, whine or grovel." Wondered Mika: "do you lead with anger? . . I am getting tired of this act." "There's an anger there that was shrill . . . unmeasured and almost unhinged. It's not going to work."

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on November 24, 2016 4 Comments
Something to give—surprised—thanks for this morning: an MSNBC anchor staunchly defending school choice and Donald Trump's pick for Secretary of Education . . . while ably and aggressively arguing the issues with the head of America's biggest teachers' union! Stephanie Ruhle is the MSNBC anchor in question, and she took on Randi Weingarten, head of the AFT teachers' union. The topic at hand was Donald Trump's naming of school-choice advocate Betsy DeVos as Secretary of Education. Weingarten, acknowledging that the union is "so opposed" to DeVos, repeatedly accused Trump's pick of wanting to take a "sledgehammer" to public schools in an effort to "destabilize"them.

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on November 21, 2016 21 Comments
Imagine if just after the 2008 election, a conservative pundit had said this of President-elect Obama: "how do you dog-train Obama? I mean it tough. Dog train. If he poops in the hall, you make his nose go in it." Western civilization as we know it might have ended right there. But on this evening's Hardball, that's precisely what Chris Matthews said—except about Donald Trump, of course. His point seemed to be that Trump must be brought to heel should he have the audacity to follow through on his promises to build the wall and end Obamacare.

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on November 21, 2016 22 Comments
Last week, we reported on Morning Joe ripping the notion of Rudy Giuliani as Secretary of State, with Joe Scarborough saying "he’s temperamentally not qualified to be, and he’s not qualified to be it based on any experience or training or any contacts." This morning, the show was still on its anti-Rudy rampage, with Scarborough stating: "it's one of these things that everybody says off camera. I'm going to tell you it to you on camera . . . Even people close to Trump say Rudy Giuliani mentally is a few steps slower than he was several years ago."

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on November 15, 2016 31 Comments
Morning Joe spent its opening segment scalding the notion of either Rudy Giuliani or John Bolton as Secretary of State in the Trump administration. Giuliani was described as completely unqualified for the job, and someone who has personally profited off national security matters, a la the Clintons. Bolton was blasted as a "neo-con on steroids" whose views are out of sync with Trump's, and is "donor-driven," with Sheldon Adelson's name being dropped. So who's Scarborough and company's pick for SecState? Joe and Mike Barnicle called the selection of Tennessee Senator Bob Corker a "no-brainer." Maybe so, but not necessarily in the way they meant it. Corker is infamously the man who facilitated President Obama's disastrous Iran deal. Corker has been castigated across the conservative spectrum, as here, here, here and here.

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on November 11, 2016 29 Comments
Rachel Maddow has wondered out loud whether President-elect Trump might be under the influence of Russia. On her MSNBC show this evening, Maddow suggested that Trump might betray the most sensitive intelligence to the Russians—including the identity of US spies. She questioned whether US intelligence agencies should provide Trump with such information.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on November 10, 2016 58 Comments
This is a tough time to be a progressive. There is a widespread mental breakdown in nests of radicalism, like Ithaca. I take no pleasure in that. Seriously. Come on you guys, seriously, no joy whatsoever. I'm not like John Ekdahl. https://twitter.com/JohnEkdahl/status/796860473945812997
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