John Heilemann

Morning Joe on Hillary Aide's 'Disaster' of Email Interview: 'There Are No Good Answers'
By Mark Finkelstein | August 20, 2015 | 10:26 AM EDT

Hard for staffer interviews not to be a disaster when telling the truth could land Hillary in the hoosegow . . . Yesterday, this NewsBuster was gobsmacked by the spectacle of senior Hillary aide Jennifer Palmieri suggesting that the FBI would be happy to discover that Hillary's infamous email server had been scrubbed clean. We wrote about it here.

Today's Morning Joe picked through the smoldering ashes of that interview with the participation of John Heilemann, who conducted it.  Joe Scarborough said that "everybody" he talked to called the interview a "disaster." Heilemann suggested that top Hillary staffers are "in the dark."  The cruelest cut came from Mika Brzezinski, who said "there are no good answers."  So where does Hillary go from here?

Hillary Aide: Finding Server Scrubbed Is Outcome FBI Would 'Want'
By Mark Finkelstein | August 19, 2015 | 7:49 PM EDT

We are now officially in Hillary-in-Wonderland world . . . A senior aide to Hillary Clinton has suggested that the FBI would be happy to discover that Hillary's infamous email server was wiped--and not with a cloth.

Interviewed by John Heilemann on today's With All Due Respect, Jennifer Palmieri--Communications Director for Hillary's campaign--insisted that finding that the server was thoroughly scrubbed is "the outcome they [the FBI] want."

Heilemann: Gore 'Hates' Hillary, 'Huge' Problem for Her If He Runs
By Mark Finkelstein | August 14, 2015 | 6:26 PM EDT

This blog brought to you by Orville Redenbacher . . . One short segment on today's With All Due Respect packed plenty of explosive commentary.  There was John Heilemann saying that Al Gore "hates" Hillary and that if he gets in the race would be a "huge" problem for her. Lending credence to Heilemann's "hates" claim is the fact that he mentioned having "spent a lot of time" with Gore in 2006.  Translation: I was with him on those long nights when Al let his beard down and spoke straight from his globally-warmed heart.  

A second noteworthy comment came from Mark Halperin, who opined that "everyone" in the Dem party doesn't "trust" going into the race with Hillary as the only establishment choice and that the vacuum "is going to be" be filled by someone. Hmm.

Halperin & Heilemann Hail: 'Fiery' Hillary Has Found Her 'Passion!'
By Geoffrey Dickens | August 11, 2015 | 3:40 PM EDT

Bloomberg’s political team of Mark Halperin and John Heilemann seem excited that Hillary Clinton has finally found her “passion” in this campaign. Invited on Monday’s edition of PBS’s Charlie Rose show to discuss the campaign, the With All Due Respect hosts hailed that Marco Rubio’s stance on abortion had shaken Clinton out of her stupor. John Heilemann began the Hillary hype: “You saw her today give a very fiery, very passionate and I thought very authentic attack on Marco Rubio....She looked better today than I think she has in months.”

Morning Joe Panel: Kasich's Debate Performance 'Reaganesque', Medicaid Answer 'Best of the Entire Night'
By Connor Williams | August 7, 2015 | 11:28 AM EDT

Following Thursday night’s explosive Republican primary debate on Fox News, MSNBC’s Morning Joe was in Cleveland for reaction. A panel heaped praise on Ohio governor John Kasich, particularly regarding his response to a question about Medicaid expansion. Willie Geist described it as “the best answer of the entire night that any candidate gave.” Host Joe Scarborough thought he “hit it out of the park.” John Heilemann cheered Kasich’s general performance as “Reaganesque in some ways.” 

Howard Dean: We Need to Be 'More Humble, Stop Making Fun' of Trump
By Mark Finkelstein | July 30, 2015 | 9:08 AM EDT

This is fodder for WSJ columnist James Taranto's "everything is seemingly spinning out of control" file. Howard Dean has declared that we'll have to be "more humble" about Donald Trump's prospects and that he will "have to stop making fun" of him for now.

What's got Dean doing a 180 on Trump? Not just the latest polls, which include one showing Trump trouncing Jeb and Rubio in their home state of Florida. Above all, it was the experience of viewing, on today's Morning Joe, a stunning focus group of New Hampshire Republicans who were uniformly and enthusiastically pro-Trump, saying things like "honest; Reaganesque; one of us; we could be a proud America."

CBS This Morning Hypes Christie’s Negatives Ahead of 2016 Launch
By Jeffrey Meyer | June 30, 2015 | 11:43 AM EDT

During a discussion with Bloomberg Politics’ John Heilemann on Tuesday, CBS This Morning played up how Chris Christie is damaged goods ahead of his 2016 presidential announcement. In introducing the segment, co-host Norah O’Donnell made sure to point out that “[n]ational polls show Christie’s support is in single digits. Only 30 percent of voters in his home state approve of Christie’s performance as governor.”

Heilemann, Capehart Clash With Kristol Over Confederate Purge
By Mark Finkelstein | June 24, 2015 | 11:46 AM EDT

Bill Kristol has supported the removal of the Confederate flag from the South Carolina capitol grounds for 15 years. But when he took to Twitter yesterday to criticize the left's "frenzy of self-righteousness" in the wake of Charleston, he brought down on his head a deluge of ugly criticism.

On today's Morning Joe, Jonathan Capehart and John Heilemann eschewed the kind of scatalogical suggestions that had been made to Kristol on Twitter, but engaged in a barrage of criticism of their own.  Capehart accused Kristol of "belittling" the families of the Charleston victims, while Heilemann—telling Kristol he was "trolling"—sarcastically said that the Left doesn't need his help.

Bloomberg, MSNBC Bash Jeb Bush, Rick Santorum for Going Against Pope on Climate Change
By Curtis Houck | June 17, 2015 | 8:37 PM EDT

The media’s tendency to use the Pope to criticize Republican candidates and officials was on display Wednesday afternoon as MSNBC’s Live with Thomas Roberts and Bloomberg’s With All Due Respect took shots at the 2016 GOP presidential field and, specifically, Catholics Jeb Bush and Rick Santorum (in the case of the latter show) for opposing Pope Francis’s upcoming encyclical on global warming.

Bloomberg’s Halperin and Heilemann Hype Latest NYT Piece on Rubio as ‘Dangerous’ & ‘Legit’
By Curtis Houck | June 10, 2015 | 7:07 AM EDT

The hosts of Bloomberg’s With All Due Respect dove into the latest New York Times piece about 2016 Republican presidential candidate Marco Rubio on Tuesday and came away with the conclusion that the story concerning Rubio’s personal finances is both “dangerous” and “totally legitimate.” Halperin declared “The New York Times has shoved Marco Rubio down deep into the barrel” and gushed to John Heilemann that “The Times is on it” with Friday’s piece about traffic tickets he’s accumulated with his wife and Tuesday’s article about his finances.

John Heilemann's 'Fact Check' Backs Obama on ObamaCare
By Connor Williams | June 9, 2015 | 5:32 PM EDT

On Monday's With All Due Respect, Bloomberg's John Heilemann confirmed all of Obama’s questionable statements on the success of ObamaCare by relying on what Bloomberg considers fact checking: "I'm sure the RNC will disagree with that and a lot of conservatives will claim that these numbers are all cooked in one way or the other, but the fact is that those things seem to ring true to the people who know most about health care policy."

Bloomberg’s Heilemann: If Sanders Were Republican, ‘It Would Be a Huge Scandal’
By Brent Baker | May 30, 2015 | 2:44 PM EDT

“If a Republican, any Republican candidate wrote an essay like this,” Bloomberg’s John Heilemann predicted on Friday’s With All Due Respect, “whether they were 16 years old and high on dope or whether it was weeks ago, it would be a huge scandal.” Calling for some media consistency in covering the revelation that socialist Senator Bernie Sanders, now a Democratic presidential candidate, once wrote that women fantasize about rape, Heilemann urged: “So I think we need to hold Bernie Sanders to the same standard.”