On Tuesday night Mark Halperin and John Heilemann stopped by Charlie Rose’s PBS show to throw cold water on GOP hopes of re-taking the Senate as the co-authors of Game Change and current Bloomberg Politics editors spouted the typical inside-the-beltway view of the Republican Party’s 2014 chances.
Halperin claimed the GOP was hampered by having “no real message” whereas the Democrats could run on “keeping Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security” - basically the same ideas they have run on since the 1930s. Heilemann also told Republicans to cool their jets. (Video after the jump)
John Heilemann
By Geoffrey Dickens | September 3, 2014 | 5:07 PM EDT
By Randy Hall | July 3, 2014 | 10:00 PM EDT
It's only July of 2014, but two panelists on the Morning Joe program expressed concern during Thursday's edition that people within the media are already suffering from “Clinton Exhaustion” even though the former secretary of state has yet to announce whether she will be a candidate in the 2016 presidential election.
If that's the case, then one of the worst offenders is the staff of that MSNBC morning show, which usually finds a way to spend up to 15 minutes a day discussing the latest “news” about Hillary Clinton, ranging from her “Hard Choices” book -- which is suffering from poor sales -- to question if she's a victim of “sexism” and “ageism.”
By Brad Wilmouth | June 27, 2014 | 8:54 AM EDT
On Friday's Morning Joe program, MSNBC host Joe Scarborough complained about the absence of media attention to the fact that IRS commissioner John Koskinen, in charge of an organization currently embroiled in an investigation into whether it has unfairly targeted conservative groups during the Obama administration, is himself a "big Democratic donor" who has donated to President Barack Obama twice and, over the years, almost $100,000 to various Democrats.
Regular panel members Mark Halperin of Time magazine and John Heilemann of New York magazine joined in as Scarborough called out the New York Times in particular and imagined how the Times would have reacted if the roles had been reversed during the George W. Bush administration. Scarborough asked:
By Mark Finkelstein | June 17, 2014 | 9:35 AM EDT
Liberal vs. neo-con. Isolationist vs. interventionist. The clash over Iraq strategy between John Heilemann and Bill Kristol on today's Morning Joe had it all.
Things got heated as Heilemann assailed Kristol's call for intervention as "absurd." Kristol responded by suggesting that Heilemann's invocation of "American blood" was a cheap "rhetorical line." View the video after the jump.
By Mark Finkelstein | June 4, 2014 | 8:28 AM EDT
Psst: David Gregory! You can stop auditioning to fill Jay Carney's White House spokesman spot. President Obama has already appointed someone else. Given his rotten Meet The Press ratings, it's understandable that Gregory would be prospecting for his next position. Even so, his performance on today's Morning Joe was pitiable.
With even liberals like Mika Brzezinski, Donny Deutsch and John Heilemann dumping on the Bergdahl deal, there was Gregory as President Obama's lone defender. Thus: Dianne Feinstein has criticized the lack of consultation? Meh: she's been critical of the Obama admin on other things. And twice Gregory made the argument that Commanders-in-Chief, whatever the circumstances, just don't leave soldiers on the battlefield. That was too much even for Heilemann, who argued that there are limits to what a C-in-C should do, particularly when the soldier in question might have been a deserter. View the video after the jump.
By Mark Finkelstein | April 29, 2014 | 8:04 AM EDT
Demonstrating once again that Israel remains a favorite whipping boy of the liberal media, there was John Heilemann of New York magazine on today's Morning Joe defending John Kerry's grotesque claim that Israel risked becoming an "apartheid state."
According to Heilemann, Kerry's ugly accusation was "not actually an unreasonable statement." To his credit, Joe Scarborough promptly riposted, saying "I couldn't disagree with you more." View the video after the jump.
By Mark Finkelstein | April 18, 2014 | 10:01 AM EDT
Who would deny that Hillary could use a little softening of her icy image? But when Andrew Ross Sorkin had the audacity to suggest that Clinton's impending grandma-hood would work to her advantage in that regard, the collective wrath of the Morning Joe panel descended on him.
John Heilemann, as is his habit, sneered. "Republican" Nicolle Wallace actually led the Sorkin scolding, suggesting it was "stupid" to think as he did. View the video after the jump.
By Jeffrey Meyer | April 10, 2014 | 2:13 PM EDT
Amidst all of the talk at MSNBC about whether or not Hillary Clinton will run for president in 2016, an interesting thing happened on Morning Joe on Thursday, April 10. Appearing as a guest, Bill Kristol, editor of the conservative Weekly Standard magazine asked “What achievement, one sentence, what has Hillary Clinton done? What's her achievement in politics that qualifies her to be President of the United States?“
Hilariously, the entire panel, including liberal co-host Mika Brzezinski, was unable to list one achievement made by Clinton, with John Heilemann of New York Magazine proclaiming “when her book comes out in June that that's one of the questions that book is going to try to answer.” [See video below.]
By Matthew Balan | March 15, 2014 | 6:02 PM EDT
On Friday's Hardball, Chris Matthews continued his tirade targeted at Democrats from the previous day, in the wake of the party's loss in the special election in Florida on Tuesday. The MSNBC host bemoaned how supposedly, "Republicans say, we've got to cut entitlements....And yet, they don't pay a price for it politically. I'm determined that they pay a price for their words."
Matthews added that "Democrats better be focusing on what Republicans are promising to do – on issues like choice; on issues like voter suppression – or they're going to get their asses handed to them this November." He later zeroed in on how Republicans apparently "exploited" Democratic congressional candidate Alex Sink's "reasonable" approach during her campaign: [MP3 audio available here; video below the jump]
'I'd Tell Rand Paul To Stick That Where It Belongs': John Heilemann on Paul's Unemployment Insurance Theory
By Mark Finkelstein | December 23, 2013 | 7:48 AM EST
After Martin Bashir lost his MSNBC job for making a vile anatomical suggestion, you might think that others at the "Lean Forward" network would be circumspect about engaging in comparable crudeness.
But that didn't stop John Heilemann on today's Morning Joe. Whereas Bashir's remark focused on the beginning of the alimentary canal, Heilemann's went to its other extremity. Asked how he'd deal with Senator Rand Paul's theory that extending unemployment benefits does the unemployed a disservice, Heilmann said "I'd tell Rand Paul to stick that where it belongs." View the video after the jump.
By Noel Sheppard | November 10, 2013 | 10:12 PM EST
A consistent talking point from Democrats and their media minions is that the 2012 election was about ObamaCare and that as a result of the President's win, the American people gave the program a mandate to be fully implemented.
Surprisingly breaking with this trend Sunday was New York magazine's John Heilemann who said on ABC's This Week that because Mitt Romney was the Republican challenger, given his ties to Massachusetts' healthcare program, he couldn't make that the central theme of his campaign, and as such, ObamaCare was not litigated as the President and his allies claim (video follows with transcript and commentary):
By Brad Wilmouth | November 6, 2013 | 3:26 PM EST
Appearing as a guest on Tuesday's The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell, New York magazine's John Heilemann described Virginia GOP gubernatorial nominee Ken Cuccinelli as a "horrible candidate" as he cautioned Democrats that Cuccinelli still might have triumphed over Democratic nominee Terry McAuliffe if the Virginia Republican had had more money and if the government shutdown had not occurred. Heilemann began his analysis: