Liberal actor Ted Danson used his appearance on the early Friday morning edition of Tavis Smiley’s PBS program to profess his love for Bill and Hillary Clinton “with every fiber of my being” and praised Hillary Clinton’s performance at the Benghazi Committee hearing as a showcase of someone who would be a “thoughtful, big hearted, incredibly bright president.”
Tavis Smiley
Ted Danson Swoons: ‘I Love’ the Clintons ‘with Every Fiber of My Being’; Hillary’s ‘Incredibly Bright’
By Curtis Houck | November 20, 2015 | 10:59 AM EST 
By Scott Whitlock | November 4, 2015 | 3:12 PM EST
PBS is the place for crude pap smear jokes, apparently. Liberal comic Kathy Griffin appeared on the Tavis Smiley show, Tuesday, to assail several of the Republican presidential candidates. As Smiley laughed, she mocked, “Dr. Ben Carson, I wouldn't let that guy give me a pap smear.” She told Smiley: “I mean, something is just in the water. And Marco Rubio is, like, scary."
By Brad Wilmouth | October 25, 2015 | 11:47 AM EDT
Appearing as a guest on Friday's Tavis Smiley show on PBS, actor Dick Van Dyke spoke of his support for presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, and oddly complained that it is "incendiary" for his critics to call him a "socialist," even though Sanders labels himself a "democratic socialist." Van Dyke then declared that "we're a fairly socialist government already."
The veteran actor, who is currently promoting his book, Keep Moving: And Other Tips and Truths About Aging, had previously appeared on MSNBC's The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell and pronounced Sanders the winner of the Democratic presidential debate.
By Scott Whitlock | June 24, 2015 | 5:27 PM EDT
Tuesday night saw something rare on PBS, a conservative voice. Senator Ted Cruz appeared on liberal Tavis Smiley's program and hit back at the host's pro-Democrat questions. Smiley demanded, "Well, why can't we raise the minimum wage to a living wage? Why won't you fight for that?" Cruz quickly retorted, "The people who will hurt the most... How does it impact the most vulnerable? Every time you raise the minimum wage, the people who will hurt the most is the most vulnerable."
Actor William Hurt More Worried About ‘Monstrous’ Global Warming Threat Than Artificial Intelligence
By Geoffrey Dickens | June 20, 2015 | 9:02 AM EDT On Thursday’s edition of PBS’s Tavis Smiley show, William Hurt, the star of AMC’s Humans (a science fiction show that addresses the future of artificial intelligence) assured PBS’s Tavis Smiley that self-aware androids weren’t the monster to worry about. No the real threat, according to the four-time Academy Award nominee, is “global warming.”
By Geoffrey Dickens | May 16, 2015 | 9:05 AM EDT
Actress and liberal activist Susan Sarandon is still blaming America’s homeless problem on Ronald Reagan. The actress, probably best known for her role in the 1988 baseball hit movie Bull Durham, was invited on the May 13 edition of PBS’s Tavis Smiley to plug her son’s 2014 documentary, Storied Streets, that is now available on AMC’s streaming service. "I think that the conversation changed around the Reagan era, where everything was your fault."
By Geoffrey Dickens | April 27, 2015 | 5:43 PM EDT
Liberal actor Jack Black is such a big fan of MSNBC he bragged to PBS’s Tavis Smiley “I’ve got like three or four of them queued up on my TiVo every night,” but he wasn’t sure about Joe Scarborough who he claimed “sometimes dances with wolves.”
By Matthew Balan | December 9, 2014 | 4:12 PM EST
Don Lemon rushed to President Obama's defense on Monday's CNN Tonight, after guest Tavis Smiley attacked the Democrat from the left over supposedly not doing enough to help blacks. Smiley asserted that the President needed to "provide the kind of moral leadership...the kind of focus on a social justice agenda that would make sure...we aren't still dealing with what he called the triple threat of racism, poverty, and militarism." Lemon went on to confront his guest about his critique of the chief executive.
By Matt Philbin | November 21, 2014 | 1:44 PM EST
What’s worse than spending a half-hour revisiting the 60s with some old beatniks and their guitars? Spending that half-hour tip-toeing around the fact that one of them is a convicted sex offender.
On Nov. 18, PBS’ Tavis Smiley hosted Peter Yarrow and Noel “Paul” Stookey on his self-named show, the surviving members of the folk trio Peter, Paul and Mary. Smiley's entire interview ignored Yarrow's record as a child sex offender.
By Jeffrey Meyer | October 19, 2014 | 12:13 PM EDT
On Sunday, October 19, a panel on ABC’s This Week engaged in a highly contentious debate over the Obama administration’s handing of the Ebola crisis. Conservative Mary Matalin mocked PBS host Tavis Smiley for criticizing those who are calling for a travel ban on Ebola stricken nations. The former George W. Bush official argued that “the African leaders who have contained to five countries have done it on the basis of containment. Our CDC now stands for cannot do containment. The reason the president gets blamed for everything, Tavis, because he's responsible for it.”
By Matthew Balan | September 12, 2014 | 1:32 PM EDT
PBS's Tavis Smiley shamelessly invoked Dr. Martin Luther King on Thursday's CNN Tonight, as he commented on the ongoing controversy surrounding the shooting of Michael Brown: "It underscores that Martin [Luther] King was right about what he called the 'triple threat' almost 50 years ago....He said what's threatening our very democracy is what he called the triple threat of racism, poverty, and militarism. What we saw in Ferguson was racism, poverty and militarism."
By Jeffrey Meyer | June 1, 2014 | 11:17 AM EDT
Bill Kristol, editor of the conservative magazine The Weekly Standard dismantled liberal PBS host Tavis Smiley on ABC’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos.
Appearing as a guest on Sunday, June 1, Kristol left Smiley speechless surrounding how to solve the VA scandal when he asked his fellow panelist: “If they got a generous voucher to use to purchase the health insurance they need or the health care they need how would that be failing veterans?” [See video below.]