Alex Christy
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While anchoring MSNBC's pre-impeachment trial coverage on Monday, Chris Matthews continued his ignoble history with analogies as he resurrected his comparison of Republicans to North Korean soldiers. This time, it came in the aftermath of revelations about former National Security Advisor John Bolton's memoir.
Friday, CNN media correspondent and self-appointed defender of the free press Brian Stelter joined the network's pre-game panel discussion to talk the latest impeachment developments and to applaud Sen. Chuck Schumer for going after Fox News.
Brian Williams announced himself to be the latest member of the Adam Schiff Fan Club on MSNBC's coverage of day three of the impeachment trial, but he did offer the House Democratic managers some advice: show more emotion. Williams was worried that Schiff, while "awfully impressive," was too boring, "people are searching for a way to say, “yeah, but,” and I have heard this morning -- Nicolle’s right-- people are saying, long on facts, short on emotion. Where is the emotion? Where is the appeal? Not just to the 100 [Senators], but to the further television audience."
As MSNBC got ready for day two of the impeachment trial, former editor of Time and former Obama Undersecretary of State Rick Stengel joined an panel led by Chris Matthews where he compared President Trump's treatment of the media to Joseph Stalin.
As the impeachment trial got underway on Tuesday, CNN legal analyst Elie Honig joined CNN Newsroom co-hosts Poppy Harlow and Jim Sciutto to try and indict"controversial" members of President Trump's defense team. Naturally, the segment was full of hypocrisy, bungled facts, and faulty analogies. Honig claimed Ken Starr would become "a walking, talking exhibit' for the House Democrat impeachment managers.
The New York Times editorial board's decision to endorse two candidates, Senators Elizabeth Warren and Amy Klobuchar, was met with both confusion and mockery. After an overly pretentious process, the board settled on the dual endorsement which isn't really an endorsement. Still, editorial board deputy editor Kathleen Kingsbury joined MSNBC Live guest host Chris Jansing on Monday to try to defend and rationalize the decision.
CNN Newsroom's Jim Sciutto continued CNN's feud with Arizona Senator Martha McSally on Friday by inviting former GOP Senator and Clinton Secretary of Defense William Cohen to comment on the incident with CNN's Manu Raju.
After the Democrats' press conference on Wednesday where they revealed their managers for the upcoming impeachment trial in the Senate, CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin joined CNN Newsroom co-hosts Poppy Harlow and Jim Sciutto to talk about the big takeaway from this super serious moment in American history: that Republicans are a bunch of white men and Democrats aren't.
One thing historians will say about President Obama was that he had an affinity for drone warfare for the purposes of taking out terrorists. In that respect President Trump was doing the same thing when he ordered that Qasem Soleimani be taken out, but that's not how MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell saw things on her Tuesday show.
CNN Right Now host Brianna Keilar was supposed to be interview Democratic Rep. Gerry Connolly on Monday about the situation in Iran, but at times the viewer would be forgiven if they forgot just who the journalist was and who the politician was. Keilar called Trump's Farsi tweets expressing support for the protestors in Iran hypocritical due to his relationship with the press at home and urged Connolly to concur with the Iranian Foreign Ministry that such tweets were "dishonoring the Persian language."
Given the many embarrassments the Iranian regime has suffered over the last week it is hard to see the strike that took out Qasem Soleimani as anything but a win for the United States, but that didn't stop MSNBC Live from declaring Russia to be the big winner, because of course it is.
Not only is the economy doing well, but people's perceptions about the economy are also positive. On Thursday's MSNBC Live, host Stephanie Ruhle declared that such positive economic indicators "should concern Democrats looking ahead to November" because voters are giving President Trump credit for them.
On Monday evening CNN's Brian Stelter tweeted that is patriotic to question and be skeptical of leaders who may stumble into a war. Apparently such sentiment only goes one way at CNN as CNN's Fred Pleitgen was in Tehran for a softball interview on Tuesday with Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif that ended up being just another one of the network's many anti-Trump segments.
MSNBC's Tehran bureau chief Ali Arouzi, who on Tuesday evening recklessly repeated Iranian state media claims that 30 American soldiers were killed during Tuesday night's missile attack, was at it again on Wednesday on MSNBC Live with Hallie Jackson where he declared, contrary to all evidence, that Ayatollah Khamenei was getting exactly what he wanted.
Concerned that President Trump may not have fully thought through the possible ramifications of droning Qasem Soleimani, MSNBC Live host Stephanie Ruhle wondered on Monday why Trump suddenly trusts the intelligence agencies. Ironically, the answer she got from the panel showed it was MSNBC that is the one that apparently has problems trusting the IC.
In the aftermath of the strike that took out Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps top general Qasem Soleimani on Friday, MSNBC's Ayman Mohyeldin managed to question the legality of the strike, portray Soleimani has a "complicated" man, and to question the government's assessment of the threat he posed.
The media has long running tradition of advising the Republican Party that their best way to attract female voters and candidates for federal office is to do what is to stop being Republicans. The context for the latest edition of this "advice" was a New York Times op-ed by historian Nancy Cohen where she described Republican women as "on the brink of extinction." Naturally, there was strong pushback to Cohen's thesis, leading to an appearance on MSNBC Live on Thursday to talk about it.
You can stop looking for the top example of Trump Derangement Syndrome, because it was found on Wednesday's MSNBC Live. In a New Year's Day segment that could end up on a future year-in-review, Hillary Mann Leverett went all in for Iran and their Kata'ib Hezbollah proxies that killed an American on Friday and injured four soldiers.
MSNBC, the network that has never seen a "Trump is coddling our enemies" angle to a story it did not indulge, took time on Tuesday to blame President Trump and the U.S. for the deteriorating situation in Iraq as pro-Iranian militia elements and their supporters besieged the U.S. embassy in Baghdad Tuesday evening Baghdad time.
Throughout the entire impeachment saga, the media have lamented that President Trump does not sufficiently support Ukraine in its fight against Russia. To assuage any concerns that the Ukrainians themselves might have about the Administration, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is heading to the country on Friday, but such a trip led to widespread mockery on Monday's MSNBC Live.