Mark Finkelstein

We made it a point to tune into Joy Reid's debut this morning in the MSNBC slot formerly occupied by Melissa Harris-Perry. For anyone who imagined Reid might be more fair-and-balanced than MH-P: fuggedaboutit. After an all-liberal opening panel blamed Bernie Sanders for failing to adequately address the concerns of African-Americans, the remainder of the show was one, long, hate-Trump fest.

Mac Stipanovich, a Florida lobbyist who in the past worked on one of Jeb's gubernatorial campaigns, was the token representative of the GOP. As the headline indicates, he was Joy Reid's kind of Republican. Stipanovich called Trump a "fascist" who is "worse by far" than Hillary. Concluded Stipanovich: "we can't have him be President of the United States." Question for Reid: in the course of a two-hour long show largely devoted to trashing Trump, amongst your numerous guests couldn't you have found one who, you know, supports him? Do you want your show to exclusively preach to the liberal choir, or do you have any interest in attracting a wider audience?

If it's sauce for the goose, it's sauce for the Hillary . . . Question for MSNBC's Katy Tur: of all the epithets Donald Trump pinned on his primary opponents, which was the first and arguably most effective? Bet you answered "low-energy," with which Trump of course famously jabbed Jeb. It stuck, and helped drive Jeb from the race.

Did people suggest at the time that Trump was hitting below the belt? Nope. So why is it suddenly unfair for Trump to say something very similar about Hillary? On today's Morning Joe, discussing Trump's critique of Hillary, Tur claimed: "there's this veiled sexism they have been accused of, somebody that doesn't have the strength and stamina, somebody who should not be president." 

One of our media bias categories at NewsBusters is Double Standards. There was a classic example of the phenomenon on today's Morning Joe. The show's running theme was relentless mockery and ridicule of Ted Cruz for crossing the street yesterday to calmly debate a group of Trump supporters. 

But later in the show, when a clip was run of Hillary being confronted by a West Virginian over her boast that she would "put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business," the panel reverentially praised Clinton, giving her "credit" for her courage in doing so. The panel had the chutzpah to insist that Hillary's moment was "organic" and wasn't staged. Really? She's sitting around a table with a handful of voters. Is Morning Joe asking us to believe that the former coal company worker wasn't hand picked and that Hillary wasn't fully briefed on what to expect? Please. Earlier, Mika Brzezinski actually introduced the Cruz segment by saying it was an example of someone "choking like a dog." The double standard was glaring and outrageous.

Mike Barnicle's a guy from the Duke Ellington era, so I suppose it makes sense if he doesn't "get around much anymore." How else to explain his nonsensical statement on today's Morning Joe? When Joe Scarborough asked him why the FBI investigation of Hillary's email is taking so long, Barnicle said "I have not spoken to anyone who believes there is an indictable offense that has occurred."

Responded Scarborough sarcastically: "you're talking to a very tightly focused crowd there," adding that people in the intel community say "anybody else would be in prison right now." The befuddled Barnicle reversed himself moments later, saying "there's a couple of people I've spoken to who, you know, think that there should be sort of a Petraeus ruling on it, at a minimum." Petraeus was indicted and convicted of a misdemeanor for his mishandling of email. So which is it, Mike? 

Joe Scarborough was careful to state for the record that he was "not voting for Hillary Clinton." But everything else he said during a segment on today's Morning Joe was one long love letter to her foreign policy and leadership skills.

Granted, Joe set the bar very low, comparing Hillary's prospective leadership to President Obama's fecklessness. Even so, it was striking to hear Scarborough proclaim "Hillary Clinton does not believe in leading from behind. Hillary Clinton does not believe that you sit back and let the events of the world shape the country. Hillary Clinton does not believe in the type of foreign policy, the don't-do-stupid-stuff foreign policy of Barack Obama." He also claimed that within a week of assuming office, Hillary would build better coaltions around the world and with congress than Obama ever did.

Gag me with a steak and kidney pie . . . It's the most blatant example of the MSM glossing over an Obama controversy in favor of featuring a feel-good story that this NewsBuster can remember. Today's Good Morning America went gaga over Britain's little Prince George, with no fewer than four teases followed by a lengthy segment devoted to how much President Obama enjoyed the company of the tyke on his current visit to the UK. Lots of cute pictures and even a clip of Obama claiming "nothing was going to stop me from . . . meeting George, who was adorable." Awww.  

But incredibly, at least in the first half-hour, not a word was breathed of Obama's ugly threat to the UK, in which he told Britons they would have to go "to the back of the queue" for a trade deal should they vote to exit the European Union in a referendum set for June. Obama thus stuck his nose into the internal affairs of an ally. In the closing comments in which the crew cooed over how royal little George was, Paula Faris actually claimed to co-host Tom Llamas that the segment "really moved you." Yuck.

Mike Barnicle prefaced his remarks on Obamacare by saying his understanding was "meager." He was grossly . . . overstating his knowledge. The subject in the Morning Joe segment today was UnitedHealthCare's decision to quit the Obamacare exchanges. Dr. Dave Campbell explained that UnitedHealthcare was going to lose $1 billion on Obamacare this year, and that all other insurers were also losing money.

That's when Barnicle piped up: "my understanding of it, meager as it is: so it's the profit motive that's going to drive these insurance companies out of the exchanges. They have boards of directors. They can't figure out how to retool their approach to it in order to make [money]?" Brilliant! Absolutely brilliant, Mike! Why didn't UnitedHealthcare think of that? If there's a problem with that profit-motive thingy, just have the board of directors figure out a way to turn a profit. Problem solved! 

Morning Joe regulars know that Mika Brzezinski has made a virtual art form out of her facial expressions and body language. On today's show, Mika put on a particularly demonstrative display of horror while asserting what she sees as Ted Cruz's lack of appeal to women voters.

The question on the table had been Donald Trump's surprisingly strong showing among women in yesterday's New York Republican primary. The Donald scored 59% of women voters, almost equaling the 63% of men voters he garnered. Gene Robinson was stumped to explain it. When he posited Ted Cruz as the alternative to Trump, someone to whom voters would be expected to "flock," Mika broke in: "I don't think women are going to flock to Ted Cruz." Mika accompanied her comment with animated expressions, looking to the sky, taking a deep breath then sharing a horrified look with someone offstage to her right. You can catch Mika's contortions 40 seconds into the video clip. See also screencap below.

John Heilemann: self-appointed avenging angel and scourge of lies and liars? Earlier this month, Heilemann accused Dan Senor to his face of "lying" about Paul Ryan's presidential ambitions. Heilemann was back at his accusatory beat on today's Morning Joe, this time making the affable Willie Geist, of all people, his target.

To introduce a feel-good segment congratulating Willie on his new gig, Morning Joe rolled a clip of the opening of Geist's hosting debut of NBC Sunday Today yesterday. Willie told viewers they were welcome to hang out on their couches in sweatpants, while he got dressed in his "church clothes." But Heilemann, raining on the parade, jumped ugly: "Do you think it was a good idea to start off a show with a lie like that?" Challenged, Heilemann said that he realized many people go to church "but I don't assume Willie goes to church." For the record, Willie said he had been to church last weekend, but even then Heilemann remained skeptical: "what were you doing there?"