Scott Whitlock
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MSNBC host Lawrence O’Donnell gushed over the happy, liberal Hollywood voters who were excited to spend hours in line on Super Tuesday. Meanwhile, on sister network NBC, Tom Brokaw made a cameo appearance in which he chided the Republican Party as a “dwindling tribe” of voters. O’Donnell, who worked on the TV show West Wing, painted a picture of film industry pros practically holding hands with regular voters:
With Joe Biden winning state after state on Super Tuesday, the hosts on MSNBC plotted strategy on how to wrap this thing up now and turn to defeating Donald Trump. Appearing with Brian Williams, Rachel Maddow and Al Sharpton strategized on-air about coallessing around Biden. Chuck Todd even wondered of a “penalty” for Elizabeth Warren staying in the race.
Pay attention, Disney. MSNBC has ideas for Marvel. With the news that Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar have dropped out, correspondent Mike Memoli could barely contain his excitement on Monday. Talking to Deadline: White House host Nicolle Wallace, he gushed over the coming endorsement of Joe Biden. Reporter Mike Memoli enthused, “ It's almost like they’re building an Avengers sequel in Dallas tonight.”
The journalists at CBS This Morning on Monday waved goodbye to Pete Buttigieg’s 2020 campaign with one last disingenuous claim that the liberal Democrat is a “moderate.” This weekend, all three networks cheered mysterious “moderate” alternatives to Bernie Sanders. Apparently, all you have to do to be a centrist is simply not take a vacation to the Soviet Union.
As Democrats in South Carolina on Saturday go to the polls to pick a choice for 2020, MSNBC journalists and hosts are still dealing with outrage over the network’s very negative coverage of Bernie Sanders. Chris Matthews compared a win by the socialist to a Nazi victory in World War II. (He apologized.) The network suspended contributor Jason Johnson after he accused Sanders supporters of alienating minorities.
News broke on Wednesday that ABC News journalist David Wright had been caught in a new Project Veritas video, exposing the reporter as a self-admitted “socialist” who hates his own network. He has since been suspended. A look back at the socialist reporter's coverage of the socialist Bernie Sanders finds that Wright fawned over the candidate as “on fire” and fighting a political revolution.”
CBS on Tuesday night brought on a post-debate analyst who cheered the Democratic Party “we all love so much.” Though Elaine Quijano identified Antjuan Seawright as “a CBS news political contributor and Democratic strategist,” it should be clear that he REALLY likes the Democratic Party. Talking to Elizabeth Warren, he fretted, “Senator, there is a graveyard concern about possible down-ballot carnage if we nominate the wrong person in this party... we all love so much. And the number one rule I learned in politics: You cannot govern if you do not win.”
CBS’s Democratic debate on Tuesday was a confusing, tumultuous mess with the candidates repeatedly screaming over each other and co-moderators Gayle King and Norah O’Donnell seemingly unable to keep the event from devolving into chaos. Yet, the moderators deserve some credit for occasionally and surprisingly asking a few tough questions. Here’s the questions you might not have expected (and the one you definitely did).
He’s not too sorry. Just a day after offering an on-air apology for comparing Bernie Sanders’s Nevada win to the Nazis, the staunchly anti-communist Chris Matthews ripped into the socialist’s deputy campaign manager, Ari Rabin-Havt.. Highlighting newly unearthed comments where Sanders said he wanted to “puke” over John Kennedy’s anti-Castro comments in 1960.
As Bernie Sanders surges in the polls, journalists and media outlets are panicking at a possible general election loss. Now, conveniently, reporters see praising Fidel Castro and cheering socialism as a problem. On Sunday, 60 Minutes correspondent Anderson Cooper called out Sanders for cheering on dictators: “Back in the 1980s, Sanders had some positive things to say about the former Soviet Union and the Sandinistas in Nicaragua.”
Now that Bernie Sanders is a serious threat to win the Democratic nomination, some on MSNBC have sounded the alarm, blasting the candidate for his extreme ideas. Yet, four years ago this week, Sanders had a friendlier platform on the liberal network. On February 17, 2016, socialist host Lawrence O’Donnell brought on socialist professor Frances Fox Piven to sing the praises of the socialist Sanders.
Even for the low standards of The New York Times, this is shocking. The so-called “paper of record” on Friday gave print space so a Taliban leader — an unrepentant terrorist — could lecture the United States. In a piece for the February 21 print paper entitled, “What We, the Taliban, Want,” Sirajuddin Haqqani spewed propaganda: “We did not choose our war with the foreign coalition led by the United States. We were forced to defend ourselves.”
All three network morning shows on Thursday ripped into Michael Bloomberg’s Democratic debate debut, hammering the “universally bad” night as possibly a “knockout punch” for the former New York Mayor. ABC even suggested it would have been better if Bloomberg never qualified for the debate.
Socialism came up in Wednesday’s Democratic debate, but co-moderator Chuck Todd wondered if Pete Buttigieg is out of touch by NOT being a socialist. He even grilled billionaire Michael Bloomberg on whether his wealth is “obscene” and “should you have earned that money?” Talking to the millennial Buttigieg, the NBC journalist demanded, “In 2000, you wrote an award-winning essay. You praised Senator Sanders. You specifically praised him for embracing socialism.
During the Democratic debate on Wednesday, co-moderator Vanessa Hauc of Telemundo went hard left as she lobbied Joe Biden on putting gas executives who are “harming our planet” in jail. When she didn’t get the right answer, she pressed Biden again. Hauc used alarmist language, demanding, “You said you want to hold oil and gas executives account an for their role in harming our planet. You have even suggested that you might put them in jail. Which companies are you talking about and how far are you willing to go?”
Chuck Todd seems worried. The MSNBC host — who will be co-moderating Wednesday night’s Democratic primary debate — spent most of an hour talking to surrogates from several of the campaigns. He vacillated on whether the proper strategy is for Democrats to “unload everything they have” now or, using a term he repeated often, “pull some punches” while debating?
In the skewed world of Charlotte Alter, the center is liberal 2020 candidate Pete Buttigieg and Barack Obama made voting an “act of love.” MSNBC on Tuesday brought on the Time magazine author to explain the state of millennials politics and how her generation will “transform America.” The book, The Ones We’ve Been Waiting For, pulls its title from a Barack Obama speech.
Despite the fact that Joe Scarborough has left the Republican Party and is cheerleading for any Democrat to win in 2020, he still occasionally pretends that his advice is to help his former party, not just ensure an endless Democratic majority. Scarborough on Tuesday talked to former Barack Obama senior adviser Dan Pfeiffer and promoted his new book.
Hard-left comedian John Oliver on Sunday devoted almost his entire 30 minute Last Week Tonight show to propagandizing for socialist Bernie Sanders’s Medicare for All plan, downplaying problems such as long wait time as “complicated.” The complete ending of private health insurance would be done “carefully.” The high costs must be considered with “a lot of context around it.” The 20 minute screed was heavy on the lecture, light on problematic facts and also actual comedy.
Allegations of sexism and inappropriate remarks are swirling around the rising 2020 campaign of Michael Bloomberg. But CBS is skimping on the details — including how the businessman allegedly made gross insinuations about women and oral sex and may have told a pregnant employee to “kill it,” in regard to her unborn child. On CBS This Morning, Monday, the show allowed a scant 15 seconds to the developing story (out of two hours).