Congress

Not long before Joe Biden announced that he wouldn’t run for president, he drove Esquire's Pierce up a high wall (think the Green Monster) by saying, “I still have a lot of Republican friends. I don't think my chief enemy is the Republican party…I actually like Dick Cheney, for real. I think he's a decent man." Pierce opined that Biden’s comments on Cheney were disqualifying (“Anyone who thinks…

Analyzing Hillary Clinton’s performance before the House Benghazi Committee, CBS News political director John Dickerson stated on Thursday’s CBS Evening News that Clinton “avoid[ed]” falling into any “pitfalls” as those questioning her fought “like cats and dogs.”

Offering no surprises, Thursday’s NBC Nightly News aired glowing remarks for Hillary Clinton’s performance during the House Select Committee on Benghazi hearing with conclusions that she “stood her ground” as it “dissolved into bickering” while she “stayed above the fray” and removing Benghazi from being an issue in the 2016 campaign. 

Assessing the Benghazi hearing during a break in the proceedings at 4 p.m. Eastern, NBC foreign affairs correspondent Andrea Mitchell hailed former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as "poised" and "steady" while her Republican interrogators did not "cover [themselves] with glory" with questioning that failed to get to the "root cause" of the Benghazi tragedy.

Reacting to the first round of questioning in Thursday’s Benghazi hearing, CNN hosts and panelists couldn’t help but trip over themselves in gushing over how Hillary Clinton was “very confidence” in “keeping her cool” while answering “utterly baffling” questions about confidante Sidney Blumenthal that the American people supposedly do not “really care about” and see as “a waste.”

Hours ahead of Hillary Clinton’s testimony before the House Benghazi Committee on Thursday, on NBC’s Today, correspondent Andrea Mitchell acknowledged that “44% of Americans are not yet satisfied” with the former secretary of state’s answers on the scandal but also declared: “...today is, indeed, her best chance to change all of that. Assisted by the Republicans who, themselves in recent weeks,…

Using clips from the 1973 Watergate hearings, MSNBC’s Last Word host Lawrence O’Donnell went off on Wednesday at the House Select Committee on Benghazi for failing to exhibit the Watergate committee’s professionalism and instead being “oblivious and uninhibited” in creating a hearing that he promises will “waste enormous amounts of time on irrelevant questions.”

Previewing Hillary Clinton’s testimony Thursday morning before the House Select Committee on Benghazi, CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360 did their best on Wednesday to paint the most flattering picture possible of Clinton being “battle tested” with “steady nerves” despite “withering attacks” and the ability to turn “even a hot seat, if not comfortable, at least cooler.”

New York Times political reporter Jennifer Steinhauer filed "Influence of Freedom Caucus Ripples Through Washington" for Tuesday's front page, a long hostile introduction to a page of label-heavy profiles of five congressmen from the Freedom Caucus. Steinhauer's tone was resentful of the success of the new wave of conservative congressmen, alleging they had achieved their goals through "highly…

All three networks on Wednesday spun Paul Ryan as dealing with the “far-right” “hardliners" in Congress. ​Good Morning America's George Stephanopoulos lectured, “Paul Ryan steps forward toward the top job in Congress with a challenge to fellow Republicans.” In a news brief, Tom Llamas derided conservatives: “Ryan wants Republicans to unite behind him by Friday, including the far-right members of…

The “big three” networks of ABC, CBS, and NBC punted Tuesday night on news that Senate Democrats successfully blocked legislation aimed at cracking down on sanctuary cities. Doing the job the networks could have been doing, Fox Business Network (FBN) host Lou Dobbs alerted his views on Tuesday to the story that he described as “business as usual” with “Senate Republican leadership permitting…

Filling in for Jose Diaz-Balart during MSNBC’s 10 a.m. ET hour on Tuesday, NBC national correspondent Peter Alexander interrogated Republican Congresswoman Susan Brooks about the House Benghazi Committee: “So if Jeb Bush's campaign insists that his brother, George W. Bush, bears no responsibility for the 9/11 attacks – which of course were carried out by Al Qaeda, but he was president at the time…

During a discussion with Bloomberg Politics editor Mark Halperin on Tuesday’s NBC Today, co-host Savannah Guthrie touted how Hillary Clinton had “set the table” for her testimony before the Benghazi Committee on Thursday. Halperin proclaimed: “This appearance has been looming on her calendar and her staff’s calendar with dread, thinking this could be the worst day of the year for her. It could…

During an interview that aired on Friday’s CBS Evening News, chief White House correspondent Major Garrett spoke with Republican presidential candidate Marco Rubio and wondered aloud if the situation in the House of Representatives concerning the search for the next Speaker of the House signaled the “important historical meltdown of the Republican Party.”