CNN host Abby Phillip scolded one of her guests on Wednesday evening after he referred to a fellow panelist as “dear” in a “condescending tone.”
During a panel discussion about the sexual misconduct allegations against attorney general nominee Matt Gaetz, panelist Bruce LeVell – the former executive director
of Trump’s 2016 National Diversity Coalition – said, “The bottom line is the DOJ said there’s nothing there.”
“No they didn’t,” interrupted Democratic strategist Julie Roginsky. “They said they didn’t have enough to indict. That shouldn’t be the standard.”
LeVell then replied, “No, to charge, dear.”
After Roginsky protested, “Dear? Excuse me?” Phillip cut into the debate, warning, “Hold on, I’m gonna stop you right here because we’re not gonna get off on the wrong foot. Please do not address a grown woman as ‘dear’ in a condescending tone. Do not do that at my table.”
“Okay,” LeVell replied.
Phillip then handed the conversation off to another panelist.
The CNN host has taken less of a backseat in the moderation of her guests since a debate on her show turned ugly last month.
Republican commentator Ryan Girdusky was ejected from a CNN NewsNight panel and banned from appearing on the network again after he told
fellow panelist Mehdi Hasan, “I hope your beeper doesn’t go off,” in reference to the pager bombs Israel used to kill at least 42 people in September.
“Did your guest just say I should be killed on live TV?” Hasan asked Phillip, before the show cut to commercials.
Following the break, Girdusky was noticeably absent from the panel and Phillip issued an apology over the “completely unacceptable” remark.
In a subsequent statement
, CNN said, “There is zero room for racism or bigotry at CNN or on our air. We aim to foster thoughtful conversations and debate including between people who profoundly disagree with each other in order to explore important issues and promote mutual understanding. But we will not allow guests to be demeaned or for the line of civility to be crossed.”
NYT
(“‘Morning Joe’ Stars Reveal a Mar-a-Lago Reunion With Trump“):
The married MSNBC hosts Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough drove half an hour from their Florida home on Friday to meet with an old friend turned frenemy turned enemy: President-elect Donald J. Trump.
Their relationship has been complicated. Mr. Trump was once a regular guest on their talk show, “Morning Joe,” and the couple rang in 2017 at a New Year’s Eve party at his Mar-a-Lago estate.
Then things deteriorated. Mr. Trump called Mr. Scarborough a “psycho” and Ms. Brzezinski “crazy,” claiming
that he had once seen her “bleeding badly from a face-lift.” “Morning Joe” became a redoubt of the anti-Trump resistance. This year, the couple repeatedly warned that a second Trump presidency would threaten democracy’s future.
Even for talk show hosts, it turns out, elections have consequences.
“For those asking why we would go speak to the president-elect during such fraught times, especially between us, I guess I would ask back, ‘Why wouldn’t we?’” Ms. Brzezinski told viewers on Monday, disclosing the meeting for the first time. “Joe and I realized it’s time to do something different, and that starts with not only talking about Donald Trump but also talking with him.”
CNN
‘s Brian Stelter (“MSNBC’s ‘Morning Joe’ hosts reveal they met with Trump at Mar-a-Lago ‘to restart communications’“):
The news was so shocking that some “Morning Joe” viewers probably spit out their coffee.
MSNBC co-hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski “went to Mar-a-Lago to meet personally” with President-elect Donald Trump, Brzezinski revealed at the beginning of Monday’s show. The Friday rendezvous was “the first time we have seen him in seven years,” she added.
[…]
The meeting between Trump and the progressive cable network’s hosts — two of the most avowed anti-Trump hosts on television — immediately raised speculation about a détente with the president-elect and sparked criticism from some “Morning Joe” fans.
Veteran media critic Jeff Jarvis, a loyal “Joe” viewer, said on Threads that the meeting was a “betrayal of their colleagues, democracy, and us all. It is a disgusting show of obeisance in advance.” Others on social media vowed not to watch the show anymore, though it is impossible to measure how widespread that sentiment was.
Scarborough and Brzezinski anticipated the criticism and addressed some of it in Monday morning’s announcement.
“Don’t be mistaken. We are not here to defend or normalize Donald Trump,” Scarborough said. “We are here to report on him and to hopefully provide you insights” for “understanding these deeply unsettling times.”
RedState
(“Megyn Kelly Unleashes the Hounds of Hell on Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough“):
Megyn Kelly offered up a simple three-word response to MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” co-hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski visiting Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago over the weekend.
[…]
“I searched for a way to respond appropriately and I called on my 10 years as a litigator, in addition to my now 20 as a journalist, and I think I found the perfect phrase,” Kelly calmly responded. “Go f**k yourselves.”
“G f**ck yourselves, you dishonest jokes of faux journalists,” she added. “What an absurd farce.”
[…]
“How long have they been telling us that he’s (Trump’s) an existential threat, that he’s a Hitleresque figure, that he’s a fascist, that women will die – will die! – if he gets elected?” she seethed. “Well, they’ve done a 180. They’ve done a 180 as their ratings circle the bowl.”
[…]
“They’re grifters,” she said of Scarborough and Brzezinski. “These two, yes, worked day and night to get Trump the nomination back in ’15-’16. They embarrassed themselves and sacrificed any pretense of journalistic ethics in doing it. It was true bootlicking.”
“It is nauseating,” she added. “It’s so stomach-turning. They are so disgusting.”
I was a regular viewer of “Morning Joe” once upon a time, but it has been years. Mostly, my morning routine has just changed, and it’s now rare, indeed, that I turn on a television before 8 pm on a weekday.
While I never thought they were actively working to get Trump elected, Joe and Mika clearly had a personal relationship with him. And they were adamant that those of us dismissing his chances of becoming the 2016 Republican nominee were missing the boat. Eventually, for whatever reason, they soured on him and he, as is his penchant, went after them in the most ugly manner.
That they’ve now gone the way of Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, ignoring past humiliations to ingratiate themselves with him, is indeed worthy of ridicule.
If one ignores the personal baggage, though, they have a point. Like it or not—and, I suspect they like it even less than I do—Trump is once again the President-Elect and will once again serve a four-year term as President of the United States. It rather behooves the hosts of a political talk show to have access to him, both to be better-informed commentators and to be able to book him as a guest on their air. It’s not only good for their ratings, it benefits their audience.
Jarvis and Kelly are on both sides of a good point: if one truly believes Trump is a literal fascist and a threat to human rights and the future of American democracy, it is a betrayal of the highest order to kowtow to him.
But what if one merely thinks, as I do, that Trump is morally and temperamentally unfit to the highest office in the world but is nonetheless the legitimate holder of said office? In that case, it seems to me, one in fact normalizes him in the sense of treating him as though he were indeed the President and then holding him to the standards of a normal President.
When he nominates reasonably qualified people to key posts, it seems perfectly reasonable to acknowledge that. In so doing, it makes calling out obviously-unqualified nominees more impactful.
When he proposes perfectly normal policy ideas one happens to disagree with, disagree with them as though they were a normal policy idea proposed by the leader of a legitimate opposition party. And when he opposes policy ideas that violate the Constitution or basic norms of human decency, label them accordingly.
I’ve been rather resolute in defending Republican politicians for aquiescing to the fact that the Republican nominating electorate has repeatedly chosen Trump as the leader of their party. Ditto journalists who treat the Republican frontrunner/nominee/President-Elect/President as though he was those things. The problem comes when they treat truly outrageous behavior as “just politics.”
President-elect Donald Trump chose lawyer Matthew Whitaker on Wednesday to be U.S. ambassador to NATO, selecting a loyalist with little foreign policy experience for what may be one of the highest-profile ambassadorships during Trump’s second administration.
[…]
Whitaker, who served as acting attorney general for three months during Trump’s 2017-2021 term, has been actively involved with the America First Policy Institute, a right-leaning think tank that has been working to shape policy for Trump’s second term.
Whitaker was known as one of the most outspoken critics of a special counsel investigation into contacts between Trump’s successful 2016 presidential campaign and Russian officials.
The best I can say about him is that he is more qualified to be AG than Gaetz is, but that is what we call in the trade, “damning with faint praise.”
Whitaker, 55, has no experience in foreign or military affairs, but he did work in the Justice Department during Trump’s first term in office, initiallyas chief of staff to Attorney General Jeff Sessions and then briefly as acting attorney general after Sessions was pushed out in 2018.
He also served as U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Iowa during the George W. Bush administration. Whitaker has deep roots in Iowa; he grew up there and played football at the University of Iowa.
Everyone will be relieved to know that he did have a brief stint on CNN in 2017, so the TV box has been checked yet again. The loyalty box should be obvious.
Of course, the main thing I remember from his stint as interim AG, apart from his thin resume, is this (via Vanity Fair):
Whitaker appeared in multiple promotional videos for the company’s products
, offerings that included a toilet for “well-endowed men” and “theoretical time-travel commodity tied directly to price of bitcoin.”
I did not recall this part:
He also reportedly used his prior work as a federal prosecutor to intimidate people who complained the company was a scam. According to e-mails filed by the F.T.C, in August 2015 Whitaker allegedly responded to a customer who had complained about World Patent Marketing to the Better Business Bureau by telling
them, “I am assuming you understand that there could be serious civil and criminal consequences for you. Understand that we take threats like this quite seriously.” Another victim who tried to get a refund received an e-mail from a company lawyer who told her, “Since you used e-mail to make your threats, you would be subject to a federal extortion charge, which carries a term of imprisonment of up to two years and potential criminal fines. See 18 U.S.C. ii 875(d).” In other incredible correspondences, customers were threatened with a “World Patent Marketing Security Team” comprised of “ex-Israeli Special Ops” who are “trained to knockout first and ask questions later.”
Like Kennedy, Oz has no experience running a massive bureaucracy. CMS operates Medicare, Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program and the federal Healthcare.gov ObamaCare exchange.
Between all four programs, CMS oversees health coverage for more than 150 million people.
“The husband of a wonderful woman, Rachel Campos-Duffy, a STAR on Fox News, and the father of nine incredible children, Sean knows how important it is for families to be able to travel safely, and with peace of mind,” the president-elect said.
Before beginning his career in public service, Duffy was a prosecutor and a reality TV star, appearing on several shows including The Real World: Boston, and Road Rules: All Stars.
In 2011, he was elected as a Republican to represent Wisconsin in the US House of Representatives, where he served until 2019.
The good news is that these aren’t the kind of picks that put a pit in my stomach, so there’s that, I guess. But that is just a comparative metric to things like Tulsi Gabbard for DNI.
CNN data reporter Harry Enten explained why the betting markets have turned against the possibility of former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) being confirmed as attorney general.
Following his victory over Kamala Harris, President-elect Donald Trump announced he is nominating Gaetz to lead the Department of Justice
. Before resigning from Congress, Gaetz faced a House Ethics Committee investigation regarding allegations that he slept with a minor.
Many Republican lawmakers, including some senators, have expressed doubt over Gaetz making it through the Senate confirmation process. Meanwhile, Trump has floated the idea of using recess appointments to get his most controversial cabinet nominees — including Gaetz — in office.
But Enten told CNN anchor John Berman that even among other controversial Trump picks, Gaetz is the only one who gamblers believe will not get through.
ENTEN: There is just one word when it comes to Matt Gaetz’s chances in the betting markets. And it is yikes. Yikes. Yikes. Yikes. Chance Matt Gaetz becomes Trump’s AG. Look at this. 37% say yes. The majority, 63% say no. And I should note, I looked up every other one of Trump’s choices to be in his cabinet. This is the only one in which less than a majority say yes. The bottom line is the conventional wisdom suggests that Matt Gaetz’s chance to be Trump’s attorney general are in big big trouble.
BERMAN: One thing I know from social media the last few weeks is the betting markets apparently know everything that they know more than political scientists, than political consultants. The betting markets are always right according to social media.
ENTEN: The betting markets aren’t always right, though I should point out they did nail that Trump was going to win the election a few weeks ago. And when you have stuff like this in which you don’t necessarily have polling, I think they’re a good gauge of the conventional wisdom. And at this point, the gauge of the conventional wisdom is that Gaetz’s nomination is in big trouble.
Critics and others showered mockery on President Joe Biden’s trip to the Amazon rainforest by claiming he “wandered” into the jungle after his speech there — but the full video shows this to be false.
This week, President Biden became the first sitting president to visit
the Amazon rainforest, where he delivered remarks
at Museu da Amazônia in Manaus, Brazil as a sideline to the G20. Biden called on the world to “preserve this sacred place, for our time and forever, for the benefit of all humanity”:
Let me close with this. It’s often said that the Amazon is the lungs of the world — the Amazon is the lungs of the world. But in my view, our forests and national wonders are the heart and soul of the world.
They unite us. They inspire us. They make us proud of our countries and heritage — a bridge to the past and to our future, a birthright we pass down from generation to generation.
Zama- — the Amazon rainforest was built up over 50 million years — 50 million years. History is literally watching us now.
So, let’s preserve this sacred place, for our time and forever, for the benefit of all humanity.
Thank you very, very much. (Applause.)
But in short order, the focus of the event became Biden’s exit from the clearing where he delivered the speech. MAGA accounts like “End Wokeness” posted a short clip claiming Biden had wandered off into the jungle — captioned
“Did the President of the United States just wander off into the Amazon?”
The clip spawned viral memes, but it didn’t end there. Late-night comics, Fox News anchors, and even one CNN anchor
got in on the act:
The full pool video
of Biden’s speech shows that he merely took a different path that was obscured by trees (it’s a rainforest) and which was taken by numerous staffers and journalists after the speech wrapped.
In fact, you can see that the president exits down the exact same path he used as he approached the lectern at the beginning of his remarks.
CNN anchor Erin Burnett stopped attorney Joel Leppard after he revealed his clients felt the need to “please” ex-congressman Matt Gaetz (R-FL) in between a Fox News appearance and another event, telling him not to “get more graphic.”
Leppard is an attorney representing two women who claim Gaetz paid
them for sex, and who is trying to get their story out as President-elect Donald Trumpseeks to elevate
Gaetz to attorney general.
On Tuesday night’s edition
of CNN’s OutFront
, Leppard revealed more details — but Burnett didn’t want things to get too gory:
BURNETT: So just to give everyone a sense of how constant and embedded this was, according to what your clients say, you mentioned last night a trip to New York in January of 2019 that that you say Gaetz took your clients on. They say that they were there.
He paid them to travel with him. He paid them to have sex with him on that trip. So first, though, apparently, according they say he took them to fox news and that they were basically offset set like this, but they’re offset waiting for him to do his interview. And let me just play a clip from that particular interview.
So Gaetz is going to New York. He does this interview in part says this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. MATT GAETZ (R-FL): I know the president likes to call her Pocahontas, but now that eastern seaboard into the center of the country, maybe Sacajawea would be more appropriate. But instead of bringing Louis and Clark, she’s bringing the most liberal policies of the Democratic Party.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: Okay. So that was their show “Outnumbered”, and then after that, he leaves the interview with your clients. And then what happens?
LEPPARD: Yeah. So they went to the show a pretty woman and I believe that my clients went to an EDM show later on that night.
BURNETT: And, and an EDM show. What’s that?
LEPPARD: An electronic dance music. They had a show that they wanted to see that night, and the House was — the reason why it came up. Actually, the House was asking my clients if they ever felt pressured by Representative Gaetz, and they indicated at least one of my clients testified to the House that there was a time that they felt that they needed to please Representative Gaetz before going out and going to the show.
BURNETT: Okay. I understand what you’re saying, and that I’m not going to ask you to get more graphic than that, but may I just ask when he’s paying them to come? He’s paying them for sex. When does all this happen? The sex is happening before the Fox News interview, before the show before the?
LEPPARD: The payments would take place before or after the event.
So sometimes. So in this instance, I believe the testimony was that they received payments in part for flights before, and sometimes there would be payments on the back end as well. But it’s not something where were talking about leaving money on the table or anything like that. All the transactions generally speaking, were electronic.
There’s evidence of one check that was provided to my client but generally speaking, it was electronic and those payments would come either before or after. That’s what the testimony was before the House.
