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Who got to Donny Deutsch? Seriously. Exactly one week ago, as we reported here, Deutsch was painting a very bleak picture for Hillary Clinton, saying that "Americans are just tired of Hillary," they have "fallen out of like with her," and that people he knows who would automatically be Hillary backers are saying "wow, there's got to be somebody else here." But there was Deutsch on Morning Joe today, singing a much sunnier tune. Deutsch claimed that the email scandal won't really hurt Hillary and that her supporters are not deserting her: "I don't think it has a profound effect...

Partisanship oozing out of Howard Dean's wherever! On today's Morning Joe, Mika Brzezinski, exasperated by Howard Dean's dead-ender defense of Hillary on the email scandal, told him "your partisan whatever is just ooz[ing.]" You know Hillary is in hot water when even Andrea Mitchell had to report that there are "big" problems for Clinton on the email front. But Howard Dean has apparently decided to go down with Hillary's ship, clinging to his claim that the email scandal is "hooey" and declaring "you're just not going to get me to give on this." View the video here.

Did Rush Limbaugh force Fox News, in the wake of the Donald Trump/Megyn Kelly dust-up, to back down and welcome Trump back on its network? That's what New York Times reporter Nick Confessore suggested on today's Morning Joe. Asked by Mika Brzezinski who was the most powerful person in the media today, Confessore responded: "I think Fox or Rush Limbaugh [whose last name Confessore pronounced "Lim-bow], right? In this primary, right? There were two institutions that could have put a stop to Trump, talk radio and Fox. And talk radio likes him and Fox backed down." View the video here.

Yesterday, this NewsBuster was gobsmacked by the spectacle of senior Hillary aide Jennifer Palmieri suggesting that the FBI would be happy to discover that Hillary's infamous email server had been scrubbed clean. We wrote about it here. Today's Morning Joe picked through the smoldering ashes of that interview with the participation of John Heilemann, who conducted it. Joe Scarborough said that "everybody" he talked to called the interview a "disaster." Heilemann suggested that top Hillary staffers are "in the dark." The cruelest cut came from Mika Brzezinski, who said "there are no good answers." So where does Hillary go from...

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You know those super-fast-talking disclaimers run at the end of some ads? The kind of CYA things the lawyers force the advertisers to say? That's what Mark Halperin's pro forma praise of Hillary on today's Morning Joe brought to mind. Halperin first ripped Hillary's campaign as the most "unresponsive to basic questions" he's ever dealt with, and reported that "elite Democrats" are worried about being stuck with scandal-ridden Hillary as their candidate. But Halperin apparently felt obliged to include this bit of posterior-protecting pablum: "she's still an extraordinarily strong candidate, she's a great public servant. She's, I think, right now,...

Fox News chairman Roger Ailes woke up Monday morning thinking that his network and Donald Trump's campaign had reached an understanding. After a weekend's worth of stressful phone calls, the tacit agreement -- he thought -- was that Trump would stop attacking Ailes' biggest television star, Megyn Kelly, in interviews and tweets. Then came an ugly surprise. Trump said on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" that he thought Kelly should apologize to him. "This was the final straw for Roger," according to a source close to the situation. Ailes' office called Trump's office. We "can resolve this now," Ailes said to Trump,...

Was our restaurant table bugged? Last night over date-night dinner, my wife, a perspicacious observer of the political scene and, yes, a Bernie backer, said she sensed that Hillary's moment had passed and that people were tired of her. Cut to today's Morning Joe, and there were Donny Deutsch, Joe Scarborough and an initially reluctant Mika Brzezinski saying much the same thing: that powerful, influential Dems have come down with a bad case of Hillary blahs. The context was talk that Al Gore might be jumping into the race. View the video here.

No, North Korea did not offer support for ‘noted scholar’ Donald Trump By Adam Taylor August 10 at 11:17 AM On Monday morning, in a segment devoted to how the media is overhyping the supposed implosion of Donald Trump's presidential candidacy, MSNBC's "Morning Joe" pointed to one supporter that the American businessman and Republican 2016 hopeful had apparently retained: North Korean state media. Speaking to hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski, Mark Halperin of Bloomberg Politics said the North Korean government had offered support to Trump via its Twitter account. He referred to the following tweet: "Got the North Koreans,"...

On today's Morning Joe, Josh Earnest said that President Obama believes that picking Biden as his VP was the "smartest decision he ever made in politics." Joe Scarborough drew the mischievous-but-logical inference that Obama must thus believe it was smarter than picking Hillary as his Secretary of State. Though Mika interrupted to say that's not what he meant, Earnest never said boo to counter Joe's interpretation. Earnest later said that if Biden chooses to run, he could make a "strong" case for his candidacy. He added that other Dem candidates could make "quite" a strong case. Note the qualifier. And...

On Monday, MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” co-host Mika Brzezinski stated that “It should be over” for Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee after his comments that President Obama trusting Iran “will take the Israelis and march them to the door of the oven.”

Arianna Huffington is no pachyderm, politically speaking, but like the elephant, she apparently never forgets--or forgives. Three years ago, Donald Trump called Huffington "unattractive both inside and out." Arianna has now returned the favor, relegating HuffPo's coverage of Trump to its entertainment section. On today's Morning Joe, HuffPo's Sam Stein was put in the unenviable position of defending his boss's decision, arguing that Trump is a mere "lounge act" whose position in the polls is simply "sustained by the media." Joe Scarborough blasted the decision as "absolutely absurd," and Mika Brzezinski, in the unkindest-but-truest cut of all, said that many...

If calling constituents "crazies" is a term of endearment, what would be an insult? On today's Morning Joe, John McCain refused to apologize to the thousands of Arizonans attending a Trump rally that McCain called "crazies." According to McCain, "crazies" is a "term of endearment" and a "term of affection." View the video here.

An MSNBC host walked back a statement he’d made Thursday when he called Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump a liar after Trump called his bluff and challenged him to a wager. Not only did Lawrence O’Donnell take back his previous statement, he also said he liked the real estate mogul. The brouhaha began Thursday when O’Donnell appeared on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” and said “The Donald” had inflated his income figures in his Federal Election Commission financial statement. Trump immediately bet a year of his salary against a year of O’Donnell’s that he was right. That evening on his own MSNBC...

What does MSNBC's Alex Wagner have against stately Indian warriors? On today's Morning Joe, Wagner said it was "amazing" that anyone could look at the Washington Redskins logo and name and not find it controversial. This NewsBuster can understand the debate over the "Redskins" name. But the logo? Has Alex actually had a look at the logo? Could Wagner be confusing it with the Cleveland Indians' Chief Yahoo? Seriously, what could be more stately, grave and dignified than the Redskin logo? View the video here.

"People who think he's a joke and a fool need to be careful because by the end of the campaign, the joke may be on them." That's how Joe Scarborough summed up the surprisingly respectful analysis of Donald Trump's candidacy on today's Morning Joe. Introducing the segment, Scarborough suggested that if Trump sticks to a Perot-like populist message, he could get 15% of the primary vote. When Joe turned to Steve Schmidt, this NewsBuster expected the former McCain campaign manager and establishment Republican to dump on Trump. But to the contrary, Schmidt agreed heartily with Joe and went on to...

What does it say about Hillary Clinton that her campaign feels the need to artificially create supposedly real, authentic moments for her? On today's Morning Joe, Kasie Hunt observed that in this election cycle, "the demand seems to be for raw, unfiltered, real type of moments. I think that they're trying very hard to create that with her." Jon Meacham—seizing the oxymoronic irony—jumped in: "they're manufacturing it." Bingo. Nothing says raw, real and unfiltered like a moment manufactured by a horde of hacks, handlers and hangers-on. View the video here.

Freshman GOP congresswoman Rep. Mimi Walters has been on television pushing Obamatrade—appearing Monday on Morning Joe on MSNBC to do so—but her office admits publicly she hasn’t read the bill she wants to fast-track through Congress. Walters, whom Mika Brzezinski noted is the official “liaison” between House GOP freshmen and Speaker Rep. John Boehner’s leadership team, appeared on Morning Joe to push Obamatrade. Walters said: Currently, what we are working on is Trade Promotion Authority. That issue we expect to take up by the end of the month. And what Trade Promotion Authority, known as TPA, is it’s really the...

Mika Brzezinski just can't contain her liberal bias. On today's Morning Joe, Mika admitted that the the MSM has a double standard when it comes to reporting controversial things that Democrats and Republicans have done or said. Yet she promptly turned around and applied that same double standard to Bernie Sanders and Rick Santorum. Discussing Bernie Sanders having written in 1972 that women fantasize about being raped, Mika agreed that if Rick Santorum had written the same thing, the press would go crazy. However, Mika claimed that wouldn't be because Santorum's a Republican, but rather would be due to "his...

Is Al Hunt the most oblivious man in Washington, or was he just not telling the truth? On today's Morning Joe, lauding Bob Schieffer upon his retirement, Hunt actually said "I have no idea what Bob Schieffer's politics are." No idea? Really? Maybe Al hasn't been watching Scheiffer, but NewsBusters and its parent MRC have. Take a look at this link for a compilation of Bob's greatest hits on Republicans and his gushing praise of Democrats. Then come back and see us, Al, and let us know whether you now have an idea of Schieffer's politics. View the video here.