Free Republic

According to recent court filings, President Trump’s former personal attorney Michael Cohen told federal prosecutors that he was directed by the then-candidate to pay hush money to two women to help sway the outcome of the 2016 election. Even though Cohen admitted he had previously lied under oath to Congress, ABC and NBC spent part of their Sunday morning news programs suggesting it was all over for the Trump administration. “We now have a president of the United States who has essentially been implicated in a felony by his own Justice Department,” boasted ABC anchor Dan Harris to chief global...

Go ahead, Democrats: make my day. That was the essence of Willie Geist imagining President Trump's take on the prospect of Dems, with their new House majority, opening an impeachment investigation of him. Speaking on today's Morning Joe, Geist said that Trump "would like nothing more" than an impeachment probe, because it would be:"the Kavanaugh situation multiplied times a thousand, which is Democratic overreach, and Donald Trump looks like the victim in the whole thing. He does not mind an impeachment investigation." Get the rest of the story here.

The day after an anti-Semite killed 11 people at a synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and a week of political violence, NBC’s Sunday Today exploited the opportunity by trying to tie it all to President Trump. On top of that, the network suggested that the only hope to stop the violence was to send Trump a message at the ballot box by voting against him and the GOP. After reporting on the anti-Semitic hate crime in Pittsburgh, NBC shifted over to complaining about Trump for not bowing to the man’s hatred. “On Saturday, he continued with his midterm campaign commitments despite...

When it comes to condemning all things Trump-related, there’s rarely any daylight between Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski. They are monolithically, some might say maniacally, united in their condemnation of The Donald. [snip] Scarborough accused Kavanaugh of having a “cold, callous heart” for failing to shake Fred Guttenberg’s hand, dismissing any innocent explanations of the moment. But Brzezinski gave Kavanaugh the benefit of the doubt, saying “no, I think his security people [intervened],” and “I just don’t” think his heart is that cold.Get the rest of the story and view the video here.

The likes of Kirsten Gillibrand parade themselves as paragons of avenging feminist virtue in calling on Sen. Al Franken to resign. But the Morning Joe crew sees another motive behind the Democrat’s move to force Franken out: “cynical politics.” Mika Brzezinski, Joe Scarborough, and Willie Geist all made similar points: the move to defenestrate Franken is really about Democrats trying to give themselves the high ground on the issue of sexual misconduct. The Dems’ real target is Roy Moore. Get the rest of the story and view the video here.

This week marks Andrea Mitchell’s 40th anniversary at NBC News, and the network has been filled with tributes to her. But when it comes to gushing, it will be hard to top Willie Geist’s effort, which aired during Mitchell’s MSNBC show today: “You are one of a very small handful of icons in our business, about whom a young journalist thinks: I can’t even believe I work in the same news division where she works. It always has been a privilege, and that awe has never gone away.” The tribute ended with a still shot of Mitchell warmly holding hands...

With the national discussion centered on sexual harassment and sexual assault, many in the liberal media had been itching to get to the allegations directed at the President. The media seemed to have recently gotten the ‘okay’ to pursue the claims when Hillary Clinton brought them up in a radio interview. It’s hypocritical for Clinton to lead the charge because of her philanderer husband with a rape charge. But that wasn’t a problem for NBC’s Sunday Today who disregarded it using Clinton’s defense. Anchor Willie Geist kicked off the show by hyping how the claims of sexual misconduct had made...

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) appeared on MSNBC's “Morning Joe” on Thursday to discuss the news from Wednesday's James Comey hearing. More specifically, the topic was the FBI director revealing that longtime Hillary Clinton advisor Huma Abedin forwarded classified emails to then-husband Anthony Weiner, ostensibly so he could print them out. “Do you believe that is a crime?” panelist Willie Geist asked to open the Blumenthal interview. “If there was classified information and it was improperly passed to a person unauthorized to receive it? Yes, it’s a crime,” the senator replied. ”Without knowing what the intentions were and so forth, there...

Troubling news broke out of North Korea early Sunday morning after an American citizen was arrest by North Korean officials on Saturday. “It has been confirmed that another American has been arrested in North Korea's capital, Pyongyang, which about 120 miles north from here from Seoul,” reported ABC’s Bob Woodruff during Good Morning America. It’s shocking news that hits just as tensions between the U.S. and communist regime are near a boiling point. Despite those facts, NBC’s Willie Geist failed to mention the development during his show, Sunday Today. “His name so far is not known,” noted Woodruff. “But the...

On Monday, the hosts of Morning Joe mocked and berated White House adviser Stephen Miller for his recent comments regarding the court ruling against President Trump's immigration order. Tuesday morning was no different, as the show came back from a commercial break by airing a distorted, grainy black-and-white video of Miller. The video contained the statement he gave on the network Sunday shows concerning the President’s executive powers and spliced Miller’s quotes attempting to make him look sinister and menacing. After the video concluded, host Joe Scarborough declared, “Wow,” and journalist Willie Geist agreed, “That’s terrifying.” Co-host Mika Brzezinski agreed...

Thursday on Morning Joe, co-host Mika Brzezinski made a prediction about the presidential debates forthcoming this fall: Hillary Clinton will “slaughter” Donald Trump. The liberal host said this only moments after she expressed desire for a “nice, peaceful convention” for Democrats next week in Philadelphia, contrasted with the current Republican convention in Cleveland that she believes has been consumed with “horrible, despicable things.” Meet the Press moderator Chuck Todd began with a prediction of his own, that the DNC in Philadelphia is going to be “boring” and wondered what the Clinton folks are going to do “to make a little...

Republican Donald Trump says he'd be fine with Caitlyn Jenner using the bathroom of her choice at Trump Tower. (AP File Photo) (CNSNews.com) - Republican Donald Trump, appearing on Thursday's "Today" show, said transgenders should be allowed to "use the bathroom that they feel is appropriate." "So if Caitlyn Jenner were to walk into Trump Tower and want to use the bathroom, you would be fine with her using any bathroom she chooses?" host Matt Lauer asked Trump. "That is correct," Trump said. Asked for his view on the North Carolina bathroom controversy, Trump said the state has "paid a...

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. 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." Heilemann jumped ugly: "Do you think it was a good...

On Friday, the NBC, CBS, and ABC morning shows all blasted Thursday’s Republican presidential debate as “vulgar” “silly” and “childish.” The same networks that have routinely provided ample airtime to Donald Trump’s personal attacks on his rivals, lectured the GOP contenders on civility. Co-host Matt Lauer began NBC’s Today: “Vitriol and vulgarity. The Republican race reaches new lows during last night's debate....Is this any way to elect a president?” Minutes later, fellow co-host Savannah Guthrie lamented: “New nastiness, new lows in the Republican presidential race.”Nets Slam ‘Vulgar’ and ‘Childish’ GOP Debate Reaching ‘New Lows’In the report that followed, correspondent Peter...

There was surprising consensus on today's Morning Joe concerning the Washington Post cartoon that depicted Ted Cruz as an organ grinder and his youngs girls as monkeys. From Mika Brzezinski to Joe Scarborough to Harold Ford, Jr., there was universal condemnation of Ann Telnaes' foul image. Willie Geist said it best: "people look for moments of bias in the media. Here's one right here. You can't be selectively offended by cartoons. If that had been a Democrat, or God forbid the President of the United States, they would have lit the house on fire. There would have been wall-to-wall coverage...

Wow: an MSMer who not only has many conservative friends, but is willing to admit it on live national TV? On today's Morning Joe, in the course of praising Anderson Cooper's performance as debate moderator, Geist let drop that prior to the debate "many of my conservative friends" thought CNN would go easy on the Dems, but that five minutes in, they told him "oh, I guess he's not going to go easy." View the video here.

A week ago, we noted that—negating Nicolle Wallace's notion that the woman who aided the New York prison break shouldn't do any time herself—Willie Geist observed "you can't help convicted murderers escape from jail." An NB reader remarked: "I get the sense that Willie Geist is a good guy trapped inside the leftwing matrix." Far be it from us to cause workplace problems for Willie by praising him too much, but Geist was at it again on today's Morning Joe, this time making some common sense remarks on gun control. After Eugene Robinson praised Australia's "very serious" gun control laws,...

Mika Brzezinski: fired up and ready to go . . . for Donald Trump? Not exactly. It isn't that Mika's jumping on the Make America Great Again express. It's just that she wants "intellectual honesty" from her peers when it comes to admitting that Trump has gone from amusing sideshow who's sure to eventually crash to true frontrunner who is now likely to be the Republican nominee. You might not think of Brzezinski as being particularly data-driven, but on today's Morning Joe she repeatedly argued that there is no data supporting a Trump meltdown scenario. Going around the table with...

Willie Geist wondered out loud what would happen to a Republican candidate who had written that women fantasize about being raped--and Scarborough asked if he would he still be in the race? But when it's a candidate for the Dem presidential nomination who had written those words, well, that's a different story. On today's Morning Joe, when Joe Scarborough raised the matter of Bernie Sanders having written that women fantasize about being raped, Mika Brzezinski repeatedly tried to shut him down and turn the page. View the video here.

Imus would call it a "tension convention." There was palpable friction among members of the Morning Joe team today on the question of whether Secret Service Director Julia Pierson was an affirmative action hire. By the end, the almost unfailingly affable Willie Geist was smirking in frustration at Mika Brzezinski. When Brzezinski first broached the sensitive-for-liberals subject, she suggested that she was going to go further than her male colleagues dared. But by the time she circled back to the topic, Mika had for some reason lost her nerve. She was suddenly so cautious that Donny Deutsch chided her for...