News

What does MSNBC do now? After Trump accomplished the Undead thing and retook the White House? After Comcast announced plans to spin off the network (along with others) in such haste that its new company was named “SpinCo”? After Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski went on their show and welcomed our new insect overlords? After its audience vanished?

Nothing.

Stay the course. The audience is exhausted and needs a break. It’ll be back — and Resistier than ever. Suffer the ratings trough. I mean, obviously you have to fire Mr. and Mrs. Scared-Bro. However: Continue their banal but largely benign political coffee klatch show without them and their insistence we all join their MSNVichy. Nobody will remember they were ever there.

Plus, the next money is coming from more fervent opposition to Maga, not less. Wasn’t the Scarborough disaster (41% of the demo audience gone in three days) instructive enough?...

Elon Musk’s presence in the news has been reaching new highs since Donald Trump became the president of the United States again. In 2017, the billionaire announced that he would be buying the beloved social media platform, Twitter as what many thought was a joke. However, in 2022, he did exactly as he said, turning the platform into X and lowering its value from the $44 billion that he bought it for to $9.4 billion today.

Elon Musk | Credit: Tesla Owners Club Belgium/ Cc-by-2.0/Wikimedia Commons

Recently, the businessman made a similar announcement about MSNBC and the world cannot stop talking about what the implications of his comment could be. Additionally, Joe Rogan also seems to have joined the wagon, already asking Musk for a job.

Elon Musk’s Declaration of Terror

In 2017, Elon Musk made a tweet about how he loved Twitter. This was followed up byreplied Dave Smith, telling him that...

Election Day is here, and the major news networks are prepared for a long night — and potentially a long week.

With over 50 million people early voting in the 2024 Presidential Election, Tuesday night will offer plenty of results to thumb through even if an ultimate winner isn’t called until later in the week, and most of the news networks will kick off their election night coverage at 6 p.m. Et, with CNN even starting at 12 a.m. Et while NBC News begins at 5 p.m. Et.

MSNBC’s Steve Kornacki will return to the Big Board — and will even be livestreamed on Peacock and other social platforms — while Fox News will see Bill Hemmer steering the “Bill”-board.

Most networks have scheduled eight hours of election night programming from 6 p.m. Et to 2 a.m. Et, with a result for the presidential showdown between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump not expected immediately.

Joy Reid got the call while she was waiting in a restaurant at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport to get on a plane to Paris. Nicolle Wallace received a summons, she remembers, when “I was in the middle of nowhere with my son and had no makeup.” To respond to similar requests, says Rachel Maddow, “I have made illegal U-turns on the state highway.”

When “The Avengers” are needed, no one can ignore the alert.

Reid, Wallace and Maddow look nothing like Iron Man, Captain America, Thor or any of the other super-powered characters who populate the well-watched Marvel films from Disney. And yet, on MSNBC, where each anchors her own program, they are part of an assemblage that is being convened with greater frequency.

“When there’s a moment,” says Rashida Jones, MSNBC’s president, the network likes to “bring the team together and elevate the seriousness of the news.

As Kamala Harris reaches the final stretch of her presidential campaign, husband Doug Emhoff is meeting the press.

The second gentleman will appear Friday at 10pm Et on MSNBC for an interview on The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell about the stakes of the race as he and Vice President Harris campaign in Nevada ahead of next week’s Election Day.

Emhoff’s appearance comes after recent visits to The Jennifer Hudson Show and Jimmy Kimmel Live, where he opened up about how he shows his support on the campaign trail.

“The last thing I am going to do is give [Kamala] advice on something she is really awesome at,” he told Kimmel. “If she asks me something I will let her know what I think but we really try to keep that separate because we really want to be there for each other, our family, our kids, all that stuff.

A newly unsealed filing reveals additional evidence in Special Counsel Jack Smith’s election conspiracy case against Donald Trump, as the prosecutor argued that the former president “resorted to crimes to try and stay in office.”

The filing, made public Wednesday, details the extent to which a bevy of advisers, including Vice President Mike Pence, sought to convince Trump that his challenge to the 2020 presidential election would not succeed and that it lacked evidence, but the then-president went ahead with his election-rigging claims anyway.

“The evidence demonstrates that the defendant knew his fraud claims were false because he continued to make those claims even after his close advisers — acting not in an official capacity but in a private or campaign-related capacity — told him they were not true,” Smith wrote in the brief.

Throughout the filing are instances where state lawmakers and officials told Trump and his allies that their rigged election claims were not credible.

The line between opinion shows and ones rooted in fact can remain blurry at Fox News Channel, the SEC has ruled — or rather, viewers will have to determine where that line falls themselves.

The SEC has said that Fox News does not need to clearly label its commentary shows as “opinion” to differentiate them from their more straightforward news broadcasts. An activist investor named John Chevedden, who’s made a name for himself by routinely submitting petitions to try to affect change in major companies, petitioned Fox News to label its shows accordingly. (Chevedden had made a similar petition in 2023 that he withdrew before the shareholder meeting that year.)

Chevedden believes there is a legally protective reason to do so: Following the $787.5-million settlement the cable channel reached with Dominion about untrue claims regarding its voting machines that Fox News anchors (such as Tucker Carlson) had made on-air, such a...

MSNBC anchor Lawrence O’Donnell gave an emotional monologue on Tuesday, September 17, as he shared a personal story when talking about abortion laws in Georgia. O’Donnell’s The Last Word speech stemmed from a ProPublica report that claimed at least two women have died in Georgia due to state laws that make it a felony to perform what should be routine procedures. “ProPublica is now reporting about the death of a 28-year-old woman in Georgia who died because of what George W. Bush and Donald Trump did to her when they appointed those Supreme Court justices,” O’Donnell said (per TheDailyBeast). The host went on to read the story, which noted that the woman required a procedure called a dilation and curettage (D&c), which removes fetal tissue from her body. Under Georgia law, a doctor who performs the procedure could be prosecuted and face up to a decade in prison.

Lawrence O’Donnell was not happy about his showing being delayed by a minute on Wednesday night (August 28) and let his MSNBC colleague Ayman Mohyeldin know about it. O’Donnell, who hosts The Last Word at 10 pm Et, was kept waiting after Mohyeldin went a little overtime on his final segment. As reported by Mediaite, Mohyeldin wrapped up his final interview with his guest at around 10:01 before tossing to O’Donnell. “Good evening, Ayman, thanks. We’re about a minute over time with that one. Thank you,” O’Donnell said. While the long-time news anchor was smiling, there was certainly an air of awkwardness in the exchange. “Sorry about that,” Mohyeldin replied before the camera cut to O’Donnell, who began his show. Fans reacted to the icy segment, with one X user writing, “I saw that. Lawrence will get over it. His show did just fine in fact. Besides, I...

Exclusive: Daughters, the award-winning Netflix documentary set behind the walls of a Washington DC prison, will serve as the closing night selection of a new film festival taking place at California’s San Quentin Rehabilitation Center.

The film, winner of the Festival Favorite Award as well as the Audience Award for U.S. Documentary at Sundance, centers on a special “Daddy-Daughter Dance” where incarcerated men and their daughters participate in a unique and emotional bonding experience. It will screen October 11 at the San Quentin Film Festival, a two-day event on the grounds of the prison that houses upwards of 4,000 men.

‘Daughters’

“We are honored to have Daughters screen as the Closing Night film in San Quentin!” said Natalie Rae, who directed the documentary with Angela Patton. “To connect incarcerated fathers...

And so it begins.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has signaled the beginning of the race for the 97th annual Academy Awards, which will take place on Sunday, March 2, 2025.

The Academy Screening Room made its first titles available Friday to membership, with Thelma from Magnolia Pictures; Shirley, Hit Man and the animated Ultraman: Rising all from Netflix; plus Wildcat released by Oscilloscope Laboratories on the platform. That list is sure to grow much bigger as the nascent season moves along. The cost, as of last season, is $20,000 for studio movies, and $8,000 for those from the indie sector.

Thelma is a comedy starring 94-year-old June Squibb as a grandmother who becomes victimized by an internet money scam preying on the elderly and decides to take matters into her own hands. Magnolia hopes to grab Oscar voters’ attention for Squibb’s performance, and also in the Golden Globes Comedy...

Lawrence O’Donnell had The Last Word on Thursday night on MSNBC. The news anchor called out the media, including his network, for covering Donald Trump’s press conference in full and ignoring Kamala Harris.

O’Donnell took to his late-night show to blast the media for not fact-checking Trump, who held a press conference in his Mar-a-Lago home in Florida, saying, “It was 2016 all over again.”

“It would be hard to find a sentence in what Donald Trump said today that did not include at least one lie,” O’Donnell said on his show. “Some of the networks tried to play catch-up with fact-checking after Donald Trump finished speaking but, that of course, is way too late and utterly useless. No network even attempted to check every lie Donald Trump told.”

O’Donnell noted that “every network has the capacity, especially with these wide screens we now have at home, to...

MSNBC host Lawrence O’Donnell is not happy with the cable news networks, including his own, after they aired former president Donald Trump‘s press conference live on Thursday (August 8) without fact-checking his lies. On Thursday’s edition of The Last Word, O’Donnell tore into MSNBC and other networks for their coverage, saying they are making the exact same mistakes as during the 2016 presidential race, which saw Trump defeat Hillary Clinton to become United States president. “It was 2016 all over again today,” O’Donnell said at the top of the show. “Donald Trump spoke at his home in Florida for over an hour and all of the cable news networks, including this one, carried it live just like they all did repeatedly in 2016.” He continued, “It would be hard to find a sentence in what Donald Trump said today that did not include at least one lie. Some of the networks...

MSNBC host Lawrence O’Donnell took a swipe at night one of the Republican National Convention, where former President Donald Trump made his first public appearance after his attempted assassination.

Sitting in on a panel with Rachel Maddow, Nicolle Wallace and Joy Reid, O’Donnell said on MSNBC Tuesday that the event was a “very low-rated convention” for Trump.

“I think it’s one of the reasons why he went there,” O’Donnell said on TV. “And I think even if he hadn’t been attacked, there’s a possibility he would have gone to try to pump up his ratings. He did everything he could to pump up Monday night’s ratings that are lower than the Monday night ratings of his 2016 convention.”

The first telecasts of the RNC on Monday drew in 18.1 million viewers across 12 cable news and broadcast networks, per Nielsen. For comparison, in 2016, the RNC drew approximately 23 million viewers across seven networks.

This year’s Republican National Convention will take place in Milwaukee, Wi ahead of the 2024 Democratic National Convention, which will be held in Chicago in August. The RNC summit has been overseen by Republican National Committee chairman Michael Whatley and Chairwoman of the Committee on Arrangements Anne Hathaway for the 2024 Republican National Convention.

Amid Biden and Trump’s second showdown in a presidential election, eyes will be on both the RNC and DNC, which serve as the forums to officially nominate each party’s presidential candidate.

Here’s what the networks and streamers have planned for the 2024 Republican National Convention:

When is the 2024 Republican National Convention?

The RNC this year will take place from July 15-18.

How can I watch the 2024 Republican National Convention? Is it streaming?

Several networks are offering coverage.

Related: Joe Biden Counters Dismal Debate With A Stronger Press Conference, But It Was Not Without A Big...

The San Quentin Film Festival — the first-ever film festival held inside a prison — has named its inaugural industry jury, which includes Jeffrey Wright, Billy Crudup, Mary-Louise Parker and more.

The festival, taking place Oct. 10 and 11 at the San Quentin Rehabilitation Center in northern California, will highlight short films and pitches from current and formerly incarcerated filmmakers in front of a jury made up of entertainment industry artists and executives. Separately, an “inside jury” made up of currently incarcerated people will judge narrative and documentary feature films about the prison experience made by filmmakers who have never served prison time.

Actors on the industry jury include Wright, Crudup, Parker and Kathy Najimy.

Directors on the jury include Elegance Bratton, Taylor Hackford, Lynn Novick, Greg Kwedar, Jeff Stanzler and Joe Talbot.

Writer-producers on the jury include Sam Catlin, Lawrence O’Donnell, Piper Kerman (“Orange Is the New Black”) and J.T. Rogers.

The jury also includes Len Amato,...

Update: TheGrio will simulcast CNN’s presidential debate on Thursday while providing pre- and post- event coverage.

TheGrio will start live coverage at 8:30 p.m. Et with a preview show hosted by April Ryan, Washington, D.C. bureau chief and senior White House correspondent, and senior correspondent Natasha Alford. The pre show will focus on issues affecting the Black community and provide background on the candidates’ positions.

The coverage will air on TheGrio television network, streaming Fast channel and digital platform Local Now.

After the debate at 10:30 p.m. Et, Ryan and Alford will get reactions, including from those in politics and advocacy.

Columnists for theGrio, Touré and Michael Harriot, will provide additional commentary.

Byron Allen, chairman and CEO of Allen Media Group, said that the coverage “will provide comprehensive analysis to ensure that viewers gain a deeper understanding of the political landscape and the stakes involved for America.

MSNBC will draw on its talent roster of hosts and contributors for a daylong event in September, MSNBC Live: Democracy 2024, seeking to capitalize on its viewer fanbase desire to see network personalities live and in person.

The daylong Sept. 7 event at the Brooklyn Academy of Music will include discussions among the hosts and a dinner and a reception, along with a screening of an MSNBC film. Ticket prices will start at $119, the network said, with audience capacity of 2,000. The plans are to keep the September event in person only — no live streaming.

Luke Russert, the creative director of MSNBC Live and moderator of the day’s events, said that “one of the things we were interested in off the bat was what could we do with this incredibly engaged audience at MSNBC.”

The event will not only provide the in-person experience but longer conversations than are possible during telecasts, Russert said.

Last week, former president Donald Trump was convicted on 34 felony counts stemming from accusations that he directed his team to misappropriate business funds to pay off a former adult entertainer whom he had engaged in an extra-marital affair with. On Sunday, June 2 at 9 p.m. Et, MSNBC will air a new special looking back at the historic court case. “Prosecuting Donald Trump: Witness to History” will feature many of the new network’s biggest names as they attempt to put the felony convictions into the context of American history and this fall’s election. The Streamable recommends taking advantage of Sling TV’s 50% off your first-month deal to not only watch the special, but all of MSNBC, CNN, and Fox News’ election coverage the rest of the year.

How to Watch 'Prosecuting Donald Trump: Witness to History' When: Sunday, June 2, 2024 at 9:00 Pm Edt Where: Sling TV Stream: Watch with a subscription to Sling TV.

MSNBC host Lawrence O’Donnell replied after former president Donald Trump said he “looks like s—” in a Truth Social post. During the former president’s hush money trial, Trump mocked O’Donnell’s appearance in the Manhattan court.

“I spotted Ratings Challenged Lawrence O’Donnell, of Msdnc, in the Courthouse today,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “I haven’t seen him in years. He looks like s—, a real loser!”

O’Donnell later replied to it in an X post.

“Trump posted this right after my show tonight,” he stated about the Truth Social post. “Must’ve been something I said.”

He also placed an image of the former president’s post in his post.

Last week, the MSNBC host said on his show The Last Word With Lawrence O’Donnell that he had been in the Manhattan court and that Trump noticed him and had “glared” at him.

“It seems...

Jon Stewart has been watching the television coverage of the Donald Trump hush money trial, but that doesn’t mean he has to like it.

“It has been another big week of wall-to-wall, nonstop penis-to-penis coverage of Donald Trump’s trial,” Stewart said at the start of his Comedy Central The Daily Show monologue Thursday (he switched from his usual Monday night spot this week). “The ubiquitous coverage is numbing, fading into televised wallpaper with insight that only occasionally crackles through.”

Some examples of that insight? Cue the tapes:

CNN reports that Donald Trump greeted Stormy Daniels in that hotel room wearing “satin or silk pajamas.”

Said Stewart: “Which?! I need to know!”

Another report, stating Stormy and Donald had sex “in the missionary position.”

Said Stewart: “No wonder Trump has locked up the Evangelical voting bloc….Tell us more.”

MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell: “Not wearing a condom…”

Stewart: “Don’t tell us more!

Ronna McDaniel is out at NBC News.

The former Republican National Committee chair was hired as a paid on-air contributor for the network, a move that received backlash from the network’s own anchors.

Rachel Maddow, Chuck Todd, Joy Reid, Nicolle Wallace, and Lawrence O’Donnell were among the MSNBC hosts who voiced their opposition to McDaniel‘s hire.

Morning Joe co-host Mika Brzeznski said, “To be clear, we believe NBC News should seek out conservative Republican voices to provide balance in their election coverage. But it should be conservative Republicans, not a person who used her position of power to be an anti-democracy election denier, and we hope NBC will reconsider its decision. It goes without saying that she will not be a guest on Morning Joe in her capacity as a paid contributor.”

Now, it has been announced that McDaniel has been dropped by NBC News.

Keep reading to find out more…...

NBC News has officially decided to part ways with its newest on-air contributor, Ronna McDaniel, the former Republican National Committee chair, just days after she was hired.

“After listening to the legitimate concerns of many of you, I have decided that Ronna McDaniel will not be an NBC News contributor,” NBC News Group chairman Cesar Conde wrote in a memo to staff Tuesday afternoon. “No organization, particularly a newsroom, can succeed unless it is cohesive and aligned. Over the last few days, it has become clear that this appointment undermines that goal.”

Separately, McDaniel has been dropped by CAA, the agency that repped her in the deal with the network, sources confirm to The Hollywood Reporter.

The former Republican National Committee chair was hired by NBC News on March 22 as an on-air contributor, and she made her NBC debut on Sunday’s edition of Meet the Press, where she was grilled by Kristen Welker.

Former Republican National Committee chair Ronna McDaniel has only appeared once on NBC News programming in her new capacity as a political news contributor, and already, senior executives are gathering to conduct a review.

Top executives from NBC News were expected to meet Tuesday to hash out the growing controversy around her recent hire, according to two people familiar with the matter, in a bid to stop a growing insurrection by the NBCUniversal unit’s editorial staff. In recent days, prominent anchors ranging from Chuck Todd to Rachel Maddow have spoken out against the hire on NBC News’ “Meet The Press” as well as on MSNBC, charging NBC News executives with giving a platform to McDaniel despite her efforts to help former President Donald Trump dismiss the integrity of the 2020 presidential election.

There are some people who think NBC News may have to renege on its contributor deal with McDaniel,...

Update: Rachel Maddow devoted the top of her MSNBC show to outlining the reasons for her objections to NBC News’ hire of former Republican National Committee chair Ronna McDaniel, calling the decision “inexplicable” and challenging some of the network spin in response to the backlash.

“I will tell you, the fact that Ms. McDaniel is on the payroll at NBC News, to me that is inexplicable,” she said. “You wouldn’t hire a wiseguy, you wouldn’t hire a made man like a mobster to work in a D.A.’s office, right? You wouldn’t hire a pickpocket to work as a Tsa screener. So I find her decision to put her on the payroll inexplicable, and I hope they will reverse their decision.”

Maddow, the top rated personality at the network, is the latest NBCU personality to publicly call out news division leadership over the decision, an unusual...

Ronna McDaniel was supposed to be the new star contributor at NBC News. Now her position there is looking increasingly untenable.

NBC News hired the former Republican National Committee chief last week, betting that her recent access to the Trump campaign and Republican politicians would make her a valuable analyst as the 2024 election cycle intensified. But in recent days, her ability to do just that seems unclear. On Monday, Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski suggested on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” that NBC News reconsider its hire. A day earlier, Chuck Todd took to “Meet The Press” to chastise NBC News bosses for making moderator Kristen Welker conduct a news interview she had previously booked with McDaniel now that she was a paid operative of NBC and potentially less able to respond truthfully to hard questions.

It seems very likely that her position at NBC will remain in the news for the immediate future.

Concern about the fact that Donald Trump must post a $450 million-plus bond by Monday — and where he might get that money — prompted a curious debate with the ex-president’s lawyer on Fox News on Wednesday.

Earlier in the day on The View, Joy Behar worried about the risks posed by a financially-desperate Trump.

“I mentioned Saudi Arabia and Russia, they have motivation to give him money because then they will own him,” said Behar.

Trump Says He Might Sell Assets To Satisfy $464M Bond: After former Pres. Trump's lawyers said he can't make the bond in his New York fraud case, #TheView co-hosts weigh in. https://t.co/cVclFZQmjA pic.twitter.com/XMyfzvnzuJ

— The View (@TheView) March 21, 2024

Fox News anchor Martha MacCallum put the question directly to Trump lawyer Alina Habba later in the day.

“Is there any effort on the part of your team to secure this money through another country,...

The White House is continuing a tradition of hosting major network TV news anchors for a lunch with the president on the day he delivers the State of the Union address, according to sources.

The lunch is typically off the record, but in the past parts of the conversations have been allowed to be used. In 2022, for instance, Biden allowed a comment about NATO and the “unity of the west” to be used.

The three broadcast anchors were among those dining, including NBC News’ Lester Holt, ABC News’ David Muir and CBS News’ Norah O’Donnell. Also there: MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell and Fox News’ Shannon Bream.

This will be Biden’s final State of the Union before the November election. The broadcast anchors all planned to do their evening newscasts from D.C. this evening, and then will anchor coverage starting at 9 p.m. Et.

C-span cameras captured some of the participants.

In the pre-coverage of Joe Biden’s State of the Union address, the speech is being billed as the most important of his presidency, what with his dismal approval numbers and what is shaping up to be very difficult campaign for reelection.

Moreover, so much attention has been paid to the president’s age — at 81, he is the first octogenarian on a major party ticket — that any kind of slip up will be seized upon by his rivals.

Then again, Biden’s most memorable moment last year was an exchange with House Republicans over Social Security, showing that the president had command of the stage. That’s why it’ll be interesting to see if GOP members restrain themselves so as to not give the president the opportunity this year.

Related: Maria Shriver, Bettie Mae Fikes And Shawn Fain Among First Lady Jill Biden’s Guests At President’s State...

All of the major news networks carried Donald Trump’s Super Tuesday victory speech live, but MSNBC was the first to cutaway, reflecting a debate at news outlets over how to cover the former president’s fusillade of false claims and unfounded accusations.

Rachel Maddow, leading coverage on the network, was clearly disturbed over the airtime given to Trump, in which he made unfounded claims about the weaponization of the Justice Department and took credit for the rise in the stock market.

As Trump went on, Maddow cut in and told viewers, “Okay, I will say that it is a decision that we revisit constantly in terms of the balance between allowing somebody to knowingly lie on your air about things they lied about before, and you can predict they are going to lie about, and so therefore it is irresponsible to allow them to do that.”

She added, “The...

The suspense this Super Tuesday may be in watching how all of the networks try to make the night suspenseful.

Some 16 states and one territory will vote: Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont and Virginia. A Democratic caucus also is being held in American Samoa, and Iowa Democrats also will reveal their results.

But with Joe Biden and Donald Trump on their way to a rematch in the 2024 presidential election, coverage Tuesday will focus on margins of victory, when each candidate will clinch their nomination and what’s next from now until Election Day. There also will be attention to down-ballot races, including California’s Senate primary to fill the seat long held by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-ca).

Related: California Senate Debate: Katie Porter Attacks Adam Schiff, Candidates Oppose Immigration Bill And Support AI Regulation

That’s a far cry from...

The United States Presidential Election takes its next step on Saturday, Feb. 24, when the South Carolina primary elections are set to take place. The Democratic incumbent Joe Biden is not facing any organized opposition from his party, but in the Republican field the race has narrowed to two candidates: former U.N. ambassador and South Carolina governor Nikki Haley, and former President Donald Trump. Sling TV will offer fantastic coverage, thanks to its carriage of CNN, Fox News and MSNBC; audiences can see the results from their favorite news channel with a subscription to Sling TV.

How to Watch 2024 South Carolina Primary Results When: Saturday, Feb. 24 TV: CNN, Fox News, MSNBC Stream: Watch with a subscription to Sling TV. Get 50% Off $40+ / month sling.com About 2024 South Carolina Primary Coverage

“CNN’s America’s Choice: South Carolina Primary” will begin at 4 p.m. Et with Wolf Blitzer anchoring from DC and Erin Burnett from New York.

Updated, 1/24: Well, it’s a book.

Mary McCormack revealed on X today that she’s authored a book with Melissa Fitzgerald about The West Wing.

Our #westwing book is here! Preorder at https://t.co/mYnFsd5Hzr !! #thewestwingbook @DuttonBooks pic.twitter.com/TDEZVoPkaj

— Mary McCormack (@marycmccormack) January 24, 2024

Josh Malina, who did his share of teasing of something in the works on social media, followed up with a post on X that said, “what, you were expecting a reboot?”

What? You were expecting a reboot?

— (((Jew))) (@JoshMalina) January 24, 2024

Previous: Maybe it’s a Super Bowl commercial. Or perhaps a reunion panel.

Either way, actors Joshua Malina and Mary McCormack are throwing their social media followers in a tizzy with a series of posts suggesting that a reboot of The West Wing is in the works for the drama’s 25th anniversary this year.

The most recent teaser came courtesy of McCormack,...

If you follow politics or regularly consume the news, you might feel like Donald Trump is all around you. As you read this, you might well be imagining, with unsettling precision, the former president’s voice billowing filth and invective in your brain.

Chris Hayes, the MSNBC primetime host, thinks about Trump a lot — and he’s sick of it. “It’s a kind of prison,” he tells Rolling Stone of his, and the nation’s, preoccupation with the former president.

Yet, Hayes says, the media needs to cover Trump more.

Megyn Kelly gave her best impersonation of MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell while mocking his comments about how GOP voters overwhelmingly agree with Donald Trump’s claims that migrants from the southern border are “poisoning” the country.

During their discussion of Trump’s Iowa Republican caucus win on Kelly’s podcast “The Megyn Kelly Show,” video of which you can watch above, the host and her co-hosts Stu Burguiere and Dave Marcus also chatted about Trump’s “poisoning” remarks, which he initially made during a rally in New Hampshire back in December.

“[Trump] said this thing about immigrants are poisoning the blood, and there’s a real question about whether some of the immigrants coming across our southern border are — we know they are — bringing fentanyl into this country and literally poisoning the blood. Literally being responsible for poisoning the blood of Americans…. This has been something Trump has been raging about for a while,...

Have you heard it’s cold in Des Moines? The subzero temperatures are making Monday’s caucuses in Iowa the coldest on record, a running theme of coverage throughout the day and into this evening. It’s not trivial, as the frigid weather may very well impact turnout.

As Iowa’s first votes of the 2024 presidential race come in, expect a lot of analysis, punditry and prediction, even if the results represent just a sliver of the primary electorate. The Hawkeye state’s primacy as the first-in-the-nation often obscures the peculiarities of the caucus system, unless there is some kind of glitch, which is what happened four years ago with the Democrats.

That said, networks see the caucuses as the kickoff of what is hoped a spike in viewer interest in the presidential contest, as was seen in 2020 and 2016. All of the broadcast networks are planning for ongoing coverage of...

MSNBC’s Morning Joe and Way Too Early were interrupted on Tuesday due to apparent technical problems.

“Alright, thanks for bearing with us everybody. It is Tuesday December 12th. Getting started a little bit late this morning,” host Mika Brzezinski told viewers at about 6:11 a.m. Et.

The problems started in the 5 a.m. hour during Way Too Early, and anchor Jonathan Lemiere posted on X Twitter at 5:32 a.m. Et, “To those looking for Way Too Early this morning — we are experiencing technical difficulties. Our apologies.” As the show ended, Lemiere posted again, “Stay with us at MSNBC, we hope to be broadcasting live again soon. Thank you for your patience.”

When Morning Joe started at 6 a.m. Et, the screen featured a shot of the Capitol and The Who’s Teenage Wasteland playing, according to Mediaite. Commercials and promotions aired, then a re-airing of Last Word...

Technical issues sent MSNBC on a Tuesday-morning scramble.

The NBCUniversal-backed cable news outlet was forced to run more than ten minutes of promos and ads and a snippet of a repeat from Lawrence O’Donnell’s primetime show just after 6 a.m. as engineers and staffers grappled with an as-yet-unknown glitch that kept “Morning Joe” from coming on the air at its usual time. Finally, “Morning Joe” co-anchor Mika Brzezinski surfaced on air at about 6:11 a.m. to kick off the program and apologize for the delay.

“Thanks for bearing with us, everybody,” Brzezinski. Viewers had initially seen a shot of the U.S. Capitol at the top of the hour along with some of the strains of The Who’s seminal rock song “Baba O’Riley.”

MSNBC declined to comment. Jonathan Lemire, the anchor of the 5 a.m. program, “Way Too Early,” cited “technical difficulties” via a post on the social-media platform X.

CNN’s debut of King Charles, the new show featuring Gayle King and Charles Barkley, premiered to 510,000 viewers, according to Nielsen fast national early numbers.

The show’s total viewing audience was well behind rivals: Fox News’ Gutfeld! topped the time slot with 1.97 million viewers, and MSNBC averaged 1.62 million with The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell.

The CNN show, however, did edge out MSNBC in the 25-54 demo, averaging 139,000, compared to 132,000 for MSNBC’s The Last Word and 257,000 for Fox News’ Gutfeld!

King Charles is a once-a-week 10 p.m. Et show on Wednesday evening, and the first show guests included Steve Kerr. The show was part of then-cnn CEO Chris Licht’s strategy of programming primetime with star names. Licht was let go from the network in June, but CNN went forward with the King-Barkley show, which is a limited series that will run through early next year.

CNN Newsnight with Abby Phillip,...

The reign of King Charles — the CNN show, not the British monarch — began rather quietly Wednesday.

The weekly show, hosted by Gayle King and Charles Barkley, drew just 501,00 viewers for its debut, according to same-day Nielsen ratings (it adjusted up a little from 486,000 in fast nationals). It finished a distant third among the biggest cable news channels in total viewers and didn’t really moving the needle from CNN’s recent averages in the hour. In fact, it ranks as the smallest audience of any of CNN’s primetime debuts this year.

King Charles was one of the last big moves of the brief Chris Licht era at CNN. The Warner Bros. Discovery-owned network announced the show in late April — six weeks before Licht was let go following a profile in The Atlantic that was poorly received among network staffers. (Mark Thompson became CEO of CNN in October.)

The...

Update: As expected, Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis clashed at the third Republican debate, engaging in extended tussles and accusations that the other has been coddling China.

Their clashes were largely between themselves, with relatively little time spent on the runaway front runner in the race, Donald Trump.

Haley has been critical of Trump in previous debates for running up the deficit, and DeSantis tonight ran through a list of criticisms, including why he didn’t “drain the swamp.” But neither candidate engaged in the kind of sustained barrage of Trump that would be expected, particularly since the former president has not only skipped the debate and belittled them, he has been counter programming the events.

“This is the debate … in case Donald Trump chokes on a cheeseburger,” MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell said in some of the post-commentary.

Trump’s decision to skip the debates — initially viewed as a risk...

The Creative Coalition’s annual Humanitarian Awards takes place the week of the Primetime Emmys — but even though the big show was pushed to January, the benefit luncheon still took place on Thursday, Sept. 14 at the La Peer Hotel rooftop in West Hollywood, attracting a wide range of honorees and presenters.

The Humanitarian Awards recognizes talent who donate their time, resources and their celebrity to promote worthy social causes. This year, honors went to Jason Alexander, Pauline Chalamet, Billy Eichner, Wendie Malick, Arian Moayed and Lena Waithe, as well as Josefina López, who was saluted with the Your Voice Carries Weight award. Presenters included Alyssa Milano, Cazzie David, Lawrence O’Donnell, Gloria Calderón Kellet, Samantha Hanratty, Debbie Levin, Bradley Whitford and Darnell Moore.

Variety co-editor-in-chief Cynthia Littleton hosted the luncheon, which opened with remarks from The Creative Coalition CEO Robin Bronk; both cited the org’s continued fight for arts funding and education.

Stop us if you’ve heard this one before: A prominent TV reporter walks into a bar…

A handful of the news anchors at MSNBC recently held a dinner to welcome Ana Cabrera, the former CNN journalist, to the network, where she has taken the reins of its 10 a.m. hour. Chris Jansing and Katy Tur, familiar faces to MSNBC viewers, were holding court, but Andrea Mitchell, a legendary Washington correspondent who has anchored an early afternoon show on MSNBC since 2008, was missing, due to making an appearance at Henry Kissinger’s 100th birthday.

“I thought a 100th birthday party for somebody would end early,” Mitchell confesses. “But it didn’t.”

Cabrera, Jansing, Tur, Mitchell have all found time to get together more frequently in recent weeks. They, along with their colleague, José Díaz-Balart, are playing a more critical role at MSNBC — but not in hours when such significance might be expected.

Former Principal Deputy Solicitor General of the United States Neal Katyal thinks Donald Trump’s all-over-the-place interview with Megyn Kelly isn’t the most “unwise strategy.”

On “The Last Word with MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell,” Katyal, who formerly worked under President Obama, pointed out that Trump’s verbal dodge and weave tactics provide him the extrajudicial defense he needs.

“I know everyone’s saying, ‘Well, Trump is reckless in giving this interview,’ and the like. I have a different view. I actually think that this is not an unwise strategy for him, because he doesn’t have a legal defense, he doesn’t have a factual defense,” Katyal said.

“The only defense he has is to try and poison the jury pool with his cockamamie nonsense and hope that he can draw a juror that’s going to say this or, as Andrew says, hope that he can just stretch...

Jen Psaki is stretching beyond her weekend shift at MSNBC.

The former Biden White House Press Secretary turned Sunday commentator is expanding her purview at the NBCUniversal-backed cable outlet. She will begin anchoring MSNBC’s 8 p.m. hour on Mondays, a slot that the regular host of that hour, Chris Hayes, typically has off. While Psaki’s “Inside with Jen Psaki will air on Mondays at 8 p.m., Hayes’ “All In With Chris Hayes” will continue to appear Tuesdays through Fridays at 8 p.m.

The new Psaki schedule starts Monday, September 25.

The maneuver will create a singular Monday block at MSNBC in which Psaki will lead into Rachel Maddow’s weekly program Mondays at 9 p.m. The move is also likely inject Psaki into primetime proceedings at moments of national import, when MSNBC President Rashida Jones often convenes a panel of popular commentators, including Maddow, Alex Wagner, Lawrence O’Donnell,...

MSNBC host and former White House press secretary Jen Psaki is going to primetime.

Inside With Jen Psaki will now run on the cable news channel on Monday nights at 8 p.m. beginning Sep. 25, replacing an hour of All In With Chris Hayes.

Hayes will continue to host his show on Tuesday through Friday nights. Psaki will also continue to host Inside on Sundays at noon, and write her MSNBC political column.

MSNBC noted that, for the past year, All In has had a rotating slate of guest hosts on Monday nights as Hayes has worked on his podcast, an upcoming book, and live events. He will continue to expand his portfolio of content for the company. Psaki, it should be noted, was a frequent guest host for Hayes on Monday nights.

While hosts like Hayes and The Last Word’s Lawrence O’Donnell have been stalwarts of MSNBC’s primetime lineup (for 10 and 13 years,...

Update: As the news cycle focus continued to be on Donald Trump’s latest indictment, MSNBC notched another win in primetime.

The network averaged 1.99 million viewers on Tuesday evening, with All In with Chris Hayes and The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell winning their time periods. Fox News averaged 1.92 million and CNN posted 779,000.

The network also notched wins with the first hour of Deadline: White House at 4 p.m., The Beat with Ari Melber at 6 p.m. and The 11th Hour with Stephanie Ruhle at 11 p.m., along with Way Too Early at 5 a.m. and MSNBC Reports in the afternoon hours. The top show of the day was Fox News’s The Five, which averaged 2.71 million viewers.

In the 25-54 demo in primetime, Fox News topped with 247,000, followed by MSNBC with 225,000 and CNN with 162,000.

The ratings are from Nielsen via MSNBC and Fox News.

MSNBC won total viewers despite...

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Former President Donald Trump’s indictment announcement Tuesday led to a bump in cable news viewership, with MSNBC overtaking Fox News for the primetime crown with 2.63 million viewers.

Trump’s third criminal indictment was announced on Tuesday and included multiple charges of conspiracy and obstruction. The indictment, which is related to Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 Election, detailed the former President’s actions during the Jan 6. riot.

MSNBC, the only network to broadcast special coverage of the indictment, swept overall primetime figures as the No. 1 most-watched cable news channel. Fox News came in second place with 2.19 million total viewers, while CNN lagged behind with 1.06 million viewers, according to Nielsen-live-plus-same-day figures.

The trend continued in the demo for primetime, with MSNBC leading the pack with 350,000 viewers in the...

Jesse Watters’ debut as the permanent occupant of Fox News’ 8 p.m. hour gave the network a boost in the timeslot, versus the series of replacement hosts who have filled the time period since the cancellation of Tucker Carlson’s show.

Jesse Watters Primetime averaged 2.47 million viewers during the hour. That compares to the 1.66 million that Fox News Tonight averaged in June.

Still, Watters’ audience was less than the 3.1 million viewers that Carlson averaged in the time period last July. The network is obviously aiming for Watters’ audience to grow, as Carlson’s did after he replaced Bill O’Reilly in 2017.

Watters on Monday beat cable news rivals, including an MSNBC Joe Scarborough special, which averaged 1.29 million, and CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360, which averaged 686,000.

In the adults 25-54 demo, Watters averaged 161,000 viewers, compared to 139,000 for MSNBC’s Scarborough and 120,000 for CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360.

Watters’ move was among a series...

When Sean Hannity handed off his Fox News program to Laura Ingraham last Thursday night, he had company.

On-air switches between cable-news hosts make for bright moments on Fox News, CNN and MSNBC, with the audiences at home and producers in studio looking at warm exchanges between personalities like Hannity and Ingraham or Rachel Maddow and Lawrence O’Donnell. The chatter between former CNN hosts Chris Cuomo and Don Lemon generated so much attention that producers often let the segment bleed into Lemon’s first segment of the night and even time reserved for commercials. These days, Hannity has begun letting a new crowd bear witness.

Since January of this year, Hannity has been hosting some editions of his regular 9 p.m. program in front of a live, in-studio audience consisting of a few dozen people. On Wednesdays and Thursdays, Fox News viewers can see the crowd as “Hannity” goes to commercial break,...