video Due to Morning Joe's tendency of having colorful personalities from Joe Biden to Donald Trump drop by, Wonkette once elegantly (albeit slightly inaccurately) described it as "the one where some ex-Congressman and a random statesman’s daughter drink Bacardi for like four hours and then have sex on Dylan Ratigan’s ottoman." But today the Morning Joe crew proved they are also providing the most informative and relevant content in morning cable news programming with a debate on reconstructing the public school system that every parent in an at-risk community should pay close attention to. (more...)

video Taking a refreshing vacation from the serious issues facing Washington today (tickle fights), the Morning Joe team indulged in some network cross-promotion as Donald Trump crash-landed onto the show to promote the new season of Celebrity Apprentice premiering this Sunday. And what an interview it was: he praised Rod Blagojevich, he called for the retraction of Al Gore's Nobel Peace Prize ("I'm not supposed to use hair spray!"), he hit on Mika Brzezinski. It was the best ten minutes in the show's history since a drunken Terry McAuliffe took Bacardi shots on air to drown the pain of Hillary Clinton's primary defeat in 2008. (more...)

video There have been some recent and unsubstantiated questions surrounding Mediaite founder Dan Abrams and his past and current relationship with NBC News. Well as we informed you at the time, it was a non-issue. Abrams appeared on MSNBC's Morning Joe and NBC's Today Show (multiple times), providing Chief Legal analysis on a number of topics, including Glenn Beck's interview with Eric Massa, the Letterman extortion case and more (including a couple of name checks for dear old Mediaite.) (more...)

video John Ziegler was back on the air with his favorite sparring partner this morning, MSNBC, in an interview with Joe Scarborough on Morning Joe. And the Sarah Palin filmmaker and fan had mostly positive things to say about the former VP nominee - although some surprisingly negative comments as well. (more...)

video Harold Ford, Jr., the former Tennessee Democratic Congressman whose non-run for US Senate in New York ushered in the definitive return of the word "carpetbagger" to American political vernacular, appeared on Morning Joe today to reiterate his reasons for not running and expand upon the comments he made in the New York Times op-ed published yesterday announcing his decision not to run. The short version is that he is such a party loyalist that he wants nothing less than a Democratic victory in New York, and while he believes he could have won the primary, it would have been such a tough race that the Republican candidate would have cruised to victory in November. He was surprisingly laid back, believable, and, with a supportive Joe Scarborough on his side, confident. Which begs the question: where was this Harold Ford for the past three months? (more...)

Joe Scarborough is getting a little tired of the accusations that naturally follow from being one of the last remaining conservatives on MSNBC. The Morning Joe host wrote a column on Town Hall making an impassioned defense of his conservative ideals, aptly titled "Am I Not Conservative Enough?", mostly directed at Media Research Center's Brent Bozell. (more...)

video Marc Thiessen is a former speechwriter to George W. Bush, and author of Courting Disaster: How the CIA Kept America Safe and How Barack Obama is Inviting the Next Attack . This morning he was invited on MSNBC's Morning Joe this morning to discuss President Obama's counter terrorism efforts, and came upon a spirited, relentless and indefatigable Lawrence O'Donnell, who truly tore into Thiessen to a degree rarely seen on even the most intense cable news programs. Host Joe Scarborough had to interrupt the "discussion" to go to commercial break, basically taking O'Donnell out of the equation. Who says liberals are soft on defense? (more...)

video After his Fox News Sunday interview with Sarah Palin, the show's host Chris Wallace either rolled his eyes or didn't, depending on whether you believe MSNBC's Joe Scarborough or Wallace himself. Whether it matters or not is an entirely separate issue, but the MSNBC accusation was enough to get a response from Fox News and Wallace, who not only clarified that he did not roll his eyes, but said that chatter about the interview has not been focused on him, but on the formidable candidate Sarah Palin. (more...)

video The story of embattled political soon-to-be ex-wife Jenny Sanford is one of the rarest incidents in American politics: a story that both sides can spin to fit their narrative. Sanford went on a media tour to promote her new book, Staying True, that hit all three major cable news channels and the unofficial fourth power in journalism, The Daily Show. And despite the vast ideological gaps among the mediums, every interviewer wanted her on their team. (more...)

video Morning Joe, the most laid-back cable news program this side of Red Eye, may not be the first place to look for a call to arms against beer-and-chips gag ads on the Super Bowl, but guest Donny Deutsch took the opportunity to remind companies that football fans are not as dumb as they might think. (more...)

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In case you're wondering how the Sarah Palin "Telepalmter" story is going to play out this week, look no further than this morning's Morning Joe. NBC News' Andrea Mitchell satirized the former governor (and future candidate for President?) by writing her colleagues' names on her hand, and Joe Scarborough pushed back with the omnipresent conservative TOTUS meme, which states that every politician except President Obama is allowed to use a teleprompter.

Mitchell's display should provide ample grist for Palin supporters in need of a juicy target, and more are sure to come. (more...)

video MSNBC President Phil Griffin sent a memo to staff reminding them "we do not publicly criticize our colleagues," in the wake of Joe Scarborough tweeting that Keith Olbermann's recent Scott Brown rant was "reckless" and "sad." Huffington Post has the full memo. The note was sent Friday, which we hear came after behind-the-scenes back-and-forth took place between all sides. (more...)

slideshow Game Change authors Mark Halperin and John Heilemann joined Morning Joe host Joe Scarborough in discussing their best-selling and oft blogged about book. Halperin mentioned during the event that the authors are in discussions with HBO about making a film version of their best-selling book. Their dreamcast? Meryl Streep playing Hillary Clinton and Will Smith playing Barack Obama. (more...)

video Keith Olbermann unleashed a super-aggressive, borderline-absurd last minute "quick comment" about GOP Massachusetts U.S. Senate candidate Scott Brown, highlighting some of the story lines that have been put out there by his critics over the last few weeks and taking it to a nauseating extreme. But it was the Twitter response from Olbermann's MSNBC colleague Joe Scarborough, by name, that may further this story even more. Update: With Scarborough video. (more...)

Morning Joe host Joe Scarborough, via his Twitter feed, tried to put Pat Robertson's comments about Haiti's pact with Satan, pointing out the televangelist's charitable relief work. As a result, many in the Twitterverse who see this as a defense of Robertson's remarks are scorning Joe. Scarborough fought back. Here are some choice Tweets.

Here's the tweet that started it all:

video MSNBC's Morning Joe may not have anywhere near the ratings of Fox News' morning show, Fox & Friends (or of CNN's American Morning, or HLN's Morning Express in the demo, or FNC's 3amET show Red Eye - wow), but it does have something the others don't: a free-flowing, unscripted conversation tailor-made for political junkies. Here's a look back at the year in Morning Joe: (more...)

The year 2009 had many media bright spots, break-out stars, dominating networks and game-changing technologies.  The Mediaite 50 collects the finest, most exemplary innovators and influencers of the year, defining a media moment in time and setting the agenda as we move forward. (more...)

You'd have to be living under a rock not to know that Mad Men is debuting its third season this Sunday. For the past month fans have been inundated with Mad Men Twitter avatars, Mad Men window-dressings, and Mad Men-themed websites. All this smoke-filled, sexed-up, whiskey-splashed glamour is enough to make one long for the heady days of the early Sixties — who knew advertising could be so compelling? We know who — the folks at Morning Joe, currently representing the most harmonious blend of advertising and editorial on the airwaves. Don Draper himself couldn't have topped it (and he might even have switched out his whiskey for a Venti Frappucino). From there, the comparisons suddenly seemed obvious. So, in the tradition of merging the media beat with whatever pop culture sensation we're currently obsessed with (Harry Potter and the Media Muggles, anyone?) we thought it would be fun to cast the Mad Morning Men (and Women) of Morning Joe. Hey, what else are you gonna do until Sunday at 10? (more...)

video We've seen Ben Affleck's impression on Saturday Night Live. Glenn Beck gave it a shot recently (it still needs a little work). And this morning on MSNBC's Morning Joe, Joe Scarborough took on the persona of his colleague Keith Olbermann as he mocked the lofty rhetoric of 2008 Election Night. Update: maybe. (more...)

There's a Youtube clip going around that has alarm bells going off about the White House's support of Harry Reid's opt-out public option bill, versus a public option trigger that had the support of GOP Senator Olympia Snowe (R-Maine). In the clip, NBC News' Chuck Todd tells Joe Scarborough that White House sources are telling Reid, "Don't come crying to us for that last vote." (more...)

Gail Collins' new book When Everything Changed, which we have written about in this space before, was released this week (buy here!) and the New York Times columnist has been making the media rounds this week. This morning she appeared on a large chunk of Morning Joe to discuss, among other things, the fact that former Vice President Dick Cheney is a "dweeb." (more...)

video The Morning Joe team flashed back to around 2005 this morning, as co-host Joe Scarborough and regular guest Lawrence O'Donnell went at it over weapons of mass destruction, the lead up to the war in Iraq and the Bush administration. All this came about after some more harsh comments aimed at Pres. Barack Obama by former VP Dick Cheney last night. (more...)

video There was another discussion of Glenn Beck and the Fox News vs. White House battle today on MSNBC's Morning Joe and disagreement on the set brought some new angles to the debate. Donny Deutsch talked about message - and the White House's mishandling of it. And Joe Scarborough brought up some unnamed liberals who went after the Bush administration. (more...)

Today's announcement of President Barack Obama's Nobel Peace Prize created quite a stir in the world of opinion journalism. The left seemed eager to agree with the seeming absurdity of getting nominated for such an honor only 12 days in office, but the right have been downright giddy -- some went so far as to claim that this is "way worse than not getting the Olympics!" Huh?! Following is a run-down of real right-wing reaction to this morning's news. (more...)

video President Obama struck a remarkably humble and modest tone in a speech today where he announced his intentions to accept the Nobel Peace Prize, which was announced earlier today. This is a remarkably different tone from that of his conservative critics, perhaps best exemplified by the outright laughter from MSNBC Host Joe Scarborough (who was later allegedly called out by the White House). Video of his speech after the jump. (more...)

video Joe Scarborough claimed earlier this week that Conservative Radio Host Rush Limbaugh isn't helping the Republican party by expressing joy over Chicago's Olympics failure. Well Limbaugh hit back claiming that Scarborough was doing his "best impression of a neutered chickified moderate" when he spoke out again him. (more...)

video The set of Morning Joe became particularly tense this morning when host Joe Scarborough and author Max Blumenthal got into a remarkably strained back-and-forth over, you guessed it, right-wing versus left-wing criticisms of Administration's past and present. Blumenthal was on to promote his new book Republican Gomorrah, a title that might have tipped Morning Joe producers off on just how the segment might turn out. (more...)

You may wonder if cable news personalities actually watch their own network when they go home at night. Well now with Twitter, we're able to find out. In Joe Scarborough's case, it seems he'd much rather watch Bill O'Reilly on rival network Fox News than Keith Olbermann on his own network MSNBC. (more...)

Where were you a year ago today? If you are a political journalist — or media hanger-on — chances are you were living out of a suitcase at the 2008 Presidential Conventions, with the Dems nominating Barack Obama in Denver and the GOP nominating John McCain in Minneapolis/St. Paul. Remember those heady days? (more...)

"We're talking to ourselves. It's like we have built this conservative ghetto — like the Warsaw Ghetto — where we have put ourselves ideologically in a box, and we shout and scream and yell at each other, but we need to get out and we need to start talking to the center of America where elections are won ." — Joe Scarborough on MSNBC's Morning Joe, in discussion with Sam Tanenhaus about his latest book, The Death of Conservatism, on the echo chamber of current Conservative thought, and how it's totally like being walled off in an overcrowded, disease-ridden plot of land where Germans went on killing sprees and then deported people to concentration camps. (more...)

Media Matters has really outdone itself with this organized, fact-based post, "Myths and falsehoods about health care reform," that brings clarity to the misrepresentations and obfuscations about the Health Care debate over the past few weeks. (more...)

VIDEO Sometimes an interview goes off the rails, and it's very obvious where things started going poorly. But Lawrence O'Donnell's interview-like segment (it would be giving it too much credit to actually call it an "interview") with GOP Rep. John Culberson of Texas yesterday was awful and shouty from start to finish. It left an agitated Culberson bashing MSNBC as a network after being interrupted for the umpteenth time. As Joe Scarborough described it on Twitter, "Lawrence O'Donnell (aka Crazy Larry) erupts on congressman." Let's take a look at what happened. (more...)

VIDEO You could see the wheels turning in Joe Scarborough's mind as he thought the wheels were coming off on Glenn Beck's Fox News show yesterday. The MSNBC host wrote on Twitter, "Not a good sign when Glenn Beck's own guests look @ him like he's crazy," and later followed up: "Beck show so strange today. Host tries to paint vast left conspiracy and guests just stared at him like he was out of his mind. Bizarre TV." Those initial tweets turned into a lengthy segment on Morning Joe this morning, where Scarborough and the rest of the guests tried to make sense of what occurred the night before on a competing network. (more...)

VIDEO If it's attention Glenn Beck wanted - he got it. MSNBC just finished segment #6 (via TV Eyes) focusing on Glenn Beck's comments yesterday during Fox & Friends, in which he said President Barack Obama has "a deep-seeded hatred for white people" and "this guy is, I believe, a racist." With a hand-off non-response by FNC management, MSNBC, the NAACP and more have gone on the offensive. (more...)

A new, earlier cable news show debuted today on MSNBC, as Willie Geist, of Morning Joe, checked in a half-hour early for his 5:30amET Way Too Early.

With a hip-hop soundtrack not typically seen on cable news, the show moves along at an atypically speedy pace. Then again, Geist is not a typical cable news host. (more...)

Wouldn't it be ironic if Gov. Sarah Palin swoops in to take the job of one of her biggest defenders in the media?

It's an idea floated today by Joe Scarborough on MSNBC. The theory: Palin moves in to Fox News as the host of a 10pmET show, replacing Greta Van Susteren. (more...)

The Morning Joe crew talked about Gov. Mark Sanford this morning, and host Joe Scarborough called out "certain cable news hosts last night, some on this network," that took "unbridled glee in this man's problem and the pain of his wife, the pain of his children." But before going to break, he asked, "Should we give names?" He was denied, so we'll do it — he's talking about Keith Olbermann and Ed Schultz. (more...)

What do 70 mentions of your book on MSNBC since June 1 (according to TVEyes.com) get you? If you're Joe Scarborough, it gets you a 7th place debut on this week's New York Times Bestsellers List. That's not bad - but for all the free publicity it got on Scarborough's own network, a higher debut was surely expected. (more...)