MSNBC’s New Host, GMA and Deceit | Winners & Losers in Today’s Green Room

Symone Sanders is about to return to television — as the Democratic strategist and former senior advisor to Vice President Kamala Harris is getting a new TV show on MSNBC.

The network announced Sanders will host on weekends. The time slot and the show name are still in development, but Sanders, according to The New York Times, will work as a fill-in anchor and will host The Choice on Peacock until her program is ready to launch in the spring.

“[I plan] to bring my whole self to this show,” Sanders told the Times in an interview. “Yes, I do politics, but I’m also a consumer of pop culture. I watch the news, I check Twitter, but I’m also into Real Housewives. I’m interested in reaching what I call the nonpolitical group chats, the discussions that are penetrating outside of Washington.”

MSNBC President Rashida Jones also spoke to the Times, saying “Symone’s been on our radar for awhile.” Jones’ comments come as MSNBC is looking at a possible lineup shuffle because of Brian Williams’ departure from the

“As soon as we had the opportunity, after she left the White House, we shared the thought that this was the best place for her,” Jones said. She added that she was interested in Sanders’ “perspective as a woman, as a politico, as a Black woman who’s navigated all these areas from a cultural standpoint — her being herself.”

MSNBC says the show “will explore issues at the intersection of politics, culture and race and break down how decisions made in Washington impact electorates, industries, and communities across the country,” says MSNBC.

Sanders left her position as Harris’ chief spokesperson just over a month ago, but has been a recurring media figure for years as press secretary for the Bernie Sanders campaign, a political analyst for CNN, and a senior adviser to Joe Biden‘s campaign. Sanders’ departure comes amid recent stories about reports of turmoil within the VP’s office.

Sanders pushed back on the “gossip” reporting when asked about this, but she also spoke about the position she intends to take on her new show.

“I’m going to tell the truth, and sometimes the truth is critical,” said Sanders. “This administration has its critics, just like everyone does — I have my critics — and we’re going to have those conversations.”

It’s a good fit for Sanders, who enjoys a great deal of political name recognition, and good get for MSNBC.

CDC Chief Dr. Rochelle Walensky took heat from the right and the left over an interview that turns out to have been edited by ABC News in a way that caused many to misinterpret her.

On Friday’s edition of Good Morning America, ABC News aired an interview in which co-anchor Cecilia Vega asked Dr. Walensky about a new study published by the CDC, and Walensky’s answer was stealth-clipped.

The clip aired shows Vega’s question, and the answer from Walensky beginning with this sentence: “The overwhelming number of death, over 75 percent, occurred in people who had at least four comorbidities. So really, these are people who were unwell to begin with.”

What was clipped was the first half of that sentence, where Walensky said she was referencing a specific study of just 1.2 million people, not speaking broadly about deaths over the course of the pandemic.

Some disability advocates misinterpreted the remarks as minimizing the deaths of those with serious comorbidities and created the trending hashtag #MyDisabledLifeIsWorthy in response.

Many conservatives wrongly seized on the remark as an “admission” that 75 percent of ALL Covid deaths were of people “who were unwell to begin with.

That second group, led by hugely shared tweets from Clay Travis, Donald Trump Jr, and Ron Paul, by articles at places like RedState and Daily Caller, and most significantly on air by Fox News, were perhaps the biggest offenders other

And even after the CDC pressured ABC News into releasing the full clip following Mediaite’s inquiries, Fox News hosts like Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham continued to report the erroneous information. Texas Senator Ted Cruz quote-tweeted a GOP official who tweeted out the edited clip, and added his own commentary, which he has since deleted.

That misinformation, which was intended to portray Walenksy’s comments as an admission that Covid was never that serious in the first place, was the most dangerous fallout from this gross misrepresentation by ABC News.

This is at least the second time in recent memory that ABC News has edited crucial quotes from an administration interview, the other being from David Muir’s interview of President Joe Biden. The White House provided Mediaite with a transcript of that missing exchange.

It is not a good trend.