Thomas Roberts

MSNBC’s Thomas Roberts is an openly liberal host who frequently makes disparaging comments towards conservatives and the Republican Party. And as it the modus operandi at the network, he frequently brings on fellow liberals to bash conservatives, often without the benefit of giving a conservative equal time to fire back.

Following shocking revelations that the IRS has been selectively investigating conservative groups for some three years now, Roberts brought on Julian Bond, chairman emeritus of the NAACP, to discuss what Roberts believed, “brings to mind the agency's 2004 probe of the NAACP.” [See video after jump. MP3 audio here.]

Liberal news anchor Thomas Roberts is known for using advocacy journalism to promote liberal policies on his daily MSNBC show. For example, Roberts, who himself is openly gay, will run pro-gay marriage puff pieces on a regular basis.

On May 8 however, Roberts’ liberal puffery reached new heights as he introduced a new segment entitled  "The Agenda" which features only "reporters who cover progressive issues."

Washington Post media blogger Erik Wemple spends a lot of time picking apart Fox broadcasts, but he was stunned by a Thomas Roberts interview on MSNBC with the new leader of NARAL Pro-Choice America, Ilyse Hogue. She claimed “we were the first out of the gate to call attention to this case.” Like a news butler, Roberts set her up to make that bizarre claim and then moved on to the next publicist's softball.

Wemple shot back: “Having done precisely 3,454 Nexis and Internet search on the Gosnell case, we missed the part where NARAL had led a charge to highlight the alleged atrocities in West Philadelphia.” He kept searching, and NARAL’s new boss kept looking sillier and sillier:

The folks at MSNBC are still getting thrills down their leg at the thought of a out-of-the-closet gay man playing in the NBA.

Today, openly gay news anchor and MSNBC Live host Thomas Roberts -- who on a regular basis runs gay marriage advocacy segments on his program -- treated viewers to a puff piece in which he compared Washington Wizards center Jason Collins to the African-American athlete who broke the color barrier in Major League Baseball in 1947. [See video after jump.  MP3 audio here.]

The ongoing trial of Dr. Kermit Gosnell has ignited the already contentious abortion debate across this country.  Dr. Gosnell is on trial for the murder of four babies and one woman at his abortion clinic, which people have called a “House of Horrors.”

Given the horrific nature of the crimes Gosnell is accused of committing, one would think MSNBC would discuss this horrific trial in any future discussion on abortion. Unfortunately, if you are Thomas Roberts, such a concept is foreign to you.

Following a speech by President Obama at the annual Planned Parenthood gala on April 26, Roberts decided to bring on three pro-abortion guests to trash Republicans, yet did not ask any of the guests about the Gosnell trial.  [See video after jump.  MP3 audio here.]

Leave it to Thomas Roberts to not let a tragedy go to waste.  Appearing on his daily MSNBC show on April 22, Roberts felt it appropriate to use last Monday's deadly terrorist bombing in Boston to push for federal gun control legislation. 

Speaking with Patricia Maisch, survivor of the Tucson shooting which critically wounded former Rep. Gabby Giffords (D-Ariz.), Roberts noted that the brothers Tsarnaev, residents of Massachusetts, did NOT legally own the firearms they used in a shootout with police last Thursday.

The media’s irresponsible speculation regarding the perpetrator of the terrorist attack in Boston seems to continue on MSNBC.  Appearing on MSNBC’s Martin Bashir on April 16, fill-in host Thomas Roberts brought on Harvard’s Jessica Stern to make predictions about who might have initiated the terrorist attack on April 15.

Stern began her segment by saying that the kind of bomb used in this attack was published in an al-Qaeda magazine before launching into her speculation that the far-right may be responsible:

Former congressman Barney Frank (D-Mass.) went on MSNBC this morning to react to yesterday’s bombing at the Boston Marathon. In a shameless moment of advocacy, Frank used the tragedy to make a political statement about revenue and the size of government. Considering that this happened on MSNBC, you might expect the host to condone the congressman’s liberal activism, but anchor Thomas Roberts actually called Frank out for his despicable attempt to politicize this tragedy.

Early in the interview, Frank stressed that none of us know much about who and what were behind this event as of yet. So the former congressman turned to what he does know how to do – attacking his ideological opponents: [Video below. MP3 audio here.]

Liberals remain fearful of the rising political star of Dr. Ben Carson, and they are on the lookout for any possible way to undermine him. On last Saturday’s Weekends with Alex Witt, MSNBC fill-in host Thomas Roberts did his part by comparing Carson to the Left’s favorite target of ridicule. [Video below. MP3 audio here.]

Roberts was talking to Republican strategist Joe Watkins about recent controversial statements made by Dr. Carson and Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska). Watkins thoroughly denounced both of the insensitive statements in no uncertain terms. But then Roberts followed up by essentially dismissing Dr. Carson:

It's amazing how within a single one-hour television program, the same host can provide balanced reporting on one story but provide completely one-sided coverage of another.  For once on the issue of gun control, MSNBC’s Thomas Roberts provided a balanced perspective of the issue at hand. 

The same unfortunately cannot be said of abortion, as on April 2, Roberts featured Ilyse Hogue, President of NARAL Pro-Choice America for a one-sided discussion on, “another western state cracking down on abortion rights.”  Of course, Roberts failed to bring on a pro-life activist on to challenge the abortion lobby activist, who trashed as unconstitutional and dangerous for women's health recent pro-life measures passed by state legislatures in North Dakota and Kansas.   [See video after jump.  MP3 audio here.]

MSNBC’s gun control push has its limits, apparently, as anchor Thomas Roberts today distinguished himself by actually doing a journalist's job: presenting both sides of a political debate. 

On his April 2 MSNBC Live program, Roberts actually played video of Mark Mattioli, whose son was murdered at Sandy Hook Elementary, speaking out in support of the National Rife Association's call for trained armed guards in schools across America.  [See video after jump.  MP3 audio here.]

MSNBC not only grants its openly gay anchor Thomas Roberts a platform where he can advocate for his pet LGBT causes every weekday morning. Roberts appeared as a guest on The Cycle on Wednesday afternoon from the Supreme Court steps to offer his personal feelings about the Supreme Court cases being argued.  Roberts drew supportive laughter about gay marriage when he said "I highly recommend it," but he wanted the Court to rule 9-0 in favor of the gay Left, as it did in the Sixties on interracial marriage.

Toure wanted Roberts to explain why "marriage" was a magic word that insures social approval of homosexuality: (Video below)

The liberal media's push for gun control has long included the tactic of attempting to shame the National Rifle Association (NRA) and other gun rights activists into silence. That tactic was once again deployed by MSNBC's Thomas Roberts this morning in his interview with liberal Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal (Conn.), who is calling on the nation's oldest civil rights organization to cease and desist robocalls to phone numbers in the Newtown, Connecticut, area.

At no point in the softball interview, however, was it mentioned that some Newtown parents like Mark Mattioli and Bill Stevens have testified in opposition to fresh gun control laws nor that there's been a spike in applications for gun permits in Newtown following the mass shooting, perhaps because those facts cut against the notion that the entire Newtown area is anti-NRA as a result of December's tragedy.

"As we talk about history, today marks the 6-year anniversary that Scooter Libby was convicted of lying and obstructing in the leak investigation which led to your cover as a covert CIA operative being blown," MSNBC's Thomas Roberts noted at the close of his March 6 MSNBC Live interview with Valerie Plame. "We're getting word now that he has had his voting rights restored," the MSNBC anchor added. "How do you feel, as you look back, hindsight being 20/20, about what that moment in time did to your life, where you are today?"

Plame answered that she and her husband Joe Wilson "worked really hard to rebuild our lives" and that they "wish that there had been further repercussions," because, "The whole episode is just a small example of a larger pattern of behavior that we saw under the Bush administration." But alas, speaking of history, this short exchange was a bit misleading for viewers as it was Colin Powell confidante Richard Armitage who had leaked Plame's name to columnist Robert Novak, albeit inadvertently. From CNN.com on September 8, 2006:

Updated | Ever since becoming a full-time employee of MSNBC, conservative columnist and pundit S.E. Cupp has seemed to take it upon herself to rebuke the conservative movement from time to time on air, for which, of course, she is rewarded with applause by her liberal colleagues. 

Earlier this week on her program The Cycle, Cupp said that she will no longer speak at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) due to their policy refusing gay groups GOProud and Log Cabin Republicans from sponsoring the conservative gathering. Cupp had earlier accepted a speaking invitation (see screencapture below page break) for the 2013 event, and Cupp had no such objection last year, when she both spoke at and held a book signing at the conference.  [See video after jump.  MP3 audio here.]

Twenty minutes into her February 20 Jansing & Co. program, MSNBC anchor Chris Jansing noted that former Illinois Democrat Jesse Jackson was entering a federal courtroom later that hour to plead guilty to campaign finance violations. Only Jansing left out the part about Jackson being a Democrat.

What's more, while Jansing noted that Jackson's wife Sandi was answering charges of filing false tax returns, she failed to note that Sandi Jackson, also a Democrat, resigned her seat as Chicago city alderman in January.

Following President Obama’s call to raise the federal minimum wage to $9/hour in Tuesday's State of the Union address, MSNBC has been eagerly pushing the president’s new-found support for the hike.

Speaking on February 14, host Thomas Roberts conducted a one-sided interview with liberal contributor Goldie Taylor on the supposed need to jack up the minimum wage.  As most of Roberts’ segments are, not one guest was brought on to challenge Taylor’s liberal motives, with Roberts introducing the segment as such:

Leave it to MSNBC’s openly gay host Thomas Roberts to not let facts get in the way of a good story in service of pushing a pro-same-sex agenda.  On the January 29 edition of MSNBC Live, Roberts brought on a gay couple from Kentucky to promote their efforts to obtain a  marriage license in the Bluegrass State.

Roberts, who has segments nearly every day promoting gay marriage, began this segment in his typical biased manner:

In what has become a daily theme, once again, MSNBC is pushing a one-sided discussion on gun control.  Speaking on Monday, January 28 with Dan Gross, the President of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, and Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.), host Thomas Roberts continued to lobby for congressional action for strict gun control. Naturally, Roberts failed to bring on a pro-gun rights advocate nor to feature one in a subsequent segment.

Roberts began the segment by hyping a New York Times article describing:

Some gun groups were seeking to, quote, introduce children to high powered rifles and handguns while invoking the same rationale of those older, more traditional programs that firearms can teach life skills like responsibility, ethics, and citizenship.

Leave it to MSNBC’s Thomas Roberts to attempt to smear the pro-life movement on the day of the March for Life with a misleading story about a law introduced in New Mexico regarding abortion. Roberts erroneously reported on a New Mexico state legislator named Cathrynn Brown, who, “introduced a bill that would force rape victims to carry their babies to term and their babies would be used as evidence during a court trial… Under the bill, a rape victim who had an abortion would be thrown in jail for tampering with evidence.”

Roberts brought on Pat Davis, the Executive Director of Progress Now in New Mexico to bash the bill, which, by the way, Roberts completely mischaracterized. What the bill actually would do is make it a crime for a rapist to pressure his victim into undergoing an abortion.  [See video after jump.  MP3 audio here.]

In a segment this morning discussing the breaking news that a panel of judges on the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia unanimously ruled that some of President Obama's recess appointments had been made in an unconstitutional manner, MSNBC's Thomas Roberts turned to network contributor and former Democratic Senate staffer Jimmy Williams for his reaction.

Williams conceded the the court had ruled correctly, but rather than chiding the president for violating his oath of office with unconstitutional appointments, he blamed Senate Republicans for driving Mr. Obama to do so. For his part, Roberts agreed, mumbling "mm hmm" in reply to the ex-lobbyist's partisan swipe [MP3 audio here; video follows page break]:

It seems as though MSNBC’s Ed Schultz has taken Rahm Emanuel’s belief that, “you never want a serious crisis to go to waste” to heart.  Speaking on Monday prior to President Obama’s final press conference of his first term, Schultz disgustingly suggested that the tragedy at Sandy Hook could be "the 9/11 of gun violence."

Schultz, along with the rest of MSNBC have been on a gun control tirade since Sandy Hook, and used President Obama’s press conference to disgustingly use a tragedy for political purposes:

Only at MSNBC would you see a segment entitled “by the numbers” that left out the most important figure: the price tag to the American taxpayer.   Such was the case on Monday morning, with MSNBC Live host Thomas Roberts gushing over the different activities the President Obama and his family participated in during their Christmas vacation in Hawaii. 

The “numbers” Roberts referred to was not the cost of the trip, but rather the number of times Obama and his family enjoyed time on the golf course or swimming [See video after jump.  MP3 audio here.]:

Ever since Reverend Al Sharpton was given his own MSNBC show, PoliticsNation, many have questioned if a prominent liberal activist should even be allowed to promote his liberal causes under the guise of cable news.

Take Sharpton’s latest advocacy efforts on gun control, for example. As MSNBC's Thomas Roberts reported on Thursday: "MSNBC’s Reverend Al Sharpton joined NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly in signing the New York Daily News’ petition to ban assault weapons."  [See video after jump.  MP3 audio here.]

There’s media bias – and then there’s just plain being unhinged.   MSNBC’s Thomas Roberts exhibited the latter in his interview this morning with Rep. Jack Kingston (R-Ga.) was egregious and irresponsible.  Roberts insisted that the United States has incredibly lax gun regulation while Kingston argued that mass shooting still happen in places where gun laws are stringent – namely in Europe.  In turn, Roberts sneered, “so, we need to just be complacent in the fact that we can send our children to school to be assassinated?”  [See video below page break.  MP3 audio here.]

Not only did MSNBC's Thomas Roberts jump on top of yesterday's deadly Oregon mall shooting to push gun control, he presented his softball interview with gun advocate Dan Gross of the Brady Campaign as a "debate." That's right, the segment's title, given in an onscreen graphic was "Gun Control Debate." Of course, Roberts failed to bring on a gun-rights advocate to balance out Gross's appearance, meaning the audience didn't witness an actual debate.

Spokesmen for the Brady Campaign appear regularly on MSNBC, as they share the same gun-control stance of the network's anchors.  Coupled with friendly interviewers like Roberts, they get a platform devoid of any hard questions or valid counterpoints.  [See video below page break.  MP3 audio here.]

In what has become a daily occurrence on MSNBC, liberal hosts and pundits on the network continue to attack the GOP for their scrutiny of U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice’s post-Benghazi spin for the White House on September 16 editions of the network Sunday interview programs. 

Appearing on Wednesday’sMSNBC Live, network contributors Joy-Ann Reid of TheGrio.com and Ari Melber of The Nation appeared on anchor Thomas Roberts's program to continue casting aspersions on Sen. John McCain and other Republicans who have dared to criticize Susan Rice as unfit for a promotion to Secretary of State. Melber and Reid threw in charges of racism and sexism and a conspiracy theory about electing Scott Brown to the Senate.  [See video below page break.  MP3 audio here.]