Heilemann on Morning Joe: Trump's Base Hates the 'So-Called' Liberal Media

"The so-called liberal media?" On Monday's Morning Joe, analyst John Heilemann deployed the dismissive phrase as he downplayed legitimate criticism of the dominant press. The comment came during a discussion of President Trump's recent verbal scuffle with Meet the Press moderator Kristen Welker.

Heilemann argued that Trump's base "hates the media" and that confronting the press remained a surefire way to rally "hardcore MAGA people."

"There's been animosity towards the so-called liberal media long before Donald Trump, but he has made it a central part of his political appeal."

So-called? For more than 21 years, NewsBusters has documented the mainstream media's pronounced liberal bias — a reality Heilemann and his MS NOW colleagues continued to treat as imaginary.

The irony was thick. This was the same John Heilemann who claimed in May that the "MAGA base" wants "to see more brown people sent out of the country". In October 2024, he repeatedly stammered that he was "I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm nervous, very nervous" Republicans would launch a civil war if Trump lost the election.

Heilemann has also likened Republican opposition to gas stove bans as an addiction to "bad bathtub meth," called for the display of shocking images of children's bodies from gun violence, and blamed Republicans for Russia's invasion of Ukraine — even with Joe Biden in the White House.

 

 

Back in 2012, Heilemann himself admitted the obvious about media favoritism toward Barack Obama: "No person with eyes in his head in 2008 could have failed to see the way that soft coverage helped to propel Obama first to the Democratic nomination and then into the White House."

Yet now he treats media bias as a figment of the MAGA imagination.

Grabien founder Tom Elliott's took up Heilemann's 2020 challenge to viewers to name examples of MS NOW bias, preparing a lengthy compilation that included Heilemann labeling the Republican party a "death cult."

By sneering at half the country while pretending the press stands above bias, Heilemann and his MS NOW colleagues only deepen the very public distrust they decry.

Here's the transcript. Click "expand" to read:

MS NOW
Morning Joe
6/8/26
6:41 am EDT

MIKA BRZEZINSKI: John Heilemann, the politics of this has been, uh, do you believe the president gets traction when he has a scuffle with a reporter like Kristen Welker? What's the gain for him, politically?

JOHN HEILEMANN: Well, the president's base hates the media. To David's point, I think that that horse is already let out of the barn door a long time ago. The president's been ginning up, and look, there's been animosity towards the so-called liberal media long before Donald Trump, but he has made it a central part of his political appeal. 

And for a guy who, for a variety of reasons — we were talking about this earlier, Mika — has done a bunch of things to alienate his base, whether it's the war in Iran, the Epstein crisis, the Epstein scandal and his betrayal of the base on that subject, this is someone who does feel as though he needs to keep whipping up the base. 

And one of the core elements of the cultural appeal that he's had to, again, his base — I'm talking about the hardcore MAGA people — is to beat up on liberal media. I think that, that he, you could argue that it is, counter, there's that for every MAGA voter who loves seeing Kristen Welker get beat up like that, you're doing damage to yourself with independents. But I do think Trump's instinct politically is always to go back to the base.