Andrew Stiles and Jameson Mitrovich at the Washington Free Beacon captured all the funniest takes at a MSNBC fan event, "MSNBC Live '25" at the Hammerstein Ballroom in midtown Manhattan. They wrote the event drummed up "several busloads worth of gray-haired radicals," humming with "the sound of walkers, canes, and Medicare-approved stability sneakers shuffling on the brocade carpet."
It sounds like the speakers offered exactly the same paranoid hot takes you can get as part of your basic cable package:
Chris Hayes, one of several Rachel Maddow look-a-likes scheduled to appear, kicks things off by comparing Trump to Russian strongman Vladimir Putin. He's hopeful that American democracy will survive because Putin is "defter, smarter, and more effective" at tyrannical governance.
Michael Steele, the disgraced former Republican, isn't so sure. He predicts Trump will soon declare martial law to facilitate his efforts to abolish elections.
The “mood brightens” when Nicolle Wallace interviewed Martin Sheen, who acted as the president in The West Wing, Aaron Sorkin’s Democrat fan fiction series that aired on NBC from 1999 to 2006. Sheen went viral for saying it's about time Trump realized he was "the biggest nothing in the world" and should "get in touch" with his humanity.
Actor Martin Sheen on Donald Trump: “You are the biggest nothing in the world. Stop listening to all these people around you, these sycophants, who are encouraging you to be your non-human self. Get in touch with that humanity. Stop fussing with your hair. Speak from your heart… pic.twitter.com/cBvftK1HXq
— Marco Foster (@MarcoFoster_) October 13, 2025
A fictional president lectured the actual president that he was nothing.
Stiles and Mitrovich noted all this could get pricey: "When the morning session ends, VIP ticket holders who shelled out $900 or more are invited to attend the Capstone Lunch with Chris Hayes, Mika Brzezinski, and Hillary Clinton's former servant Huma Abedin."
Then came the afternoon session, featuring MSNBC host Ari Melber and failed New York mayoral candidate Maya Wiley:
Wiley urges the crowd to "stay woke, stay woke, stay engaged," while Melber almost bursts into tears while quoting Kendrick Lamar's verse on the Kamala Harris campaign anthem "Freedom" by Beyoncé. Moments before they took the stage, we overheard an elderly Indian woman musing that this is what it must have felt like to be in Gandhi's presence. "I feel like I'm standing on the edge of change," she said.
Then came MSNBC host Jen Psaki having a chat with podcasters Jennifer Welch and Angie Sullivan, who used to be Bravo reality TV stars. They were….funny, according to the audience:
The first of several cracks about Trump's "cankles" is enough to win them over. By the time Welch delivers her rant about "failed drag queen" J.D. Vance, the crowd is cackling like Kamala.
Apparently, their nickname for Trump is "Cankles McTacoTits." Psaki asked the duo what they might to say to win over the opposition:
There's no point in trying, the ladies said, because of all the "patriarchy." Most women just do what their husbands tell them to "as long as they get a new handbag."
Sullivan says she refuses to engage with conservatives, including her own mother. She just tells them it "makes me sad you can't have empathy for poor people" and asks them if Jesus would be a MAGA supporter.
It all ended with the very special Rachel Maddow:
Rachel Maddow tells one truth and two lies after taking the stage to a huge ovation. She calls MSNBC a "really special" place because the hosts are "making a lot of money and having a big audience and growing, and at no risk of becoming state TV."
....It's certainly not accurate to describe MSNBC's audience as huge or growing. And while no one would describe the network as "state TV" during a Republican administration, MSNBC's fawning coverage of Barack Obama and their vigorous defense of Joe Biden's mental sharpness is another story.
