Howard Fineman

In early March, Nick Kristof at the New York Times solicited a felony in a tweet by virtually begging someone at the Internal Revenue Service to leak Donald Trump's tax returns. On Monday, Chris Matthews was more interested in settling the supposedly questionable matter of whether Trump's prior returns are under audit, but he went down the same path. During his Hardball broadcast, he effectively…

The radical rhetoric targeting President Donald Trump got extremely out of hand during Monday’s edition of MSNBC’s Hardball, with accusations that America’s number one enemy for 10 years, Osama bin Laden, desired Trump’s travel ban. “Osama bin Laden’s whole theory of a war of the west on Islam now gains great credence thanks to what Donald Trump just did,” declared the Huffington Post’s Howard…

During the campaign, the liberal news media did everything they could to prevent Donald Trump’s election, but he won anyway. Now, journalists are trashing the way Trump is handling his transition, as well as his early Cabinet picks. But eight years ago, viewers heard a very different tone coming from the media, as journalists celebrated the election of Barack Obama, cheered the “brain power” of…

In the October 24 edition of Notable Quotables: CNN host Brian Stelter reports on a North Carolina Republican headquarters being firebombed and wonders if Donald Trump is to blame. NBC News’s Kristen Welker claims the media would be spending more time on Hillary Clinton’s scandals but Trump’s “unforced errors” keep getting in the way. Also in this issue Chris Matthews is transfixed by Hillary…

Never one for understatement, ex-Newsweek editor Howard Fineman on Wednesday night accused Donald Trump of having “casual contempt” for 225 years of American democracy. Regarding Trump’s refusal in the final debate to commit to accepting a loss on Election Day, Fineman contended, “It wasn't just what he said that was shocking, it was the way he said it. There was a casual contempt in Donald Trump…

The MSNBC crew on Monday night were in full Donald Trump trashing mode. While Chris Matthews hailed the “brilliant” Hillary Clinton and declared the race “over,” Howard Fineman lectured that Trump delivered the “worst debate” performance ever. 

Howard Fineman is a fan of nuance when it comes to some politicians, but not others. The former senior editor of Newsweek appeared on MSNBC to describe Donald Trump as “dangerous” and an “insane traitor.” Yet, he balanced complains of “maddening” and “legalistic” Hillary Clinton by touting her as “effective” and the “personable,” “church-going Methodist.” 

After having had a great time piecing together a list for readers of some crazy, surprising, and downright weird moments/statements from MSNBC’s late Monday night/early Tuesday morning coverage of the Democratic National Convention (DNC), I thought it would be an appropriate time to do another one for the DNC’s closing night. 

Having missed Tuesday’s primary results coverage due to his wife Kathleen losing her Maryland congressional race, MSNBC’s Hardball host Chris Matthews returned with a vengeance on Wednesday to accuse Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz of having “given up on his brain” in fighting Donald Trump and joked that Cruz is a bigamist for his many political “marriages.”

Perhaps hesitant to let a local government mismanagement crisis in Michigan go to waste, the Huffington Post's Howard Fineman sought to tie the Flint water crisis as an albatross around the necks of both Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and GOP primary frontrunner Donald Trump. Fineman made his remarks during a brief appearance on the January 20 edition of MSNBC's Hardball.

The focus of the CNBC Republican presidential debate was supposed to be economic policy: taxes, trade, immigration and how to generate economic growth. The two-part Oct. 28, debate, titled “Your Money, Your Vote,” focused on the broad categories of jobs, taxes and the deficit, the general health of the economy, and the financial freedom of Americans.

Vice President Joe Biden will wait quite some time until he formally endorses Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton, possibly even waiting until the last minute at the Democratic convention itself. That was the prediction of veteran political journalist and Huffington Post Media Group editorial director Howard Fineman on the October 21 edition of MSNBC's Hardball. For her part, moderately…

On his Monday edition of Hardball, MSNBC host Chris Matthews, along with panelists Eugene Robinson, Howard Fineman, and Joan Walsh hit socialist Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (Vt.) from the left for his voting record on gun rights, particularly a 2005 bill that granted civil immunity from gun manufacturers. At one point, Matthews even oddly compared Sanders to the late…

On Monday’s Hardball, Stephanie Schriock, president of the pro-choice organization EMILY’s List, lamented that Hillary Clinton’s ongoing problems with her use of a private e-mail server have dominated the coverage of her campaign. The outspoken supporter of Clinton complained that the e-mails were “the only story that has gotten any significant coverage about Hillary Clinton for the last three…