Willie Geist

NBC, CBS Cover Obama Spelling Flub; ABC Out to Lunch
March 8th, 2014 2:46 PM
Viewers of ABC's morning and evening newscasts on Friday would have been left unaware of President Obama's gaffe of elementary proportions during a White House concert on Thursday evening. Both Good Morning America and World News omitted how the Democrat left out the first "E" in the title of Aretha Franklin's most famous song: "When Aretha first told us what R-S-P-E-C-T meant to her."
By…

Networks Tout Obama's Planned Summit With 'Very Similar' Pope; Ignore
January 21st, 2014 1:10 PM
On Tuesday, ABC, CBS, and NBC's morning newscasts all hyped the White House's announcement that President Obama's would meet with Pope Francis in March, and emphasized their apparent agreement on economic issues. On CBS This Morning, Bill Plante touted the "chance for him [Obama] to align himself with the agenda of the very popular new pope, at a time when the President's own popularity here at…
ABC Touts ObamaCare's Popularity, While NBC Reports Website Problems
December 24th, 2013 12:03 PM
For the second straight morning, ABC's Jonathan Karl was merely a White House stenographer when reporting on ObamaCare's year-end deadline, touting enrollment numbers and parroting White House talking points.
Tuesday's Good Morning America framed the latest ObamaCare delay as a result of the law's popularity, as opposed to NBC reporting that it was, at least in part, due to website issues. "…

NBC's Roker Wants To Give Himself As Christmas Gift To Biden
December 13th, 2013 2:30 PM
Al Roker’s man crush on Vice President Biden took a new and unusual turn on Friday’s Today.
Speaking with co-hosts Natalie Morales and Willie Geist, the NBC weatherman (jokingly?) expressed his desire to, “make the pitch [for Biden to co-host Today] wrapped in a box. I'm going to deliver myself on the front steps. Big bow in a box. He's going to open it. Mr. Vice president.” [See video after…

Networks Hype 'Interesting' Moment With Liberal 'Heckler'; Obama Handl
November 26th, 2013 12:46 PM
All three networks on Tuesday hyped an "interesting" exchange between Barack Obama and a liberal heckler. ABC, CBS and ABC declined, however, to specifically note that the man's concern was that the President simply wasn't liberal enough on the issue of immigration reform. On NBC's Today, Natalie Morales praised, "You know, I think that the President handled it well by engaging." [See video…

NBC Sympathizes: 'Humble President' Was 'Strikingly Contrite' About Ob
November 15th, 2013 4:45 PM
On Friday, NBC's Today tried to cast President Obama's Thursday press conference about the ObamaCare disaster in the most sympathetic light possible, with co-host Savannah leading off the show by proclaiming: "The humble president....President Obama does damage control on the botched health care rollout with his legacy hanging in the balance." [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the…
'Today' Hosts Mock ObamaCare Ads That 'A Lot of People Are Offended By
November 13th, 2013 2:39 PM
Early in the 9 a.m. ET hour on Wednesday's NBC Today, co-hosts Willie Geist, Natalie Morales, and Al Roker mocked a series of new ads designed to promote ObamaCare, even with Geist reading one of them while doing his best impression of Anchorman's Ron Burgundy: "Let's get physical. OMG, he's hot. Let's hope he's as easy to get as this birth control. My health insurance covers the pill, which…

'Very, Very Major' Social Media Site Co-Founder: Obamacare Technology
October 23rd, 2013 9:30 AM
Don't take it from conservatives. The co-founder of a "very, very major social-media site" has said the criticism of the Obamacare website is fair because the "technology sucks."
So reported Willie Geist on today's Morning Joe, telling panelists that the person he interviewed was co-founder of a site so major that they would all know it and might have it open on their computers as he spoke…

Twenty-five Years Later, Sharpton Still Defending Role in Brawley Rape
October 8th, 2013 5:26 PM
It’s been 25 years since a grand jury concluded that young Tawana Brawley falsely accused a group of white men of raping her, but the Rev. Al Sharpton still believes he did the right thing by supporting Brawley back then. Sharpton was on MSNBC’s Morning Joe on Tuesday to talk about his new book when co-host Mika Brzezinski brought up the infamous Brawley rape case, in which Sharpton played a…
NBC Delighted By SNL Mocking GOP Over Government Shutdown
October 7th, 2013 3:53 PM
On Monday, the hosts of NBC's Today eagerly played clips of Saturday Night Live bashing Republicans over the government shutdown. In the morning show's 7 a.m. ET half hour, fill-in co-host Tamron Hall played a clip of SNL host Miley Cyrus doing a parody music video blaming the GOP for the shutdown and gushed: "I think she [Cyrus] might become a member of the five-timers club. You know, the group…

Ted Cruz As Lord Voldemort: He Who Must Not Be Named By 'Morning Joe
October 2nd, 2013 8:13 AM
Move over, Lord Voldemort. Ted Cruz has taken your place as the man so evil he must not be named . . .
Today's Morning Joe featured a strange trope in which Cruz was being unmistakably referred to by various members of the panel, but, at least in the first hour, never mentioned by name. Instead, Joe Scarborough, Mike Barnicle and Willie Geist variously alluded to Cruz as "one Republican…
Scarborough Defends Conservative Republicans, Schools Liberal Panel In
July 25th, 2013 2:07 PM
MSNBC host Joe Scarborough has been making some fairly conservative arguments on his program as of late. On Thursday’s Morning Joe, for instance, he took his liberal guests to task, blasting Politico’s Jim VandeHei and The New York Time’s Steve Rattner for characterizing the House GOP as a do-nothing, radical conference.
Scarborough insisted that Republicans have stood for the same…

On ‘Today,’ Star Jones Compares Online Commenters to KKK … Again
June 3rd, 2013 5:38 PM
During a discussion on Monday's NBC Today of internet reaction to a controversial new Cheerios commercial, lawyer and regular pundit Star Jones alleged that “social media is the new kind of Ku Klux Klan white hood; it allows you to be anonymous and say the things you would never say to a person to their face.”
The comment was made while the panel, which also included attorney Donny Deutsch…

'Morning Joe' Panel Does a 180, Ready to Forgive and Forget Obama Admi
May 16th, 2013 2:56 PM
Well, that was quick, and sadly predictable. A day after MSNBC’s Morning Joe panel criticized President Obama for his lack of transparency on the three scandals plaguing his administration, the panel kicked off their Thursday show by heaping praise on the president for yesterday’s news conference.
Co-host and liberal activist Mika Brzezinski "felt good about" the conference, lauding the…