Donald Trump

On Wednesday, NBC’s Today had the audacity to lecture Fox News on journalistic ethics and treating all Republican presidential candidates with “respect.” This was the same network responsible for the disastrous and wildly biased CNBC debate in October that prompted the RNC to dump NBC as a host for an upcoming February debate.

Left-leaning pundits worth their salt know that Donald Trump isn’t a movement conservative, but many of them believe nonetheless that his candidacy is, in some social/cultural/emotional sense, a fundamentally righty phenomenon. That said, Daily Kos founder and publisher Markos Moulitsas, whose lefty credentials are hardly in question, argued in a Friday post that while Trump “happened to land on…

Fox News Channel’s Kelly File host Megyn Kelly took time during the first segment of Tuesday’s show to respond to Donald Trump’s declaration from earlier in the evening that he would not be showing up at Thursday’s final Republican debate before the Iowa caucuses due to his dislike of Kelly as one of the debate moderators. Along with recapping the so-called feud between the pair dating back her…

Calling into question the brainpower of right-wingers is a longstanding practice. John Stuart Mill famously said that even though he didn’t believe conservatives were “generally stupid,” he did maintain that “stupid persons are generally Conservative.” Penn State professor Sophia McClennen followed that tradition in a Monday piece for Salon, and, yes, a certain former governor of Alaska was…

Electing a president, especially in a dangerous world, is important work. Anger and emotion should not govern the choice. Considered judgment should. Trump appeals to the former, but not the latter.

Appearing as a guest on Tuesday's CNN Newsroom with Carol Costello, CNN political analyst and Daily Beast editor-in-chief John Avlon declared that Republicans should be blamed for creating Donald Trump and Ted Cruz as he asserted that the "conservative playbook" has showed "intolerance" toward those not in line with them ideologically.

Monday's CBS Evening News followed the example of CBS This Morning earlier in the day in failing to mention Michael Bloomberg's outspoken gun control stance in their coverage of the former New York City mayor's potential presidential run. By contrast, Jonathan Karl gave ABC's first mention of this liberal political position on Monday's World News Tonight: "He [Bloomberg] is a socially-liberal New…

Hours before moderating CNN’s Democratic presidential townhall on Monday, New Day co-host Chris Cuomo spoke with conservative radio talk show host/Ted Cruz supporter Glenn Beck and suggested to Beck that his firm opposition to President Obama and big government has laid the groundwork for the rise of Donald Trump: "You wound up somewhat birthing Donald Trump...some of those people who were angry…

“Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered” is a well-known tune from the Golden Age of Broadway. A Friday Salon article made it sound as if a song about how today’s conservatives feel could be called “Besieged, Badgered and Beleaguered.” In a piece pegged to Sarah Palin’s endorsement of Donald Trump, Andrew O’Hehir opined that the right “has become exactly what it has long accused the left of being,…

Appearing as a panel member on Friday's Real Time with Bill Maher on HBO, author and former Newsweek editor-in-chief Jon Meacham made a crack suggesting he would prefer dog excrement for President over GOP candidates Ted Cruz or Donald Trump, as host Maher asked panel members which of the two Republican frontrunners they would pick if they had no other choice. Meacham also tied former President…

Near the tail end of a debate on Sunday during ABC’s This Week over the anti-Donald Trump issue of National Review, National Review editor in chief Rich Lowry blasted Republican strategist Alex Castellanos for coming out as someone who’d accept Trump as the GOP nominee after his attempts to seek alternatives (i.e. a moderate, establishment candidate) failed and “your donors wouldn't go with you.”

Commenting Friday on National Review’s anti-Donald Trump editorial and symposium, The New Republic’s Jeet Heer and New York magazine’s Jonathan Chait agreed that conservatives are responsible for Trump’s Republican frontrunner status, but differed on which unpleasant right-wing trait, “white identity politics” or anti-intellectualism, was the prime mover.

On Friday night’s Hardball, host Chris Matthews unleashed a harangue on National Review writer Eliana Johnson, theorizing that the “Against Trump” symposium was pretty much all about Trump’s opposition to the Iraq war. When Johnson insisted this isn’t single-issue thing, Matthews kept berating her: “Can you answer me? Which is not a hawk in that group?” Johnson didn’t offer a name, but could…

Question: what would happen if a Republican pundit called Michelle Obama "mean" and suggested President Obama "unleash" her on an opponent? On With All Due Respect today, co-host Heilemann said that whereas her public image was that of a "lovely and matronly figure," First Lady Barbara Bush was in fact as "mean" and tough as anyone, and said he'd like to see the Bush campaign "unleash" her on…