‘A disgusting show of obeisance in advance.’ That’s journalism professor Jeff Jarvis, condemning MSNBC hosts—and longtime critics of President-elect Trump—Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski for meeting privately with Trump at his Florida estate.
■ Media critic Oliver Darcy sees the encounter as “very publicly kowtowing to Trump” …
■ … especially in light of MSNBC parent Comcast’s statement praising Trump’s choice to head the Federal Communications Commission, Brendan Carr, whom Darcy says has been “behaving like a right-wing clown on social media.”
■ Sources tell CNN’s Brian Stelter the visit was driven by Scarborough and Brzezinski’s fears of “governmental and legal harassment from the incoming Trump administration.”
■ Columnist Ken Klippenstein: “Traveling to the Fuhrer’s nest to kiss the ring is an admission that, as a partisan pressure strategy, Trumpmongering about the coming fascist coup is a failure.”
■ Jon Stewart last night mocked the meetup with a one-act play, Joe and Mika Go to Mar-a-Lago.
■ Satirist Andy Borowitz: “Morning Joe Loses Remaining Five Viewers.”
■ Poynter’s Tom Jones: “Trump praises a ‘free, fair and open’ press … as long as he agrees with the coverage. Which, of course, really isn’t a free and open press.”
■ Wonkette’s Gary Legum: “We give it until Christmas before Trump proudly announces … that Scarborough and Brzezinski have committed the unforgivable sin of not sucking up to him lavishly enough, so now he hates them again.”
‘The Constitution, in Trump’s view, is up for negotiation.’ Law professor Joyce Vance says if the Senate caves on his demand that his appointees be allowed to take office without hearings, the sky’s the limit: “It could be … anything else that Trump decides is inconvenient.”
■ LateNighter surveys late show hosts’ effort to convey “the attack on functional democratic governance that is Donald Trump’s … deliberately incompetent and subservient, cabinet-nominated yes-men.”
■ Late Night host Seth Meyers dings Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin’s soft-spoken denunciation of Republican plans to bury evidence that Trump’s pick to head the Justice Department, Matt Gaetz, preyed on underage girls: “If you’re trying to warn us about an imminent danger, then why are you so f**king boring? That’s like having a smoke detector that makes rainforest sounds.”
■ Cartoonist Tom Tomorrow revisits The Unbelievable Trump: “Trump also need … someone who will let Trump wipe ass with the actual Constitution! So obviously Trump select Matt Gaetz.”
■ The New York Times: Trump “remains confident that even if Mr. Gaetz does not make it, the standard for an acceptable candidate will have shifted so much that the Senate may simply approve his other nominees who have appalled much of Washington.”
■ Tech watchdog Cory Doctorow, surveying the government’s antitrust moves against Google, notes that Gaetz “breaks with his fellow Trumpians in professing great admiration for Biden’s FTC chief Lina Khan, and her project of breaking up corporate monopolies.”
He’s going places. Trump’s choice to head the Transportation Department: Ex-Wisconsin Republican Rep.—and, yes, another Fox talking head—Sean Duffy …
■ … who has almost no experience in transportation …
■ … unless you count his time moving around a family of 11.
‘A liar, a fool, or quite possibly both.’ That’s how Public Notice’s Noah Berlatsky characterizes some mainstream Democrats seemingly comfortable with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as Trump’s Health and Human Services secretary.
■ ProPublica: “UnitedHealth’s playbook for limiting mental health coverage puts countless Americans’ treatment at risk.”
Where Musk could start. Popular Information: If Trump’s make-believe “Department of Government Efficiency” is serious about targeting waste, Elon Musk should begin with the defense budget.
■ USA Today’s Rex Huppke is mock-incredulous: “Trump has started appointing screwballs for important government positions? … Are you telling me the man who said he was going to do all these crazy things is actually going to do all these crazy things? What the heck?”
‘Trump’s mandate is a myth.’ The New Republic: Trump’s 2024 showing is actually “one of history’s smallest presidential victories.”
■ Historian Heather Cox Richardson: “More Americans voted for someone other than Trump than voted for him.”
Trumped out? If you can’t take the news anymore, The Hollywood Reporter has a guide to blocking Donald Trump from all your screens …
■ … including a “Trump Blocker” browser extension.
Hey, remember Rahm Emanuel? The American Prospect flags Chicago’s ex-mayor—now U.S. ambassador to Japan and, when that gig ends, a possible candidate to chair the Democratic Party—for “suspiciously timed stock trades.”
■ House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries has won reelection to that job.
■ From the vault: A 1983 interview on WXRT with the voices of Rocky and Bullwinkle, June Foray and Bill Scott.
■ Block Club Chicago: ’XRT legend Lin Brehmer’s legacy lives on in a Sauganash Elementary music room.