Beating up on Trump is a family affair

Among the array of anti-Trump journalists, there are a number of husband and wife teams who take on President Trump in tandem.  Sometimes they are a pair of reporters or a reporter and a newsmaker.  They united at different times and for different reasons, but they all have one thing in common – unbridled hatred for Trump.

Joe and Mika

We are all familiar with the deluded duo of Joe Scarborough and (Mrs. Joe) Mika Brzezinski as a leading nuptial team of Trump antagonists.  But they are not alone as a matrimonially tethered couple working for the anti-Trump Resistance Movement.

“Morning Joe” started off in 2007 with Scarborough (a former conservative Florida congressman) and Brzezinski (daughter of White House foreign policy advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski) to serve as philosophic counterpoints on the issues.  That was before Scarborough moved to New York City and fell under the charms of Brzezinski and the political influence of the Big Apple – and before Brzezinski enrolled Scarborough in progressive obedience school.  They eventually married.

The couple perform sitting next to each other, but Brzezinski serves more as a prop for Scarborough’s long, tedious, repetitious, mendacious and occasionally angry tirades.  Joe is a blowhard and frequently treats Mika with contempt – leaving her looking silently into the camera like – a prop – as he bloviates.

But … when it comes to Trump, they are united in their disdain for the 47^th president.  In that, they are a good fit for MSNBC’s political bent. 

There are other marital pairs that are not so well known to the public:

Nicole and Michael

Also on MSNBC is Nicole Wallace.  Her hubby is New York Times writer Michael Schmidt.  Like Joe and Mika, Wallace and Schmidt are one when it comes to the opinions and biased reporting on Trump.  The couple first met when Schmidt appeared on Wallace’s “Deadline: White House” program.   In addition to her own show, Wallace makes the rounds on other MSNBC programs – and has her own podcast.  I have ranked Wallace as one of the worst propagandists on MSNBC – no small accomplishment. I find her so annoying that I must assume she is great in bed.  Why else anyone … (Oh, never mind).

Though writing for the Times, Schmidt makes the rounds on both MSNBC and CNN as a paid contributor. (I have always been annoyed by the propensity of reporters from the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Atlantic Magazine being part of the panel on virtually every cable news show.  There is nothing informative about media folks interviewing like-minded media folks.  But I digress.) 

Schmidt is also one of those high profile reporters who turn their biased reporting into books – gaining another round of interviews.  His recent contribution to the biased political literary world is “Donald Trump v. The United States: Inside the Struggle to Stop a President”.

Schmidt has also used his left-wing philosophy in the entertainment industry.  In 2023, he hooked up with Netflix as an executive producer and co-creator for a mini-series entitled, “Zero Day” starring one of the leading anti-Trump actors, Robert De Niro.  It is about a former President who runs into political conspiracies and disinformation campaigns.

Chris and Kate

Chris Hayes is another MSNBC personality devoted to the anti-Trump Resistance Movement.  His show, “All in with Chris Hayes”, is an eternal series of commentaries and interviews peddling the narrative that Trump is consummate evil, Republican leaders are the equivalent of neo-Nazis and GOP voters are mindless cultists.  He is a leading spokesperson for the false end-of-the-Republic narrative. 

He is married to Kate Shaw.  She is a professor of law at the University of Pennsylvania.  She is also one of those “contributors” for ABC New, and co-hosts a podcast, “Strict Scrutiny”.

Shaw was recently one of the Democrats’ star witnesses at a hearing on the many lawsuits filed against Trump.  Despite questions of the scope of a district or appellate federal judge’s authority to impose national injunctions, Shaw defended the process as the only means to rein in a president who is abusing power, in her view.  Her “performance” was highly praised by the host of … “All In with Chris Hayes”.  Duh!  Shaw often appears on television or on public platforms, attacking Trump and his policies.  She refers to the Supreme Court as ultraconservative – proffering the belief that only a liberal court is legitimate. 

(Shaw’s father is Andy Shaw, a former local reporter in Chicago.  He frequently interviewed me on a wide range of my civic and political activities.  Though no friend of Republicans or conservatives, Andy still was a bit more balanced than his offspring and son-in-law.  But I digress again … again.)

Dana and Jeremy and John

Dana Bash has held a number of positions at CNN – most recently as host of “Inside Politics” and co-host, with Jake Tapper, of “State of the Union”.  While clearly leaning to the left in her reporting, Bash is not as bad as the MSNBC folks. 

Her situation differs from those above in that the men in her marriages are both ex’s.  Her first was Jeremy Bash, one-time chief-of-staff at the CIA during the Obama administration.  He was most frequently seen peddling the phony narrative that the Trump campaign was colluding with Russia. After a long investigation, Special Counsel Robert Mueller determined the political accusations were unfounded.  Jeremy is a frequent anti-Trump guest on the left leaning media.

Shortly after her divorce from Jeremy, she married CNN’s John King, the network’s leading election night analyst.  John’s analyses tended to mimic the network’s lean to the left.  It is balanced, however, by CNN’s numbers guru, Harry Enten, who has replaced MSNBC’s Steve Kornacki as the best polling analyst on cable news. 

While currently single, Bash still has a number of CNN colleagues to go after.

Summary

There are other power couples of less renown. They often maintain separate names for professional and political reasons.   Obviously, they have more credibility if they are seen as two voices — reinforcing the same viewpoint.  Only Joe and Mika are openly married.

Regardless, the most powerful of the Washington power couples is Donald and Melania Trump.

So, there ‘tis.