What is up, NBC?! News that NBC would be hosting a Town Hall event featuring President Donald Trump that would directly compete with a Joe Biden Town Hall on ABC continues to vex and anger many in the industry. CNN's Don Lemon went OFF on NBC execs, asking "How does that help the American people? How does that inform the electorate, by putting those two people on at the same time and making people choose from one to the other?" Calling it "an outright embarrassing ratings ploy on behalf of NBC", Lemon expressed shock and surprise "that they would allow the president of the United States to do their programming and manipulate them into doing this. It is embarrassing." The View also went off on NBC, which was best illustrated by Joy Behar who said “I think NBC is all in for Trump as they were with The Apprentice,” referencing the long-running Trump-hosted show which aired on that network. And even former NBC executives grounded their metaphorical axes at current programmers' decision to go in on the Trump Town Hall. Constitutional Gaffe? Senator Ben Sasse sought to add a little bit of zazz into the otherwise soporific confirmation hearings of Judge Amy Coney Barrett when he temporarily turned the proceedings into something of a game show to ask the constitutional law professor “what are the five freedoms of the first amendment?” “Speech, press, religion, assembly, I don’t know,” she admitted, failing to answer the question. “What am I missing?” she asked, smiling through her embarrassing forgetfulness. “Redress or protest,” Sasse replied, to which The Price is Right sad trombone sound effect could be heard in the imaginations of viewers across the nation. Senate Judiciary Shenanigans... Sen. John Kennedy really did ask Judge Amy Coney Barrett "who did the laundry" in her house, a question that, as far as our crack research team has found, has never been asked of male nominees in the history of Supreme Court nominations. Twitter was not impressed. Support for Barrett increased among independent voters and has nearly doubled among Democrats since September, according to a survey released Wednesday. Cruz also clashed with Sen. Dick Durbin when he criticized Democrats for not being physically present at the hearing. Umm, there's this pandemic thing happening, maybe you've heard of it? Watch the hearings yourself here. Grilled Bolton, à la Hasan TV anchor Mehdi Hasan relentlessly grilled former Bush White House national security adviser John Bolton over whether the latter had any remorse or regrets over the hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqis and thousands of coalition casualties that resulted from the Iraq War. 6.5.0 |