Free Republic

What's up with these Morning Joe regulars who had cultivated something of a benign image suddenly turning nasty? Yesterday, we noted BBCer Katty Kay with a mocking laugh as she suggested to Charlie Sykes that they do a DeSantis post-mortem, "before we consign him to oblivion and forget his name." Today, it was Eugene Robinson's turn to turn mean. Though Robinson is an ardent liberal, he has something of an avuncular air about him. But both in his current Washington Post column, snidely entitled "The Nation's Gain is Florida's Loss," and on today's Morning Joe, Robinson took nasty swipes at...

[snip] Willie Geist, citing an unnamed source, described Johnson as "Jim Jordan with a jacket and a better haircut."Charlie Sykes one-upped Willie in the Johnson-trashing stakes, approvingly quoting Never Trumper and ex-GOP congressman Adam Kinzinger kin-zinging Johnson as "Jim Jordan in drag."Get the rest of the story and view the video here.

File this one under NewsBusters' "Sudden Respect" rubric--though a very grudging respect at that. On today's Morning Joe, Never Trumper and MSNBC contributor Charlie Sykes praised Bill Barr, Donald Trump's former Attorney General, for the blistering criticism he made of Trump during his Face The Nation appearance yesterday. But Sykes couldn't resist taking a nasty shot at Barr for his perceived past sins of supporting Trump. Said Sykes: "Bill Barr, you need a healthy gag reflex to, you know, sort of accept him. But, you know, coming from Bill Barr, this is extraordinary. This is not on my bingo card...

On today's Morning Joe, there wasn't a positive word on tonight's anticipated Ron DeSantis campaign announcement on Twitter this evening with Elon Musk. By far the most openly hostile and negative was Never Trumper Charlie Sykes, who said that DeSantis had decided: "to launch a bid for President of the United States by bowing the knee to a tech oligarch, somebody who has been very publicly decompensating, an erratic narcissistic megalomaniac like Elon Musk . . . I think you're seeing his lack of political skills and his lack of political judgment and a whiff of desperation here."Get the rest...

The liberal media like to depict Never Trumpers like Charlie Sykes as the voice of center-right reason and moderation. But in recent days, the founder of The Bulwark and MSNBC columnist has revealed a spiteful, vulgar streak. Last week, we caught him literally laughing as he reveled in Kevin McCarthy's sticky predicament in seeking the speakership, and pronouncing with malicious glee the names of George Santos and Marjorie Taylor Greene, as people McCarthy had to rely on. But that was tame compared to his spit take on Jonathan Capehart's Sunday Show. Now that McCarthy has secured the Speaker's gavel, Sykes...

When it came to discussing the House speakership quandary, Joe Scarborough suffered from something of a split personality on today's Morning Joe. On the one hand, Scarborough supported Newt Gingrich's take that the "Never Kevin" Republicans refusing to support McCarthy are risking the "meltdown" of the GOP. It's Kevin or chaos! On the other hand, Scarborough noted that in 1998, he was one of five Republican House members who drove Newt out of the speakership. There was no such split opinion from Charlie Sykes. The Never Trumper and MSNBC columnist couldn't keep himself from literally laughing at the Republicans' predicament,...

Most elected Republicans and the base are moving in a different direction from the pro-Putin and anti-anti-Putin crowd. How far can Marjorie Taylor Greene and Madison Cawthorn go without breaking the silo? Bill Kristol joins Charlie Sykes for this weekend’s podcast.

MSNBC network contributor Charlie Sykes said Friday on “Deadline” that the Republican Party was being taken over by “deplorables” while discussing Rep. Anthony Gonzalez (R-OH), who voted to impeach former President Donald Trump for inciting the January 6 U.S. Capitol riot, announcing he will not run for re-election in 2022. Sykes said, “It feels like a familiar story this ongoing purge of the decent, the principled, the honorable members and their replacement by the deplorable and the hack-ish. In Max Miller’s case, think of Max Miller as the biff character from ‘Back to the Future.’ You’re finding the most obnoxious...

Monday, MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” reacted to former President Donald Trump having a microphone set up at Mar-a-Lago with a band to entertain and speak to crowds. “Never Trump” network contributor Charlie Sykes agreed with host Joe Scarborough that there is a “personality cult” problem in the GOP after Trump entered the fray. He argued that “Ronald Reagan couldn’t win a primary in the Republican Party these days” because of how much the party has changed into “blind loyalty” for Trump.

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) is being compared by several conservatives to the late Sen. Joe McCarthy (R-Wis.), known for his communist witch hunt in the 1950s, according to a New York Times article published on Sunday. The Republicans told the news outlet that Johnson’s promotion of false theories on the coronavirus, the COVID-19 vaccination efforts and the Jan. 6 Capitol riot remind them of Wisconsin’s infamous former senator, who in the 1940s and '50s publicly accused a number of government workers of being communists, leading to many losing their jobs. Former Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.), who retired from Congress this...

The Weekly Standard was a worthwhile publication. Unfortunately its rebirth as The Bulwark is set to be a good deal uglier with a radical leftist funder notorious for his backing of terrorist propaganda and anti-Semitism. A handful of writers and editors who worked at The Weekly Standard, the now-defunct conservative magazine that was deeply critical of President Donald Trump until its sudden demise in December, have a new home. Starting Monday, Bill Kristol, a co-founder of The Weekly Standard, and Charlie Sykes, the former talk radio host and conservative commentator, will beef up The Bulwark, a conservative website that has...

On Friday's Andrea Mitchell Reports, host Mitchell asserted that Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen was "blaming the victim" when she correctly warned that it is very dangerous to cross the desert illegally in reaction to recent news of a child dying of dehydration after her father crossed the desert illegally from Mexico. Correspondent Jacob Soboroff suggested that the Trump administration is "forcing" illegals to cross under dangerous circumstances through the desert because of long wait times at legal ports of entry. And, in the segment that lasted eight minutes, no one got around to clarifying that the number of detainees...

On Tuesday's Deadline: White House, MSNBC host Nicolle Wallace again demonstrated that she is still obsessed with Sarah Palin's part in the 2008 presidential campaign as she found a way to work an anti-Palin jab into a discussion of Republican Jeff Flake publicly condemning President Donald Trump. MSNBC's Wallace Inserts Anti-Sarah Palin Jab into Trump DiscussionAfter right-leaning MSNBC contributor and Trump critic Charlie Sykes recalled the President's public feud with Myesha Johnson -- the widow of fallen soldier La David Johnson -- Wallace took a shot at the former Republican vice presidential nominee as she turned to fellow Republican-leaning MSNBC...

A leading #NeverTrump radio host is pulling the plug on his Wisconsin show, citing age and retirement plans to explain his departure from the airwaves by end of the year. “This morning, I announced that I am stepping down from my daily radio show on WTMJ at the end of this year,” Charlie Sykes said on his website. I know that lot of people will assume that my decision has something to do with this current campaign and the rise of Trumpism. But, the reality (as my friends and family know) is that I made this decision a long time...

Donald Trump needs to "clean up" his social media act, House Speaker Paul Ryan said Tuesday. The declaration comes after the latest instance of the presumptive Republican nominee drawing a backlash for one of his tweets, namely the six-pointed star on a field of money next to Hillary Clinton's face and the words, "Most Corrupt Candidate Ever!" “Look, anti-Semitic images, they’ve got no place in a presidential campaign. Candidates should know that. The tweet’s been deleted. I don’t know what flunky put this up there. They’ve obviously got to fix that," Ryan told WTMJ's Charlie Sykes on his radio show....

Yesterday's hero was Charlie Sykes on WTMJ for the way he pinned Trump to the wall in a Easter weekend radio interview... real good stuff if you didn't catch it.  -HERE- Today we have Vicki McKenna at WISN doing more of the same  -so is it suddenly open season on Trump now? As the MSM's refusal to cover the news accurately gave rise to Breitbart and Drudge -and subsequently those two sold-out to Trump and are now creating an online market for the reality-based coverage they refuse to do- the 'conservative' media's daily tongue-bath of Trump has obviously created a MASSIVE...

Just listen.. audio at above link

Wisconsin radio host Charlie Sykes grilled GOP presidential frontrunner Donald Trump in a tough Monday-morning interview on Trump's treatment of Heidi Cruz and other instances of sexism... Sykes used the discussion regarding Trump's treatment of Cruz's wife as an opportunity to discuss broader issues of sexism. He asked Trump about a recent commercial, from another anti-Trump PAC, that featured women reading critical statements Trump has said about other women's looks...

John Kasich's presidential campaign is reportedly pulling radio ads from the airwaves in Wisconsin in advance of the state's April 5 Republican primary. Wisconsin-based radio host Charlie Sykes, a Ted Cruz supporter and influential conservative in the Badger State, first reported the news on Twitter Monday.

As the Republican presidential primary shifts its focus to Wisconsin, Gov. Scott Walker is poised to re-enter the national spotlight, having suggested this week that he will soon offer his endorsement. Walker said he would weigh in "after Easter, when it would have the maximum impact," and hinted strongly that he favors Sen. Ted Cruz, who "is the only one who's got a chance other than Donald Trump to win the nomination." "Probably in the next week or so we'll, one, make a decision whether we're going to endorse or not; then, secondly, specifically who we’re going to get behind,"...