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MSNBC “Morning Joe” host Mika Brzezinski on Monday was heavily critical of Hillary Clinton’s decision to agree to a debate moderated by ABC host and longtime Clinton ally George Stephanopoulos. “Are you kidding me?” Brzezinski asked. During an interview with Stephanopoulos on Sunday, Clinton confirmed that she had agreed to a debate on “Good Morning America,” which Stephanopoulos co-hosts ... She wants to do a debate with George Stephanopoulos as the moderator?” “Didn’t he work for her? Didn’t he donate to the Clinton Foundation?” ... Stephanopoulos served as communications director in the Bill Clinton White House. He has also donated...

For years, the US government has been able to finance it's debt at cheap interest rates because there have always been plenty of enthusiastic buyers. As long as the Chinese, the Japanese, and others continue to hold and buy large amounts.. ....then the US government would have to entice them and others to take on the debt by promising to pay a higher interest rate on it. In turn, this would require more spending on debt service by Congress. If this should ever happen, it would require significant cuts to government programs — or tax increases, or both — in...

Donald Trump said in an interview that economic conditions are so perilous that the country is headed for a “very massive recession” and that “it’s a terrible time right now” to invest in the stock market, embracing a distinctly gloomy view of the economy that counters mainstream economic forecasts. The New York billionaire dismissed concern that his comments — which are exceedingly unusual, if not unprecedented, for a major party front-runner — could potentially affect financial markets.

Donald Trump said in an interview that economic conditions are so perilous that the country is headed for a “very massive recession” and that “it’s a terrible time right now” to invest in the stock market, embracing a distinctly gloomy view of the economy that counters mainstream economic forecasts. The New York billionaire dismissed concern that his comments — which are exceedingly unusual, if not unprecedented, for a major party front-runner — could potentially affect financial markets. Over the course of the discussion, the candidate made clear that he would govern in the same nontraditional way that he has campaigned,...

Fact Checker Trump’s Nonsensical Claim He Can Eliminate $19 Trillion In Debt In Eight Years Donald Trump, in an interview with Bob Woodward and Robert Costa In a revealing interview, Trump predicts a ‘massive recession’ but intends to eliminate the national debt in 8 years By Glenn Kessler April 2 The Washington Post's Bob Woodward and Robert Costa sat down with Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump. Here's how the interview went. Donald Trump: “We’ve got to get rid of the $19 trillion in debt.” Bob Woodward: “How long would that take?” Trump: “I think I could do it fairly quickly,...

"I think we’re sitting on an economic bubble. A financial bubble... We’re not at 5 percent unemployment. We’re at a number that’s probably into the 20s if you look at the real number. That was a number that was devised, statistically devised to make politicians – and in particular presidents – look good. And I wouldn’t be getting the kind of massive crowds that I’m getting if the number was a real number." "I’m talking about a bubble where you go into a very massive recession. Hopefully not worse than that, but a very massive recession. Look, we have money...

Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump told the New York Times he would consider stopping U.S. oil purchases from Saudi Arabia unless the Saudi government provide troops to fight Islamic State. Trump’s comment on Friday was included in a lengthy foreign policy interview published by the newspaper on Saturday and came in response to a question about whether, if elected president, he would halt oil purchases from U.S. allies unless they provided on-the-ground forces against Islamic State. “The answer is, probably yes,” Trump said, according to a transcript. Trump has said the United States should be reimbursed by the countries it...

As president, Donald Trump would sell off $16 trillion worth of U.S. government assets in order to fulfill his pledge to eliminate the national debt in eight years, senior adviser with the campaign Barry Bennett said. "The United States government owns more real estate than anybody else, more land than anybody else, more energy than anybody else," Bennett told Chris Jansing Sunday on MSNBC. "We can get rid of government buildings we're not using, we can extract the energy from government lands, we can do all kinds of things to extract value from the assets that we hold." In a...

Donald Trump is getting some national security advice from Florida Rep. Jeff Miller, a major coup for the candidate and one that could give him some needed gravitas on an issue he’s had problems with in the past. A Trump campaign source confirmed to NBC News that Miller attended Trump’s meeting with national security advisers on Capitol Hill this Thursday. The Florida Republican, who’s retiring this year, is seen sitting at the front of a photo Trump sent out on Twitter after the meeting. It’s unclear whether Miller is officially advising Trump or only attended the one meeting. Miller serves...

The bottom is dropping out for Donald Trump. While Trump was never popular outside of his loyal slice of GOP voters, a raft of new polls show his national position hitting new lows, including with groups that are supposed to form his base. America's widespread loathing for Trump puts further pressure on Republican delegates to deny him the nomination in July if he falls short of a majority, a move that would set off an ugly civil war but that some in the party believe would be necessary to stave off generational damage. A collection of recent surveys by Real...

Hillary Clinton owes Bernie Sanders’ campaign an apology, the campaign said Friday. Clinton on Thursday accused Sanders’ camp of “lying,” alleging that his campaign has been claiming Clinton accepts money from the fossil fuel industry — a statement she forcefully rejected when confronted by an environmental activist. “I think she probably owes the senator an apology for that because the senator is not lying about her record,” Sanders campaign manager Jeff Weaver told MSNBC. “He’s talking about her record. He’s talking about her practices. She obviously doesn’t like it, but that doesn’t make it lying because you don’t like it.”...

Actress Debra Messing unloaded on fellow actor Susan Sarandon this week after Sarandon said in an interview that she wouldn’t necessarily vote for Democratic presidential frontrunner Hillary Clinton if her chief rival Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT)16% does not win the nomination. In an interview with MSNBC’s Chris Hayes on Monday, Sarandon said that she is going to “see what happens” if Sanders falls to Clinton in the primary, indicating she may not vote for Clinton in the general election. “You know, some people feel that Donald Trump will bring the revolution immediately,” Sarandon told Hayes. “If he gets in then...

MSNBC might have to build a deeper tank . . . so that Cokie Roberts can dive into it for Hillary. On today's Morning Joe, Roberts of NPR complained about the resources the FBI is devoting to the investigation of Hillary Clinton's misuse of email. Carped Cokie: "Don't they have other problems? There's no crime in the country they should be worrying about?" Roberts' timing could hardly have been worse. Just moments before, Joe Scarborough pointed out that last week it was revealed that 22 of the emails on Hillary's server "were so sensitive that the state department said releasing...

During a panel discussion Monday morning on MSNBC’s Morning Joe about a pair of new reports in the Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post concerning the ongoing FBI investigation into the Clinton private e-mail server, National Journal political reporter Ron Fournier argued that there should be a higher bar to bring charges against Hillary Clinton because she is running for president.

MSNBC's David Shuster says Sarah Palin's political career is over with because she didn't finish her first term as governor. He says it was a "dumb" decision and soldifies that she has no political future.

The next big event in the GOP primaries comes on April 5th in Wisconsin — the focus of one of the chapters in my upcoming book Going Red. The book focuses on Brown County as a key target for the GOP in the general election, and a bellwether for the critical northeastern quadrant of the state. Green Bay anchors Brown County, and it will take significant attention in this area to run up a big enough lead to take the state. Presidential candidates will need to spend some time in Brown, especially the Republican nominee. Donald Trump will get a...

No one can in good faith dispute that Planned Parenthood sold baby body parts. It has been carefully documented. And there's that video of a Planned Parenthood official fantasizing about buying a Lamborghini with the proceeds. The capper is that PP President Cecile Richards announced not long ago that PP would no longer take money for body parts. As Michelle Malkin marvelously put it in her headline: "Planned Parenthood will stop taking payment for baby parts their defenders said they never sold." Note my trick phrasing: no one "in good faith" can dispute that PP sold baby body parts. That...

rian Williams’s mouth is getting him in trouble again. The disgraced ex-Nightly News anchor on Monday closed out a segment on Castro by declaring liberal Washington Post writer Eugene Robinson a “Pulitzer Prize-winning communist.”  Williams tried to dig himself out of the hole, retreating, “Communist. Wow! Columnist....I think I have that on the mind. You are not, in fact, a communist. You are a friend of ours and a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist with the Washington Post.” Brian Williams: Eugene Robinson Is a ‘Pulitzer Prize-Winning Communist’ The slip came after Robinson was discussing Cuba’s “dangerous path for survival” as it attempts reforms....

The plan to further bend the media dial in the direction of liberal political goals-- regarding a staffing move at NBC News and MSNBC. OBAMA ALUMNI: “Stephanie Cutter has joined NBC News and MSNBC as a Political Analyst. She will contribute exclusively on a range of topics across all platforms including Meet the Press, TODAY, Nightly and MSNBC.” Stephanie Cutter is a veteran of the Obama political machine and the fact that she’s no longer directly on the administration payroll hasn’t changed the tune she sings. The NBC announcement came on the same day as another bit of breaking political...

Rachel Maddow points to past examples of when an extremist candidate horrified the Republican establishment and threatened to tear the party apart, but the party endured, and now there are signs that down-ballot Republican candidates are not suffering because of Donald Trump's involvement. **actual "Confession of a Republican" ad starts at 4:40 if you want to skip over the creature Maddow bleating spastically while looking like Wil Wheaton in lip gloss.