More details on this week’s broadcast. Plus see the Press Pass interview with SNL’s Fred Armisen and Jason Sudeikis.
Chicago Museum Acquires ‘Meet The Press’ Set
NBC 5 Chicago has the full on the old Tim Russert set: http://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/Chicago-Museum-Acquires-Meet-The-Press-Set-148538135.html
No Meet The Press Notes This Week
Events have overwhelmed me this weekend, so no notes on this week’s broadcast. But it looks like the show did have a special visitor.
More details on this week’s broadcast.
Notes from the April 15, 2012 Broadcast of Meet The Press
This morning’s Meet The Press opened with Secretary of the Treasury Tim Geithner. In an interview taped on Friday, he said the American business sector is strong, the economic data shows growth better than any time in the last 4 or 5 years. There are lots of challenges ahead, Geithner added, and said Congress should focus on getting people back to work.
Host David Gregory asked the secretary about the statement from presidential candidate Mitt Romney (R-MA) that 92% of recent job losses have been among women. Geithner said the claim was “ridiculous and deeply misleading.” On oil prices, he said the rise is due partly to increased confidence about economic growth worldwide.
When asked about the need to raise the federal debt limit later this year, he said he hopes Congress will act with much less drama than it has in recent times.
In the end, Geithner characterized President Barack Obama’s economic record as “…remarkably effective crisis management at a very dark time for the global economy.”
Moving on to the “manufactured crisis” of the week surrounding comments from CNN commentator Hilary Rosen about Romney’s wife, Anne, and her lack of experience in the job market, Meet The Press was to have hosted Rosen, but she canceled her appearance.
Congresswoman (and former presidential candidate) Michele Bachmann (R-MN) said Rosen’s comments were “shocking and insulting.” Women who stay at home often have a better feel for the state of the economy than their husbands, Bachmann asserted. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) said Rosen’s remarks were wrong, and Rosen apologized. And she reminded that the first piece of legislation President Obama signed after taking office was the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009 requiring equal pay for equal work regardless of gender.
Gillibrand tried to bring the conversation back to the presidential race and the records of the candidates. Bachmann said Gillibrand’s list of critiques of the Romney positions was “patently false.” She said, “Under every measure women’s lives are worse under Barack Obama than they would be under Mitt Romney.”
Despite this relatively serious conversation about economic policies, Gregory could not resist dragging the debate back 20 years to comments made by Hillary Clinton about baking cookies. This seemed liked an odd thing to play in the middle of a conversation between a US Senator and a high-profile member of Congress.
Bachmann said she wants to unite the Republican party, but she declined the chance to endorse Mitt Romney.
In the roundtable, Republican strategist Mike Murphy said the Rosen scandal lasts only as long as the two campaigns feed it. He said the Romney campaign was happy to see the debate move away from the economy for a few days. But, he added, the voters will push it back to the economy.
NBC’s Savannah Guthrie said the Obama campaign headquarters acted so quickly to distance themselves from Hilary Rosen and remind everyone that she does not work for the campaign that it made you think maybe she was part of the campaign.
NBC’s Chuck Todd called this a “manufactured controversy.” He also said the general election campaigns will be the most negative we have seen in this country. He added that this will lead to lower voter turn out which has its own impact on the outcome.
Gregory said that Mitt Romney has been invited to host NBC’s Saturday Night Live. Most of the panel thought this could have a humanizing effect on Romney. But Mike Murphy was more cautious about how the Romney campaign should approach this offer.
Note also that Bill Cosby appeared on David Gregory’s midweek Press Pass web broadcast and had provocative things to say about the Trayvon Martin case and the economy.
Today’s Meet The Press transcript will be here.
Also follow the show on the MTP Facebook page, track Twitter feeds from host David Gregory, Meet The Press, and Executive Producer Betsy Fischer, watch the midweek PressPass interview, and don’t forget Gregory’s blog.
This Week on Meet The Press: Geithner, Gillibrand, Bachmann, Ford, Murphy, Guthrie, & Todd (not Rosen)
More details on this weeks’ broadcast. And a statement from Hilary Rosen on why she canceled her Meet The Press appearance.
Notes on the April 8, 2012 Broadcast of Meet The Press
This morning’s Meet The Press began with a meaty discussion of unemployment numbers and job creation nationally and in Ohio. Governor John Kasich (R-OH) gave specific details on how his state has grown jobs. Host David Gregory used this topic to create a good discussion about the competing views of government on display this election season. He played a clip of President Barack Obama criticizing the budget proposals of Congressman Paul Ryan (R-WI).
Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) praised the Simpson-Bowles deficit reduction outline and condemned presidential candidate Mitt Romney (R-MA) for calling the Ryan budget “marvelous.” Kasich then praised Durbin’s service on the Simpson-Bowles commission.
Kasich was really “on” today and displayed a good deal of passion in his answers. Durbin announced that his Senate Appropriations Committee will be holding hearings on the scandal surrounding lavish spending at the General Services Administration’s 2010 Western Region Conference.
Kasich was given an opportunity to endorse Romney in the Republican presidential nomination race, but he took a pass. He did predict that in the general election for president, Ohio’s outcome will be “tight as a tick.”
The bulk of today’s broadcast was devoted to a discussion of faith in politics. Baltimore Archbishop-Designee William Lori backed away from using the term “war on religion.” Representative Emanuel Cleaver (D-M0), a Methodist minister, also said, “There is no war on religion in this country.”
Representative Raul Labrador (R-ID), however, said, “There is an attack on religious freedom.” More significantly, Labrador took on Gregory’s question about how Romney’s Mormom faith will play in the general election. Labrador said the media will make an issue out of this. And when Gregory took issue with that, Labrador gave an example of what he twice called “nasty things” said by MSNBC host Lawrence O’Donnell regarding the founding of the Mormon Church.
Jon Meacham of Random House wondered if, because of Romney’s Mormom faith and the attempts to slander President Obama’s faith, we may see religion play less of a role in the general election because neither campaigns will want it highlighted.
Gregory played a clip of Billy Graham on Meet The Press in June of 1957 discussing the need to use all forms of new media to evangelize for Christ. His daughter Anne Graham Lotz was a guest on today’s program.
Meacham reminded us that Jame Madison wanted religion to be “a” force in American life, not “the” force. “If you have a pluralistic, democratic society in which religion is respected but not exalted above other forces, that is a pretty good system,” Meacham said. “That is what we have come up with. And I think we tamper with that at our peril.”
Note that as the Sunday shows played out this morning, the news of Mike Wallace’s death became known. CBS Sunday Morning and Face The Nation both paid tribute to their esteemed colleague, a man who shaped broadcast journalism since its infancy.
Today’s Meet The Press transcript will be here.
Also follow the show on the MTP Facebook page, track Twitter feeds from host David Gregory, Meet The Press, and Executive Producer Betsy Fischer, watch the midweek PressPass interview, and don’t forget Gregory’s blog.
This Week on Meet The Press: Durbin, Kasisch, Lori, Lotz, Cleaver, Labrador, & Meacham
More details here on this week’s broadcast.
A 360 Degree View of the Meet The Press Set
Notes on the April 1, 2012 Broadcast of Meet The Press
This morning’s Meet The Press featured Savanna Guthrie substituting for host David Gregory in the interview segments starting with former Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA). Polls show him down by 7% in Tuesday’s Wisconsin primary for the Republican presidential nomination. Santorum looked and sounded very tired.
Given his populist, “rust belt” appeal, Wisconsin should be a state where Santorum does well if he is to have any chance to unseat former Governor Mitt Romney (R-MA) as the front runner. Next up will be Santorum’s home state of Pennsylvania where polls also show his support falling relative to Romney’s. Santorum says other polls give him a wider margin, and he predicts a win in Pennsylvania.
Santorum says the clamor for him to get out of the race reveals panic among the Republican establishment. He says bruising primary battles won’t hurt the party nearly as much as the damage from choosing the wrong nominee.
At this point, about 10 minutes into the broadcast, Guthrie could have moved on from the narrow track of horse race questions. Santorum tried to lead the conversation into the policies that differentiate him from Romney and might impact the dynamic of a general election race, but Guthrie would not be swayed. The broadcast was about to segue way into a conversation about the Supreme Court’s healthcare debate… couldn’t we have at least heard what Senator Santorum thought about this and how a decision one way or another would impact the campaigns?
Next up was Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) who appeared on the broadcast to endorse Mitt Romney. To be honest, I only had a vague recollection of who this guy is. I had to use Google to make sure he was a US senator, not a state senator. Again, all of the questions were about the other candidates getting out of the race, not about issues or policies or even how Romney might stack up against President Barack Obama in the general election.
This was followed by a substantive discussion with Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) about the Supreme Court’s healthcare debate. He said that even though the justices asked tough questions, this does not mean they are preparing to overturn the new healthcare laws.
Next was an odd moment where Guthrie played a clip of US Solicitor General Donald Verrilli stumbling in some comments before the Supreme Court–clearly raising concerns about the style of his performance. But then Guthrie tried to say the real issue was about the substance of his argument. It is hard to have it both ways.
The roundtable was led by MSNBC’s Morning Joe host and former Congressman Joe Scarborough. There was a meaty conversation about the role of the Supreme Court, historic battles over the federal role, and the inability to reach bipartisan solutions on the biggest challenges of the day.
After a few minutes, Scarborough led the conversation back to the presidential horse race. But here, his focus was on the general election and the lead President Obama has over both Romney and Santorum in several key states.
After a commercial break, the roundtable watched a reel of Romney gaffes on the campaign trail and had a good laugh. (“Not all of his beach houses have car elevators,” said David Brooks of the New York Times.) The roundtable ended with a discussion of gas prices. Former Congressman Harold Ford (D-TN) said the president should work with, rather than against, the big energy companies in attacking this problem.
Today’s Meet The Press transcript will be here.
Also follow the show on the MTP Facebook page, track Twitter feeds from host David Gregory, Meet The Press, and Executive Producer Betsy Fischer, watch the midweek PressPass interview, and don’t forget Gregory’s blog.
