nowandlater

Yeah, look at all the made-up stuff that came out about Hillary. Now imagine it with an older guy like Sanders. I can imagine the Alzheimers rumors starting. The reason Sanders is popular is that he really didn't face much negative campaigning. Hillary barely went after him. The GOP wanted him to win. Once you enter the political arena and a hard-fought campaign, your negatives go up. I could imagine Michelle Obama's sterling numbers plummeting if she ran for president. As for Rachel, I saw it as she was middle of the road on Bernie and Hillary.

I didn't watch it. I don't have Showtime. But I couldn't imagine watching a comedy a show on Tuesday night. Heck, I turned off the TV very early on when it looked like Trump was winning.

This was my MSNBC night: It looked bad around 6 pm PT. So I decided to turn everything off for 3 hours...expecting the worse...It's been hard to grapple with, but I turned on MSNBC again. It's going to be hard watching this channel (I only watch the primetime shows) knowing what we know now.

If he does survive it, then we'll have another 15 months of Trump running for re-election...but, quite honestly, I'm more afraid of Mike Pence becoming president....Trump has his conservative views, sure, but Pence is more conservative when it comes to gays, women, etc....and he's better at hiding it.

The horrible thing is 1) he has to meet with Trump this week, he has to be their for his inauguration, he has to interact with the guy at presidential events...I think perhaps it was wrong of Obama to say, in Jimmy Kimmel's mean tweets a few weeks ago that, "at least I will have been a president."

On an oddly related note: Andrea Mitchell was born in 1946. My mom was born in 1946. Her husband Alan Greenspan was born in 1926. My dad was born in 1926. My parents, though, have been married about 25 years longer than they have (they're still married!).

Dana Carvey's appearance tonight on SNL reminded me that he was just on the Howard Stern show on Wednesday, where he delved into his career for nearly 2 hours(!).....Check it out. It's fantastic!!!!

They should give equal time to Chelsea Clinton's husband.

Wha?!?!

It's just too bad that Rachel and Brokaw don't have access to somebody who's an expert on the Ross Perot myth.

How would they make a game that starts at 6:30 am on the West Coast America's Game of the Week? If they start it at 10 am PT (6 pm London time), there would be too much competition from other games to make it feel like something special. And they can't do 1:25 pm (9:25 pm London time). I find it funny, though, that they never send the Green Bay Packers. Playing in London is on Aaron Rodgers' bucket list. (They would obviously have to send the Packers as a road team, since federal law prohibits Lambeau Stadium from losing a game.)

There was an article in Slate today titled, "Journalists Need to Stop Sending Tweets About How They Are About to Send an Important Tweet." I think this article applies to Rachel, sort of. Instead of teasing with tweets, she teases the hell out of her show. Especially with the "exclusive" stuff. Or the stuff like the Obama news tonight. This was reported elsewhere before the show, so I was expecting a whole new revelation. I get it. She's trying to get us to stay tuned. But I would think of all the shows on MSNBC, her show has the most people sticking around to watch the entire thing. At least that's how it applies to me. (I do watch bits of Chris Hayes and most of Lawrence.) During her first stint, if I recall correctly from watching Frontline's The Choice -- which if you haven't watched, you should watch below -- she was "Hillary Rodham" during Bill's first term as governor and she wore glasses and didn't wear fashionable clothing. When he ran again after losing. Hillary dyed her hair blonde ditched the glasses and changed her fashion sense.

OK, this is sort of off-topic. But I don't get the "30 years" thing. Trump has been saying it for months. Hillary said it at the debates, responding to Trump. Even Obama said it the other night on Kimmel. Where did this 30 years thing come from? What happened in 1986 that made her become a national figure, or even a political figure? If it was that she was first lady of Arkansas, well, she was first lady of Arkansas in the '70s. I bet if you go back to 25 years ago, October 1991, the majority of the country wouldn't have heard of her. I don't think she became nationally famous until the 60 Minutes interview in January 1992.

Wow, Krystal Ball was back tonight. There was a point a few years ago that she essentially became Lawrence's co-host (before she joined MSNBC's version of The Five). I didn't hate her, but it just annoyed me that she would be on the first segment of the show every night.

http://deadspin.com/king-county-sheriff-owns-nfl-calls-nfl-investigator-a-1788054321

http://deadspin.com/the-nfl-always-had-access-to-the-josh-brown-documents-1788037941

This depressing as hell article is a preview of what MSNBC will be like under a Hillary presidency .... http://www.gq.com/story/the-2016-election-will-never-end

I may be exaggerating, but there seems to be a lot of teasing these days. Like tonight teasing the huge unprecedented thing she was going to do...or teasing that "this is exclusive to us" and it's something that's interesting, but not really that interesting... stuff that never really resonates in the twittersphere.

The New Yorker recently had a Kellyanne explainer: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/10/17/kellyanne-conways-political-machinations

Here's a plausible theory: NBC unloaded the Trump tape to The Washington Post. Not officially. But I think NBC News execs decided to have one of their underlings provide the tape to The Post's David Fahrenthold. I've read various accounts from the Washington Post, NY Times and CNN on how the tape was obtained. NBC execs blame Rosh Hashanah and a lengthy legal review for the delay...but it was odd that it would take a whole week to get this out there. I think that: 1) NBC was afraid of getting sued by Trump, so they had an anonymous person bring the tape to The Post's attention. This way, NBC was off the hook. (That's why they covered the story on MSNBC with their own version of the story within 7 minutes of The Post posting their article.) 2) NBC was afraid that it would hurt its future coverage of celebrities if the precedent is set of hot mic private conversations recorded amidst celebrity interviews (for Today and Access Hollywood) would become public. 3) NBC didn't want to be the ones to throw Billy Bush under the bus. I read that the version Access Hollywood was going to show tried to downplay Bush's involvement. But that's hard to do. It looked better if somebody else made Bush look bad by showing the full unedited tape. That's why Fahrenthold -- the Pulitzer-worthy reporter star of this year's election was on MSNBC's Rachel Maddow and Lawrence O'Donnell on Friday night...NBC News wanted him to get the glory because if NBC News got the glory, it could've opened NBC up to more long-term ramifications. Also notable: NBC doesn't seem interested in finding the leaker, judging from the above-linked articles. Anyways, I like Deadspin's theory: http://theconcourse.deadspin.com/why-was-nbc-scared-of-the-trump-video-1787590514

I got a cringey vibe from Tina and Jimmy's bit. It felt like the high school graduates who keep hanging around years after graduating. (Hopefully, we won't see the return of Fred Armisen to Weekend Update next week) I mean, Tina and Jimmy are great, but Jimmy's on in that timeslot 5 nights a week. Let some of the current cast members have those valuable Update minutes. Meanwhile, this is Tina's 4th appearance on SNL in the past year (19%). Again, I love Tina. She's awesome, but let the current cast shine (unless Sarah Palin comes back in the news!). As for Pete, SNL historian James Andrew Miller predicted he would become the next Adam Sandler. Will those predictions come true.

It was 11 years ago, actually. Trump was married to Melania for a few months -- they had been together 6 to 7 years before their 2005 wedding -- and she was pregnant with their son Barron. I would argue that you don't change that much between the ages of 59 and 70. As for how they found the video, read this and this story.

I'm a Packers fan....So I've gotta ask: Why does the NFL hate the Packers? The Packers played on Sunday Night Football vs. the Emmys a few weeks ago. On Sunday, they play on Sunday Night Football vs. the 2nd presidential debate, which may get a boost from Friday's news. Maybe the NFL planned it this way, knowing that Aaron Rodgers (and, yes, Eli Manning) would be a draw in this season of slumping ratings.

The MSNBC thread is gone, so I'm wondering if I could technically be allowed to discuss Lawrence? Anyways, it's 1 am ET, 10 pm PT, and Lawrence is still covering this story live. Go Lawrence! I also love how Rachel and Lawrence, who each had Pussy-story breaker David Fahrenthold of The Washington Post on, despite him scooping MSNBC's Katy Tur with this story by only 7 minutes, by one account. Edited to add: Chris Matthews is on from his studio -- yes, at 1:09 am ET -- but Lawrence is hosting.

Here's my prediction: Nobody will play Mike Pence. Nobody will play Tim Kaine. Despite SNL now having a Latina woman who could possibly play a Filipina moderator (Filipinos are of Spanish descent, too!), there will be no VP debate sketch. It would have been weird to have back-to-back debate sketches and this "grab her by the pussy" is all everybody will be talking about Saturday night, barring another bombshell in the next 48 hours.