Pike Ludwell

The librarian thought himself to be a decent, honorable, good guy. But I can't get over that he killed that real librarian and wife, in cold blood. He was an evil man, make no mistake about it.

I think the show is in it's last legs. Joe's lost some enthusiasm. Mika has said things lately indicating she can't handle politics discussions and wants to avoid them. She looked extremely bothered yesterday and barely said a word. I guess she needed a rest today - she was out. If MSNBC doesn't let them go they might just quit on their own. I watched a little of the 7:00 hour. Joe went out of his way to point out that the business leaders still like Trump and in general he's just as popular as when he was elected. They love to have British women on, so Tina Brown was on, hyping how great their PM is and what a genius move it was to invite Trump to visit the King. And she went on to hype the monarchy as a great institution. Joe just let everything go unchallenged.

I haven't seen any comment on the "Cake Incident" at the beginning, involving the daughter at her school. The school mishandled it badly. They should have said it was about the daughter humiliating a fellow student. Plain and simple. The viewpoint expressed was not the problem. The fact that the kid ate all the cake is not the problem. It's just that she humiliated another student, and she needs to be corrected from doing that.

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I can buy the premise of an underground city for 25K people. And that something happened to wipe out most of the human race. But I cannot buy that the American people would elect such an idiot for President!!

They opened with a clip of Musk at the cabinet meeting saying they restored the ebola funding. Last night's prime shows were all over the fact that this was a lie. So, after the clip does Mika state that this was Musk lying? No. She says something like "this was a scene from a cabinet meeting yesterday". I didn't watch the whole show, and maybe someone addressed it later, but the old show would have pointed it out as a lie right off the bat. Later edit: At the 22 minute mark they discuss the falsehood.

This show is refreshing after some of the others I've seen lately. Heroes can shoot people with guns. Seems like current Hollywood and British thinking is to avoid heroes killing with guns. In Reacher, heroes can beat the crap out of bad guys or kill them in self defense and not go through days of feeling bad for doing so, or needing psychiatric help to get over it. I loved how Reacher slammed that guy's head on the desk and had no problem breaking his leg to fit him under it, and then just moved on. The guy was a piece of junk and deserved it. There's plenty of instances of instant justice. Those kids bullying that rich kid. These bad guys all deserve what happens to them.

Changing the format is the right idea. They also need to get away from the regular guests. The first hour had the two boring Brits and a regular predictable, boring foreign policy guy. The 3rd hour had another boring Brit, hyping Rahm Emmanuel, of all people, as a role model for Dems. Rahm left the Chicago Mayor position with approval in the low 20s, for Pete's sake. Why do the evening shows always seem to have more relevant, interesting guests? Maybe it's difficult to bring in such folks in the early hours? Bring in (non-MAGA) people with different perspectives, like they used to bring in those Commentary guys. Matt Welch from Reason was on occasionally.

I've been waiting for this to get interesting enough to continue. By the end of this episode it does.

The characters seem very loosely based on real life. The ex-pres (DeNiro) sort of is like Biden in terms of age and people questioning his abilities. And the new president is sort of like Kamala Harris. A black woman from CA. Beyond that the similarities end. I don't like the fact that the DeNiro character is hiding a serious condition and volunteering for such a critical job. I have no respect for him, right off the bat.

They could still do political headlines and have brief discussions, but, yeah, the way Nicole does it. Not the way Joe does it with the poor guest's face being on screen next to Joe while Joe asks boring 5 minute questions, designed to show his "brilliance". Stephanie Ruhle would be good. She's sharp on politics and the economy and has a lighter touch and does well with humor. John Fugelsang or someone like that could be a co-host or regular. All sorts of possibilities.

I agree with others that MSNBC needs a new morning show. I watched this morning and Mika has so many things that just get on my nerves. And Joe was out, with no explanation, even after such a long period of holidays and other days off. Not that he's so great -- It's just annoying. Why should people watch the show if the hosts are all fed up with it all? I'd like to see a shift to more entertainment/arts focus. Hard to think of great host examples right now, but I know there are good ones. Don Imus managed to have a great show that wasn't politics-based.

So let me get this straight. Mika believes Trump is a straightforward man ... tells exactly what he's going to do, and did so during the campaign ... So believe him and that his move to get Gaza is not just some bargaining move. That he really wants the US to move into Gaza. Why is she so kind to this con man? Trump pledged during the campaign to end entanglements in that war and Ukraine, and around the world in general. So this Gaza thing is breaking that pledge if he's being truthful. Reality is some of what Trump says is true to degree, but most of the time you can't believe a word he says.

I don't understand Rose being so upset about the treatment of Noor. They were trying to make the plan work, in good faith every step of the way. It was Noor's idiot brother, for one thing, who mucked things up. And so frequently someone explains something to someone and it's like the other does not even hear it and goes on with their erroneous argument. I don't like a lot of the writing but it's entertaining enough, and at this point I'm pretty much committed to finish.

Why help him by portraying him as just a man doing what he promised and that the voters wanted? Dems should portray him as a con man, who conned everyone again, while also explaining what they would do. Even Trump's advisors were surprised at some of his appointments. And also the sweeping nature of the 1/6 pardons. And other things. He insisted no Project 2025 stuff. Voters interviewed pre-election would say he's just a talker and won't do the more extreme things he said. So did politicians and pundits. I wouldn't be as quick as Mika and others on the show to say that voters are getting what they expected and shouldn't be surprised.