The stories you want. The opinions that matter.
No, thanks
Tag: john dickerson
#EndorseThis: Colbert Revenge Burn On Trump Is Epic

#EndorseThis: Colbert Revenge Burn On Trump Is Epic

As America marked a milestone in our Trump ordeal, the president sat for disastrous interviews that provided fresh embarrassment to him, his supporters, and the country that is enduring him — and plenty of fresh material for his late-night nemesis Stephen Colbert.

While speaking with a pair of Reuters correspondents about North Korea and China, Trump abruptly pulled out colored maps showing counties he had won in November 2016. He had a copy for each of them — and, Colbert quips, he probably colored them himself.

“The red is obviously us,” burbled Trump. “It’s pretty good, right?”

The president’s Oval Office interview with CBS’s John Dickerson was not so good — especially when the Face the Nation anchor pressed Trump on whether he stands by his bogus “wiretap” claims against President Obama. “I don’t stand by anything!” barked the president, ending the interview abruptly moments later, when he plopped himself down at his desk to sulk.

Watching his friend Dickerson dissed by Trump — who began their interview with a smirking gibe at “Deface The Nation” — Colbert takes serious umbrage. Dickerson is too dignified to trade snaps with Trump. “But I’m no John Dickerson…When you insult one member of the CBS family, you insult us all.”

What follows is a fusillade of burns and obscenities never before heard on network television to describe a president of the United States. Like so much that involves Trump, it is a low point for the country. But it’s a high point for comedy.

#EndorseThis: ‘Respectful’ Colbert Suggests A Very Short Reading List For Trump

#EndorseThis: ‘Respectful’ Colbert Suggests A Very Short Reading List For Trump

On Christmas Day, Face The Nation broadcast John Dickerson’s annual interview with Stephen Colbert — an amusing and very thoughtful look backward at a troubled year and forward into a new era of uncertainty.

The Late Show host tries to find a brighter side as the nation approaches inauguration 2017. He explains the simple secret of writing jokes about Donald Trump. And he offers a reading list for the president-elect  — including the U.S. Constitution and Trump’s own book The Art of the Deal, implying that Trump has read neither — while confessing that he strains to remain respectful of the man as well as the office.

As a realist, Colbert keeps that reading list short — indeed, his final recommendation is very short: only four words.

#EndorseThis: Rudy Giuliani Says “I Saved A Lot More Black Lives Than Black Lives Matter”

#EndorseThis: Rudy Giuliani Says “I Saved A Lot More Black Lives Than Black Lives Matter”

This morning, Rudy Giuliani returned to a cable talk show to defend his allegation, on another talk show, that the Black Lives Matter movement was “inherently racist.”

In case you missed Giuliani’s Sunday comments on Face the Nation: The former New York City mayor appeared on the CBS show and criticized the phrase “black lives matter” as “anti-American and […] racist,” since he said it was divisive, ignored deaths of individuals of other races, and underplayed the deaths of African-Americans at the hands of other African-Americans.

As the show’s host, John Dickerson, and CBS This Morning host Gayle King mentioned earlier today, though, Giuliani’s argument rests on a tenuous perception that the Black Lives Matter movement is promulgating a view of black lives as more important than the lives of others.

“Anybody in the Black Lives Matter movement has never said that ‘black lives matter more than yours.’ No one’s ever said that,” King said. “They’re just trying to bring attention to the cause that a lot of black unarmed men are being shot by white police officers.”

This morning, Giuliani took to Fox & Friends to defend his remarks, repeating his statements and saying that in his term as mayor he helped protect African-Americans by decreasing the murder rate. “I believe I saved a lot more black lives than Black Lives Matter,” he added, reiterating his oft-repeated claim that 90 percent of black homicide victims are killed by other black people.

As the Washington Post “Fact Checker” column has already shown, though, this claim is misleading. While the approximately 90-percent figure is accurate, it ignores that 84 percent of white homicide victims are killed by whites. The figure basically implies that homicide victims are most often killed by people they know, and that most Americans’ social worlds are mostly made up of people of similar racial backgrounds.

And while Giuliani is correct that homicides did decrease during his mayoral tenure, from 1994 to 2001, he said that he left office with “500 plus murders” — the real figure is actually 649, according to the New York Police Department. In fact, the drop in New York City murders parallels the nationwide drop in the homicide rate from seven per 100,000 people in 1993 to around four per 100,000 in 2001.

Photo: YouTube/Face the Nation on CBS

Late Night Roundup: A Beer With Norman Lear

Late Night Roundup: A Beer With Norman Lear

Larry Wilmore sat down with the legendary Norman Lear, creator of All in the Family — and he even set up some of Archie and Edith’s chairs for the occasion, along with a nice friendly beer.

Larry asked: “Do you feel kind of responsible for having Archie Bunker running for president right now?”

The Daily Show‘s Jordan Klepper spoke with a government watchdog who says the Federal Election Commission is completely ineffectual at enforcing federal election laws and maintaining any public trust in the system: Federal Election Commission chairwoman Ann Ravel. The big question: Is the FEC even as useful as men’s nipples?

Stephen Colbert previewed this Saturday’s Democratic debate, by talking with CBS’ Face The Nation host and debate moderator John Dickerson. Stephen asked John some key questions, such as: Who is that third guy on the stage with Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders? (The answer: Martin O’Malley. Ouch.)

James Corden and bandleader Reggie Watts looked at the latest numbers from the presidential race — though the numbers didn’t have to actually make any sense.