The Worst of MSNBC in 2018

The Washington Free Beacon presents its sixth annual look at the worst MSNBC had to offer over the previous year.

In the second year of the Trump administration, there were Russia conspiracies galore (John Heilemann asked if Devin Nunes was a "Russian agent"), insults to throw around ("Morning Joe" host Mika Brzezinski called the secretary of state a "wannabe dictator's buttboy") and fates to ponder (Katy Tur wondered if her entire life was "pointless" because of climate change).

Nicolle Wallace hoped she wouldn't jinx Andrew Gillum in Florida and wondered how an NBC reporter resisted wringing Sarah Huckabee Sanders' neck at the podium. Steve Schmidt declared Russian election interference and potential collusion with Trump to be perhaps the "greatest crime in American history" and found plenty of things to be vile and disgusting. Malcolm Nance said the Russians had successfully brainwashed the American public into welcoming an invasion, which Brian Williams said was some "scary stuff."

Donny Deutsch said Brett Kavanaugh would never reach the Supreme Court. Lawrence O'Donnell called the U.S. Senate an "unfixable crime against democracy" because it confirmed Kavanaugh. Chris Matthews melted down over Anthony Kennedy's retirement from the Supreme Court and yelled at Steve Kornacki. Michael Steele warned viewers "your kids could be next" to go into "concentration camps" at the southern border.

Stephanie Ruhle mocked midwesterners who don't like socialism and admitted she yells curse words at Trump in the shower, while Ali Velshi posed a conspiracy theory that the National Rifle Association includes him as a member in their "secret records" and told a progressive politician that her platform was "normal" and she was preaching to the converted.

Who could forget Joy Reid, who survived one of the most bizarre cable news scandals in recent times? Following Internet hunters uncovering a series of homophobic and controversial posts from her defunct Florida politics blog, Reid—who admitted writing similar things last year—claimed she had been hacked and sent investigators on a wild goose chase. When that proved to be ridiculous, Reid sort of apologized for the hurt she had caused but insisted, "I genuinely do not believe I wrote those hateful things because they are completely alien to me."

She suffered no professional repercussions.

There were also words to misspell: Al Sharpton messed up perhaps the most famous song lyric in Aretha Franklin's canon, going with R-E-S-P-I-C-T to honor the late singer.

See you next year!

Click here for the mobile version of this story (with comments)