Joy Reid

The federal government is not becoming Office Space — yet.The Elon Musk-led effort to require all federal government employees to report back with what exactly they do here was met with pushback from throughout the administration, including from several of President Trump’s new appointees.The Office of Personnel Management’s email, with the subject line, “What did you do last week?” mirrors how Musk has operated companies he owns, like Twitter/X, where he asked similar questions.OPM’s moves came after Trump issued an ultimatum on Truth Social for Musk to double-down on his aggressiveness with the efforts of the Department of Government Efficiency (DoGE), which many thought might not be possible. For some, the measures are a bridge too far.

It seems every MSNBC host is trembling for his or her life these days. First, Rachel Maddow feared Donald Trump would throw her in an internment camp if reelected and now, following the Supreme Court’s ruling on Donald Trump’s immunity, Joy Reid thinks her rights as a woman and a black American will be revoked. But that’s not the only thing upsetting Reid. The commentator took to TikTok to explain how Monday’s decision has made Trump America's first king.  “The Leonard Leo six on the court just declared, days before this nation celebrates its independence presumably from the British king, that the president of the United States and a former president... that they are a king,” Reid said in a lengthy TikTok video.

“Floridians’ lives are in danger,” tweeted Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’s rapid response director Christina Pushaw as Hurricane Ian bore down, “so of course CNN is rooting for the hurricane.” Pushaw was responding to CNN reporter Edward-Isaac Dovere, who had earlier admonished DeSantis for having “put himself at odds with many local government officials” and “looking for fights with a president he may end up running against.” The governor was “playing politics,” suggested Dovere’s colleague Steve Contore, who covers Florida politics for CNN, surmising that “he is urging residents to heed advice from the same local leaders” whom DeSantis supposedly said to “ignore during COVID.

What news network did you watch on election night? Thankfully we all had plenty of options. There was CNN, where John King's magic wall grows ever more granular: "we're moving the Kelleher household into the leans-Republican column, Wolf, though their dog remains undecided. Now next door to the Smiths..." There was Fox News, where loud people shout at each other until Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum finally pull over the car and tell everyone to knock it off. And then there was MSNBC. Oh, Lord, was there MSNBC. There did we find Nicolle Wallace, one of the network's fastidiously objective anchors, declaring that Virginia governor-elect Glenn Youngkin "worshipped at the altar of Donald Trump.

Chris Matthews, the former MSNBC host who was unceremoniously canceled a little over a year ago thanks to a GQ article accusing him of sexual harassment, made his return to cable television this week. During an appearance on his old network, Matthews asserted that he takes 'ownership' of his behavior: 'I took ownership of it — using a nice modern phase — I have took complete ownership. I did not deny it. I lost my show over it. That’s it — so that’s the truth.' Matthews's not-so-triumphant comeback follows in the footsteps of other once-canceled personalities like former NBC News contributor Mark Halperin, who has been appearing as a guest on Newsmax, and comedian Louis CK, who is selling out live shows around the country.

The coronavirus pandemic was a black-swan event the likes of which this planet hadn’t seen in almost a hundred years. It caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people and crashed the global economy, resulting in the largest socioeconomic change since 2008. It was, in short, not good. Yet there are pockets of public health experts and corporate media pundits who seem content to play out an endless cycle of pandemic porn. This runs contrary to what the majority of the population wants to watch and how most Americans are choosing to live their lives.