MSNBC’s Ed Schultz grew impatient Tuesday evening as he and a guest battled over whether Indiana’s new Religious Freedom Restoration Act discriminates against gays, prompting the increasingly agitated cable news host at one point to cut off his guest’s microphone.
A host of online news groups pilloried Schultz for his reaction to being challenged on-air, with a few groups suggesting Wednesday that the MSNBC personality is incapable of debating conservative guests.
But Schultz isn’t unique among MSNBC notables for having silenced a differing viewpoint during a contentious debate.
In fact, the left-leaning network has a bit of a history of hosts silencing guests during prickly and tense debates.
Here are the top four examples:
1. Contessa Brewer versus conservative talk show host
MSNBC’s Contessa Brewer at the conclusion of a disagreeable 2009 interview with talk radio host John Ziegler found herself fed up with his remarks, asking her producers eventually to cut his microphone.
The conservative talk radio host appeared on MSNBC so that he could discuss the controversy surrounding late night host David Letterman‘s joke that former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin looked like a “slutty flight attendant.”
Ziegler spent the majority of the interview dinging MSNBC for having a pro-Obama bias, drawing the ire of Brewer. The interview eventually came to a conclusion, but not before the annoyed MSNBC host cut Ziegler’s parting shot short and asked that her producers silence his audio feed.
2. Former host Dylan Rattigan versus Tea Party activist
Former MSNBC host Dylan Ratigan in 2010 got into a heated debate with conservative activist Mark Williams over whether the Tea Party accepts “wingnuts.”
“Well that’s real simple. There’s wingnuts and there’s normal people,” Williams said.
Ratigan pushed, saying, “What confuses me about the Tea Party is the Tea Party’s willingness to accept the wingnuts, as you put it, without shaming them or defining more crisply what the Tea Party’s agenda is relative to those who just want to kill black people for instance.”
From there, the interview fell apart, with Ratigan pressing Williams to answer whether he “accept racists and Nazis in the Tea Party.”
Williams refused to answer, prompting an irate Ratigan to cut off his guest’s microphone and abruptly end the interview.
3. Joe Scarborough versus Lawrence O’Donnell
“Morning Joe” host Joe Scarborough in 2010 wasn’t able to cut off MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell’s audio feed, so he did the next best thing: The former Florida congressman spoke loudly into his own microphone and told his producers to go to a commercial break.
The uncomfortable moment occurred as the morning panel hosted former White House speechwriter Marc Thiessen to discuss his new book, Courting Disaster: How the CIA Kept America Safe and How Barack Obama Is Inviting the Next Attack.
O’Donnell was decidedly unimpressed with what Thiessen had to say, and took it a step further, letting the former speechwriter for President George W. Bush know exactly what he thinks of America’s 43rd president.
“Isn’t it true that the president you worked for invited the first attack by having no idea what was going on with al Qaeda? You just admitted that when you were hit on 9/11, you just said, ‘We didn’t know who hit us,'” O’Donnell said. “You were told who was going to hit you before 9/11. And your administration invited the first attack, for which you should live in shame.”
The host of MSNBC’s “The Last Word” continued, berating Theissen with class-themed insinuations.
“Marc, I’m wondering about your own personal experience with torture. I know you grew up in the richest zip code in America, in the Upper East Side. You went to the only boarding school in all of Connecticut that I know of that has its own golf course… And then you went to Vassar,” O’Donnell said. “And like all the torture-mongers in the Bush White House, the Cheney family included, you never served a day in the military. Never considered that. I’m wondering, with that background, what is it that gives you an expertise on torture? What makes you love it so much?”
The interview did not improve from there, prompting Scarborough to reach for his microphone and demand that the show cut immediately to commercial break.
4. Ex-host Tamron Hall versus the Washington Examiner’s Tim Carney
The Examiner’s Tim Carney appeared on MSNBC during the 2012 election to discuss, among other things, a Washington Post story detailing former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney’s supposed past as a high school bully.
Then-MSNBC host Tamron Hall was was not at all impressed when Carney accused her of overhyping the bully story and then claiming, “people are talking about it.”
“What you’re doing here is a typical media trick. You hype up a story, and then you justify the second day coverage of the story by saying people are talking about it. Here’s how Romney responded to it,” Carney said. “Let’s move on to substantive issues.”
“You didn’t have to accept the invitation to come on,” Hall said. “You knew what we were going to be discussing.”
Before Carney had a chance to respond, she had already cut off his microphone.
“Hang on. You’re kind of in my house here. The problem is this. The story is out there. You’re right. I am not saying that we should belabor what happened 50 years ago. We’re talking about the response by the campaign and by the governor,” she said to a silenced Carney. “You’re actually irritating me right now. I’m going to be honest with you. Yes, you are. You knew the topics we were going to discuss. You knew them. You agreed.”
Honorable mention: Thomas Roberts cuts away from Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn.
During a discussion in 2013 on the partial government shutdown over funding for the Affordable Care Act, MSNBC’s Thomas Roberts suggested in a discussion with Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., that Republicans lawmakers hate the U.S.
“Congresswoman, let me ask you though, when it comes to Obamacare, do you hate Obamacare more than you love your country?” he asked.
The line of questioning is “incredibly inappropriate,” Blackburn said.
“You don’t think it’s incredibly inappropriate to shut down our government and take all the hostages of Americans that you’ve taken?” Roberts responded.
The congresswoman again objected to Roberts’ line of question, to which he responded: “No, no, no. It’s not inappropriate because you’ve taken the government hostage through a shutdown and all the American people, you’re walking them to a cliff.”
Before the Tennessee lawmaker had a chance to defend or explain her position, Roberts interrupted to cut away to Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.
Roberts never came back to get Blackburn’s response.
