On Sunday night, MSNBC’s The Weekend Primetime ran a segment comparing President Trump and his administration to the Corleone family from The Godfather, a movie about an Italian mob boss. This group struggle session had panelists drooling over themselves to spew out any anti-Trump rhetoric they could think of while relating him to a fictional character.
While mispronouncing Corleone as Caponey (a mispronunciation of Capone, who’s not involved in the movie), MSNBC co-host Elise Jordan delusionally said: “One of the greatest movies ever made now feels more like a blueprint for dealing with the Trump presidency. Kiss the ring or feel the wrath of the Don.”
Her peak journalism led to this response from former New York Democratic Representative Max Rose, where he compared the Trump administration to a criminal enterprise, going as far to say “there’s no doubt” about it:
I mean, I do think that Donald Trump is running a criminal enterprise here. There's absolutely no doubt. And no member of the Republican Party will stand up to him to include members of the House or the Senate. And that was actually the purpose of the separation of powers, that this wasn't about political parties. But what I hear from members, you know, still serving is that they're astounded the degree to which these Republicans will hold overnight hearings, will do anything, will contradict themselves. It does not matter how embarrassing they are to themselves, they will do whatever Donald Trump needs them to do.
Rose never proffered any evidence of the supposed “criminal enterprise,” leading viewers to base his claims off of, well, nothing. Ironically, in The Godfather, the Corleone family paid off multiple New York politicians.
MSNBC author Hayes Brown tried to join in on the fun but ended up looking ignorant while crying authoritarianism over the Trump vs. Paramount settlement:
BROWN: Yes, absolutely. They need to face consequences and they need to see that there is an alternative to just caving. Because what baffles me is how, time and again, we see the “don't hit me” response to Donald Trump, where you see groups cave before anything has really been done. We just saw it – I’d forgotten that The Godfather was a Paramount picture until we just showed that clip and there was a little bug at the top. And it's wild because Paramount just signed over, what was it, several million dollars?
JORDAN: 16.
BROWN: $16 million to the Trump Presidential Library fund in order to make a lawsuit that was entirely frivolous go away. That is a prime example of the urge to say, ‘I have no power here,’ and make that into a truism, like, by saying, oh, there's nothing we can do here. They make that into fact.
As much as Hayes made it seem as though the Paramount settlement with Trump over editing of a 60 minutes interview with Kamala Harris in 2024 was "frivolous," he was operating with the same amount of evidence as the rest of America, yet still claimed that Paramount would have won had they just fought back.
He operated on this assumption despite their settlement of $16 million and agreement to release unedited interview transcripts with presidential candidates from now on.
Co-host Antonia Hylton ran from the terrible Godfather comparison to continue with the Paramount outrage (Click “expand”):
HYLTON: How alarmed are you by the Paramount/CBS – I mean, the implications for our industry, really? I mean, it's obviously part of this long line of examples Catherine just spelled out here, but at a time when our industry is trying to gain trust, rebuild relationships, this certainly can't help.
BROWN: No, I feel like the terribly ironic thing is they – probably the people at the top of the corporations who are making those decisions which are separate from CBS News or ABC News when the Disney corporation signed over their $16 million agreement, they're looking out. They think – they probably do think that they are acting in their own best interest, that they are working to make sure that their other deals don't get hindered by the FCC. They're making to – working to make sure that it – really does boil down to giving favors in order to get favors the way that –
So, I am worried that without a solid, independent, financially stable media, that it's going to be impossible to push back on that. If you have to worry about what is going on at the level so much higher above you when you're trying to tell the truth, that is a terrible recipe for democracy and for our country.
While Hylton claimed the media was “trying to gain trust, rebuild relationships,” you certainly don’t gain trust from the majority of American voters by comparing their president to a fictional crime boss!
Brown responded by saying that media outlets can’t "tell the truth” when they were being sued for lying. Remember when MSNBC had to settle for defaming a doctor by calling him the “uterus collector?” Maybe people would trust the media more if they didn’t whine about the truth right after lying!
The full transcript is below. Click "expand" to view:
MSNBC’s The Weekend: Primetime
July 6, 2025
8:15 p.m. ESTELISE JORDAN: One of the greatest movies ever made now feels more like a blueprint for dealing with the Trump presidency. Kiss the ring or feel the wrath of the Don. Vanity Fair made the mafia comparison, calling the Trump White House, quote, “the godfather presidency,” adding, quote, “even the mighty Caponey – Capone was brought down by the government. Trump, in contrast, has made the executive branch, indeed the three branches of the US government, his. And has done so swiftly, effectively, and in a manner that makes him, for now at least, untouchable.”
Okay, well, we're going to discuss it now. Joining us now is Hayes Brown, MSNBC daily columnist and editor, and former Democratic Congressman Max Rose of New York. He's also a senior adviser for VoteVets.
(...)
8:17 p.m. Est
FRM. REP. MAX ROSE (D-NY): I mean, I do think that Donald Trump is running a criminal enterprise here. There's absolutely no doubt. And no member of the Republican Party will stand up to him to include members of the House or the Senate. And that was actually the purpose of the separation of powers, that this wasn't about political parties. But what I hear from members, you know, still serving is that they're astounded the degree to which these Republicans will hold overnight hearings, will do anything, will contradict themselves. It does not matter how embarrassing they are to themselves, they will do whatever Donald Trump needs them to do.
CATHERINE RAMPELL: There are other institutions, of course, that have caved beyond the Republican Party. You've seen a lot of universities cave, law firms cave. Actually, the thing that I like most about the law firm arc is that a lot of those law firms thought that they were acting in their own narrow financial interest by caving to Donald Trump on these, you know, ludicrous things that he was asking them to do, and then they lost all their clients. So it's like, nice to see some comeuppance here.
What would it take, do you think, for other institutions to start fighting back more? Like, do they need to face consequences that incentivize them to stand up?
HAYES BROWN: Yes, absolutely. They need to face consequences and they need to see that there is an alternative to just caving. Because what baffles me is how, time and again, we see the “don't hit me” response to Donald Trump, where you see groups cave before anything has really been done. We just saw it – I’d forgotten that The Godfather was a Paramount picture until we just showed that clip and there was a little bug at the top. And it's wild because Paramount just signed over, what was it, several million dollars?
JORDAN: 16.
BROWN: $16 million to the Trump Presidential Library fund in order to make a lawsuit that was entirely frivolous go away. That is a prime example of the urge to say, ‘I have no power here,’ and make that into a truism, like, by saying, oh, there's nothing we can do here. They make that into fact.
ANTONIA HYLTON: How alarmed are you by the Paramount/CBS – I mean, the implications for our industry, really? I mean, it's obviously part of this long line of examples Catherine just spelled out here, but at a time when our industry is trying to gain trust, rebuild relationships, this certainly can't help.
BROWN: No, I feel like the terribly ironic thing is they – probably the people at the top of the corporations who are making those decisions which are separate from CBS News or ABC News when the Disney corporation signed over their $16 million agreement, they're looking out. They think – they probably do think that they are acting in their own best interest, that they are working to make sure that their other deals don't get hindered by the FCC. They're making to – working to make sure that it – really does boil down to giving favors in order to get favors the way that –
So, I am worried that without a solid, independent, financially stable media, that it's going to be impossible to push back on that. If you have to worry about what is going on at the level so much higher above you when you're trying to tell the truth, that is a terrible recipe for democracy and for our country.
LAMPELL: So, Max, let me ask you a version of the question that I asked Hayes, which is what would it take for Republicans to, like, what incentives would they need to face for them to finally grow a spine, or does it not exist? Like I keep thinking, well, maybe if they just lose really, really badly in the next election, that will teach them that they need to weigh, at least politically, some of their other instincts against the instinct to bow to Trump. But that doesn't happen.
(...)
9:22 p.m. Est
BROWN: But I think part of it is that they are hoping that their constituents just don't notice because of the way they built this bill, the way that they've structured it. Honestly, the fact that – that's part of what makes it feel so shady and criminal in nature is they know exactly what the bad things are. And so they're frontloading…
JORDAN: The timing, exactly!
BROWN: The timing of it. They're pushing all of the bad cuts, the Medicare cuts, the making states have to pay more for food stamps until after the midterm elections. They're pushing – they're making it so that the tax cuts that they're putting in there, the extra no – the extra money you get to keep from Social Security, the taxes on tips thing, that expires after Trump's term. They know that they have to – that they – that in defending this bill they only have to do it for so long and they just have to keep Trump happy until then.
(...)