John Harwood

With what appears to be a devastating election looming for his party, is President Obama attempting to follow in the footsteps of one of his predecessors and moderate toward the center? Not if choosing Pete Rouse to replace chief of staff Rahm Emanuel is any indication,  according to CNBC’s Larry Kudlow. On the Oct. 1 broadcast of “The Call,” CNBC Washington correspondent John Harwood…

One of the most common threads in the media recently has been how bad the Tea Party movement has been for this United States. It has been derided for lacking racial diversity, promoting policies outside the so-called mainstream and blamed for creating a civil war within the Republican Party. The media often stress those “negatives” at the expense of the positive basic tenets of the Tea Party…

The ratings are in for Barack Obama's televised town hall meeting on CNBC Monday, and they're pretty dismal.In fact, far more people watched the Fox News Channel's "Happening Now" with Jon Scott and Jenna Lee airing at the same time than tuned in to see what the President had to say. Potentially even more embarrassing, when you add in those that watched Obama in MSNBC's replay of the event later…

When it comes to picking a moderator for a game of ¿Quien Es Mas Macho?, somehow John Harwood doesn't spring to mind.  But there was CNBC's chief Washington correspondent on The Ed Show this evening, twice accusing Pres. Obama's businessmen critics of "whining," and instructing them to "man up."Schultz set the stage, playing a clip of Mort Zuckerman describing Obama's White House as "the most…

Joe Scarborough was on fire this morning, his ire trained on twin targets: Dick Blumenthal, and the New York Times' John Harwood, who casually dismissed the candidate's lies about having served in Vietnam as just a case of getting "a little carried away."  At one point, Scarborough claimed he wasn't calling Blumenthal a "scumbag"—but it sure sounded like it.Harwood began his Blumenthal defense…

Although to ask this question is to invite with a good degree of criticism, it is still worth asking: Is Obama administration's approach to publicly reprimanding private industry cause for concern? On CNBC's May 4 "Squawk Box," host Michelle Caruso-Cabrera raised this point and asked Washington correspondent John Harwood if White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs' recent statement BP was a…

As congressional Democrats press on with their attempts to get financial legislation reform passed, a key component has been lacking from the debate: how to handle the government-sponsored enterprises Fannie Mae (NYSE:FNM) and Freddie Mac (NYSE:FRE).  Although some Republican lawmakers have cried foul over the fact nothing has been included in a bill sponsored by Senate Banking Committee…

Finally! What the public thinks is now important. That was the takeaway from an April 22 CNBC "Squawk Box" segment in which the network's Washington correspondent John Harwood explained the upside for the Obama administration in taking an aggressive tack on financial regulation and pushing it through Congress. According to Harwood, public opinion on this issue favors President Barack Obama. He…

CNBC's John Harwood, in an interview aired on Thursday's Today show, pressed Barack Obama about the need to regulate Wall Street as he questioned the President if Americans needed to view them in the same way they view Big Tobacco as "companies whose core activities are harmful to the country?" Obama declined to make the comparison to the tobacco companies, but went on to insist Wall Street…

Is President Barack Obama really instituting "cradle-to-grave" social policies and transforming the United States into a nanny state? Well, it may not be "womb-to-tomb" yet, but he's certainly creating a welfare state for Americans beyond their mid-20s. On CNBC's April 12 "Squawk Box," the network's Washington correspondent John Harwood was outlining what he perceived to be the more positive…

PBS Washington Week host Gwen Ifill was featured Friday on the Romenesko media-news site for her "Gwen’s Take" blog post dismissing the Eric Massa groping scandal as a silly distraction (echoing  Rachel Maddow, and Nancy Pelosi). She compared Washington to Dug the talking dog in the cartoon movie "Up" chasing a squirrel. But in 2006, Ifill’s show almost screamed with hype that the Mark Foley…

CNBC "Squawk Box" co-hosts Joe Kernen and Becky Quick get it. Unfortunately, their CNBC colleague that covers Washington, D.C. for the network doesn't. On the Jan. 22 broadcast, Harwood appeared on the program to give a status report on the current version of health care reform being negotiated in Congress and what it means in the aftermath of Scott Brown's filibuster-proof busting election…

On MSNBC's "New York Times edition" Friday afternoon, host John Harwood, who also writes about politics for the Times, called talk show host Rush Limbaugh's comments about Obama using the Haiti earthquake to appeal to black voters "pretty disgusting," about twenty minutes into the show.Harwood then put Times columnist Ross Douthat on the spot as its "man of the right" to explain Limbaugh if he…

The Media Research Center's "Best Notable Quotables of 2009: The Annual Awards for the Year's Worst Reporting" are garnering some media attention of their own. MRC President Brent Bozell drew laughs from the gang on Fox & Friends this morning as he reviewed a few of the winners, but other journalists have also found the awards worthy of coverage:The American Spectator's Quin Hillyer, who…