"Although I sometimes tease him about his one-liners - ‘That joke, it would have been good, but you’re not in front of the Supreme Court.’” "He can take a joke, and he can give a joke," Lewis said. Lewis says Melber shifts from heavy news topics to pop culture chatter with the ease of a late-night talk show host. "He stares them down like a prizefighter in the ring." "He's fearless when he interviews people who give him problems," Lewis said by phone. Melber books entertainers and artists as guests for the back end of his program, including longer conversations on an occasional segment called "Mavericks." Some of them have become pals, such as "Curb Your Enthusiasm" regular Richard Lewis, who coined the name "Beatniks" for the show's followers. "Before you get to the more partisan discussions on the evening shows, he gives you some grounding that you can refer back to and rely on." “The way Ari engages in conversations is refreshing," said Michael Steele, the former Republican National Committee chairman who has been an MSNBC regular since 2011. He is an opinionated, but not partisan, advocate ("Follow the facts" is his mantra), which keeps "The Beat" in a neutral zone between never-Trumper Nicole Wallace's program, "Deadline: White House," and the lineup of liberal commentators that follow him in prime time. While Melber spent some time before his legal career working in Democratic politics, he is no longer a registered member of a political party. Every morning I wake up and there's a new YouTube video of you from her."'īefore joining MSNBC, Melber practiced law as a protégé of legendary 1st Amendment attorney Floyd Abrams. "He goes, 'My mom in Spain watches you every day. "I'm thinking, 'Maybe he's into the news,'" said Melber, 43, in a recent interview at his Rockefeller Plaza office. After the performance, the artist approached him. He recently attended a Spanish guitarist's performance at a club on Manhattan's Lower East Side. His program has accumulated more than 1.27 billion total views on YouTube since it launched in 2017, more than any other personality's at the network.Īttracting viewers on digital platforms is an ongoing challenge for the traditional TV news business.īut Melber has embraced it, connecting with " MSNBC moms" - a term describing the network's rabid core fans - around the world. Melber’s reach goes well beyond the dwindling number of people who watch cable television. "He starts out in a hole that's worse than most defendants." had the book 'If I Did It.' Trump's book would be 'I Did It,'" Melber said during one broadcast. When news broke Thursday that Trump was indicted by a federal grand jury on charges related to his handling of classified documents, Melber appeared across MSNBC's prime-time lineup and all day Friday, breaking down the case in the conversational style he employs on his own program. Melber's program drew an average of 1.4 million viewers, ranking behind Fox News but far ahead of CNN. His program's total audience is up 29% compared to May 2022, with a 47% increase in the 25-to-54 demographic. MSNBC has also overtaken CNN in the 25-to-54 age group coveted by advertisers. In May, MSNBC had a 77% advantage over CNN in average total viewers, the largest gap in the NBCUniversal-owned network's 27-year history, according to Nielsen data. MSNBC has capitalized on the discord at CNN, which has sent viewers its way by trying to accommodate more Republican voices. He is also the only news anchor who will drop a few lines from "Slippin'" by the late rapper DMX to describe the early stumbles of Gov. The unprecedented story of a former president indicted twice and the subject of two other criminal investigations has kept Melber, a lawyer who joined MSNBC as an analyst in 2013, in demand and lifted the daily program's ratings. A flustered Tacopina reached across the glass table, trying to snatch the paper away.ĭespite the tense skirmish, spiced up by Melber's touch of courtroom theatrics, Tacopina told the host he was "fair" - not often the kicker for a Trump-related segment on cable news. That has produced memorable encounters, such as a recent appearance by Joe Tacopina, who represented Trump in the Manhattan district attorney's investigation into hush-money payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels.ĭuring the feisty 21-minute March exchange, Melber held up a page of a 2018 transcript, in which Trump told reporters he had no knowledge of the $130,000 paid to Daniels to cover up an alleged affair. The parade of legal experts who appear daily on "The Beat With Ari Melber" includes the 2024 Republican presidential candidate's attorneys, who get ample time to make their case. As the legal heat turns up under former President Trump, MSNBC’s Ari Melber is having a moment.
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