Media blowback continued after President Donald Trump's rather shocking Thursday address at the National Prayer Breakfast, in which he mocked professions of faith from Republican Mitt Romney and Democrat Nancy Pelosi. 

“I don’t like people who use their faith as justification for doing what they know is wrong," said Trump at one point in the diatribe. "Nor do I like people who say, ‘I pray for you,’ when they know that that’s not so."

CNN's John Berman described Trump's faith attack as "interesting" and "ironic" before calling it "jaw-dropping" to "see President Donald Trump portray himself as an arbiter of faith at the National Prayer Breakfast."

Joe Scarborough lashed out at the religious leaders in attendance who enabled Trump's religious harangue, saying "the most grotesque part was not Donald Trump... the grotesque part were those people jammed in there and the people jammed into the prayer breakfast who were laughing along to this abhorrent behavior."

Even top-tier Trump toady Dan Bongino got in the act defending Romney's faith, saying, "I’m sure his Mormon beliefs are sincere. Hat-tip to him. I mean that... I never mess around with that stuff. It’s really gross and not fair."

It was kind of a weird day for political social media campaigns, particularly Pete Buttigieg.

First off, a pro-Bernie Sanders political group pointed out how the Buttigieg campaign added the sound of audience clapping to a snippet from Thursday night's CNN Town Hall. It belied the authenticity that the Buttigieg campaign is so eager to promote.

Then the Buttigieg sort of shot themselves in the foot by promoting a campaign platitude that would make even SNL writer Jack Handy (he of "Deep Thoughts") blush:










Then there was The Daily Beast report that Mike Bloomberg's campaign was looking to pay "micro-influencers" $150 in cold hard cash to support his candidacy. As if one could simply buy off the American vote. Wait.

What is it with former mayors and their social media campaigns, right?

CBS This Morning host Gayle King unloaded on her own network in a video she posted to her social media accounts this week. At issue was an interview clip CBS teased online on Tuesday, in which King asked former WNBA star Lisa Leslie about Kobe Bryant’s sexual assault case — a line of inquiry Bryant’s fans did not appreciate. King said the clip was taken “out of context.”

“I am mortified, I am embarrassed and I am very angry,” King said in the video. “Unbeknownst to me my network put up a clip from a very wide-ranging interview totally taken out of context, and when you see it that way it’s very jarring. It’s jarring to me. I didn’t even know anything about it. I started getting calls: What the hell are you doing? Why did you say this? What is happening?”

In a statement to Mediaite, a CBS spokesperson said: “Gayle conducted a thoughtful, wide-ranging interview with Lisa Leslie about the legacy of Kobe Bryant. An excerpt was posted that did not reflect the nature and tone of the full interview. We are addressing the internal process that led to this and changes have already been made.”

Coronavirus Boat's a Coming... We're Gonna Party Tonight

Welp, it was bound to happen sooner or later. A cruise ship docked in the New York Metropolitan area is screening a dozen passengers for possible infection of the coronavirus. A handful have been taken to an area hospital under precaution that they may have the deadly virus. 

Life's Been Good to Him So Far...

Former Republican congressman and current radio host Joe Walsh formally announced that he was dropping out of the Republican presidential primary during a morning interview with CNN's John Berman.

And while absolutely no one took his protest candidacy even remotely seriously, he did get in a remarkably on point zinger attacking President Donald Trump in context of surging Democratic Candidate Bernie Sanders.

"I would rather have a socialist in the White House than a dictator, than a king, than Donald Trump," Walsh said, and so it was.

Fox News Doc Argues Obamacare is Killing People By... Covering Their Medical Care?

Fox News contributor Dr. Nicole Saphier, M.D. says that Americans are dying of preventable diseases because of Obamacare, which takes away the incentive to be healthy by covering medical care for tens of millions more Americans.

After rattling off a few coronavirus facts that you should probably check on, Dr. Saphier promoted her new book by claiming that Obamacare is killing people.

"The point is Americans are dying younger from largely preventable disease and bad health policy decisions," Saphier said, adding "And the problem that I have with this is heart disease alone costs about $230 billion to the United States."

She then claimed that "The Affordable Care Act did nothing to help that except take away, they took away the incentivizations for good behavior choices by saying that whatever, however you act, whatever you do, everything's going to be covered, and so preventable illness is running rampant across the United States."

Watch the spurious claim in the bonkers segment here.