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Former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi's appearance this week before a Senate committee considering her nomination to the Donald Trump's next U.S. attorney general drew no small amount of scorn on MSNBC on Saturday morning.

Reacting to Bondi's answers, many of which avoided the topic altogether, MSNBC host Michael Steele singled out one exchange with Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) that he found stunning.

Speaking with his co-hosts on "The Weekend," Steele noted that Bondi was given an obvious free ride by many of the Republican senators on the committee.

ALSO READ: Inside the parade of right-wing world leaders flocking to D.C. for Trump's inauguration

"What is stunning to me is that level of questioning was not put on Pam Bondi," he told his co-hosts. "And the moment, to me, what made the hearing a real sort of slack-jawed, whacked-out moment was the exchange with, you know, the senators around Donald Trump in his election results."

"You know, she and Ted Cruz having this, finishing each other's sentences moment where they're talking about, you know, the election and she's like, '"Oh yes, 77 million people," he laughed as he mimicked her voice.

"You know, it's like really? I mean, I know you're concerned about the one and not the 330 million. So this is, I don't know, I think you said it right, Symone [Sanders Townsend], you know," he continued. "Going to find out –– y'all going to find out a whole lot of stuff and people going to be running around looking for help for people who aren't there and that's going to be a big problem."

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A heated discussion broke out Friday night over a pair of reports in The New York Times that President Joe Biden's inner circle shielded him for years, and that Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) begged him in July not to seek a second term.

The Times put out the reports late Friday.

A former federal prosecutor appeared amused after Trump-appointed judge Aileen Cannon questioned why there was a rush to push out special counsel Jack Smith's report in his classified documents case, and lamented what information within may never see the light of day.

Elie Honig, a former New York prosecutor, joined CNN's Kaitlan Collins on Friday night on "The Source" to discuss Cannon's remark, which she made earlier in the day.

Top Trump aide Stephen Miller is set to wield even more influence during the president-elect’s second administration, but the casual political observer may have missed a key detail about his new White House roles, according to New York Times journalist Maggie Haberman.

Miller, who crafted the first administration’s most rigid immigration policies, has set himself apart from other veterans of Donald Trump’s first administration as the one person who has spent the most time mapping out what the next term’s policy agenda will look like.

MSNBC host Nicolle Wallace was up close and personal with former Gov. Sarah Palin (R-AK) when she worked for the late Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), and even she misses Palin over the likes of Gov. Kristi Noem (R-SD).

Wallace and her panel discussed Noem's confirmation hearing on Friday, focusing on what she called a "lack of competence" from Noem.

The new ruling from the conservative-dominated U.S. Supreme Court forcing the sale of TikTok is likely to become a bigger political problem for Donald Trump, as the shutdown will occur just as he takes office.

However, analysts say that he should be held responsible since three of the justices who upheld the government's policy on TikTok were appointed by him during his first term.

A decision by Donald Trump and his team to move his inaugural festivities indoors due to expected cold weather on Monday both infuriated and disappointed some of his visiting MAGA fans who voiced their complaints on MSNBC.

With the official proceedings being moved to the Capitol with its limited seating, four of the president's supporters got the bad news on the street with one man bluntly complaining, "I don't like it."

According to MSNBC's Chris Jansing, the expected weather on Monday will actually be warmer than MAGA fans have experienced at some of his rallies.

ALSO READ: Trump intel advisor Devin Nunes still dismisses Russian election meddling as a 'hoax'

Four men who are already in town to watch Trump's swearing in made their feelings about the change known on national TV.

'Well, I don't like it," stated one man wearing a black MAGA hat. "I mean, we came all the way to Washington from Oklahoma and, you know, now we're not going to get to see it?"

Speaking for himself and his friend wearing a knit Trump beanie he added, "We're like, we might as well have stayed at home and watched it on TV."

Another man complained, "It's actually something that we've been looking forward to for historical purposes and being a part of it that's once in a lifetime" as his companion agreed and added, "Absolutely."

"We made all the plans, all the arrangements to come up and be a part of this event and all of a sudden to hear that it's being moved indoors," he added as his friend chimed in with, "We're prepared for the weather –– it's not a problem."

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A former Donald Trump administration official butted head with CNN's Pamela Brown on Friday after he attempted to smear Vice President Kamala Harris over President Joe Biden's border enforcement policies.

Speaking with the host as CNN covered members of the U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs questioning Donald Trump nominee Kristi Noem (R-SD), picked to be the new director, on a split screen, Ken Cuccinelli was asked what he expects from Trump's incoming administration.

Mentioning Trump's incoming "border czar," Tom Homan, the former Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security under Trump added, "Of course, Joe Biden theoretically had a border czar, but she didn't do anything –– it's part of why she lost the race for president--."

ALSO READ: Trump intel advisor Devin Nunes still dismisses Russian election meddling as a 'hoax'

"She was responsible for Central America countries, DHS, the head of DHS was responsible for --," Brown interjected.

"No, she wasn't," Cuccinelli shot back.

"I know that was a big talking point," she replied.

"Don't whitewash what they were doing," the former Trump official complained as he continued to talk as the CNN host admonished him, "I'm not white-washing."

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During the second round of questioning of Director of Homeland Security nominee Kristi Noem, Sen Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) butted heads with her after she tried to dodge a question about Donald Trump threatening to withhold money from state governments he has an issue with.

As the first round of questioning concluded with no fireworks, Blumenthal asked Noem about recent comments made by the president-elect and his allies that they want to withhold disaster relief and whether she agreed with it.

That led the South Dakota governor to demur by saying, "I don't speak to hypotheticals which is what you're asking me but as secretary, I will do the same ––."

ALSO READ: Fox News has blood on its hands as Trump twists the knife

"It's more than a hypothetical with all due respect," the Democrat interjected. "I apologize for interrupting you but my time is limited as you know, as a veteran of the hearings. But that's more than a hypothetical. It's based on experience with President Trump withholding money from Washington state and elsewhere."

"I need to know from you will you stand up to the president and say 'No, the Constitution and the Impoundment Act act requires us, for example, to allocate the $100 billion that we have just appropriated in the last session to say like Connecticut, $3 million, Texas, $10 million, almost every one of the states represented here?" he pressed. "Will you say no to the president if he withholds that money?"

"I don't know about the scenarios that you are referencing with President Trump but I will tell you if given the chance to be secretary of Homeland Security, that I will deliver the programs according to the law and that it will be done with no political bias," she replied. "If the programs change or if you decide to change the rule of law, then I will follow that."

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President Joe Biden has been making a flurry of last-minute moves before ending his 50-year political career, and a former White House aide believes that betrays a lack of confidence in his legacy.

The outgoing president has issued orders to limit offshore drilling, speed up the construction of data centers for artificial intelligence and promote cybersecurity, in addition to reaffirming his legacy as the president who has issued the most pardons and commutations in history by commuting the sentences of nearly 2,500 nonviolent drug offenders, and former White House spokesperson Pete Seat offered an analysis of those moves on CNN.

CNN commentators clashed over the ouster of the Republican chair of the House Intelligence Committee by speaker Mike Johnson.

Rep. Mike Turner (R-OH) has told colleagues that Donald Trump "personally" ordered the House speaker to remove him from the panel overseeing the CIA and FBI, which Johnson disputes, because the president-elect sees him "basically an intel community sycophant," but Republican strategist Brad Todd argued the move was "completely legitimate."

President Joe Biden reflected on MSNBC late Thursday on what he could've done better and lamented he could've been a better "huckster."

Speaking with Lawrence O'Donnell, Biden was asked about his political approach to the pandemic.

President-elect Donald Trump's pick to head the Environmental Protection Agency drew attention at his confirmation hearing this week by acknowledging climate change is real, despite Trump's repeated assertions to the contrary. But in another standout moment, he badly flubbed what was supposed to be a softball question on whether a key greenhouse gas was legally a pollutant, The Daily Beast reported.

“First, as a matter of law, is carbon dioxide a pollutant?” Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) asked Former Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-NY).