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The Internet is Very Worried About MSNBC’s Steve Kornacki

KQED
Published November 5, 2020 at 3:57 PM PST

Last week, pretty much every journalist in the country attended at least one Zoom meeting to strategize how best to survive this most prolonged of election weeks. Unbeknownst to us at that time, on the other side of the country, MSNBC’s Steve Kornacki was probably in the middle of a Rocky-esque training montage. There’s simply no other explanation for the national political correspondent’s on-screen stamina in the face of the nail-biting (and much slower than usual) election results.

Viewers knew he had a tough job ahead of him on election day:

But Kornacki has barely left TV screens since dawn on Tuesday when he appeared on the Morning Joe show. He then spent the rest of the day providing extremely thorough analysis, and continued as the evening’s results rolled in.

He stayed on television throughout the night, reportedly managing to take a nap between 5am and 7:15am East Coast time. And then? He just … kept going.

And going …

Even co-workers were openly in awe:

On Wednesday at lunchtime, Kornacki was given another brief reprieve when Ali Velshi took over for a few hours. Velshi joked to anchor Ari Melber: “We have removed him forcibly from the building. He’s in a room with pillow, blankets and warm milk.”

A couple of hours later, Kornacki was back at it. Chrissy Teigen expressed concern for Kornacki not once but twice, on Wednesday afternoon and evening:

Inevitably, all this screen time has grown Kornacki’s fan base exponentially:

By Wednesday evening, Twitter users were having to reassure one other that Kornacki had, in fact, managed to find the time for some basic personal care.

Remarkably, Kornacki’s passionate reporting and math skills remained intact well into the evening.

Even though there was a little tiredness in evidence:

But lo and behold, on Thursday he was back at it and still killing it:

Even though he was a tad less articulate than when he started three days earlier …

There is some evidence that Kornacki has singlehandedly assisted in maintaining the sanity of some viewers.

The adoration across the country continued to bombard Twitter as the election dragged on:

Kornacki said thanks for all the support on Wednesday afternoon, but clearly couldn’t stop long enough to put all of his important papers down:

On Thursday afternoon, cannabis company Columbia Care got so concerned about Kornacki, it stepped in to try and help. “We at Columbia Care want to thank you for your incredible work and unwavering dedication to the American people,” a letter to Kornacki said. “As a gift of gratitude, Columbia Care would like to offer you a yearlong supply of our high-quality CBD products, so you can relax and take the break you truly deserve.”

Given that Kornacki recently told GQ that it’s Diet Coke that keeps him going during these electoral marathons, Coca-Cola should probably step up with a sponsorship.

Plus, MSNBC could always re-name the channel …

Copyright 2020 KQED
Regional Interests