Michael Smerconish Biography
Michael Smerconish is a radio and television host in the United States, as well as a political commentator, newspaper columnist, author, and lawyer. He hosts The Michael Smerconish Program on SiriusXM’s POTUS Channel (124) weekdays at 9:00 a.m. ET, and Smerconish on CNN and CNN International on Saturdays at 9:00 a.m. ET.
How old is Michael Smerconish? – Age
Smerconish is 59 years old as of 15 March 2021. He was born in 1962 in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, United States. His real name is Michael A. Smerconish.
Michael Smerconish Family
He is the son of Florence (Grovich) Smerconish and Walter Smerconish. He has Italian and Montenegrin ancestors.
Where did Michael Smerconish go to college?
He graduated from Doylestown’s Central Bucks High School West, a public high school. He graduated from Lehigh University with a B.A. and the University of Pennsylvania Law School with a Juris Doctorate. On May 26, 2016, he received a Doctor of Humane Letters from Widener University, a Doctor of Humane Letters from Delaware Valley College on May 19, 2018, and a Doctor of Science from the University of the Sciences on May 20, 2020.
Is Lavinia Smerconish Related to Michael Smerconish? – Wife
He is married to Lavinia Nardini, a real estate agent. The couple has four children.
What is Michael Smerconish Salary? – Net Worth
He has an estimated net worth of $2 million. His salary is not revealed.
Michael Smerconish CNN
As his radio popularity grew, Smerconish was increasingly invited to appear on television, first locally and then nationally. In Philadelphia, he was first asked to appear on WCAU Channel 10 to provide election night analysis by his friend and eventual mentor, Larry Kane. He then became a regular on Inside Story, a local ABC affiliate (WPVI) program hosted by Marc Howard. And he was a frequent guest of Lynn Doyle, the host of Comcast’s It’s Your Call on CN8. Smerconish was soon invited to appear on CNN’s TalkBack Live as a guest of Arthel Neville. Smerconish was hired by CNN as a legal analyst and as a stand-in for Glenn Beck on CNN’s Headline News. Attorneys at Law, a CNN show starring Smerconish, Jeffrey Toobin, and Lisa Bloom, aired for a short time. When CNN switched to nonstop coverage of the Iraq invasion, the show was cut short and never resumed.
Smerconish then joined MSNBC as a contributor at the invitation of Phil Griffin, the future CEO of MSNBC, and began guest hosting Scarborough Country in the absence of former Republican congressman Joe Scarborough. When MSNBC fired Don Imus in 2007 for using a racial slur, Smerconish was invited to guest host Imus’ time slot as a replacement on a trial basis during the week of April 23–27. Yes’ Jon Anderson and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani were among the guests in the studio. MSNBC eventually hired Scarborough to fill the vacancy left by Imus and renamed the show Morning Joe. Smerconish’s role at MSNBC then expanded to include daily appearances with Tamron Hall, host of News Nation, and as a guest host of Hardball in the absence of Chris Matthews, a position he held for five years.
Simultaneously, despite the polarized media environment and differences between MSNBC and Fox News, he guest hosted The Radio Factor for Bill O’Reilly.
Smerconish decided to give up his terrestrial radio platform, which included 80 radio stations across the country, in 2013 to move to POTUS Channel 124 on Sirius XM Radio. He stated at the time that this reflected his desire to be “non-partisan” in discussing issues after leaving the Republican Party in 2010, and that satellite radio would give him more freedom to discuss politics without being labeled by a party.
Then, in early 2014, Smerconish left MSNBC after CNN president Jeff Zucker invited him to host his own show there. Smerconish appears on CNN on Saturdays at 9:00 a.m. ET. CNN International broadcasts the show all over the world.
Michael Smerconish Profile
Smerconish founded Lehigh University Youth for Reagan/Bush in 1980. He ran for the Pennsylvania state legislature while a full-time student at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, but lost by 419 votes in the Republican primary. In 1986, he was in charge of the City of Philadelphia in Senator Arlen Specter’s re-election campaign, and in 1987, he was Rizzo’s Political Director in his unsuccessful bid to retake City Hall. He opened a title insurance agency with his brother Wally after graduating from Penn Law, before being appointed by President George H.W. Bush to serve as the HUD Regional Administrator for Philadelphia Region III.
Smerconish publicly broke with the GOP and endorsed Barack Obama for president on October 19, 2008, after supporting only Republican presidential candidates for three decades. He has urged the Republican Party to pursue “social issue moderation in order to advance the GOP’s suburban agenda.” In a newspaper column in 2010, he announced his departure from the Republican Party.
Michael Smerconish Books
Flying Blind: How Political Correctness Continues to Compromise Airline Safety Post 9/11 (2004) was Smerconish’s first book about his investigation. Muzzled: From T-Ball to Terrorism – True Stories That Should Be Fiction, his second book, was a New York Times best-seller that attempted to connect the restraint of fighting the war on terror to domestic political correctness. Murdered by Mumia: A Life Sentence of Loss, Pain, and Injustice, his third book, told the story of slain Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner in what was arguably the world’s most high-profile death penalty case.
Smerconmanish’s sixth book and first fictional work, Talk: A Novel, is about the life of conservative talk show host Stan Powers. Powers, a former stoner and slacker with no political knowledge, is able to quickly ascend the talk radio world thanks to his entertainment skills and recitation of red meat talking points. Mohammed al Qahtani, a prisoner of war at Guantanamo Bay, was one of the detainees who identified bin Laden’s courier, resulting in the successful raid by SEAL Team Six. Clowns to the Left of Me, Jokers to the Right, Michael Smerconish’s seventh book, is a collection of 100 of his most memorable newspaper columns.
The novel has been optioned by Warner Horizon Television. With the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Florida, will Powers continue to spout the lines that pay for his beachfront condo, or will he take the professional risk of being true to himself? Following the success of Clowns, Smerconish created a one-man show in which he draws. Since then, he has toured the country in support of his book, “American Life in Columns.” The author’s entire earnings will be donated to the Children’s Crisis Treatment Center.