| | | | | Hey, this is Oliver Darcy filling in for Brian Stelter, who's at the beach. I appreciate your feedback, so please do send me an email at oliver.darcy@turner.com or get in touch via Twitter. | | | I hope you had a restful weekend, because things are going to go zero to sixty quite quickly on Monday... | | | That's the banner on the Drudge Report Sunday evening. We are now just hours away from President Donald Trump's meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin. We should see the duo appear together for a public pool spray at around 6:20 a.m. ET, ahead of their meeting which is now scheduled for 90 minutes. Trump and Putin will then appear for another pool spray at 7:50 a.m. ET at the start of a working lunch. Then, at 9:50 a.m. ET, the two will host a news conference... | | What Trump is tweeting ahead of the summit | | | Trump offered kind words for Putin, while also bashing the press, in a flurry of Sunday morning tweets ahead of the much-anticipated summit. POTUS said that "much of our news media is indeed the enemy of the people," writing that he believes "no matter how well" he does at the summit, he will be subject of criticism from journalists. Meanwhile, Trump tweeted his "congratulations to President Putin and Russia for putting on a truly great World Cup Tournament" which Trump dubbed as "one of the best ever!" Quite the move, characterizing the press as the "enemy" while congratulating Putin days after Mueller unveiled new evidence Russia waged cyber-warfare on the United States in the 2016 elections... | | Get ready for a monsoon of coverage | | | At the broadcast networks, Lester Holt is leading NBC's coverage from Helsinki... Norah O'Donnell is there for CBS... And George Stephanopoulos is there (anchoring from a boat!) for ABC... | | >> Jake Tapper and Christiane Amanpour start CNN's Monday coverage at 2am ET... "New Day" begins an hour early, at 5am, with Chris Cuomo in Helsinki... Anderson Cooper and Wolf Blitzer continue coverage throughout the day...
>> Ed Henry will anchor overnight coverage for Fox News. Then Ainsley Earhardt will co-host "Fox & Friends" from Helsinki, and Bill Hemmer will host "America's Newsroom" from there. Bret Baier, Tucker Carlson, and Sean Hannity will all broadcast from Helsinki as well...
>> Andrea Mitchell will lead coverage for MSNBC Monday morning from Helsinki. She'll kick things off at 4am ET, and be joined throughout the day by Hallie Jackson, Kristen Welker, Kelly O'Donnell, and Geoff Bennett... | | Brian Stelter emails:
-- Why exactly is this meeting happening now? What's on the agenda?
-- How will we really know what is said in the one-on-one? It seems like we won't, because we're relying on two unreliable narrators... Neither man can be trusted...
-- Will the coverage of the meeting emphasize that Russia's meddling is happening now, in the present tense? It's not just a past-tense story about 2016... | | Is it a "summit" or isn't it? | | | There is some mixed messaging from the Trump administration on this one. Appearing on "Meet the Press," US Ambassador to Russia Jon Huntsman said "it isn't a summit." He pushed back against it being described as so, saying, "I've heard it called a summit. This is a meeting." Hours later, as Mediaite noted, Trump called it a "summit" on Twitter. Yet another example of a Trump aide or appointee saying one thing in the press, only to be undercut by the president later... | | Two "propaganda machines" | | Stelter emails: Trump and Putin have "a few things in common when it comes to the media," Sam Vinograd said on Sunday's "Reliable Sources." She said both men "happen to be propaganda machines. They spread misinformation, disinformation, and sow divisions in the United States."
Watch the full segment with Vinograd, Carl Bernstein and Jonathan Chait here... | | -- CNN's Stephen Collinson: "It will be the most surreal US-Russia summit in history..."
-- NYT's Andrew Higgins and Neil MacFarquhar: "Just sitting down with Trump, Putin comes out ahead..."
-- WaPo's David Ignatius: "Putin must wonder what else America knows about Russia..."
-- WSJ's David Satter: "Putin's aggression is the issue in Helsinki..." | | Trump's interview schedule | | | It includes not one, but two interviews for Fox News. Trump will be chatting with Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson after his meeting with Putin. A Fox News spokesperson said Hannity's interview will air first -- it's being broadcast on Monday night. Carlson's will air on Tuesday... | | Jeff Glor has a two-parter with Trump... The first part was taped at Turnberry on Saturday... Clips aired on "Face the Nation..." The second part will tape on Wednesday at the White House and air that night on the "CBS Evening News."
WHY THIS INTERVIEW MATTERS: It's a sign that Trump wants to reach a broader audience, not just his Fox base, both before and after the Putin huddle... | | White House pulls Bolton from CNN interview | | Let's rewind the tape, for a moment. At Friday's presser, Trump criticized CNN. After he did so, Jim Acosta said, "Mr. President, since you attacked CNN, can I ask you a question?" Trump refused, and instead called on John Roberts from Fox.
Fast forward a day later. Trump tweeted Saturday morning about the incident, characterizing his refusal to take a question as a supposed "takedown" of CNN. Hours later, the White House took action. Jake Tapper tweeted that National Security Advisor John Bolton had been "locked in" for a Sunday interview, and was still willing to do it, but that the White House had canceled it over the incident... | | Sarah Sanders on Saturday confirmed that Bolton had been pulled by the White House. She wrote in a tweet that Acosta "disrespected" Trump, and that, "Instead of rewarding bad behavior, we decided to reprioritize the TV appearances for administration officials."
>> CNN spokesman Matt Dornic's reaction: "Rules of engagement: The act of asking a question during a press conf is now 'bad behavior' and the act of answering questions is now 'reward.'" | | Bolton skirts around the issue on ABC | | Bolton landed on ABC's "This Week" Sunday, where he was asked about the kerfuffle by Jon Karl. "Is it really appropriate to deny a news organization access to a White House official because a reporter tried to ask a question at a press conference?" Karl asked.
Bolton replied with a non-answer. "Look, in reality I don't seek out the press, I don't talk to them, I -- I appear when I'm -- I'm asked to and if I'm not -- if I'm not asked to appear, I don't do it," Bolton said...
>> Moments before: Karl also asked Bolton about Trump's attacks on the press as a whole, and whether that contributes to the efforts by Putin and other authoritarians to undermine the press. His response? "Of course not. Really, honestly, Jonathan, I think the question's silly." | | Fox's Howard Kurtz... sides with the White House? | | | Immediately after Trump's flap with CNN, journalists came to Acosta's defense, decrying Trump for his anti-media rhetoric. This continued throughout the weekend. But over on Fox News, Howard Kurtz saw things differently. On "Media Buzz," Kurtz said, "What's gotten missed in a lot of the controversy here is that [Trump] called on John Roberts." Kurtz then accused Acosta of "interrupting" and said he was "trying to hijack the question." Mediaite has video here... | | -- Twitter has suspended the accounts of DC Leaks and Guccifer 2.0. The suspensions come after Mueller's Friday indictments revealed the accounts to be part of a Russian operation... (The Verge)
-- Elon Musk continues to make (terrible) headlines with his tweeting. Over the weekend, he tweeted an unfounded accusation about a Thai cave rescuer... (CNN)
-- Maxwell Tani reports that ousted Billboard CEO John Amato was pushed out earlier this week after an investigation raised "concerns about evidence of sexual harassment and other wrongdoing." Amato declined to comment to The Beast... (The Daily Beast)
-- Charlie Warzel writes that the "MAGA trolls" have "met their match" in Sacha Baron Cohen, who he describes as "a perfect foil to the current political climate of grift and trolling..." (BuzzFeed) | | Judge orders LA Times to remove info from story | | Disturbing: A federal judge ordered the LA Times on Saturday to remove information from one of its articles. The information, which the LAT said described a plea deal between prosecutors and a detective accused of working with the Mexican mafia, was never supposed to be made public.
According to the LAT, the details of the plea were accidentally posted to PACER, when they should have been filed under seal. When the LAT noticed the plea agreement, its journalists reported on it. "We believe that once material is in the public record, it is proper and appropriate to publish it if it is newsworthy," LAT exec editor Norman Pearlstine said. The newspaper intends to challenge the judge's decision... | | World Cup mania comes to an end | | I'm not the biggest soccer fan, but I must admit I did wake up and head to a local watering hole Sunday morning to watch the World Cup championship. The game was aired live in the US via Fox Sports and Telemundo at 11am ET... France ended up taking home the trophy, defeating Croatia by a score fo 4-2.
As is usual with the event, it has a way of captivating audiences from around the world -- and for good reason. Sure, the games are thrilling. But, they also serve as a reminder that, aside from all our differences, people from different cultures, religions, and continents can come together for a common purpose... | | -- Joe Pompeo has a brand new story about reactions inside HBO to AT&T's plans for the brand... (VF)
-- Alex Sherman's latest: "Comcast may be preparing to formally throw in the towel on Fox and focus on Sky after the DOJ's AT&T/TWX decision to appeal..." (CNBC)
-- Keach Hagey's takeaways from Sun Valley: "No lifeline for media companies from tech giants at what is usually a mecca for dealmaking..." (WSJ)
-- "CBS This Morning: Saturday" introduced two new co-hosts, Michelle Miller and Dana Jacobson, over the weekend... (CBS) | | | Maggie Haberman says she is sorta taking a break from Twitter: "With exception of breaking news and my own stories, taking a break from this platform. No reason or prompt other than that it's not really helping the discourse..." | | "Facebook's First Wave of Funded News Shows Will Debut July 16, With More on the Way" | | That's the headline from Variety's Todd Spangler. "Programming from CNN, Fox News Channel, Univision, ABC News and others will be featured in a dedicated news section in Facebook Watch."
Spangler's colleague Brian Steinberg has a preview of Anderson Cooper's evening show, "Full Circle," which will stream at 6:25pm Monday through Friday. It'll run 12 to 20 minutes most days... | | Trey Gowdy -- yes, that Trey Gowdy -- wants everyone to know he thinks public hearings are a "freak show" | | | Rep. Trey Gowdy appeared on "Face the Nation" on Sunday and decried public congressional hearings. The South Carolina congressman -- who always seems to put on a show during public hearings and has become a conservative star doing so -- claimed to hold disdain for them. "I don't like to do them," he said. Gowdy went on to describe public hearings as a "freak show" -- an interesting take from someone who put on quite a show at this week's hearing with FBI agent Peter Strzok. | | HEADLINES FROM SUNDAY'S SHOW | | | Brian Stelter emails: On Sunday's "Reliable Sources," I suggested that Sean Hannity revisit Rod Rosenstein's words about the dangers of partisanship when there's a nonpartisan investigation into a foreign attack on the US. The Hannity crowd continues to undermine the Mueller probe... It seems like Hannity is so blinded by his devotion to Trump that he wants the rest of us to be blindfolded too -- so that we never know the full extent of Russia's attack... | | Tony Schwartz on Trump's "meltdown" | | More from Stelter: This was an intense interview. Tony Schwartz, who ghost-wrote "The Art of the Deal" with Trump three decades ago, said "we are in a true emergency" that must be confronted.
"I believe the republic is at enormous risk that goes far beyond what most journalists are comfortable saying," Schwartz told me. I asked him why he feels qualified to talk like this... AND about one of his past predictions that didn't pan out... Here's the video... | | More highlights from "Reliable" | | -- Here's Cenk Uygur on the "blue wave..." And the rise of progressive media outlets...
-- Michelle Goldberg on Trump's hiring of Bill Shine... And why it would've been a much bigger story in any other admin...
-- Oliver Darcy on Facebook's InfoWars problem... | | | Now back to Oliver for the rest of the newsletter! | | Sacha Baron Cohen returns | | Sacha Baron Cohen's new series "Who Is America?" premiered Sunday night on Showtime... Cohen punked many Republicans... But in the very first episode, the first victim was Bernie Sanders.
Cohen played a nutjob named Billy Wayne Ruddick, the proprietor of TruthBrary, a website filled with conspiracy theories and anti-media rhetoric. Someone has built an entire TruthBrary site... | | | Brian Lowry emails: Watching Republican politicians and gun-rights advocates endorse arming toddlers is the buzziest - and funniest - part of "Who is America?" The formula hews closely to the comic's established shtick, which relies on punking people's reluctance to protest odd behavior when cameras are rolling, and has already benefited from the complaints registered by some of those who were duped. Read Lowry's full review here... | | Comedy Central's roast of Bruce Willis | | | Lowry emails: Comedy Central taped its roast of Bruce Willis over the weekend, which saw Dennis Rodman get booed - as if he was booked for his comedy chops - and featured jokes about Harvey Weinstein and Kevin Spacey. The advance dispatches reinforce a sense that the whole event is an anachronism. The network will air the edited version July 29. Read more via THR... | | | Thanks for reading! Email your likes, dislikes, thoughts straight to me: oliver.darcy@turner.com | | | | | | |
