| | | | | Exec summary: Hello from Toronto... I'm speaking at a synagogue here tonight... Meanwhile, my inbox is stuffed full of reactions to Glenn Beck. Scroll down for the headlines from my Beck interview... plus border updates, this weekend's box office results, and more... | | Immigration & racism: A midterm issue | | There is an undercurrent of racism and intolerance in the debate about immigration. We can argue over HOW prominent it is... how MUCH of a factor racism is... but it's there. It's real. And if the midterms are going to be animated by this issue, the news media will have to keep confronting it.
Case in point: Mike Huckabee's racist tweet over the weekend connecting Nancy Pelosi with a sinister-looking group of Hispanic men. There's been a concerted effort, led by the president, to portray Pelosi as an "MS-13 lover."
>> Pelosi spokesman Drew Hammill responded to Huckabee's tweet: "Trump and his surrogates will continue to repeat blatantly false attacks as long as the media continues to take the bait and print them." | | "Deeply offensive" remarks from Fox commentator | | Will David Bossie be back on Fox News anytime soon? My guess is no, but Fox isn't commenting either way. Bossie -- a Trump deputy campaign manager turned paid Fox commentator -- uttered a jaw-dropping racist remark on "Fox & Friends" Sunday morning. If you missed it, here are the details. In the middle of an argument with Democratic strategist Joel Payne, who is black, Bossie said "you're out of your cotton-picking mind."
Bossie apologized via Twitter later in the day. He said he never should have used "the offensive phrase." Then Fox issued a statement calling his on-air comments "deeply offensive and wholly inappropriate." Fox said "his remarks do not reflect the sentiments of Fox News and we do not in any way condone them." The network declined to comment on whether Bossie would be suspended... | | | Via CNN's Jackie Wattles: Payne was interviewed by MSNBC's David Gura later in the day. He said he had a "terse" exchange with Bossie immediately after the TV segment. Bossie expressed "some regret," Payne said. He also said he accepted Bossie's Twitter apology... | | Meanwhile, the story at the border isn't over... | | | Not by a long shot. For the second weekend in a row, the family breakups remain the top story in the country. Scroll down for more... | | Media week ahead calendar | | -- All week: Aspen Ideas Festival is underway in Aspen... I'll be there later this week, my first time, so email me if you're attending...
-- Monday night: The Arts for Autism benefit concert on Broadway...
-- Tuesday: Keach Hagey's book about Sumner Redstone hits bookshelves...
-- Wednesday: POTUS holds a rally in Fargo...
-- Thursday: A Senate hearing on the T-Mobile-Sprint merger... | | How many W.H. briefings this week? | | | Will the White House get back to daily press briefings this week? In the past week there's only been one on-camera briefing, even though every day was packed with news... | | -- Big new NYT story about James Wolfe and Ali Watkins: "How an Affair Between a Reporter and a Security Aide Has Rattled Washington Media..." (NYT)
-- About Tom Arnold's TV tour the other day: I took a skeptical look at what he was doing. The whole time he was talking about Michael Cohen, he was also teasing a Viceland TV show... (CNNMoney)
-- ICYMI: Steven Perlberg reported that "Fox News was concerned Chinese agents would bug Sean Hannity's phone..." (BuzzFeed) | | One on one with Glenn Beck | | Whenever I interview Glenn Beck, he makes me think. I really appreciate that about him. He made me think again on Sunday's "Reliable Sources" -- but then the interview came to an abrupt end.
Beck was fired up. From his very first answer, he said the media -- including yours truly -- was dividing and damaging the country. At one point, he said to me, "Don't you understand what you're doing? You're driving people into the arms of Donald Trump. You're driving them into it." Watch the full interview here... | | What's the future of Beck's company? | | After six minutes of conversation, knowing we'd have to go to commercial soon, I pivoted to a question about the future of Beck's media company. I didn't think anyone would be surprised, since "Reliable Sources" is all about the media -- and since troubles at Beck's The Blaze website are back in the news. On Friday, The Daily Beast published another story about cutbacks and a possible sale. The Beast's headline: "Glenn Beck's Media Empire Implodes. Again."
A harsh headline, I thought. So I asked Beck what's going on with the company. He said "I think that's the most ridiculous question I've ever heard," accused me of playing games, and walked off. The WashPost's recap is excellent...
--> Beck's rep says he'll talk more about his appearance on the radio Monday morning... | | -- "My people love it:" That's what Trump told advisers about the family separation policy, one day before reversing the policy, according to a "person close to the president" who spoke with the NYT... (NYT)
-- In an interview with his friend Mike Huckabee, Trump called news coverage of North Korea talks "almost treasonous..." (IJR) | | Getting back to reality... | | | Our lead segment on "Reliable Sources" was an attempt to bring the immigration debate back to reality. So much of the coverage is revolving around scary-sounding rhetoric from President Trump that just doesn't stand up to scrutiny. The NYT had a strong story about this over the weekend. Here's what USA Today editor Nicole Carroll, formerly of the AZ Republic, told me... | | | Access continues to be a real problem along the border. It has been "incredibly frustrating" this week, trying to get INFO on the detained children and ACCESS to the detention centers, Carroll told me. Some pictures are better than none, but we're not seeing the full story. Here's our TV segment... | | George Takei on the "big lie" | | | Actor and activist George Takei, a survivor of an internment camp during World War II, joined me on "Reliable..." He said Trump's rhetoric is a "big lie," calling it "grotesque and absolutely inhumane..." Here's the rest... | | Exclusive interview with the editor of Time | | | "The photos we're NOT seeing are far more disturbing than the photos we are seeing," Ed Felsenthal told me on "Reliable." He defended Time's choice of the "crying girl" photo on the cover, despite the fact that the girl was not separated from her mother. "We chose the photo because this little girl became the face of this story on front pages and home pages and TV screens and Facebook feeds," he said. Read the full recap of the interview here, via Jackie Wattles... | | | ICYMI: Here's our podcast with John Moore, who took the iconic photo on June 12. He said it's "a very honest picture," depicting real pain, even though it was taken out of context by some media outlets. Listen to the conversation via Apple Podcasts, Stitcher or TuneIn... And/or read Julia Waldow's recap of the podcast here... | | Pearlstine: "Media is really Trump's cocaine" | | Hats off to (brand new LA Times editor!) Norm Pearlstine for this line. Despite his constant media criticism, "media is really President Trump's cocaine. He cannot exist without it," Pearlstine told me.
He said there are two constants in Trump's world: Turmoil, and the "desire to remain the center of attention..." | | Here's why POTUS is tweeting about Jimmy Fallon | | Jimmy Fallon expressed regret for tussling Trump's hair during a light-hearted "Tonight Show" segment during the campaign. To be clear, he expressed regret for that LAST YEAR. He recently repeated that comment on an Emmy season podcast for THR. Right-wing media picked up on the THR interview... NYPost, Fox News, Fox Biz, etc... And Trump caught wind of it. That's why Trump criticized Fallon on Twitter Sunday night. "Be a man Jimmy!"
Fallon responded: "In honor of the President's tweet I'll be making a donation to RAICES in his name." RAICES calls itself the "largest immigration legal services non-profit in TX..." | | "He's constantly referencing articles and columns in the Times, WSJ, or Post, watching TV and responding in real time..."
--A "former senior admin official" telling Jonathan Swan about what POTUS is like to work with... | | Charles Krauthammer was laid to rest on Sunday morning at a private ceremony. Colleagues, viewers and readers continue to mourn his passing in a variety of ways. Here's one way that touched me when I noticed it on Sunday: Krauthammer's 2013 book "Things That Matter" is both No. 1 AND No. 2 on Amazon's best seller list, more than 48 hours after his death was announced. This means people are still snapping up copies. In fact, there's now a long wait for copies of the hardcover.
The paperback edition, which is more readily available, is No. 1. The hardcover, which Amazon says should ship "within 1 to 3 months," is No. 2 on the list. Meantime, Anthony Bourdain's "Kitchen Confidential" is No. 4... | | The final "Parts Unknown" of this season | | | The final new episode of this season's "Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown" -- scheduled to air before he died -- aired Sunday night on CNN. There's no word yet on what'll happen to the parts of NEXT season that he had already started to film... | | | For the record, part three | | | -- Rabbi Shmuley Boteach "has released his interview with Roseanne Barr." It was recorded one day after Barr's show was cancelled. Barr says "I didn't mean what they think I meant..." (THR)
-- The LA Times was un-Tronced a week ago. So now what? Here's what Norm Pearlstine told me about his plans for the LA Times...
-- Catch up on the rest of "Reliable" via our podcast or our page of video clips on CNN.com... Or watch the full program via CNNgo or VOD! | | A striking cover of NYMag | | Gabriel Debenedetti's cover story is titled "Where is Barack Obama?"
Debenedetti reports Obama "has mostly opted out of liberal America's collective Trump-outrage cycle. Though he reads the Times and other newspapers, he doesn't follow daily Trump developments on Twitter or watch television news. He is upset by the administration's actions... Still, in conversations with political allies, Obama insists that today's domestic mess is a blip on the long arc of history..." Read more... | | WashPost standing by its Enquirer scoop | | | On Sunday's "Reliable," I asked Sarah Ellison about her report that President Trump, through Michael Cohen, was given sneak peeks of National Enquirer covers and stories. Here's what she said. When I read the Enquirer's statement blasting her use of anonymous sources, she said "we had impeccable sourcing on this." Watch... | | WSJ: AT&T eyed CBS before buying Time Warner | | WSJ's Joe Flint and Drew FitzGerald with what might have been: "Before AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson set his sights on Time Warner, he expressed interest in acquiring CBS Corp. and met with Shari Redstone, the executive whose family controls the media company, according to people familiar with the situation." The two execs met in 2016, but Redstone told Stephenson "she wasn't interested in a deal, the people said."
And -- key point here -- Redstone kept the meeting to herself. People "close to CBS" told the WSJ that she didn't inform Les Moonves or the CBS board. Imagine Moonves' reaction when he "learned of AT&T's interest a few weeks later from Mr. Stephenson after AT&T made its bid for Time Warner..."
-- CBS and Redstone are fighting in court over the future of the company. As the WSJ notes, "the AT&T approach could become a topic as the two sides joust..."
-- For the record: Redstone's rep said she doesn't recall any convo about a potential sale... | | Recommended: The New Yorker's profile of Stephen A. Smith | | What draws people to the TV? Here's what ESPN's Stephen A. Smith told Vinson Cunningham:
"You watch to just hear perspectives. Back in the day, you watched to learn the news. Now you can get the news in five minutes. Between your smartphones and everything else -- you've always got the news. So you're interested in watching different perspectives, hearing what people have to say, what their opinions are, and why. And sort of gauging whether or not they're right or wrong. People think they know. They're not interested in learning. They're interested in hearing whether or not your perspective is aligned with theirs. If so, why, and if not, why not? That used to be just sports. Now it's everywhere." So the job, his job, he says, "is to be enough of a personality that they want to know what YOU think."
Read on for the Trump-related kicker... | | How was the "Westworld" season finale? | | | [[Earmuffs because I'm a few episodes behind.]] Brian Lowry's review of the season two finale just published... The title: "'Westworld' season finale can't escape the maze it's created..." | | | The telecast is on while I'm sending this out... Jamie Foxx is hosting... CNN's Chloe Melas and Sandra Gonzalez are writing up the highlights, so check CNN.com for their stories... | | "Jurassic" wins the weekend | | Perversely inspired by Brian Lowry's bad review of the new "Jurassic World," I went and saw it. And I enjoyed it precisely because my expectations were set so low. Thank you, Lowry. 😉
Here's how many OTHER people saw it. "Fallen Kingdom" "brought in an estimated $150 million during its opening weekend in North America," Frank Pallotta reports. "The Universal Pictures' film won the weekend and is the fourth biggest opening of the year, behind 'Avengers: Infinity War,' 'Black Panther,' and Disney and Pixar's 'Incredibles 2.'"
>> TOTAL SO FAR: Worldwide haul of $711.5 million since opening overseas earlier this month...
>> REALITY CHECK: The sequel is "nowhere near as big as its predecessor." Read more... | | "Incredibles 2" still going strong | | More from Pallotta's story: "Incredibles 2" followed up "its record-breaking opening with a strong second weekend, bringing in an estimated $80.9 million. The animated film about a family of superheroes balancing parenthood and crime fighting, has so far made $485 million worldwide."
I haven't seen this one yet... Jamie, let's see it when I get home! | | That's a wrap on tonight's newsletter. Thanks for reading!
Your feedback is welcomed. Email your likes, dislikes, thoughts straight to me:
brian.stelter@turner.com
Thank you! | | | | | | |
