Exec summary: BOTH of Sunday's games went into overtime. Now the Rams and the Patriots are heading to the Super Bowl. Between now and then, will there be an end to the shutdown? Scroll down for the latest... Plus my exclusive BuzzFeed interview...
Trump shutdown enters second month
Why am I calling it the Trump shutdown? Because President Trump said, hypothetically at the time, "I am proud to shut down the government for border security, Chuck."
Now it's reality -- for 30 days and counting. Here are a few media-related angles you might not have heard about:
The FCC is in the dark
Most of the FCC's operations have been suspended since January 3. "The agency where I work has stopped responding to thousands of consumer complaints," FCC commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel told me. "It has stopped all merger review. It has stopped certifying new and innovative phones, computers, and televisions that emit radio frequency—especially critical as the US prepares for the next generation of wireless service, known as 5G."
She continued: "It has stopped its oversight of robocalls. It has failed to investigate new problems that have arisen during this shutdown, like the sale of our mobile phone location data to third parties, which was discovered last week, and is a security issue."
Rosenworcel is the only Democratic commissioner at the FCC right now. Her three Republican colleagues declined our invites to come on Sunday's "Reliable Sources," so we scrapped the segment...
Reporters are working without pay | | Voice of America reporters haven't mentioned this in their coverage, but I wanted to point it out: They've been covering the shutdown while being victims of the stalemate themselves. The VOA is part of the US Agency for Global Media, and the agency's offices are closed. But the news hasn't stopped, so staffers are navigating furloughs and lack of pay to keep the newsrooms and studios up and running.
VOA's White House bureau chief Steve Herman joined me on Sunday's show... This situation "is a bit unusual," he admitted, but "you put that aside and you go ahead and do your job...."
"Not sure how much longer" we "will be able to take this"
After I published this story about the furloughs, other VOA staffers reached out to me on condition of anonymity. One of them wrote, "It's been very stressful trying to deal with the uncertainty, bills are still coming, etc. Full month without getting paid definitely affects people's budgets. Not sure how much longer people, I include myself, will be able to take this. There's only so much savings in the bank and some people don't even have that."
CNN anchor urges viewers to support food banks
"I'm going to do something this morning I've never done," Victor Blackwell said on CNN's "New Day" Saturday morning. "No working person -- especially not people who work for *US,* who work for the American people -- should have to struggle the way that federal workers are right now." Citing the reports of workers lining up for free meals and leaning on food banks, Blackwell urged viewers to donate to their local food banks. "We can feed each other while they fight in Washington," he said. The hashtag #ShutdownHunger took off after his segment...
In Trump's speech on Saturday...
The president made no mention of furloughed workers in his "compromise" speech. Perhaps he was trying to make up for it on Sunday night when he called them "GREAT PATRIOTS" in a tweet...
Trump knows he's "losing the public opinion war..."
"Trump has approached the shutdown primarily as a public relations challenge," Philip Rucker and Josh Dawsey write in Monday's WaPo.
But all of his tactics, like the Oval Office address, have failed to move public opinion in his direction. And he knows it: A senior admin official is quoted in the story saying "the president is very much aware he's losing the public opinion war on this one. He looks at the numbers..."
FOR THE RECORD, PART ONE
-- Bret Stephens nails it: "Instead of building a wall that Mexicans will pay for, Americans are going unpaid for a wall that's not going to be built..." (NYT)
-- Dean Obeidallah, writing for CNN Opinion, says Nancy Pelosi should just "negotiate with Ann Coulter..." (CNN)
-- On the weekend of Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday, POTUS has no service activities scheduled. His Monday schedule says he has "no public events..."
-- Historian Julian Zelizer says Mike Pence's "shocking" invocation of King's "I Have a Dream" speech to support Trump flies "directly in the face of Martin Luther King's legacy..." (CNN)
-- Aaron Sorkin's controversial comment on Fareed Zakaria's show Sunday morning: "I really like the new crop of young people who were just elected to Congress. They now need to stop acting like young people, okay? It's time to do that." Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez fired back via Twitter... (Guardian)
-- AOC will be on "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert" on Monday night...
Media week ahead calendar
Monday: The DLD conference wraps up in Munich... Scroll down for updates...
Tuesday: The World Economic Forum's annual meeting begins in Davos...
Tuesday at 8:20 a.m. ET: Oscar nominations! Good luck everyone...
Tuesday: Jason Rezaian's book "Prisoner" and Joel Simon's book "We Want to Negotiate" hit bookshelves...
Wednesday morning: Comcast reports earnings...
Sunday night: Via Megan Thomas: The SAG Awards are at 8 p.m. ET on TBS/TNT...
Bombshell or buzzkill?
I'm framing this as a question because we still don't know the answer. We might not know for a while. BuzzFeed is exuding complete confidence about its Trump/Cohen story, even though Robert Mueller's office issued a rare public statement calling parts of the story inaccurate. Here's what EIC Ben Smith and investigative reporter Anthony Cormier told me on Sunday's show:
-- "Our reporting is going to be borne out to be accurate, and we're 100% behind it," Cormier said...
-- I asked: What if the sources were just wrong? "They're not," Cormier said... | | What, exactly, did Trump say?
BuzzFeed's report alleged that Trump told Cohen to lie to Congress. How, exactly? What did Trump say? Did he use mob-like language? Did he say something like "take care of this" or "don't screw me," and Cohen took the hint? "We don't know," Cormier said. "We're trying to get the exact language that was used." But he reiterated: Last Thursday's story is "accurate..."
--> CNN legal analyst Elie Honig tweeted: "This is a tricky thing about prosecuting the actual mob or similar groups. Often the boss doesn't have to say anything (or anything explicit) for underlings to get the message -- which can make it frustratingly difficult (but not impossible) to prove the scheme..."
A dereliction of duty?
Cormier's co-author Jason Leopold sent a request for comment email to the special counsel's office at 1:50 p.m. on Thursday. His message, provided by BuzzFeed PR, seemed shockingly casual to me. I mean, I've sent BuzzFeed PR more detailed emails about little newsletter items! Leopold, on the other hand, was inquiring about a story that could upend Trump's presidency... | | I read the email on air... Here's what Smith told me in response...
Let's see the documents...
Oliver Darcy emails: It's striking that -- several days into this news cycle -- BuzzFeed still hasn't answered a central question about its story and reporting process: Has the outlet seen documents supporting its Thursday story, or not? Cormier said Friday on CNN that he and Leopold had not. But Leopold said hours later on MSNBC that the reporters had "seen" documents. So which is it?
On "Reliable," Cormier declined to answer. "We can't get into the details there," Cormier said, adding that he was declining to answer to protect sources. But if Cormier couldn't get into those details on Sunday, why did both he and Leopold answer the same question on Friday? And why did they give contradictory answers?
>> Smith commented: "There is a transcript... Every reporter in the country is chasing it right now..."
Responding to Rudy
Rudy Giuliani said to Jake Tapper on "SOTU" that BuzzFeed "should be sued. They should be under investigation."
Two hours later on "Reliable," Cormier noted the prospect of a leak investigation and said "we're not going to talk about the sourcing." Smith said the anti-media rhetoric is an attempt to "divide the media, to avoid talking about the substance of the story..."
How to watch
Here's video of the complete 20-minute interview... It is also available via our podcast...
And/or here are a few specific clips: Cormier says his original sources are "standing behind" the story... Smith says "our standards on this story were extremely high..." And this is what BuzzFeed still doesn't know...
🔌: I'll have the latest on CNN's "New Day" in the 8 a.m. hour on Monday...
Bernstein's take
"We're going to have to wait" to know what's true re: BuzzFeed's Trump-Cohen report, Carl Bernstein said on "Reliable." But "the press has been accurate throughout this," he said, while Trump has been lying "serially, routinely and compulsively" like no other president in history...
Woodward's take
Bob Woodward quoted in Jim Rutenberg's Monday NYT column: "I say to you on the record, I am thankful I don't have to cover this story on a daily basis... The hydraulic pressure in the system is just so great. The impatience of the internet — 'give it to us immediately' — drives so much, it's hard to sort something like this out."
Two years of Trump...
Do you remember where you were two years ago today? I remember watching every minute of inauguration weekend... Including that curious moment when Trump claimed the sun was shining even though it was raining... In retrospect, his wrong-headed weather report was a forecast for his presidency...
>> A taste of the alternative reality: When I turned on "Fox & Friends," Jedediah Bila touted the two-year mark by saying "you can still taste the LIBERAL TEARS..." And Pete Hegseth said there's been "so much winning..."
The I-word
Get used to all the IMPEACHMENT talk, Margaret Sullivan says in Monday's WaPo. "Because one thing is clear: As of January 2019, the I-word has moved off the sidelines and onto the field. And it's not going away anytime soon."
She spoke with The Atlantic's EIC Jeffrey Goldberg, who also joined me on Sunday's "Reliable Sources..."
The Atlantic's "IMPEACH" cover
On the show, Goldberg told me about his decision to release the magazine's March cover story calling for Trump's impeachment several weeks early. "The news was demanding that we release this," he said. There's a "real, live debate in this country about whether POTUS is a witting or unwitting Russian intelligence asset. It "sounds so bizarre obviously -- it's like we're living on Earth 2 or something." Agreed...
Reality check
Via the Axios Sneak Peek newsletter: "Over the last two weeks, Axios' Alayna Treene reached out to every single one of the 64 new House Democrats, and only a tiny fraction said they were on board with impeachment." Details here...
Three phone calls between Trump and reporters
CNBC's Joe Kernen was out to dinner with his family in Paris when Trump called. Evidently Kernen was supposed to interview the president at Davos, but then Trump's trip was scuttled due to the shutdown. So Trump was calling to say sorry. Kernen -- for reasons that are still unclear -- heard people at an adjacent table talking about POTUS. So he turned to them and asked, "Would you like to speak to the president?"
The diner was WaPo chief correspondent Dan Balz. As soon as he heard Trump's voice, he knew this was not a hoax. But it sure was strange. Balz wrote about the experience in this must-read column...
Okay, so those are two phone calls between Trump and reporters. Here's the third: When Maggie Haberman called Sarah Sanders for comment on a news analysis she was writing with Russ Buettner about Trump's leadership style, Trump wanted to talk. Apparently he didn't want former associates like Tony Schwartz and Barbara Res to be quoted without pushing back. The resulting story cites a "brief telephone interview" with Trump... Read it here...
"Nancy, I am still thinking about the State of the Union speech..."
Will there be some sort of SOTU on January 29? Right now it looks unlikely. On Sunday, Trump sent out a tweet to "Nancy" Pelosi, without including her handle, saying he's still contemplating what to do, and "I'll get back to you soon!"
>> Olivia Nuzzi opined on the SOTU showdown during Sunday's "Reliable..."
Catch up on the show here
Listen to the pod via Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, TuneIn, or Spotify... Watch the video clips on CNN.com... Or watch the full episode via CNNgo or VOD... | |
FOR THE RECORD, PART TWO
-- I wish this had been a bigger story on Sunday: Trump scoffed at very serious concerns about climate change, again, by tweeting about the eastern US cold snap... (The Atlantic)
-- These researchers say that "somehow cultivating or promoting our reasoning abilities should be part of the solution to the kinds of partisan misinformation that circulate on social media..." (NYT)
-- Former Trump aide Cliff Sims' forthcoming book details Trump's obsession with cable news chyrons... "He consumed TV like the late Roger Ebert must have watched movies..." (Axios)
-- BuzzFeed's newest deep dive: "The Unbelievable Story Of The Plot Against George Soros..." (BF)
DLD 2019
Scott Galloway's blunt proclamations | | NYU marketing professor and public speaker Scott Galloway said at DLD on Sunday: "Twitter, Pinterest, Buzzfeed, Vox Media, Refinery 29 and Vice are bankrupt -- they just do not know it yet." He also said Mark Zuckerberg should be removed as CEO and just be chairman...
Sheryl Sandberg's message in Munich
Via Jackie Wattles' story for CNN Business: With EU elections coming up in May, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg "said the company will work with the German Federal Office for Information and Security as well as other companies and research partners to 'help guide policy making in Germany and across the EU on election interference.'"
>> Sandberg on Sunday: "At Facebook, these last few years have been really difficult. We know we need to do better at making sure we can anticipate the risks that come from connecting so many people."
Another Facebook lightning rod?
Donie O'Sullivan emails: TechCrunch reported on Sunday that Facebook is launching a petition feature for some users in the U.S. on Monday.
There's no doubt Facebook can play a positive role in organizing and activism but this new feature is undoubtedly going to create some challenges for the company. I expect one of the first petitions we'll see go viral will be about Facebook itself – perhaps petitioning lawmakers about the company. But more seriously, this seems like a feature that is ripe for abuse.
What will Facebook do when, for example, a petition is ostensibly about one issue, but in reality, is a dog whistle goes viral on the platform? (Click here if you're a white supremacist!)
Mark Zuckerberg's vision for Facebook is to bring the world closer together – after two years of hearing about the negative impacts of Facebook, from Michigan to Myanmar, the launch of petitions seems an indication that Zuckerberg's utopian vision is not going away...
FOR THE RECORD, PART THREE
-- Karen Weise's NYT piece about Amazon's ad biz: "Amazon automatically shows different ads to different people based on their shopping behavior..." (NYT)
-- David Zurawik's latest column: "If Fox News is an ideological silo, the streaming service Fox Nation is a super-silo aimed at indoctrinating a new generation." This is his "visit to Fox Nation..." (Balt Sun)
-- UFC Fight Night was "the largest event and subscription catalyst for ESPN+ thus far..." (ESPN)
"Misunderstanding, fear, fury, and social media confusion..." | | A TV news exec emails: "What's more 'America' in 2019 than a viral standoff at the Lincoln Memorial between white teens in MAGA hats and a Native American elder… spurred by misunderstanding, fear, fury, and social media confusion? It's the state of the nation in one perfect, sad microcosm..."
I couldn't have said it better myself. This incident garnered so much social media attention... And then jumped to TV... But there is, as CNN.com says, "more to the story than what you see online." Here is Sara Sidner's latest...
Big scramble in DC after this fire...
A famed DC address, 400 North Capitol, was the site of an electrical fire on Sunday morning.
Fox News, NBC and C-SPAN all have offices in the building. "Fox News Sunday" -- which had an interview lined up with VP Mike Pence -- had to scramble to relocate to the studios of WTTG, Fox's DC station, all the way across town. Chris Wallace thanked the station during his broadcast.
Per TVNewser, NBC and MSNBC's operations in the building "will be relocated" to NBC's other DC location "for the next days." C-SPAN, however, located on a different floor of the building, will be "open for business as usual" on Monday, per an internal note to staff...
>> Always a useful exercise for newsroom bosses: If your building catches fire, what is your backup plan?
| | PGA's big winners
Brian Lowry emails: Following its Golden Globes win, "Green Book" nabbed the movie prize at the Producers Guild of America's awards on Saturday, throwing some cold water on the assumption that the various controversies regarding the film (detailed here by Sandra Gonzalez) would somehow torpedo its award hopes. An underlying, not unrelated thread is the pushback from those who dislike the film because of its treatment of the racial issues that are at the core of the movie, an argument that's likely to continue if the film is perceived as an Oscar frontrunner after nominations are announced Tuesday.
>> IndieWire's Anne Thompson puts the PGA win in context, and the guild's good — but not definitive, perhaps especially in such a wide-open year — track record correlating with the Academy Awards. Also worth considering a historical note from Variety's Tim Gray, a longtime Oscar watcher, who recently pointed out that Academy voters have traditionally ignored "mudslinging," although the nastiness associated with campaigns against certain movies — whether orchestrated by rivals or not — can cast a bit of a pall over the whole process...
Will the Academy say something this week?
Deadline's Michael Cieply is looking ahead: "The most fascinating part of Tuesday's Oscar nominations announcement will be watching to see whether someone, anyone, pops out of the bunker to say something, anything, about the issues afflicting the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences of late." The Academy hasn't addressed the Kevin Hart flip-flop at all. "Oscar producers Donna Gigliotti and Glenn Weiss have been virtually invisible," Cieply says...
FOR THE RECORD, PART FOUR
-- "Cardi B and Tomi Lahren are feuding over the government shutdown..." (CNN)
-- "SNL" returned from a holiday hiatus with a "Deal or No Deal" spoof... Frank Pallotta has details here... (CNN)
-- Pete Davidson appeared on "SNL" and "addressed last month's alarming Instagram post..." (Page Six)
| | That's a wrap. Send me your feedback anytime! It always makes the letter better. See you tomorrow...
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