EXEC SUMMARY: Scroll down for Sundar Pichai's YouTube comments, Andrew Yang's debate strategy, Naomi Wolf's book, Hasan Minhaj's DVD stunt, and our week ahead calendar...
Trump and "treason"
Margaret Sullivan said it best on Sunday's "Reliable Sources" telecast: "Just when we think it really can't get any worse... when he uses terms like 'enemy of the people' or 'fake news...' This actually ratchets it up."
Yes, indeed. President Trump is now accusing news outlets of "treason" when he doesn't like the stories they publish. On Saturday night he said the "Failing New York Times" committed a "virtual act of Treason" by reporting that the "United States is substantially increasing Cyber Attacks on Russia." He said the story was "NOT TRUE," but treasonous. Hmmm.
Trump's casual use of the word "treason" is a relatively new development. He tweeted it for the first time last September, in response to the anonymous "senior official" op-ed, also in the NYT. He has used it on Twitter half a dozen times this year. He has also said it repeatedly in interviews and speeches, per Factba.se. But as Sullivan said, this really ratchets it up. On "Reliable," Samantha Vinograd said his tweet about the NYT is talking about "executing journalists," because treason is a death penalty offense. I wouldn't go that far, but her point is well taken. What he's saying is nonsensical, but because he said it, the NYT decided to reply...
File this under "statements that news outlets should never have to make:"
"Accusing the press of treason is dangerous," the NYT responded. "We described the article to the government before publication. As our story notes, President Trump's own national security officials said there were no concerns."
Max Boot told me the real story is that Trump's own aides "don't trust him" -- the paper says the president has apparently been kept out of the loop about the cyber attacks against Russia's electrical power grid. Here is CNN's recap...
Thank you, ABC
On Sunday night, ABC shared "unedited transcripts of the president's exclusive interview with ABC News from 'The Beast,' the walk to and in the Oval Office and the Rose Garden." Here you go...
Highlights from the ABC transcripts
-- In the interview, Trump continued to say he did not want Robert Mueller to be fired: "You know why? Because I watched Richard Nixon go around firing everybody, and that didn't work out too well."
-- Once a producer, always a producer: Mick Mulvaney coughed while Trump was answering a Q about his "fantastic" financial statements. "Let's do that over," Trump said. "He's coughing in the middle of my answer. I don't like that, you know. I don't like that. If you're going to cough, please leave the room. You just can't, you just can't cough." Then he tried to restart his answer. Here's the video...
-- Maggie Haberman tweeted: "Trump again claims Putin would rather have Clinton in office in ABC interview. Putin said at press conference with Jeff Mason and Jon Lemire that he wanted Trump to win."
On this Father's Day...
...We still don't know exactly how many children have been separated from their moms and dads at the US-Mexico border. While Trump made a big show of ending the so-called "zero tolerance" policy one year ago, "separations are still taking place," the NYT's Caitlin Dickerson told me on Sunday. There are "no rules, even to this day."
--> The main point: Dickerson said "there's a lot that we don't know" about family separations and migrant detention facilities. She said "faulty data" is one of the challenges of the beat...
--> Dickerson's "The Weekly" story, "The Youngest Known Child Separated From His Family at the U.S. Border Under Trump," aired Sunday night on FX. Her story is in print on Monday. This separation happened when the baby was just four months old. Dickerson said "he spent five months separated from his parents. He's almost two now, and he's still not able to walk on his own, or to speak." | |
Media week ahead calendar
-- Monday morning: Toronto celebrates the Raptors victory...
-- Monday evening: The pre-taped MTV Movie & TV Awards air on MTV...
-- Monday night: James Corden begins a week of "Late Late" in London...
-- Tuesday: Global Fact 6, "the largest fact-checking event in history," gets underway in Cape Town...
-- Tuesday evening: Trump's formal 2020 kickoff event in Orlando...
-- Wednesday: Hope Hicks speaks behind closed doors with the House Judiciary Committee. Per CNN's calendar, "she's the first member of Trump's inner circle to go before the panel as part of its investigation into possible obstruction of justice..."
-- Thursday: Vladimir Putin's annual call-in show for Russian citizens...
-- Thursday evening: The NBA draft begins...
-- Friday: "Toy Story 4" is here!
-- Sunday evening: "Apollo 11" premieres on CNN...
Cannes Lions week
Via Quartz: "The Cannes Lions advertising conference — or, International Festival of Creativity, if you will — takes place this week on the French Riviera." They are publishing a special daily newsletter from the beaches and villas.
Per the NY Post's Alexandra Steigrad, the "headline speakers at the five-day fest, which starts on Monday, include Jeffrey Katzenberg, Shonda Rhimes, Jeff Goldblum, Kerry Washington, Gayle King, Laura Dern, Chrissy Teigen, Sheryl Sandberg and Lorne Michaels." She quotes Cannes "grand poohbah" Michael Kassan saying "the biggest story is everybody grasping and grappling with the need to change the model to be direct-to-consumer..."
--> The Post also has a full list of the parties here...
FOR THE RECORD, PART ONE
-- Proud husband shoutout: My better half Jamie is moderating an event about "the high cost of miscarriages" and complexities of pregnancy loss... It's a partnership between NY1 and The Wing... it'll be livestreamed on FB and Twitter Monday at 7:30 p.m. ET... (NY1)
-- LA Times exec editor Norman Pearlstine "revealed in a piece for the newspaper on Sunday that a college girlfriend experienced a 'botched abortion' before the US Supreme Court legalized the procedure..." (CNN)
-- Pearlstine's message: "Men cannot be silent on abortion rights..." (LAT)
FIRST LOOK
The next cover of The Atlantic
Five years on, Malaysia Airlines Flight 370's disappearance is still a mystery. But William Langewiesche, the author of The Atlantic's July cover story, says "a lot can now be known with certainty." First and foremost: "The disappearance was an intentional act." Here is the cover... | | The story will be online on Monday morning at TheAtlantic.com...
Publisher recalls Naomi Wolf's book
"Houghton Mifflin Harcourt is postponing the publication of Naomi Wolf's forthcoming book 'Outrages' after questions have been raised about the accuracy of her research," the NYT's Alexandra Alter reports. The book was supposed to go on sale on Tuesday "with an announced first print run of 35,000 copies." It went on sale last month in Britain, and a BBC interviewer "revealed a critical error in her book that undermined her thesis."
At first Houghton Mifflin Harcourt initially called it "unfortunate" but stood by the book. Now, however, the publisher says "new questions have arisen that require more time to explore." Thus "we are postponing publication and requesting that all copies be returned from retail accounts while we work to resolve those questions." As Alter notes, this is a "rare measure that is usually only undertaken for books that contain fatal factual flaws or other more serious transgressions." And Wolf opposes the decision. "I stand by my work," she says. Read on...
"Keep watching"
I just want to second what CNN's Jim Sciutto said on Twitter on Sunday: "The courage of these protesters is real and commendable."
He was talking about the mass action in Hong Kong. "They face genuine reprisals by Chinese authorities - 30 years almost to the day after China killed its own people in Tiananmen," Sciutto wrote. "Keep watching. This is a remarkable time." Here is the latest from CNN's team on the ground...
FOR THE RECORD, PART TWO
-- Dorian Lynskey's "The Ministry of Truth: The Biography of George Orwell's 1984" came out earlier this month... George Packer says the book "makes a rich and compelling case for the novel as the summation of Orwell's entire body of work and a master key to understanding the modern world..." (The Atlantic)
-- Trump's congrats to one of his favorites on Fox: He tweeted to "great guy Pete Hegseth and wonderful Jenny Cunningham on their engagement..." (Twitter)
| | The polarization of trust
My opening monologue on Sunday's show: "If you don't have trust, you don't have anything." In the minds of some people, this applies to the Trump White House. Numerous polls have shown that most Americans do not trust the president. This reality affects every single conversation about American politics. It is the thing that turns the solid ground to swampy mud. And it really matters at moments like this, when there are heightened tensions between the United States and Iran. Peter Baker's headline in Saturday's NYT says it all: "Trump's Foggy Truth Meets the Fog of War."
And yet... Trump's biggest fans don't think they can trust the journalists who are pointing this point. This is the polarization of trust in action...
About flag burning and the First Amendment...
Another one of the weekend's tweet-based headlines: "Trump throws support behind measure to ban burning the American flag." That's via The Hill. But as the story notes, "the 1989 Texas v. Johnson Supreme Court decision ruled that the act was protected under the First Amendment's freedom of speech clause."
And the NYT says "there are no signs that the current court will reconsider the issue any time soon." For Trump, it's like the NFL kneeling kerfuffle... a way to virtue-signal to voters...
Bad news? Fire the messenger
Reporters have been writing about Trump 2020 polls showing bad news for Trump for several weeks. The NYT came out with more detail about a week ago. Trump's angry reactions triggered several days of news stories. Then on Friday ABC obtained leaked #'s for head-to-head matchups between Trump and Biden in four states.
Trump's campaign went scorched-earth. On Saturday, campaign manager Brad Parscale said "all news about the president's polling is completely false." Imagine that! ALL NEWS is FALSE.
Then on Sunday, NBC reported that the campaign has decided to oust some of its pollsters. CNN and other outlets quickly matched the story. Per CNN's team: "A person familiar with the purge said the firings were less about the accuracy of the polling and more about mollifying the president..."
--> Bottom line via CNN's Harry Enten: "Trump's internal polling stinks, which is what his public polling also shows."
--> The headline on Fox's new public poll: "Biden leads Trump by 10 points."
"Is the press rooting for impeachment?"
That's the question I posed to panelists Samantha Vinograd, Max Boot, and Margaret Sullivan on Sunday -- recognizing that the press is not a monolith. They pushed back on the question and pointed out the difference between commentators and reporters. Here's the clip...
The next time...
How will newsrooms react the next time stolen documents show up on the digital doorstep? How SHOULD they react? On Sunday's show, Margaret Sullivan advised against publishing "weaponized gossip" and said journalists should "make it clear where anything is coming from." Watch...
"Don't share content you haven't actually read"
Brian Lowry emails: This is an excellent thread by Lawfare's Benjamin Wittes offering guidelines when it comes to recirculating information – and avoiding being a part of disinformation. I would especially emphasize No. 2:
"Don't share content you haven't actually read. The headline is not the article. Know WHAT you are sharing. This isn't asking a lot, people."
FOR THE RECORD, 2020 EDITION
-- Speaking of Margaret Sullivan, here's her Monday column: "Joe Biden and the 'electability' delusion — and why the media keep making the same mistake..." (WaPo)
-- Essence is launching a "new monthly feature called #KamalasCorner," a monthly op-ed from Kamala Harris, per the mag's news/politics editorial director Yesha Callahan... (Twitter)
Andrew Yang on "Reliable" | | Andrew Yang, who earned a spot on the June 27 debate stage, told me on Sunday that his goal is "really just to introduce myself, my vision for the country, and let people know that the reason why Trump is our president is that we automated away 4 million manufacturing jobs in Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and that automation is now going to spread to...other parts of the economy." Thus, his UBI proposal. He's hoping to be placed next to Joe Biden, he says, so that "many Americans are Googling 'the Asian man next to Joe Biden.' Who's that guy? Because I'm sure I would have the same reaction."
Yang credited podcast interviews with some of his success to date, saying pods are truly "this new form of getting your message out to the public," and they've "been instrumental for my campaign." Here's part one of the interview...
Yang's "Journalism Fellows" idea
In part two, we talked about his proposal for government-subsidized "American Journalism Fellows," as well as the criticism of the idea. "If you believe in a vibrant democracy -- or even a functional democracy -- then you have to believe in local journalism," he said...
Google CEO on YouTube in crisis
Poppy Harlow's exclusive interview with Google CEO Sundar Pichai is now out. One of the subjects: Harassment and disinformation on YouTube. Here's the video of their exchange. "At YouTube," he said, "we are very focused on removing harmful content and reducing the spread of what we think of as borderline content... It's an ongoing process. There's more we need to do, and we acknowledge that."
Pichai added: "Let's say we are getting it right over 99% of the time. You'll still be able to find examples. Our goal is to take that to a very small percentage, well below 1%. Which is what we are working on."
Harlow: "It sounds like you are saying it'll never be 100%."
Pichai: "I think -- any large scale systems, it's tough. Think about credit card transactions -- there's some fraud in the systems..."
More from Pichai...
-- On privacy: He said Google has put too much burden on users...
-- On China: Google is not considering search in China anymore...
-- The complete interview is up on Harlow's "Boss Files" podcast, right here...
Google getting its lyrics from Genius?
Donie O'Sullivan emails: There's a fascinating story in the WSJ about how Genius says it has proven that Google is copying its lyrics.
The backstory: When you Google lyrics for a song, the search engine will often present the full lyrics right in the middle of its search – meaning fewer people are clicking through to the actual websites that spend time and money transcribing the songs. (In turn, fewer ad $$'s for them and more for Google.) So Genius began swapping out different types of apostrophes in song lines it had transcribed. And lo and behold, it found that those unique apostrophe structure was showing up in Google's version of the song lyrics too.
Google seems to be blaming a third party vendor it works with, according to the WSJ. Expect all this to play into the ongoing antitrust debate...
>> Caught by apostrophe? Donie adds: This story reminded me of our investigation into Russian pages used to meddle in American politics back in 2017. We figured out one of the biggest Black Live Matter pages on Facebook was actually run from Russia, in part, because of its unusual apostrophe use...
--> Google's Sunday evening statement: "Lyrics in info boxes on Google Search are licensed, we don't generate them from other sites on the web. We're investigating this issue and if our data licensing partners are not upholding good practices, we will end our agreements."
"Why YouTube needs principles"
That's the headline on Felix Salmon's latest for Axios. He says "a YouTube that based its decisions on high-level principles rather than bright-line rules would create more work for itself, but also provide more accountability for the rest of us."
FOR THE RECORD, PART THREE
-- Lester Holt is pulling double duty on Monday, co-hosting "Today" before his "Nightly News" gig... Holt and his son Stefan spoke with the Post about Father's Day... (NYPost)
-- Congrats to the WSJ's Tarini Parti and The National Law Journal's Ryan Barber, who tied the knot on Saturday... (NYT)
-- Natalie Jarvey's latest: "On Snapchat, Original Series Are Finding Return Viewers..." (THR)
| | Slow start for "MIB International"
"Men In Black International," Sony's latest film in the Men In Black franchise, "brought in an estimated $28.5 million opening at the North American box office this weekend," Frank Pallotta writes. "That was enough to give the science fiction flick the top spot, but it was just under industry expectations. The film was initially projected to make $30 million. The film has made $102.2 million so far globally..."
Lucas Shaw's reaction: It's "a bomb." Yes, he writes, "it is possible the movie will break even thanks to ticket sales overseas. The franchise name still means something in far-flung parts of the world. But the movie made about half of what the three previous 'Men in Black' films took in their opening weekend — not the sign of a healthy franchise." Read on...
Hasan Minhaj's DVD offer
His newest episode of Netflix's "Patriot Act" is about Internet inequality in the United States, "Since so many Americans lack access to streaming platforms like Netflix, we decided to put out a DVD version of this episode that can be rented at dvd.com/patriotact," Netflix PR says. "Just don't forget to mail it back when you are done with it." Clever!
A "Batman" anniversary
Brian Lowry emails: Next week will mark 30 years since Tim Burton's "Batman" swooped into theaters, and it's hard to imagine how Twitter would have erupted (had it existed) when Michael Keaton was cast in the role. With Robert Pattinson as the latest actor to brave the Dark Knight, I looked back at how Batman's screen incarnations (Bat-ffleck, anyone?) have made fans uniquely batty...
FOR THE RECORD, PART FOUR
-- Taylor Swift's video for "You Need to Calm Down" comes out Monday at 8:15 a.m. ET... ABC's "GMA" has the TV exclusive...
-- The tree thought to have inspired Dr. Seuss' "The Lorax" has fallen...
How cable shows are faring
Brian Lowry emails: THR's Rick Porter has a good reality check on cable ratings, showing what outliers "Game of Thrones" and ESPN's NFL football games are. The #'s underscore that when it comes to audience erosion, the broadcasters aren't alone. Cable still tends to get a pass on that kind of scrutiny and analysis...
Prep for the MTV Movie & TV Awards
Marianne Garvey has a cheat sheet for Monday's broadcast here!
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