100 days
Wednesday will be the 100th day without an on-camera White House press briefing. Up until now, the longest stretch without a briefing lasted 42 days. So this is really the worst kind of record.
I'm beating this drum because the cancellation of the briefing has both symbolic and practical consequences. Practical because questions aren't being answered. Symbolic because Trump and his aides are shutting out the press and giving permission for government agencies to do the same.
"The rhetoric does real long-term damage"
VF's Joe Pompeo spoke with numerous W.H. reporters about Sarah Sanders' exit and the speculation about who will succeed her. Many reporters say it just doesn't matter. "She didn't have the kind of power press secretaries used to have," Pompeo wrote Tuesday.
He quoted one of his sources saying "a lot of people would like to see the briefing back," but this matters more: "I think less public hostility overall is most important. The rhetoric does real long-term damage to our credibility."
Here's the newest example...
More of the same
I was going to lead this edition of the newsletter with Trump's 2020 re-launch rally in Orlando, but it really wasn't newsworthy. Even Sean Hannity didn't seem to believe it when he said "you are witnessing history in the making." | | Reporters were struck by just how repetitive the kickoff rally was. CNN's Betsy Klein quipped on Twitter, "I was promised new material." Instead, it was a repeat of 2016. "When Hillary Clinton runs in 2020, Trump is totally ready for her," WaPo's Karen Tumulty remarked.
The NYT's Michael Barbaro called it an "exceedingly dark start to re-elect kickoff. Lock her up. CNN sucks. Fake news. Hoax. Etc." Rep. David Cicilline (D-RI) tweeted that it was a "hate rally." But the rallygoers and the viewers on Fox felt love, not hate. I think that dissonance is key to understanding the American divide we're all living through.
Here's what happened in Orlando
Trump began the re-launch event by touting the economy. Both Fox and CNN took the beginning of his speech live. But after five minutes it was clear that Trump didn't have anything new to say. A "CNN sucks" chant broke out in the arena. And Trump said "by the way, that is a LOT of fake news back there."
Fox carried the whole thing live while CNN shifted to analysis. MSNBC never dipped into the event at all.
I thought Jeffrey Toobin's analysis on "AC360" was on point: "Remember, he WON the last election! All this, like, 'Oh, isn't it terrible that he's attacking the press?' He won by attacking the press! He won by being Donald Trump! He won by attacking immigrants! The idea that Donald Trump should listen to some speechwriter rather than his own political instincts seems crazy to me. This is who he is, this is how he won, and, like, why should he change?"
Pro-Trump commentator Rick Santorum put this way: On the campaign trail Trump "will talk about how he took on the establishment," and "the media is part of the elite establishment."
Cuomo's Q
"There's probably 20,000 people at this rally for this president tonight -- and that is bigger than Democrats are getting so far to be sure," Chris Cuomo said on CNN Tuesday night. "But is the size of the rally suggestive of the 60 million plus needed to win the next presidential election?"
--> Maeve Reston added on "CNN Tonight:" Nobody in the Democratic party "has that kind of rock star quality that you see with Donald Trump..."
"Concentration camps"
Over on MSNBC, Chris Hayes called Tuesday's event a "pretend relaunch." And he addressed the day's biggest Twitterverse controversy, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's remarks about the detention facilities on the southern border being "concentration camps."
Was Hayes' show the source of this eruption? That's my educated guess. On June 6 he interviewed Andrea Pitzer, the author of "One Long Night: A Global History of Concentration Camps," and she described how the current border camps fit into history. The segment hit a nerve -- the book was suddenly sold out on Amazon.
Fast forward to Monday evening, when AOC said during an Instagram Live chat that the US "is running concentration camps on our southern border."
Republican lawmakers and Fox News anchors were outraged. Fox fans, in general, were disgusted while MSNBC fans knew exactly what Ocasio-Cortez meant. Our American divide in action. Hayes brought Pitzer back on his show Tuesday night... And she said, "For 40 years before Auschwitz, we had concentration camps -- things that were called concentration camps -- what we're doing now fits very cleanly inside that tradition." She said "death camps" including Auschwitz "were ON TOP OF the existing concentration camp system," and "that is a singular moment in history."
But the "concentration" definition, as expressed by Hayes, is "detention of some subgroup in some camp setting where things start to go awry."
Shanahan withdraws amid media scrutiny
On Monday, Yahoo's Hunter Walker foreshadowed what was about to happen: With Trump's acting secretary of defense Patrick Shanahan's confirmation "on hold, press reports have questioned his relationship with the president, and the Pentagon has been fielding press queries about his personal life, including a messy divorce that involved an accusation of domestic violence from his ex-wife, who was arrested as part of the dispute."
Then came USA Today's story on Tuesday morning: "FBI examining 2010 domestic fight involving acting defense secretary Shanahan; accounts differ on aggressor."
And then WaPo dropped this story, literally one minute before Trump tweeted: "As Trump's defense pick withdraws, he addresses violent domestic incidents."
Defense One exec editor Kevin Baron tweeted: "Shanahan invited Washington Post reporters into his apartment days before withdrawing to discuss his personal history on the record. After months of ducking cameras and public accountability on matters of war and national security."
April Ryan's question
With Netflix's "When They See Us" still reverberating, April Ryan asked Trump if he would apologize for his actions surrounding the Central Park Five case during a gaggle on Tuesday afternoon. Trump instead asked why the topic was relevant. "Why do you bring that question up now? It's an interesting time to bring it up," he said, seemingly unaware of the Netflix miniseries.
He went on to say, "You have people on both sides of that. They admitted their guilt." As CNN's story noted, "the five teenagers who were accused of raping a jogger were pressured into giving false confessions. They were later exonerated when DNA evidence linked another person to the crime..."
Why Trump on Telemundo is significant
Trump is calling into Hannity's show on Wednesday. PLUS: NBC and Telemundo anchor Jose Diaz-Balart has landed an interview with Trump. Telemundo is calling it "Trump's first sit-down interview with a Spanish-language TV network during his presidency." It will air Thursday night...
--> David Fahrenthold tweeted: "I'll be fascinated to see if they ask about @realDonaldTrump's employment of undocumented workers..."
FOR THE RECORD, PART ONE
-- Hope Hicks is slated to testify to the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday, but... (CNN)
-- Aaron Gell, a former editor of the New York Observer, is out with a new essay about what it was like to work with Jared Kushner... (Medium)
-- "Katharine Gorka, a political appointee at DHS who has stirred controversy for her views on terrorism and her role in the department's efforts to combat violent extremism in the US, is expected to be the new press secretary at Customs and Border Protection," Geneva Sands reports. Gorka's husband Sebastian Gorka attacks the media on a daily basis... (CNN)
-- "A former Republican operative notorious for his connections to white nationalists has established himself as an opinion contributor for several national publications, including the Wall Street Journal, while writing under a thinly veiled pen name... " (BuzzFeed News)
18 questions for 21 candidates
On Wednesday the NYT is coming out with a video series featuring the 2020 Dems. Joe Biden declined the paper's invitation to participate, but the rest of the field did... | | Here's the idea: "We asked 2020 Democrats the same set of 18 questions." The answers will be up on NYTimes.com in the morning...
Colbert's joke about Fox
On Tuesday's "Late Show," Stephen Colbert played a clip of Bret Baier reporting on Fox's latest poll showing Biden leading Trump. "Ouch, Fox News! You pledged to be there for him, for better or worse," Colbert said, "You keep this up, he's going to leave you for a younger network!"
IN MEDIA BIZ NEWS...
CBS preparing its offer for Viacom...
Benjamin Mullin and Keach Hagey's Tuesday afternoon report: CBS is "preparing to make an offer for sister media company Viacom in the coming weeks, following a meeting of CBS directors last week in which a potential deal was discussed, according to people familiar with the situation. Representatives of CBS and Viacom have already had preliminary discussions about the outlines of a deal, one of the people said."
BUT: "A deal is far from certain. Determining the price for a stock transaction -- which requires setting a value for the companies relative to each other -- is one major hurdle." Read on...
FOR THE RECORD, PART TWO
-- CJR's Jon Allsop makes the case that US–Iran coverage "is still not skeptical enough..." (CJR)
-- "Former Hearst CEO Frank Bennack is working on a memoir" for Simon & Schuster. It'll be out in October... (AP)
-- Never a good sign for a defendant: Harvey Weinstein's defense attorney Jose Baez "doesn't want to represent him anymore and has filed to withdraw from the sexual assault case, according to a source." This is "the first time in his career he's asked to withdraw from a case," Jean Casarez reports... (CNN)
-- Congrats to this year's Murrow Award winners. CBS won 8 between TV and radio... ABC won 4, including overall excellence... CNN won 3... NBC won 2... (RTDNA)
FIRST LOOK
Variety's Power of Pride cover | | Here's the cover of Variety's inaugural Power of Pride issue -- featuring Don Lemon, Asia Kate Dillon, Billy Eichner, Hannah Gadsby, Jim Parsons, and MJ Rodriguez. The feature will be on Variety.com on Wednesday...
Judge sanctions Alex Jones in Sandy Hook case
Oliver Darcy emails: Alex Jones did not have a good day in court. A Connecticut judge on Tuesday sanctioned Jones for suggesting that a lawyer for the Sandy Hook families tried to frame him with child porn. The ruling came after the attorneys representing the Sandy Hook families asked the judge to review footage of Jones lambasting one of the attorneys on Friday.
After reviewing the footage of Jones, the judge called his behavior "indefensible," "unconscionable," and "possibly criminal." The judge said she would sanction Jones by denying his defense team the opportunity to file motions to dismiss the case from moving forward. It's a big blow to Jones. More details here…
>> Related: At a court hearing, a proposed date of November 2020 for the Sandy Hook trial was settled on by both the plaintiffs and the defense, and agreed to by the judge…
…Meanwhile, Sandy Hook denier book pulled from shelves
Darcy adds: Sandy Hook families had another reason to celebrate on Tuesday. Lenny Pozner, whose son died in the 2012 shooting, won a defamation lawsuit against the authors of a book which claimed the massacre did not occur. As a result, the book, "Nobody Died at Sandy Hook," will be pulled from bookstores. The amount in damages owed to Pozner will be determined at a later date...
FOR THE RECORD, PART THREE
-- Michael Tackett is joining The AP as deputy Washington bureau chief...
-- This is D.D. Guttenplan's first week as editor of The Nation... He is naming Jeet Heer national-affairs correspondent and Jane McAlevey "strikes correspondent, filing from the front lines of the labor movement..."
-- Christine Schmidt's latest is on TikTok: "How The Washington Post, NBC News, and The Dallas Morning News are using the of-the-moment platform..." (NiemanLab)
-- "In a first, only one TV outlet — MSNBC — will be allowed to deliver live coverage of Saturday's South Carolina Democratic Convention where 21 presidential candidates are expected to speak, drawing heated complaints from other networks..." (Washington Examiner)
Michael Savage swipes at right-wing media personalities who view Trump as "demigod"
Oliver Darcy emails: Far-right radio host Michael Savage, who was one of Trump's strongest backers early on, told NYT's Jeremy Peters that he has grown disillusioned with the president. In his view, Trump hasn't fulfilled some of the key promises that got him elected, like the construction of a wall on the southern border.
Savage said, "To too many people he's not a human being, he's a demigod." Savage then specifically zoned in on some of his peers in right-wing media, saying, "It's embarrassing to listen to some of these people." Savage added rhetorically, "I'm going to get up every morning and do nothing but say how great he is?" Read the full story here…
QUOTE OF THE DAY
THR's Jeremy Barr asked, "How do you decide how important and history-making news developments are these days?" MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell answered:
"It begins for me as a writer as just a really difficult writing challenge, which is, 'How many ways are there to say unprecedented?' and 'How many times can you say unprecedented?' and 'When does unprecedented lose its meaning in repetition? Or does it?' This is kind of a societal experiment that we're all in and a language experiment, and we don't really know the answers."
"Jeopardy" ratings joy
The final #'s are in for James Holzhauer's final day on "Jeopardy." Per Vulture's Joe Adalian, the episode "was seen by a massive same-day audience of 14.5 million viewers on June 3, making it the most-watched episode of the show since November 30, 2004, when (still) reigning money champ Ken Jennings drew 18 million viewers for his swan song. Measuring only same-day viewers, Holzhauer's losing episode stands as the third most-watched regularly scheduled series episode of the 2018–19 television season, behind only the series finale of The Big Bang Theory (18.5 million viewers) and a December episode of 60 Minutes (14.6 million)."
Writers v. agents update
Brian Lowry emails: The Association of Talent Agents issued a statement on Tuesday saying, basically, that it's frustrated with the lack of action in talks with the Writers Guild of America, accusing the guild's leadership of meeting its attempts to establish a dialogue and negotiate "with demands for capitulation rather than negotiation." The agencies said they would "pursue a course that defends and protects our employees," while maintaining writers' ability to choose their representation. The WGA said it will respond to the ATA's latest proposal this week...
| | "Biggest opening weekend ever for a Netflix Film"
Brian Lowry emails: Netflix is at it again, cherrypicking its data with claims about the big audience for specific projects (while steadfastly avoiding others). The latest: "Murder Mystery," the Adam Sandler-Jennifer Aniston comedy, which the company says was watched by 30.9 million accounts worldwide in its first three days -- "the biggest opening weekend ever for a Netflix Film." The term "opening weekend" is a bit loaded, inasmuch as it couches something that approximates TV measurement in movie box-office terms, which has as much to do with courting talent as anything else...
Netflix's high-class Emmy prize problem
Megan Thomas emails: THR's Scott Feinberg took a look at what Netflix can do to beat HBO and avoid canceling out its contenders at the Emmys.
Key graf: "This Emmy season, Netflix has the best sort of problem a TV platform can have: It has so many high-caliber and popular shows, it boasts one serious contender in nearly every category and, in some categories, so many that they could end up boxing out one another. This is the result of Netflix's multibillion-dollar investment in original content — it planned 700 original shows for 2018 — as it strives to fortify itself against the progression of existing competitors (like Amazon and Hulu) and rise of new ones (Disney+ and Apple)."
FOR THE RECORD, PART FOUR
By Frank Pallotta:
-- Is Netflix to blame for the decline of comedies at the box office? (THR)
-- The much anticipated "Game of Thrones" prequel has begun filming... (Entertainment Weekly)
-- Hulu CEO Randy Freer says "investment in original programming will increase significantly" over the next few years. But when Julia Boorstin asked for a $$$ amount, he declined to say... (CNBC)
Universal Music boss says 'We owe our artists transparency'
LAT's Randy Lewis writes: Universal Music Group CEO Lucian Grainge, "the chairman of the world's largest music conglomerate," sent out a memo on Tuesday and "instructed all who work for him to be transparent with musicians who contact the company to find out whether their recordings were among those destroyed in a 2008 fire reported to have consumed as many as 500,000 recordings."
"We owe our artists transparency," Grainge wrote.
This is a response to the NYT Mag's recent investigation into the devastating fire "on the backlot of the NBCUniversal Studios in Hollywood." More...
FOR THE RECORD, PART FIVE
By Chloe Melas:
-- MTV is ramping up the promos for "The Hills: New Beginnings," debuting next Monday...
-- Blake Shelton and Garth Brooks have dropped an awesome new summer anthem... -- Cast members from "Toy Story 4" are sharing their own childhood toy stories...
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