EXEC SUMMARY: Brian Stelter here. This is a bonus edition of the newsletter... Because there's been so much news in the past 24 hours...
"Devastating winds" | | The National Hurricane Center's 11 p.m. ET Monday update said that "devastating winds and storm surge" will continue to slam Grand Bahama Island for "several more hours." It just keeps getting worse and worse. As CNN's Patrick Oppmann reported from Freeport: "Hour after hour, we just keep getting hit again and again. It really is a worst case scenario" for the islands.
The models continue to forecast a shift to the north-north-west, showing Dorian hugging the Florida coast, then reaching the Carolinas by Thursday. Evacuations have already been announced for the Outer Banks. Here are the updates on NOAA's website...
"Few people..."
News outlets are relying heavily on citizen videos from the Bahamas... Only a handful of correspondents are riding out the storm on the islands that are most directly impacted... But CNN meteorologist Tom Sater summed it up well on "CNN Tonight" Monday night: "Few people who have ever walked this Earth have gone through the hell that they're going through in the Bahamas in the last couple of days." So this will be a long-term story for the Bahamas...
"President Trump, Weatherman"
By the end of the Labor Day weekend, "the president had golfed twice and since Saturday morning pelted the American public with 122 tweets," the NYT's Katie Rogers wrote in this piece. Rogers said Trump has assumed the role of "meteorologist-in-chief, adding weatherman-style updates to a usual weekend routine of attacking his enemies, retweeting bits of praise and critiquing the performance of his cable news allies." Read on...
Trump misled the public about Dorian – three times in a row
This is a story about President Trump spreading false info during an emergency situation. Not once or twice -- three times.
On Monday evening, when ABC pointed out that Trump was wrong, he called the report "phony" and insisted that he was right. But his own National Weather Service (NWS) had said he was wrong.
I wanted to be really precise, so I included all the time stamps in my write-up for CNN.com. The story starts on Sunday morning, at 10:51 a.m. ET, when Trump tweeted out a warning about Dorian. He included Alabama in his list of affected states. But he was incorrect. Local meteorologists and the Birmingham, Alabama, branch of the NWS said so. But Trump repeated the error two more times on-camera. That's why I think this incident is a big deal. Who misled him? When? Did anyone try to correct the misinformation?
ABC: Trump "misstated the storm's possible trajectory"
On ABC's "World News Tonight," W.H. correspondent Jon Karl noted that Trump "misstated the storm's possible trajectory." Karl's report played a sound bite from Trump's on-camera comments at a FEMA briefing, which had taken place more than an hour after the NWS Birmingham office sent out the correct info.
Trump evidently watched Karl's report, because he tweeted out a complaint. At first he misspelled Karl's name and tagged the wrong person. Then he deleted the tweet and reposted it with the correct spelling. This is all the more remarkable because Karl is the president of the White House Correspondents' Association...
Trump contradicted himself
"I suggested yesterday at FEMA that, along with Florida, Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina, even Alabama could possibly come into play, which WAS true. They made a big deal about this ... when in fact, under certain original scenarios, it was in fact correct that Alabama could have received some 'hurt.' Always good to be prepared!" Trump wrote. So the suggestion is that he was citing "certain original scenarios" when he said that Alabama could be "hit" by Dorian. But his own comments at Sunday's FEMA briefing contradict this explanation. He said at the briefing that the information about Alabama "just came up, unfortunately."
So who misinformed POTUS about the forecast track? It is unclear. Stephanie Grisham responded to my Q by saying: "At the briefing at Camp David, the President and others in attendance were told it was important that the focus shouldn't be on the 'line or track' of the hurricane. That despite where Dorian would ultimately make landfall, the 'expanse of the wind field is large' and there was still 'a lot of uncertainty.' His comments were simply noting those points, and with Alabama's proximity to Florida it makes sense." But this doesn't make sense. Florida and Alabama share a border, but Alabama is about 250 miles from the Florida east coast at its closest point. Check it for yourself on Google Maps.
Bottom line: At no time had the government forecast that hurricane-force winds could reach any part of Alabama.
FOR THE RECORD, PART ONE
-- Here are CNN.com's live updates... Right now the homepage headline says "Dorian is barely moving at 1 mph..."
-- Norah O'Donnell anchored the "CBS Evening News" from Cocoa Beach, Florida, on Monday...
-- John Berman co-anchored CNN's "New Day" from the coast on Monday morning, and will be doing so again on Tuesday...
| | Trump's re-election strategy?
One of the most consistent features of the chaotic Trump presidency are the attacks against the press. Trump and his allies tell the public almost daily not to believe real reporting. But the frequency and predictability of the attacks don't make them any less damaging. To the contrary: The falsehood-filled tweets and televised tirades are gradually eroding Americans' shared sense of reality.
So I decided to treat Trump's tweets on Monday like they were written on a blank page, instead of page 955 of a presidential diary. And I wrote this story.
Trump shared 22 posts on Twitter before noon on Monday. In between his quotes from Fox News and his retweets about Dorian, he blasted the Washington Post and spread misinformation about how major newsrooms operate. He also shared a key line from his re-election playbook, claiming that "our primary opponent is the Fake News Media," not the Democrats or never-Trump Republicans.
The point: Some of what Trump posts about the media is legitimate criticism, but much of it is misleading. At the root of it all is a lie: That legitimate news outlets are "fake." Read on...
This is still shocking
I understand that this was just another day for Trump -- another outburst at an institution enshrined in the Constitution to keep government honest. But it's still shocking to see him tweet out erroneous info about the press.
The NYT's Maggie Haberman tweeted out an observation that a Trump adviser shared with her weeks ago -- and it seemed spot on to me: "The president, whose own approval ratings have stayed upside down, needs voters to feel negatively not just about his opponents but about longstanding institutions."
"Trump's incessant war"
Mark Follman, national affairs editor for Mother Jones, wrote last week that "Trump's incessant war on the American press has grown more extreme as his presidency has gone on." And Follman noted the potency: While the tactics "represent an inherently dangerous attack on a pillar of our constitutional democracy, Trump's multiyear campaign against the press appears to have been no more successful a project than, say, Trump Tower Moscow..."
Pompeo chided for traveling abroad without press
Oliver Darcy emails: Mike Pompeo traveled on Monday to Brussels for a diplomatic trip without bringing along any members of the press or even a pool reporter. The move drew a reproof from the State Departments Correspondents' Association. The organization's president, Shaun Tandon, told me in a statement to me that "it is vital for the press to be present on all official trips of the Secretary of State."
>> Tandon's point: "Crises can erupt at any moment so it is indispensable to have reporters who can quickly, thoroughly and accurately cover the decision-making of the top diplomat of the United States."
The backstory
Darcy continues: Pompeo's trip to Belgium was hastily organized. Initially, Pompeo was slated to travel with Trump on his trip to Poland, and then make the stop in Brussels on the way back. But Trump canceled his trip to Poland late last week to monitor the situation with Hurricane Dorian, prompting the State Department to quickly organize a solo trip for Pompeo.
The last-minute nature of Pompeo's trip could have accounted for the lack of press. "We understand that the Brussels trip was decided at the last minute and that the State Department does not anticipate open-press events on this brief visit," Tandon told me. "Nonetheless, we must make sure that this does not create a precedent and that reporters continue to be systematically present on the Secretary's plane."
State Department says Pompeo's plane was too small
Darcy adds: After our story published, State Department spox Morgan Ortagus sent me a response. She reiterated that the trip was planned quickly, but said "the press pool was given notification around the same time as the Secretary's staff of the trip and the schedule, along with the offer to fly commercially to cover the Secretary's trip to Belgium."
Key words there are "fly commercially." Translation: Not with Pompeo. Ortagus told me that the plane Pompeo used was small, and that there was no extra seating available for press. She said department officials hoped the US press would still fly on their own to Brussels to cover the trip, but that they "chose not to do so."
FOR THE RECORD, PART TWO
-- The updates about the California dive-boat fire are heartbreaking... Local officials say they will release updates at 1 p.m. ET Tuesday... (CNN)
-- One of Monday's most-buzzed-about stories: "Does Joe Biden Want to Be Doing This?" by Mark Leibovich... (NYT)
-- "I wasn't trying to mislead anybody," Biden said Monday re: conflating details of war stories... (CNN)
-- Sara Fischer calls this the "Brexit bump:" UK-based news outlets growing their revenues amid turmoil in the region... (Twitter)
Mattis at No. 1 on Amazon
The new book by James Mattis, "Call Sign Chaos: Learning to Lead," comes out Tuesday. It is No. 1 on Amazon's best seller list right now.
--> On Sunday's "Reliable," Jeffrey Goldberg talked about his recent interviews with Mattis...
--> David A. Graham wrote: "As I imagine Mattis recognizes, refusing to comment on the president's fitness for office -- even just a pro-forma yes -- is, in fact, a comment on the president's fitness for office.."
Brian Karem awaits ruling about his press pass
Brian Karem, known for his aggressive questioning at White House events, had his press pass suspended for 30 days after an altercation with Sebastian Gorka. He sued, and now he is waiting to see if a federal judge rules in his favor. The judge is expected to weigh in on Tuesday. I interviewed Karem on Sunday's "Reliable..." Watch it here...
Our fall season preview
If you missed last night's Fall 2019 preview, check it out here... A detailed calendar of media, tech and entertainment events that are coming up this season...
FOR THE RECORD, PART THREE
-- "Angry fans keep wrecking podcasts with one-star reviews," Ashley Carman reports... (The Verge)
-- Sky reports that News Corp is "exploring a sale of Unruly, the London-based video advertising platform it acquired for £115m just four years ago." Needham is "advising News Corp on the process, according to insiders..." (Sky)
-- In Israel: "Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday night stepped up his attacks on Channel 12 over its coverage of the criminal cases he is a suspect in, taking aim at the channel's owners and senior executives..." (Times of Israel)
Another Dem inquiry
A notable detail in this story: The Judiciary Committee may call David Pecker as a witness.
"Congressional Democrats plan to launch inquiry into Trump's alleged role in scheme to silence affair accusations," Rachael Bade and Tom Hamburger report...
"Conan in Greenland"
Anderson Cooper on "AC360" Monday night: "It may seem like light years ago that news broke that President Trump wanted to buy Greenland. Such is the nature of the news cycle in the Trump era, it was actually just two weeks ago. Greenland is notably not for sale. It's also technically part of the kingdom of Denmark."
Cooper was setting up his interview with Conan O'Brien, who recently traveled to Greenland... the TBS special "Conan in Greenland" will air Tuesday night... | |
Catch up on Sunday's "Reliable"
Listen via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, TuneIn, or your pod player of choice... Or watch the video clips on CNN.com...
Notes and quotes from Sunday's show
-- Elaina Plott, David Zurawik, and Julia Ioffe joined me to discuss Trump's ever-changing feelings about Fox. Ioffe said Trump seems to think the network is "part of the White House and it's just not running the way he wants it to." Plott said "Fox knows it has the leverage in this relationship."
-- Zurawik commented that despite Trump's recent "Fox isn't working for us anymore" claim, "they're going to keep going steady." For more, read Clare Duffy's recap on CNN Business...
-- Re: Joe Biden being "loose with facts" on the campaign trail: "Telling falsehoods is never benign," Zurawik said...
-- Journalists should exercise caution when covering Trump's instability, Jeffrey Goldberg said. His proposal: "Simply report on what he's doing and saying, and then hold that up against how previous presidents and how other world leaders respond to the same types of issues..."
-- "Trump fatigue" is a hot topic in the political press right now. "We're going numb, and that's the real fear," Slate's Dahlia Lithwick said...
-- Lithwick also spoke with me about her new column arguing that "investigative reporting started #MeToo," but "we're now asking it to do too much..."
LAST BUT DEFINITELY NOT LEAST...
Happy CNN anniversary, Frank!
"Today is my five year anniversary at CNN," Frank Pallotta tweeted Monday. "Thank you to everyone who helped me get this far and everyone who allowed me to write countless articles about Marvel."
THANK YOU, Frank -- and keep the Marvel stories coming!
| | Oliver will be back on Tuesday... Email your feedback anytime!
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