| | | | | Exec summary: The president's "bewildering" tweet... A tale of three Trump books... Seb Gorka's potential radio show... NYT's big story about American Media... and more... | | When historians look back on the Trump presidency, they'll say that last week was the moment something changed -- when uncomfortable Q's about Russia moved into the mainstream in a whole new way.
And if Helsinki was fresh kindling for a raging fire, Trump poured even more fuel on the 🔥 Sunday night. With the click of a button, he tweeted that "Russia" -- shorthand for the Russian interference campaign in 2016 -- was "all a big hoax."
Trump seemed to be contradicting his own claims that he believes US intelligence. He's been briefed on the intel repeatedly...as I said to CNN's Ana Cabrera... but he feels compelled to return to this "hoax" lie again and again.
The upshot: Trump ensured that the start of a new workweek will be consumed by Q's about his refusal to really acknowledge Russia's attack. | | Trump showing his true colors | | "It's bewildering, why the president would go back and call this a hoax," veteran political analyst David Gergen said on CNN.
On one level, yes. But as Gergen and others pointed out, Trump was showing his true colors. "This is obviously the president's point of view," Jake Tapper tweeted, "no matter how many times his staffers goad him to say otherwise."
Now the press corps have even more Q's to ask POTUS. Here's my new column for CNNMoney... | | Media week ahead calendar | | Sunday night: "Shark Week" commenced on Discovery...
Tuesday: AT&T and Verizon report earnings...
Wednesday: Beyonce and Jay-Z's On the Run II Tour begins its North American leg...
Wednesday: "Castle Rock" starts streaming on Hulu...
Thursday: Comcast and Spotify report earnings...
Friday: Disney and 21st Century Fox shareholders will vote on the pending deal...
Friday: Twitter reports earnings...
Friday: "Mission: Impossible – Fallout" hits theaters... | | A tale of three Trump books | | Jeanine Pirro's book is still No. 1 on Amazon... And on Saturday night, she rightly credited Whoopi Goldberg with helping her sell more copies.
Two more Trumpworld books come out on Tuesday: Sean Spicer's "The Briefing" and Gregg Jarrett's "The Russia Hoax." Right now Jarrett is holding steady at No. 5, thanks to a huge # of pre-orders, partly from his regular hits on "Hannity." Spicer, on the other hand, is barely in the top 1,000. Last I checked, he was ranked at No. 881.
I think there's a simple explanation for this: Spicer, despite all his TV hits hyping the book, is not Trumpy "enough." He only served as press secretary for six months. Pirro and Jarrett, on the other hand, are absolute Trump diehards. And they're plugged in right to the base via Fox's prime time shows... | | Looming layoffs at NY Daily News? | | Tronc is not commenting on the intense speculation about layoffs just around the corner at the NY Daily News. The paper's top rival, the NY Post, claimed the other day that "Daily News editor Jim Rich could be out as layoffs loom." Rich did not respond to my request for comment either. But the cuts could start as soon as Monday.
>> With concerns about cutbacks front and center, Daily News columnist Harry Siegel filed a timely column titled "Why we need local journalism..." He said "bad things happen when the mudthrowers outpace the muckrakers..." | | Robin Abcarian of the Los Angeles Times wrote Saturday: "Few things truly connect our sprawling metropolis: the freeways, The Times and without a doubt, Jonathan Gold, who transcended the role of restaurant critic to become a modern-day ethnographer. His gift was his ability to explain the tribes of this place to each other by celebrating the things they cook and eat."
Gold died on Saturday. He was 57. The cause was pancreatic cancer. The pain of his passing was felt among writers and foodies across the country. Gold was "the ambassador of Los Angeles and a man who revolutionized dining," Dylan Byers wrote. "Bourdain and Gold in the same year. One went global to celebrate the local. One went local to celebrate the global. Heroes both."
If you haven't watched "City of Gold," the film all about Gold, you should rent it... Looks like it's available via Amazon... | | -- NYT's Pete Wells: "Unlike some critics, Mr. Gold never saw expensive, rarefied restaurants as the peak of the terrain he surveyed." He was in his element "when he championed small, family-run establishments..."
-- Beautiful op-ed by Gustavo Arellano: "We all live in Jonathan Gold's Southern California..."
-- The LAT's recap: "Tributes to restaurant critic Jonathan Gold pour in from chefs, food world..."
-- Gold's last review, in June, was of a Middle Eastern-inspired restaurant called Bavel...
-- Gold's wife Laurie Ochoa, the LAT's arts and entertainment editor, wrote: "Devastated by the loss of my true love. Overwhelmed by the outpouring. Thank you." ❤️ | | -- Margaret Sullivan's Monday column is a look at Facebook's curation challenges. She says "the company remains a dangerous mess." But: "In treating what ails Facebook, the cure shouldn't be worse than the disease..." (WashPost)
-- Summing up Jake Tapper's interview of Carter Page: "Page rejects claims he was a Kremlin adviser despite calling himself a Kremlin adviser" (The Hill)
-- I wonder what Michael Barbaro has in the works? Tune in Monday, he tweeted, "we have a really special, powerful episode of The Daily..." (Twitter)
-- Karen Han writes: "HBO's Succession has quietly become my favorite show of the summer..." (Vox) | | How many briefings this week? | | | The better question might be, "Will there be any W.H. briefings at all this week?" There have only been two in July... on July 2 and July 18... so we shall see. Right now there's no briefing scheduled for Monday... | | Important new NYT story about American Media Inc. | | I hope this story didn't get overlooked over the weekend: The NYT's Jim Rutenberg and Ben Protess reported that the federal investigators examining Michael Cohen "have come to believe" that American Media Inc., controlled by Trump's friend David Pecker, "at times acted more as a political supporter than as a news organization."
This matters a great deal. After all, "while moves by prosecutors to subpoena journalists usually draw loud protest from groups that advocate press protections, there has so far been no rallying of support for A.M.I." Read the rest here... | | -- Julian Sanchez's latest head-scratcher: "Trump could get his intel from the government. Instead, he gets it from Fox News..." (WashPost)
-- Smart story about how women's magazines are taking political positions and "ramping up coverage of sexual harassment, reproductive rights and identity politics..." (Bloomberg)
-- Stay tuned: Salem Radio Network "is looking to bring on Sebastian Gorka, the controversial, firebrand ex-Trump adviser, as one of its new hosts..." (Daily Beast) | | Wallace's Russia vacation | | Chris Wallace went from interviewing Putin in Helsinki to vacationing in... Russia! He mentioned it to Putin after the interview. Wallace recounted the conversation to the NYT's Michael Grynbaum:
"He said, 'How much time in each city?' I was a little worried about that. Why does he want to know?"
Ultimately, though, Wallace says "there's been no sign of any trouble or anything at all..." | | Looking back at Helsinki... | | | Post-presser, "Trump grumbled about the tough question he was asked" by the AP's Jon Lemire, according to this WashPost reconstruction of Trump's terrible week. The Post says "aides tried to explain to Trump that nearly any journalist would have asked a similarly pointed question in that moment," but Trump was not satisfied... | | "Reliable Sources" highlights | | -- Russia watcher Jill Dougherty, a former CNN Moscow bureau chief, said "I think the media would be very helpful to people if you said, 'Okay, this is how propaganda is done. This is how you are being manipulated.'" Watch...
-- Olivia Nuzzi said pro-Trump talk show hosts "really are just an extension of the White House communications shop," so "interview" isn't the right word for those Q&A sessions...
-- Maggie Haberman said she wants to see more solidarity among members of the W.H. press corps. Here's the TV interview... You can hear our full conversation via the "Reliable" podcast...
-- I sparred with Newsmax CEO Chris Ruddy about the Trump-Putin summit, the economy, the media, and Trump's dangerous depiction of journalists as the "enemy of the people." Ruddy said Trump is "very angry about the press treatment..."
-- Ruddy, an opponent of Sinclair's bid for Tribune, also reacted to the news that the deal is now imperiled. "The FCC acted as it was supposed to act," Ruddy said...
| | Catch up on Sunday's show | | | You can listen to Sunday's "Reliable Sources" as a podcast through Apple Podcasts or other apps... Watch the video clips on CNN.com... Or watch the full episode through CNNgo or VOD... | | | For the record, part three | | | -- ICYMI: James B. Stewart says Les Moonves and Shari Redstone "pointedly avoided each other" at Sun Valley earlier this month... (NYT)
-- Scott Porch asks a key Q: "Will the warp-speed tech world move past CBS and Viacom even while Shari Redstone tries to merge them back together?" (Daily Beast)
-- I caught up to this late: Marisa Guthrie's insightful interview with CBS News prez David Rhodes... (THR) | | "'Hamilton' creator announces arts fund for Puerto Rico" | | | "Lin-Manuel Miranda jumped up to a podium shortly after landing in Puerto Rico on Sunday to announce he has helped create a multimillion-dollar fund to boost the arts in the U.S. territory as it struggles to recover from Hurricane Maria," the AP reports... | | "The summer of documentary hits" | | That's what ThePlaylist's Gregory Ellwood is calling it. "The summer of doc hits continues as Neon kills it with 'Three Identical Strangers,'" he tweeted. "The Sundance doc earned $1.4 mil in just 332 theaters for $4.5 mil so far. Major win for Neon."
More: "'Won't You Be My Neighbor?' hits $18 million this weekend and $20 million total absolutely in the books. 'RBG' at $13 million and now 'Three Strangers?' Hopefully distributors don't overbook crowd pleasing docs next summer, but it's a positive trend going forward."
Note to Jamie: We still need to see "Won't You Be My Neighbor?" !!
Alright, on to the rest of the box office... | | "Equalizer" edges past "Mamma Mia" | | "Going into the weekend, the star-studded 'Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again' was projected to take first place," NYT's Andrew R. Chow notes. But Denzel Washington's action film "The Equalizer 2" "surpassed its expectations, storming past the jukebox musical to rake in $35.8 million."
>> Chow calls it "yet another box office success for Mr. Washington, 63, whose last decade has consisted of an uninterrupted string of hits..."
>> The "Mamma Mia" sequel made $34.4 million, per comScore... That's "even better than its predecessor" fared on opening weekend... It "made $27.7 million in 2008..." | | High-stakes year ahead for Warner Bros. | | | Brian Lowry emails: Comic-Con wrapped up today, and among other things underscored that HBO and Turner aren't the only WarnerMedia units that are going to be under the microscope as AT&T takes over. Specifically, as its weekend presentation made clear, this is a big year ahead for Warner Bros., whose high-stakes movies include the comic-book adaptations "Aquaman" and "Shazam!" — dicier propositions than its "Wonder Woman" sequel — as well as a "Godzilla" relaunch that's central to its planned monster franchise. DC is also testing its appeal with a branded streaming service, hoping to prove its doing more than just playing catch-up to Marvel... | | TV's first transgender superhero | | | Via NYT's Andrew R. Chow: "The first transgender superhero on television will soon arrive, on the CW's 'Supergirl.' Nicole Maines has been cast as Nia Nal, who will come to the fictional National City in the show's fourth season and receive guidance and training from the title character. The casting was announced at the show's panel at Comic-Con in San Diego on Saturday..." | | | Hope you had a superb weekend! Let me know what you think of this newsletter. Email your likes, dislikes, thoughts: brian.stelter@turner.com | | | | | | |
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