| | | | | Exec summary: Is truth truth yet? Everyone is still digesting Tuesday's successive GUILTY headlines.... Here's the latest about a day that seems destined for history books... | | All The President's Men, the sequel? | | Sometimes news trickles out. And other times, like Tuesday, it hits like a flash flood. Michael Cohen's guilty plea came within minutes of the verdict in the Paul Manafort trial on Tuesday afternoon. Just before 4:30, phones lit up with successive news alerts about two felons who had been in President Trump's inner circle. Cable news channels had to interrupt breaking news coverage of one for breaking news about the other. And readers and viewers were left wondering what it all means. The pressure is on newsrooms -- right now and in the coming days -- to explain what's going on and what it means for the Trump presidency...
| | Wednesday's A1: "Convictions tighten squeeze on Trump" | | | Quoting from Dan Balz's page one piece: "Everything that happened in a pair of courtrooms hundreds of miles apart strengthened the hand of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III and weakened that of the president of the United States..." | | 11:08am: The Manafort jury sends a note asking about what to do if it can't reach a verdict on a count...
11:50am: NBC News reports that Cohen is discussing a plea deal, and it "could come as early as today..."
11:58am: Judge T.S. Ellis sends the jury back to deliberate some more...
12:04pm: CNN's Erica Orden notes that barricades (often used to corral the press) were going up at the Manhattan federal courthouse...
1:37pm: George Stephanopolos breaks into ABC programming with a big scoop: "Michael Cohen has reached a plea deal..."
1:45pm: CNBC nabs the only video of Cohen entering the FBI's NYC field office. We later learned that this was his moment of surrender...
2:12pm: Prosecutors signal that there will be a 4pm court proceeding in the Cohen case...
2:16pm: Lester Holt breaks into NBC programming with the word of a plea deal...
4:09pm: The Manafort jury sends another note. This time, it's word of a verdict on 8 of the 18 counts...
4:37pm: Interns start sprinting out of the courthouse with news about the guilty verdict...
4:48pm: "I apologize. We have more breaking news. It's like a Saturday Night Live skit," Jake Tapper says...
4:50pm: Details of the Cohen plea deal begin to dribble out...
4:52pm: Sarah Sanders declines to comment...
4:58pm: Jeff Glor on CBS's special report: "Divided country, divided verdict..."
5:00pm: Matt Schlapp posts the most-mocked tweet of the day. "Strange I see no 'Russian collusion' in any breaking news. Odd."
6:46pm: Fox's John Roberts quotes a source close to Trump saying, "Remember, the President cannot be indicted."
7:00pm: Chris Matthews' lead on "Hardball:" "All the President's Men...are Guilty! Let's play Hardball."
7:12pm: Omarosa (engaging in wishful thinking?) on MSNBC: "Today changed everything. Today is the beginning of the end for Donald Trump."
8:47pm: The WaPo calls the day a "breathtaking political nightmare for Trump..."
8:53pm: Dan Rather tweets, "I've been saying 'Wow' since about 4 o'clock this afternoon, and have yet to stop."
9:31pm: "I'm still trying to let this day sink in," CNN's Shimon Prokupecz says. "The personal lawyer to the President of the United States now a convicted felon. The chairman of the campaign a convicted felon."
11:05pm: Cohen's lawyer Lanny Davis says on "CNN Tonight" that Cohen now considers Trump to be "a danger to our country."
11:52pm: "This is the Justice Department being serious about discovering the truth," Bill Kristol says on MSNBC... | | Meanwhile, at Trump's rally... | | POTUS didn't directly bring up any of these stories, but he mocked the press and invoked the "witch hunt," saying, "Where is the collusion? You know they're still looking for collusion. Where is the collusion? Find some collusion. We want to find the collusion."
| | "If there was a movie script about what happened today," Jen Psaki said on "AC360," "you wouldn't believe it."
Anderson Cooper responded: "This is like one of those movie montages where several things happen all at once, and you're like, 'Oh, it's getting to the end of the movie, because this is the montage.'" Here's my full CNNMoney story about the media reactions...
| | At one point, I forget exactly when, I said "we're gonna need a bigger homepage." CNN.com was bursting with news... By 8pm, the homepage used an unusual format that featured the Cohen shocker, the Manafort verdict, Trump's rally in West Virginia, the indictment of Republican congressman Duncan Hunter, and the arrest of an undocumented immigrant in the death of 20-year-old Iowa student Molly Tibbetts.
Fox News' homepage, on the other hand, led with the Tibbetts case, pushing the bad news for Trump further down the page...
| | Here's what the pro-Trump media is saying | | "NO COLLUSION:" There's an intense focus on the idea that these felonies aren't directly related to Russian interference in 2016, as if that's the only real crime that exists. Some Trump boosters have reverted back to the "fruit of a poisoned tree" argument, claiming that these investigations started under politically partisan pretenses, so none of what's found is fair game.
"REAL AMERICANS DON'T CARE:" I haven't seen many people saying this explicitly, but it's been implied in multiple Fox News segments, including a chat on "The Five" that suggested Americans are more interested in the Tibbetts case.
"THE MEDIA IS OVERREACTING:" This is a go-to move on days like today. Cue Alan Dershowitz on Tucker's show: "Some stations are already playing the funeral music for President Trump, but this is much more complicated and much more nuanced.
| | Hannity's show felt like a repeat... | | Oliver Darcy emails: It was more of the same theme on Sean Hannity's television program Tuesday night. Hannity recited most of his usual talking points, attacking Mueller's "witch hunt," saying there was no evidence of collusion, and talking about Hillary Clinton's emails.
That said, Hannity did briefly address some of the day's news. He characterized Manafort as someone who "worked for Trump a little over 100 days" and was charged with crimes that had "zero to do with Russia collusion or Donald Trump." And he suggested Cohen was pressured into implicating Trump on the Stormy Daniels payment, saying that "knowing him all of the years I have known him" he was "probably forced by prosecutors" to make the claim. In fact, Hannity later appeared to almost give Cohen a pass, saying that, given the circumstances, "Most people would take the deal."
| | Darcy adds: Of note, as he was discussing Cohen on his show, it did not appear that Hannity disclosed that he had consulted Cohen previously for legal work...
| | The difference between Fox and everyone else... | | The difference on a night like Tuesday: Fox's pro-Trump shows acknowledge the news, yes, but they don't give it the serious wall-to-wall coverage that it merits. Instead, the shows move on... to safer subjects like confederate statues and Dem "extremism" and the VMAs...
| | | "There is no universe that exists under which all the MAGA-folks wouldn't be calling for Hillary's impeachment or resignation under similar facts," NRO's David French wrote. "So take that into account when you read their defenses..." | | Here's what Hannity viewers didn't hear...
"The day had a feeling, on one level, of history, of recognizing that one is living through moments that will become central parts of the Trump Presidency," The New Yorker's Adam Davidson wrote. "At the same time, the day felt small and shabby, as we learned more details about the crude crimes of those who surround the President. Manafort and Cohen did not commit clever, subtle crimes; they blatantly and crudely lied. They lied to banks to get money; they lied to the I.R.S. In Manafort's case, he instructed countless support people to lie on his behalf. In Cohen's case, it was Trump demanding that a subordinate do the lying. The crimes were not unravelled by brilliant detective work. All it took was law-enforcement officials looking."
| | NYT's Michael Grynbaum with a recap of the day's TV coverage: "CNN and MSNBC went commercial-free, the broadcast networks broke in with special reports and the word 'Watergate' was thrown around by pundits with abandon." The word "impeachment" repeatedly came up, too...
| | "If what we learned today doesn't matter to people, what will?" | | Tuesday was a bad day not just for Trump, but for America, Chris Cuomo argued on his CNN program Tuesday night. He started out by saying "we have never seen anything like this" and concluded this way: "Today will be the test. If what we learned today doesn't matter to people, what will?"
| | What about American Media Inc.? | | The revelations about "catch and kill" tactics started seven months ago thanks to reporters at the WSJ. The NYT, The New Yorker and other outlets have also been all over it. But Tuesday's Cohen plea deal revealed that the National Enquirer's partnership with the Trump campaign was even more extensive than we thought. The plot to "catch and kill" stories that could hurt Trump was hatched way back in August 2015, just two months after Trump entered the race, according to Tuesday's filing.
The filing does not name the Enquirer's owner, American Media Inc., or the company's CEO, David Pecker. But previous reporting by the WSJ, NYT, CNN, et cetera leaves no doubt about who's being described. "In or about August 2015, the Chairman and Chief Executive of Corporation-1 ("Chairman-1"), in coordination with MICHAEL COHEN, the defendant, and one or more members of the campaign, offered to help deal with negative stories about Individual-l's relationships with women by, among other things, assisting the campaign in identifying such stories so they could be purchased and their publication avoided," it says. "Chairman-1 agreed to keep COHEN apprised of any such negative stories."
The filing also says Cohen and the CEO "worked together to keep an individual from publicly disclosing" info by paying them $150,000 -- the amount Karen McDougal received.
A spokesman for Pecker did not respond to multiple requests for comment... | | Nine days left in August... | | MSNBC host Chris Hayes quipped on Twitter: "Really glad I took vacation last week!" CNN contributor Ana Navarro, who's on vacation this week, listed all the month's news and said, "There's still 9 days left in August!"
Yes, and they're typically some of the quietest days of the year. But not in the Trump era.The reports about prosecutors being likely to move ahead with the Cohen case before Labor Day were, it turns out, accurate. There's also been speculation that Mueller could complete a report about alleged obstruction of justice by Labor Day, although that remains to be seen...
| | And amid all this, Mueller is still silent | | WaPo's Paul Farhi tweeted Tuesday night: "Since becoming special counsel more than a year ago, Robert Mueller hasn't given a single news interview. There have been few, if any, leaks from his office. Both of these things strike me as kind of amazing." Me too...
| | "More tomorrow."
--Joe Palazzolo, who's been on the Cohen beat for the WSJ for many months, tweeted out his Wednesday print story and added those two words... | | Facebook takes down 652 pages | | Why? Because the company found disinformation campaigns run from Iran and Russia. This was happening across FB and Instagram. Heather Kelly, Julia Horowitz, and Donie O'Sullivan have our full story here...
>> "Facebook is working with US law enforcement in an ongoing investigation. It said it has been following suspect pages for months..."
>> Related: Twitter announced "that it has identified and removed 284 accounts, many of which it linked to Iran, for 'coordinated manipulation...'" | | McClatchy cuts nearly 140 positions | | | Oliver Darcy emails: More bad news for local news. McClatchy CEO Craig Forman announced in an internal memo on Tuesday that the newspaper company will reduce its staff by 3.5% -- or as a spokesperson told me, nearly 140 employees across the company. McClatchy is also cutting expenses in other areas and implementing other measures to see money. Forman called the decisions "painful and difficult" but "necessary to protect and further our future." Read his full memo here and our full story here... | | | Via Maxwell Tani's Twitter feed: "Business Insider bosses told staff today that the site will be hiring "dozens" of new employees and migrating all of its politics, general news, and mil-def coverage over to its sister site Insider, which has been best known for its food videos." The exact # of new hires is 47... | | Oliver Darcy emails:
-- Jack Dorsey, in a new interview with Charlie Warzel, that he was not talking with Sean Hannity when he went on Hannity's radio show, but he was instead "talking with the people who listen to him..." (BuzzFeed)
-- Infowars has fallen out of the top 20 news apps in the Apple App Store. The app had a short-lived run in the top 5 after tech companies removed InfoWars' content from their platforms in early August...
-- The spin from some of Trump's supporters in the media is reaching new heights. On Tuesday, The Washington Times' Charlie Hurt suggested on Fox that Trump calling women dogs was a "compliment" akin to using the slang "my dog..." (Media Matters) | | Trump's next interview... | | | ...Is with "Fox & Friends" co-host Ainsley Earhardt. The interview will air on Thursday's show. This is Trump's first appearance on "F&F" in two months... In the past week, he's spoken with the WSJ and Reuters, but he hasn't done any TV interviews since the week of the Helsinki debacle... | | White House hypocrisy about anonymous sources | | Oliver Darcy emails: Trump likes to rail against the use of anonymous sources. He's told his followers not to believe information attributed to individuals without names. In 2016 he famously tweeted, "Remember, don't believe 'sources said' by the VERY dishonest media. If they don't name the sources, the sources don't exist." But the White House continues to hold briefings in which the press can't identify the official providing the information.
Tuesday was no different. The White House held a sanctioned briefing call about Trump's midterms strategy -- but did not allow reporters to attribute the information to a specific person, or even a description of the person's position in government. Instead? The information was only attributable to a "person familiar with the president's thinking." Considering Trump's rhetoric against the use of anonymous sources, perhaps it's time for reporters to take a stand and decline to participate in such calls? Otherwise, the White House is putting journalists in a precarious position... | | -- "A recent New York Times Magazine article about climate change and the political forces that have stymied efforts to combat the phenomenon will become an Apple television project..." (NYT)
-- Disney "has discussed reorganizing its news operations under the leadership of Ben Sherwood, its most senior television executive and the former head of its news division, according to people familiar with the matter." He would become "the head of worldwide news and nonfiction content at the company under one scenario that's been discussed..." (Bloomberg) | | Several scary hours for Post Malone and 15 other passengers | | | Chloe Melas emails: Artist Post Malone was on an airplane leaving NYC and headed to the UK when the plane blew out two tires. Also on board: Watt, who closed out the VMAs alongside Malone and Aerosmith the night before. After several hours that were spent burning fuel, the plane successfully made an emergency landing... | | Argento responds to report that she paid off sexual assault accuser | | "I strongly deny and oppose the contents of the New York Times article dated 20 August 2018, as circulated also in national and international news," Asia Argento wrote in a statement shared with HuffPost's Yashar Ali on Tuesday.
"I am deeply shocked and hurt by having read news that is absolutely false," Argento wrote. "I have never had any sexual relationship" with Jimmy Bennett. She alleged that Bennett sought money from her, knowing that her boyfriend Anthony Bourdain "was a man of great perceived wealth and had his own reputation as a beloved public figure to protect," and she said "we decided to deal compassionately with Bennett's demand for help and give it to him. Anthony personally undertook to help Bennett economically, upon the condition that we would no longer suffer any further intrusions in our life..." | | Another rape allegation against Weinstein | | Chloe Melas emails: A woman by the name of Emma Loman filed a federal lawsuit against Harvey Weinstein on Monday, accusing him of raping her in Cannes in 2006.
In the docs obtained by CNN, she claims he tried to massage her, got into a bathrobe and then told her to watch him take a shower. Loman claims Weinstein raped her after she turned down his advances. Weinstein's team hasn't responded... | | MTV's poorly produced "tribute" to Aretha Franklin | | Viewers were expecting a true tribute to the music legend... But instead, they got a video clip of Aretha followed by a speech by Madonna that was mostly about how Aretha shaped Madonna's life. This seems like a misstep by the producers of the VMAs.
The network did not respond to Sandra Gonzalez's request for comment on Tuesday. But Madonna has weighed in -- due to all the criticism of her on social media -- she wrote on Instagram, "I shared a part of my journey and thanked Aretha for inspiring me along the way. I did not intend to do a tribute to her! That would be impossible in 2 minutes with all the noise and tinsel of an award show. I could never do her justice in this context or environment."
Here's Sandra's full story... | | | Brian Lowry emails: A huge loss to the world of musical theater — and bringing it to TV and movies — with the sudden death of Craig Zadan at age 69. With partner Neil Meron, Zadan produced a string of major live productions, as well as the Oscar-winning "Chicago" and several projects for NBC. Their latest, "Jesus Christ Superstar in Concert," is nominated for 13 Emmys... | | |
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