| | | | Do voters know what's in the GOP health care bill? | | Secrecy... confusion... and now second thoughts from some within the Republican Party. That's the story of the Senate health bill... which looks likely to dominate the news cycle in the coming days. GOP leadership wants a vote before the July 4 recess. But CNN's Sunday night headline is "GOP senators call for more time to debate, change health care bill," based on comments from the Sunday shows.
This is very much a media story. Do voters / viewers / readers know what the bill actually does? And, if not, whose fault is that? Are journalists properly balancing political coverage with policy coverage? Both are important, but shouldn't the scales tip toward policy?
"I admit, it's complex stuff. It's hard to cover in kind of short, fast segments," Vox's Sarah Kliff told me on Sunday's "Reliable Sources." But "I think a lot of people are missing out on what this actually does when it becomes a political back-and-forth," Kliff said... | | | Via CNN's MJ Lee: "The Congressional Budget Office could deliver its 'score' or analysis of the impact of the Senate health care reform bill as early as Monday..." | | | In a recent column for Vox, Kliff wrote, "I have never seen lying and obstruction like this." So I asked her: Who's lying? "I think there is a lot of lying from Republicans about what this bill actually does," she said. "And a lot of that comes from the president. He has given a number of interviews where he says, you know, 'This bill will cover everyone,' or his health secretary, Tom Price, has said 'Medicaid won't be cut, no one will lose Medicaid.' Everything we know about this bill... suggests that is not true." | | On June 13, GOP congressional sources told the AP and other news outlets that Trump, in a closed-door meeting with GOP senators, called AHCA "mean." The White House repeatedly declined to confirm the account. Paul Ryan said "I think that was some kind of a misinterpretation of a private meeting."
But it wasn't. On Friday, while interviewing Trump, Fox's Pete Hegseth said that Obama had called the bill "mean." Trump's response: "Well he actually used my term, 'mean.' That was my term. Because I want to see... a bill with heart..."
When the interview clip aired on Sunday, some commenters wondered if Obama purposefully used the word "mean" to goad Trump into confirming his own usage of the word... | | "Fox & Friends" acts as a Trump infomercial | | The essay on Sunday's "Reliable" was a team effort. Our producing team analyzed one whole week of "Fox and Friends..." every segment, every guest, every banner. Why? Because it seems to be the president's favorite show... Trump gave "F&F" two interviews this week, his only interviews all month along...
So we summed up the findings in this essay. The show is pro-Trump, anti-media and remarkably repetitive. Watching for an entire week, we saw lots of the president's friends, but almost no dissenting voices. It's all about showering Trump with positive attention and burying his perceived opponents with negative attention. An infomercial in the guise of a morning talk show. The video clips really tell the story... watch the segment here... | | CNN retracts Russia-related story | | On Friday evening CNN.com fully retracted a story after questions were raised about the accuracy of the reporting and sourcing. The story, by Thomas Frank of the investigative unit, said Congress was investigating a "Russian investment fund with ties to Trump officials." It didn't get TV airtime, but it was shared on the web, where it was spotted and scrutinized by Breitbart.
On Friday night the story was replaced by an editor's note: "That story did not meet CNN's editorial standards and has been retracted. Links to the story have been disabled." The editor's note included an apology to Trump ally Anthony Scaramucci, who was named in the story. The next morning Scaramucci responded via Twitter: "CNN did the right thing. Classy move. Apology accepted. Everyone makes mistakes. Moving on." Some prominent conservative figures, like Donald Trump Jr. and Sean Hannity, seized on the story as an example of anti-Trump bias and anonymous source malfeasance... | | An embarrassing moment for CNN | | The truth is, there's still a lot we don't know. On Saturday and Sunday I asked CNN PR for details and comment. A network spokeswoman declined to comment as of Sunday evening.
-- My take: I sometimes complain to my editors about the layers of editing and oversight that exist at CNN. But these processes exist for good reasons. Determining what went wrong this time will help prevent future damage to the news organization... | | -- The BET Awards are taking place while I send out this newsletter. We'll have a recap on CNN.com... but in the meantime, check BET.com for highlights...
-- "The duopoly continues. "Sapna Maheshwari has this look at Cannes Lions in Monday's NYT...
-- More from Cannes: Jim Rutenberg on the "INFOBOOM..." | | Preet Bharara moving into the media world... | | "Reliable Sources" intern Howard Cohen emails: Preet Bharara, the U.S. attorney in Manhattan who was fired by Trump, is joining his brother's media company, Some Spider Studios. He will serve as company EVP and host a law and justice podcast. NYT's Sydney Ember had the scoop...
-- Bharara tweeted: "Not sure what others may think, but Mom and Dad are totally psyched about this..." | | A rare interview with Phil Donahue | | Phil Donahue believes the press should pay more attention to "angry" Trump voters, but also to those who didn't bother voting. "Apathy is killing us," he said in a sit-down on Sunday's "Reliable."
Donahue was endlessly quotable... at one point he compared Trump to Elvis... and he urged more on-the-ground, outside-DC reporting. "You're going to get more truth the lower you go," he said...
At one point I said to him, "Do you feel like the country is ever going to get over the election? The president was tweeting about it again this morning, about Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton. Are we stuck?" Well, he said, it is "a hell of a story. I mean, it's a revolution. It's revolution-lite." Jackie Wattles has a recap of the interview here... plus video...
-- Related link: Donahue gave the NYT's David Leonhardt a shoutout for this column about Americans who sat out the election: "If Liberals Voted..." | | Quotes from Sunday's "Reliable" | | -- "The tweet speaks for itself?" No. "Just getting information from a tweet" is not enough, April Ryan says...
-- A friendly reminder that Trump's war with the media works: when "they're fighting with us," the GOP base "loves it," David Drucker says...
-- The Trump presidency began with "shock-and-awe," a barrage of interviews and press appearances, "an attempt to shape reality," Michael D'Antonio says. But now Trump is retreating...
-- Masha Gessen's view: "We're definitely hurtling towards a closed system of government..." | | Sulliview's Monday column | | | Francesca Giuliani-Hoffman sends along Margaret Sullivan's latest column: Amy Siskind, a 20-year veteran of the WSJ and a former HRC campaigner, started keeping a tally of all the ways America is changing under Trump. The "Weekly List" started as a casual project, but it has become a viral sensation... | | Media week ahead calendar | | -- Monday evening: NBA Awards on TNT...
-- Monday night: Stephen Colbert is back from Russia and back on the "Late Show..."
-- Thursday: The ten-year anniversary of the iPhone...
-- Thursday evening: Michael Bloomberg is holding a reception to celebrate the relaunch of Bloomberg Businessweek...
-- Friday: "Despicable Me 3" arrives in theaters...
-- Friday: Jay Z's new album releases on Tidal... | | How much Facebook is willing to pay for TV shows | | | Francesca Giuliani-Hoffman emails: Monday's WSJ has a big-picture look at Facebook's video ambitions. The company is wooing Hollywood studios and talent agencies, seeking original TV-quality programming. FB reportedly indicated that it's willing to pay upward of $3 million per episode, the price of high-end cable TV shows, the story says... | | Press conference about ISIS coming this week? | | Where's the "news conference" about ISIS that President Trump repeatedly promised? On Saturday alone, the Defense Department reported 37 more coalition strikes in Syria and Iraq. Who died? How can we know if the strikes are making the world any safer?
Here's why I'm asking: Five weeks ago, on May 21, Trump said there'd be a news conference in "about 2 weeks." He repeated that promise 2 weeks ago, on June 12, using almost the exact same words. Monday is the two-week mark.
At the moment, there's no indication that Trump has an ISIS press conference on his calendar. But I hope to be proven wrong about that... | | "A secret W.H. press team?" | | An interesting nugget from Sunday's "Inside Politics" on CNN: "There are talks about bringing in a new press secretary and conflicting accounts from the White House about how much sway Sean Spicer will have in picking his potential successor. But Michael Bender of the WSJ suggests some of the attention might best be shifted to a quieter, parallel operation whose mission is more closely defined as protecting Brand Trump."
Key quote from Bender: "Lesser known is a separate team, deeper inside the White House, that is basically tasked with protecting the family -- the President, Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner. What I'll be watching for in the next couple weeks is whether or not these two teams will be merged as part of this reorganization." 🤔 | | | In Friday's newsletter I included the wrong link to a gallery of White House press briefing sketches. If you were looking for the sketches, here they are... | | "He's not an autocrat yet, but... he is an aspiring autocrat. He really thinks that things are best run like 'The Apprentice.'"
--Masha Gessen talking about Trump on Sunday's "Reliable Sources..." watch the rest of the segment here..." | | ICYMI: "The war for the bundle" | | | The "war for the bundle" is well underway, according to BTIG analyst Rich Greenfield. In this podcast conversation, Greenfield told me that "everybody is trying to rethink what the bundle means and how to get people to subscribe." He also talked about Facebook, Snapchat, the Time Warner/AT&T deal, and the importance of "owning the home screen." Francesca Giuliani-Hoffman has all the highlights in this story... You can download or stream the podcast here... | | Spike TV's Alec Baldwin roast | | | Chloe Melas emails: I'm at the hottest ticket in town tonight... the "One Night Only: Alec Baldwin" show hosted by Spike TV at The Apollo. It's an opportunity for his Hollywood peers to roast him. Everyone from Tracy Morgan, Robert De Niro, his brothers Billy and Daniel, and even his own wife Hilaria are here... Hilaria joked that he's a "great grandfather" to their children... | | "Transformers" wins the weekend, but... | | | "Paramount's 'Transformers: The Last Knight' took the #1 spot this weekend as expected, but that opening was the lowest the franchise has seen thus far by a rather significant margin as a lot of attention will now turn toward the film's international run," BoxOfficeMojo's Brad Brevet reports. "Meanwhile, WB's 'Wonder Woman' is still tearing up the box office as it has now become the highest grossing release within the DC Extended Universe and it is showing little sign of stopping." Read more... | | | What do you like about this newsletter? What do you dislike? Email us... we're at reliablesources@cnn.com... we appreciate every email. | | | Get Reliable Sources, a comprehensive summary of the most important media news, delivered to your inbox every afternoon. | | | | | |
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