| | | | | Former President Obama attends a powhiri with New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern at Government House Thursday in Auckland, New Zealand. Credit: Pool/Getty | | | Trump's Lead Lawyer in Russia Investigation Resigns: John Dowd is out
What Zuck Said: Mark Zuckerberg's Cambridge Analytica apology tour
Obama in New Zealand: It's 44's first visit to the country | | | What the White House is Talking About:
Busy day for President Trump, who signs a memorandum on Chinese tariffs, then he makes a stop at the Generation Next Summit, being led by Ivanka Trump -- and finally this evening he and first lady Melania Trump host a Greek Independence Day reception in the East Room.
What the White House Press Corps is Talking About:
Um, global trade war, anyone?
**And John Dowd, Trump's lead lawyer on his special counsel investigation team, resigned today. According to the New York Times, which broke the news, Dowd had apparently been sending signals for weeks he wasn't happy with his client's disregard of legal advice -- today he decided enough was enough.**
As we go to send, there is not a briefing on the White House schedule today.
Guys, You're in Your 70s, Chill:
I can't with this "imma kick your ass" back-and-forth between Joe Biden and Trump. Biden totally started it last year when he said he would've taken Trump out back to teach him a lesson -- and Biden's also the one who continued it this week at a speech when he said he'd "beat the hell out of him." Naturally, this morning Trump took the bait and fired back on Twitter, saying he'd beat Biden so badly he'd be "crying." Do we need anymore embarrassment with our elderly politicians these days? | | Credit: @realDonaldTrump/Twitter
Preach:
I think Jake Tapper said it best in his clap-back tweet this morning: | | Credit: @jaketapper/Twitter
Our Daily Melania:
People are talking about this new People magazine story on Melania, which says she's "furious" about how her life inside the White House is playing out. I personally think any "source says" story needs at least one on-the-record person -- or an official response from her communications director.
Meanwhile, this morning she posted another snow day shot, this time posing with Trump on the Truman Balcony of the White House. A show of solidarity before Anderson Cooper's sit-down interview tonight with former Playboy model Karen McDougal, weathering the "storms" and whatnot, 🤷? | | Credit: @FLOTUS/Twitter
Stormy Daniels Tells Friends Scandal is "Exhausting":
CNN's MJ Lee is out with a deeply reported story about Stormy Daniels' life and how she's handling it being turned upside-down in the wake of her decision to fight the non-disclosure she reportedly signed to keep quiet about an alleged affair with Trump. One friend said Daniels thinks it's all a "big f***ing nightmare," and another said the affair wasn't even a big deal, mostly because Trump isn't her type. "She gravitates to more rock-star, tattooed guys in bands. There's a certain type and Trump doesn't fall into that category even in the closest way. Some kind of sordid, passionate affair? Not in a f***ing million years."
No Take Backs:
Some rich man in Florida last month agreed to pay $21,500 for two 6-foot paintings, one of Donald Trump and one of Melania Trump, painted by "fast art" artist, Michael Israel. The paintings (below) were part of a charity auction at Mar-a-Lago for something called "The Truth About Israel," and the man who bought them is saying it might not be a legit charity so he doesn't want to pay, but the charity is saying it is legit and he promised to buy them so he has to pony up. Either way, point here being, someone paid for these paintings. | | Credit: myPalmBeachPost.com
Royal Wedding, All the Things!:
I love how open the Royal Palace has been about Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's upcoming wedding -- they announced the bakery, and today they shared the invitations. They were made by Barnard and Westwood, a company that has been doing the Royal invitations since 1985. I like that the ink they used is American, and the card stock is British, like a literal marriage of the two countries to reflect the couple. Sigh. Six hundred guests have been invited to the service and luncheon reception afterward, and just 200 for the more private evening reception, hosted by Prince Charles at Windsor Castle. Those are relatively small numbers for a royal wedding, which goes with my theory that it's going to be a more casual affair. Here's what the invitations look like: | | | Credit: @KensingtonRoyal/Twitter | | What Washington is Talking About:
Congress' spending bill is out. It's $1.3 trillion and 2,232 pages, and among the policy riders tacked on are the background check Fix NICS, $21 billion for infrastructure, $2.3 billion for school safety, and $1.57 billion for border security.
What America is Talking About:
The police officers from Shaker Heights, Ohio, who saved a choking baby.
Facebook's Reckoning :
"If you'd told me in 2004... that a big part of my responsibility today would be to help protect the integrity of elections against interference by other governments, you know, I wouldn't have really believed that was going to be something that I would have to work on 14 years later." -- Mark Zuckerberg, March 21, 2018, in an interview with CNN.
Us too, Zuck, us too. Somehow, a project that started as a Hot or Not knockoff for Harvard is facing a geopolitical crisis. With 87% of Facebook's voting shares as of February, it's in Zuckerberg's hands to solve the problems facing the site, its more than 2 billion monthly active users and democracy in the social age, nbd. The Cambridge Analytica story has been huge, but it comes in the wake of a rough past few years (I highly recommend this long read from Wired last month about it) between fake news, foreign interference and stalled growth (a Pew poll earlier this month found user growth for Facebook was flat for the first time since they began tracking in 2012). They are checking all the apps. | | Credit: CNN
What Zuck Said:
Here's the tl;dr of the news he made yesterday: - In his own Facebook post he said Facebook will check all the apps that have access to large amounts of personal data and audit apps exhibiting unusual activity,...
- Limit developers' access to personal information and...
- Notify everyone whose personal data was collected.
- In his interview with CNN he said he was willing to testify before Congress,...
- He said he was open to Facebook being regulated,...
- He doesn't know if Facebook influenced the 2016 election,...
- By the end of the year Facebook will have more than 20,000 people working on security and content review,...
- Russians are working on "version 2" of campaign meddling with new tactics, and he has "some sense of the different things that we need to get in front," and...
- During the Alabama special election, they noticed fake accounts from Macedonia trying to spread fake news.
- In his interview with the New York Times he said Facebook was investigating dark web data brokers to see if they are sharing private data and...
- He said Facebook hasn't seen a "meaningful number of people" delete their accounts over the controversy...
- In his interview with Wired he said Facebook would take about 15 measures to restrict data, but some of them are "kind of nuanced and hard to explain."
- And in his interview with Recode he said, "I feel fundamentally uncomfortable sitting here in California in an office making content policy decisions for people around the world. [The] thing is like, 'Where's the line on hate speech?' I mean, who chose me to be the person that did that? I guess I have to, because of [where we are] now, but I'd rather not.""
Obama in New Zealand:
He's there for three days, it's his first time in New Zealand and he met with New Zealand's Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern. I'm digging his continued post-presidential no-tie look, this time with a whale tooth pendant he was gifted, per Radio New Zealand. | | Credit: Hannah Peters/Getty Images
Why NBA Players Speak Out More Than NFL Players:
The New England Patriots' Martellus Bennett was on the Bill Simmons Podcast and said the league's top players set the tone for how much they weigh into issues:
"The reason the NBA is so driven to do everything that they're doing is because of LeBron James. LeBron is the best player in the world, he's the most profitable player in the world, and he speaks on every single thing. He's the person that drives that car. The NFL is not like that. The best players in the NFL aren't the ones who are talking about concussions."
Charlotte Pence is Un-trollable:
First she responded to John Oliver's parody Marlon Bundo book by putting Bundo in a bowtie on Instagram and writing, "The only thing better than one bunny book for charity is...TWO bunny books for charity," and now she says she bought the parody book. "I have bought his book," she told the Hill. "He's giving proceeds of the book to charity, and we're also giving proceeds of our book to charity, so I really think that we can all get behind it."
A Trump-Autographed Playboy Was Just Auctioned Off:
The March 1990 issue, featuring Trump and Playmate Brandi Brandt, was auctioned off this week for $6,311.20, according to Steiner Auctions. | | Credit: Steiner Auctions
Colbert Worked Out with RBG:
She wore a "Super Diva" sweater, he wore a tie, and they discussed whether a hot dog is a sandwich. It's worth the watch. | | Credit: The Late Show with Stephen Colbert/YouTube
🐸Pepe Watch🐸:
An eSports league for the Blizzard game Overwatch said it's encouraging players to not use Pepe. The league said in a statement to Dot eSports:
"The Overwatch League discourages the use of symbols and imagery which are associated with or used by hate groups, including Pepe the Frog. At Blizzard Arena, it's our policy that fans comply with this policy. We likewise ask the same of Overwatch League teams and players on their social-media accounts."
Street Art Sighting:
Spotted in London at the entrance to Cambridge Analytica's office: signs of the firm's CEO Alexander Nix behind bars. | | Credit: Daniel Leal-Olivas/AFP/Getty Images
If you spot political street art, I'd love to see it. Here's how you can reach me:
1. Tweet me @hunterschwarz
2. Tag me on Instagram @hunterschwarz
3. Email me at coverlinehunter@cnn.com | | | | | | |
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