Yet another allegation about President Trump abusing his power
On a day defined by the launch of a new Democratic investigation into possible abuses of power by President Trump, The New Yorker magazine presented yet another line of potential inquiry.
Jane Mayer, citing a "well-placed source," reported that Trump pressured John Kelly and Gary Cohn to make sure that the DOJ sued to block the AT&T-Time Warner deal. Cohn refused, she added. But the suit was filed a few months later, and eventually failed.
Now multiple Democratic lawmakers are vowing to, in the words of Sen. Chris Van Hollen, "get to the bottom of it."
Rep. Adam Schiff tweeted: "I've long feared Trump would use the instruments of state power to carry out his vendetta against the press he has attacked as the 'enemy of the people.' Congress must find out whether Trump did just that by seeking to interfere in a merger or raising postal rates on Amazon."
Notice how Schiff combined the AT&T and Amazon cases...
More examples:
-- Van Hollen tweeted on Monday night that he'll be "writing to the DOJ..."
-- Rep. Robin Kelly told Brianna Keilar: "If he put his finger on this scale to influence the merger, that is an absolute abuse of power..."
-- Rep. Dan Kildee told Jim Sciutto "it certainly fits the pattern of behavior... I think it does make the case that this president is unfit for office..."
-- Rep. Jerrold Nadler told Erin Burnett that the behavior, as described, is a threat to a "free press..."
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Will Cohn or Kelly confirm these quotes?
According to Mayer, in the late summer of 2017, "Trump called Cohn into the Oval Office along with John Kelly, who had just become the chief of staff, and said in exasperation to Kelly, 'I've been telling Cohn to get this lawsuit filed and nothing's happened! I've mentioned it fifty times. And nothing's happened. I want to make sure it's filed. I want that deal blocked!' Cohn, a former president of Goldman Sachs, evidently understood that it would be highly improper for a President to use the Justice Department to undermine two of the most powerful companies in the country as punishment for unfavorable news coverage, and as a reward for a competing news organization that boosted him. According to the source, as Cohn walked out of the meeting he told Kelly, 'Don't you f---ing dare call the Justice Department. We are not going to do business that way.'"
It sure sounds like Mayer has a source who was in the room. Cohn is not commenting... which means he's not confirming OR denying it. But he may be forced to say something. This "cries out for an investigation by Congress," Jeffrey Toobin said on "AC360," predicting that Cohn will "have the opportunity to testify about that under oath..."
Confirming AT&T's long-held suspicions?
As Hadas Gold noted here, "the Justice Department has long denied that politics played a role in their decision to bring the suit."
But AT&T execs have long suspected that Trump's animosity toward CNN drove his opposition to the Time Warner deal. Both things could be true -- maybe Trump wanted to use his political power to punish CNN, but career lawyers wanted to pursue the case for perfectly legit reasons. If so, Trump's completely inappropriate pressure campaign -- "I've mentioned it 50 times" -- undermined his admin's lawyers.
>> I'll be on "CNN Tonight" (with guest host Erin Burnett!) talking about this in the 11 p.m. ET hour...
Impeachable?
If the Mayer reporting is proven, "such an attempt to use presidential authority to seek retribution for the exercise of First Amendment rights would unquestionably be grounds for impeachment," George Conway tweeted Monday. A multitude of other legal experts agreed.
To be clear, there's a Grand Canyon sized difference between "impeachable" and "he's going to be impeached for this." But it's important to recognize what has been, historically, grounds for impeachment...
| | FOR THE RECORD, PART ONE
-- American Media, David Pecker and Dylan Howard are all on the House Judiciary Committee's list. The sweeping investigation also includes Cambridge Analytica and WikiLeaks... (CNN)
-- Max Boot's latest: "Because so much of Trump's misconduct has occurred in public, there is a danger that even if Mueller accuses him of obstruction of justice, the reaction will be, 'Ho hum. What else is new?' We must guard against a cynical or jaded reaction..." (WaPo)
What is Fox News?
Mayer, partly through some choice quotes from outside observers, makes the case that Fox is a propaganda machine the likes of which the United States has never seen before.
Many of the newsiest parts of Mayer's article have been reported before. CNN's Oliver Darcy, for example, revealed last year that Fox shelved its story about Trump and Stormy Daniels before election day. But Mayer pulled many different strands together into a compelling and convincing narrative, using the power of a long-form magazine piece to spark newfound attention in a subject.
Julie Roginsky, formerly a liberal contributor at Fox News, tweeted in reaction, "This story should make you shudder, especially if you're a Fox News viewer with any modicum of critical thinking ability."
A Dem debate on Fox?
Fox anchors and some conservatives have been urging the DNC to let Fox host a primary debate. But Mayer's story spurred a number of prominent progressives to say "NO WAY."
"The DNC should not be doing any debates on Trump's state media channel," former DNC staffer Adam Parkhomenko tweeted.
"The DNC should immediately announce that Fox News will not host a debate," Judd Legum wrote...
Check out this poll result
The newest NBC/WSJ poll of 900 Americans asked about media consumption along with all the usual political questions. Allowing for multiple answers, 50% said they watch broadcast network news regularly; 34% watch Fox News; 32% watch CNN; 25% watch MSNBC; 20% read conservative outlets; and 19% read progressive outlets.
Then the pollsters used the viewership info to examine the divide in what people believe about Trump and Russia. The question: Has Trump "been honest and truthful when it comes to the investigation into Russian interference with the 2016 presidential election and related matters?"
Among the self-described regular Fox viewers, 84% said yes, he's been truthful. Among MSNBC viewers, only 21% said yes. Among CNN viewers, only 1% said yes.
"Look, these are small samples," Chuck Todd acknowledged on "Meet the Press," but "that does tell you something major." Pollster Fred Yang: "It tells us that you get your reality from what channel you watch."
A disservice to their viewers
This is why, when talking about Fox's blindly pro-Trump talk shows, I always return to the same point: The hosts are doing a disservice to their viewers. Sean Hannity's promos for Trump may make the president feel better, but ignoring Trump's scandals and inflating his accomplishments is harmful to the rest of the viewing public. Trump obviously hasn't been honest about all things Russia. Deceit is one of his defining characteristics. By pretending otherwise, Trump's boosters on Fox misinform their viewers...
FOR THE RECORD, PART TWO
-- Passing the 9,000 mark: "Trump has made 9,014 false or misleading claims over 773 days..." (WaPo)
-- John Avlon's "Reality Check:" Here are five times Trump called true stories "fake." Avlon had many examples to choose from, but had to narrow it down to five 😉 (Twitter)
2020 WATCH Another morning show rollout
The sweet spot for Dem presidential announcements is between 6 and 7 a.m. ET. Kamala Harris jump-started the 2020 race by announcing on "GMA" six weeks ago. And John Hickenlooper did the same thing on "GMA" on Monday.
In between those two, Pete Buttigieg embargoed his launch for 6 a.m.; Cory Booker embargoed his launch for 7 a.m; Bernie Sanders announced in the 6 a.m. hour and appeared on "CBS This Morning" right after; and Jay Inslee released a video at 7 a.m, just to name a few. Kirsten Gillibrand went in the opposite direction, announcing her exploratory committee on Colbert...
Is Merkley next?
In a message to his email list on Monday night, Sen. Jeff Merkley said, "I will make a major announcement about my plans for 2020." When? Tuesday morning, of course! In time for the morning shows?
Per CNN's Steve Brusk and Adam Levy, the Oregon Democrat has been considering a presidential bid, but also has to decide on seeking re-election next year...
AOC on why she responds to so many attacks
In this new interview with NY1's Errol Louis, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said she "grew up" seeing politicians like Hillary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi getting attacked by "bad-faith" actors. | | "What I've chosen to do is break this fourth wall a little bit and respond to them," she said. "Because we saw how completely unfounded attacks, like the birther movement with President Obama, they were ignored because it was beneath the president to respond to these things. But then they started to grow, and as we say, they grow legs and start walking around. And I think that sometimes, we have to take a little bit of different tact and just squash it early and respond to them, and be unafraid to say, 'You sound ridiculous.'"
>> Plus: Margaret Sullivan's newest column is about the "cascading insanity over Ocasio-Cortez.."
Tim Alberta's book is going to be a big deal
HarperCollins is releasing Tim Alberta's "American Carnage: On the Front Lines of the Republican Civil War and the Rise of President Trump" on July 23. Note the "Republican Civil War" reference. The Daily Beast's Maxwell Tani says "the book's publisher expects the White House reporting focusing on Trump, Vice President Mike Pence, and others to make significant news and shed light on how party leaders have privately felt and acted towards the president during crucial moments." Alberta has interviewed Trump, Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell, Reince Priebus, and many others...
FOR THE RECORD, PART THREE
-- Lester Holt, David Muir and Jeff Glor all anchored from the scene of Alabama's tornado outbreak on Monday night...
-- ABC's "World News Tonight" was No. 1 in both total viewers and the 25-54 demo in February. "This is the first time the David Muir-anchored newscast has finished No. 1 in both of these categories in 11 years..." (TVNewser)
-- New York Public Radio's COO Depelsha McGruder will be named interim CEO once Laura Walker leaves at the end of the month... (WNYC)
-- My link to the NYT's story about the podcast start-up Luminary was broken in yesterday's newsletter. Sorry! Here's the working link to the story...
Part two of "Leaving Neverland"
Oprah Winfrey's post-film special -- with 100 abuse survivors in the studio audience -- is airing on HBO as I write this. Both part one and part two are now available via VOD if you haven't watched yet.
Lisa Respers France wrote movingly about squaring her affinity of Jackson with the accusations in the film: "No one wants the Michael Jackson presented in 'Leaving Neverland.' The Jackson portrayed in the two-part HBO documentary is a monster... No one wants that Jackson, because he is so directly in opposition to the entertainer who moonwalked into our hearts and implored us to be better..."
Correction
In yesterday's newsletter I incorrectly said that Jackson's estate had called the film a "public lynching." In fact, the statement came from members of Jackson's family, not the estate.
FOR THE RECORD, PART FOUR
-- Steve Clemons is jumping from The Atlantic to Axios... (Politico)
-- Michael Grynbaum noticed something different at CPAC this year: "Big Tech was nowhere to be found..." (NYT)
-- "One cable company you may have never heard of — Cable One — is proving that moving away from TV can be good for investors," Alex Sherman writes... (CNBC)
-- Longtime broadcast journalist and news anchor Bill Kurtis on David Axelrod's podcast: "The glory days have returned" for reporting... (CNN)
WarnerMedia's reorg
The Turner division as we know it is going away. This is the new structure, made official on Monday morning:
WarnerMedia Entertainment: HBO, TNT, TBS, truTV, and the company's forthcoming streaming service, led by Bob Greenblatt.
WarnerMedia News & Sports: CNN, Turner Sports, Bleacher Report, and AT&T's regional sports networks, led by Jeff Zucker.
Warner Bros: Most of the remaining parts of Turner, like Cartoon Network and Adult Swim, will be added to Warner Bros. studio chief Kevin Tsujihara's portfolio. Turner Classic Movies and Otter Media will also report into him.
WarnerMedia Affiliates and Advertising Sales Group: This will be led by chief revenue officer Gerhard Zeiler.
Notes and quotes
-- The NYT's Edmund Lee and John Koblin said Monday's changes show that AT&T is "serious about tearing up old ways and putting its own stamp on its new properties."
-- "Many of the details of how the various units will be integrated still need to be worked out — a process that insiders say could take six to eight weeks," THR's Gregg Kilday wrote.
-- VF's Joe Pompeo spoke with Greenblatt about Warner's streaming service strategy. While Netflix is "way out ahead," Greenblatt said "I think there's a high probability we can come up with a great service."
-- Variety's Brian Steinberg spoke with Zucker about his promotion. "Turner Sports has been incredibly well run and incredibly successful... My goal is to figure out how to further enhance it," Zucker said.
-- Although Zucker is now chairman of news and sports, he purposefully kept his CNN president title. Lest anyone think he'll be less involved with the news division, he told Steinberg that he'll continue leading the network's 9 a.m. meeting "every day."
Lowry's take
Brian Lowry emails: At the risk of sounding like a good company man, there's an inherent logic to the new WarnerMedia structure in terms of the way its portfolio of assets have been grouped. If you were creating a company from the ground up, placing TNT/TBS with HBO, for example, would make a good deal of sense, as do the cable networks now being aligned with Warner Bros. and its animation unit. The devil will be in the details, starting with the challenge of unwinding and repositioning the company's existing fiefdoms -- with all the relationships and allegiances that go with them -- at a moment when the broader industry is in an unsettling state of flux...
Stankey speaks
-- "If you don't make a change, you're not going to get any change in the product," WarnerMedia CEO John Stankey told the NYT.
-- On Richard Plepler and David Levy's exits: "I was disappointed but I don't know that I was completely surprised... When you have someone who had a tremendous amount of autonomy, they tend to covet that."
-- On Greenblatt: "He's got the right track record."
FOR THE RECORD, PART FIVE
-- Oliver Darcy will be speaking at this event in DC on Tuesday: "The New Playbook for Navigating the Newsroom in the #MeToo era." (AU)
-- Ben Collins' latest is about a Qanon book that's in the top 100 on Amazon. He tweeted that "it's in recommendation carousels," and "Amazon will not comment on any of this..." (NBC)
-- "An investigation by fact-checking company Snopes finds that a series of seemingly innocuous local websites, which have popped up all over the country, are being run by GOP consultants whose businesses are funded in part by candidates the websites cover..." (Axios)
Corsi retracts InfoWars story
Oliver Darcy emails: Jerome Corsi issued an apology on Monday and retracted an InfoWars story he wrote spreading a conspiracy theory about murdered DNC staffer Seth Rich. In the retraction, which was featured on the front page of InfoWars, Corsi conceded that "his allegations were not based upon any independent factual knowledge." The retraction was requested by the legal team for Aaron Rich, the brother of Seth Rich, a spokesperson for Aaron Rich's legal team told me.
All that said, I spoke with Corsi on Monday afternoon, and he's not entirely backing away from the Seth Rich conspiracy theory. Corsi told me that while he retracted this specific InfoWars story because it relied on info that had been retracted by the Washington Times, he continues to believe that it's possible that the leak of DNC emails was an inside job and that investigators should look into whether Seth Rich played a role. Read on...
| | RIP Luke Perry
Heartbreaking news for millions of fans. Lisa Respers France has his obit here.
CNN's Sandra Gonzalez wrote: "With a career that took off in a famous zip code and was bookended all too soon in a town called Riverdale, Luke Perry had an acting career that spanned decades and touched multiple generations of television viewers. His reach can be seen in the breadth of peers and colleagues who are remembering Perry upon news of his death at age 52."
>> Sandra adds: Perry's reach extended beyond Hollywood, too. A proud Ohio native, he was a huge Browns fan and the team released a nice statement. Sen. Sherrod Brown also paid tribute, pointing out that his father, a doctor, delivered Perry.
>> Per Lisa's story, "Perry is in director Quentin Tarantino's upcoming film 'Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,' which set for release in July..."
Netflix v. Spielberg
Frank Pallotta's latest for CNN Business: "Netflix wants to change how you watch movies. Steven Spielberg wants to preserve the theatrical experience. Those two points of view are clashing, with Netflix pushing back against a plan that Spielberg reportedly has to create rules that could block the streaming giant from future Oscars contention..."
>> Netflix responded to Spielberg's reported plans with this tweet: | |
FOR THE RECORD, PART SIX
-- Roseanne Barr went after #MeToo, calling accusers "hos," Lisa Respers France reports... (CNN)
-- Robin Roberts says her interview with Jussie Smollett was a "no-win situation for me" and "one of the most challenging interviews I've ever had to do..." (Mediaite)
-- "A daytime talk show isn't the only thing I've been trying to produce!" Tamron Hall is 32 weeks pregnant with her first child... (People)
Catch up on Sunday's "Reliable"
Read the full transcript on CNN.com... Listen to the pod via Apple, Spotify, or your preferred app... Watch the video clips on CNN.com... Or watch the full episode via CNNgo or VOD! Haberman's most important lesson on the Trump beat
On Sunday's show, I asked Maggie Haberman about the most important thing she's learned while covering Trump. In her answer, she urged caution: "There is a tendency to act as if every new revelation somehow changes what is going on or changes the path or changes the future." Watch her full answer here...
Acosta: White House leaves press "out in the cold"
Later in the hour, Jim Acosta joined me to discuss the press access restrictions at the Hanoi summit, and other points of tension between the press corps and the White House. Watch...
Calling out CPAC's pro-Trump "grifters"
Oliver Darcy, fresh from CPAC, joined me on "Reliable" to discuss the "grifters" of the conservative movement. We were joined by Olivia Nuzzi, who said the president is the "grifter in chief," and by Bill Kristol, who explained his support for a new movement called "end the grift..."
Kristol: 'We're now in late stage Trumpism'
During that aforementioned segment, Kristol asserted that Trump boosters like CPAC chair Matt Schlapp are well aware of the president's penchant for lying, but are turning a blind eye to it. Watch...
The quotable Adam Moss
I talked with outgoing NYMag editor Adam Moss on Sunday's show... The whole thing is up on our podcast... When I asked Moss for his advice for his successor David Haskell, he said, "Make this your own. Forget about me... It would be a big mistake to try to be too reverential toward the past. And I think that media is always about what is next. What is new, what is next."
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